Did I ever tell you of the day that I lost faith in humanity?

I had just started my new job at the Costco(mpany) and I was enjoying my simple yet satisfying job as a cashier's assistant, when my bubble was broken. And old man and his wife muscled their overladen cart towards our stand and I offered my services like usual. As I began unloading their items the grandma (who was pleasant enough) noticed that their was a hole in her over sized bag of dinner rolls. She told me that she wanted to get a new one and promptly started to make her way to the back of the store.

Her husband, upon observing this little interaction, then tore into me with a bitter tone usually reserved for persons who have killed close relatives or pets, "I can't believe you would let her do that herself!"
Astonished, I replied, "Uhh, I'm sorry, wha...?"
"NO, sorry doesn't fix this. I can't believe you would let an old woman do that herself. She has a bad knee you know!"
"..."
"There is no way to fix this now. Is it or isn't it store policy that you run back and get things we need?"
Not knowing that it isn't store policy, but rather a service that we choose to render, "Uhh, I guess so."
Now even more livid, "NO! Is it or isn't it? Give me a straight answer!"
"Yes?"
His lips curled as he revealed a mouth full of aging teeth and asked, "Then why didn't you do it?"
"I don't know, sometimes we go back for stuff if the members want us to..."
"You're a mistake! I should talk to a manager!"
Now getting fed up with this belligerent old fool, "Do you want me to? Because I can go get one!"
"You're lucky I don't!"
"Well, then I'll remember next time..." Just then a supervisor told me it was time for me to go out and push carts before I said ".. to do better." Or was it, "to avoid jerk old people who feel entitled to hand and foot service because they survived the Great Depression?"  I can't remember which. 

So, to this old guy: if sorry doesn't make it better and there is no way to fix the problem in your mind, why bring it up? I just can't understand how people can be this way. I can understand mentioning to me that you would rather have me go back and get something, but to lay into me like that? It was something else. If someone goes to do something themselves, I am not about to physically stop them. And apparently I was supposed to tap into my omniscient powers to know that this particular sixty five year old woman had a bad knee. In a place that is often labeled as happy valley this kind of thing happens way too often. What took me aback was the venom with which he addressed me right out of the gates. You would honestly think I had punched his wife in the face by the way he spoke to me. It was so amazing I can't even get upset about it.

I may have lost faith in humanity that day if it had not been for a sweet old mexican woman who was lost in the parking lot. She couldn't find her car and I offered to help her. When we finally found her car she wrapped her wrinkled hands around my cheeks, looked deep into my soul and said, "God bless you." And all of the rancor about the days proceedings that had been driving my legs simply slipped out of me.

Sometimes the outliers of society, the murderers, slanderers, and liars tend to shape our opinions of humanity at large. This was a lesson to me that for every grumpy old man there is out there, there are fifty sweet old women.

[Keep following. Next time I'll tell you about the time I met David Hasselhoff.]

On Writing

Today I saw this mountainside:

And I realized that I have untold volumes inside me. Stories waiting to be told. They lurk in dark corners of my mind and wait for me to grab hold of them. And I will. I will pull them out still wriggling and carve them on blank pages. I will watch and grow as they develop into a vision that will surpass even the spectacular beauty of God's etch-a-sketch that surrounds us. Maybe that's blasphemous. I don't care. I think God wants us to be better than him. Just as any loving parent hopes for their child.

And maybe that is why we read. There is something about the written word that catches our attention. I for one have felt more connected to nature while reading Wordsworth than when I walked along the Swiss countryside. It's not to say that nature has no merit. But perhaps we tend to focus on the mosquitoes in our ears and the sweat on our necks more than how beautiful the alpine lakes are that are right in front of us. Maybe we trust print more. And just maybe that is why God caused the Bible to be written. I'm sure he could have just revealed the truth through visions easily enough.

All I know is that there are stories in there somewhere. Right now they are in embryo. Incubating. I can feel them when I see gaps in the clouds. I sense them when I turn to see the sun shining on a snow-covered mountainside. Intimations of the potential in me shine through momentarily when I write for other people. Soon I will be able enough to write for myself. Soon I will know enough to do all that potential justice. Until then...

[Keep following. Why? Because Arnold said so.]

True Story

There is a corner bar
that snuggles a bustling street
Cafe Parterre, I think it's called
intricate masonry tells volumes
of its history

Nowadays though
it has become a hangout for indie
types with horn rimmed glasses
they sip lattes in the morning
and dark summer wines in the night

The noise of distant trains tip taps
on exposing picture windows
and rebounds off the hollow guitar
of a hopeless moonlighting musician
who sings of his heartbreak and no one hears

A coaster falls from an oaken table
to be swept up in midnight shuffling
and ideas come to the poet in the corner
who resonates with the dirty chandelier
she pauses and pours her life from her wrists

Onto blank pages the black lines spurt
like the gray beard of the drunk in the back
curling hairs hold the alcohol and shift
with his silent sober sobs this thursday night
just like the last and the one before that

Outside the noise of fifty voices at once rises and falls
with the ringing of an antique bell
they walk to the bus stop with arms round waists
and moonlight cascades down in sheets
it rests feather-like on unsure steps

And I would walk
stained collar and all
with knowing strides the sidewalk
that I had known a hundred times before
knowing so much more than any of them could possibly fathom.

