Please, Come Back (Or At Least Talk To Me About it).

I've read six of the seven Harry Potter Books to my children, and we just started in on the seventh. Just after the dedication of the seventh is a quote from William Penn that I felt encapsulated so deeply who and I what I care about as a person. 

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they se face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

At the core of who I am as a person and the things I care about is friendship. There are other things, too, of course, but for me, friendship is it. It's the key. It's what makes everything worth doing. I might prefer to work alone, but that's only because when I'm with friends I have no desire to get things done at all. It takes a truly special friend to keep me focused on work when we're together. 

The reason this quote came up again is becuase Natalie and I have been doing the mature responsible adult things and doing some estate planning which has included a potential funeral program. Woo! Such fun. I put this quote at the bottom of one page because it so embodies what I think and care about. Death is separation, not end. I say that knowing how hard it is to lose people, and how much I'm sure everyone I know will be devestated beyond belief at my own passing in 50 or more years. But the other quote I put on a page comes from the scriptures, it says this: 

When the Savior shall appear we shall see him as he is. We shall see that he is a man like ourselves. And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.

This same sociality, to me, has always meant friends. The capstone, one of the last canonical entries in recorded scripture is that Heaven is being with friends. I believe greatly in the endless and eternal wisdom and mercy of God, our Heavenly Father. I believe that irreversible damange I've caused can be healed. I believe sins and mistakes can be washed away. I believe that the sickness and suffering of so many of life's ills can be healed, repaired, forgiven, or overcome. That doesn't pretend like bad choices never happened, but we can be made whole from them. Heaven is going to be the great reuniting of loved ones, mending of fences, water under bridges, forgivness, rejoicing, and wonderful, joyfully fulfilled society. In a word, it is Atonement through the mediator of the new and ever lasting Covenant, Jehovah. Jesus Christ. I believe in him as I believe in little else. 

However, until that joyous day comes, I hope you'll hear me out on a request. Please, if you've stepped away from the Church of Jesus Christ, come back. If you've never been formally introduced to it, let me talk to you about my faith (with or without missionaries). Or at least think about it, and talk to me about it. 

My high school and college years in Utah were blessed with smart, wonderful, insightful and kind friends. They put up with me inspite of my... me. Yes, I just gestured to all of me. I shared experiences of faith, sacred temple trips, and in some cases life changing conversations, sacred experiences, testimony and so many more things during that time. In the intervening years, society has made many good and appropriate changes, and in some ways has lashed out at things like "organized religion" or even Christ and his church. 

And, to be clear, I get it. 

I have discomfort with some elements of church history. I have ambivilance (see my long facebook post on the subject) about LGBT relationships and issues related to church doctrine, because I have so many dearly beloved friends, family and students in this camp. I have made serious mistakes and commited painful sins in my life and I can't imagine how awkward it could have been to have lesser men to repnt with and to than the ones I did. I've been fortunate enough to not be exposed to a wide variety of ills in my youth that have made it easier for me to not feel guilt or shame related to the commandments. I've also been free from major trauma from members of my family, ward, and so forth. I've been lucky to have (on paper) a pretty textbook LDS life that includes a mission, temple marriage, healthy children, formal education (at BYU no less), and so forth. I haven't faced the most brutal path to church activity. I get that there are many many many valid reasons why people distance themselves from the church. Sometimes it's culturally or politlcally or societal awkward. Sometimes it is lonely. Sometimes it is difficult. Sometimes, people do the whole discipleship thing wrong. 

But knowing all of that, I want to extend an invitation to you. Talk to me. Let me hear what you have to say about why you're gone. Let me see if there a way I can convince you to come back. Consider facing whatever seemingly insurmountable challenges face you on your path to life in the restored church. Because, frankly, we need you. 

I went through my facebook friends making this post. To the best of my knowledge, no less than 100 of you would describe yourself as some version of post-mormon, and many more might never have understood my faith very well at all. That's a lot. If I didn't think I was being preachy, I'd share initials, or send this personally (which I might anyway), or tag people. Becuase I'm in a calling right now where we are desperate for adults who are contributors. Not textbook perfect people. Not tattoo and piercing free puritans. Not ideal families. Not 1970s conservatives. Just you. Just how you are. My calling has led me to see over and over how important it is to have good people who show up and serve. Good people who have empathy for challenges. Good people who have stepped away for totally valid reasons and can share things that I cannot about what it looks like to come back. Good people who make sacrifices of good things in pursuit of that greatest thing.

Please come back. Please talk to me about what keeps you away. Let me at least understand you better. Let me hear that you read this and thought about it, and know that even if the answer is, "thanks for the invite, but no" know that I love you. 

Last thing. There's a parable Jesus shares about a wedding feast and inviting poeple to come. (Great article on it here much better written than what I'm saying). It's in Matthew 22, and when the King sends out invites for the wedding feast, many make light of it, ignore it, or return to things that seem to be of greater consequence in the moment. I don't think that over the pulpit in conference this weekend, we're going to hear that Christ is coming next week, but I want to remind you, now and always, that I'm inviting you, and I love you. To me, heaven won't be heaven and my joy will not be full without the involvement of all people I love. I hope God in his mercy invites me and spares me, but I want to do all I can to bring and invite you too. 

Natalie

Do you think there should be a law requiring people to wear helmets while sledding?

This question may have been the most important one that was ever asked of me. I was a senior in high school taking a speech and debate class on the merits of wanting to take a relatively easy class with my friends. In a one-minute spar debate, I had to defend the position of those who were not required to wear helmets. I spent the entire minute trying to distract my much younger (she was a freshman) opponent by flirting with her and talking to her. She was determined and focused. She won the debate handily, not only because she was more skilled (and determined to win) but because she was beloved by the class.

I didn't know at that time that she would eventually be my future wife, but it was absolutely an omen of things to come. In our seven years of marriage, (which probably extends to 11 years of friendship as she wrote me on my mission and was my friend even before that) I have had tons of times that Natalie's hard work and passion have made my life better. I'm going to share some of these with you. In no particular order:

1. Natalie knew that when I was at BYU I wanted to direct a children's show for my undergraduate capstone project. Anyone who directed a show could do basically a 45 minute show and I didn't want to chop a show down, I wanted to do a great 45 minute show. So she went to the Library across the street from where we lived several times and brought home dozens of books. She found one that she was convinced would be the one, and I said, "Maybe, but this is my project, so we'll see." That book was called The King and the Magician and was the book, and changed my life forever.
2. One time someone asked if Natalie knew any Chinese becuase I'd been studying it. We realized Natalie knew just a few, like  "Wife", and "please" (which we'd say when we wanted a kiss), and "I love you" she also knew "e" which means hungry and is funny to say. Also, "Thank you." and a semi-cognate "Sandwich". This friend then pointed out that what I'd taught Natalie was, "Wife, I love you. Hungry. Sandwich please. Thank you." Oops.
3. Natalie has always been someone who, kind of like Emma Smith, was willing to open our home to people. I have numerous times said, "Hey, I invited ____ over, and they'll be here in 30 minutes" and with great grace and love, she has people over. She's a great cook, and a great friend, and she loves everyone who walks in the door of our house. 
4. Natalie is good at everything. Literally. Everything. Let me explain. No. There is no time. Let me sum up.
1.  I having spent many many many hours trying to get up to the hardest levels of guitar hero in high school introduced it to natalie, and within 10 minutes, she was playing things on expert becuase the other levels were "awkward to play that slow." Yep. 
2. In this same vein, Natalie beat me at every game we ever played while dating. On our second date we went bowling and she beat be four straight times. We played games with my family, and while she didn't always beat everyone, she always beat me. She's faster, whip smart, and extremely skilled. at all manner of games. And a tiny bit competitive at times.
3. People used to say, "tell me a little about her!" when they heard I had a girlfriend after my mission. It was hard to say that she played 4 instruments, was salutatorian of her class, went to nationals for speech and debate, had so many scholarships to BYU-Idaho in various fields that they literally wouldn't let her accept all of them, and she also is a great dancer. In our time being married, she's only accomplished more including winning awards at Dancesport nationals in Caberet, writing several children's stories, being on UVU's backup tour Ballroom team and dancing at 30+ weeks pregnant including doing some lifts and things, and she's working on a degree in Marriage and Family counseling right now. 
5. Natalie and I love our inside jokes. It's almost weird when people ask why we call each other Charlie. We have all manner of silly stories from chasing each other around our apartments. We have the long standing "your comeuppance is approaching" threat every time she throws water on me (which Matt Wyman may have seen the peak of). And we have so many more strange things that we laugh and joke about. 
6. Natalie almost always lets me pick the shows we watch together. We still need to finish a bunch of them, like Parks and Rec, Big Bang Theory, etc., but if I ask her to watch a show with me she will. This has also included her learning about and loving my sports teams, and going to games with me. 
7. Natalie has sacrificed a lot for me. When we were first married, she encouraged me to take a business class (which I got the second highest grade in and that was while skipping the pre-requisites) and has supported me doing less stable things like teaching theatre and then just going to grad school to do theatre. She has slowed her path through school. She gives up opportunities of things she wants. Our children will never fully understand how much time she takes in doing things for them that she doesn't always love to do. And probably even more so for me. 
8. I moved a lot growing up. 12 times across 3 states in 12 years. I'm now up to 6 states and over 20 different moves. By contrast, Natalie's parents moved into their home they built and still live in when she was 2. Natalie has moved more with me than she had her whole life growing up, and far away from family and friends. She has constantly befriended my friends, and made her own friends. She has dealt with constant turn over and being far away from the places, people and things she loves most. And she has done that for me, and never made me feel bad about it. That everyone should be so lucky.
9. Natalie loves cats. When we were moving from Idaho back to UT, I was in school full time and going to be working nights. She was going to be home alone a lot (including 2 weeks when I went to China!) She was begging to find some place to live where we could have a cat. I was not sure this would happen, but she was. She kept saying, "When we move to Utah and have a cat..." and I'd have to hem and haw. Then when we secured a place, she said, "since we're getting two cats..." .... which happened....
10. Natalie is a person who is sometimes hesitant to try new things, but with a little pushing she always does great. Because she's good at everything. She read Rhonda Rousy's book (which she loves) and then took a Krav Maga class. Natalie wanted to do some paint nights but was worried she'd be no good. Now she has a paint by number and adult coloring books on our desk as well as a sticker by number thanks to our good friend Aubrianna.
11. Natalie loves simple things. Natalie lights up exactly the same with cheap flowers as with nice flowers. Natalie is excited by cheap burgers. Natalie's favorite videogame is a side-scroller called "SpeedRunner" where your goal is literally just to run the other person off of the screen. And, no surprise. She's good at it. Natalie makes simple things that stick around like a wreath made out of thesaurus pages. Like helping with my puppet I was stressed about my first year of school.  And also like our two pretty cute kids.
12. People often tell us that we have cute kids (which is a nice consolation given they're also very loud, and trigger happy with angry outbursts). When they say that, I like to remind them "It's genetic." That usually gets a polite chuckle when people know Natalie, and a skeptical eye when they don't. But ti's true. She's very cute, and our boys are very lucky she is. As my mother (and many others) like to remind me, I married up.
13. And with that, I'd also like to add that she's a great mom. And that's been a hard thing. I'd be totally misleading you if I said either of the following things (1) We're great parents every day with no problems and (2) I didn't know marrying Natalie meant my kids were getting a great mom. Being a parent is harder and more important than any other work I've ever done. I'm in grad school which emotionally taxes a lot of people. Being a good parent requires stronger and better effort. And Natalie has the disadvantages that come with being away from home, and being married to a full-time student. What she does every day is hard. And she does it well. She spends individual time with our kids. She responds to their needs. She calls me to talk about them several times a day. She takes time out of what she'd like to do to be with them. She takes more time to do the things that have to be done (chores, errands, cooking) to involve them. Because she knows it matters to them. Because she  knows they love it, and they love her. Natalie is the CFO, and the COO, and the CIO, the CRO and the CHRO, and so many more. There will never be powerful enough titles to encompass what she means for me, or for our family. And I love her.

