"I literally don't like anyone. I'm mean-spirited and jealous. I'm annoyed with people quickly. I'm self-righteous. I'm also passive-aggressive, and privileged and judgmental, and cruel, and ignorant, and cold, and a hypocrite, and lazy, and self-centered, and annoying, and argumentative, and flaky." This is what Mackenzie told me when we got into an argument about whether she has a heart of gold beneath her callous exterior (I said yes, she said no). At first glance, this list is disturbing, because everyone knows that women are supposed to be almost perfect and only have a maximum of three (preferably endearing) character flaws. It's particularly disturbing to a pure and innocent person like me who has never had an unkind thought about anyone. And if you believe that, may I interest you in a lucrative home-based business franchising opportunity that definitely is not a pyramid scheme?

Sarcasm aside, the simple fact is that I don't care about her real or alleged flaws, and though I may seem to portray her in a negative light I've thought and hoped it would be obvious that I like her just fine that way. I thought and hoped it would be obvious, for example, that when she said she was going to murder me it was just a bit of friendly banter (although it would have been much less acceptable for me, a man, to say the same thing to her, and therefore she was, probably unconsciously, exploiting one of the double standards that she, a feminist, abhors). In case it wasn't obvious enough I tacked a brief list of a few of her more unambiguously positive traits onto the end of that post. But it turns out that she, even though she reads all my posts and must have seen it by now, thinks she's a terrible person. I disagree. I told her at the time that I've never found her annoying and that in light of these flaws it was all the more admirable that she's nice to me anyway and gives me far more patience than I deserve. Now I want to expound further and try to articulate my words better, and post it here in case anyone else finds it useful.

I will start by wresting some fabulous words by the inimitable B. H. Roberts out of context and repurposing them. In listing her flaws, Mackenzie "is as one who walks through some splendid orchard and gathers here and there the worm-eaten, frost-bitten, wind-blasted, growth-stunted and rotten fruit, which in spite of the best of care is to be found in every orchard; bringing this to us [she] says: 'This is the fruit of yonder orchard; you see how worthless it is; an orchard growing such fruit is ready for the burning.' Whereas, the fact may be that there are tons and tons of beautiful, luscious fruit, as pleasing to the eye as it would be agreeable to the palate, remaining in the orchard to which [she] does not call our attention at all. Would not such a representation of the orchard be an untruth, notwithstanding [her] blighted specimens were gathered from its trees? If [she] presents to us the blighted specimens of fruit from the orchard, is [she] not in truth and in honor bound also to call our attention to the rich harvest of splendid fruit that still remains ungathered before [she] asks us to pass judgment on the orchard?"

So, Mackenzie, even if this picture you paint of yourself is accurate, it's still not accurate. Jussayin.

This bad fruit is to be found in every orchard, he says. As I thought about Mackenzie's condition I had a realization that perhaps the difference between "good" and "bad" people is their attitude about it. If she were a bad person, would she feel bad about her flaws, or just not care? I think the fact that she feels bad about them is incontrovertible proof that they are at odds with her core values. If she feels bad about being mean-spirited and jealous, then it's because she feels that being mean-spirited and jealous is wrong and not how she wants to be. If she were a bad person, she would just go about being mean-spirited and jealous, end of story. An extreme example: at least one friend of mine is only sexually attracted to young boys, but he has a core value that says sex with children is wrong, so that's what he lives by and that's what matters. Mackenzie's core values appear fundamentally good and in my mind, that means she is too. It may even be the case that the more she improves, the more she will be bothered by her remaining flaws, so that she will feel worse about herself despite being better. This is something to beware of.

I wanted to say something about the Native American story with the two wolves, but it turns out that's not a Native American story at all. So a better example would be "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". In that story, Dr. Jekyll's motive for creating a potion that would split him into two persons was the conflict between his desire to pursue a wild, hedonistic lifestyle like in his younger days and his desire to be a moral, upstanding person. He tried to do both. Sometimes I feel like two different people too. One just wants to be kind and love everyone, and the other wouldn't cry very hard if aliens wiped out the human race. But I think most people experience this to some degree or another because nobody is perfect but everybody who wants to be plays host to this battleground between good and evil that are both part of us. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41) Yet in my interactions with Mackenzie, I would say that her Jekyll (spirit) more often than not overpowers her Hyde (flesh) because he's the one she feeds. Or something like that. Am I making any sense?

