"It would be like going from a Hot Dog on a Stick, to eating a regular corn dog."

"You eat regular corn dogs all the time."

"Yeah, but that's just because we don't have Hot Dog on a Stick here."

"Yes. Hot Dog on a Stick is in Pittsburg for two years. That analogy just compounded all my worst fears."

"Crap."

Do you remember that one time?

Yeah. I do.

El sacapuntas es muy trabajador

I'm happy pretty often these days. Not all the time. But oftener than in days gone past. Basically, two people are to blame. Sarah and the spirit. You would think that they would make me different kinds of happy, but I've found that that's not necessarily the case. And sometimes they like, double-team me with happiness-making. That's a formidable combination, let me tell you.

That's about all I think I have to say about that.


We're getting our house ready to sell, which is a big pain in the face. I also have to move upstairs to my old room for a month, which is a pain in my soul. My entire life is down here. All my schedules and routines. Everything will be different upstairs. I will to wear clothes to and from the shower, for instance. Yeah. That's a big one. Also, it's just like, near everyone. Ugh.

I think I blogged once about how I need my solitude. I need my alone time, and my silence. That's why I like waking up before anyone else. But upstairs, it's different. My parents sleep like, not so far away. And they walk around. Ugh. I shall never be alone. No peace to be found.

But. I will survive, most likely. And it may be good practice for my mission, where you are never alone, ever. Unless you are in the bathroom. Granted, I  know that that's very inspired, for like, a bajillion reasons. But it will still be excruciating for me. Especially if I get like, some weirdo companion. Which I undoubtedly will. But, I'll digress.


Father's day is Sunday. So there's that.


Lowe's is still pretty lame. I guess I have some 'friends' there. Which is weird. No one in my department, but a few cashiers. Obviously. Because I still don't know how to deal with men. Everything I say I'm like, "Wait, is this something another guy would say?" And I stress, and assume that they think I'm weird. Which, actually, they probably do. But with women, there's none of that. I'm just like, "Blah blah blah, I'm hilarious, and charming" and then they're like "Laugh laugh laugh, you're awesome." And all is well. Of course, the problem with this philosophy is that I don't discriminate. I am nice and funny and charming to attractive and unattractive girls alike. With attractive ones, they're used to it, and they understand it's just how I am, and we can be friends. But less attractive girls, who have no experience with men being nice to them, are like, "OMG, he wants to date/kiss/marry-for-time-and-all-eternity me. And then it puts me in an awkward situation. And I'm like, "Why must you punish me for being nice to the fat girl?" That's not true, they're not all fat. Some just have nasally voices, or other such abnormalities. The point is, is I'm not interested. I just charm, everywhere I go.

I have no idea where all of that came from. Sorry if it sounded mean, or conceited. It's not. I'm just saying. These things do happen. (Every time I say that, I hear Madam Carlotta in my head: "And until you a stoppa these things from a happening, thees thing, does not happen!"). Good flick.


Yes. Yes. These are the things on the mind of Edwardo of late.


Also. Family time for the next few weeks. I am excited to spend some time with my wee niece and nephews. Should be good.

Hoopla

I did not get nearly enough sleep last night. Whoever heard of going to  work at 5:30 in the morning? I have, now, and I'm not a big fan.


I feel somewhat obligated to talk about my recent mission call, since it's like, the biggest news of my life so far. I've been called to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission. You may notice that that is very far away from Africa or the Middle East (though, as my brother pointed out, I probably have about the same chance of being shot). I'll admit, I was/am quite disappointed. It's not that I doubt that this is where I'm supposed to go. I mean, the Lord knows best, and I know that going to Pittsburgh is both the best possible thing for me and the people there. I don't think the Lord was wrong. I just wish He was right, somewhere else.

But. It will be good. I'm sure of it. And maybe I'm just being told that I'm not quite as nifty as I think I am, and perhaps some humbling is in order. Who knows. But. I guess I'm still excited, to go.

Yeah, I really didn't have as much to say about that as I thought.



Yes.

Youth and Young Manhood; AKA "Can we build it? Maybe not."

So, I bought some tools yesterday. Nothing fancy. A hammer, a screwdriver with a 10 heads. A tape measurer. Utility knife. Just the basics.

But I think that's something I'm excited about, as far as being a man goes. When I'm off and have a family and whatnot. I will have tools. That's a sign, to me, of manhood. Especially in the church, it's like, you're always going to houses for service projects or fixing stuff up or whatever. You just need a hammer. Maybe a saw. Some of that business.

My work at Lowe's often reminds me of my desire to build houses. Basically I'm dealing with people who are building houses all day. I want to say, "Take me home with you! Teach me!" But that would be inappropriate. And awkward. And may get me fired.

I think there's a stigma against doing something like that. If I decided to be a builder, or do something with my hands as my profession, people would say, "What a waste." My sister, who's an English teacher, has been told on several occasions, "Oh, you're far too smart to be a teacher." It infuriates her, because it's like, that attitude is a lot of what's wrong with our education system. Stupid, poorly paid teachers often create stupid, uncaring students. Brilliant, inspiring teachers do the opposite. But we're moving away from my point.

I would like to build houses. My house, in particular. And it's a pretty handy skill. I mean, when it all goes down, and all things pass away, and there are no more banks or court houses or microbiology laboratories, a lot of people will be sitting around twiddling their thumbs (probably not a doctrinally sound assessment, but oh well). I think there will still be a need for people who know how to build buildings. Doctors and construction workers will be busy, people like my dad will be pretty bored. Even during the Millennial reign of Christ, if you want to get all deep, I think people will still be building. I mean, I don't think we'll all just sit on the grass all day and sleep under the stars. I don't think we'll just pray our houses either.

