Recent Events et al

The Most Exciting Part of My Week

It was sometimes after nine p.m. on the evening of Tuesday, June 7, and I was making my way back home along 100 South after taking a long walk by myself as usual. I like walking in the southern and western portions of town because my standard duties and errands virtually never take me there. Anyway, when I reached Main Street I considered turning onto it to go past the Tabernacle and through Merlin Olsen Park and up the boulevard past the temple as I often do, but this time decided instead that I would rather keep going straight, or not entirely straight, as the road has a weird curve in that spot, but the same general direction. As I was crossing Main Street a police car came barreling down it, forcing me to hurry, and then turned and went the same way I was going. It only went a few feet before parking behind two or three police cars that were already there. There was one parked just a bit ahead on the other side of the street (which I was on) as well.

The police officer got out of the car, and only seemed to be in a moderate hurry, but what caught my attention was the big gun he was holding. If I hadn't lost my man card in high school for liking Fergie, I could tell you what precisely what kind of gun it was, but suffice it to say that it was a long and thin gun, not the kind of little gun that cops normally carry around in their holsters. He walked quickly across the street to the side I was on and went behind a house. I continued walking, and a couple houses down from that, another police officer stood at the front door, holding one of the little guns that cops normally carry around in their holsters, pointing it through the door which was propped open just a bit. I was close enough to see through the door what I at first thought was some kind of reflection, but quickly realized was another guy, pointing a gun right back at him. He had a mustache. At this point I wanted nothing more in the world than to stay and watch, but I figured that would create more hassle for the police and piss them off. In fact, I was surprised that so far nobody had yelled at me to go away.

So I kept walking past that house, and at the back corner a third police officer was standing there, not even holding a gun, but just standing there as if appraising its resale value. I kept walking to the end of the block and then turned to look back, reasoning that from this distance my prospects of accidentally being killed and devastating four or five people weren't so bad. What I think I saw was one of the officers leading a child away from the house (from this distance I couldn't tell boy or girl, but it was a small person), not seeming to be in any particular hurry, and directing her/him to get under the police car. Maybe in the car, but it looked like under to me. And then he looked and saw me at the end of the block watching, and he didn't say anything but I felt like maybe I was still too close and should just go home. I'm really surprised that no one seemed to care I was there. But I continued on my way, and said a brief prayer that the officers would be protected from injury and death, and be able to protect any civilians from injury and death, and be able to apprehend whoever they were trying to apprehend.

Now I can't find anything about it in the news. Maybe I just hallucinated the whole thing. But I'd think that if I had, I would have been the hero, and the city would have showered me with money, and I would have kept just enough to jump-start my career and given the rest to trustworthy charities.

Normality

Sometimes I forget the most important things, even if seguing into them was the reason I brought something up in the first place. To recap, last week I visited Debbie and we talked about psychology. I said something about not being normal and she rhetorically asked, "What's normal?" And partly because her voice sounds like Zooey Deschanel, I thought of one of the decent moments from the mediocre "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie.

Arthur: Normality? We can talk about normality until the cows come home. 
Ford: What is normal? 
Trillian: What is home? 
Zaphod: What're cows? 

She opined that everyone has problems (true) so everyone is normal (not true). If that were true, no one would ever have been burned as a witch. If it were true, no one would ever be an outcast in high school (or college). If it were true, all the movies about losers and underdogs saving the day and achieving their dreams would have to be about something else. The fact is, there is an accepted spectrum of variation constituting normality and anything beyond it is weird. Not accepting this makes her good at compassion but bad at psychology. From Wikipedia: "Neurotpyical or NT, an abbreviation of neurologically typical, is a neologism widely used in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum. However, the term eventually became narrowed to refer to those with strictly typical neurology. In other words, this refers to anyone who does not have any developmental disabilities such as some forms of autism, dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder, or ADHD. The term was later adopted by both the neurodiversity movement and the scientific community. (emphasis added)"

Because we have made it taboo to not be normal, it's politically correct to claim that "everyone is normal", just like we have to pretend that "everyone is beautiful" so we can continue being shallow without guilt.

