OK, OK, I did it.

I am on the book of faces.

Cool kids quit their jobs.

Natalie and I both quit our jobs today. Huzzah!

"So uh... that last blog..."

Guess some people were a little thrown by the nature of my last post. These are mostly newer readers. Old readers can no doubt recall I do this textual vomit routine semi-frequently. It's like with the swings (post before last post)... I kinda start thinking out loud just talking and talking until I get to the point which is often a pretty good one. Except on the blog it's typing, which is a little more confusing, cause I suck at typing and think way faster than I type (think Jackie Joyner Kersee vs. Nathan Lane). So I have to go back and correct "wirds snd phtases" and the whole thing is just a bit cumbersome. I usually feel weird about these blogs a couple days later, but in the sake of journalistic integrity, I allow them to remain. Perhaps they give readers insight, perhaps they lose readers, in any case this is more for my sake than theirs (yours), so whatever. I promise the next one will be light hearted, maybe about how I didn't get the job I wanted...

Nah, honking story it is.

She told me with her lips what she wouldn't with her tongue.

I'm really interested to see the comments to follow this blog topic...

So I've been thinking about kissing (Heaven forbid I should be doing any, instead I theorize):

For those who know the tragic tale of the 3 Melissas, this is about the first and worst. This woman is possibly the most responsible for any screwed up perceptions I have on relationships. She's certainly the one I blame.

Anyway, I once invented this game where we would tell each other secrets via kiss. You weren't allowed to say anything or lead in at all, you had to just tell a secret, with kissing as your only mode of expression. To my amazement, we could both do it, almost all of the time. It was amazing. She was so good at guessing that once I threw her a curve ball and she pulled back mid-kiss and said, "you did what naked in High School?" Seriously, it was uncanny. She even told me she was breaking up with me with a kiss. (A particularly cruel method, for the record.) P.S. This is also the girl who honked when she laughed for those who know that story.

Point is, I grew to depend so heavily on this affection, that I've either consciously or subconsciously expected it from every girl I've kissed ever since. I've even tested other girls. No one can do it. So I harbor this little disappointment, and eventually when things aren't going just like I hope, I disengage. Which isn't to say, I break it off; cause honestly, the girls do that more of the time, but I'm convinced it has a lot to do with my unrealistic expectations and this freak girl who could read my thoughts and managed to hurt me more than I'd been hurt before or since. It's a terrible thing to let that keep me from happiness or enjoying who I'm with.

Yes, it was unbelievably cool to be able to communicate like that. And it was really fun to kiss her. But I think I'm done telling secrets with a kiss. I want to tell somebody someday, what isn't a secret to anyone in the world, that I'm totally in love with only her, and say it with a kiss.

The swings made me say it....

Enjoying the swings late at night with a good friend is very theraputic. I find I tend to wax philosophical and dang if I don't say some pretty profound things by the time I've had a good swing...

Don't ask me to remember what I said, something about being ourselves and showing all our plumage and dropping the pretense of who we think we should be around others.

Doesn't sound very novel, I know (and the plumage part is probably downright perplexing out of context), but I swear in the moment it was profound, at least to me... whatever it was I actually said.

It's late and I spent all my brain energy on profundity.
I'm in no state to blog.

Dear New York:

My dear friends in the NYC, I will come visit soon. I am poor. But hopefully in a couple weeks I will be not so poor and we can celebrate not only my being in New York, but my having a fabulous job in Boston. Sound like a plan?

Geez, I Love Church!

"So, how's your ward out there?"
"Perfect."
"Haha."
"No seriously."

Sooo much ice cream. So little tummy.

I had a fun day today. Kristy and I went to lunch at Faneuil Hall and then attended the scooper bowl. Ice Cream abounded. It still runs for 2 more days so get down there and pig out. I fear I ate a bit too much ice cream, but at least I didn't puke it up. Huzzah!

In the House of the Lord...

An oft-quoted charge of President Brigham Young has been resonating in me of late, made to the weary saints as he led them in a hasty and heartbreaking exodus from Nauvoo. He cried in a loud voice above the congregation, "Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord burn in your bones like flame unquenchable." The covenant he spoke of was the collective covenants of the gospel and specifically obedience to the law of consecration.

I seldom have Saturdays off. Hardly ever, in fact, since I don't work on Sunday. So, having this Saturday off was a big deal and honestly I struggled a little as to whether I would spend the precious weekend day at the "Regional Temple Day". I ultimately decided my Temple worship has been spotty at best of late and that I should attend.

Let me unequivocally state for the record that there is absolutely no better way I could have spent my Saturday. I was refreshed and renewed, I was instructed of the Holy Ghost. I was recommitted to the truth I love, and the religion I profess. I have been considering of late, how much Satan wants to keep us out of the Temple. In retrospect I am convinced that my endowment, not my mission, was the vital turning point in my life. I think of how hard the tempter worked to keep me out of the Temple. If he couldn't have me unworthy, he wanted me unmotivated; if not unmotivated, faithless. There is nothing Satan is so jealous of than his power. We are given so much power over him in the Lord's House that he will do everything he can to dissuade us from receiving our endowment. Once we have received it his only hope is to undermine it's value and priority in our life.

Brigham Young's charge is so important, because it lends the most powerful imagery to testify of the absolute significance of what that covenant should MEAN in our lives. It should never stop burning within us.