Yes, that's true, but I've been out to sea for a long time.

I won't say that I like closure, because I really don't think that I do. I will say that I like to see how things end (and I think there is a distinct difference). For instance, I like to see how TV shows end their serieses. Even if it is a show that I only saw a few times. I watched the last episode of that show I never could stand about a bunch of friends that lived across the hall. It was called "Friends" or some crap. Another time, I starting catching the last four episodes of that Dawson's Creek show because I had seen parts of maybe five episodes and I wanted to see how they wrapped it up. I was so ashamed with myself until it turned out that I had something else I could choose to do on the night of the last episode and I chose it. I've never been more happy to say to myself, "All that effort for nothing."

With that, I will end the story of my brother going on his mission. The readers of this blog haven't come out and asked for the ending, but I'm sure they would if there were means whereby to do so.

On Tuesday night, I caught the last 15 minutes of an episode of The Office with Mike. I asked him why it was on a Tuesday, and he said, "I don't know. But I'm glad." He was in his suit and tie. We laughed. Then we started watching an episode of Dateline or something about the murder of this dude and they were trying to figure out if his ex-wife or his ex-wife's sister did it. I never did find out the answer because folks came over to our house to set Michael apart. To say I didn't care would be a lie. To say I cared a lot would likewise be a lie.

It was during this setting apart that I realized that Michael doesn't cry. My mom was crying and the old man could hardly talk, but when I looked over at Mike while they were talking he just had a straight face with about 1/8th of a smile that kind of said, "Mom and dad are weird." I got my crying done here too.

The next day was more of the same. I kept looking over at Mike to see a tear, but I don't think much came out. Maybe a little bit. When I hugged him goodbye, he said, "Thanks for everything." I'm usually not this corny, but I can't think of a better thing for him to have said to me.

I apologize that that ending wasn't a step by step detail (by the way, want to know who owes me an apology? the kid sitting behind me here at the library. he is watching a movie and keeps laughing out loud [LOL]), but the corniness wasn't sitting well in my stomache. I will say this though, I see the Cliffords kids in the strangest places. Add the MTC to the list of those places. I sat down and a kid a few rows ahead of me was looking back at me and I swore the face had a familiar look to it, and a few minutes later I figured out that it was one of them. Then I saw Emily (The Cliff) at a Sundance movie this weekend. I reckon that isn't as strange of a place to see one of them, but it is a great way to announce that I did some time at Sundance. Here's my story:

Me and Lisa (my No Doy bandmate), started talking about it in early January/late Decemberish and we renamed it "Mostfuninmylifedance". I programmed that word in my phone and everything. We both committed to making the most of this year's dance and she more than followed through on that committment. I had a lot of crap to distract me (family, 24) and had a less than stellar showing, but on Thursday (25 January) I decided to skip class to go up to Park City and see a movie called On the Road With Judas. How was it? I couldn't tell you. I was late and missed it. Mostfuninmylifedance doesn't take kindly to people like me who are late to everything. Lisa Propane said it was pretty bad, though.

So, I found a parking spot, got on the wrong bus a few times, and finally made my way to Main Street. I was hoping to see some celebrities. Not because I wanted to see celebrities (besides Jeff Rosso, I couldn't care less), but because I wanted to see other people see celebrities. I wanted to see camera phones being used to take pictures that were made for myspace. Okay, I also hoped I would see Parker Posey and that should would buy me lunch and make love moves on me. To summarize, I didn't see anybody and I was left with my sack lunch.

I headed back to the Eccles theater to meet up with Lisa so that we could see this movie she had free tickets to called Starting Out In The Evening. Before the movie started, we saw Rebecca, who was volunteering, and the following scene happened:

I know she was just doing her job, but she sure does run a tight ship.