Sunday Evening

I went to visit the old people like usual, but there's another group that goes a little earlier and sings, and last week I went with Debbie and we sang with them, and on Saturday I ran into one of them and he said "Are you going to sing with us tomorrow?" and I felt obligated, but lo and behold, it was just me and him and one other guy. I depend on having enough other people to drown me out, so that was daunting. It wasn't so bad as we just went room to room, but when we went to the cafeteria to perform for a bunch of people at once, one of the guys was occupied with the piano and left just two of us singing. Everyone turned their hearing aids off. Not really, but that would have been funny.

Then I headed off to ward prayer, the ward prayer of the ward that I'm actually in (36th) rather than the one I've been attending (35th), and I was about two meters away when this guy who isn't in the 35th ward anymore either pulled up and said "Going to ward prayer?" and I said yes and he said "Hop in" and took me away from it to the other one. There, Mackenzie and Charlie instructed us to get into groups and play "Two Truths and a Lie" (where, just in case anyone isn't aware, you say three statements and people have to figure out which is a lie). I like that game because I say the same thing every time: "I'm funny, I'm smart, and I'm good-looking." Then everyone laughs and someone says, "Well, we know you're funny." And then usually they're like "Aww, that's not fair to make us choose; do a different one." But this time they took it seriously and spent a couple minutes trying to figure it out. A couple of them were leaning toward "smart" but felt bad saying so. They gave up and made me say which one I think it is.

More Expert Praise

So I posted and braced myself for constructive criticism.

The page is here, and again, if you disagree with this expert opinion you're wrong.

Things that Tempt Me to Renounce My Citizenship

Neither of these people (notice I do not say "men" as that designation only applies to one of them) should be in prison. Mr. Brooker should just be left alone, and Turner should just be castrated.

Things We Learn from "Mega Mind"

1. As long as you don't touch the ground, you can survive a fall from any height with no ill effects, no matter how abruptly you stop.

2. Police and civilians alike will forgive you for allegedly murdering their idol if you promise not to do it anymore.

3. The bad guy never gets the girl. This one, however, is not accurate. Mega Mind's problem was that he was a wishy-washy bad guy. He had too many "feelings" and was unwilling to commit to complete and total badness. Women, sensing his weakness and lack of confidence, were therefore not attracted to him. He resolved this by becoming good and liking it, but he could also have gone the other way, all the way to the dark side. Exhibit A:

The Mormon Section

While chatting with a new friend in Rajahmundry, India I accidentally stumbled upon a little "secret" that made my day...

I forgot that June 8 was the anniversary of President Kimball's revelation on priesthood. I was a teensy bit annoyed at myself because I should remember something like that after studying it for five years, but we do need to strike a proper balance between remembering the past and looking to the future. Still, as events unfolded, I fittingly commemorated it by reading "Safe Journey: An African Adventure" by Elder Glenn L. Pace. One of the main topics of this book is his struggle to gain approval for the Accra Ghana Temple. In reference to (spoiler alert) its eventual approval, he wrote something that I like enough to take out of context so it can apply to everyone's lives. "I have reflected on this point in history many times. For thirty months I had felt like I was running into a brick wall. I would get up, clean my wounds, and run again. I would run at the wall faster, slower, and from further back. I tried jumping over it and digging and crawling under it. The wall didn't fall. It didn't even budge. I just kept getting more bruised and bloodied. Then, when it was time, the Lord just gently blew it over."

S.P.O.C.K - Not Human

Returning now to the alien invasion theme that was recently begun and then interrupted, here's possibly my favorite song (it's hard to choose) from S.P.O.C.K. The titular refrain is creepy because it makes me think of Europeans discovering Africans, or anti-vaxxers discovering autistic children.