A Couple More of My Human Interactions Recorded for Posterity

Well, I've finally been forced to accept roommates, but so far aside from the stuff they moved in and the severe cleansing of the apartment, I've barely heard or seen a trace of them. It would be difficult to overstate my happiness about this. It looks like we're all going to get along just fine. I only wish everyone were as quiet as them. On Wednesday, I believe it was, I was awakened before six a.m. by the construction vehicles directly outside my window going BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP - BEEP and so on without ever pausing for more than fifteen seconds. I wondered, not for the first time, if I had died in my sleep and gone to hell. When I determined that this was not the case, I started contemplating murder. I'd like to know why it's even legal for them to do that. When I got up and went to work I could still hear them a block away, so notwithstanding my absurd sensitivity to noise I can't have been the only person who was bothered by it. Yes, I sleep with earplugs. Rant over.

I went to Olive Garden for the first time ever because this guy that I know through this guy that I know through Debbie invited like forty people there for his birthday. "I'm inviting more people this year," he said. "I just don't want to go over a thousand, but last year it only came to about three-sixty."

When he wasn't around I asked someone, "How -?"

"His family owns oil fields back east," they explained.

There's something beautiful about a rich person with a heart of gold. Money can be such a corrupting influence and it's beautiful to see someone who resists that and shows that having a lot of it doesn't make you a bad person. Think Mitt Romney versus Donald Trump. I hope to be like this when I become successful as well. Anyway, I went to this thing with Debbie and she wore the necklace I gave her, and another girl complimented it, and that put to rest my worries that it wasn't something she would actually want to wear. Going with her seemed appropriate because the host thought, maybe still thinks, that we're dating, which is immensely flattering to one of us. She told him that we're not but he didn't believe her. So I guess he thinks that we're dating but that she's embarrassed about it. So we all went and filled up three tables and the manager came out and talked to us and said, "I assume this will be separate checks?"

And the birthday man said, "Nah, just one." It was awesome.

​There was this guy, “John”, in my institute class that I thought was kind of annoying because he always seemed to be making comments and asking pseudo-questions just to show off how much he knows about the gospel. You can usually tell when people are doing that. When he bothered to cite the hymn number of “The Spirit of God” while mentioning it, that was just too much. One time he mentioned being an Aspie, and that explained a lot. I was annoying too before I learned to not talk. Here on my blog, where I do an awful lot of "talking", I still am. Three people unliked my Facebook page after my last post. I assume they were offended by my entirely true remarks about dating, or maybe just that I used the word "boobs".

​Then I went wandering at an activity and when I returned John was there and he asked, "Do you wander like me?" And then he started talking about "my disability". Of course, I already knew what it was and that it's the same thing I have, and I don't think of it as a disability, but that has nothing to do with positive attitude and everything with pride. So this word choice threw me for a loop but I immediately realized that of course something that impairs virtually every facet of my life qualifies as a disability. People who call it just a "difference", though well-meaning, are deluding themselves. Of course it has a few advantages. The two that I can think of are that it enables me to look down on most of humanity for the stupid and arbitrary societal crap that they follow, and that it gives me a unique writing voice. Being blind often gives one greater hearing, too, but that doesn't make it not a disability.

Sometimes I almost forget how hellish it can be until I hear or read someone else describe it. John talked about how he has no friends and no one who understands. I asked if he had any luck at dating, since I've heard rumors that some Aspies aren't forever alone and was curious whether he had discovered the secret. He's only been on one date and that was with a girl who asked him out first. "I don't think I'm ready for girls," he said. And I knew then that he was far wiser than I, because I had to learn that the hard way. Anyway, seeing him so vulnerable and stuff, I repented of having thought he was annoying. I decided to invite him to hang out with Debbie and her ilk after institute, because I knew that if anyone could help him, they could. I was like a shriveled, wilted flower before Debbie poured the sunshine and water and fertilizer of platonic love on me so that I could bloom in full splendor. She noticed my redeeming quality and brought it to the forefront.

So I invited him and promised that he would fit in and be treated like a person. I didn't mention his situation to anyone, not wanting to give them any preconceived notions before they met him. And I hoped that I hadn't made a terrible mistake. What if they let me down? What if he was different, and they would treat me that way but not him? Not that I thought they would be mean, of course, but I just worried that they would be less enthusiastically inclusive than I had promised. It did get off to a rough start when he asked Debbie a question and she didn't answer because she didn't hear him. My heart was stung on his behalf. Been there, done that. It shouldn't feel personal but it does. After all was said and done, though, he said maybe I could understand how much it had meant to him, that he had felt like he fit in better than for the longest time, and that he wanted to try again sometime. That was convenient because after he left but before I left, Debbie's friend who I really should get around to giving a pseudonym by now since he's my friend too, and shall therefore take to calling "Greg", asked me to see if he wanted to come next time.

I feel like I should have been doing things like this more often throughout my whole life, but I've typically been the one in need of support just to get by, and not in much of a position to extend it to anyone else. It's a nice change. Actually, most of my emotions are kind of dead at this point - foul play is suspected - so I didn't really feel much sorrow for him or much warm fuzziness after helping him out. I just did it because intellectually I knew it was right. I guess that makes it as purely selfless as a person can get, and there better be some huge blessings in store for me. Just kidding. Totally kidding.

The Mormon Section

One day a few months ago a girl in Sunday school commented, "People always talk about 'having a relationship with Christ' and I never understood how. I thought, I talk to Heavenly Father in prayer and then the Holy Ghost talks back to me. I don't talk to Jesus, so how am I supposed to feel close to Him?"

I was astonished that someone was saying so exactly what I had thought for a long time. I assumed there was just something wrong with me for not getting this concept that other Mormons apparently consider so obvious they never bother to explain it.

​She continued, "Then I took this institute class called 'Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel' and I finally understood."

So, based solely on that recommendation, I took the class. It's one of the new required classes for graduation but I didn't have to take it since I started the program before that. In fact I'm pretty sure I met the graduation requirements three years ago and just keep forgetting to do the paperwork. Anyway, this class fully lived up to my hopes. It ended last week and I found that not only was my Savior more real and tangible and personal to me than ever before, but I had regained a testimony of God's love overall, which I lost a long time ago and thought was gone forever. I couldn't honestly be more than an agnostic on that point, notwithstanding how crucial it is to the framework of everything. Anyway, it would be impossible to encapsulate everything covered in the class or convey the same feelings in this little space, so I'll just say that everyone who has the opportunity needs to take it.

Wolfsheim - The Sparrows and the Nightingales (Long Version)

Lately I don't have much to say about these songs, but they speak for themselves, don't they? Here's another that I think is just beautiful. Hence I picked the long version instead of the one with an actual video to it. I love the super mellow discount wolf howls that put Shakira to shame.