The film wasn't great and was boring a few times, but it produced a few good jokes from Lisa and her friend Rebecca (not that Rebecca). The director was introduced before the viewing of the movie and during his speech he starting crying and one of them said, "Is this testimony meeting?" After the movie, he was talking again and started thanking a lot of people and making a lot of them come up on stage. One of them said, "Does he think he's getting an Oscar or something?" There were some interesting parts of the movie, but what interested me most was to find out via imdb.com that the female lead was the red-headed girl on Can't Hardly Wait - the one Seth Green jives into hooking up with him. She's all grown up now and looks kind of creepy (Lisa said it's her teeth, I say it is her eyes).

I'll finish this later.

Before I go, I'll let you know about this: Hooner kind of dedicated a song to me on her blog today. I'm pretending she dedicated it to me. Hey, she kind of did.

The end of an era

Tomorrow my little brother goes on a mission and I'll miss him. I've played it pretty cool until this morning when I woke up and saw a fantasy football magazine that he "for us" (as he said) bought back in August laying in our room.

See, me and him have been sharing a room for the last few months. Kind of. When I first got kicked out of my room back in September, I slept out on a couch for about two weeks because I had piled all of my stuff from my old room on my bed (which was the top bunk) and didn't have much desire to move it and find another place for it. I was also protesting losing the room that was built for me and inhabited by me since 1993 (except for a few years when I went on my mission and my little sister put pin holes in the walls and made the carpet change colors, along with breaking my CD player I so graciously let her use......never trust high school kids), and I kind of felt weird taking over the spot that belongs to my other brother who is on a mission in Milwaukee (spanish speaking - I have to tell this because it makes a typically ordinary mission awesome) because I knew how much Mike looks up to Spencer. So the day that I finally did move in - 26 September, 2006 - I wrote and posted a note on 'our' bed that said, "Mike, Tonight I sleep in the bed of a legend. I do so with a humble heart. Love, Lee". I also hoped it would give him a good laugh, though he never said anything about it. Sometime in November, Mike unofficially and with no explanation moved out of the room, and started sleeping on the hide-a-bed. This kind of hurt (but not too much), because I started to wonder if it was a 'me' problem (do I smell? do I snore? is he uncomfortable that I sleep in my underwear every night? am I leaving the light on too long? am I fat?), and also because part of me wanted one of those moments where we both happen to be in bed and awake at the same time and he asks me advice on something like going on a mission and I could impart my knowledge on one of the few topics I know something about- even though the other part of me squirms at the though of having a personal conversation. He moved back in right around Christmas time, but after the New Year, he was out again. I think he might still believe in Santa Claus. So, like I said, we kind of shared a room.

(Using the hide-a-bed proved how much smarter Mike is than me. I slept in that room for almost three weeks and never even remembered the hide-a-bed, instead choosing to sleep on the longer couch and waking up with a sore back most mornings.)

When Spencer and Laura went on their missions in 2005, I regretted not spending a lot of time with them and getting to know them better, so I made a personal vow to do so with Mike. I figured he would need a replacement for the best big brother a kid could have, Spen, whom I think Michael respects like nobody else. And why not? They were only 20 months apart in age and Spencer included Mike in just about everything he did. Spen's friends were Mike's friends. Spen and his friends would do things like dress up like 30s-era gangsters and play poker. Mike was invited along (and had the best clothes). Spen and his friends formed paintball armies and went on overnight "Wars" in the mountains. Mike went along. When Spencer left on his mission, the numbers that showed up on our Caller ID didn't change at all, because the same kids were over at our house messing around with Michael. A few days after Spencer left, I found a copy of a letter Michael wrote to him where he expressed his regret for not being there when Spen left (on account of him being on a river trip [that Spencer advised him to not miss]), then compared Spencer's mission to a video game they played together. Mike said that he had been playing it ever since Spen left, in honor of him. I reread that letter about five times - partially because it was so funny, partially because it was a cool display of brotherly love - and while I don't think I cried, I probably could have.

