Meg

A terrible thing happened to a friend of mine yesterday. And it reminded me of someone that I, sadly, have not thought about in a while.

Megan Anne Brandon was a friend of mine, though not for a really long period of time. We knew each other in middle school, and were pretty good friends for the first few months of my freshman year. Then, in November, she shot herself.

It's tragic, you know? She was 14. The sweetest girl you could ever meet. I understand, mostly, why she did it. But even right now, it just fills me with grief.

I've been thinking, this morning, about where she is now, and what her future is. Considering the circumstances of her death, and the events leading up to it, traditional Christian theology would probably say she's damned. That infuriates me. The God that just damns people willy-nilly just doesn't jive with the reality of a loving Heavenly Father. That's the same kind of God who says, "Oh, I'm sorry, you lived in India and you never got baptized? Tough luck." Or says the same to infants who die without baptism. It's just like, really? Who do you think God is?

When you think about it, when you know who God is and what he wants, that just doesn't make sense. If he's really our Father in Heaven, literally, if he is the father of our spirits, he wants as many people to return to him as possible. He sent us here, he wants all of us back. He would have to be about the worse plan-maker ever to send billions of his children here with absolutely zero chance of ever returning. That's not just foolish, it's cruel.

So I'm grateful to know that that's not the case. I'm grateful to know the truth; to know what's what and who's who and how it all fits together.

As for Meg? I don't usually romanticize God or Christ. I usually think of them in a manly sort of way, lots of respect, gratitude. Love, but not in a soppy, emotional sort of way. In this case, though, I'm confident that Christ met Meg those years ago. I think she cried on His shoulder. I think He comforted her. And I know without a doubt that I will see her again.

And that's worth something.

*Cleverness*

I started a journal, like, a real one. It's alright. I don't really know how to write in it, so it feels really awkward. It's like, who am I talking to? What's my audience? Is it just my 'future self'? Or my future wife, or my eventual posterity? I would write different things to each of those people. To myself I would probably put more personal things, things I've figured out, little details that it might be fun to remember. If my wife will read it, then I probably shouldn't put in a ton of details about my current besottment, because if it's not the same person she probably won't appreciate it. If my future kids will read it, then I don't really want to put in stuff about depression or struggles or like, bad stuff, because, you know, they're my kids. Daddy will be perfect in their eyes, can't be shattering that illusion.


Speaking of kids, I really want them. I'm so pumped to have babies. Tons of them. We had a joke in our apartment last semester that, one of the things you have to talk to someone you're in a serious relationship with is "the P word". So it was like, "Mike, have you talked to her about the P word yet?" P is posterity. But basically no one who's not Mormon would ever use that word, so it's funny. Somehow. I don't know.


If you want some updates on my commitments, you may be disappointed. I talked about how I was going to learn Arabic, learn to write with my left hand, get good grades, and all of that. I know no Arabic, I didn't write with my left hand even once, and I'm probably going to flunk out of school this semester. That's maybe an exaggeration, I will probably only fail half my classes. I actually want to get a 1.75 (cross your fingers) because then if someone asks what kind of grades I got my first year at college I can say "4.0... If you add both semesters together!" And we will laugh and laugh and it will be a grand old time. And hopefully they will forget that that means I got terrible grades.


Speaking of being funny, it's really early/late. I made a cake last night, cherry chip. It smelled like my birthday. I had like 3 cherry chip cakes for my 18th birthday, because I told people how much I loved them and so like 3 different people made them. My parents were out of town for my birthday, so Loni spent the night and we ate Dino Nuggets and cake and sweet Maui onion chips and watched Avatar: The Last Airbender all night. We never got to finish the 3rd season before I left, sad. It's a good show. That Sokka is really funny.


As I continue to vomit words onto this keyboard, I've realized something. This aggression will not stand. Does that make any sense to you? Probably not, because it's nonsense. I don't know why anyone would ever say it.


Yeah. I'm gonna go now. I'll probably delete this when I read it as a coherent human later. Yeah.

Shapes

I spent way too much money in Portland this weekend. Like, 900 bucks. Crap. But it was a good time nonetheless.

My sophomore year in Geo/Trig, me and Karlie Ellingson were like, "Man, it would be so cool to be ambidextrous. Maybe we should make ourselves learn to write with our other hand." (I was right, she was left). We did it for about 30 minutes.

However, today I decided that I'm going to take a risk. I'm going to ambidextrize myself. For the next month, I will not write with my write hand. At all, unless I forget. You might say, "But what about your signature? Surely such a fine, handcrafted (ha!) piece of art as that can't be imitated with your left hand." Fear not, my signature is a quarter inch scribble, followed by a giant squiggly line. Unless I'm signing it electronically, then it's just like one line randomly somewhere on the pad.

But anyways, with any luck, I will soon be ambidextrous, which will be awesome. Maybe I'll wear an eyepatch on my good eye, too, so that my entire body will be symmetrical.
Probably not.

This one's for you, Charlie

I'm one of those people that doesn't win things, or at least, that's what I'll tell you. Whenever there's a contest or raffle or something there's always a group of people who can be heard saying "I've never won anything, ever. It's really my turn to win something." That group of people includes, generally, every single person who entered the contest. If you listened to all of them you might begin to believe that all contests, from the 1st grade spelling bee to the state lottery, were in fact rigged so that there will never be a winner. Most people who claim to belong to this state of perpetual loss are, in fact, in a state of perpetual forgetfulness. I think most of us have actually won things many times in our life, they were just insignificant enough, or occurred long enough ago, that we don't remember them.

With that in mind, I've decided to go through my life and think of all the times I've ever won anything. Let us begin.


In middle school I won a handheld karaoke machine. It was for a bingo game, held in the cafeteria, for people who had like sold a certain amount of magazines and turned in their paper about it or something. Of course, I didn't sell anything, I just stole Trevor Evans' paper and erased his name and put my own in (who uses pencil on those things? Get with the program.) I suppose that was a win in and of itself, since I got to miss class for no reason at all. For those of you who are worried about Trevor, don't. I distinctly remember seeing him at the Bingo thing and being like "Did you really go out and sell more magazines? Get a life." In the end, though, I won a handheld karaoke thing. It was purple. Erika Devereaux approached me afterwards and asked me for it, since I would never use it. I was a jerk, so I said no, and it sat in my house for a couple of years before I threw it away.


I've won some stuff from my dad throughout the years. He likes to offer exorbitant sums for trivia questions that he's sure I won't know the answer to. I once won a dollar for spelling elephant correctly (I know that isn't an exorbitant sum). On our sailboat cruise in Mexico, he offered me 50 dollars if I could tell him who "took the purse". I said "Judas Escariot", and I think my mom wanted to swear at him. But, of course, she didn't.


As a side-note, I can only remember my mom swearing like 3 times in my life. Once was at my dad when I was a kid. It was about me and my brother. I think my dad had been a jerk to us and her mama-bear hackles rose up and she threw the D-bomb right in his face. BAM! Another time, it was totally random, we were going to the airport in Fairbanks, and I was being a whiny little twerp, and like was complaining about carrying the suitcase into the airport, and she was like "Well I'll carry the damn thing myself." I remember I was just like, confused. I didn't really know why she would choose that particular moment of all moments to unleash her inner demons. I think there was another time, but it's not coming to me right now.


Speaking of "I think there was another time, but it's not coming to me right now," I think there was another time when I won something, but it's not coming to me right now. Dang.