Happy Birthday to Me!

Ok, so it's not my birthday. But it is my blog's birthday. So I felt I should do something special for today. But I couldn't think of anything, so instead you get a report of my last few days, which have been incredible.

I saw the Corpsebride on Friday night with Wiggle, Pinetree, Blushorts, and a bunch of librarians and a roommate and a few random friends. I thought the movie was amusing, but it had a huge dearth of actual conflict. The threatened death of several characters didn't phase me at all, since half the ensemble was already dead, and nobody seemed to mind. Death was made completely moot. I also found it difficult to care which girl the protagonist ended up with, since he himself seemed pretty apathetic about it throughout the movie. There wasn't enough motivation given for his decision when he learns about the impending wedding of his betrothed. The piano music was haunting and beautiful, the puns and gags were enjoyable, but the conflict and suspense were as flat as yesterday's Pepsi. Even if we hadn't been able to predict what was going to happen in the end, we wouldn't have cared, since none of the characters seemed to.

Afterwards we picked up Asmond and Rock Flower and played Cranium. My team won, though I blew two turns just by making stupid mistakes.

Friday evening I went to watch "Into the Woods" on video and have dessert with Jessica and Kip, the people with whom I went to "Wicked." The desserts were excellent, and I love the play, but I had to leave early to go watch Stealth with Hero. Which was fun. We got there a bit late, but as Hero said, "I can't believe we got front-row seats!" The movie didn't suck even half as much as I expected. The plot was inane, but more politically conscious than I had expected, and characters actually ended up in interesting predicaments. The dialogue wasn't your standard pre-packaged blockbuster fare, which helped a lot. The main problem was that for most of the movie, there was no villain. The hero finds a ridiculous way to brainwash the evil plane and somehow turn it good. By splashing water on it. No joke. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, Bawb points out. They spend the rest of the movie just cleaning up the mess that was made. I guess you could count North Korea as the antagonist after that. In the end, the sentient plane pulls a Jesus and sacrifices himself to save the main characters. We are meant to feel bad for it, I think. After the movie, Hero and I went back to his place and ate banana pudding and talked about girls. I almost wonder if he wanted to hang out just so he'd get another mention in my blog. He wanted a nickname on here, so I went back and edited the previous references to him. Anyway, Hero's one of my favorite people. We understand each other, I think. As I've told him, I have a rule about arrogant people, and it's only OK to be as arrogant as he is if you're as cool as he is to back it up.

We tried to track down Chris and the Los Hermanos crew at Vermillion Skies, but there were only a bunch of people that made Hero nervous because they were all wearing Vans, and they made me nervous bcause they were all dancing. Ran into a vampire-like kid I know from Fairfield, and asked abouit his wife, but it turns out he had not gotten married after all. Whoops. I ALWAYS do that.

Yesterday was the best day I've had in a long, long time. I awoke early and got all ready for church. It was fast-and-testimony meeting, and it seemed that half the ward got up right at the beginning of the meting to bear its testimony. I was among them. In the end, the bishop allowed everyone who had gone up to the front to get up and speak. It was really a good meeting. It also had the unintended result that people seemed to instantly be my friend after that. People were just clapping me on the back as they passed me in the hall, or saying hi to me and addressing me by name. It made me happy. I also got sustained as a member of the activities committee, which is going to be awesome. We had a meeting after church, and the rest of the members of the committee are hilarious and good to work with. They told us that our main goal as members of the committee is to be best friends with the ward, and be aware of people and what they're doing. I think that sounds like the perfect calling for me, since I love meeting people.

My home teaching companion and I went and did our home teaching after that. We have the same name. We home teach two girls and my companion's best friend, who lives downstairs from him. They are all really great and amusing, and we had nice spiritual experiences with all of them.

Then it was off to ward "break-the-fast," which I think is a Utah invention and an excuse to have a potluck once a month. While there, I worked hard on memorizing people's names. After that I took a brief nap and then went to practice for "Joseph Smith the Prophet."

You guys, this music is amazing. It goes through Joseph Smith's life, which is great because of this being the year of his two-hundredth birthday and general conference coming up this weekend. Our performances are this Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m., and I can think of no better way to get oneself prepared for Conference than by attending this concert. We have a 160-person choir and a 40-piece orchestra. The soloists are astounding. This is the best music I've ever been affiliated with. I hope everyone who can come, will. Tickets are $5.50 and will be available at the door. It's at the Abravenel Hall in Salt Lake city, right across from Temple Square.

I was offered a ride home by a married guy in our group. He joined our group only last Wednesday, and he sat next to me then. Last night he sat next to other people. On the way home last night he told me that he wanted to sit next to me from now on, since I have such a strong voice and read the music so well. That was a really nice compliment, since I had been thinking I was just good enough to have made the choir. I am in charge of the carpool to get us all up to SLC, and it was a good thing I was organized with that information, because I kept getting complimented. Seriously, I got so many compliments yesterday my enormous head kept knocking my pillow off the bed last night. Really.

So I went to Ward Prayer, and it was really cool. We ended up teaching the elderly bishopric members and their wives about the game Seven Minutes in Heaven during a raucous discussion. After that I went to the Alamo, which is the house near mine where my hometeachee and my companion live. We had a huge group of various members of the ward, all of who'm I'd met earlier during the day. We played a game called "Buzzword." My team won, and they declared that next time it was Smurf versus everyone else. I've said it before, but if I have one super power it's mad wicked board game skills. This one was almost as ridiculous as Mad Gab. Afterward my namesake companion gave us all ice cream and we told stories. Then I came home, and talked online to Merry, my old mission companion who's now fighting in Iraq, and to Topsie, and found out that things are moving forward with Jonathan, "according to plan." Then it was midnight, so Wiggle and Bekachu and I went to Beto's and got big honking nasty burritos and ate them. Then I went to bed.

Autumn rolls on, and I am feeling more and more blissfully, sanguinely happy. Happiness is in my blood, like hemoglobins. I start my job at the library tomorrow. I'm a page. I imagine that means I'll be following around a knight and handing him his sword or his lance, depending on which is right for the conflict at that moment.

Anyway, once again I ask you to pardon my effusiveness, but things are just so great for me lately.

Finally, in honor of my blog's birthday, I've added a new subtitle to my blog: "The Brainy Poet Corner." Brainy and Poet are two of the smurfs who make contributions here on my blog, and the whole subtitle is an anagram for my full name. As is "Horny-brain erect poet," but I pretty much hate that.