Anyway, spending more time with Mike proved to be a worse strategy than not spending time with Spencer and Laura. Now there are so many things I am going to miss about Michael and it chokes me up a bit. I'll miss watching football with him all Sunday-long like we have been doing. I'll miss both of us counting down the minutes until Not On The First Date started on Sunday afternoons. I'll miss the inside jokes we came up with, usually out of mockery of something we saw on the news. I'll even miss his annoying habit that I tried to curb every week of him telling me how many points his fantasy football team had up to that point, or how many points his team or the team he was playing just gained on a particular play. I'll miss things like coming at 2 a.m. and seeing a post-it note he wrote on hanging on the door about the game of Madden he played against one of my high school friends (who Mike worked with), that said, "Mike 41. Adam 10. BLOWOUT." I'll miss him setting the recorder for "Prison Break" for me (because technology has finally passed me up; besides, I was probably the one that taught him to do it a long time ago) and watching "24" and discussing what had happened with him. I'll miss the few times over the last few months that we watched the 10 p.m. episode of "the Simpsons" and being reminded what a great show it is. I'll miss having someone laugh at my cynical jokes at the dinner table that nobody else - besides Callie sometimes - appreciated.

All this made me pretty late to work today and it was mostly because I stood in the shower remembering the memories I've had with my brothers. There haven't been a whole lot because I was so much older than them, but the one that stuck out the most came from October of 2003 when we were on vacation in Island Park, Idaho (the favorite place of all three of us). It was one of the hard times in my life because I was trying to figure out how to deal with my first broken heart, and this trip helped heal it. One of the most memorable things that came from the trip was the night that me, Spen, and Mike went moose hunting in the pitch dark with our fake guns, fake moose calls (that were hilarious, by the way), and karate moves we had made up. It only lasted about 15 minutes because it was pretty scary, but it was probably the funniest thing we had all done together and Spen would talk about it a lot over the next year.

It's hard to imagine little Mike in Mozambique, and I don't blame him for being a little bit scared (hey, I was scared of Edmonton), but know he can handle it. I don't know if I can handle him being gone, though. His departure tomorrow has become more to me than a good excuse to get a day off. I'll miss him and it will be weird to be brotherless for the first time since early April 1986.

Anyway, pardon the emotion and personal nature of this blog. It won't happen again. It's just that Mike deserves it.

(Note: the picture at the top is of me and Mike at the MTC when Laura went in March of 2005. I was 24, he was 17)

a girl like you is more than just a lay

I've been meaning to mention this for awhile, and now that it seems to be happening regularly on schedule now is as good time as ever. Nathaniel Tyrant is posting a pop/punk song every Friday and cleverly calling it "Pop/punk Friday," or maybe I am the one who calls it that and I can't help but assume that he does too. I like pop/punk more than a friend, and I think I should write an ode to it soon. But, anyway, he posted a perfect song today and I am proud to have played a small part in it. Listen here and do so every Friday to get your weekend started off right.

Deportes

I just started writing for a sports blog. Even if you don't like sports, you should check it out sometimes because there are a lot of other good jokes on there.
(I just dropped my first post. It is the one titled Should I give up on Drew Brees ever washing that mud off his face?)

I find _____ in pushing open a door that says, "PULL".

Poo-etry

Ever since I was old enough to understand what most dirty words mean, I have enjoyed reading what is written on bathroom walls, with exceptions of invitations for a good time, numbers to call to get oral sex, and political statements (for the most part).

Just a few minutes ago, I dropped a duece. While doing so, I noticed one of the best collections of bathroom wall writings I've had the pleasure of seeing. In a silver sharpie on the fake wood formica door, someone wrote,

Here I sit all broken hearted,
Came to s__t, but only farted.

Which isn't original, but it isn't written enough. This was written on the toilet paper dispenser, and it is a lot more original but not quite as enjoyable:

Those who write on bathroom walls
roll their crap in little balls,
Ye who read this little rap
eat those little balls of crap.

The best writings that I saw are something that I have only seen in the Marriot Library at the University of Utah - and it is in every boy's bathroom in the building. In the grout, short, common phrases are written where the word 'grout' replaces another word. They are usually pretty good, but these in the far stall of the boy's bathroom on the bottom floor are the best I have seen. Here are some examples:
Grout of the way
Grout of wrath
Make grout, not war
Grout Scott!
Be groutful
Tastes grrrrrrout!
Grout of toilet paper
Mrs. Groutfire
Grout at the devil
Whatchu talkin' grout, Willis?
Grout, grout, let it all out
I'm a little teapot, short and grout
Grout's all folks

"Great memory," you might say. "Don't you mean, grout memory," I might respond.
Or, I'll just be honest and admit that I pulled out my notebook and wrote all of those down.

