Your kisses are like Claritin.

School's back. Reset.

Also, welcome to my new blog look. Look how fast it loads. Maybe you should be grateful.

I will go if you say you'll go, do you want to go?

With school starting next week, Tuesday was my last day of freedom. So, using this:

and dressed like this:

I drove up Farmington-way to what fun is: Lagoon.

My main objective was to go to Lagoona Beach. I am in the midst of my second consecutive summer with a Lagoon Season Passport and I have only Lagoona Beach'd twice, once last year and again on Tuesday. Thing is, despite being shorter, waiting in lines for water slides alone is a bigger drag than solo-waiting for coasters. It's probably either because the destination isn't as fun with waterslides as it it with coasters or that one feels more exposed on account of being almost naked. Also, little kids cut in line on water slides. The first time, you just think the kid is a little messed up. The second time, you take notice. The third time, you realize kids are taking over the world. It's so messed up. A flight or two of stairs ar full of (more-than-half-nake) adults waiting in a line and these little six-to-eight year-olds just kind of weave their way throught the line until they get to the top. Each time it happened, I just pushed air out of my mouth to make a "Huh...." sound. It used to be that an older person like me used to be able to physically assault a little kid who pulled maneuvers like that. Okay, maybe times were never like that, but I can't do anything about it (besides yell, but that would just make me look prickish) and the little bastards know it.

Anyway, I've said too much.

Being alone, I decided it would be a laugh if I made myself look creepy by riding on kids rides like the Paratrooper, the OdySea, and the Deathtrap (Puff the Little Fire Dragon). The lines ended up being long enough that it wasn't worth the laugh. Except Puff the Little Fire Dragon. I straight chickened out on that one. I got there and realized that the line was so short and all it does is go around in a small circle. I just couldn't get myself to get in line with parents and their kids, despite how much I wanted to be able to blog, "I survived the Deathtrap (Puff the Little Fire Dragon)."

Anyway.

Janet, I could not be fooling you less

In life, I have two things: (1) a woman and (2) a pizza stone. A few days ago, I decided to introduce the two things to each other.
And then blog about it.

This is what I looked like. I looked this way because when Lisa came over, she woke me up from a nap. A fellow needs to sleep. He also needs to wear Hawaiian shirts.


These are a few of the role players.


This here is the star player, the Larry Bird of my making pizza for Lisa.


This little fella is Lisa's pizza. She believes in a gluten-free lifestyle, so I bought some pre-made gluten-free crusts from the grocer in my neighborhood, Harmons. I packed it with olives and mushrooms, because apparently Lisa also believes in a meat-free pizza lifestyle.


When you make pizza, you have to cook it in an oven, like so:


While that cooks, I will make my pizza. This time the crust isn't pre-made, although, it is just one of those just-add-water deals. I'm starting easy and working my way up to making my own crust. That will probably happen soon because the just-add-waters are kind of gross.


"Here is your pizza, Lisa."
"Thanks, Giant."


And here is my pizza. If you are the observant type, you might be asking-slash-thinking, where is the pizza stone, man? Well, I will tell you.

So, when making pizza on a stone, one is supposed to roll out the dough on a cookie sheet or something of that ilk. First, one must dust the cookie sheet with corn meal to avoid sticking. I do this, but while shaping the dough into pizza-shape, the corn meal gets pushed to the outside edges of the pizza. This causes the pizza to stick to the cookie sheet. I tried to slide it onto the pizza stone, and even asked Lisa for her expert help, but nothing doing. There was no way to maintain the integrity of the pizza and cook it on the Stone. Being a man of integrity, I decided to just cook it on the cookie sheet and consider better options for the next time.


After the pizza, Lisa and I watched Singles. The cool part about it was this guy was in it:

Pryzbylewski.

Morgan Freeman dies

Morgan Freeman isn't really dead, slikk.

(joke)

You know what's gross?

Vegetables.

These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade in the Los Angeles underground.