Putting Mr. Hyde in his place once and for all isn't done overnight either. Jesus commands us in the Sermon on the Mount not only to abstain from sinful actions but from the very inclinations toward them - yet He's well aware that this is difficult, unpleasant, and unnatural, hence He compares it to plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand. Surely He understands if, partway through the process of plucking out her eye, Mackenzie decides that this really really hurts and she'd rather keep it after all. Surely He understands if it takes several attempts and lots of backsliding before she finishes cutting off her hand. I feel like some kind of insane religious fundamentalist talking like this, but Jesus is the one who chose those metaphors, not me. Note to idiots: I am not advocating literal self-mutilation. All I'm trying to say is that Mackenzie should have lots of patience with herself and so should everyone else. With themselves, I mean. And I wouldn't even need to remind her of that if she were a bad person because she wouldn't be getting exasperated with herself in the first place.

Maybe I'm completely wrong. I don't actually have the means or the authority to judge anyone's heart. Maybe she is as evil as she claims. The weird guy at church who makes up his own doctrine certainly thinks so. He's never met her, but he thinks he can tell by looking at people who's going to "perdition" and who's not, so he said she's some kind of demon or something who's drawn to me because I have the Holy Ghost and she wants to make me lose it. He said some other things too but I'm not comfortable sharing them even in a redacted format. All I can say to that is that if it's true, she's doing a terrible job. She knows some of my secret temptations and never uses them. In fact, she encourages me to be better in some ways. Worst demon ever. Or maybe I should say best, since she's the worst at being bad. I hesitated about whether to share this with her but I did and she was so fascinated by the weirdness of it that despite merely disliking him before she wants to meet him now.

When she tried to convince me that she's evil, she somehow missed the irony that earlier the same day her boss had accused her of being a crybaby snowflake who cares about minorities too much and pushes reverse discrimination, because she isn't a fan of fireworks because they traumatize veterans with PTSD. How cruel and self-centered of her. Later that week, she hosted another campfire with ten other people; more proof that she literally doesn't like anyone. At that campfire, my tinfoil dinner ripped open and spilled into the dirt and she insisted on giving me hers because she's privileged and judgmental. She claimed it was because she couldn't stand to see me pouting. I said, "Then I've finally figured out how to get what I want from you?" In the silence that followed, I realized that sounded a lot creepier out loud than it did in my head. Did I mention that she's given me far more patience than I deserve?

Ryan Innes was invited to return from last year and he's still the blackest white guy I've ever heard. I wouldn't be surprised if he holds a seance before each performance to channel the spirit of Luther Vandross. There was also a group called The Party Crashers, though I feel like they should only show up when they aren't invited. They did a medley that included the one innocuous passage from "Baby Got Back" that's in a bunch of kids' movies, and I assumed they would end there and launch into "Feelings" but instead they kept going and caused me many seconds of discomfort. Did they not notice there were children in the audience? Did they not care? Who invited them anyway? Oh right, the mayor. For better or for worse, that song is an integral part of the cultural milieu in which we live and we just have to deal with it. There was also a group of singing first graders, and when they were announced as "the future class of 2038" I swore out loud as I suddenly felt impossibly old, though I realize now that he must have meant 2028. Then there was the obligatory fireworks and laser show and more singing by The Party Crashers. The end.

"Clara" from church recently discovered my blog. Well, I mentioned it to her first, but I don't think most people that I mention it to ever bother to look at it. I think they assume it will be dumb and boring. But she loved it, and she read some aloud to her roommate who just today gushed about it being "addictive" and made me very happy. Anyway, Clara noted that I talk about music a lot and she asked about my taste and she said she would classify it as "hipster" even though she doesn't think I'm a hipster per se. So this week I tried to pick out something that I think qualifies as "hipster". You've probably never heard of it. Again, I'm no expert on genre but I think this track is "trance" music because it's electronic but more suited for meditation than dancing. The deluxe edition of the "Accelerator" album whence it comes has a second disc with ten remixes of it, all of them worthwhile in my opinion.

I've been on a Rammstein kick lately, listening to their albums "Sehnsucht", "Mutter", and "Reise, Reise" probably half a dozen times each over the last couple weeks, consecutively or shuffled in with everything else. And they're a perfect example of the amateurity of my love of music. Allegedly their music is a German metal subgenre known as "Neue Deutsche Härte", but all I know or care about is that they have guitars and frequently sound too epic for German or English words to describe. And nicely enough, even though I thought I only remembered a couple dozen German words from both times I took the introductory course, I keep picking out additional words and phrases with further listenings. But recently I was very quietly singing along with "Keine Lust" on my headphones, trying to match Till Lindemann's voice, when Mackenzie gave me a weird look and asked "Are you okay?" And I said I was fine but she kept giving me the weird look, so I asked for clarification and she clarified, "You sound like you're whispering something evil."

