Friday, September 14, 2012

I am abandoning all pretense of staying on one topic, right now.



Bruschetta
            Fresh basil and an unholy forest of tomatoes grow wild in my backyard. So, I’ve been making bruschetta every day. It’s so good, I could die, but I won’t since it will be so very difficult to continue eating bruschetta without a body.
            It’s very simple and satisfying.
 
Go Cougars!
I had the longest conversation about football in my life, with five women. We weren’t just shamelessly lusting after the players, although I’ll admit that was subtext.
We also weren’t really discussing technique or the plays. More so, we talked about team dynamics and some specific games and moments that we remembered. Watching how the players interact with each other, how they work together or don’t is fascinating. Last year, BYU football was a telanovela disaster. SO much drama. It made me think of the Team Psychiatrist in The Natural.
            The cougars really could have used some help last season, and maybe they got it because it got better.
            It’s rivalry week with U of U so we’re all excited. Last year, I was firmly in the U of U camp (it is my alma mater) I went to the game in my school sweatshirt and sat in the BYU student section with my friend Kate. It was pretty hilarious for the first few fumbles. Then it just kept getting worse and I thought they were going to kill me. Kate had to come to my rescue, “HEY! Peace and love people, didn’t you see The Help?!”
I actually took the sweater off eventually, I was so ashamed. My school was winning, sure, and they were winning by A LOT, but it wasn’t exactly a fair fight, and at the time, we didn’t understand why. “BYU is a good team. U of U is a good team. Why aren’t I watching a good game?”
It was a sucky, sucky game. My alma mater should not be proud of that victory. Nobody should be proud of curb-stomping someone who never had a chance. I’m not saying they should have gone easier on them, by any stretch, but maybe they should have raised the axe with soberness rather than maniacal Jokeresque giggling.
I haven’t checked in with my BYU broadcasting sources yet, and one of them is too shy around the players to get anything good (you know who you are), but I have the decided and positive impression that they’re in a much better play psychologically.
And this year’s BYU vs. UofU game cannot possibly be as bad as last year.

I’m trying to read during other weeks of the year besides the two when I’m lying on the beach near San Clemente Pier. While gallivanting around England I paid a trip to Baker Street with some far-more-cultured-than-I-am Mormon girls and felt quite ashamed that not only had I never read any Sherlock Holmes, I hadn’t even really seen any movies besides the Robert Downey Jr. ones, and I only saw the sequel because I was trapped and scared for my life on a ferry-of-the-damned that happened to have its own theatre and I thought watching something would distract me from the rocking and wailing of the Irish Sea.
Pretty much everything I knew about Sherlock Holmes could be summed up in that pipe-smoking, deerstalker-wearing silhouette. But visiting 221b Baker Street and going into the shop/sneaking into the basement conjured a curiosity.
So, I promised a few of those girls that I would indeed read the books and watch the modern day BBC show.
First, the book.
A Study in Scarlet
            To be fair, not knowing anything about Mormons in Victorian England, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did a really great job in representing them as lecherous gothic villains. But you’d have to not know anything about them, wouldn’t you? The truth about the saints isn’t great for a detective story, the story he came up with on the other hand, made for excellent reading. I may have to become a Sherlockian one day. I think I’m enjoying The Sign of Four even more than A Study in Scarlet.
            Second, the show.
            I’m sold. I’m absolutely sold. Within sixty seconds of A Study in Pink I was weeping right along with Dr. Watson. So far, many of my favorite exchanges have been right from the book, but modernized. I do so love a show that has me crying through one scene and laughing in the next.
            I meant to just watch it a little bit at a time.
            Did not happen.
         

Last thought. A few people are harassing me about going more in depth into my summer. I promise I will.


Later.



…alright, I’ll do a little now. Here’s a journal excerpt.

London, First Impressions

Everything is CUTE!

I’m having quite a difficult time keeping myself from dropping eaves everywhere. You have to understand, I’m used to hearing British accents only in the context of a good story that I need to pay close attention to, so psychologically, whenever I catch a bit of conversation I automatically have a response that’s something like “Oohh, I don’t want to miss anything! What are they saying?!” Then I remember that it’s real life and I try to mind my own business.

And fail.

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