Happy 7th Anniversary. Keep sticking around for many more. 

On Being Brave

What I have written here is hard to write. It may seem somewhat scattered. It probably is. I am dancing around the subject of losing someone who I had a solid teacher-student friendship with as a teacher. I'm not the most qualified person to talk about what an absolute treasure this person is, but I write because I don't know what else to do.

When I was about 11 years old, I was camping with my family in the Payson Lakes area of Utah. I remember that I was sitting in a camping chair (I love camping chairs) drinking a soda (I love soda), and listening to my dad read us "The Princess Bride" as coals were heating up to cook dinner over in a firepit. My younger brother Jacob, who was about 3, was walking in circles around the fire, and in a flash, he suddenly tripped and fell into the pit. He screamed in pain, and I've only seen my dad move that quickly a few times in my life (interestingly mostly to save Jacob) as he ran over to get him.

Listening to his pain was agonizing. There were three very distinct circles on his arm where he'd fallen on coals.We immediately broke camp, took down what we could, and loaded my brother into the back of our van and drove down to visit our neighbor who was his pediatrician. He was crying intermittently, and so I think was my mom who I remember holding him, but we were all rallying around him trying to keep him positive on the way home. We were told that my dad needed to scrape all of the burned skin before he could get any further treatment.

It took one of my parents holding Jacob and telling him to "put on his big brave dog face" and another of my parents carefully but painfully scrubbing his arm, but they eventually got all the burned skin so he could be treated properly.

This story doesn't have a ton of relevance to what I'm going to talk about in my blog post today, other than it feels like what I'm going through right now.

I'm not the person who is hurting, and I'm not the one who can or has to hold the ones who are. I'm not the person most qualified to talk about the truly lovely person I'm going to talk about. Who I am is a person who is strengthed by this person, and who has to be like Jacob and put on my big brave dog face to talk about this while it's still painful.

Because talking about the people we lose in life is hard.

When I finished my undergrad, one of my favorite professors said, "I guess you're my colleague now since we have the same degree!" We did lunch as friends, and we talked as friends. In that vein, I don't really consider any of my students as "former" students unless they graduate from high school, and even if I'm not contracted as their teacher, maintaining that relationship (or at least leaving it open in case of need) is something I care deeply about doing.

C.S. Lewis wrote, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” 

My heart was broken today, and so, I know, were many others. Some much more broken than my own. This person I write about today is one of my students, someone who is great.

When I first started teaching, two memorable things happened in the Drama 1 class that I took over for right away. The first is that as I was playing games trying to learn names, two of my young female students who were good friends and standing next to one another kept calling themselves by one another's names. Their names started with the same letter and mostly consisted of the same letters (Like Josie and Jacey, but not that). They were just different enough to be thrown off, and so I mixed them up. They were the last two for me to remember, and my memory of their names was impacted until halfway through the year when they'd been such great students in the class that I was forced to remember their names.

The other thing that happened was a student vomiting spectacularly. The student I write about today was one of the former, and not the latter.

This student is cut from the cloth of some of my favorite people. She's is school smart without losing touch with humanity and being unable to be socially successful as well. In my book, it meant that while she did well on the assignments, it also meant that she would mock me as well. If my students don't engage in playful banter in class, I wonder why they're taking theatre. This student did that from day one.

This student also made her presence known in class. She lead without being someone who felt the need to steal the spotlight all the time. I can rememeber many times when she and her friend (whose names I used to mix up), would ask probing questions that would get to the heart of my lesson, and I'd have to find a way to misdirect them a little so the whole point of my lesson wasn't blown. That kind of critical thinking is what I hope to instill in my students, and what gave me glimpses of her great potential in the future. It's the kind of skill that you hope to see in everyone, and not just in theatre makers.

I'm a person with a loud laugh, and who appreciates good jokes. I love to put my students in situations that are ethical and emotionally safe, but give them the freedom to be challenged and make mistakes. This student was in a class where I taught an improvisation unit, a radio drama unit, pantomime and public speaking. She excelled at everything and did so without acting like I had nothing to teach her. She committed to characters, and used her strong voice, and expressive face to communicate things on the stage of our class that were impossible ignore, and deeply praiseworthy.

Most of all, I remember something that pushed me. I pride myself on my ability to connect with people. Mostly by trying not to be a jerk. But I knew that students are a different ball game. The goal is to connect them to content; of special importance is to do that in a setting where you know your impact is temporary. As a student teacher, I didn't want any of my young drama students to like drama because they liked me. I wanted them to like Drama because they liked themselves in it.

I think I succeeded in that count for the most part. Though this student I speak of, this total wonderful sweetheart of a student, made me see that it is possible to do both. On my last day as her teacher, she hugged me and said that I was the best teacher she'd had (something I know not all students say because 99% of mine don't!), and then the dear mentor teacher I work with told me that when he took that class back over she went out of her way to remind him that I was a better teacher.

This is hard to write because the world lost them absolute gem yesterday. Youth is hard. I don't know everything there is to know about what happened, but I know that the news of it broke my heart. My three year old saw me sitting at the table sobbing, something he had never seen, and asked why I was sad. I told him that one of my friends got hurt, and I showed him a picture of her. He said, "Daddy's friend is so nice."

Which is true. She is. May God bless and keep her, always.

My Political Friends

I want to start this post, by saying that it's not about one friend, it's about a lot of friends. It's certainly about all of my American Friends. But in particular, it's to the friends who share their political thoughts. Not just now. Not just this year; but always -- as long as I've known them. It's a thank you to my friends who study political science. It's a thank you to my friends who make non-personal attacks on my posts. It's a thank you to my friends who are bipartisan die-hards (Hi there Brian and David!) and to my friends who are even further extreme than their political parties are willing to go at the moment (Hi Rachael and Alli!) It's a thank you to mission companions who would talk to me so late into the night that we'd be late to meetings the next day. It's a thank you to my libertarian friends who question the government in all of its forms (Hi Jason and Grant!). It's a thank you to friends who are supporting "minor" candidates loudly (Hi Venna, Trent, and Ashley!). And finally, it is a thank you to parents who never so stupid as to tell me that you can't talk politics or religion with people and more importantly taught me how to do both in an intelligent way -- because it can be done, even on Facebook.