(still wondering what New Year's resolutions to make and how to go about making them? read this)

Slammer

Tomorrow I will start a season five of 24 marathon in preparation for season six (that starts on Sunday). But, that isn't what this blog is going to be about. This blog will be focused solely on clearing up any misconceptions that the long blog of a week ago might have gleamed (how did I know that 'gleamed' was more than just a word I made up? Because I bought myself a new dictionary yesterday. I'm really excited about it. It will be my car/backpack dictionary; I have a home dictionary, but sometimes when I am at work or driving I think of words and I like to know the real definitions of them so I can add them to my lexicon* - hence my excitement).

Here's the format of this. I will put the content from the last blog in italics (note: I also put them in a pink/purple color because the italics weren't as noticeable as I thought they would be) and then clarify in normal type (which I put in a turquoise color, then I put the rest of the words in red to make this the most colorful blog in this blogs short history). I don't see a need to number each misconception, but at the end of the blog I will put the total count for those who are into statistics as much as I am sometimes.

Yes, the title does come from a GetUpKids song. They popped up on my iPod this morning (song: Action and Action).

This will make (supposed reader of this blog) Jefe sick to his stomach, but I am not ashamed of my like of the GetUpKids. "Something to Write Home About" was a really good album.

When that ended, we plugged in my pod (should I capitalize it or not? Jury's out), and listened to, in this order: the Hollies, Lovin' Spoonful, and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. He then plugged in his pod and we listened to Bob Marley and Gordon Lightfoot.

This is definitely not a usual play list for me. I am neither hippy-love nor acid-rocker. The 70's were not a decade that I feel bad to have missed. I just like all of these bands. And so does my little brother. To quote what I wrote right after the above, "They were tunes we could both feel comfortable with..."

I handpicked the first song, Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, which I bought off iTunes on Thursday and thought was the only Clapton song on my Pod but it turns out that he has a song on the Back To The Future Soundtrack that my brother has loaded on our iTunes.

This one scares me. I don't get what the deal with Eric Clapton is. This blog might as well shut down if everyone is under the impression that I love Eric Clapton. Sure, he was probably really good at the guitar, but his songs don't interest me. But this song "Wonderful Tonight" is really good. Really sappy, but it's wonderful to me. I might actually fall in love one day on account of that song. I hope nobody feels uncomfortable if I sum that song up with the word 'pretty'.


Also, the link was fixed to be a link and not just a URL. For some reason, it wasn't working that day. Now it is.

Surprisingly, there was only three misconceptions.







*=yeah, I kind of don't like this word that much either.

Also

I have been chewing this piece of gum for like four hours and it has turned into this gross slab of mush. I've never had this happen and I can't wait to spit it out. I'm not afraid to swallow gum, but not this one.

Ew, if I don't chew it for awhile, it starts to disinigrate. Which makes it even more gross. Maybe I will swallow it because it it so gross.

I did swallow it, but it won't all go down, leaving it stuck at the back of my throat.

All the mistakes I've made, I couldn't have made without you

Yes, the title does come from a GetUpKids song. They popped up on my iPod this morning (song: Action and Action). For ruture reference, I've decided to start calling my iPod, my "pod". Please add it to your You Know How I Do Dictionary so that I don't have to explain it again in the future. To digress (come on, you know I've earned a little digression), this change is a bit monumental on account of me not being much of an abbreviator. For instance, in my left pant pocket, I have a cellular phone that I send text messages on, not a cell fone* that I text on. Most of my classes are in the Language and Communication Building or the Orson Spencer Hall, not the LNCO (pronounced 'leen-ko') or OSH (pronounced ah-sh^).

