Fake Dates and Faux Pas

Waterloo

2010-07-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

June 18, 1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeated at Waterloo
June 18, 2010 - Schmetterling got married

Whereas I got married on the 195th anniversary of Waterloo, I feel that a little ABBA is in order, don't you?

Thus dies this blog:

My foray into identity theft

2010-04-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I opened FireFox on a library computer. Inexplicably, FaceBook came up as the homepage, and I found myself logged into somebody else's account. So I changed his status to "occasionally neglects to log out of his account on public computers" and logged him out. I wonder if anything ever came of that.

Why I'm thankful for wisdom teeth...

2009-09-10T17:03:00.001-07:00

(...or the long overdue continuation of Faux Fiancee)

I had to get my wisdom teeth extracted this past summer, and I decided to go home to California so my mom could mother me while I convalesced. It's an eight-hour drive for me to get home, and it's pretty much all desert, so there isn't much to keep a guy's mind busy. Also, my car's CD player doesn't work, so all I had was the radio, and, because Michael Jackson had died the night before, every radio station I came across was playing either Thriller or Billie Jean, it seemed. Come on, people--he's the King of Pop and you can only come up with two songs?

Anyway, somewhere in Nevada, I decided I would give Katie a call--just to see how talking on the phone would work for us. (I hate talking on the phone, so I was a little apprehensive that the awesome week we had just shared would get swallowed up in a summer of infrequent and awkward telephone conversations.) I called her up and we talked for, I dunno, maybe half an hour, and the conversation didn't flow throughout that time but rather came in spurts. I crossed the California border and told her I had to go because I was supposed to call my parents and tell them when I made it that far (this was close enough to the truth: they told me to call periodically and report my progress), so the conversation ended and left me feeling far from confident about the coming weeks.

My parents' house is situated such that cell phone reception is totally unreliable most anywhere on their property. Because of this, the next bits of communication between me and Katie came in the form of a couple of voicemail messages that she left on my phone. But I went for a walk each evening while I was home so we could talk in real time, and our conversations' lengths grew exponentially--half an hour, one hour, two hours (does doubling count as exponential? I'm really bad at math...)--and it wasn't long until our conversations were back to being long and easy. After I got my teeth extracted, I didn't go for walks much, but I started calling her using my parents' landline, and life continued charmingly.

One day, my Dad suggested to me that, since Katie and I were in the same state, I may as well swing by and visit her on my way back to Provo. This was a ridiculous suggestion because that involved adding roughly 7 hours of drive time to my journey. Strangely enough, though, Katie made the same suggestion later that day in semi-jest, and I tentatively agreed to it--not jesting at all but a little worried about the cost of gas. Then--a miracle. My sister who lives in Sacramento but was down visiting my parents for Independence Day (ironic, no?) told me that she really didn't wanna ride the train back and asked me if I'd be willing to give her a ride if she paid for my gas. I have no idea whether she was put up to it by our dad or came up with the idea herself or just honestly didn't want to ride the train, but I took this as a godsend and readily agreed. I called Katie and worked out the details, and it was decided that, on the next Tuesday, I would drive my sister up to Sacramento, go to Katie's place to hang out with her and meet her family, stay the night, and leave the next morning--probably as quickly as possible because we were both certain that this was probably going to be the most social encounter imaginable, what with the whole, "Hey, Mom and Dad, this is the guy I proposed to--blindly--after a comedy show--and now he wants to stay the night and--and--he'll leave first thing in the morning, I promise!" Nevertheless, when faced with the chance to embark upon a brave new world of social faux pas, this little butterfly never backs down--never, I say!--so we went ahead with the plan.

And what happened next is almost as unbelievable as the story of how we met. (Is that poor narrative style? I think it probably is, but I can't help myself sometimes: I just love dramatic suspense--or whatever this is....)

I got to Katie's parents' house around 5pm on Tuesday evening. I walked in and introduced myself to everyone, and then, as I had feared, we stood there just staring at each other, suffused is a palpable haze of awkwardness.

Well, now what?

We were all wondering that, I'm sure, but only one person--the hero of this chapter, perhaps--actually had any idea: Katie's seven-year-old sister Christina. She grabbed my hand and said, "Let me give you a tour of the house!" and dashed the ice to pieces as she dragged me up the stairs. After that, I was very much a part of the family, somehow--so much so that I did not, in fact, leave the next morning, or the morning after that, or even the morning after that. I didn't leave until the mid-morning of Saturday, and then I had to honestly tear myself away because I really didn't want to go. It was fantastic.

The 10-hour drive back to Provo was punctuated with calls to and from Katie. Once I called, and for a good, solid minute before she said hello, all I could hear was her and her family laughing hysterically. I had no idea what to make of it. Turns out they were playing a trivia game, and it was Katie's turn, and she didn't know the answer, and she asked if she could have a lifeline and call me; her mom said, "No, you can't call him. But if he calls in the next five seconds, you can ask him for help"--and I did!

And so I went to Provo, feeling wonderful because of the solidity I had given my friendship with Katie, but feeling more than a little sad that it was now time to settle into its summer hiatus--or at least its summer relegation to phone calls and email.

The morning after I got back to Provo, I got up and went to Church and there met up with a friend that I had not seen in more than a month. He asked me how my life had been in the interim, and I gave him a big, "Well let me tell ya!" and caught him up to speed with the inexplicable awesomeness that was my relationship with Katie. He ate it up, grinning from ear to ear (therefore, I suppose, metaphysically chewing with his mouth open), and then he said something truly amazing: "That's awesome! Hey, I'm roadtripping out to Sacramento with some friends in three weeks; if you want to come, we'd love to have you."

As soon as Church was out, I called Katie to tell her the news and to ask for permission to return. Unfortunately, I got her voicemail, but, being totally unable to hold in my joy, I left my news on her phone. Hours of pacing and wringing my hands passed, and then she called with an answer. I excitedly answered the phone and was greeted, not just by Katie, but by her entire family on speakerphone saying, "Kyle! Come back!"

Faux Fiancee

2009-07-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

So. I joined HumorU, and I performed my first show a couple of weekends ago. Video of my set can be found here. After every show, HumorU has a stack of note cards that people can write a review on to let us know what they thought of the show. Saturday night (which is where that video clip comes from), we got a note card that was so crazy, you'll have to see it to believe it. You can see a scanned copy of it here. You'll have to read that if you want any of the rest of this story to make sense.

Okay. So that's the background; here's the story:

I called her up--mostly to see if this was for real. I figured that either she was joking or this was some trick that someone had played on a roommate thinking, "Haha. This'll be funny. Now Katie will get a really awkward phone call!" But I just couldn't pass up an opportunity like this, so I called the number on the card. I got her voicemail, and it said, "This is Katie's phone. Leave a message and I'll call you back," so I thought, "Well, this phone belongs to Katie. May as well leave a message." So I left a message saying something this:

Hello! I got this card recently, and it says it's from you. I don't know if you wrote it. This is Kyle Jepson from HumorU, and I did a show last night and, afterward, someone left me note that said, "[read note]." So I'm calling because I think it's funny. Call me back if you wanna: my phone number is [phone number]. Bye.

That was on a Sunday afternoon. A couple of hours later, she called me back, and I answered, "Well hey there!"

"Hey, is this Kyle?"

"Yes it is."

"Hi. This is Katie."

"Well hello."

"Hi. Um. Yeah. I wrote that note."

"Really?? Wow. I'm--I'm flattered. And I have a lot of respect for you because you are bold."

"Yeah," she conceded, "it's a blessing and a curse."

The conversation quickly dried up into an awkward pause.

"So," I said. "What happens now?"

"I threw myself out there," she said "so now it's your turn!"

"Oh! I! Well! Um...."

So we set up a time to meet up on campus at JambaJuice. We were both taking summer classes, and this happened right at the beginning of the last week before finals, so I knew I was going to be swamped with Latin. (I got an A in that class, but the way. I'm so proud of me right now!) So this was a Sunday and we set a date for a Thursday afternoon--almost two weeks away.

Meanwhile, there's a guy in HumorU named Pete, and his little sister (18-years-old) came to the show and thought I was cute and asked Pete to set us up on a date, so the Saturday after I talked to Katie on the phone, I went on a blind date with Erika. Erika was nice, but she's a freshman at BYU-Idaho, so we really didn't have much in common. We had a nice time together, but I don't have any intention of seeing her again.

This had me feeling a little more worried about meeting up with Katie, but I was resolved to go through with it.

Katie and I were going to go out on Thursday, so I called her Wednesday night to solidify plans, and we decided to meet up at JambaJuice at noon.

I got to JambaJuice about ten minutes early and just sat and waited. When I got there, the place was pretty well empty, but then people started pouring in, and about a million girls walked by me in the next 15 minutes. I was going out of my mind! Every time someone walked by, I'd sit up and smile, but the only person who walked up to me was a guy who thought I was there to sell him a chemistry book.

I learned a lot about myself as I sat there waiting. I have always claimed to be affected very little by physical appearances, but it turns out that this is not true: I am a fairly typical guy. As girls walked by, "Oh, please, no!" and "I'd take that" were constant thoughts, and I felt equally guilty about both. Katie showed up about 5 minutes after noon, and I was so relieved at her appearance that I hopped up and hugged her as soon as she said my name--which really isn't my style. I bought her a drink, and we sat and talked for about four hours.

Four hours!

That was Thursday. Friday, nothing happened. Saturday night, I was hanging out with some friends, and Katie texted me, and we had a texted conversation that lasted a really long time--certainly the longest texted conversation I've ever had (not that I do a whole lot of texting; still, it lasted a couple hours, I think). Sunday, I called her up to say hello (she had taught a mission prep class that day, and I wanted to know how it went), and she invited me over to her place, so I went. While we were there, she got a call from a guy in her ward who was cooking stir fry, so we went over and hung out there for a little while. Then I had to leave for a presidency meeting. We idly talked about meeting up later that evening, but it never happened.

Monday after FHE, I was going to watch the 1960 version of The Time Machine with my roommates. Katie texted me to ask what I was doing, and I invited her to come over to meet my roommates and watch an old movie, so she did. We watched the movie, and then the five of us (me and Katie and my roommates) sat and talked until midnight hit, and then she had to leave because of the university's honor code's curfew, so I walked her home. When we got to her place, we stood outside the door and talked for a while, and then we ended up sitting and talking for a while, and we sat and talked until sunrise, and I finally went home a little after 8am.

We had hung out for 10 solid hours!

I went home and crashed into bed, slept for about three hours, and then got up and went to work. After work, I texted her to ask her if she was home, and she was, so I went over to her place at about 6pm and we hung out for a little while. I had a ward bonfire at 8:30, and she came with me to it. We hung out there until the party wound down and then at my place until midnight hit and then we went back and sat on her porched until 3am!

So, Monday night, we hung out for 10 solid hours; Tuesday night, 8 solid hours. Of the 24 hours that made up Tuesday, I spent 13 hanging out with Katie.

This has never happened to me before, readers. You know me; you've read my blog: I go on one or two dates with a girl, and then something ridiculous happens that makes it fall apart. That's why I have more blogs than girlfriends.

Wednesday is my busy day because I'm a part of two clubs that both meet Wednesday night, but I managed to hang out with her for an hour or two in between work and club meetings.