I think I've become smarter because of my friends, and really that's all you can ask for. For some friends, I'm not smart enough. For others, I'm too far one way or the other. To me, these are all good signs that I have good friends willing to share thoughts with me, and that I'm trying to learn more. I think of myself as pretty moderate politically, and while I don't have a perfect answer for many things, I think that most of the time, we get given a false binary to choose from.

"DO YOU STAND WITH US AND CHANGE OR DO YOU ACT LIKE A HEATHEN THAT YOU ARE?!"

"Either you vote for allowing whatever socially or you're a bigot!"

"Kaep is either American, or a terrorist!"

As if all those are mutual exclusives.

I hate that. I hated it during my time in school. I hated it during the primaries. I hate it when it's presented as an option on facebook quizzes (yes, I love Jesus, no I'm not sharing your post and typing AMEN) and I hate it right now. So very much. I hate the idea that we're being force-fed Trump or Clinton who are so alike it is almost scary. I mean when you really come down to it, on my "I side with" score, they were about 7% apart. That's it. And the rest of it is unknowns and media propaganda and spin control. Clinton won't raise her voice or say brash things (except calling Americans bigots who should be put in a basket or something) because her narrative is that she isn't Trump, and Trump says everything on his mind so that he can't be accused of not sharing his view of the truth like Clinton.

I thought for a long time that I might vote Gary Johnson. He's anti-big government, he's a decent human, and he's not one of the others! But honestly, I'm not fully invested in him either. But someone's going to win, right? We hear all the time about how it's our moral obligation to vote our conscience or to vote for one of the two who is closest because it would be unethical to vote against your second choice and let your last choice win. Right? It's both. You can find arguments for any side thanks to the internet.

But for me, I started thinking. We say our political system is broken, and I think it is. But what is the fix? Is it getting another party into a Broken system? Is it not voting to send a message? Is it voting to send a message?  No. I think we need to learn from something where we can look at results (because we want to think about the results from our president) and vote that way. We want something that's proven to (usually) be a good measure of who is actually the best?

How about the NBA MVP?

Everyone sees the same games, reads the same stuff, knows the same stats. And the results usually yield the right thing.


So I thought about this election a lot. The thing I thought about in the primaries was that we needed a way to represent people who are torn between candidates. Like, with NBA MVP Voting, you do a top 5 (see the link) and you get points for each vote (10 for first, 8 for second, etc.). Now with this year's vote, it was amazing to see a Unanimous MVP win. Everyone put Steph Curry first. Every single person. Clear representation. But the other votes were a little mixed so you could see where things stood out. On the fringe, you had guys getting a few fifth/fourth place votes like Kyle Lowrey for the NBA. Guys talk about what an honor it is just to be mentioned in the conversation. It's a big deal! You're a top five guy!
But if it wasn't that way, we'd still get someone. One year it was REALLY close between Shaq and Nash. Maybe those aren't the best two candidates ever, but it was close. Some years there are multiple good options, but either way, but having a spread vote, you get a better representation of what's really out there.

Now imagine how this might have worked in the primaries. I get the feeling that not a lot of people were really torn between Trump and someone else. Maybe initially, but by the time Primaries were happening you could say something like "Man, I like Rubio, Cruz, Paul, Fiorina and Bush all about the same, but not trump!" Then you could give a proper representation not only to the person you like most (BUSH!) and the person you really don't want to be represented (TRUMP!) or whatever.
Same thing on the left. Superdelegates are a joke for a party, that claims to represent the people but they exist, and so does money so I imagine they go nowhere. So what if people could put their first choice (SANDERS!) and then some fake ones (OBAMA 2.0, Deez Nuts, Mickey Mouse) and then Hillary gets zero of their vote. Right? Amazing things could happen! or if you're fine with both, go (Bernie, Hillary, Jill) whoever. Right?

But this ends on a national level, right? I say no.

What if it didn't? Right now, we have 5 candidates, amazingly, getting 1% or more of the vote. 5. What if you could say your votes were McMullin, Johnson, Clinton, Stein, Trump? Wouldn't that be a MUCH more effective way? We'd see on every ballot either Trump or Clinton. Everyone. And you mean that wouldn't send a message to party leaders? That it might not have a chance to make a difference? Even if you drop that number to 3 and you go "I'd only ever vote Hillary, Stein, Johnson" or "McMullin, Johnson, Clinton" or whatever, isn't that a better representation?


And what if that could even include negative votes. How many people would go out to literally vote against Clinton or Trump? Tons. And that would actually represent us well. Keep the electoral college. Keep whatever else. But people are motivated so much more by stopping what they don't like and giving a nuanced answer that shows their actual thinking than a canned yes or no that in 40/50 states doesn't matter anyway because of the current system.
Maybe there are reasons we don't do negative votes, but at least the other aspects are worth considering, right?


And let me add one last thing. Let's imagine for a second that we had a candidate that was really truly represented our wants and needs as a people. That candidate could go all steps curry and take it to the house. Or the opposite could happen. The person with the most 1st place votes could also be reviled and then it would be a person who was 2nd for a lot of people, but wasn't reviled by anyone. Everyone would go "Well, at least it wasn't _____." Right?

Can anyone explain to me why this is a bad idea? Poly-sci friends? Non-Americans? Other than 2-party die-hards (and I care about your thoughts, too) Explain to me how this is somehow not a better representation of our actual feelings on things and a way to represent the best candidates our country could give us? I think it would either break the two party system or force the two major parties to listen to their bases better.


For what it's worth, this post was inspired by my friend Emily asking me to check facebook and see how many friends I had who liked the major political candidates. The results are below:


"Real Candidates"
Trump: 23
Hillary: 17
Gary Johnson 47
McMullin 35
Jill Stein 3

And just for funsies:


Ted Cruz 16
John Kasich 14
Rand Paul 9
Martin O. 1
Carly F. 9
Marco Rubio 17
Huckabee 7
Jeb Bush 2
Bernie Sanders 27
Scott Walker 2
Ben Carson 58
Mitt Romney 288
Jim Web 0


Skewed by Mormons? Sure.

But their overall numbers are like this:

Trump 10.9 M
Clinton 6.6 M (telling)
Evan M. 44K (telling)
Johnson 1.6 M
Stein 100K
Mitt Romney 10.5 M
Bernie 4.5 M (wonder if he was higher than Clinton before the primaries)
Rubio 1.4 M
Martin O'Malley 114K
Carly F. 600k (Surprising she wasn't better represented in the debates, no?)
Ben Carson 5.5M
Ted Cruz 2.1M
Mike Huckabee 2.1 M
Kasich 288 K
Rand Paul 2.1 M
(and his dad is 1.4 M and 17 friends)
Scott Walker 358K
Bush 340 K
Jim Webb 50k


Facebook isn't a perfect representation for a lot of reasons. I get that. But what this says to me is that there are other people we'd talk about "if they had a chance." What if Bernie was on that stage with Hillary and Trump?

What if the stage was the top 5 most popular politicans in America?

If we had Bernie (far left) Clinton (Moderate Left) Romney(Moderate right) Carson (far right, religious) and Trump (far right umm... far?) imagine how different this would be.

Or pick your top 5. Isn't the idea of democracy that more minds makes better options?  Guys? Guys?

A Bottle of Lightning.

I don't know that I've mentioned this before in my blog -- forgive me if I have -- but growing up I didn't have many friends. And, by many, I think that could be said "I didn't have friends." This isn't to say I didn't play with other kids. I played sports at recess because I loved them. I was allowed to tag along with my sister's friends. I did kiss three girls in my kindergarten class, and was violently kissed by a little girl named Kristen when I was in Pre-School. I just mean, I didn't have friends that actually came to hang out with me that I recall. I remember 3-5 grade as being a really difficult time for the lack of friends I had. I'd watch TV shows or read books where kids had some magic connection to a friend and suddenly they'd be brought together. Since that time my understanding of what makes someone become your friend has widely grown and expanded, but I always assumed it was like the quote by CS Lewis which says, "Friendship is born at the moment when one says to another, 'What! You too? I thought no one but myself...'"

Well, I have a friend who I became friends with because of one of those one-in-a-thousand strange coincidences. She's someone who has always been impressive to me in every capacity I've known her.

I met her when I was an LDS missionary, which is where I met most of my friends in my adult life. It was a wonderful thing to serve a mission, if only for that reason. I was recently called as a leader of our small group of local missionaries, and this sister was recently transferred into our district. I called her and her companion up to talk with them, and in our conversation somehow birth month got brought up. She said that she was born in October, and I said I was, too. She asked what day, and I asked her to tell me first. Then she said, "The Nineteenth." I thought to myself, "What! You too?" I indicated that was my birthday, too. She must have had some kind of premonition that I'd be the kind of friend who often yanks her chain, because she tried to call me out for my deceit. It was true though.

Normally, that would be the end of it, but as we talked, which was only a couple times a week and never one on one, I just gained such a fondness for her. We had many of the same interests, such as the wide world of Harry Potter, the works of Walt Disney, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These are common things to have in common with other Mormons, but we just seemed to see eye to eye on a lot of things.