That was when we were waiting for people to show up to go to a campfire, but no one had shown up except for us and another friend of hers who doesn't like me, so I was letting them talk and tuning out into my own little world of Neue Deutsche Härte. She tried to think of other people she could invite but several people were out of town and no one else knew who she was because she's always gone. I mentioned that the ward just wasn't as cohesive and didn't do so much stuff together since Debbie left. Then Mackenzie dropped a bombshell: "I don't actually love Debbie."

"What?" I said. "How -"

"Oh, I have nothing against her as a person," she said. "It's just I'm always hearing 'Debbie is so nice -'"

"Maybe if you were nice, people would say that about you too."

"Oh, I'm not jealous, I'm just tired of it."

All this drama simmering under the surface for who knows how long, and I had no idea. Wow. But anyway, no one else showed up so it was just the three of us going. On the way there, she predictably blared Taylor Swift from the car speakers loudly enough to cause hearing damage and I had to turn my own music up as high as it went to keep hearing it because as much as I like Taylor Swift, that wasn't the mood I was in. Then we got there and I took my headphones off and acted sociable, but she wouldn't let it go. Every time I said something under my breath she thought I was singing Rammstein again. For example, she said something that reminded me of a bit from the BBC's talking animal sketches, so I started quoting it under my breath and she gave me another weird look and said, "Maybe you shouldn't listen to that."

She kept getting annoyed at me (as she often does) for speaking too quietly like that. "I feel like your voice is just this frail, weak wispy thing," she said, "that could just be blown away in a moment by... anything." That's just the voice I was born with and she can't accept it.

But anyway, when we got there Mackenzie and her friend set about setting up the fire, rejoicing that there were no boys around to tell them they were doing it wrong, and Mackenzie went off gathering up little sticks and I wanted to be helpful so I went off gathering up little sticks too. But she got back first and she said she had enough sticks and mine weren't needed. Dejected, I tossed them in a little pile by the fire anyway, feeling that they were an apt metaphor for my entire life's work. But karma was swift in its execution for a change, as the fire died down not long afterward and she was forced to start putting those exact sticks on it. "Wow," I said, "it looks like my sticks are coming in handy after all."

"Thank you, Christopher," she said through gritted teeth and a forced smile.

I watched her put some more on and then couldn't resist adding for good measure, "It sure is convenient that these sticks were already lying here."

She looked me in the eyes across the fire and said, "I'm going to murder you."

But I'm still here, because underneath her mean callous heartless exterior, she is kind, loyal, fun-loving, phenomenally intelligent, and so on. And being afraid of her isn't even a big deal because really, it's just the same kind of high that normal people get from roller coasters and horror movies. Everyone needs a bit of fear in their lives or they feel unnatural. But anyway, a couple days later after ward prayer she and some other friend were lying in the grass talking about intellectual stuff and I invited myself to sit nearby and listen, and at one point he was like, "When things say 'Names have been changed', do you think they really change the names or just use the real names and say that to throw you off? Because who would know?"

And Mackenzie turned and flashed me an enormous grin and said, "Yeah, who changes names??"

(It was funny because I change her name on my blog. For all the good that did me.)

I've posted this before, but what better way could there be to celebrate Independence Day than with this immensely patriotic and flattering song? More patriotic and flattering than "Born in the USA", anyway. I could literally listen to it eighteen times in a row.

A couple weeks ago Mackenzie was back from California where she spends most of her weekends for some reason, and I was sitting by her in church and she was wearing a funky skirt with two rings of pom-poms around it. The top leftmost pom-pom, closest to me, was badly disfigured by (I assume) all the people who had played with it. I tried to manipulate it back into its proper shape, touching only the pom-pom and that's all, but she huffed, loudly enough for the strangers in front of us to turn around, "Could you maybe not touch my skirt?"

"I was just trying to fix the pom-pom..." I said. The strangers turned back around, their interest already dissipated.

"It's not fixable," she said. And then she gave me a quizzical look. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Kind of," I said.