But. That's all moot. I'm going to go off to college and learn about something and then go do that something for my job. I'll probably talk a lot, and think a lot. And the hammer I bought yesterday will gather dust in my garage.

Prolific Panda

So, I work at Lowe's now. Which isn't bad. Good, actually, on most days. I sell people a lot of wood and concrete and sheetrock. And roofing.

It gets kind of lame sometimes. But, it's work, so that is to be expected.

The music situation at Lowe's is pretty weird. Far more Gwen Stafani than you would expect outside of a Japanese sweatshop. That's a generalization, since I don't even know if they like Gwen Stafani over there. Perhaps I should give them more credit. But, you know, "Harajuku girls". They also play a lot of weird 80's stuff.

There's this song I really like. And it comes onto the radio every once in a while. It's the "Girl, put yo records oooon, tell me your favorite soooong" one. I like it a lot. And it's not available on iTunes. So. That sucks.


The quality of people who work at Lowe's isn't very high. Mostly they're not very good people. Some are just like, crap human beings. Others just get drunk all the time and have sex with as many people as possible, but are still, like, "nice". Which I think counts for a lot. I mean, someone who never grew up knowing that stuff like that maybe isn't the best idea, can't really be expected to know. But they can still do the best they can with what they have. Other people just like, thrive on making trouble for other people and causing pain and making fun of people.


We just hired like 40 Serbians yesterday. One who works near my department is pretty cool. He's a dude, but there's a lot of women, who are cute and European and have awesome accents. I mentioned it to this guy and he was like, "yeah, I was actually surprised." But, he said he thinks that they are "free". I don't know if that means they're single, or just excessively promiscuous. Or both. They are Europeans I suppose.

It's funny how certain stereotypes are true. I dated a European girl for a while back in high school, and I've hung out with this guy a decent amount. Neither of them smelled very good. I mean, he smells worse, because he's a boy, and works at Lowe's. But with Anne I'd be like, hanging out with her, and I'd just be like, "This... is not pleasant." Then again, I had no such experience with the German girls I knew. So maybe it's on a country-by-country basis.


I'm like, semi-dating this girl. We don't really know what to call it. Due to the mish, and other circumstances, we don't really want to be like, "bam, 'dating'". That was excessive punctuation. But, yeah, we don't really have a good word for it. In the beginning we were still calling it a 'friendship', which was just not appropriate at all. So we looked up some synonyms. The one we've settled on is "like-minded". We are in a state of like-mindedness. Which basically means that we really really really really like each other. Which is good. Good indeed.

I really like her. Dunno if I got that one across.


That song is stuck in my head now, the one that's not on iTunes. I think they have some like Kidz Bop or other cover version on there. Not the same. I remember one time I bought a Kidz Bop CD, because I didn't really understand the concept behind it. I was like, "Oh, these are all really good songs, I'm glad that they collected them onto one CD for kidz like me." And then I played it and it was like, "Oh, these are actually sung by kidz, not the people who actually know how to sing them." It was like, taking something good, and then just making it suck. And selling it. To kidz.

In case you didn't notice, at's 4 in the morning. 3:50. I worked a 15 hour shift Wednesday night, then came home and slept for 2 hours, then went back for another 8 hour shift. Since I was then so tired, I thought, "I won't take a sleeping pill, because I'm just naturally exhausted and will probably sleep for more than 8 hours anyways." Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Because my need for sleep has no correlation to my ability to partake of it. So here I am, in the early hours.

I haven't written anything lately. It's funny, if someone like really pressed me hard enough to ask "what I do", I'd probably say that I was a writer. But, I'm not, really, since I don't write, ever. I'm a thinker. Which is alright, I guess. I often have good ideas for stuff, which I type into a 'note' on my iPhone, and then forget about. I'll post a couple here, though they will probably make no sense.

No, never mind. Just went and looked at them. They're dumb.

I'm rambling, a bit. Mayhaps I should try to get some more sleep. I have today off, though. My not-girlfriend can't go on an awesome hike with me anymore, so I think my dad wants me to hang out with him. Since my mom is in Utah, we've been a couple of lame bachelor's. And I worked nights every day this week, so I just realized he's probably just come home and watched NCIS and ate honey bunches of oats by himself like a sad panda. Me and my dad are a lot alike. But who knows, maybe he just like, made a ton of crazy-big business deals instead. In which case, we would be less alike. But I bet it was NCIS. The point is, I should probably hang out with him, because he's probably a lonely panda. Man. you can pretty much put "panda" after any word and it becomes hilarious.

"You look like a tired panda today."
"I ate like a hungry panda."
"You're like a boy-panda, that likes other boy pandas. A gay panda."

Oh man. I'm done.

Updates

So. Here's the gist of it.


I work at Lowe's now. In the lumber/building materials department. It's alright. I basically just help people find the wood or sheetrock or roofing or concrete that they want. Then I help them load it on their cart, and then I help them put it in their truck. And when things get low, we 'downstock' and bring the stuff that's way up top, or out in the yard, and put it in the 'retail space' where people can actually buy it. That's pretty much my job, right there. Sometimes I cut wood for people, on our ginormo saw in the back.

Like I said. It's alright.


I put in my mission papers this week, so that's cool. In a couple of weeks I should get my call. Woo.


I started reading this really good book. Life of Pi. But, I kind of suck at reading, so I stopped. Shame.


I ate a lot of froot loops this week.


I've run out of updates, which is really depressing. But that's my life. Lowe's, froot loops, not reading Life of Pi.

Shame.