She's quirky in a really fun way. She just has one of those ringing, booming laughs which makes you know you hit the spot when you crack a joke. She one time (or at least once I know of) ran screaming through a crowd of people yelling 'STUPEFY!' with a wand. The fact that it was a crowd of missionaries at the Provo, UT MTC makes it all the sweeter.

I appreciate the fact that she genuinely cares about what I say. I'm not shy about sharing my opinions, but she's a person who always asks my thoughts. That means something to me. She listens, and has trusted me with closely guarded secrets and fears and anxieties. She's a person that just seems like she's always been my friend, and a person that I have a genuine love for. I love being her friend. I love that even though there have been times where I've been callous, or rude, or made it seem like she was a pain, she cares for me enough to put up with me. I love that she loves my family. She came out to be with me the day I got married and had the biggest smile on her face watching me that day. She's eaten in my parents home and has been kind to my siblings.

I also love how fierce she is about everything. I mentioned things we have in common, and it just seems like everything we discuss always ends up being a superlative. I'm that kind of person, and so is she. She's fiercely loyal, and fiercely striving to be perfect, and she doesn't take offense easily. She doesn't wilt when she IS offended, but she cares about things that matter, and she cares about people. She views herself as a well-liked outcast in kind of the same way I view myself, and both of us seem to think more highly of the other than we sometimes do of ourselves.

This friend isn't my best friend. We don't talk daily, or weekly. We've never lived close enough to hang out often, and because I'm married, and she respects that line, we have kind of a distance there. But it cannot be understated how valuable of a friend she is to me. She's a spiritual giant, and she cuts through any lies or perceived falseness in a nanosecond. She's a rock with a soft heart, and she's truly one of my favorite people.

And best of all, she matches the purpose of this blog at all. When I was little, I didn't have friends in the usual way, but now I do. And sometimes, you really do catch lighting in a bottle and have a connection with someone over something as trivial as your birthday. It's not like I just bumped into her one day. God gave her to me as a friend, and as someone who I'd go to war with. And I couldn't be happier for it.

Even if, you know, she's a soulless ginger.

Everyone has their faults.

My Better Half.

So, Double Feature, as promised.

I've been married three years today. That's longer than almost anything I've done. I've held jobs for a year before, but not much longer. My LDS Mission was two years. I only was attending a "High School" for three years, and even that kicked me out during the summers. I've technically been in college longer, but that's not by much. But today marks three years of Marriage.

I live in an LDS congregation (ward) which is composed entirely of young married couples with children under the age of three. Frequently, we have people move in and say things like "We've been married for two months now, so we're really getting settled." or "We got married Wednesday." and then they have like, deer in the headlights eyes.

I know I have many friends and a couple people who may stumble across this who go, "Three years! Ha! That's nothing!" To them I say, "That's nice, but hush."

I want to talk about what has made my marriage work for three years.

Let me start by saying I was attracted to my wife long before that. When I was a senior and she was a freshman in High School I cat-called her. When her sister wrote me a letter as a missionary, I asked for her younger (and cuter in my mind) sister to write me. And as I got to know her, she was funny, and witty, and had good spelling. So I remember telling my missionary companion that I could see myself marrying someone like her. But not her of course. Becuase, you know, that'd be silly. Marrying someone right out of high school? Within a year of being home? Preposterous.

Well, then I made the choice to ask Natalie out, and there was no going back at that point. You see, once you start dating someone who really enjoys spending time with you, and happens to be good at, you know, everything, you may just find yourself raising a family with them. I loved, and still do, love bragging on Natalie. She's a very good dancer. She's incredibly smart, was the top of her graduating class, and has only gotten two A- grades in her whole life (including college now). She's a won competitions for public speaking and attended nationally sanctioned events. She is a good writer as she's come to discover through our marriage, but which I knew as a missionary. She is incredibly musically gifted, playing organ, piano, viola and violin. She's played around with a guitar and wants to learn Mandolin too. I mean, add to the fact that she's gorgeous, and you can see why people frequently told me I needed to "hurry up and marry that girl." Sometimes that's people being nosy or pushy. In my case it was, "Quick! Before she realizes there's life outside of high school!"

Well, I love those things about Natalie, and many more that I've learned through our marriage, but there's one quality that really has sealed the deal for me. It's the thing that Natalie is best at, and what makes her so good at so many things.

Natalie is a Finisher.

I have many weaknesses. Among them, probably my greatest is that I often put things off, sometimes indefinitely. Natalie has helped me to see the things that I can accomplish. She has done so much in that way through her life that it's easy to lean on her. Being married presents a lot of challenges. There are so many times that it'd be easier to run away and hide. To not work the extra hours to pay the rent. To not keep track of the budget. To not stick to our plans. To not finish school and just live life as we do now, which would be fine, but not as good as it could be. Natalie makes things happen. Natalie works hard, and she influences me to do the same. She makes sure things we commit to happen.

Most of all, she's committed to me. Through thick and thin, through good and bad. Even though discouragement, and disagreement and disappointment happen in life, Natalie has pushed through and been my biggest support. None of the good things have happened to or for me in the last three years happen without her. Natalie has helped me to stick to things longer. She's helped me work and make sacrifices I wouldn't or couldn't make alone.

Becuase of Natalie, things get done. Maybe this isn't the most romantic thing in the world, but it's the thing that enables the romantic things to still happen. It's awful hard to take time to blog when you don't have someone who has helped you stay on task. She hates when I'm busy, but she sacrifces so much of what she wants for me. I love her and am in her debt forever.

Hope the next 1,000 days are even better than the first 1,000. :)

Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;

Beginners are many, but enders are few.

Honor, power, place and praise

Will always come to the one who stays.

Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;

Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it, too;

For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile

Will come life’s victories after a while.

—Author Unknown

This'll Just Take a Minute

It happens to all of us. The best laid plans have a tendency to cause themselves to fall through. Today, it started to happen, and then it miraculously became a much, much better day.

But let's rewind for a minute. Let me first just apologize that it's taken 454 days to post again. It's one of my goals this year to do at least one a month, and while I failed in January, you're getting a double feature today. I could blame that on a lot of things, like an increasingly heavy work and school load, or my fatal procrastination, or having a son for seven of those months (as of this Sunday), or what have you. What I cannot blame it on is a lack of source material. In addition to the many, many, many, many wonderful friends that I have had for the years before I ever began blogging about them, I have made a bevy of incredible friends this year. Friends that are the kinds of friends that it's hard to imagine life before they were my friends. Maybe we were friends in Heaven before this life, too. Who knows.

That said, let me get to my friend today.

You know how in school or work or church or your yoga class there are a couple of people that you know, and that you've talked to before, but you never really think to call them? I mean, they don't "LIKE" all of your facebook posts, and they may not be following you on Instagram, and they're not one of the three people you call regularly, so you're like, "Oh yeah, so-and-so? Such a nice person. Don't know 'em very well, but totally nice." Then after you see them you move on and think about other things until they're really not present in your mind anymore? Maybe I (and this blog) are that person for you.

That person for me is someone we'll just call Maybe. Maybe was in my Chinese class over the summer. I knew her because in our weekly dialogues we would make up skits about what a heart-breaker Maybe was. It was especially funny because she was in on them, and because she's a nice person and very quiet. Not the kind of person you see breaking hearts every day. Not that she's not a pretty person -- she is. Just that she's the person that, at least for me, I'd pass in the hall and think "What a nice person!" and move on with my day, you know?

Well, back to this morning. I overbooked myself, as sometimes I do, and it's my anniversary, and I have a son who needs watching while my wife's at work and I run to my job that's about half an hour away at a school up the Canyon. I was caught in a pickle. My parents were busy all day. My siblings were in school. I'd just asked my in-laws to watch jack two of the last five days. My usual baby sitter had a study group (another wonderful person you should hear all about.) So I did what any desperate person does.

"Scott Savage updated his status: 'I'm in a bit of a pickle. Could anyone watch Jack today from about 12:30 to 2:30?"

I hop in the shower hoping someone will hear my pleas.

I get out to see a notification on my phone from Maybe. It takes me a minute to process who Maybe is, and she says, "If you still need help, I'd love to watch Jack, here's my number!"

To you parents, if someone posts within 5 minutes of you begging for help over the internet and says, "If you still need help..." how hard are you laughing at the thought that you've suddenly been swamped with irrefutable offers? So I say, "Maybe, you're an all-star. I'd LOVE the help." And we arrange for me to pick her up between my morning job and my afternoon job. Awesome.

So I pick up Maybe at the appointed hour, and she and I begin to catch up a little bit. I learn that Maybe is hoping to travel to China to study more this year because Maybe is conversationally fluent in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Maybe studies linguistcs and her final senior project is to make up a language based on Tolkien. So, she decides to be true to the books, and she's making up the language of the wives of the Ents. Which is among the coolest and semi-geekiest things I've heard in a while. She also is doing research with a professor that she asked me to help with and offered to get me paid for. So, I mean, cool right?

