Love Potion #9

       I said I would eventually get around to talking about my wedding and married life. I guess that Valentines day weekend is as good an excuse as any to make eventually right now.  I've observed many newly weds who are anxious to share the 'wealth ' of knowledge they gleaned from several weeks to months of marriage. As can be expected it generally doesn't carry much weight compared to couples who have been together for decades but occasionally some newly weds present a new perspective that is legitimately helpful. I hope the things I say will cause less eyes to roll and more thought on present or future relationships. I may not be an authority on marriage counseling but the young women in our church did vote us cutest couple so I almost know what I'm talking about. I have the 'trophy' to prove it.

       Relationships are strange topics to address considering everyone close to you seems to be overwhelmed by curiosity and grill you for details like its an itch that needs to be scratched while at the same time its touchy when speaking to to those who are single or who's relationship don't seem to measure up to yours in their eyes. It comes too naturally to us to compare ourselves to others almost like we are purposefully collecting insecurities. Maybe because if we have more problems than other people at least in some twisted way we are excelling at something. With all this comparing of circumstances comes a lot of exchanging of advice. People either want to know your secret or want to teach you a lesson. This can be a welcome show of support and trust or can be an unpleasant and unnecessary bucket of mind vomit. Some of the best examples of unwanted help may include pieces of advice that are:

Deep Dark Confessionals
         Some things are best kept private. There are people that are incapable of recognizing the line between relatable, potentially applicable advice and unmerited ramblings that leave you feeling slightly violated.

Common Sense Platitudes
I've all ready expressed my dislike toward the phrase "just be yourself" in another post. The same goes for a long list of needlessly obvious and predictably generic bits of advice that are so unforgivably overused that you could play a game of bingo with them at the reception (That's actually a really good idea). TM

Painfully Specific to the Advice Giver
Every relationship is unique and has things that work for it and things that don't. Some advice can easily be applied to many couples but some are so specific to one couple it could spell disaster for another.

So with that being said any advice I attempt to give about relationships hopefully will not share in any of these pit falls and can be well received. In fact I hope to find a way to express my thoughts opposite those three.

Respect Privacy
Being married for over a year I have come to better understand just how much you can become 'one' with your spouse. You spend so much time together and develop and maintain an unbelievable amount of trust and reliance. You share everything. With that you grow to know so much about them. More than their friends, family and sometimes more than themselves. With such knowledge comes the responsibility to constantly assess what information is too private to let escape your tight knit circle of two. To maintain and fortify trust and respect you share everything with them and are choosy what you share with others.

Don't Let Things Lose Their Meaning or Significance
The first time I told my wife I loved her was a big deal for both of us. Despite the fact that I love her so much more now than I did back then the phrase is not as powerful as it used to be. I say it multiple times a day and when I don't find creative ways to draw attention to it then it can be overlooked. It's the same with many verbal expressions of love and affection. Over time we need to slow down and appreciate a phrase for what it really means and find fun ways to amplify how it is received. Saying "you are the light of my life" or "I adore you" have so much meaning behind them that is often not properly processed. Consciously make an effort to express the phrases the way they need to be expressed.

Set Attainable Expectations
Don't garner false expectations from other 'relationships' around you. Unreasonably high expectations that we get from scripted relationships in the media and only seeing the best side of couples in public or on facebook can be very self defeating. When you expect more from someone than they are capable you will be inevitably disappointed. If friends ask me what they can look forward too from my experience when getting married  all I can say is not to expect it to be like mine. Not many people get to marry the perfect bride and have nothing go wrong at their wedding. In my case the flawlessness and beauty of the celebration itself was a wonderfully accurate reflection of the flawless and beautiful  marriage we've had thus far. I am confident it will continue to be  wonderful so long as we both set appropriate expectations for one another.

 With Finances, familial obligations and distracting hobbies our focus can get blurred and love can begin to fade. The more we do these things the more we will nurture our feelings for one another and our love will remain healthy and bright. Valentines Day should serve as a great reminder to remember how it all started and renew our dedication and unity. Happy Valentines Day.