Thursday was my last day in Provo (I went home to celebrate the 4th of July by getting my wisdom teeth extracted), so I wanted to make it awesome. I went to work that morning and by 3pm I was done with everything I had to do before leaving town, so I texted Katie and we got together a little after 4:00. The on-campus art museum has a really cool exhibit right now of Walter Wick (the guy who writes the I Spy books), so we went to that together. We spent a couple of hours looking at the pictures and searching for the hidden things. It was fantastic. Those couple hours were really a turning point for me. Up to that point, everything had just been happening so fast that my head was spinning and all I could think was, "Is this really happening to me? To me? Kyle Jepson? This is happening to Kyle Jepson, and I'm Kyle Jepson??" But as we wandered around that exhibit, I realized that what was happening, crazy though it may be, was pretty stinking cool. Here, for the first time in my life, was a girl I really liked who wasn't avoiding me and wasn't merely tolerating me but genuinely seemed to enjoy my company, and it happened without any effort on my part. I call it a miracle.

Downside: she's from Sacramento and she was heading home for the rest of the summer on Saturday morning. So we had a rip-whirlin' good week, but now we're separated by hundreds of miles.

GLOOM

So we spent a couple of hours at that exhibit, and then I had to go home teaching and we were separated from about 8:15 till about 9:45, but then we met back up and we went with my roommies to Brick Oven Pizza, after which we dropped my roommates and car off at my apartment, and I walked her home.

As we were walking, I got this a text from one roommate that said something like, "If you don't give her at least a quick kiss on the lips or the cheek you will disappoint her and me."

Thanks, man....

I showed her the text, and we both laughed.

We got to her place and sat and talked till about 2am, at which point she said that I should probably get some sleep before my long drive home. Then we both stared at the ground and pondered our impending separation in silence for a while.

"Well," I said. "Let's start with standing up."

"It's cold," she said, taking off the blanket she was wrapped in.

"That's okay," I said. "I'm going to hug you for a really long time."

"Oh," she said. "That isn't forward at all...."

We hugged. For a really long time. Not a really long time, but it was the longest hug I'd ever given up to that point. After it ended, we just stood and looked at each other and said how sad it was that we were leaving, which launched us back into conversation, and we stood and talked for another 5 or 10 minutes before I said that I should probably go.

More sad staring at the ground.

"Okay," I said. "I wanna hug you again."

And then I actually did hug her for a really long time.

"I'm going to miss these nights," I said as we hugged.

"I'm going to miss you!" she said.

"I'm glad about that," I said. "It wouldn't be fair if I missed you a lot and you didn't miss me at all."

"You were supposed to be a jerk," she said. "It was just supposed to be a funny story that ended with, '...but then he turned out to be a jerk, so I never tried that again. The end.'"

The conversation continued, then fizzled, and then the hug ended, and I started slowly, sadly backing away.

"When are you getting your teeth pulled?" she asked.

"Not till Tuesday," I said.

"See?" she said. "You could stay another day!"

"Yeah," I said. "I know. But--" and then I trailed off. If I had been thinking, I would've said something like, "The more time we spend together, the more I'll miss you when you're gone," but I was too sad to be witty.

The awkward good-bye lasted a few more seconds, and then I walked down the stairs and into the pouring rain. I didn't cry, but I made a point of telling Heavenly Father how unfair this all seemed.

THE END

(Not really: look for a continuation soon)

My Proudest Moment

2009-06-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

I would say, "Is it any wonder the ladies are flocking to me?" except that I spent the majority of this set making fun of dating....

I know I'm sexy, but dang!

2009-06-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

So, I performed in my first stand-up comedy show this past weekend (video to come soon, with any luck). How well did it go you ask? This well:

Yes, I called her.
No, this is not some prank that was pulled on her.
Yes, we're going on a date.

Exciting stories to follow, no doubt.

beeBOO BEEP

2009-03-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

I really suck at living in the cellular age: I never, ever have my phone on. To keep people from getting angry at me, then, I have resorted to making clever voicemail answerings. Today I made a new one and realized that I should probably preserve these someplace to show off my awesomeness and then complain when people plagiarize. So here you have my collected cell phone voicemail answerings of 2009, starting with my current one, and going back to the one that was on my phone when the year started:

(Piano Man)
Leave a message you're on Kyle's phone
Leave a message for free
And I'll call you back when I am all alone
And need someone to talk to me

(Downtown)
When you try to call Kyle
You are faced with denial
'cuz you just get his
Voicemail
And he doesn't have minutes
So who knows when he'll get it
and respond to this
Voicemail

(Over the Rainbow)
Somewhere in Provo Utah
A man lives
Who's good at checking voicemail--
Sadly this is not his.

(Gilligan's Isle)
Just sit right back and you'll hear a sound
The sound of a little tone
Then you can leave a message which will then be stored
On Kyle Jepson's phone
On Kyle Jepson's phone

(Beverly Hillbillies)
Well, you have reached the voicemail of a man named Kyle
Who likes to make it answer in a musical style
So you can do some singing at the sound of the beep
Because that is your queue from me to leave a short and sweet
[spoken:] Message, that is.

("O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana)
It's Kyle's phone!
Leave a message!
And I will call you someday!

(We wish you a merry christmas)
I wish you would leave a message
I wish you would leave a message
I wish you would leave a message
And I'll call you right back

The lives of others

2009-03-14T12:03:00.001-07:00

I spend 10 hours a week in the library, scanning stuff for the professor who employs me. It doesn't take a whole lot of concentration, so I have to find ways of amusing myself when the things I'm scanning aren't sufficiently interesting.

And that's how I developed one of my new favorite pastimes: eaves dropping on the conversations around me. I have learned that any conversation is funny when taken out of context. Here are the ones I've liked well enough to jot down:

Guy: Wait, you were laughing at a funeral?
Girl: The lady sitting next to me was crying and snorting! It was so funny; I couldn't help it! She was like [SNORT]--[hahaha]--she was like [SNORT]--it was so funny!

Girl1: So he has, like, a thousand pairs of shoes.
Girl2: That'd be pretty cool: "Hm. Today I feel like wearing blue shoes."
Girl3: Yeah. But I just can't imagine spending that much money on spray paint.

Girl1: Some people, like, spit in my face.
Girl2: Really?
Girl1: Yeah.
Girl2: Because of him?
Girl1: Yeah. I just wanted to shout, "I'm not George Bush! I'm not George Bush!"

Girl to guy: Well, first of all, you have to be bored and good looking, so we could totally choose you!

British-sounding girl on cell phone: No, no, no: I'm even more allergic to Band-aids now than I used to be!

One guy to another: She said she did wanna date a punk rocker--but I'm like the pambiest punk rocker ever! I'm really just a wannabe....

But my all-time favorite is this one:

One guy to another: Oh, but dude, make sure you don't get too overzealous your first time 'cuz this one girl did, and she ended up throwing up all over the place--just way too much ice cream.

Takes one to know one

2009-02-24T18:06:00.000-08:00

When I named this blog Fake Dates and Faux Pas, I had a particular faux pas in mind--the grand poo bah of all faux pas--and I've toyed with recounting it here but kept chickening out because it doesn't paint me in a very flattering light. But the time has come to let the truth be known because, right now, the truth strikes me as really pretty funny--which may mean that I am, in fact, sick in the head.

So let's examine some history, shall we?

(NOTE: I don't think I've done any 'nym-ing in this blog in the past, but in this post I'm changing all the names except for mine because I'm not really looking to make any enemies just now. I'm only a part-time jerk, and today's a day off for me.)

I could back the clock waaaaay back and give you all kinds of details, but they're mostly irrelevant, so I'll just bullet-point the necessary backstory:

I was diggin' on a girl in my last ward (we'll call her Sally)
She went home for the summer, and we had a delightful email correspondence
In said correspondence, we made a lot of fun plans for the fall
She returned to Provo a few weeks earlier than planned
I assumed this meant we could carry out said plans
Within 4 or 5 days of returning to Provo, she had a boyfriend

To be honest, it was quite a blow to my ego that she hooked up with somebody before I got a chance to give her more than a quick greeting in passing--and it certainly didn't help that I found out about him from her roommates instead of her (we were still emailing fairly regularly--how did it not come up?). Nevertheless, I still hoped that we could carry out the fun plans we made (which mostly entailed hiking various mountains), and I figured that this required me to befriend her new beau because the chances of me being able to get her to go hiking with me (a boy) sans boyfriend were pretty much nil. I didn't imagine this would be a problem, though, because I figured any guy Sally would date would be the nice, laid-back, fun-loving sort because that's the way she was.

No such luck. I met said boyfriend at Sally's roommate's birthday party the Sunday after Sally's return to Provo, and it did not go well--at all.

It had been a kind of wild evening for me already. I had just met my new hometeaching companion (we'll call Mark), and he and I hit it off and sat talking boisterously for--I dunno--and hour or two before we headed to the party. I was all kinds of riled up--so much so that, had I taken a brief moment to pause and think, I would have said to myself, "Okay, little Jepson, we probably oughtta just go into the bedroom and talk to the walls--no social ventures tonight, my friend--not when we're in a mood like this," but I wasn't in the sort of mood to pause or think, so all I could think was, "Party? Party? Why, yes, I do feel like a party, actually," and so we went.

I had lived in the complex about a year at this point, so I had a pretty good grasp on the people who lived there--especially during the summer because there weren't a whole lot of us--so when I walked into the party and surveyed the scene, I immediately picked up on the unfamiliar face that was quietly sitting, brooding in a corner away from the action.

"Hey New Guy!" I said, walking over, a look of indomitable gregariousness most certainly plastered on my face. I took a seat on the side table next to him, knocking over a picture and a box of Kleenex. "My names Kyle; who are you?"

"Nathan," he said.

"Nice to meet you, Nathan. Are you new in the ward?"

"I'm not in the ward."

"Ah, just here for the party, then--I can respect that for sure! Where you from?"

"It's complicated."

"Complicated? How can it be complicated--did you move a lot?"

"Not really."

"So how is it complicated?"

"I dunno. Where do you want me to start?"

"I dunno," I said. "How about the beginning--the very beginning--where were you conceived?"

See? Sometimes I just shouldn't be out among the people....

He didn't find this joke remotely funny--actually, I think it kind of offended him.

"Don't remember, huh?" I asked. "That's okay. I don't remember my conception, either--probably better that way, don't you think?"

This, as it turns out, wasn't funny, either. We weren't exactly hitting it off.

"Kay, so," I pressed on, still annoyingly enthusiastic, "where were you born."

"Utah," he said.

"Really?" I said. "Me too! I was born in Logan, but my parents were living in Idaho at the time--don't remember anything about it because we moved to California a year after I was born and lived there ever since. How 'bout you?"

"I grew up in Utah for a while," he said, "then I moved to California."

"Well that doesn't sound too complicated," I said. "Why'd you move? Dad get a job or something? That's why my family moved--kinda."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't want to talk about it?" I asked. "Was it a bad experience for you? I admit some people don't like California, but really how bad could it be?"

"It was a court order," he said. "I don't want to talk about it."

A court order? A court order?? Oh dear, who am I messing with here?

Change the subject, Jepson--quick!

"How do you know [girl whose birthday was being celebrated]?"

"I don't."

"Don't know [girl], don't live in the ward--just a party hopper, then?"

"I here with Ms. Peterson."

'fraida that....

So this is Sally's boyfriend. This, then, is the man I was hoping to befriend. Totally the nice, laid-back, fun-loving sort--totally the kind of person I wanna spend my weekends hiking mountains with. Conversational types are the best on long hikes 'cuz there isn't much to do but talk.

A real winner.

Attempt one was not going well. Time to back off and try again later.

"Oh," I said, "so you're the new boyfriend. Well congratulations! Anyway, I'ma gonna go get some cake now. I love cake--'s the reason I come to parties, really. You want me to grab you a piece?"

"No."

Come to the party of a girl you don't know and you don't even like cake? Tough life you're livin' there, buddy.

"Okay. Well. Nice to meet you, Nathan," I lied and went to get some cake and mingle with actual nice, laid-back, fun-loving people.