"Sometimes I think maybe," she said, "but then I think no, he couldn't be..."

I mumbled something. Probably "sorry". I don't remember.

"Can you understand," she continued, "how it might be kind of awkward to talk to someone who's afraid of you?"

"Yeah," I said. (Of course, the context would be completely different. As Margaret Atwood is often paraphrased, "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." And Mackenzie, an ardent feminist, must be acutely aware of this.)

"What if you were afraid of them and they were afraid of you?" she went on. "Would that be easier, or would that make it worse?"

"I don't know, I guess it would depend... When I talk to awkward people, it's just twice as awkward."

"I sat by someone in Relief Society that you should talk to."

"How do you know she would be scared of me?"

"I can just tell. Let's see... that's her, in the blue dress. You don't need to like date her or anything, but I just think it would be good for you to talk to her."

"Okay...

"Go up to her and say, 'I like your dress.' And if she doesn't respond much to that, say something like 'Did you make it yourself?' And if she doesn't respond much to that, you're off the hook."

"Okay."

Alas, she slipped away before we could say anything to her. "I don't see her anywhere," Mackenzie said as she scanned the crowd. I did, but I opted not to mention it.

Later that day, at ward prayer, I said, "Do you want to know why I'm scared of you?"

"Because I'm a girl?" Mackenzie guessed without missing a beat.

"No," I said. "I mean, yes, that's part of it, but not the primary part."

"It's so strange that you're scared of girls but you feel more comfortable hanging out with them than guys," she said.

"Normally, by this point, having known you for so long, I would be relaxed with you, like with Debbie -"

"You aren't scared of Debbie?"

"No. Did I seem like it?"

"Yeah."

"When was that? Was it like at the beginning of last summer, before we hung out all the time, or?"

"I don't remember, it's been so long since we were all in one spot."

"Well, anyway, the main reason I'm scared of you is that I feel like I always have to walk on eggshells to -"

"Oh, yeah," she said, waving me to not continue, "you told me about that."

"And then, yes, the other reasons are that you're a girl, that you're pretty, that you're - never mind."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"No, what?"

"I just was going to say that you're 'powerful' and stuff, for lack of a better word, but then you would think it was sexist of me to be intimidated by -"

"No, it's only sexist if you - never mind."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"How come you get to change your mind and not say things, but I have to say them anyway?"

Mackenzie smiled. "Because I have the power in this relationship." ("Relationship" in the generic sense, obviously.)

"And if I tried to seize more power, and be assertive and stuff, would you push back?"

"Of course," she said. "That's how relationships work. They're a power struggle until someone comes out on top."

Lesson learned.

In the car afterward, Mackenzie asked, "Would it be all right if I criticized you?"

"You do that all the time," I said.

"No, it's more of just that we disagree," she said. (I feel like we actually agree 95% of the time, but she fixates on the other 5% instead and badgers me about it, and then as a result sometimes I play stupid and pretend to disagree just to mess with her.) "I mean, are you one of those people who would rather be told you have spinach in your teeth, or just find out on your own later?"

"I believe it's important to know the truth," I said, "even if it sucks beyond belief. If you break me into a thousand pieces, I will rebuild myself into a better me." (Not really. Broken things don't rebuild themselves.)

She laughed nervously. And we went on like that until in a very roundabout way she managed to convey what she had in mind. But that's none of your business.

Before getting on to business, I invite you to bask in the glow of this recent celebrity endorsement that made my day:

The next day, Shelly and Sheldon were gone and I feared that my friend had finally snapped and murdered them. But they returned a couple days later and all appear to be getting along swimmingly once more.

This week, on the 25th, Star Wars officially had its fortieth birthday, which is more significant than its thirty-ninth or forty-first birthdays because humans worship multiples of five and ten. I've been acquainted with it for less than half that time, when Lego released its first Star Wars sets from the original trilogy prior to the release of "The Phantom Menace" and I saw them in the catalogs and magazines I was subscribed to. This was the first non-original franchise translated into Legos, and I thought at first that Star Wars was in fact a Lego movie. This was where I got my first gleanings of information about it. Hmmm, I thought after reading about the "Rebel Blockade Runner" set, it sure sounds like the Empire are the bad guys, but I know from church (specifically the song "Book of Mormon Stories") that "rebellious", of which "Rebels" is obviously a root, is a bad thing too... so are they both bad guys? I'm confused. And while looking at the "Millennium Falcon" set: Hey, this furry guy Chewbacca has the same name as cousin Emily's cat. What a coincidence.