Superstition

 

    Throughout my life I have always thoroughly enjoyed the fact that I have never had a bad Friday the 13th. It feels great every time I get the opportunity to drop kick superstition right in between the eyes. After realizing that my work schedule and under-the-weather-ness could potentially throw me into some unsavory circumstances I wasn't about to give the 13th the satisfaction of hearing me admit it was a bout of bad luck. I was given a route with an early morning appointment with my other appointments spanning the afternoon and evening with hours of mind numbing free time. Considering I work an hour from home I had to pass the time on the road. How could I prove to the 13th it wouldn't get the best of me? What could I do to stick it to the fates and say I will not live shackled by chains of curses and misfortune? I could..... I COULD..... spend my free time actively racking up as much "bad luck" as I could by doing every unlucky thing I could think of (or google). "To Walmart!" I screamed in a horse, unforgiving voice and I set off empowered by my new thirst for rebellion. As I knew the breaking of any mirror that resided in my home or on my truck would not be in my best interest I sought one out. 

     If being smashed by a hammer is a mirrors equivalent of dying with dignity then it was a beautiful ceremony. If not then at least it was quick and somewhat painless.

     While at Walmart I also initiated a one man game of limbo that continued throughout the rest of my work day. Meaning, of course, that every time I saw a ladder I walked underneath it.

      Ladders were not the only things I kept an eye out for. In fact I had quite the list of things I was hoping to come across. One of them being umbrellas that were to be immediately opened indoors.

     Find a penny pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck? I don't think so. Every penny I saw with the heads side up I refused to pick up. Quarters, nickles and dimes were still free game of course. 

    Probably the most difficult challenge was to force a black cat to cross my path. Even after paying a visit to the main office that is normally crawling with at least 13 billion cats at any given time I could not find the devil-spawn anywhere. I finally found one later on in the day. He was mangy, menacing and only had half a tail. The perfect cat to harbor bad luck if ever I saw one. Unfortunately the demon seed would not pose for a picture so instead I offer you Felix. Felix is a dark gray cat that I see most often around the office. He isn't black but he doesn't mind getting his picture taken so he'll have to do for sake of visual representation.

     With only a year of high school theater class under my belt I never took to saying 'break a leg' instead of 'good luck'. I always liked to think that it was less superstition and more a way for jealous understudies to verbally express there desire for advantageous mishaps and not be reprimanded. What I didn't know was another way to welcome bad luck beside wishing good luck was to say Macbeth in the theater. Granted I said it in a movie theater but it was the best I could do.

     People throw spilled salt over their left shoulder because of the old tale about the devil always standing behind you. I have never held a superstition about spilling salt but I have always thrown it over my shoulder anyway because the idea of throwing salt in the devil's eyes makes me smile. This time I didn't. Next time Lucifer. Next time.

     Oops, my luck fell out. How careless of me.




    To rap the night up I sent myself a chain letter and immediately deleted it. I hate it when social media tries to guilt me into sharing something. Whether I support the notion or not it irks me. Chain letters are no different. No one can tell me what to do! ...except my mom........and my wife.
Luckily neither of them initiate chain letters.

    In the end it wasn't just a salvaged day but a masterpiece of a day. Purposefully doing everything I could think of to hypothetically sick the demons on myself was less of a war on superstition and more of a war against my own pessimism and despondency. The whole idea of being cursed with bad luck is an excuse to be self-defeating. Sure chance can be for us or against us but when we decide to blame our bad attitude and missed opportunities on a meaningless act bringing misfortune upon us we're festering in our own self pity instead of moving forward.


    Most of the time we bring bad days or bad luck upon ourselves due to poor expectations. My attempt to have a great day instead of a terrible one proved once again to me that people don't have to have a bad experience if they don't want to. Better yet our having a good day can influence those we interact with to feel better about their potential problems too.

Busy Busy

Between living my first year of marriage, finishing my degree, applying to Optometry school and working 60 hours a week any chance to stop and reflect on my experiences in a post has been difficult. Even when the dust settles and I have a moment to sit down behind the computer I find it nearly impossible to choose a topic to address. There are so many:

1. My newish job

2. Graduation

3. Being married

4. Our trip to Oregon

5. Figuring out my career path 

6. Our anniversary 

7. Social experiments

8-2034…. ect.

I finally decided I just need to bite the bullet and pick one. I'll talk about the other ones later or simply leave them to your imagination. I’m sure you could come up with some stellar scenarios that would make me out to be legendary. That is how legends are born after all right? Lack of information and no shortage of embellishments to fill in the gaps? I have faith you can pull it off.