One of my roommates came to the party a little later and struck up a conversation with Nathan. This particular roommate has some unbelievable people skills--the sort of guy who people enjoy showing their puppies to regardless of whether he pets or kicks them--so it appeared to me, from my distant vantage point, that he was able to do quite a bit better than I did.

When the conversation ended, my roommate talked to me about it.

"Have you met Sally's boyfriend?" he asked.

"I tried," I said. "I tried to strike up a friendly conversation, but he didn't want any part of it."

"Yeah," my roommate said. "I chatted with him from a while but--I dunno--I get bad vibes from that guy. Something's not quite on the level."

"He told me he got moved to California by court order," I said. "He could have some sort of traumatic (or violent) past."

"Yeah," my roommie said. "Not a guy I'd wanna mess with."

This too should have sent up some red flags in my mind. I mean, not that this roommate is a professional bare-knuckle boxer or anything, but still....

The event of the night aren't especially clear to me (it has been, like, eight months now), and I don't remember what brought it up. But something was said or done that caused me to say to Nathan, "Oh. Well, I hope that doesn't put a damper on our new relationship," at which point he stared me in the face and said, "We don't have a relationship."

That was the breaking point for me. That was the point when I wanted to stand up and say, "Chill out, man: I'm trying to be your friend, so why don't you just sit yourself down, slap an inane smile on your face, and graciously accept my soulless platitudes so I can butter you up and get at your girl."

See? Takes one to know one. We're jerks of slightly different flavors, but we're jerks just the same.

It was shortly after that--while I was eating, I believe, my second piece of cake--that I got the idea for what I wanted to do. I was sitting next to Nathan on a couch, and he was doing his best to ignore me, and I decided that, no matter what he did to ignore me, I'd make sure he'd never forget the day we me.

The party wound down. Most folks left. It was just the girl whose party it was, some of her roommates (one had gone to bed already), Nathan, my roommie, my hometeaching companion, and me. Sally and her awake non-birthday roommate (we'll call Jane) were on a small couch; Nathan, my roommate, and I were on a longer couch arrange perpendicularly to the other; my hometeaching companion was talking to the birthday girl over by the cake--so they weren't really a part of the social casualty that followed.

"Well," my roommate was saying, "it's been fun, but we probably oughtta get goin'."

"Yeah," I said. "Sally, welcome back, it's good to see you again; Jane, always good to see you. Nathan"--here I grabbed his head and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek--"a pleasure to meet you," and I jumped up and fairly jigged out of the room, taking in a glance Nathan's discomfort, Jane's surprise, and Sally's utter horror. My roommate, who was halfway between standing and sitting, slowly sat back down and facepalmed.

I walked triumphantly back to my apartment. Nobody ignores me--no sir! Deny me friendship, I'll compromise your manhood. Don't mess with me, man--I'm a loaded gun!

Back in my apartment, dizzy with insanity, I leaned against the counter and drank a glass of water. Another roommate walked in and, upon seeing what must have been a disconcertingly crazed look on my face, said, "Kyle--what'd you do?"

"I just kissed a man," I said, I took another sip.

A while later, my other roommate returned from the party completely chagrined.

"I don't know what you were trying to accomplish there, man," he said. "I told you I got a bad feeling from that guy."

He told me that he had just spent the last several minutes running interference for me--smoothing things over so I didn't get lynched. Later, Jane came over and told me that Sally was extremely unhappy with me: "I don't know that you're an enemy," she said, "but I'm pretty sure you aren't a friend any more."

The drama that ensued from that fantastic faux pas of mine is a tale unto itself, and this post is plenty long, so I won't address it here. Maybe some other time--if popular demand demands. What I'm driving at, though, is this:

I'm a jerk.

Shotgun fake date

2009-02-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

So, I said my first fake date was my outing with Ice Cream Jenny, but I've been flipping through old journals, and I recant: my first fake date happened a few months before I moved to Provo.

Here is my record of 22 April 2007:

---

Okay... That was... odd....

Today, Br. and Sis. Bennett (who live just a couple houses away from Jepson HQ) spoke in Church. For whatever reason, Sis. Bennett mentioned that she has a newly returned sister-missionary granddaughter visiting her this weekend. This naturally caught my attention, but I didn't think too much of it.

Sister Quiroz, bless her heart, interrupted the Sunday school class I was teaching to repeat the information to me and tell me to "get on it."

(It's probably okay she interrupted my class: I was tired and hyper and... well, I just wasn't as dignified as I probably ought to have been.)

I thought about at least introducing myself to this dear interloper, but I didn't get the chance before we left Church.

Oh, well, I thought; There's a fireside this evening; if the Bennetts come, I'll introduce myself.

Nice thought....

Mom was making dinner. I was hungry and it smelled good. Then she told me that I should ask the Bennetts' granddaughter to go to the fireside with me; I said that I thought it'd be a little strange since I'd never met her. Mom said I should ask her anyway; I said I wouldn't. Mom handed me the phone and told me the Bennetts' phone number; I put the phone away. Mom said if I didn't call, I couldn't have dinner.

I called.

Br. Bennett answered. He turned me over to Sister Bennett. She said that this was their last evening together, so they wouldn't be going out. Then she said, "If Amy wants to go, I'll have her call you."

I returned and reported to Mom.

A few minutes later, the phone rang, caller ID: Bennett, John.

I answered:

"Hello?"

"Hi, is Kyle there?"

"This is Kyle."

"Oh. Hi, Kyle--this is Amy."

"Hi."

"Uh. I was just calling to say, "Sure. I'd like to go.'"

"Oh," I said, "yeah. Cool. I figured, ya know, we returned missionaries like Church History stuff. It starts at 7, so I guess I'll pick you up around--" (I looked to Mom for guidance, and she said, "20 till.")--"twenty minutes before that. Sound good?"

"Yeah."

"Alright," I said. "I'll see you then."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

Fast forward about 3 hours to 6:40.

I drove over to the Bennetts'--something I've never done before because it's easier to walk there--and rang the bell. I had no idea who this girl was: I'd never seen her, never talked to her aside from our 15-second phone call.... All I knew was that she served in Russia for a while, took a tumble on the ice bad enough to get sent home, then finished her mission in New York.

Amy answered the door and invited me in while she went to grab her scriptures.

"I don't think I've ever driven down your driveway before," I said to Sister Bennett. "It's kinda steep."

"Yeah," she said. "You usually walk!"

Me 'n' Amy left, and a couple seconds later as we passed my house, I pointed it out:

"That's where I live," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "I know."

She then proceeded to tell me that she knows all about the Jepsons, that when her mom and grandma (Sis. Bennett) talk about Tehachapi, they always talk about Sister Jepson. She told me that she and her mom used to visit a lot when she was little, and Brandon was always in her primary class. She said she got to know Shanna a little, too ("She always said hi to me when I went to primary," she said; "made me feel special.") She said she knew I had a couple of older brothers and an older sister, too, but she never met them.

"I didn't know there was a younger brother," she said. "My grandma told me Kyle Jepson called, and I said, 'Who's Kyle? I didn't know there WAS a Kyle!' I thought Brandon was the youngest boy."

Oh. How nice.

We cahtted on the ride to the Chruch and for a little while after we got there. The fireside started just in time to rescue us from an awkward silence.

The speaker collects pictoral prints from old newspapers ("old" meaning late 1800s, early 1900s). It was supposed to be a Church history fireside, but it seemed to be an expose of various artwork--most of which portrayed the Chruch unkindly. There were some pretty good ones--including a photograph of the Salt Lake Temple with the scaffolding still on it--but the majority was anti-Mormon stuff. He treated it lightly, making a joke of it, but my mission in Idaho made me see that there is NOTHING funny about anti-Mormon literature.

Fine date your on, Kyle. Brilliant.

The drive home was pretty solemn. I somehow managed to get her to open up about her health problems, and she unloaded on me all the troubles she's been having.

"I don't really like to talk about it," she said at the end. Then she realized she had just told me all about it and said, "Oh. I guess I just told you all about it, but--"

It's nive to know I'm the kinda guy people can confide in.

She went on to explain that the worst part is all the pity she gets, all they worrying and poo-pooing people do, always fussing over her, afraid to invite her to do things because they're afraid she's not able.

She's not always able, though: she couldn't go back to BYU when she got home because of her back problems (her neck, shoulders, and back were all affected, and she's always in pain), and she can't work much, either.

Poor soul....

She's a good person, though: she's optimistic, friendly, happy....

I'm not sorry I asked her, frankly. I enjoyed it.

I hope she did, too.

----

A few months after I moved to Provo, my mom called me. She had been talking to Sister Bennett and learned that Amy was back at BYU.

"You should look her up and ask her out," my mom said: "her dad makes a lot of money; it'd be nice for you to marry into money."

That was a year ago, I'd bet; I still haven't done it.

Doubt I ever will....

This could only happen to me

2009-02-09T09:34:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I was out wandering the streets of Provo while talking on my cellphone. When my conversation ended, I headed back to my apartment. Just as I was reaching my complex, a girl I vaguely recognized as being from my ward hailed me from the other side of the street, so I walked on over.

"Hey Kyle," she said, "we were thinking--well, first, do you know who I am?"

"Um," I said. "You're in the ward. You teach Sunday school sometime. Your name is--Ashley?"

"Yeah!" she said. "Are you dating anyone?"

"Uh, no?"

"Great!" she said. "You know Esther in the ward? You know Esther--nice Esther, has your color hair, does a lot of activity stuff--how can I describe her?--she's the one who looks like what you would look like if you were a girl!"

Um. What? Okay....

"Yeah," I said. "I know her."

"Me and my roommates asked her if it'd be okay for us to set her up with a boy in the ward, and she said yes, so we were thinking about it, and we think you two'd make a great couple, so will you ask her out?"

"Sure," I said. "I've actually toyed with the idea, but I don't know what she likes doing."

A near truth: I've actually toyed with the idea, but I have stronger interests elsewhere.

"Really?" she said. "That's great! Okay. I'll call her and tell her and ask what she likes to do, and then I'll call you. Kay?"

Wait, what? You--huh?

"Okay...."

"Thanks, Kyle!" she said, turning to go into her apartment. "I'll call you soon!"

Weird.

I went into my apartment and relayed this most curious story to my roommates, who all agreed that it was very strange indeed. About 45 minutes later, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Kyle?"

"Yeah."

"This is Ashley. I just got off the phone with Esther. (I love how I'm being, like, a middle man. Isn't it adorable?) She said she knows it's lame but she's okay with doing whatever so you can just call her and ask her out and she'll be okay with whatever you think of. She seems like the fun sort of girl who's enthusiastic about whatever, so I'm sure you'll have fun. You seem like a creative dater. Are you a creative dater? Is that a good characteristic to have for you?"

"Uh, I try to be."

"I thought so. You seemed like the creative dater type. Anyway, I know she likes outdoorsy stuff like being out in nature and things, so you might wanna do something like that, but whatever you think of should be good."

"Okay."

"Balls in your court, Kyle! It's all up to you now!"

"Um. Thank you."

"No problem. Okay I'll talk to you later. I'll probably ask Esther all about it later and get a full report, but I might ask you too."

"Okay...."

"Thanks, Kyle! Talk to you later!"

I'm somehow reminded of the events leading up to that trip to the canyon....

Anyway, this story was too fantastic not to tell, so I told it to just about everyone I saw for the whole rest of the day. When ward prayer rolled around that night, my plan was to ask Esther out when I saw her, but she never showed up. However, just about everyone else wanted to know if I had asked her out yet--and not just people I had told about it: apparently Ashely was spreading the word too. A group of girls I home teach saw me leaving after ward prayer and asked me if I had asked Esther out yet; I told them I was going to go call her right now. They told me to just go over to her place, and pointed out her apartment to me, so I went straight over.