It must have been around this same time that my parents watched "A New Hope". This was a long time ago, so they went to this place called a "video rental store" and rented it on this thing called "VHS". From that occasion I only remember Artoo and Threepio arguing, the cantina aliens, Jabba the Hutt (it was the Special Edition and my parents were like "I didn't know he had a tail"), and being unable to tell Han and Luke apart. My memory was astute enough that when I saw an action figure of Tey How from "The Phantom Menace", I knew she hadn't been in the cantina and I was like "That guy wasn't in Star Wars" and my mom was like "Yes he was" because they went to see it but didn't let me because they thought it might be too scary. And she indicated one of the Jedi on a lunch box and was like, "That one dies at the end" and I was like Dang it, I want the other one to die instead because he doesn't look as cool. Somewhere along the way I got a Jar Jar Binks action figure and an R2-D2 art set and several pairs of Darth Maul underwear. My sister got Queen Amidala underwear and I wanted some too, but no.

The next year I actually watched "The Phantom Menace" at the neighbors' house, and at one point they let us borrow it (again on this "VHS" thing) and as implausible as it seems now my mom let me watch it thrice in one day. She explained how this was the first one and they were being made out of order, but I didn't get it. I thought it was a remake and called it "the new version of Episode I". Did I understand what was going on in the movie? No. Was Jar Jar Binks a comic genius whose every line I adored? Yes. Was Natalie Portman the most beautiful creature in the universe? Duh. And lightsabers were the coolest things ever. I gave up on having any sci-fi daydreams without lightsabers (or "space swords") because they just weren't as cool and that's all there was to it. And the opening theme music, that was epic beyond belief. I don't remember when or how fast it took place but by third grade I was kind of obsessed. My friend Trenton and I sat together on the bus and parted ways at school with "May the Force be with you." When he moved away, his cousin became my new Star Wars buddy and we validated each other in our geekiness.

In fifth grade, my obsession reached its peak as I awaited the release of Episode III, a day that seemed as mysterious and far off as the Second Coming. I talked about it all the time, wrote Star Wars quotes all over my homemade paper bag textbook covers, and through the school book order subscribed to the monthly "Star Wars Adventures" magazine/book club and started trying to collect all the Star Wars books that existed, which I soon realized was impossible which is just as well now that they're all non-canon. My obsession was one of the contributing factors to me being a social pariah. My classmates thought that Star Wars was for little kids, and all the cool people were into "Lord of the Rings" instead. I was baffled. How could they not see that Star Wars was awesome? Granted, looking back I see that I viewed the prequels through the same rose-colored glasses that old people reserve for the original trilogy. As embarrassing as this is to admit, I was so naive that I thought "Attack of the Clones" had romantic dialogue. And now I can't even watch it without skipping the fireplace scene.

But the next year when "Revenge of the Sith" finally came out, everyone was suddenly into Star Wars and acting like they had been all along, which continued to this day. Ugh. Anyway, my dad took me to see it on my twelfth birthday, and it was the first Star Wars movie I ever saw in the theater and I assumed it would be the last. I didn't know that at age eighteen I would take a lesbian friend to see "The Phantom Menace" in 3D on what was then the closest thing I had been on to a date, or that at age twenty-two I would win free tickets to "The Force Awakens" from Kool 103.9 and bring another friend to that as payback for taking me to "Tomorrowland" and "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation". Why was I so obsessed with Star Wars in my youth, and why does it still hold such a place in my heart even though I now acknowledge its flaws? Quite simply, I think, because a galaxy far, far away so often feels more like home than Earth, and aliens so often feel more relatable than my own species. The most popular online community for autistic and Aspie people is called "Wrong Planet", and I think that really says it all.

​As I've discussed before, another awesome franchise that's woefully underappreciated is the original incarnation of Bionicle. This one is original from Lego but has a deep and complex storyline that goes far beyond selling toys - in fact, its complexity got out of hand and that was one of the main reasons for discontinuing it. I also became obsessed with it for a time and discovered a fan forum called "BZPower", where many of the (mostly preteen) members made comics about sprite versions of themselves. I didn't really understand but I copy-pasted hundreds of them into a Word document to preserve them forever. Most of them didn't deserve to be preserved. Most of them relied on inside jokes and random weirdness in lieu of actual humor. And that works great for "Homestar Runner", which somehow translates that kind of stuff into actual humor, but most of these kids hadn't developed that skill. Ah well. I don't begrudge them for having fun and and I was a terrible writer at that age too. I hope they've gone on to accomplish great things.