There's this episode of The A Team where Murdock gets kidnapped from an insane hospital by bounty hunters who want to cash in. They call him crazy, and he says, "Well, you took me from the insane ward." He escapes. While running from the bounty hunters, he sneaks into the back of the van of a veterinarian. The bounty hunters soon pull her over and search her car, but a dog in the back barks at them and they end their search there. One of the bounty hunters wants to shoot the dog, but the bounty hunter in charge says, "I don't want anymore shots fired around here." A few minutes after being spared, the veterinarian pulls over and opens up her van, pointing a gun at Murdock. She says, "I don't want to shoot you," and Murdock says, "I can tell you don't want to shoot me," and goes about his business. The girl then says, "What are you doing? I am pointing a gun at you." Murdock then cracks a joke about how it is a cap gun. He knew it all along. Him and the girl share a laugh. She asks who he is and who the bounty hunters are. Murdock answers and asks her why she didn't tell the bounty hunters he was in her van, since she knew before they even pulled her over. She tells him that it is because the dog didn't bark. "I've always found animals to be amazing judges of character." She takes him back to her house so that he can find a way to get in touch with The A Team, since their mobile phone antenna got shot out by the military while they were trying to find and save Murdock. Murdock is at her house listening to AM radio because one time Hannibal got separated from the unit in 'Nam, and he went straight to the local station and the unit heard his broadcast while driving in the jeep and saved him. The girl gives Murdock some tea. When he drinks it, she says, "I know, it is so gross." Murdock, referencing the music on the radio, says, "What's with this music? What ever happened to Van Halen, Boy George, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood?" The girl says, "Frankie Goes To Hollywood?" Murdock says, "Yeah. You'd really like them. Great beat." The girl says, "I'm embarrassed to say, but I don't really like that kind of music." Murdock replies, "What about the Rolling Stones?" She says, "Oh, I've heard of them. They had this one song I liked." When Murdock asked her which one, she said, "Norwegian Wood." Murdock corrects her, "That was the Beatles." Sensing the girl's embarrassment, he quickly changes the subject, "What do you all do for fun around her? Where does your boyfriend take you? Any nice restaurants you like that he takes you to?" The girls sheepishly tells Murdock that she doesn't have a boyfriend. "Sure you do. You have to have a boyfriend. You've got to...." Murdock stands up and sips his tea (which might be coffee -- I'm not good at telling which is which) and takes a few steps. "You should have a boyfriend....you're a really pretty girl." The girl, who is a babe, says, "I've never thought of myself as pretty." Murdock sets his hot drink on the mantle, grabs the girl, and pulls her up to the mantle, where he takes down a mirror and puts it in front of her face. "You're beautiful. I know it, and now you know it."

I played softball this year

The Beekeepers season ended the way it didn't start: with a loss. We lost to the only team we had defeated and the only team that had a worse record than us. Still, though, it was a lot of fun. I was the king of getting on base due to bad fielding by our opponents. My highlights of the season were catching a ball with my bare hand that had missed my glove and making a mad dash for second after a shortstops throw to firstbase was offline. The low point of the season was missing an easy infield fly and realizing that any natural athleticism that I had has disappeared.

Beekeepers: 1-13.

Pie, oh near

Here is how I celebrated (Kind of, that is. I spent most of the the day working, then trying to figure out why I couldn't set the store alarm even though I knew why, I just had to help somebody else figure out why):








(credit to the last photograph goes to Emily the Cliff)

Also, I ate a lot of delicious food.

Pep Talk

I got my first massage from a man. Well, the first one that I paid for. Which, uh, makes it my first massage from a man still.

Lisa and I had the great idea of getting a pre-Project Runway massage last Wednesday. Maybe we hoped it would make us cool customers like Timmy Gunn is. Or, maybe Project Runway had not much to do with our massage, it just happened to be on that night and not start until 10 p.m..

We found that one of the mooses (what we here at You Know How I Do call them because we don't know how to spell the real word) was certified, and one was just a student. The certified mooses charge $10 more, but also give better massages. We also found that one was a girl and the other was a dude. We were trying to figure out which of us was willing to pay the extra cash. I offered, but we decided to let the gender of the certified moose be the ultimate deciding factor. If it was a boy, Lisa went with him, if it was a girl, I would.

Well, when we showed up, we didn't really have an option. A dude and a girl came out and looked at the schedule. It looked like they would decide. I had been moosed by the girl before, and she did well, so I was hoping the cards would fall that way. Alas, they did not, and I got stuck with Lars.

I wasn't totally bummed, though, because I am massage bi-curious. I have had short, 10-second man-mooses before. They didn't feel bad at all. Totally professional, you know? So, I approached my hour with Lars in a professional manner (while also repeating to myself, "Don't get a boner. Don't get a boner.").

Lars led me to my room, and attempting a soothing voice, he said, "So, uh, have you been here before?"
--Yeah.
--(looking at the body chart of what I wanted "worked")You want you legs focused on?
--Yeah, they're kind of sore.
--From riding a bike or something? (don't forget, he is using an ungenuine soothing voice)
--No, playing softball.
--Okay, well go ahead and get comfortable and we'll start you out face-down.
--Okay, thanks.

