You kids and your video games.

I think Babylon spent the last two years hard at work to screw up everything that used to be cool. This girl I had a crush on from kindergarten to senior year is now one of those college girls. She was so smart, and so funny, and so painfully attractive... the kind of girl for whom my feelings were almost idolatrous. She wasn't ever into me anyway, but man! To live in a world where mixed drinks had never been invented. Would she still be on the arm of that sleazy 28-year-old with the salon-styled facial hair?

The miserable thing is how unremarkable that transformation was... really, I'm surprised when I talk to old friends who haven't wholeheartedly plunged into "college life." And you can't go anywhere on the internet without facing a soft porn assault, and the shows that I catch my kid brother and sister watching are as vulgar as they are inane. I sound like an old man. I don't have any illusions that the world was much better before I left... maybe it's always been like this, but it still sucks.

I guess I just miss being oblivious. I can't wait to get to Provo... it'll be like a cold morning when you get out of bed way early on accident, but you catch yourself in time to curl back up, and the blankets are still warm. A return to the sweet embrace of monastic disconnect from the world at large. Who am I kidding, I will probably hate Provo. But it's fun to imagine myself enjoying it.

--Kevin

Life is good.

My first FHE at the new singles ward tonight, and it was pretty much amazing. Everyone is just cool... and maybe in a weird sort of way, but I like it. Example: on the way into town I saw a little rocky mesa that I thought would be cool to climb, so I asked Peter if that was Table Mountain (for which the Table Mountain Student Ward is named). He said yes, and I was like, "Well, is it a good climb?" And he said yes, and I said, "Cool, because I'm thinking of getting up there after the Dead Day breakfast Friday morning."

So he says, "Hey, that's a great idea! Let me think, is there any reason why I shouldn't commit to that? No, I'll be done with finals then. You know, I bet there's a couple people that might be into that. I'll see what I can work out."

Of course I was planning on doing it alone, and hadn't really even insinuated that I wanted anyone to come along... but why not?

Everyone seemed to be that way... totally uncomplicated. Like when Shasta meets the Narnians for the first time in The Horse and His Boy: "You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly, and didn't give a fig for anyone who wasn't." We had a really good spiritual discussion at the beginning, and then just joked around and got to know each other for an hour after that. Jokes were funny if they were funny, and there was none of the Pharisaical posturing and "top the mission story", and nobody trying to demonstrate their righteousness by how easily they can be offended.

So it's been a pretty rockin' weekend. I got my first paycheck, a cute girl took my tie off in Sunday School (kinda weird but kinda cool, once again) and I'm excited to climb that dang mountain.

--Kevin

From Modest Mouse to John Mayer in one night.

So this is funny, given yesterday's post. I went to a dance tonight (a luau actually, how dumb does it sound), and I actually had an amazing time. A bunch of people from the Golden singles ward--the ward I'm supposed to be going to--totally took me in, like I've been hoping someone would for the past two months. Even without the obvious counsel to go where you're assigned, I think that's where I want to be. I went up there last Sunday to speak, and before the meeting started, this guy Peter walked up to me and told me he would pray for me while I spoke; and the whole time, I could feel it. Then Annie, an excitable, happy, pretty redhead came up to welcome me to the ward, just in case I decided to stay. Just solid, cool people. The real deal.

So tonight I found Peter hanging out by the drinks, and we talked about how awkward these things are, and how dancing "just ain't me", and he introduced me to some friends of his, and dancing just wasn't them, either... so that was cool. We just talked for a while, joked about how the music hasn't changed in the eight years since I've been to a dance... and then Annie and this little short girl Esmeralda dragged us out and got us to fake it. Couldn't even figure out the electric slide and the chicken dance, but it was fun!

After a while, I felt like I was finding my groove, starting to enjoy myself, and Esmeralda said (in the nicest way possible) "Hey, at least you're dancing!" Lest I should be exalted above measure. All the girls were really good--like, half the time I wanted to just step back and let them do their thing--but the cool thing was that none of the guys knew what they were doing, and we all felt stupid.