I knocked on the door and a roommate let me in, telling me that Esther was washing her face but that she'd be out in a minute. I told the roommate the story, and she found it quite ridiculous. About the time the story ended, we heard the bathroom door open, so she went to apprise Esther of my being there:

"Esther," she said, "Kyle's here to talk to you."

"Right now?" a nonplussed, flat, croaky voice said.

"I can go away if it's a bad time, Esther!" I called. "I will come pester you some other day."

The roommate peeked around the corner and whispered, "She's been a little sick today."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "Esther! I'm sorry! I'll come bother you later!"

Esther came around the corner looking tired and--I dunno--just not feeling well, but she had a pleasant sort of expression on her face--something like, "I don't really want to see anybody right now, but I'll make an exception for you."

"So, Esther, howzitgoin'?" I asked slowly.

"Well. Ya know."

"Yeah. So. Ashley talk to you?"

"Yeah," she said. "Kinda makes me feel like I'm back in middle school."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I was gonna ask you out right now, but I think I'll wait until sometime when you're feeling better."

"Thanks."

"Kay. So. I'll, like, bug you sometime next week then, probably."

"Okay. Thanks, Kyle."

"Yeah, no problem. I'll see ya later." I got up to leave. "Hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks. See ya."

"Bye."

"Um. That's MY arm" or "Hey, remember me?"

2009-02-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, one of my roommates had a date with a girl to go cross-country skiing, and he asked me to double with him. I wanted to go--really, I did!--but after being rejected by three girls, I decided I had struck out.

Rejection #1 was pretty interesting. Here's how I recorded it in my journal (25 Jan 2009):

{Open Quote}

At ward prayer tonight, I approached Anne, exchanged greetings, and said, "This Saturday, Jason and I are going cross-country skiing, and I was wondering if you'd like to come."

"This Saturday?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh," she said, looking distraught, "I don't think I can."

"Oh~" I said, the tilde being indicative of my inflection.

"And--" she said.

Here it comes, Jepson; here it comes!

"--and I'm dating someone right now," she said.

I had worried about this--not emotionally, but the thought had crossed my mind. Just the way she talked that Monday night when she was bemoaning her dating confusion, I figured there had to be a guy somewhere who was confusing her.

She apologized.

"No, that's alright," I said. "I kinda figured, and I thought this was a sure-fire way to find out."

She laughed and rubbed my arm.

"Yeah..." she said. "So, I've never been skiing before."

"Yeah, me neither," I said.

"It looks hard, though," she said. "That's a really athletic date."

"Well," I said, "it's cross-country skiing, though, so you just kind of glide on top of the snow. Jason did it yesterday and said it was really fun."

"Where do you guys go to do it?"

"I dunno," I said: "I've never been. Jason went somewhere north of here."

"Huh," she said. "Well. Sorry, but--thanks for inviting me!"

"Hey, no prob'm," I said. "And--ya know--if you find yourself single again, if I'm still single, I'll be around."

She laughed and rubbed my arm.

"That's a very nice--date in--advance," she said, grasping for words.

I smiled and shrugged.

"Well, have a good week," I said. "I'll see ya around."

She smiled and rubbed my arm--dramatic pause.

"Two weeks ago I would've said yes," she finally said, and then she left.

{Close quote}

That is without a doubt the most reluctant rejection I've ever received--but at least she gave it to me! My senior year in high school, a girl asked me out to Sadie Hawkins, like, a couple months in advance. I said yes, but she got herself a boyfriend (not me) between then and the time of the dance; when I asked her about it, she said we were still going together. When the (un)eventful night came, she and I went together and I found myself the victim of a sneaky date swap--meaning I spent the night sitting next to some girl I didn't know (my date's boyfriend's date), unable to get to know her because of the deafening music.

So. Yeah. Any rejection's better than that!

Rejection #2 for skiing was the girl I went on the temple-tour date with, but we went on that date the Tuesday before the night Jason was going skiing, and she already had weekend plans, so that didn't work.

Rejection #3 came that Wednesday night when I called up a girl I had a class with last semester. We had been on one date, and I wasn't opposed to another--even if it had been a few months. I called her up, and we had a conversation something like this:

"Hey, Erica, this is Kyle. Howzitgoin'?"

"Um. Good. Kyle?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry. Kyle whom?"

"Kyle me! Kyle who was in your grammar class last semester! We went on that one really random date with my roommate."

"Oh, Kyle! I'm so sorry! I must have deleted you out of my phone or something. But--I--you're cool, so I don't know why I would have done that. Maybe you were never in my phone...."

"Oh. Well. Remember Jason we doubled with? He's asked a girl to go cross-country skiing this weekend, and I was wondering if you'd like to come along--'cuz, ya know, I never see you anymore."

"I know! It's sad! But--sorry, I've got plans all weekend long."

"Oh. Alright. Well, it was nice talking to you anyway."

"Yeah.... Thanks for calling!"

FYI

2009-01-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Last night I went on a date. It was a first date with a girl in my ward. We went to the Draper temple open house. Everyone told me it was a bad idea; they all said, "Kyle, that's gonna be really awkward! Don't make it a first date." I, of course, in my typical style, disregarded everything anyone had to say about it, and we went on a date to the temple.

It was a very nice date. Nothing awkward or dramatic about it. In fact, I've never been on a date that went so smoothly and hitchless. I only mention it on this blog so that you can know that occasionally, every now and then, when the moon is in the right phase and the stars and planets align just so, I can pull off a good date.

Thought you should know.

A politically offensive post

2009-01-25T16:05:00.001-08:00

I fully expect that this will offend some of my politically active friends, but I think it's at least mildly entertaining, so I'm including it. This is my journal entry for last election day (4 Nov 2008). At the time, I was really interested in a girl named Betsy, and that's why this entry reads the way it does.

At the top of the page, I attached my "I Voted Today!" sticker, and then I wrote this:

---

5:17PM

And do you know why I voted today? It certainly wasn't because I liked the candidates (tirade on that to follow shortly). It wasn't because I wanted to show good faith in The System because, frankly, The System sucks! It's broken and corrupted, and I seriously considered following Shawn and Joel in not voting to express my view that The System is down. What moved me to the polls today wasn't even my sustaining of Church officials who condone and encourage political activism (though, in retrospect, that might have been a nobler motivation than mine).

I went and cast my vote for John McCain because Betsy says she likes him.

And you wanna know another thing? I don't feel bad about that at all. I have a notion that I ought to feel like a cad, but I don't. Here's why:

Although it's a syntactic oxymoron, I consider myself a radical conservative in that I want small government: unless I am directly threatened by something that I cannot protect myself from, I want government to stay the heck out of my life. Because of this, I am rather upset with the Republican party right now: they've done a lot to grow the government and to expand the executive power in the past eight years, and I find that abominable coming from a so-called conservative group. Therefore, I wasn't too hot on voting in another GOP candidate.

Barrak Obama (Democratic candidate and media poster child) is far worse, though, because of his socialist ideals. Nevertheless, I considered voting for him for a while because most of his promises could only be fulfilled by acts of Congress, so he struck me as fairly harmless; I thought he'd be a nice figurehead to oversee the continuing downfall of this proud nation. But after a political discussion with Betsy on the phone a couple weekends ago, I realized that voting for a candidate whose politics I unilaterally disagreed with was a bad idea, even if I doubted his ability to enact any of his bad ideas--what if he did?

Then I was fairly resolved to vote for a third party candidate just because I feel like that's the really the only way to make my vote count anyway (true, chances of a third party candidate ever getting elected are infinitismal, but it was a big deal a few years back when Green Peace got enough votes to become federally recognized; I'd like to participate in something like that). But looking at the Utah ballot quickly dissuaded me: Socialist party (no good), Green Peace (blah), Ralf Nader (not my guy), Libertarian (don't like 'em), and the Constitution Party (I like the party, but their condidate's leadership credentials are limited to the fact that he's had his own Baptist churhc in Florida for the past couple decades--no political experience at all).

So John McCain it was. I don't mind him; I just hate his party. But Betsy likes him, and I look forward to honestly telling her I voted for her boy.

That's me.

11:12PM

So. Obama won.

After watching McCain give his concession speech, I called Betsy:

"Howzitgoin'?" I asked.

"I'm pretty good," she said. "But I think I'm going to hold a wake."

We left politics almost immediately and had a most delightful conversation that last nearly an hour (50 minutes and someodd seconds), which I felt very good about.

Except for that it never came up--who I voted for--I never said.

And that's that, I guess.

Take a hike!

2009-01-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

This comparatively unexciting story comes to you courtesy of my journal entry dated 27Aug08:

---

Yesterday, I went over to Cinnamon Tree to visit Apartment 55 (Mailee, Jill, Amanda, Jaime, and Sarah). I had promised them (well, Mailee and Sarah) that I'd drop by to perform my monologue for them. When I got there, Amanda came out of her room and said, "You wanna go on a date?"

She wasn't really asking me out: some guy who just moved into CT asked her out, and they were gonna go hiking in Rock Canyon, but she didn't want to spend a first date (with a guy she'd just met) alone out hiking around, so she was looking for someone to double with them.

Jill and I took the job.

William (Amanda's date) showed up shortly thereafter, so I performed my monologue for him and the 55-ers, and then we went hiking.

It was... nice....

Frankly, I think William is a weirdo, and I don't blame Amanda for not wanting to be alone with him.

Blind date wedding

2009-01-18T17:24:00.000-08:00

This story features good ole Confuzzled. Because she has only existed (as far as I'm concerned) outside of cyberspace for one day, this record, rather than coming from my journal, is brought to you courtesy of my Gmail account.

---

It all began with this excerpt from an idle Gmail chat had on 9/13/08:

confuzzled: So I've decided there must be something in the water around here . . .

Everyone I know (my roommates aside) seems to be getting married this summer/fall

10:38 PM I just got another wedding invite in the mail

Except it's a Catholic wedding

That will be a new experience for me

I've only ever been to non-denominational weddings

me: Oh

Getting married is--

I dunno

10:39 PM The cool thing for twenty-somethings in Utah, it seems

Did you know that?

confuzzled: I had noticed, actually

me: I thought you lived in this state a long time....

confuzzled: I've never lived anywhere but this state

10:40 PM I'm just irked because the invitation for the wedding and reception said "Katie and Guest"

me: And you've made it this long without drinking the water?

You must be thirsty

confuzzled: Well, it's mostly college friends . . . so it's something that must have been added to the water in Ogden recently

me: Whatever you do don't drink it

Could be

dangerous....

10:41 PM confuzzled: Well, since I live in Salt Lake, I needn't worry about drinking the Ogden water

me: Oh

right

...silly me...

So all these people getting married are in Ogden?

You have--a lot of connections there?

10:42 PM confuzzled: This particular couple is getting married in Layton . . . but they met in Ogden

And their reception is actually at the Weber Alumni Center

10:43 PM me: It's a Catholic wedding, and it isn't in a church?

confuzzled: The wedding is in a church. The church is in Layton.

The reception is at the alumni center.

me: Ohhh

Okay, I get it

10:44 PM And you're irked because--

Because you're supposed to bring a guest, and if either of you drink the water, it might make for an interesting night in Vegas?

confuzzled: Because I'm supposed to be a guest

10:45 PM me: Cuz Vegas and Ogden are so close....

confuzzled: And I know that in this instance, "guest" = "date"

me: Ah

confuzzled: It's karmic payback, really

me: How so?

confuzzled: I was telling my friend Steve on Thursday how much I dislike asking guys out and how there was no way I'd be asking a guy out any time soon

10:46 PM The invitation came in the mail the next day . . .

me: Well

Serves you right, then

something like that

[e+r=er]

confuzzled: I caught that

Well, see, I really hate asking guys out because I don't drive

10:47 PM So it's not like I can take them to the event

me: Oh

I see

That makes some sense

...I guess...