Then I take her and baby Jack and drop them off and race off to my job. I come home to find a happy, smiling baby who has been changed and fed, and Maybe offers to just walk home since my son is content and she lives close. She also informs me that she'd love to be asked if we need help in the future. I appreciated that, but I also appreciated that when I walked into my kitchen for lunch, she'd done my dishes. I mean, really. It was kind of just too much, you know?

Some might read this and go, "What a mysoginist, promoting a woman because she cleans and watches children." On the one hand, that's totally true. On the other hand, I think it's more of a reflection of a truly humble person. A person who is looking to do more than is asked. A person who is genuinely kind and concerned. A person who, in spite of her very obviously pressing duties and responsiblities, which far outweigh cleaning poopy babies and dishes, took the time to do something she offered to do very well.

I've been blessed with many good babysitters for my son. The village that it's taking to raise him is huge. He's been very fortunate to have such a big group of people who love and care for him. This isn't about that though. This is just about someone who sometimes passes you in the hallways with a very genuine smile, and takes two hours out of her life to make yours better.

I mean, who doesn't want that in their lives, you know?

Tim

This has been a blog post long over due. It's over due because I've only written once since May. It's over due because this is a friend I've been thinking about for a long time. It's overdue, because my hope is that I can share happy reminders of what a good person my friend Tim is with his family. It's also overdue because, in mortality, he won't hear these words.

I'm also using his real name here, because that's just who Tim is. Tim's just a good guy. I only met Tim a few times, but each time we got to talk I learned something a little more about him. Here are five things that I know about Tim. They may be small, but they're what he shared with me.

Tim LOVES trains. As best as I can recollect, Tim has one of the most extensive and complete train sets of anyone I'd ever met. I know he had boxes full of trains and loved to collect them. He talked at length about how he'd collected them from the time he was small and how much his trains meant to him. I think it's really neat to have a hobby and something to collect like that. I think of my own life and I've had a couple of hobbies and collections of small things growing up, but his was truly impressive.

Tim taught me a couple of important things. One of them was really impactful to me in terms of how I respond to what I believe. When I met Tim I was a 19 year old LDS missionary and so most of our conversations centered around all things religious. When talking to us about what we believed about life after death, a subject that he was more interested in than some of the things we talked about, he related a story to myself and my missionary compañero. He told us that every once in a while a set of Jehovah's Witness missionaries would come out to his farm to talk to him. As they told him about what they believed, he pulled out his shotgun, pointed it at them and asked, "Do you fellas believe in Life after death?" He told us that they quickly scampered away. Tim maintained that a person of faith should be willing to die for it. Some people may view him as a little (or a lot) extreme, but that always stuck with me. I don't think Tim would have put them to the test had they stood their ground, but I do think that he held himself to that standard as well.

Tim drove long-haul truck for a long time, and he told us about some of the stories he had from the road. It was him who taught me that semi-trucks will tap their brake lights to other trucks to thank them for letting them pass. The same goes for flashing lights to trucks showing them they have room to pass. Tim also told me that when he would pass those crosses on the sides of highways showing people who had died there, he would offer a prayer for those involved. He would also pray for ambulances, police and firetrucks on their way because they put their lives in danger to help others. Those are things that I've adapted to myself.

Tim offered to make us Squirrel and Dumplings when I lived near them. He said squirrel wasn't in season but he liked it. Tim hunted a lot, but he used all of what he killed and wasn't wasteful. He would probably have been able to make anything be pretty good. Some people are morally opposed to hunting. That's fine. I think that Tim exemplifies what makes hunters good; he has respect for what he killed and he used all of it. Tim wouldn't break the law or abuse his weapons for the thrill of the kill.

Tim was one of those hard core crazy conservatives who was industrious and did things his own way. He probably scared people who didn't share his views, and that's alright with me. He made his own ammo. He owned guns. He was a God fearing man. He raised a good family. It's a family in the ways we all know family to be. Complicated, passionate, but ultimately full of people who can take care of themselves. My mom always told me that her goal in life was for me to turn into a civilized human being. I think Tim and his wonderful wife did a pretty good job of that. He spoke openly about the things he felt, but never felt the need to be needlessly rude. He'd defend what he believed without being vicious. He's the kind of person that I love and who I think makes the world a better place.

I know that compared to others, my feeling here is limited, but I miss Tim. I didn't know him really well. The man lived more than double what I'm at right now, and I only have a couple paragraphs worth of memory about the man, and some of my information may not even be recalled perfectly. I just wanted to take today to remember him. I hope those who remember him every day can take a little comfort in knowing that he impacted others in a great way.

A Gem and a Jewel

A little background about myself sometimes seeps through these posts. In some ways, it's because this is really a journal for me. I love dearly the people I write about, and I don't want to lose them. I also think that, while the mutual respect I have for many of these people lives, it's nice to spend time thinking about certain people and what has made them so great in my life.

Today I had an experience that really compelled me to write about my friend today. But first, a flashback.

When I was in third grade, my parents noticed that I often came home with papers that said, "Scott forgot his homework today!" My parents called me into their room and told me if I could go a week without getting a slip like that, they'd reward me. I didn't last a single day. That was a habit, or a choice in many ways, that never stopped plaguing me. I was one of those weird kids that wasn't dumb, just lazy. I would ace my tests and get C's in my classes because I didn't do the homework. I graduated high school with a 2.9 GPA (Not stellar, especially compared to my friends, family and future wife) but I got a 30 on the ACT that exceeded many of my peers. Even my 2.9 was a gift of having TONS of Fine Arts classes I got A's in and a great History teacher who gave me C's when I deserved F's (because otherwise I'd have failed to graduate at all).

Today (Thursday) I was in class, and my teacher (a PhD who I think the world of) asked if any of us had started on our homework for Monday. I was the only one in a class of about 14 to raise my hand. The teacher and several students made comments like, "Oh, well duh! No surprise there!" It's amazing, when you view yourself as one thing to have a public perception that you're not that thing, and to have it be relatively earned. It was nice.

The friend I'm writing about today always saw within me the capacity to create that reaction, and she treated me that way when I least deserved it.

This friend is someone who in school would have been my polar opposite academically. She graduated early as a 17 year old, worked her tail off, and was on her own teaching English when she was 21 years old. She is an aspiring writer, and has great talent at what she does. She always shoots for the moon and has great goals. One of my favorite quotes from this friend is, "My life might be normal, but that doesn't mean my thoughts are average." This friend was my journalism teacher in 11th grade, and let a knucklehead like me be the editor of her paper. She dreamed bigger though. She wanted to run an underground newspaper that talked about the things that students cared about, with pen names, and all sorts of code. She wanted to have my friend and I write and then pass it on to younger students as time went on, so it would always remain a 2-4 person job that was part of a select group of thinkers and writers. Cool, right?

This friend was my teacher only one half of one year, but became a friend who I could talk to about anything. She's only six years my senior, and relates well. She would talk about how she viewed people if they were characters in another time and another place. I think the observations she had about people were the kind of thing that inspired me to write this blog. People are absolutely fascinating. We read biographies, blogs, and articles about people. We watch plays and movies that tackle topics of interest. At the end of the day, all the most important things we ever do in society are about people. Sometimes that gets lost in numbers, causes, or other trivial outliers, but everything starts with people. This friend, who I'll call Jewels, understood how priceless and fascinating people are.

Jewels is also a person who has a good grasp on life. She has a really adorable little girl, and is a great mom. Being a mom has always been one of her passions, and she has a good husband she's devoted to. She's handled personal tragedy well, and really weathers tough storms. She has remarkable balance in her life. She's a good teacher because she not only teaches her subject well, she teaches about life through her subject. She's excited about getting kids reading. She loves helping kids write and really exploring things they've never been able to communicate before. She helps kids like me become men like I'm trying to become. It's teachers like her that made me want to be a good teacher. I have other teachers I owe a lot to, but this one is not only an inspiration; I also have the fortune of counting her as a friend.

You Know How This One Ends

In our society we tend to make a big deal out of "Last Words." When we lose someone, we worry a lot if we were on bad terms with them, had just had a fight, or if we forgot to say something simple like "Goodbye" or "I love you." I don't think this is without good reason. As you may have read in this very space, I lost my Grandma about a year ago. This was big for me because it was the closest relative I have known to pass away, and it was at a point in my life where lots of things were new to me. I'd been married less than six month. I'd stopped my full-time missionary work about a year before. I was living somewhere I'd never been before, and starting a new semester of school without being totally sure what I wanted to study. My first nephew was about to be born, and other things were in flux for me. I'll never forget the phone call I got late one night from my dad telling me that we probably had a couple of days, or a week at most with my Grandma. The next day, as she was driving back to Utah from Washington with my dad and Grandpa, she called everyone in her family individually, and we talked for just a couple of minutes. I told her I got straight A's, and that I was going to be a theater teacher, and I hoped to play games with her when she got back. Then I told her I loved her.

The next day my wife and I drove down to Utah from Idaho, where we were living. We hoped to see my Grandma that afternoon, as she had only driven half  way home the previous day, and wasn't doing great. I was playing ticket to ride with my brothers and my wife when we got the news that  she didn't make it. As sad as I was that I didn't get to do it in person, and as painful as those next few days were, I look back and have solace that in those last few days, I got to say good bye.