Started talking to this one guy (don't think I got his name)... the basics, how weird the RM thing is, how awkward church dances are... and he doesn't dance either; but then he sees these two girls standing by themselves, grimaces, and says, "All right, I'll take the one in the white, you take the one in the brown," and I grimaced, and we did it, and it turns out Jennifer in the brown was pretty cool.

There was a really pretty dark-haired girl across the floor who was just getting down... like, almost too much. and I said, "Hey man, do you know her?"

And he was like "Nah... you should go ask her to dance!"

As much as I don't believe in girls being 'out of my league', I declined. Well, he kept bringing it up, and finally the last slow dance came on, and he said, "Look, dude, you better ask her or I'm going to."

So I did. Turns out she's pretty cool. Lives downtown, studying nursing at CU. She didn't say anything mean or try to kill me.

It was like all my weird social anxiety fell apart, and all of a sudden nothing was a big deal. Just a couple cool people was all it took. I almost didn't go tonight... and I remember now my first interview with Bishop Christiansen, who said, "Follow the Spirit, elder... if He tells you to go to that stake dance, you be obedient and go."

I almost laughed out loud at the time, but tonight was a big deal! Everything feels different. A friggin' luau; go figure. But I really, really needed it, and it almost didn't happen. Life is so good.

--Kevin

Your morning cup of neurosis.

I stayed up late last night and read over my old blog entries, and decided I really miss having friends like in high school. The mission is kind of anomalous because you're rarely just 'hanging out' with people of your choosing... it's been almost three years since I've just called somebody up and went out and did something.

Three years... that's crazy. I can't wait to get settled at school and not be in this weird in-between place anymore. Guys like my grandpa can just be alone and do things they like to do, no problem. I need a social life, and Facebook isn't cutting it for me. Cool as it is.

So I go to all the singles stuff that the Church does... I still draw the line at dances, but everything else. I had been optimistic that the return-missionary thing would make it easier to feel normal around Mormons; but if anything it's more complicated. People have expectations about what a mission is supposed to make of a kid, and I always get the feeling that I'm not meeting those expectations. I'm probably just being paranoid.

I'm getting a renewed understanding of what President Hinckley said about the needs of converts... how members of the Church are "more different than we often think we are," etc. and it's difficult for converts to fit in without help. I don't think I've ever connected that to my experience with the Church, but it fits perfectly. I know the gospel is true, and I consider myself to be pretty orthodox... but I still feel like a visiting anthropologist at church.

Here's what I need: I need someone to validate all the weirdness I see, and confirm for me that it is in fact really weird and I'm not crazy for thinking it's weird. And the longer this goes on, the crazier I actually sound. I should go to bed.

--Kevin

This is the good life.

I got out and made it HAPPEN this week. I cleared a new pasture for the horses (with a tractor), I helped build a fence, I climbed a mountain (twice), I learned to play five new songs on the guitar, I started a conversation with a girl I didn't know at church, and I beat FOUR viderogames and we had a Quantum Leap season 4 marathon. I didn't work very much at all, and it was very good.

Oh and I got the cops called on me! See if I don't do things right when I think to do them, they won't get done. So when it occurred to me to vanish into the mountains for a couple hours, I didn't think to tell Dad or leave a note or anything, I just left. So when he saw my truck pulled over on the shoulder down 285 toward Denver, and the keys left on the seat and the passenger door unlocked (whoops), he assumed I'd been murdered or something. By people who leave the keys on the seat and the passenger door unlocked, I guess. So he called Morrison's finest, and they showed up a minute or two before I did; and I said I was sorry and I'd leave a note next time, and they said it was refreshing to see a concerned parent, etc. and tore off in search of traffic offenders.