10:48 PM confuzzled: I'm kind of wishing I didn't really like both of these people

(The couple getting married both are good friends of mine; we all tutored together at the WSU Writing Center)

10:49 PM Because then I'd not feel guilty about RSVPing "Sorry, not coming"

me: Well, that's what you get for having friends

10:50 PM confuzzled: I know. I should have just been an antisocial jerk.

Then I wouldn't have this problem

me: Well, it's never too late to change, you know

Just lace your RSVP with anthrax or some such

10:51 PM Then there won't be a reception for you to miss

No more potential for guilt for being a no show

(...just for being a murderous terrorist)

10:52 PM confuzzled: You're so helpful!

10:53 PM me: I do what I can

10:54 PM confuzzled: The guy my roommates think I should ask lives in Ogden, so I won't ask him . . . because even if I had him pick me up from my parents', he'd still have to drive down to Centerville, then back to Layton, then to Ogden, then back to Centerville

And I don't think I'm worth the gas money, to be quite frank

me: Woah, easy now

10:55 PM I'd hate for you to squeeze some semblence of kind words out of me

confuzzled: I'm just stating plain fact

And you don't have to squeeze out any kind words

Because I was already roundly chastized by my roommate for making that particular comment.

me: Fat lot of good it did, I see....

10:56 PM confuzzled: It may shock you to learn that I'm just about as stubborn as they come

(Then again, it may not)

me: Nope, didn't shock me

A couple days later (9/15/08), this Gmail chat occurred:

me:

8:57 PM So did you spend yesterday hitting on all the boys in your ward to try to rustle up a date? ;P

confuzzled: Yesterday, we actually had the big-stake-conference-type thingie in the Conference Center

So that would be a no

8:58 PM Although between the stress caused by thinking about that, trying to figure out what my comp theory professors wants us to do exactly, and general life pressures, I did manage to give myself a migraine

Because I'm that talented

(And that much a basket case)

me: Wow--

8:59 PM and now you're--

looking at a computer screen?

Bet that's ril good for the migraine!

confuzzled: Oh, it's gone now

me: You're crazy =P

confuzzled: It was in full force this morning

So I medicated it, called work, and went back to bed

till I had class

Can't miss class

me: Yeah...

9:00 PM confuzzled: As for me being crazy, tell me something I didn't already know ;)

me: I'm crazy, too!

Or did you know that already?

9:01 PM confuzzled: Oh, I was pretty darn sure

me: Well

now you know

Are you really that stressed about that reception thing?

Shoot

9:02 PM When is it?

I don't have a car just now

But I will within a week

I can cruise up to SLC and onward to--

to--

that place you said it was

confuzzled: Layton and Ogden?

To go to a wedding and a reception?

me: Yeah, that one

confuzzled: With some crazy girl?

who, at the moment, is a total wreck?

me: ESPECIALLY a crazy girl

confuzzled: You're more daring than I thought.

me: No

crazy

9:03 PM The distinction is slight but, in this case, vital

And so we went to the wedding. It was pretty much the maiden voyage of The Manimal, and it was a blind date with someone I met online--really, there was all sorts of potential for really horrible, awkward, random, painful, hi-larious things to occur, but I regret to say that it went off without much of a hitch (except for the wedding, I guess. Get it? They got--hitched! Ahardyharhar...). There was that one part where I got us lost in a sprawling field and we ended up at the tollbooth entrance to an island and had to turn around and search for a freeway, but even that wasn't too bad because we had plenty of time to kill between the wedding and the reception anyway.

At the reception, they had a guy making balloon animals--balloon butterflies, I might add! They also had complimentary bubbles for all the guests--bubbles, I say! It was pretty much the best reception ever.

Unfortunately, after I took Confuzzled back to her place and then returned to Provo, I developed my first symptoms of salmonella poisoning, so my journal doesn't record many details of the actual social excursion. Just as an aside, though, Confuzzled looked smashingly good in blue. (Are you blushing, Confuzzled?)

So there you have it.

Take THAT, Dr. So-and-so!

2009-01-11T15:03:00.000-08:00

This is from my journal entry for 9 January 2008, my first day at BYU:

---

My English professor (Dr. Claudia Harris) handed out the syllabus and went over it with us. I kinda zoned her out as I flipped through the syllabus on my own, realizing that it was almost identical to the English 100 class I took right after my mission, which was perhaps the least challenging English class of my academic career thus far and not something I want to do again.

At one point, Claudia (she prefers not to go by Doctor) asked what our expectations for the class were. Various students raised their hands and made comments, and after each one, Claudia wrote a one-word summation of the comment on the board.

"Anyone else?" she asked after 4 or 5 comments had been made and summarized on the board.

I raised my hand.

"Yes?"

"I want this class to be a challenge," I said. "If it doesn't make me think or lose sleep at night, I don't think it's worth my time."

A brief silence ensued in which she merely fidgeted with her marker.

"Yes," she said. "We'll be thinking in this class."

She wrote nothing on the board but rather put the marker away and moved on to a new topic of discussion.

At the conclusion of the class, she said something that I felt was directed toward me. I feel that way partly because of what she said but also because, whereas her eyes had roved around the room throughout the class up to that point, for this little monologue, her eyes fastened upon my corner of the room. She appeared to be looking straight at me, so I engaged her in a staring contest.

"I have a Ph.D," she said. "I have taken a lot of college classes, and I learned that I could kind of get a feel for whether or not a professor's teaching style would work for me on the first day of class. If you feel like we're not going to get along, I think you should drop the class: it won't hurt my feelings, and every time I failed to drop a class that I had a bad feeling about, I regretted it."

I couldn't help myself; I smiled. This parting shot won her my respect--and confirmed to me that I was in the wrong class. So I took Claudia's advice and dropped her class.

Shoulderpants

2009-01-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

I moved into a new ward at this beginning of this school year. One of my first weeks here, I was in Sunday school when a guy was called on to say the prayer, but the person leading the class botched the kid's last name, which is Coatney.

"I'm sorry," the teacher said, "how do you say it?"

"Here," the guy said, standing up to demonstrate to the class. "It's Coatney. Coat"--he touched the arm of the suit coat he was wearing--"knee"--he patted his leg--"Coatney. There. Now you'll never forget."

"Oh, okay," I said. "Shoulderpants. Got it."

The few people sitting right around me (my roommates, mostly) chuckled at my comment. I don't think Mr. Shoulderpants actually heard it--if he did, he made no response. But ever since that day, me and my roommates have referred to him as Shoulderpants.

Today I got called as a Home Evening group leader. As I looked over the list of people in my group just now, I realized that he's in it.

This will most definitely be an exercise in restraint for me, but, should my restraint fail, look for cool follow-up stories in the comments section of this post.

Interro-BANG!

2009-01-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

Here is a happy memory from my journal entree for Halloween '07. The Jenny mentioned in this story is not the same as Ice Cream Jenny. During this time in my life, I had a couple of different Jenny's popping up occasionally in my journals, and I didn't know their last names, so gave them titles. One was Ice Cream Jenny; this story involves Saxophone Jenny (so called because we both enjoyed playing the saxophone--in fact this is what I was referring to in "Not you! I meant the saxophone!").

So here you have it, the birth of Interro-BANG!:

---

As mentioned 14oct07, I'm co-hosting the ward "Untalent Show." During a Sunday-night meeting of the activities committee and we two emcees (Saxophone Jenny and I), we decided that the show would have a superhero theme. After the meeting, Jenny and I decided that throughout next week (the week leading up to the show), we're gonna burst in on random apartments while wearing our outfits and do crazy silliness to advertise the show and encourage participation--and we're gonna get all that on film!

Last night, I got a fantastic idea for what to do, and today I got it together. All it took was a nylon book cover from Big Lots, some large blue underpants from Toss, my running pants, a gray long-sleeved shirt, and a printout of a controversial punctuation mark and Interro-BANG was born.

I'm so excited! The get up is SO DANG FUNNY! Oh man! I was laughing so hard in front of the mirror.

But wait; it gets better:

Ben Hubbard came over to hang out tonight. While he was here, Sarah came and knocked on the door to invite us over to a dance the other Cinnamon Tree ward was having at the basketball court (she didn't know Hubbard was here, but she knows him from marching band). We went over, but it wasn't all that great, so we came back fairly quickly.

Not too far from my apartment door, Saxophone Jenny and Becca (her old roommate) were standing, talking.

"Jenny!" I said. "I have my superhero outfit, and it is awesome! Oh man! It's so funny!"

"So," she said, "what's it like so I can kinda make mine the same?"

"Hold on," I said; "I'll go put it on and be right back."

I ran inside and put on my running pant and the long-sleeved shirt (which had the red interrobang taped on the front of it) and then pulled the blue underpants on over the top of them. I put the book cover on my head, which makes it look like a bright blue Batman helmet made out of spandex with a desert safari neck cover thing. I wrapped my red quilt around my neck like a cape, then ran outside and nearly pounced on them, yelling, "Interro-BANG!"

They thought iwas funny and all, but the best part was Becca saying, "Um. You're wearing men't briefs--on the outside."

Ahahahahahaha! That's right I am!

After a minute or so, I said, "Okay, I'm going back inside now."

"Good idea," Becca said.

It was so great!

Not you! I meant the saxophone!

2008-12-05T18:18:00.001-08:00

This is my first Faux Pas post. I've been holding off on publishing my faux pas--especially now that I know that people are actually apt to read this blog from time to time--but I entitled the blog Fake Dates and Faux Pas, so I can't hardly have a Fake Date label and not one for Faux Pas. So the Faux Pas label is the one you click on when you wanna feel better about yourself: these are the posts you can look and say, "Well, at least I'm smarter than that kid!" This is, for me, a dramatic exercise in humility. Typing these stories will be, I trust, extremely painful for me. I just hope somebody somewhere enjoys them sometime.

So here we go. Faux Pas #1. As recorded in my journal 7 November 2007:

---

I have once again been reminded about how poor my verbal communication skills are.

Last night, I borrowed Sarah's tenor sax for a while to jam with Denny and Ben. When she gave it to me, she warned me that it might taste funny because so many people have used it.

"I know," I said. "I know she gets around. That one night alone, she made out with you, me, and Jenny."

"It's true," Sarah said, laughing.

This isn't the first time we've talked about her saxophone in such a way: it's sort of a running joke. Because of that, my plan for returning the sax was to knock on her door and start sucking on the mouthpiece in such a way as to appear to be making out when the door opened--not that I have much experience in making out...or even simple kissing, really....

But apt. 44 makes cookies every Tuesday night, so after our jam session, we all went and got cookies. I didn't want to get masticated cookie nastiness all over the mouthpiece, so I satisfied myself by gently stoking the saxophone's neck when she opened the door.

Sarah laughed.

"What?" I asked.

"I just think it's funny," she said: "you and my saxophone--and a cookie."

"It's cookie night!" I protested.

"Oh yeah!" she said. "I forgot. I'll have to go get some."

"I promise I didn't play your saxophone after eating any cookies," I said.

"I know," she said. "I just thought it was funny."

"You should be grateful for this cookie," I told her: "I was gonna subject you to a make-out session, but I didn't want to do it with a cookie in my mouth, so this cookie saved you from that."

Sarah's eyes opened wide in sudden shock, and she started laughing hysterically, almost dropping the saxophone I had just given back to her.

And I, being the naive guy I am, didn't realize until this morning while I was showering--about 10 hours later--why she found that so shacking.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

Aiyiyi, Jepson. How on earth was she supposed to know you were talking about the saxophone?

Geez.

After getting dried off and dressed, I checked my gmail and noticed that she was online.