Lars was great at asking me if the pressure he was giving me was acceptable. "Yes," I would always respond. He started "working" around my armpit, and I almost started laughing. Then, I did start laughing. "A little ticklish there, I see," he said. I concurred. For some reason, he started working the other side in the same spot, probably even deeper into my armpit. The more I thought about not laughing, the more I wanted to, and finally, I did one of those loud laughs where I spit out the moisture in my mouth. I apologized, and jazz-voiced Lars responded, "It's better than screaming in pain [huh/eh/right]?" Again, I concurred.

Overall, the massage was nice. I now have a theory that men don't have to be as skilled at giving massages for it to not be a bad one. I don't know if it is bigger fingers or stronger hands, but they aren't as bad as a girl who is bad. But, a girl who is good is immeasurably better than a man who is good.

When Lars finally got to my legs, he started slapping my calves really hard. It was loud and made me laugh. It was so loud that Lisa could hear it. She said it sounded like the bation of masturs.

When the massage was over, and I was no longer naked, Lars handed me a glass of water.

--I want you to drink a lot of water after this.
--Okay, I will. Trust me. (I don't know why I needed Lars' trust, but apparently I did)
--and keep swinging that bat.

Thanks, Lars.
I almost lost it and had to turn around and load my mouth with water to keep from laughing.

I wonder what other kind of motivational snippets he hands out after moosing people.
For people who are sore from running: "Take it one stride at a time."
For those sore from their jobs: "Take a break every now and then, okay?"
From basketball: "A gentle push and a mild arch....the ol' cowhide globe will hit home."
That's all I have for now.

That girl is like a sunburn

Is it safe to admit that one of those moments where a person finds out who they are happened to me because of a Third Eye Blind song? Probably not, eh, music snots?

I heard my friend Mark say, about ten times during a span of a year or so back in the early '00s, that he wanted to get in a fight. He knew that his chances in the fight were slim, and that he probably wouldn't inflict much damage on the other person's face or guts, so why even bother? "I figure I'd learn a lot about myself," he would say. He was too much of a sweetheart for any of us to offer to kick his crap in, and I reckon the rest of the world felt the same way. so, as far as I know, Mark still hasn't learned what he wanted to. But, I can see what he means.

Black eyes and broken ribs aren't too shabby of way to learn about yourself. I mean, there is the pain, and the re-and-re-telling of the story when people ask what happened to your face, but once the wounds heal and you look less pathetic, your story could get a lot better, and perhaps you would make a few more friends. Plus: lesson learned. You'd know how many punches you can take before you can't take anymore without crying and what kind of noises you make when you're getting your crap handed to you.

But....Third Eye Blind, sometimes abbreviated as 3eb according to Wikipedia? Kind of a completely shabby way to learn who you are.

I hated Third Eye Blind from the first time they entered my ears. I remember the first time I heard "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life". We were in my friend Doug's older brother Bob's car, a Geo of some sort, towards the end of the summer of 1997. By the way, have Geo's been outlawed in the lower 48? I haven't seen one since my little sister sold her Metro. I digress. So, we heard the song on the way home from watching Con Air at the theaters (Bob was our rated-R movie hook-up), and I said, "Stupid song." Bob was pissed. He'd yell at me sometimes. Like when I called Seinfeld overrated. And another time when I said something while we were watching Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Anyway, he was mad because he has been singing along. Not during the Doo doo doo, doo doo-doo doo part, but the rest of it. So, my tact was a bit off. Or, perhaps my adjective was too strong. Whichever, I was right. And Third Eye Blind (3eb) is a dumb name for a band. Their other hit songs over the next year were even lamer. I also remember Doug getting in a fight with our friend Brian later that day. It made everything with that group of friends awkward and things were never the same (which turned out to be a good thing, at least for me).

Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and in the summer of 2002, I took a job as a delivery driver for a construction supply company. For the next almost two years, I listened to a lot of Jim Rome and a lot of radio. I tried playing tapes in the truck, but tapes didn't play as loud in that big truck and the music would be drowned out by the loudness that it took to operate a ride like that. So, radio it was. It was while listening to that radio in that truck that I heard the news of Elizabeth Smart being found, and where I realized that I had seen her and her crew less that five minutes before the cops stopped them. I also stayed abreast of top-40 radio. Ashanti was huge then. I loved those rap songs that included a girl with a nice voice spitting the chorus. I also loved the easy listening songs. My favorite song, though, was one that started off with a guitar strum, then a sythesizer, then a "Woo!". I knew it was an older song because it played on those stations that don't only play the latest hits, but I didn't know who sang it. For more than a year, I was left in the dark, because the deej would never announce who played the song after it aired.