Anyways after taking some time off and heading to visit my Grandpa in New Mexico I finally have some time to focus on a topic. The topic that will be decided, of course, be rolling a 6 sided die and assigning each topic a number (excluding social experiments and ect. naturally. There are some things you just can’t know if the experiments are to work. You understand).

So the topic of the day is…

My newish job? Fair enough. It wasn’t that long ago that I talked about the wide variety of jobs I’ve had in the past. After graduation we made the wonderful/terrible decision to live with my folks so we could save up some money while trying to get into Optometry school and/or figuring out contingency plans. Upon coming home and beginning my job search my Brother suggested I look into being a pest control technician. Not long after I was certified, had my own truck and was expertly assassinating critters with biochemical warfare.

 The irony of this development didn’t hit me until I had been exterminating for a while. Back when I was a young tyke in elementary school I had somewhat obtuse career goals. Each year when teachers would inevitably ask us kids what we wanted to be when we grew up I was surrounded by the usual answers. In a classroom of potential Firemen, Astronauts, Policemen, and Athletes I was the weird kid who wanted to be an Entomologist. Perhaps I liked being different, perhaps I got a kick every time people (including my teacher) had no idea what that was, but mostly I liked bugs. A job where I got to study them sounded like heaven to me. I found them fascinating.

Look! bugs I recently found.
This Dragon Fly has some cool markings.
The blue color is striking and the wings are made up of fun patterns.
They can fly forwards, backwards and side to side.




Look at the size of this thing.
Brings me back to my days in Texas where everything is bigger.
Not something we see often in Nevada.

um.....
..............
................... !!!

 At times I wonder how miniature me would feel if he somehow found out that my living is made by seeking their destruction through raining pyrethroid death on their colonies and nests. Instead of studying the way they live I study how I can more effectively make them die. How laughably similar and yet opposite my childhood aspirations and adulthood realities have turned out to be. It’s hard to take a child’s dream job seriously when experience tells us just how many things will change between elementary and college graduation. But those early interests and obsessions can still impact our way of thinking and our personal development. The reason I chose to work toward a career in Optometry was because my poor eyesight gave me lots of experience in an eye doctors office and I could easily see myself in that capacity. In my attempts to prepare myself for Optometry school I took the necessary classes, immersed myself in appropriate extracurricular activities, taught, researched and narrowed my interests. After years of focusing all my efforts on following that course things have not been working out the way I hoped they would and we’ve had to do some very serious reevaluating.

Looking back with new perspective at all of the skills and interests I gained and built upon trying to be an Eye Doctor I discovered a love I have not only for certain subjects I studied but for teaching those subjects. A love I would have never found if I hadn’t pushed myself so hard to achieve my goals in Optometry. I fell sort in some aspects while superseding my expectations in others redefining my limits and my strengths. Whether I end up a Doctor, teacher or something completely different this was a powerful lesson to learn.

I guess that covers the topic of Figuring out my career path too. I have always been fond of killing two birds with one stone.

I am an exterminator after all.

The Proposal

        I do realize it's been a little while but I have a good excuse I promise. I'm not one to talk about relationships openly. I like to keep those things to myself for the most part. I would even go so far as to say I passionately hate all the attention Facebook status updates get, good or otherwise, when they deal with relationships. Many people just aren't good at offering the appropriate kind of sympathy for a breakup and I don't care to hear every couple announce to the world how much they like each other routinely three times a week. Not to mention when someone says the relationship is complicated. You're either dating or you're not and settling on that explanation tends to make me not want to associate with that person.
People like attention too much these days and when they lack talent or presence they resort to some pretty depressing ways to garner it.

        All that aside it can be uplifting and healthy to hear people's support for you during big changes in your life. Everyone needs a support group and mine is pretty spectacular (which is why I chose to involve those specific people in the more personal parts of my life in the first place).
Their advice is heart felt and blunt.
They don't make the situation about them.
They distract me when I need my mind off of something.
They listen patiently to me vent but keep me optimistic.
And they are happy when I'm happy.
It's obvious why they are my confidants because I know that they care and are trustworthy. I hope I fit that bill for others as I actively try to.