We had the following conversation (it starts with "hi again" because yesterday we chatted through gmail for the first time):

me: Hi again
Sarah: hey there
me: So.
Um
Last night on your doorstep
I was talking about making out with your sax
Is that what you got out of it?
Sarah: OH!!!
LoL!
I actually thought you were talking about me...That's why I was laughing so hard, 'cause I didn't think you were the type of person who would say something like that and it surprised me but in a very amusing way and I couldn't help but laugh.
lol
No worries

Danny walked in as I was closing Gmail and asked what I was doing. I kinda told him, though I didn't say exactly what was said, and he responded, "So she misunderstood you when you said, 'You wanna make out with me?'?"

*sigh*

Yeah. Verbal communication not really at a high now, no.

The Manimal

2008-11-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

So. I bought a car on eBay once. I bought a 1990 Acura Integra sight-unseen from a guy in Ohio. I figured it must be reliable because he was willing to drive it from Cincinnati to Provo, so I bought it from him. He drove it to me, and it made it just fine. But it wasn't exactly what I expected it to be: the dash lights flickered, and the front blinkers were blue, and the driver seat didn't have a lapbelt, and the fan didn't blow, and the air conditioning unit and power steering pump had been removed to make room for the after-market engine, and the muffler was sitting in the back seat, and the racing clutch made it kinda jumpy, and it grinded every time I shifted into third gear, and the horn didn't work, and the custom wheels didn't fit quite right, and the catalytic converter was busted, and one of the motor mounts was broken, and the tires were showing wires, and one of the back doors wouldn't open from the inside, and the key wouldn't unlock any of the doors, and the trunk didn't latch.

Anyway, it was a great car, and I loved it. It was so much fun to drive! Sure, it had some quirks (the window motors were wearing out, one blinker blinked twice as fast as the other, the front speakers were blown, the radio antanna was missing), but it got me around just fine--and a lot quicker than my GEO ever did! Its name, which was on a sticker attached to the very front of the hood, said it all: Manimal.

I went on a blind date on 22 November 2008, and I assured my buddy who set me up on the date that the Manimal was up to the task. In fact, after I picked up my date (Chilly--you should visit her sometime), I kept her amused by pointing out various oddities about my car (the fact that I have to avoid parking lot speedbumps because it's been lowered, the toggle switch my dad jury rigged underneath the glove compartment to turn the heater on and off, the fact that I have to disconnect the battery when I park for more than a few hours because something drains it dry otherwise). She was very amused indeed when, at the conclusion of the date, we came out to the Manimal and it wouldn't start. After we got a jump (which was a bit of an ordeal because I somehow forgot to bring my cables), she was amused by the fact that my automatic seatbelt didn't come on but rather contented itself to beep at me angrily (which is what it always did when I made the mistake of starting the car with the driver door open--a mistake I made repeatedly but failed to learn from). I appreciated her good humor because I was too much annoyed to duly recognize the hilarity of the situation.

That date took place the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I told the story to my various friends, so who could blame any of them for looking at me incredulously when I decided to drive home (~600 miles) for the holiday? But I did my best to assuage their fears by telling them that it was the battery that had died on the date; so long as I was moving down the road, I didn't have anything to worry about: my alternator works fine; it's just the battery that has the tendency to die from time to time. Suddenly. Without warning.

One friend (Betsy) told me to be sure to stock up on water before leaving so when I broke down in Death Valley, I wouldn't die of thirst. I laughed and told her not to worry: the Manimal would be fine. Besides, I don't even go anywhere near Death Valley on my trip, just the lesser-known parts of the California desert. (Remember this random, anecdotal paragraph; it's important later.)

I had made it almost 400 miles into my 600-mile journey and was nearing the border of my home state when the Manimal started to make a horrible noise. I know nothing about cars, so the best I could figure was that a helicopter somehow got stuck under the chassis and was trying hard to fly away. That's just what it sounded like to me. I pulled over in the nowhere town of Jean, Nevada and called my mechanically inclined brother to get some advice. After having me check a few things, he told me that I was probably okay to head on down the road: either the Manimal would make it or it wouldn't, but he was relatively sure that I didn't have to worry about anything exploding into flames or anything, so I got back on the freeway and continued on.

I made it past the California border nearly deaf but otherwise fine. Before the noise had started, I was realizing that I was beginning to feel drowsy; I figured it was awful kind of the Manimal to help keep me awake like that. What a good car. Just inside of California, we hit some road work (I say we--did I mention I had my Gramma with me?). Southbound traffic was divided into two directions: two lanes to the right for trucks and other slow movers and an express lane to the left for everyone else.

I took the express.

The express lane cut across and connected with the northbound lanes. We passed a NO SHOULDER sign, and I gripped the wheel as a cement barrier went up on our left and a metal guardrail appeared on our right. This would be a bad place to break down. I slowed to about 65mph (55 was the posted limit, but no one was working, and this was the express lane--I think the people behind me wanted to go faster, but I was happy to slow down from the 90mph I had been maintianing up to that point. What can I say? The Manimal liked to move!).

Suddenly, the helicopter landed: the horrible noise we had been enduring was replaced with a terrible grinding; 65 dropped to 35 almost instantaneously, which I maintained for as long as I could. Taking my cue from the guy behind me, I turned on my flashers. And then we stopped.

I got out to inspect the damage.

"Hey, man! You lost your wheel back there!"

"I figured!" I said.

I hopped on my phone and called home to request a ride and then called 911 to report myself for blocking southbound I-15. A long line of cars is stopped behind me with no way to get around me. By the time I got off the phone, a handful of large, helpful-looking men was standing around me. With their help, we shoved the Manimal up against the cement barrier. Someone found a construction cone and put it behind my wrecked vehicle. Gramma had a little single-cell flashlight, which I used to direct traffic around us. I watched in amazement as even a big o' F-350 managed to sqeeze past. Good thing I thought to collapse my rearview mirror: he'da never made it otherwise!

So here I am, sitting on a construction cone, directing traffic with a tiny flashlight, yakking with my buddy Ben over the phone, waiting for highway patrol to show up and tell me what to do or my family to come and take me away. I met some of the friendliest rubberneckers in the world: since circumstance dictated passersby move more slowly than a speedometer can register, people were rolling down windows and offering rides and condolences. Of course, I couldn't just leave the car there, so I turned them all down--even my former Institute Director who was going back to Bakersfield from Logan for Thanksgiving. Small world.

Highway patrol was quick to show. The officer hopped out of his patrol car and told me I needed to move my car out of the way.

Brilliant.

I told him that it wouldn't roll--it was a front-wheel drive that was missing a front wheel--but he told me to get in and try anyway.

"If it won't go," he said, "I'll push you."

Who did he think he was, Superman? It took five of us pushing just to get it against the wall! And now he, a lone man, is going to push me all the way up this mile-long hill? Good luck.

But I obediently climbed in through the driverside window, started it up, threw it on first, and let loose. I tried gently at first--maybe I could get a little grip with my one tire if I started slow--no good. So I jammed on the gas, redlined, shifted to second, redlined--no good. I looked in the rearview and saw him pulling up behind me--oh, so that's what he meant by 'push'; I get it now. Hope that patrol car has some guts: the Manimal is no lightweight.

Up we went--holy cow that car was tough! I swear we were cruising and 35 and 40, uphill, missing a wheel. He tried to communicate with me over his PA system, but it was mostly useless. You'd be surprised how much noise an Integra makes when it's missing a wheel. You might be thinking, "No, I'm sure it's pretty loud," but I'm telling you, you'd still be surprised. I did catch an occasional snippet of what he was saying; "PUT THE CAR IN NEUTRAL!" came through loud and clear. We got to the top of the hill and found a shoulder. He said something I couldn't understand, so I pulled over, which seemed to satisfy him. But then we kept going. Where was he taking us? He said something else I couldn't understand. I looked back and noticed we were leaving him behind.

"STOP!" he shouted through the PA, so we did.

How the crap were we coasting without a wheel? I'm tellin' you, the Mannimal likes to move!

We waited another hour for the tow truck to show up. When it finally got there, the driver walked straight to the patrol car and had some words with the officer. I wasn't in on the conversation, but I caught something like, "...SAID IT WASN'T YOU SO I KEPT GOING AND IT WAS YOU BUT YOU SAID IT WASN'T YOU SO I GOT ALL THE WAY TO...."

Anyway, we loaded the Manimal onto the flatbed and went to Baker, California, the closest semblence of civilization to the wreck site, where we met up with a brother and sister of mine. As we transferred all of Gramma's stuff from the Manimal to my brother's 4Runner (she winters with my parents in Tehachapi, so she had a lot of stuff), I glanced up at The World's Tallest Thermometer to see the temperature. In so doing, I noticed an emblem at the base of the thermometer, something I had never noticed the many times I'd passed by it on I-15. There, in a big red circle, were the words BAKER, CA GATEWAY TO DEATH VALLEY. I sighed and shook my head.

The next day (26 November 2008), me and my mechanically inclined brother and dad went out to Baker to try to reassemble the Manimal. As it turns out, the lug bolts that held that wheel on had all broken in half. We spent a solid hour wailing on them with a sledge hammer, but to no avail. So we left the Manimal at the yard there in Baker, and I don't suppose I'll ever see it again.

So that's the story of the Manimal, the first car I ever owned in the clear, and the last car I'll ever buy on eBay. Lesson learned.

Burn, baby, burn!

2008-11-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

For this account, I turn to my journal entry for 17 September 2007:

----

Go ahead and have a seat; this is gonna take a while.

I don’t even know where to begin.

If I were Joseph Smith, I would receive “the plates, the Urim and Thimmim, and the breastplate” this coming Saturday (JS-H 1:59). Being born 180 years (to the day) after Joseph Smith was born, it isn’t too much of a strain to compare my life to his. I find that I’m never doing things as important or spectacular as the things he did at my age, and generally that just fills me with admiration for the man, but a couple weeks ago I decided that, since I’m most assuredly not hoping to uncover and lost ancient scripture before Saturday, I should do something else that, though certainly not as noteworthy, would also attract a good amount of attention.

I don’t know whether I recorded it in my journal, but shortly before I came home from my mission, while my district was out to lunch together, Elder Harpole asked me whether I was planning on burning a suit in keeping with the quazi-pagan, semi-apostate, forbidden and nearly nonexistent missionary “tradition” of burning a tie at 6 months, a shirt at 12, pants at 18, and a whole suit at 24 (many Elders burn ties, and some go beyond that, but I’ve never known anyone to actually burn a suit). I told him no, that I didn’t believe in such things, that I never even burned a tie, and that I thought it was a waste of a suit.

About then, Elder Rino piped up and said something like, "Okay, Elder Jepson. Here’s what you do: cover your body in Vaseline--your whole body, okay? Then take the suit and soak it in something flammable like alcohol, lighter fluid, gasoline--just whatever you have lying around the house--you with me? Then put on the suit and, while you’re wearing it, light it on fire."

The suggestion was an instant hit. It didn’t take us long to draw the obvious connection between this idea and President Ririe’s constant admonition to be enthusiastic—"Light yourselves on fire and invite others to come and watch you burn." Soon the idea was to do it on a P-day, film it, have a member burn it to DVD, label it "Light yourself on fire and invite others to come and watch you burn," and then give it to President Ririe (or, for caution’s sake, I could give it to him as a parting gift after my exit interview).

Whatever reaction Elder Rino had been going for, he certainly didn’t expect us to take his idea so seriously. To most, it was just a joke, but Elder Harpole became consumed by the idea, and I, though not quite as obsessed, was willing to go along with it. Elder Rino told us not to, and ultimately we, too, decided that it probably wasn’t the best idea—whatever it did exemplify, it certainly couldn’t be termed “quiet dignity”—and the idea smoldered and was left to die, unfulfilled.