And I was a little sorry. I should have left a note. But something happened! I didn't just sit inside watching the clock all day! He always got on my case about wasting my life on the computer, and I finally feel like taking his advice, and it's baffling. Kevin? Outside? On purpose? Surely not, this must be a 9-1-1 emergency. So it was a little cool not to be so predictable, honestly.

He'd be so much madder if he knew how long I was sitting at the cliff edge, occasionally glancing down and wondering what he was doing down there, and then shrugging and going back to my book. Had to have been a good hour... he said he was waiting for three hours, and it wasn't that long of a climb. But I definitely made it known the next time I went for a hike.

And the place I found is pretty much perfect. Level enough to climb without equipment, but steep and rocky enough to be scary and fun... like, you probably won't die, but you could if you weren't paying attention. And I'm still a little afraid of heights, so the peak is a rush... it's probably about ten feet square, and always windy, and you can see straight down almost 360 degrees, nothing but pointy rocks all around for a hundred yards.

So I got some good praying done (especially on the way down), and I brought my scriptures and tried to imagine what it was like before the temple, to go up into the mountain for sacrifices and prayer. I tried to study up there, but I think I'll have to hike a little farther to capture the experience. From my perch I could still see (and even hear, which was strange to me) the rush-hour highway traffic coming out of Denver into the mountains. It was even more distracting than it would have been on the ground; the loudest noise being the one you're trying hardest not to hear, I suppose. This last time I was probably a hundred yards higher, and it was still impossible to pay attention. But across the valley there's a ridge of higher, broader peaks, farther from the road. A longer climb, but probably an easier one. Will definitely have to remember a water bottle next time.

There's so much to like about this way of living. Being free to disappear for three or four hours whenever it seems like a good idea; never having to shave or wear shoes unless I want to; the scope of possibilities: like, I can have a really productive and amazing day, or I can play Xbox if I feel like it. I can wake up at 6:30 or sleep in until noon. Life is good!

--Kevin

The day I live deliberately, it will probably kill me.

It baffles me that I could have written daily in this thing two years ago, when I had so much less to report. Not that a whole lot is going on now... working from home has its perks, but it might be nice to have a reason to leave the house.

Something occurred to me, though, the other night. I was getting ready for bed, and noticed a plastic tub full of photos on a countertop; so I sat crosslegged on my bed for about half an hour and went through them all. Most of them were from circa 1998, which doesn't seem like that long ago until you see what ten years has done to everyone. Brooklyn was barely an armful, with no hair except that wispy cowlick that stood up right on top of her head. Alec was a messy-haired, beautiful little toddler, full of hilarious idiosyncrasies. (He's in middle school now, where they beat the idiosyncrasies out of you... so it's not as funny anymore.) Dad's hair was black... I can't imagine that it ever could have been as black as it apparently was. Probably best not to be any more specific, but suffice to say we've all gotten older. Except Mom. She just never seems to get any older. (I would say that even if it weren't true, but it is.)

And you know what? I was a cute little kid. If I had been able to accept the notion that I was a little kid, and not agonize so much over my lack of maturity and self-control, not try so hard to get it ALL FIGURED OUT, I bet it would have been more fun. I remember how badly I wanted to be the age I am now... and here it is, welcome to it. I wish I could remember what exactly I'd planned to do. Seems to me I had 21 more or less nailed down back then.

So I went upstairs, and Mom was lying on the couch, watching Frasier reruns. She pulled her feet in so I could sit down, and we just talked. Eventually her attention drifted back to the Cranes, so I sat with my folded arms and chin resting on her knees, just staring at her for a minute. It struck me that in ten years, when life is totally different again and I'm living the life she and Dad were living in 1998, this is what I will wax nostalgic about. And I will wish idly that I had savored it a little more. So I memorized my mother lying on the couch in sweats, makeup off and ready for bed, at age 40. Maybe it's the progressive, ravaging deforestation of my head that has me thinking this way, but lately I feel like getting all I can out of 21. I even worked out today. (A little. And then I played video games a little.)

--Kevin