Sticking with the topic of my Pod, I spent last weekend in a town with a population of 247 called Rockville (Utah). It is right by Zion's National Park. I drove down there with my 19 year old brother. We turned on the radio at the beginning of out journey and to our happiness, Funk Friday (if that is still what the show that plays funk on 90.9 is called) was playing all James Brown. When that ended, we plugged in my pod (should I capitalize it or not? Jury's out), and listened to, in this order: the Hollies, Lovin' Spoonful, and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. He then plugged in his pod and we listened to Bob Marley and Gordon Lightfoot. They were tunes we could both feel comfortable with and they seemed to fit perfectly. Especially Pet Sounds. I liked that ablum before, but now I like it more than a friend. Back to the purpose of this paragraph: on the way back to the SLC, I put my pod on shuffled and committed to not skip any songs (this pact was broken about halfway through on account of De La Soul having skits on their 3 Feet High and Rising album, and I didn't feel like listening to the one titled, De La Orgy, funny as it may be). I handpicked the first song, Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, which I bought off iTunes on Thursday and thought was the only Clapton song on my Pod but it turns out that he has a song on the Back To The Future Soundtrack that my brother has loaded on our iTunes. The second song played was Oregon Girl by Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. From Rockville to Sandy, I got through 80 songs, the 80th being My Looks and Your Brains by the Mr. T Experience (which, come to think of it, has some good lines that would serve as a better title for this blog than what I chose, but I feel that my opening line has made the title a integral part of this blog....even if you don't feel the same). When I first started, I thought I would reach the thousands in songs played, but about 30 minutes in, I dropped my prediction to only 50. My Pod made the long drive (which included three bathroom stops) lonely in the good way, and served as a good way to get to know my tunes again. When I got my pod for Christmas last year, I thought that having all of my tunes in my hand would make me know my tunes better than I ever had before, but the opposite seems to have happened. It seems like a lot of the same songs are played when I set in on shuffle (for this reason, Johnny Cash has been removed from my Pod; I've grown to hate that song about Orange Blossoms or something).

I rode the high of meeting Jeff Rosso right into Christmas. I was really into the spirit of it all up until it was time to open presents. Not that I got bad presents - except for the socks. When I opened them, Pop said, "We figured you could use some more socks." If there is one thing I don't need, it is socks. But I even kind of appreciated them (the GoldToe socks, at least). I hung out with this kid on Thanksgiving named James. During our conversations about stuff he said, pulling his pant leg up, "One thing I've learned is the importance of nice socks." At the moment, I thought it kind of ridiculous, but the next day I decided that nice socks are for me. I'll still wear my white and black athletic socks but more and more, dress socks will be added to my repertoire (I just looked, and I have some on now). I'll start slow with regular dress socks like the GoldToes I got for Christmas, but in what I hope will be a short matter of time, I hope to be sporting the nicest socks out of everyone you know. They will go great with my trashy GAP jeans I got for $15 more than three years ago that I am wearing today. Though they have seen better days and have long overstayed their welcome, I can't keep them out of my rotation because they feel good and they are the best jeans I have ever owned. Anyway, something about opening presents killed the Christmas spirit for me. Maybe it was because I had nothing to hope for. It was still a great Christmas.

New Years was good too. Let me take this opportunity to congragulate one of the readers of this blog for getting married. Usually, I am opposed to any pretty girl getting married to anyone who isn't me, and this one is no different, but he isn't a totally horrible guy so I will won't hold a grudge. Especially since the aforementioned wedding opened the door for a great wedding reception/dance party/New Years Eve party to happen. This is how awesome this wedding reception was:


If things continue on as they have, 2007 will be the best year of my life. Yesterday, I sat around in my pajamas and never showered. Today, I showed up to work and wasn't needed because someone was working for me. So, I went to Nordstrom Rack and found nothing (I only ever find jackets there) and got a car wash.

The movie Rocky Balboa needs to and will be discussed soon. I liked it, but it disappointed me so.

*=This error was unintentional, but I decided to keep it because I thought it funny and it kind of goes along with the point I was making.
^=this is me being a smart a__, or 'SA' to you abbreviators (which, by the way, if you are one, find another blog to read).