But it never really died. Though I never really believed I’d set myself on fire, the idea was always there, hot coals in a far corner of my subconscious mind.

One day, after I’d been home for a while, I was talking with Ben on the phone and ended up telling him about it. He, like Elder Harpole, could not let it go, felt a burning need to see it done, even to do it himself. As we talked about it, I worked my Google magic and learned that wool is naturally flame retardant. Ben and I agreed that, once I’d moved up there, we’d both get wool suits from DI and set ourselves on fire.

At that point, I had pretty well decided that I’d never move to Provo, that there was just too much going for me in California, so I wasn’t terribly worried about it. Meanwhile, Ben shared our scheme with just about everyone he knew, the majority of whom were adamantly opposed to the idea, begged and pleaded with him not to go through with it. He would call to tell me this from time to time, mourning the death of the flame of human insanity, and I’d say, "Well, whatever you do, don’t do it without me; it’s my idea!" And I’d say it thinking, "And I’m never going to move up there, so neither of us need to worry about it too much anyway."

Well, the Lord had different plans for me, and I ended up here in Provo.

For a while, it was just idle chatter on my part, but that changed somewhere along the line—fairly recently. Even last Fast Sunday, when I jokingly suggested to Ben that I ought to light myself on fire on the day that I would (were I Joseph Smith) discover the plates, I wasn’t really serious. Ben was, and the date became set, but I would think in my head, "I’m way too mild-mannered a man to do anything crazy like that! I don’t even really like roller coasters since I’ve returned from a mission; cheap thrills just aren’t my thing; I prefer things with actual meaning."

But there’s something binding about attaching a date to a goal; we often saw as missionaries that if we could just get an investigator to set a date—set a date to get baptized or stop smoking or whatever—just setting a date often was all it took to—well—to light a fire under cold feet.

I saw it, too, after I decided to move here. Bishop Hoggan told me I should consider it, and I eventually decided that it was what the Lord wanted for me, but it wasn’t until I set a date and decided that the Fourth of July would be my Independence Day that things were really set into motion.

I suppose, then, the day I suggested to Ben that September 22nd was to be The Day--I suppose that was the real turning point in the "Let’s set Kyle on fire!" campaign.

Then on 12 September 07, as Ben and I were playing in the pool with a 20# weight, there was another turning point. As we played, this girl Sarah, whom Ben knows from marching band and I know just from seeing her around, walked by. We invited her to join us and then somehow ended up telling her about our plans. Far from calling us crazy, she was actually supportive, even enthusiastic, and told us that the idea was awesome.

I remember now how it came up: Ben and I had been discussing how problematic to our cause it was that most DI suits don’t have labels that say what they’re made of. Sarah walked by, and Ben asked her if she by chance had superior powers of discernment when it came to fabrics and whether she could divine the difference between pure wool and blended wool; she assured us that she has no such capability, that her mom doesn’t even know how to sew, and asked why we were looking for someone with such a refined touch, so Ben gave her a brief overview and then had me fill in the details, which I did with what Sarah identified as a crazed look on my face.

The enthusiastic support of an outside person--especially a girl, now that I think about it--was all I needed to make the maniacal fantasy a reality. That very day, I went to DI and found for the first time ever clearly marked, wool suits, and I quickly selected a white-with-black-cross-stripes one that fit me well—well enough to be burned, anyway.

Jacket and Pants: $18.

As we talked to Sarah at the pool, she mentioned one Christian Farmer, who set himself on fire here at Cinnamon Tree, like, a year ago. Christian moved out at the end of summer, but I knew who he was, could identify him by sight. It just so happened that, later that evening, I happened to see Christian and told him that I had heard a rumor that he set himself on fire; he confirmed the rumor. I asked him how he protected his face; he told me and then directed me to his website, whereon he had posted pictures and videos and details. I thanked him and went directly to my computer; I found his website, looked it over, showed it to Ben, bookmarked it.

Everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place, and then, this Saturday, I found 91% ethyl alcohol on sale, so it and Vaseline fit nicely into my budget. (By the way, I wasn’t taking the Vaseline thing on Elder Rino’s word alone; one of the times Mom and Dad left me home alone for a few days, I, out of boredom, covered a hand in Vaseline and an alcohol-drenched sock, lit it on fire, and was amazed to see a flame yet feel no heat. Also, a week or so ago, I downloaded a PDF published by some fire safety committee that compared the safeness of various household materials around fire. I want you to know I have researched this thoroughly, and I’m pretty confident that I could pull this off.)

Another happy coincidence that furthered this plot occurred as I left Institute on Thursday and headed to the volleyball/basketball court (this was 13 Sept 07, the day after talking to Sarah and Christian and acquiring a suit). Sarah was on a balcony and called down to me, asking me whether I’d found a suit. I told her I had, that it was perfect because it was pure wool "and it just screams, 'Burn me! Burn me!'" I then, of course, had to explain to the couple guys that were with her what my plan was, and one of them was so kind as to inform me that somewhere in Provo Canyon is a rope swing into the river. I filed that exciting bit of news away for future reference.

On Friday (14 Sept 07, day after learning of rope swing), I informed apartmentmates Brett and Jason and their friend Danny (who hangs out over here a lot but actually lives somewhere up stairs) of my plan to set myself on fire; they thought I was crazy, but were, at the same time, very encouraging of the idea. When I told them about the rope swing, Jason said he knew where it was and could take me there.

See how nicely this is working out‽ Who can deny that naught but fate could make it so easy‽

And thus support began to grow, but a dichotomy was also formed, for, while Brett and Jason and Danny were all for it despite the fact that they thought I was crazy and Sarah was a veritable groupie of the idea and Ben wanted to do it with me (though he has yet to find a suit), April (Ben’s fiancée) has been steadfastly opposed to the idea from the start, and Christian Farmer himself, when he heard about my means of lighting myself on fire—a markedly different means than his method of wearing a million layers of clothing and having wet towels wrapped around the head—Christian Farmer said, "Don’t do it."

But I’m committed; I mustn’t let the stalwart members of the "Let’s set Kyle on fire!" cult down!

Well, this morning, I got up and found on the ground next to the couch a pile of "love notes" (on Sundays at ward prayer, we can all write nice notes to each other and they get delivered to our apartments). Jason told me last night while we were home teaching that a love not had come for me, but I promptly forgot all about it. So I pilfered the pile and found this:

Kyle,
Don’t do it!
The Lord loves you!
Your life is worth living!
Bishop Kirby

Whether Bishop Kirby thinks I’m suicidal or simply recognizes this whole stupid idea as pure madness doesn’t really matter; "Don’t do it!"” is clear enough for me. Listening to my Bishop is what got me here to Provo; I’m not going to change my policy now.

I went to my room and deleted the PDF and the bookmark on my computer, put away the carefully selected clothing I had hanging with my suit, waiting to be used on Saturday night. Duct taped to my suit, I had two little pieces of paper: one with my carefully considered protocol written out on it, one with a couple of safety-related items I still needed to buy. I was going to include them here, but I just now threw them away—why preserve such dangerous temptations for future use? Then I threw away the suit coat (I had cut out its polyester lining, so it wasn’t much good any more), donated the suit pants to DI, and hit my alcohol and Vaseline, stashing it until I know how best to dispose of it.

I was feeling pretty good about myself after that, yes sir I most assuredly was.

I went to FHE tonight and, as I was returning to my apartment, I spied Sarah sitting at a picnic bench alone, doing homework, so I went over and told her what had happened and what is now no longer going to happen.

She was sad; I kinda was, too. I mostly felt relieved and happified once I got rid of the suit, but slowly the weight of disappointment settled on me.

After talking to Sarah, I went into my apartment and told my congregated mates that the gig was off; they asked why, so I told them the whole thing.

And then it happened: Jason admitted that he wrote the note.

I'm sorry--I didn't notice you there

2008-11-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

On 18 September 2007, I came home to a dark apartment. Figuring my roommates were off doing various things, I resolved to find a good, wholesome means of entertaining myself, so I grabbed a beanie, soaked in cold water, and put it on my head, grabbed a second beanie, soaked it in 90% ethyl alcohol and put it on over the other beanie, and then proceeded to try to light my head on fire with a lighter.

Did not work.

I wandered through the still dark apartment into the dark kitchen, turned on the gas stove, and stuck my head into the flame. I couldn't see the fireball on my head, so I really don't know how big it was, but it was bright enough that it illuminated the entire kitchen-dining-living room area and revealed--oh, hi!--one of my roommates spooning with a girl on the couch.

Awkward!

I started for the door.

"Quickly!" my roommate said. "Quickly!"

I had taken the precaution of covering my face and hands with petroleum jelly, so it was hard for me to twist the door knob, but I soon was out in the cool night air. I had decided to light my head on fire because I figured the flame would go upward and therefore wouldn't hurt me, but alcohol, as it turns out, drips downward, so little fireballs started dripping onto the back of my neck. I screamed and tore off the beanie and threw it into the pool, while various onlookers stared in wonder. Luckily, one of these onlookers was the proud owner of a bottle of aloe vera gel, which she kindly lent to me to soothe my neck.

The venture was not without merit, though: I've never caught a roommate spooning since then. That'll teach 'em!

My face! My face!

2008-11-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun story from 16 June 08:

----

Around 5:00 today, I decided to go grocery shopping. As I did, I got to thinking about Suzy and Krista. During our first meeting, it came up that they like limeade a lot (there was an empty bottle sitting on their kitchen table). Then this past Saturday, I was talking to Krista, and I somehow brought up my thing for kitchen appliances, and I mentioned that an apparently ownerless toaster oven resides in my apartment that I have often considered kyping and adopting except for the fact that I have no idea what to do with one. Her suggestion was to put mozzarella cheese and raspberry jam on bread and then toast it till the cheese melts and the bread is a bit toasty. So as I shopped today, I picked up raspberry jam, a little brick of mozzarella, and some limeade.

When I got home, I pulled down the toaster oven from high up on top of the cupboards and turned it on. It worked, so I spread some raspberry jam onto a couple slices of bread, topped each with a slice of mozzarella, and tossed 'em in.

After a few minutes, the cheese was melty, so I turned the oven off and pulled the tray out and sat down to enjoy my open-faced creations with a bottle of limeade.

The toasted creation was actually quite delicious, which surprised me a little because I was never a fan of the jam-and-cheese sandwiches my dad put in my grade-school lunches, but, then again, he used sharp cheddar cheese and homemade strawberry jam, and no taosting was involved. The milder taste of mozzarella in conjunction with the creaminess of the meltedness made Krista's version quite delectable.

(The limeade was pretty good, too, though it seemed the sort of delicacy that is best enjoyed in smallish quantities.)

And so I resolved to adopt the little toaster oven, thinking that these Krist-en sandwiches might become common faire in my diet, but such was not to be. After I finished eating, I went to return the oven to its perch atop the cupboards, but, as I did so, the door fell open, releasing a searing hot tray onto my face. I dropped the oven from a good seven feet in the air and ran to the bathroom screaming, "My face! My face!" I ran cold water over my forehead, nose, and chin as my roommates came to investigate what had happened.

The poor little toaster oven is history, now--its entire frame is tweaked and its dials fell off--so I had to throw it away. I did get some pretty exciting burns on my face and bicept, though--Victor stopped by and told me I looked like I had been attacked by a tiger. Alas, my life is not that exciting: while some men do the sorts of things that allow them to be attacked by massive felines, I live a life in which I've only ever acquired scars from ruthless inanimate objects.