        There are some things that are forced to quickly shift from the realm of personal to public whether we like it or not. Take marriage for example (I'm getting married by the way). A huge part of the marriage ceremony is a welcoming of a newly formed family into the community. The community celebrates them and they become an integral part of it. Everyone is excited and everyone takes part. It's not something you can easily and shamelessly keep a secret from all those in your life. And as I promised years ago I wouldn't let the Internet know about every relationship I've been in but I would let them know when I was engaged. So- 
I'm engaged.

        The how we met story and the proposal story are very much involved with each other so lucky we can kill two birds with one stone here. Considering the fun I have creating these blog posts and the fact that she enjoys reading them I decided to make a Walgreens picture book similar to one of my posts that I could use to ask her. Much like me she doesn't like big productions involving lots of people and lots of eyes on her so an intimate idea made more sense. I also wanted to create something that told our story in a fun way she would like. Thinking I had a couple weeks I decided to write a poem outlining the important parts of our relationship with the pictures but after working on it a couple days she unconsciously dropped a three day deadline on me because her and her family were traveling down to Utah for a funeral. Against all odds the book was finished and I traveled up there to see everyone.

        Now I know what you're thinking. No, the plan was not to propose at her grandmother's funeral. My sense of humor isn't that morbid. As we are LDS the plan was to get married in the Bountiful Temple so I thought it would be fun to ask her there. It would also be a special place that I could talk her into visiting without arousing too much suspicion. Upon arriving there we found a private place and read the book together. It was a huge relief to finally put the ring on her finger and things couldn't have turned out more perfectly. I wanted her to know how important she is to me with something that she can read often as a reminder. The wedding cannot get here fast enough. She is a miracle and I love her dearly. I wish this happiness on everyone else who is still waiting to find their perfect complement. Understand that the patience will pay off. Below are some pages from the book but the quality of the copies are low which makes the poem a little hard to read. Each segment is included below the pages.
Don't laugh (or at least don't tell me you laughed, I wouldn't know otherwise).

For most of my life
I've had one main concern.
One thought that weighed on my mind.

One thought that dictated every move
and how I carefully spent all of my time.

A desire that's disguised as a great many things
and hides behind all aspiration.

It defines our success much better than grades,
or fame, money and station.

This success can bring us happiness
more than anything we own

and perhaps the most frustrating part
is we cannot find it alone.

For this reason we search and manage our lives
to find with whom we belong

Who will give us the chance
to have that success we've wanted for so long.

At a time when the search was weighing me down
and I decided to stop and rest
I met a girl who's potential was masked,
who's value I could not have guessed.

The one thing I thought
was I might regret
not staying in contact with her.

I asked for her number
as she walked out the door,
my desired outcome unsure.

I messaged her once,
she didn't reply.
I put it out of my mind.

Until contact restored
by a misplaced text
made me anxiously want
to rewind.

For weeks we conversed
solely through text
as I worked through the Halloween season.
Hoping that this was a worthy pursuit,
optimistic but keeping to reason.

She couldn't have guessed
that this prospect
with whom she would spend her days
would be a guy who dressed like a sociopath
and worked scaring kids in a maze.

When the job ended
my nights were freed up
I took courage to see her anew.

After dinners and gifts,
conversations and games,
she saw what this was turning into.


Then came the night she gave me a scare
when she said she wanted to talk.
Until she said she liked what this was
and I was Not on the chopping block.
So many things I see every day
remind me of that minute-
where she made it so clear her intention and fear
showing her heart was in it.


When I thought for sure she'd written me off
and she thought she'd come on too strong-
We were both relieved to uncover the truth
that the conclusions we drew were wrong.


I thought the first kiss might be better received
with Nutella smeared on my face.

and the fact that we've shared many more after that
makes me think this was probably the case.

To tell somebody that you love them a lot

is not uncomfortable, weird or taboo
but for me to tell someone
I was IN love with them
was scary, unnerving and new.
The end of relations with others were hard.
They brought sadness and injured my pride,
but I never suffered a broken heart
and this made me scared to confide.
There were no doubts, I knew how I felt,
I'd held my tongue long enough.
I didn't expect her to say it back at the time
but waiting to hear it was rough.
She waited until the new year dawned
and in her own special way
Made a list of ten reasons she loved me as well.
A gift I still have today.