[Keep following and fabulous prizes will be yours!]

Strange Things Are Afoot

In the laundry room.
I have a wild affair with laundry day. It's hot and cold. On again, off again. Today was a good day. We spent a few hours together and cleared some things up. It had been awhile since we've seen each other. Our relationship isn't perfect, but show me someone who has a good relationship with laundry day.

Laundry day inspires me, leaves me half-naked, and is always stressful.

Laundry day's influence is apparent in one of my previous works.

Laundry day is needy. Takes my time and money. And is obsessed with quarters for some reason. I thought this was 2010? Who uses quarters anymore? I hate going to the bank just to withdraw quarters from my account. I feel like it is one of those mundane errands that is made even more annoying by the fact that I can't function without doing it. Like grocery shopping. If I had unlimited funds I would send servants to withdraw quarters for me.

I can never seem to dress right around laundry day. I'm either in shabby mismatched grubbies and I feel awkward, or I go in my normal clothes and I get judged by laundry day's friends in the laundry room.

It's also stressful because laundry day always insists upon sneaking up on me. I am just going about my week like regular until I realize I haven't seen laundry day in awhile and then bam! laundry day is right behind me.

I know laundry day is good for me. I'm sure we'll sort out our issues.


[I know it's not manly, but it is funny. Keep following because next time I will tell you why whale meat is awesome.]

All I Ever Needed To Know (Part 3)

"There were times when we would look at each other - oh Mother, I could hardly breathe." This contains elements of the first phase of our love lives and the second phase but it also contains a more developed third phase. I'll explain. 1. There is a sense of childish infatuation and lust in those words that cannot be denied, 2. but there is no logic behind this statement for Maria is planning on taking vows of celibacy, 3. and yet there is an austere maturity that is developing. This is Maria thinking out loud. Her understanding has not yet caught up to her vocal chords. She is saying that she loves.

Nietzsche would say that this statement is both Apollonian and Dionysian. It fits the Apollonian structure and form of true love. It is the embodiment of true and everlasting love, unique and individual, it serves to define her feelings.
And yet the very same statement is wildly Dionysian. It captures wild lust and embodies her sophomoric attraction to that which she has never experienced. She is drawn away from her life of order into a chaotic realm where nothing is sure.

One could say that true love requires both attributes although they are diametrically opposed to one another. What could be more drab than love without some amount of teenage lust? And what could be more unfulfilling than unbridled lust without some amount of the unfailing devotion that is love? Both make up true love.

And once again, I couldn't tell you why Maria worked out when the Baroness didn't. One thing is sure, The Baroness got it wrong when she said, "There's nothing more irresistible to a man than a woman who's in love with him." That wasn't it. She assumes that the fault rests only with Maria. That the Captain "Just couldn't resist." But we find out later why it didn't work out when the Captain says, "Well, you can't marry someone when you're in love with someone else... can you?"

I guess that is the the heart of the problem. There is no reason behind it. He is just in love with someone else.

But that someone else is someone who understands him. Maria says of him, "I can't ask him to be less than he is." For all her inexperience and naivety, she happens to be more right for Von Trapp than the one that logic approved.

So the next time you are feeling like you don't have any idea what is going on, just remember that Feeling may sweep you up at any second and all you can do is go where it takes you or bow out. And if you are in a relationship, don't forget the "Maria Problem". There is no way to prepare for it. But just be aware that there is no logic behind what you feel. Just obey. The answer to the question, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" is, "You don't."
Take all this for what it's worth.

[OK my fellow Men, keep following because the next post will all be about motor oil and chainsaws.]

All I Ever Needed To Know (Part 2)

Before 500 Days of Summer there was The Sound of Music.
We all know of the relationship that had every reason to work out, but didn't. Some of us know first hand how this feels. Others can only imagine. Leave reason and logic in the closet for this next one, folks. For here we enter the domain of Feeling. More often than not, in these circumstances, rationality is left behind and in turn, whim takes the place that planning once occupied. Fancy replaces reality. Common sense is exchanged for raw emotion. There is no understanding here. Things simply are.

The Baroness and Captain Von Trapp have every reason to be married. Both are wealthy and attractive. They love each other and enjoy each others company. Their relationship is drama free and steady-as-she-goes. But all it takes is one Maria to bring the clockwork to a shuddering halt. It reminds me of a Henrik Ibsen quote, "Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse." With routine love comes also a forgetting of the fragility of things. More people than just the nuns are driven to think intensely about the "Maria Problem".

With prolonged steadiness comes a feeling of security. This isn't bad, it's natural. It's only natural to feel safe in familiarity and routine. All you need to do is work at a theme park to realize that behind momentary excitement rests drudgery. Often, relationships that have every reason to work well, simply don't. We could postulate theories all day long as to the whys and hows but that would be fruitless. It would be like trying to know the unknowable. All we must know is that it happens and it is out of our control. And sometimes, just sometimes, a relationship that has absolutely no reason to work, simply does. Let this be a lesson to us all, "You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, and curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go."