*sigh*

Even I have limits

2008-11-22T16:32:00.001-08:00

On 27 August 2008, a girl rear-ended me and totalled both of our cars. I hopped out of my car (sudden trauma makes me giddy) and was gonna go strike up a conversation with her--maybe even ask her to walked to the fast food restaurant we were wrecked in front of while we waited for the police to show up--but she didn't look like she was in the mood, so I didn't.

I wonder how that would've worked out. She was falling to pieces at the time: would offering her a greasy burger cheer her up or make her feel worse?

Guess I'll never know....

Tommy boy

2008-11-22T16:00:00.001-08:00

Perhaps the best Fake Date ever happened 11 June 2008; here's that journal entry:

----

Me and my fakedates. Holy cow....

So I was headed off to take a walk when, as I passed by Apt 47, Jason Chandler called out to me, so I went inside. He and Rich Scott (who also lives there) were hanging out with a couple friends I didn't know, and they were trying to get a hold of another friend (named Suzy), but she wasn't answering her phone. They had each left her a message, and now they wanted me to do the same.

After some coaxing, I consented, and left a message something like, "Dude, Suzy, what gives? This is Tommy, and it's coming up on 11, and I've been waiting here since 9:30! Am I at the wrong mall or something? You did say the Towne Center and not University, right? I dunno. I'm sorry; I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad at the situation, so give me a call, and we'll sort this whole thing out. You know my number--I assume! I mean, you've called me enough times! Anyway, I'll talk to you later. Bye."

After getting a round of high fives and highest praise, I bid the pranksters adieu and continued on my walk.

I had only gotten as far as crossing the street when I received a text message from Suzy:

I'm on another date you dork. Future reference: chocolate and flowers equals winner!

I sprinted back to apartment 47.

"Jason Chandler!" I shouted. "She texted me!!"

They all huddled around my phone to behold the message, and then Jason replied (using my phone!) thus:

I thought we planned this weeks ago. Whats going on

Well, I couldn't hardly go for a walk now: she was bound to respond to that! Furthermore, the pranksters were now scheming to deliver chocolate and flowers to her door. So we all piled into Rich's car and headed to Macey's.

This text came en route:

We're planning an elopment. What's your offer?

I read it aloud and then responded:

Just wait till you get home....

As we walked from the car to the store entrance, she said:

Is that a threat or a promise?

To which I responded (no longer needing any coaching):

Both

We picked up a Snickers bar (which Jason ate part of) and an advertisement for married housing. On the drive to Suzy's place, I wrote a note, and we pulled over to pick some flowering weeds. My note went something like this:

Dearest Suzy,

This half-eaten Snickers bar doth represent the remnants of what was once my courageous heart. Nevertheless, while the fading embers of our love yet burn, even so doth hope remain within my bruiséd bosom. And if this sweet chocolate and this housing for the newly married can find place in thy cruel heart, call off thine engagement and return to me, thy gentle Tommy. For as these flowers, removed from fertile soil, shalt surely wilt, so too shall my noble soul dry up without they pure love.

Loyally thine,
Tommy Tess

I delievered the gifts in the classic ding-dong, ditch style, and this text arrived shortly thereafter:

Cute Tommy. Cute and impressive. Love blossoms in the swimming pool: tomorrow at 4:30 University Villa. Option 2: my place at 6, bring icecream and further overtures of love and friendship or forever be branded a stick in the mud!

I read it to the group, said I wasn't gonna respond and that it was up to them to decide what to do, and then went off and finally had my walk.

As I was walking home, this came from Suzy:

Stick in the mud! tommy, how can you possibly be asleep?! show your face tomorrow or all is hopeless!

To which I responded:

Your place. 6.

She responded:

I love you. lets start anew tomorrow...dear

I ran to apt 47 to tell Jason what had happened and to get Suzy's address. As we talked, this came:

I will love you more with (premium select smith's brand) icecream... :)

To which I responded:

Noted.

So. Tomorrow after guitar class, I go to redefine "blind date."

I'm such a weirdo!

But then, so is she, it would seem, so maybe it's okay....

-----

The next day, I went with a carton of Premium Select Mint&Chip and got to know Suzy and Krista (her roommate). I had planned to try to do something crazy (like introduce myself by saying, "I'm Kyle, Tommy's roommate. Tommy couldn't make it, so he sent me," and see how long I could keep them thinking Tommy was a real person), but when I got there, a girl who had been in on the whole thing was just leaving, and she said, "Don't worry, Kyle: I told them the whole story."

Blast....

So I settled for just being myself:

"Tommy!" they said when I arrived.

"Hi," I said. "My name's actually--"

"We know you're name isn't Tommy," they said, "but you'll always be Tommy to us."

We chatted and ate ice cream for, like, 2 1/2 hours.

We still hang out sometimes. They still call me Tommy, even though they that's not my name. It's--a strange friendship, but I kinda like it.

Is that--a hint?

2008-11-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

I regret that I do not have a journal entry detailed enough to copy word for word, but this happened 6 May 2008:

I was walking from the dorms I clean as a janitor to a guitar class I took during the spring. I had my guitar on my back as I crossed campus, and I ran into a girl named Jordan who was in my ward. I said hello, and she asked about the guitar, so I told her I was going to a class.

"Oh," she said. "When does your class end?"

"Six," I said.

"Six, huh," she said. "I'll be hungry by then."

Um--what? Okay....

"It's pretty hot today," I said, "and so I was thinking about grabbing some ice cream after my class gets out--you wanna come?"

"Sure!" she said.

That was kinda weird....

She's a cool girl, though, so the date wasn't too awkward. One weird thing: while we were eating her ice cream, she said something like, "I thought it was funny how you were all, 'It's hot; you wanna get ice cream,' 'cuz I don't think I've ever been asked out that spontaneously before."

Huh. Kay. Whatever. Maybe she just likes telling people what her eating schedule's like....

Provo Canyon--oolala!

2008-11-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

There is a canyon just north of Provo that has the reputation of being the place you take you're date if you're more interested in making-out than anything else. I've only taken a date there once, but we certainly didn't make-out. I had lived in Provo just a little over two months at the time had made a handful of friends in my ward. One of them was a girl names Sarah. We hung out with the same group of friends, but we didn't know each other terribly well at the time this story took place.

Journal entry dated 12 October 2007:

----

That was--interesting.

I suppose I may have just gone on a date with Sarah. Of a sort. In a way. I guess....

At about 10:00 tonight, apartmentmate Jason asks whether any of us want to go see Transformers, so a group of us piled in his car and headed for Movies 8.

Transformers was sold out at Movies 8, so we went to a different theater.

Transformers was sold out there, too, so we came home.

Now, as we were heading out, I saw Sarah ping-ponging in the lounge and invited her along, but she said that she just saw it a couple days ago. When we got back, we told her what had happened, and then we all kinda hung out in the lounge, shooting pool, playing ping-pong, and fiddling around on the piano.

Eventually, Jason and Danny and I were hanging out here in the apartment, and Danny played a funny clip of a Southern Baptist preacher on his laptop. After we had listened to it once through and had a good laugh, Danny said that it was the sort of thing Sarah would enjoy and that someone should go get her; I volunteered and went outside.

Sarah had apparently gone back to her apartment, and by now it was well past 11, so I didn’t want to knock; I decided to just return back to my apartment. A very odd thing happened next. I went back in the apartment and related what had just happened, and then Jason and Danny started—I don’t know what to call it; I don’t even know how to describe it.

It was so weird!

I mean, they were speaking plain English, but I have no idea where they were coming from! They started asking my why it’s taking me so long to ask Sarah out, what I’m waiting for, why I haven’t gotten around to it. They spoke to me as though whenever I’m around them, all I ever talk about is how much I want to ask her out or as though I spend all my time hanging out with her and it’s high time I take it to another level; perhaps if either of those two things were the case, then the way they were saying what they were saying wouldn’t have confused me, but because neither of those things are true, I could only stare at them in flabbergasted wonderment and ask several times, “What is going on here?”

Ultimately I found myself knocking on Sarah’s door and telling her to come over because Danny had something he wanted to show her. As we walked, she told me that Movies 8 still had a 12:15 showing of Transformers (it was midnight at this time) and that she had decided she wanted to go.

We got to my apartment, had a good laugh at Danny’s clip, and then called Movies 8 to makes sure they still had openings; Movies 8 informed us that there were still 70 tickets or so for Transformers, so we decided to go.

Dillydallying ensued, so I led the charge outside, and Sarah went off to get her purse.

No one else came out.

I popped my head back inside the apartment and asked Jason and Danny whether they were coming.

"We were thinking you could make it a date," Jason said.

"Yeah," Danny agreed; "I don’t want to get in the way of the magic!"

I blinked at them a few times in near disbelief, shook my head, and went outside.

"Well," I said to Sarah, "looks like it’s just you 'n' me!"

"Those other guys aren’t coming?" she asked in surprise.

"Nope," I said; "they all backed out."

So, we went to Movies 8 and were met with a long line that ate up the remaining 70 tickets.

So, we went to the other theater, but it was closed.

Cruising thought various parking lots as we left the second theater, I wound up on a street that I was totally unfamiliar with, but it led us to University Ave, so all was well.

"2700 North‽" I said when I saw the street sign at the stoplight. "How did we get so far north?"

"You really don’t know your way around this town, do you?" Sarah asked, amused.

"I have a terrible sense of direction. 2700 North. Wow. Let’s go south a bit, eh?"

I turned left and drove.

And drove and drove and drove and drove and--

As it turns out, left=north.

Oops....

I was seriously confused, wondering how so much canyon got between University Mall and downtown Provo; Sarah, I guess, though I was just taking her somewhere in Provo Canyon since the movie didn’t work out. It took a long time for us to figure out that I had made a mistake.

But the conversation flowed nicely enough; we had fun, talking and laughing. We spent, like, 45 minutes together, so I imagine that counts as a date despite the fact that it was both impromptu and accidental.

Hm. Well. There you go.

Ice Cream Jenny

2008-11-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

My first Fake Date happened about a month after I moved to Provo. My good buddy Ben (who, at the time, was pretty much my only friend in town) was recently engaged, and I found myself tagging along with him and his fiancee April a lot.

This is the account of my first Fake Date from my journal, 4 September 2007

---

So. I just went on a date.

I just went on a date?

I just went on a date!

BenandApril were going out to ice cream at SubZero and invited me along, but I didn't want to be an an awkward third wheel again, so I resolved to ask a random girl to come along.

As it turns out, most girls travel in packs (I'm not willing to spring for four or five girls to have ice cream); those girls that don't walk around with other girls are usually with a guy.

I went to the parking lot and noticed a girl just getting out of her car.

"Hi!" I said.

"Hi!" she said.

"How are you?" sez me.

"I'm good," sed she.

"What's your name?"

"Kim."

"Hi, Kim; I'm Kyle."

"Hi Kyle."

"So, can I ask you a really weird question without you being put off?"

"Sure."

"You wanna go get ice cream?"

"No. Sorry. My boyfriend's actually meeting me here soon."

"Oh! Well, have fun with your boyfriend!"

"Okay. Bye."

(Not exactly like that because I did explain to her the circumstances.)

I went back to our apartment, charged inside, and shouted to BenandApril, "Give my a Purple Heart! That was fun; I'm gonna try again!"

I stepped outside and--lo and behold!--a girl was walking down from the upper level via the stairwell right in front of me!

"Hi!" I said.

"How are you, Kyle?" she asked.

"Uh. Good. Can I ask you a weird question?"

"Let me guess: 'What's your name?'?"

"Um. No. That's a good one, though. What is your name?"

"Jenny."

"Oh. Alright, Jenny; can I ask you a weird question?"

"Okay."

"You wanna go get some ice cream?"

"Sure!"

"Sweet. My roommate and his fiancee are going, and they invited me along, but I didn't want to be an awkward third wheel."

"Understandable."

So we went, and it was fun.