But, this isn't a post about my Grandma. This is a post about some other last words that are about to become famous, at least within the small scope of people who read what I write.

One of the coolest things about being a missionary is the fact that I met tons and tons of wonderful people; people who I'd never meet any other way. When my missionary companion and I knocked on this man's door, he let us in right away. His house always reeked of tobacco, but was a comfortable place, and very clean. There was a clock on the wall that never worked, and lawn ornaments on a well kept lawn. If it hadn't been for other missionaries who had taught him previously, I'm not sure we could have broken the communication barrier. Mr. Bernard was hard of hearing, and had bad vision. He wasn't able to read much from the books and pamphlets we left with him. Our visits to him seemed to me to be far less about teaching and far more about hearing stories from this man who had been born in the roaring 20's.

And did he ever have stories.

Mr. Bernard would tell us about his work as a stablehand for Kentucky Derby race horses. He met many professional athletes during his work and got close to them as they'd regularly come to make bets on the horses. He told stories about being in WWII, the air force and working with those from the UK in the Royal Air Force. He told some stories about his family. Not a ton of any of these, because, in all honesty, I only knew him a few weeks. 

Sometimes, however, we did teach him. We were missionaries, and fairly focused ones. As nice as any sweet old man is, we had a duty to the work we'd signed up for. Mr. Bernard would tell us each week that he wanted to "get to church one of these Sundays." He also would always tell us when we left, "Don't take any wooden Nickles!" After one of our visits, he forgot to say this and so my missionary friend poked his head back in the door, and said, "Hey! Don't take any wooden nickles!" Mr. Bernard laughed his lungs out. From then on, it was a race to see who could say it first.

It was summertime, and the little church my missionary friend and I were assigned to had maybe sixty people who came regularly. We would always stand outside and shake people's hands as they came in the door. It was to our great surprise and delight one sunday when we saw a white truck that had always sat in Mr. Bernard's driveway come rolling slowly (and seriously, he couldn't have been going over 10 MPH) down the road. A rather lengthy line of cars was behind him. He rolled right up to the entrance to the parking lot, and kept going. Fortunately, my missionary friend was a track star who runs a sub five minute mile, so he sprinted in his suit over to the truck, and led him back to the church parking lot. He came in looking snappy, and smelling strongly of tobacco, but happy as could be. 

He sat down in the back of the little church and talked to me all during the service. We talked a little as I would explain what was happening, and due to his poor hearing, our conversations were very loud whispers that everyone could hear. When the Sacrament (or communion as some call it), was being blessed, he leaned over to me and whispered, "Is this the Lord's supper?" I affirmed that it was. He sat an thought for moment and asked a question no one else I ever invited to church asked me. "Can I take the Lord's supper?" I explained that it was meant to represent the atonement, and our covenants we make at baptism, but he was welcome to partake if he so desired. As he did, he reached an ancient hand to take the bread and said, "This do in remembrance of me." The same happened for the water. He kept whispering questions through the whole meeting, and really made everyone smile at the presence of this curious and humble old man.

After church he shook many hands and was very friendly. He said he needed to go home, but would come again the next week. We invited him to a baptismal service for friends of ours that weekend, and he said he'd like to come. We were very excited that someone from such a small town, who was so old, and who had been baptist for so many years was willing to listen to a could of boys who combined were less than half his age. 

We went to visit him on Tuesday, and had an experience a little different from the norm. We made small talk, and told a story or two, but then he asked us some questions about our church services. He told us he'd read some of our book, and that he wanted to know what we believed. We shared what we thought was important, and then he stopped us and said, "Boys, do you know what I keep having you come back here?" 

We  didn't, honestly. We hoped, but we didn't know.

He said with the kind of valor that makes your bones chilled, "I want to know when I stand before God that I'm doing what's right." We sat in silence for a few moments and then he thanked us for our time, prayed for us, and bade us good bye. 

Well, you know how this one ends. That Saturday, we had a very beautiful baptismal service for some dear friends. Afterwards, we went to his house and knocked on the door to ask why he wasn't able to make it. To our immense sorrow, someone else answered the door. "Is Mr. Bernard here?"

"Mr. Bernard passed away this week. I'm sorry." Then the door closed.

I sometimes wonder if he knew what was coming. He was a smoker in his 80's. It's not like he was spry, and in the prime of life. Often he would tell us of what a labor it was just for him to get out of bed in the morning. Even when you hear those kinds of things though, you just don't think that one day you'll go to see him, and he'll just be gone though. One of the truths of mortality is that we all die. Some old. Some young. Some tragically. Some painfully. Some quickly. Some slowly. Somehow, someway, fair or not, we all die. I think it's most important that we remember that we may not all be able to say, "I've got just a couple days, I'm going to tell everyone good-bye." We may not all have an internal clock that tells us we're about to go. We sometimes won't get the chance to make things right with those who leave us. Life is tough, and unpredictable even at the best times.

I think what we can do, though, is do our best each day to do our very best. We can look to the future and say, "When I stand before God [who, or whatever that is to you], I want to know that I'm doing what's right."

Just like Mr. Bernard.

Oh, and don't take any wooden Nickles.

This is why I Got Married

A wise person, several years ago, told me that you should marry someone who laughs the same way you do. That wisdom has been flawless and is one of the gems that makes my marriage strong. I have a wife who frequently tells me that nothing makes her happier than being able to get me to laugh really hard. Today, she did just that, and she did so in the face of unfavorable circumstances.

My wife is beautiful. She frequently gets compared to the actress Amy Adams who played Giselle in Disney's Enchanted. She responds to those people who make such a comparison by saying that it is not she who looks like Amy Adams, but Amy Adams who strikes a remarkable comparison to herself. She once used this favorable comparison while competing at Girl's State Competition to garner votes by singing a "Happy Voting Song." Not only is my wife beautiful, but she's clever.

Today, however, she was sad. She feels like she's losing one of her closest friends because that friend doesn't reach out to her or respond. She feels like she's forgettable and replaceable and just not someone that people look at and go, "Gosh! I want to be friends with her!" She feels like she's stuck in a weird place of life where friends her age either have children and are busy or they're single and can't relate, or their otherwise occupied, or in the case of our best friends, are four hours north.

So today, my wife was just sad.

We came home from church and decided she what she needed was to put on a warm sweater. So she did. Then she needed chocolate. I keep a kitkat hidden in the house for these very occasions. But, if you give a sad wife chocolate, she'll probably want something substantial to go with it. So she finished off the biscuits and gravy we had had for breakfast. As she was eating them and thinking deeply about her predicament she said, "Biscuits and Gravy. This is soul food. We should make this more often. Like for breakfast tomorrow."

Slowly, she started to laugh about other things. It was good to see. We played some Uno against each other and she decided now was the time to tap into her box of See's candy she'd gotten rather than partake of the KitKat. Each loss took another chocolate from the box. She didn't lose much, but after one in particular loss, she took a Scotchmollow from the box and looking at it said, "This is pusf."

I was confused, too.

She said it again. "Pusf." Really? Pusf?

Then with a big grin said, "Poor Unfortunate Soul Food."

The ability to quote Disney in a delightfully humorous way is what makes her such a remarkable woman. The ability to do so on a rough day makes her a champion. And the ability to do it while being so darn cute is what makes her my wife.

Pusf. Classic.

Cookies!

This the first of what could be many posts about someone who impacted my life more than I ever hoped they would.

I hope I've done enough explaining about missionaries at this point that I can simply say, this friend was one of my companions for three months (or two transfer cycles [or 12 weeks {or 84 long days}]) Only one companion of mine ever demanded an "ET" or "Emergency Transfer" meaning that there were such serious conflicts between the two of us that they couldn't be resolved and we had to switch it up. This is that story.

We'd come home from eating dinner with a nice, though someone unstable old man who I'll call Steve McLaughlin. Steve is a story for another time, because like all guys called 'Steve' he's a ball of fun. Anyway, we'd eaten with Steve and we had something of his that we'd borrowed so when he dropped us off at our apartment, I grabbed it and headed back out to give it to him. When I came back, my companion was nowhere to be found. After a brief search, I discovered that he was in the bathroom. So I sat down and started to read. After a while of reading, I realized he was taking a rather long time, so I went to knock on the door when I heard him talking to someone. I was very confused by this turn of events, so I listened. I realized rather quickly that whoever he was talking to was getting an earful about some jerk who was a control freak, didn't listen and hated my companion, who, for this story I'll just call Teddy.

Turns out, Teddy thought that control freak was me. Uh oh.

My first response was surprise because though he wasn't my best friend, he was also not someone I abhorred to be with... yet. So I walked back to the couch, but could now hear him more clearly. I listened with gritted teeth for a few minutes. After a while of more slander being laid out there, and this had taken at least 15-20 minutes, I finally just yelled, "If you have such a big problem, why don't you come out here and talk to me about it?"

This was followed by silence and then, "Elder Savage has been eavesdropping! See what a bad person he is!"

Right Teddy. You're talking angrily on the phone in the bathroom in a small apartment with hardwood floors that create echoes. Yep. I'm the bad guy here.