But anyway, some of them were surprisingly good and I picked out a couple that I always intended to share at some point, and I decided to do it today because I couldn't think of much to write about and only anticipated having one paragraph about Star Wars.

I don't know why I think that punchline is so brilliant, but I do.​

This week, Mackenzie and co-worker "Jaycee" both tried to persuade me to break my seventeen-month and counting moratorium on dating. I can't win an argument with Mackenzie and Jaycee didn't know all the backstory of why I have almost PTSD about it and I didn't have time to explain and didn't feel like arguing with her either, so I gave it some consideration. Jaycee figured out that I liked this other co-worker just because I mentioned being shy and hiding behind a clipboard when she walked by, and she was like "You should ask her out; you can double with me and my boyfriend." And that really seemed like a non sequitir to me, not to mention eerily similar to how I was tricked into dabbling in this awful stuff in the first place.

​"I barely know her," I said.

"That's what dating is for!" she said. "To get to know people!"

That's what I used to think, I thought, but most girls in Utah act like one date is a ------- proposal.

I had no intention of doing it, but then I told Mackenzie about this and she was like, "Grow up. Try. Feel things. Get hurt. Cry. Repeat." And I think that sounds like a really crappy life, but I can't win an argument with her. And this person is pretty dang amazing.

"So, um," I told Jaycee, "I may be kind of thinking about leaning toward the possibility of reconsidering your offer."

"Yeah, anytime, my boyfriend and I are here all summer," she said.

"Let's just make a few adjustments," I said. "I would be much more comfortable if we call it 'hanging out' instead."

"Hanging out is lame," she said. "You don't get to know people the same. Dating should be about getting to know people. I mean, I'm dating for marriage right now, but that's because I've already gotten to know a lot of people."

I didn't say this because I try not to be super argumentative, but I thought, Getting to know "people"? Then shouldn't I go on dates with guys too? Are they not worth getting to know? Actually, I got to know a couple guys pretty well by hanging out. We watched "Crocodile Dundee" and some Popeye cartoons, ate pizza, and talked about our histories and feelings and aspirations and stuff. Lately, I just play Super Smash Brothers with some guys every Tuesday evening and admittedly I still don't even remember all their names but we have fun and I feel a kinship with them and maybe that's more important, or maybe it isn't; I don't claim to be an expert. "Why can't you get to know people by hanging out?" I persisted.

"It's just not the same," she said. "You just talk and stuff and if it's not going well you try again another time."

"How do you know if it's not going well?" I asked.

"You can tell."

"But how?"

"You can tell, you can read their faces and how they're acting..."

"I'm an Aspie."

"A what?"

"A person with Aspergers."

I really didn't expect that to be as much of a conversation killer as it was. During the awkward silence that followed I imagine she was processing the fact that none of this gung-ho optimistic stuff was applicable to me after all. (Ever seen one of those "The Many Moods of Vader" T-shirts where the joke is that they all look exactly the same? It's kind of like that.) Or maybe she thought I had said "ass burgers" and was stupefied. When it became obvious that she wasn't going to start talking again, which is very out of character for her, I started talking again. "I can't ask with any sort of composure, anyway," I said. "I'd stutter and stammer and not look her in the eye..." (Partly out of nervousness and party out of the feeling that I'm being inauthentic, reciting words that I would never dream of saying on my own from someone else's script just because they decided long before I was born that I'm "supposed" to.)

"Practice on me," she said. "Pretend I'm her. I'll even say no, so you can get used to her saying no, but I don't think she will because every girl likes ice cream."

Unable to take this seriously, I began "Hey, sugar lips..."

Because this person is so dang amazing I decided I would ask her out after all if she was single because, you know, we weren't actually sure on that and I felt like it was kind of important. There really should be a relationship equivalent of wedding rings to make that more obvious. Nothing fancy or expensive, just a little fashion statement that says you're taken, or allows you to pretend you're taken without actually lying. Half my female co-workers have wedding rings and that's really convenient for me to know that if I crush on them I'll go to hell. Of course there was one who decided not to wear hers because she was afraid of losing it, and still remains unaware of the problem this caused. Anyway, I asked a couple people and they were like "I think she's single but I'm not entirely sure" and of course that wasn't good enough. I hesitated to ask her best friend because I didn't trust her to keep it to herself but I figured that was better than asking everyone in the warehouse, so I did and she said "I'm sorry, she has a boyfriend. Do you like her?" No, I'm just taking a survey. I miss my call center job... NOT.