I finally found out that the song was by Third Eye Blind. "No way," I thought. "That doesn't sound anything like "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life" and there are no hints of that 'will I GRADUATE?' song. I just can't be. The deej messed up." Soon after, I found out that it was, in fact, them.

--I can no longer like that song, I guess.
--But wait, you like(d) that song so much.
--Yeah, but 3eb.
--Still, man, you REALLY liked it. It was your favorite radio song. You even admitted that to yourself. I'm calling you on it.
--But, I like punk rock.
--You were thinking about buying whatever album that song was on.
--That's because I thought the rest of the ablum might be cool like that song is cool.
--Me too. Just because we now know that it probably isn't, though, doesn't mean you can all of the sudden hate that song.
--It doesn't?
--Nope. Not if you want to keep it real.
--Ouch.

So, on that day, "keeping it real" started to mean something. What I like is what I like. Just because stupid people or a the majority might like something, doesn't mean that I can't. Disliking something doesn't make me more interesting.

It may sound dumb, but this realization changed a lot about me. It broadened not only the music I like, but also other things like movies. (Joe Ghiz: I still think Minority Report was boring and Bourne Identity was great. I was being real that weekend.)

So, here's to you, "Never Let You Go" by Third Eye Blind. You made me better people.

"You say that I've changed. Well maybe I did. But even if I've changed. What's wrong with it?"

(sidenote: maybe Third Eye Blind, lame name and mostly lame music aside, aren't totally lame. From wikipedia: The band gained major label attention after their second demo was released in 1995, including that of Clive Davis, who invited the band to perform a showcase for Arista Records in New York City.[1] During Third Eye Blind concerts at the time, it was customary for the band to have a piñata release candy above their mosh pits, yet at the showcase for the record executives, lead singer Stephan Jenkins released live crickets from the piñata instead.

"Your attention please I've got something to share

So feast your eyes upon my brand new hair
If your eyes can adjust
To the neon glare and my look of disgust

What are you seeking validation for
At the character assassination store
Their shelves are full but nothing's cheap

So pick your ego up of the floor
And inch or two but nothing more
It's a crutch you want not what you got
You're falling all over the looks you bought

The best are brought down by degrees
The rest are curiosities
Attention please! is all they understand

Drawing a crowd for some meager pay
Drawing a bead down on the weakly pray
Got to throw in your hat
Win, lose or draw you're a diplomat

You pull the act out on demand
And always have the upper hand
Be prepared for reprimand
Attention's all they understand

The best are brought down by degrees
Or killed by curiosities
Attention please! is all they understand"
-Sicko

I did get a new haircut, that part isn't bull. I also got a new camera, a Cannon Elph. I need to learn how to charge the battery, though. Maybe I should write a whole blog about buying it. I have started cooking on a George Forman Grill (the Next Grilleration, they call it [or maybe just George calls it that]. which reminds me, my friend Judy wrote this funny bit about her Grill: "I named my George Foreman grill - George. He is just a little guy, but packs a punch.").

Since I last wrote, I have been to Oregon. I know, I know, I need to post pictures. I'm getting to it....right after I get to posting pictures of searching ghost towns (or, rather, half-ghost half-pre-ghost towns) on my birthday. I have also been to Lagoon thrice. Once with Bryton, once with Nathaniel, once with Damian and Danny (roommates!), and thrice with Lisa. This weekend, I and my woman are taking a much needed restcation to Mesquite/St. George/The Vegas. Maybe my Elph will take some pictures.

But, whatever. This blog has become too much about pictures. That whole trip to Seattle thing took too long to load all those pictures on my computer, then took too long to upload on here, and now makes this blog page takes too long to load. It's bull. But, this blog also realizes the importance that pictures play in its life. Me and it have decided to just be more discretionary with the pictures.

Also, I am trying to stop swearing.

Basically, what I am saying is that I am committing myself to write more blogs. I need the writing practice. Don't believe me? Read this travesty that I dropped last week.

My girl is entrepreneur

Lisa's etsy shop got featured on a Salt Lake blog that highlights hip stuff about The City. Hers are the lemon drop earrings. This link might get updated in a few days and her recognition will no longer be on top.

I can't help but feel like a proud poppa.

(Lisa explains it all better here)

"We were past the point of debating the wisdom of this move; it was already done and our only hope was to get to the other side."*

Here are the pictures of my March 14 to March 17 trip to Seattle to spend dude time with Nathaniel. I know, finally, right?














The above pictures were taken with Nathaniel's camera, the below with my camera, which is really Lisa's camera. The following pictures are in alphabetical order. For more on this trip, look here or lend your ear here.





























* = Hunter S. Thompson, from "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"