So anyway, he comes out and hands me the phone (didn't even flush. I mean come on man!) and I am told by a friend of mine on the other end of the phone, "Listen, I know you're upset, but just keep your mouth closed and we'll get this figured out."

So I do as I'm told. I just live with it. In quiet fury. Plotting his untimely demise.

That phone call ends and there's about ten minutes of silence. I mean how are you supposed to do anything (much less when the 'thing' you're supposed to do is teach people how to have peace in their homes and lives) when that just happened?

Then the phone rings again. Teddy answers, but it's for me.

It's PJ. The Man. President Jensen. The person who takes care of all of the missionaries  Someone we love deeply and are dreadfully afraid of all at once. He takes ten seconds and says, "Hi. Sorry about all of this. I thought this would work, and I was wrong. You're too intense for him. You'll have a new companion in the morning. Please give the phone back to --" and I just handed him the phone.

Now, one of the things that I take a little pride in is that I work well with other people. My mom taught me to play nice. I happen to have many great friends you can read about. I am a talker, and a decent listener. So why this? Why now? I felt like I'd failed. I recognized this friend of mine could be somewhat more sensitive than my other friends (as I write about him again, and again you'll get more of this) and I thought I'd done a good job. I hadn't. This was day 4 of us being together. His birthday, a weekend, and now Monday night. Yuck.

Then came the worst part. As he started packing his bags, and trying to suppress smiles of having won he came over to where I was and started telling me things like, "You're a good guy, we're just different people." or "I'm really excited for you, this will be a good opportunity for both of us." and "Maybe this is what God had planned, you know? He works in mysterious ways." And even "Listen. It's not your fault you're a horrible person, I'm just better than you and deserve to get as far away from you as possible. Or maybe I'm just a big whiner, and annoying and you're lucky to be rid of me because I'm crazy, but probably you're just the devil incarnate and no one will ever love you and you should just go die."

... you know, or something like that. My memory is a little fuzzy on the details. Either way, I felt very talked down to by someone who had just crapped all over me. So, I did the only thing I could think to do.

I walked into the kitchen, pulled out a large knife and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest until he couldn't scream any more.

No wait, sorry, that's what I wanted to do. Here's what really happened.

I walked into the kitchen pulled out a large knife, slit him across the throat and skipped away as he fell to his death... no, sorry, that was the red velvet cupcake incident. We'll get to that one.

I walked into the kitchen, pulled out a jar of M&M cookie mix that happened to be in there and fired up the oven. As he continued to go between talking down to me and sorting his clothes back into his suitcase I pulled out butter, milk, whatever ingredient went into the cookies, mixed and baked and did exactly what my mother would have had me do. I pulled those cookies right out of the oven, and they were perfect. Soft, warm, and would have melted right in your mouth. He was in the kitchen talking to me as this happened, perhaps hoping to steal one of my precious cookies. I placed them carefully on a plate and made sure he didn't get to steal one of them. I handed the whole plate to him.

He was confused by this.

"What is this for?"

"Eating, generally."

"For me?"

"Yes, for you Teddy."

"Why?"

I told him the truth. It was because I didn't hate him. I told him I was sad things weren't going to work out, and that we hadn't really given it a fair shake, but that I understood his decision and hoped him to have the best of luck. He was once again very quiet after this. Though he did take my cookies.

So I sat down and read some more and he sat and nibbled on cookies. After a few minutes he looked at me and said, "Do you think we could make this companionship work?"

"Teddy," I responded, "With the Lord's help I can make anything work."

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen. We ended up staying together twenty one times longer! Our days were just as crazy. There were other attempts to get an ET, but he was rejected on the grounds that I make fabulous cookies from there on out. This man, though it may not seem like it now, would deeply move me and humble me in ways I couldn't imagine, and to this day, I'm very grateful we happened to have a jar of M&M cookie mix in our cupboard.

And not many sharp knives.

The Face In the Mirror.

This blog post might be the most telling about me so far. I try not to talk about me much. I think it's clear that with such great friends in my life, they rub off on me. I think if nothing else, it should be clear that they teach me to see the good in the world because the good in MY  world comes from them. However, this post, which will reveal a good deal about me, will also be exceptionally telling about me because I have a friend who is SO much like me. 

This friend is the one who anyone in my family would see right away as my closest comrade. We do lots of things that are amusing mostly to us. A handful of examples come to mind:

We like a lot of the same music, and some fun things happened because of that.. When we were both younger, we would often play a game where we would have to speak only in song lyrics. The catch was, you'd have to use a word from the other person's song lyrics in order to use your next set of song lyrics. It was a little more complicated than it sounded, but since we listened to the same music, it worked out pretty well. He and I went to the concert for my favorite band the only time I've seen them live. We hear songs the same way in odd ways. Like with Taylor Swift's song, "Love Story" she says a line, that goes, "They try to tell me how to feel." We both heard it as, "Good Charlotte tells me how to feel." There was a time when my sister was dating a guy who we'll call umm... Travis. Travis was just a little bit feminine... and would do things like blow my sister off for dates to go tanning with his guy friend. Travis is married and has a kid, but he certainly was a little feminine. Anyway, one time my sister was driving this friend and I somewhere and we had an entire conversation of sentences that started with the phrases, "Dude, looks like." And "Somebody Told Me." If you don't catch those references, that would be Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and the Killers' "Somebody Told Me [you had a boyfriend that looked like a girlfriend.]" Again, this stuff cracked us up.

I also will take this time to divulge a somewhat obscured secret that this friend and I played Yu-Gi-Oh. We weren't lame about it though. It wasn't like we'd sat around the house and played against each other (which we did). We spent copious amounts of time studying the pojo.com forums, waiting for the newest upper deck announcements for the banned list, or the creation of new booster packs. We played in competitive YuGiOh tournaments each Saturday down at the local card shop, where the winner won more packs of cards depending how many people showed. $5 entry fee, usually three rounds, plus finals winners played winners, and so forth. The way we talked about getting excited to win a few packs you'd think we were gambling for cigarettes with hobos, which wouldn't be that far a cry from what we were doing considering some of the people who would show up to the local shops. Every few months we'd go to the huge regional tournament where hundreds of social rejects, geeks, and Seto Kiaba wannabe's  gamers, fathers with sons who used their children as an excuse to play a children's card game and blow hundreds of dollars on cardboard. I mean if you think parents pushing their kids to play football is bad, you've never seen the YuGiOh dads.  who are out for a good time, and of course kids like us who just wanted a Saturday off of work when we told our boss we were sick or something to do instead of before going on a date. Those were the ones where guys would show up and stack their top 8 play mats to flaunt their winning ways. I can't pretend I didn't love that. It also happened to be pretty profitable when I sold a card I was lucky enough to win in a random drawing won through sheer grit for $550 dollars (That's not a joke) and bought my sweet laptop with that dough.  We may have been nerds. But we were the Kings of the Nerds, and we still managed to be pretty decent people, and you can'd manage to be both if you don't have a good friend to keep you balanced.

This friend of mine has been someone I could always talk to. He was someone I knew would tell me the truth about girls I dated, and would talk me up if he could, and I did the same. We always tried to stand up for one another and it was nice to know that even if I took a girl on a date who was totally disinterested in me, at least he was there to make it fun. We went to church dances together until we realized that we were 17/18 and the girls we thought were cute were 13/14 (I ended up marrying a girl in that range, and so did he). There was the time that he went to ask a girl who was kind of a wall-flower to dance and she turned him down in a kind of rude way, which he felt bad about. I thought maybe she just didn't want to feel like a charity case, so I went to ask her to dance. When I did, she got a big smile on her face and said, "I'd love to." Ouch. So part way through the song, I said, you know the guy who asked you to dance last time? He's my best friend in the world. She went and found him later for a dance. 

We often did stupid stuff together. I threw a soda out my window once... and it opened all over him... because I threw it out his window. He convinced me to put glowstick in my hair for a dance... and I got it in my eye. I convinced him that if he bought a box of iced brownies from the grocery store and put them on a plate, the girl he liked would think he made them (she didn't.) 

He was also there for me at some of my lowest points. When I called my best female friend at the time a word I'm not proud of (It didn't rhyme with stitch, but it wasn't good), and I called her home phone a good 25 times in a row [which I'm sure made me look like a stalker], he kept encouraging me that I'd be able to reconcile (I did.) When a girl who had toyed with my heart strings several times did it once more, he was there to pick me up. He reassured me of myself, and was just great.

The funny thing is, I wasn't able to be there for him during some of his roughest times just due to the way things shook out. I felt at some points like maybe we'd drifted. But I've never called him without being able to have a completely natural conversation, no matter the subject matter. We talk about spiritual things, family things (Because we're cousins), we talk about girls, and now wives (who we love dearly), finances, sports (lots and lots and lots about our Oakland Raiders), jokes, music, and everything. We've had some disagreements, but only one real fight. He lived in my room for a month. We joke about everything, and know all kinds of things about the other. And they're not always the important things. In fact, i don't know lots of the important things, and he might not either. But we know how to make one another laugh. Our conversations often lack depth, but we can talk, and I've needed that at a lot of points in my life. 