Conflicting emotions of disappointment and relief battled for a quarter hour or so and then settled down. I figured if I was sad when I got home I would numb it by purchasing an album. As impulsive and unhelpful to the root causes as such an action may be, I knew I wouldn't regret it later. Twenty years from now I wouldn't be like "Gee, I wish I'd never bought this music that I still have and can listen to whenever I want." Music is love, music is life. I wasn't sad when I got home, but I purchased an album anyway.

I've shared this before but I'm sharing it again because of Star Wars!​

In the latest of Utah's weekly embarrassments, Representative Jason Chaffetz gave considerable support to the stereotype that Republicans are jerks who hate the poor when he said "You know what, Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own healthcare." So ​that's why many Americans can't afford health insurance? They have plenty of money, but they just choose to spend it on stuff like iPhones instead? And also the cost of an iPhone is suddenly comparable to the cost of health insurance? Bizarre. (P.S. Not an iPhone per se, but a cell phone of some sort and regular internet access aren't really luxuries so much as they are necessary to function in the United States. Good luck finding or keeping a job without them, for example.)

​I do find it almost funny, though, that Republicans are merely replacing one government healthcare program with another. Funny because for nearly seven years, so many people who believe the government has no business in healthcare trusted the Republican Party to stand up for their interests. Funny because some people were dumb enough to believe the Republican Party has anything to do with conservatism or limited government. But not quite funny because this legislation will most likely be equal to or greater than the first in terms of suckitude, and we know that according to Chaffetz and his ilk the poor can go screw themselves. Still, I personally appreciate not being forced to buy health insurance because I don't want to. I'm healthy and willing to gamble that I'll stay that way. If I'm wrong, then... sucks to be me.

International Women's Day was on Wednesday and I don't want to say too much about it because when other men expound on how much they respect women and support feminism and stuff it just comes across to me as really ingratiating, and I'm sure in most cases that isn't their intention at all but that's just how it comes across to me so I can't do it because that would make me a hypocrite. I'm also not very good at being an "official" feminist because despite the best of intentions I often say or do the "wrong" things. Mackenzie got rather annoyed at me once for calling her "outspoken" because she said that term has connotations implying that women shouldn't speak, even though she has no problem calling herself "bossy" while I would never dare to. And Mackenzie got rather annoyed at me once for walking between her and the road in case a drunk driver jumped the curb, because she can walk on whichever side she wants. And Mackenzie got rather annoyed at me once for saying she would win in a fight and I wouldn't resist, because she wants me to fight her to the death if the situation calls for it.

It turns out I was supposed to wear red for International Women's Day, and I didn't know that but I wore red anyway and Mackenzie noted it so that was a happy accident. Or maybe that was just for "A Day Without a Woman"? It was also supposed to be "A Day Without a Woman" this year, where women skipped work for political reasons, but I didn't notice at my job where it was business as usual for most of them although some, including some of my favorite people, were gone for spring break. That was rough. Almost as rough as being all excited about getting trained to drive the forklift and then bumping the shift buzzer off the wall on my first day and descending into a spiral of self-loathing for my unequaled incompetence. So this was a crappy week, but cleaning the bathrooms with my tongue for minimum wage would still be better than my call center job, so I managed.

At least we had food every day. Usually they only give us food once a week. I don't really know how they make a profit. They give us the food, they have gift card drawings every month, they have to pay us of course, they have to pay the thrift stores etc. for the books that come in, they only get to accept maybe ten to twenty percent of the books, tops, and then they have to pay Amazon to store the books and then just because they're for sale doesn't mean they'll be purchased. They do also get money from recycling the rejected books, so that must amount to a lot. I guess it works because they seem really successful. I'm no financial expert.

Did I mention that I get to listen to music at work? So over the last couple weeks I've listened to hour after hour of Frank Sinatra and I've got to say it's been incredibly soothing. It feels like it's filtering impurities out of my soul. I listened to this Joni Mitchell over four times in one day, entranced by the beauty of both the music and the lyrics. It's a very polarizing song that some people think is terrible because it doesn't fit Sinatra's style or isn't faithful to the original or whatever, but those people are wrong.