Despite the hardship long distance creates
it made our goals apparent,
and her humble desire to be a missionary
made her character transparent.
She fits so well into my life
I see obvious, divine intervention.
I'm grateful for her every day that goes by,
a fact I should often mention.
Love at first sight would not describe
how this all began to transpire.
She ignited a spark instead of light
a raging, fairy tail fire.
Feelings once small augmented with time
steadily, constant and sure
into a deep and honest love-
genuine, strong and secure.
That's how I hope the future will be
forging bit by bit.
A tether to bind us faithfully
and never let us quit.
As we build a future and depend on each other
to conquer pain and strife.
To this wonderful girl I offer all of my Love
Loyalty and Life.

What did you learn at school today?

           The lesson a teacher may intend to teach is not always the lesson a student will choose to learn. Such is the case when it comes to my class's labs this past semester. I've noticed certain interesting and possibly disturbing themes accompanying each one. Lets discuss them, it's not like we have anything better to do.

         There was a wide range of borderline fun experiments we were assigned to do for my Physics 106 lab. Most of which involved the behavior of light which called for many hours staring out windows through various instruments. Whether it was a make shift telescope or a hand held spectrometer it was to the windows we went to test them out. Considering the campus was still alive with students hustling around it was not uncommon to catch ourselves studying them instead of a frozen bush or a brick wall. Not to mention we were expected to record every little observation into notebook for future reference. We watched, analyzed and recorded every detail of the scenes we watched from afar.                                                                              

Lesson learned from Physics lab: 
How to be a spy

          O Chem was a bit different. As with most Chemistry labs it is fairly common sense that some of, if not all, the chemicals you will be handling will be less than healthy. Some are actually quite dangerous. You have to take and pass a safety test before you're allowed to participate in the lab for heaven sake.The funny thing was just how deadly my teacher made everything sound. Pain and cancer was around every corner. Naturally I was doubling up on rubber gloves and each lab took twice as long as it should due to being overly careful. The only time I ever had any carcinogens miss their mark was because my teacher spilled them on me during a demonstration. I have yet to keel over dead but that doesn't mean I've given up on the legitimacy of my fear.

Lesson learned from O Chem lab: How to be paranoid

         Probably my favorite would have to be my Physiology lab. Arguably it was 2 and a half hours of torture once a week, and not in the sarcastic sense. I've already talked about how rewards can change the way we feel about circumstances so at the time I didn't think too much about it but in retrospect it could easily be described as torturous. 

         Over the course of the semester they made us sweat, bleed, suffocate, drown, starve, freeze, and publicly humiliated us. We were electrocuted, stabbed by pointy things and had to eat and drink some rather unsavory things. 

In scientifically sound detail we:

-Endured breathing into a lung capacity measuring device until we were on the verge of passing out.

-Stimulated muscles until the tetanus threshold was reached with electrodes.

-Vigorously rode an exercise bike or held our breath with our head in ice water to see effects on heart rate.                                                      

-Drew blood to find hematocrit and blood type.

-Didn't eat anything all day on three separate occasions to measure fasting glucose levels or kidney filtration rates. (I like food.)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152273637034622

 -Drank saline and urinated into a cup every 15 minutes until I could no longer pee until the next day regardless of how much I drank. (We had to carry our cup of urine through the halls of the Benson from the bathroom to our class. By the end there was no shame between me and my classmates.)

-Pricked my finger 6 times to measure blood glucose after eating an uncomfortable amount of dehydrated mashed potatoes.

-Had to show off our public speaking skills with a strictly judged oral presentation.

-(probably worst of all) Were forced to wait. In between many of the measurements our patience was tested as we sat hungry and bored with nothing to do.


         I'm not even going to mention the lab reports we had to write about each one or my diabetes scare but looking back the list of unpleasant things we had to do is lengthy. In the end it was all worth letting everyone know everything about the inner workings of my body and get to know all of them much more than I thought necessary. Why? Because I passed the class. And in the end that's all that matters (except for the other important parts of course, they matter too I guess).

Lesson learned from Physiology lab: How to be a sadist


       Yes I know this post doesn't have anything to do with Christmas or the new year....but I don't care. Maybe 2014 will be better. Happy new year er'body!