The Baroness played her part well. She realized what had happened and excused herself, "Somewhere out there is a lady who I think will never be a nun. Auf Wiedersehen, darling." She kept her dignity and went on living. I'm positive things turned out well for her.
To be continued...

[Keep following for in my next post I will reveal why toast always lands butter-side down. I wish part 2 was more satisfying, don't you?]

All I Ever Needed To Know About Love...

... I learned from The Sound of Music.
Hear me out. I'm serious. This movie contains many of the combinations and possibilities for love and relationships (and contains some surprisingly good advice if you pay attention). Although the movie was made in 1965 the situations are still applicable today. This must mean that, for all our discoveries, the greatest mystery remains the opposite sex. There are three main situations in which we find ourselves when it comes to love. These situations change as we get older, but elements of them all can be found in every relationship. They are universal. This is the first.

For most Mormons, like Liesl, our first experience with love happens when we are about 'sixteen going on seventeen.' Things are complicated. We still live at home. Our parents (rightly) see our naivety and warn us of the dangers of dating too soon. Thus we are forced to keep our love secret. Hidden away. We have reached the golden age of invincibility. Our hearts haven't yet felt the stinging rebuke of rejection or unrequited infatuation. We charge blindly and love fiercely. We leave reason and reservations standing in the rain like unwanted party guests. Our lives revolve around this new high, and we give all we have for this new feeling; exhilarating and terrifying, like being in heaven and having the flu at the same time. Pulses race around twisting stomachs every time we read (or misread) a signal. We look for any support for our vain hope and we are rewarded.

That is, up until we find out that Rolf is actually a Nazi. Then the latent growing pains that were nothing but dull aches before turn into crashing waves that hit like blunt force trauma. We are suddenly no longer invincible. We all know what it was like back then. Everything was so grandiose. Our worlds began and ended with current circumstances. Any negative major event brought with it looming feelings of Armageddon, as if the world's very foundations would crack any minute. We live or die with our successes and failure. Girls would cry and boys sulk, too proud to let gathering drops fall.

But we recover. We find that we are more resilient than we thought. We learn that time is God's Band-Aid for emotional hurt. And we grow. We emerge a little more sure that next time we won't act the same way. Or, at the very least, we will be wary of the next set of charming blue eyes and blond hair that marches into our life.
To be continued...

[Keep following. Next time I will relate the story of how Hitler lost his bet with a midget. I mean little person.]

We All Need To Start Somewhere

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Or at least that's what someone told me once. I guess this is my step. It's a pretty reluctant one, I must admit. I've had an unhealthy attitude toward Blogging for a long time. Maybe it's because "Blog" is such a buzzword in our society (and if you know me at all, you know I can't stand things that are wildly popular for no reason. Case in point-- Paris Hilton). Maybe I dislike Blogs because anyone can start a Blog and therefore the GDP of all Blogs collectively is greatly tarnished and generally shoddy. But maybe it's because up until recently I hadn't read any Blogs worth reading (thanks to John and Sierra for redeeming a medium).

Either way, here I am.

I've entitled my Blog "Arriving Somewhere" because I guess it's kind of how I feel about life. That sounds trite and I am sure that if I were more eloquent then I could jazz it up and make it more intriguing. But the simple truth is that I am always arriving. I just never know where. I guess the first time I experienced this in a visceral manner was when my plane landed in Zurich. The pilot had assured us that we were now "here" in Switzerland but somehow I didn't believe it. I was sure that I had arrived, for the plane was no longer moving, but I had an overwhelming sense that I wasn't sure where "here" was, or what awaited me behind the next set of sliding doors or around the next curve in the tunnel.

But this feeling doesn't always come during travel. Sometimes it happens while walking around a parking lot. I know that I have "arrived" at a fitting Major in school, but I'm not sure that I understand quite yet what that means. I'm sure I will comprehend this later when I am being rejected for a position at a distinguished university.

Writing for me is an outlet. From my facebook statii you may assume that this outlet is mostly pessimistic and critical, but you'd be wrong. The fact is, writing is extremely therapeutic (and sometimes entertaining). Lest some of you be turned off, let me say that I don't intend to bore you with intellectual quandaries and emotional merry-go-rounds (though don't be surprised if a few sneak through once in awhile). Mostly I intend to give you a glimpse into my mind. See its inner workings and dysfunctions. But also its hopes and joys. And maybe a poem or story that it came up with if I deem them worthy.

Through it all, my main hope is that I won't let Ben Franklin down by making my Blog like so many others that (let's be honest you and I) frankly aren't worth reading.
Every once in awhile I hope that I get it right. Every once in awhile I hope I inspire you. Every once in awhile I hope that I wrench on your heartstrings. Every once in awhile I hope I relate to you on a personal level. Every once in awhile I hope I make you feel alive, and inspire you to stand with Tennyson and declare "I have felt". I doubt that my Blog is what I will be remembered for after I die, but hey, maybe I'll get lucky and arrive in the right place for once.

[Keep 'following' for my next entry where I shall attempt to figure out why Paris and Nicole are famous.]