This person is so much like me, and gets me so well, he's kind of like the face in the mirror.

Lovin' On Everybody

Wow! Two Blog Posts in One day!

So, I have a confession. I like to make people laugh. I love watching people be surprised, and laughing despite themselves. Anytime I can make my best friends, particularly my wife, laugh about something that they shouldn't, or wouldn't under regular circumstances. Sometimes that causes me to make inappropriate jokes or to do things that, in attempts to be funny, just count as kind of rude, or sad.

Today I did just that, and I did it to a friend I've probably done it to many times.I played a joke she didn't find funny, and it made her sad. And it was her birthday none the less.

This friend is someone who I have referred to in the past as my most dedicated reader. The person who always asks me, "When are you going to post again?" Due in large part to her persistence (and my good fortune in continually meeting good new people) I have gone from posting two out of the first five months I had my blog, to posting close to once a month (with a few explosions in between), to now I'll have posted eight times in the first ninety-two days of the year, or an average of every 11 days. Not too shabby if you ask me.

I want to talk about a funny experience with this friend, and how it both rings true and false at the same time. This friend graduated high school a year before me, and was all of six months older than me (She's an April Fool's Day baby). We took a foods class together, which was one of many fun things we did together. One day, our teacher, who was many good things (mostly in the kitchen) but tactful was not one of them, saw this friend of mine, and I think she was a minute or two late to class. The teacher, rather than asking her why she was late, or letting the situation slide, decided it was the proper time to tell my friend that she, "always sees her lovin' on everybody out in the hall."

I found this comment highly amusing. My friend did not.

No one would deny the fact that my friend was a very huggy person. She was flirtatious. She was friendly. She dated many boys in high school. She and I had minimal romantic history, though we were both big flirts, and we did go to prom together.

However, two things should be known about this girl. First, is that it didn't matter how many boys smooched her or took her out, or how many people she hugged or flirted with, or whatever else. It didn't matter because her heart always had and always would belong to one boy. That boy happens to be awesome, happens to be her husband, and happens to be the father of her precious little boy. Sometimes, even people who get written off as big flirts turn out to be the most stable ones of all.

Secondly, the teacher wasn't wrong either. This friend, this gloriously motivating, and tirelessly friendly friend loves on EVERYONE. She can't help it. My friend is affectionate. Or, as she would say, "mi amiga es muy afectuosa" She just has it in her mind body and soul. She likes children. She calls everyone "friend" and she means it. She's willing to say what needs to be said to people, and she listens well, too. She likes making other people laugh. She likes to say nice things about people, not because she likes being liked [maybe that's part of it] but mostly because she likes making people see their own good. She's a hugger, and gives really great and reassuring hugs at that.

There's a lot of good I could say about this friend, and I'm sure on other occasions I will. We've been friends for seven years, and I have great hopes we'll be friends for many more (especially since I now consider her husband a friend. He's really great). She's one of the few who has remained my friend even though we're no longer in High School and we're both married. Those things can often cause separation even among the best of friends.

So, Happy Birthday friend. I hope this makes up for me telling you I'd already done this. :)

Whispered Words of Wisdom

"All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my Angel Mother." --Abraham Lincoln

I tend to think I'm a fairly good person. I like me. As you can tell by this point in my blog at least 23 other people like me. I think that I'm only partially to credit for this. I mean, part of my likableness is simply things that I control, or that were gifts from God. My contagious laughter being one. My cute wife being another. People like me for these things, and I'm sure others.

However, I want to take a moment to share a little bit of who ELSE made me this way, and even who helped make others this way, as well. That would be my mom. My mom has been 29 for *[redacted]* years. Some say it's the Nutrogena. Others will swear up and down that it's the love of all things Disney that courses through her veins, and interestingly enough, all over the walls of our home. And the floors. And the dining ware. And the closets. And the DVD shelf. And her internet history. Still others will say it's the delights of having such children as myself, my sister and the monsters still at home. I think those things are part of it. The biggest part of it is the things that she thinks though. The way my mom views the world has not only caused her to be a delight to be around, it has also positively influenced her darling children [me] her other three children, many of our friends and even dear cousin Steven who spent far too much time in our home growing up.

My mom, especially for my family, is relatively quiet. She doesn't respond in any way that's really over the top, so when she responds strongly to something, it's easy to see how genuine she is.

So I want to share some of the things that my mom said.Some are self-explanatory. Others may require a little bit of back story  My original idea for this post was to write 100 of these and be done with it, but I think it's far more fitting to write as many as I can think of now, and add to it as the list grows. I'll break these into three categories  1.) Expectations -- what my mom hoped I would be, or do, or what she expected in terms of my actions. 2.) Warnings. Some more grave than others, but all not wise to trifle with. 3.) General Wisdom. these are things my mom said that were just gems to hang onto.

Expectations

"My hope is that by the time you have left my home, you are a decent human being." This not meaning decent as in "average" but decent as in good, and fair.

"Be Kinder than you have to be. Much Kinder"

"A Clean room is a Happy Room" or "A Clean room is it's own reward."

"A job worth doing is worth doing well, and doing so the first time."

"It doesn't roll downhill." This comes from times when I would be angry and lash out at my little brothers, because I could. It was a reminder that my anger needed to stay targeted, if I was to have it at all. It couldn't be allowed to hurt those hadn't instigated it.

"I just ask that you don't throw the first punch." My mom was always ok with defending ourselves and others. We just couldn't instigate. The number of times my mom would call bullying for what it was is a large number indeed.

"Act your age, not your shoe size."

"Ok, fine. 17... 9." This was in relationship to, again, the way I treated my little brothers. As a 17 year old I was held to somewhat higher of an expectation than the 9 year old brother.

"If I thought you were only smart enough to get C's, I'd be ok with you getting C's."

"School is your number one job right now. Everything else comes second."

"Those are other people's children. I expect better." My mom always made it very clear that simply because "someone else" did something, didn't mean she was ok with it.

"No one can MAKE you feel that way." and "No one can MAKE you do anything."

**"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." This was for the many times I'd forget something and make outrageous demands of my mother. My mother let me fail as many times as I would allow myself to in order to teach me that someday I'd have to take care of my own stuff. I still fail at this in some ways, but I'm infinitely better off than I was. And, often, my mother, after telling me this, would meet my outrageous demands.

Warnings

"If you do drugs, I will Kill you." You know those commercials that come on TV that say, "talk to your kids about drugs?" This was our conversation. I've been clean for 8,555 days and counting.

"Do that again and I will break you into so many millions of tiny pieces, they'll need a vacuum cleaner and a magnifying glass to find all of you." But always said with love.

"I'm going to hug you until you hug me back." When I got angry, sometimes this is how she'd calm me down.

*"You're only hurting yourself." This would happen anytime my parents would let me get out of timeout, or back away from whatever threats they imposed, and I would, out of spite, hang on to it. When I wouldn't come to dinner, or when I'd stay angry, or when I wouldn't do things that benefited me because I was being stubborn, this was the truth I got from my mom.

"Soap." We didn't say a lot of bad words around my mom.

"You will always be in less trouble if you tell the truth. Lying will make it worse, every time."

"If you act like you're six, I'll treat you like you're six." This ties in with many other things my mom said, but ultimately, it came down to the difference between rights and privileges. Few things are rights. Many are privileges.

"You're still not to old to be spanked." I think I am now, but apparenlty I wasn't as a teenager.

Gems

"Sometimes all you can do is be there to pick up the pieces." this was told to me in relationship to a conversation I had with my mom about a friend who was making really stupid choices and had ceased listening to me as a friend. It's been a good reminder at times to wait until people are ready to listen to talk, and a helpful reminder to me that I can't stop people hell bent on being stupid from being stupid. I can make it clear that I care, and I don't approve, but that's as far as it goes sometimes. Then you just have to be there to pick up the pieces.

"Your life would have been very different if I had died. I just can't believe either of your grandmothers would ever have thrown gummy bears at your head."

"I'm the Mom. I know everything." This was true for many reasons, but not the least of which is that she'd never dodge a question. If I asked my mom anything, she'd tell me "I don't know" or what she really felt. She didn't hide anything from us unless she had to.

"When other people would ask me if I miss you terribly, I would tell them, no, of course not. I'd much rather have him there then here right now." This is how my mom would respond when people would ask if she wished I was home when I was and LDS missionary for two years and didn't call home but 4 times.

"I can be your friend, or I can be your mother, but if you make me choose, I'm going to be your mother."

*"I want you to imagine this scenario. Imagine that everyone in the world could put their problems into a box. Those problems could be anything from not having friends, to papercuts, to cancer to a bad day. It could be any number of things big or small. Now, if everyone got together with their boxes, and we all walked around and looked in everyone else's box, we'd see things that vary far from our own. I think, at the end of the day, we'd come back to our own box, and be grateful for our own problems."

My mother is great, and she's great because what she wants most is to be a great mom. She does many things, but to her, she's happiest when we're happy and successful. I hope everyone has, or some day gets to be, a parent like that.

*Posts not in the original
**Post from the most recent update
***Most recent update: May 10, 2013