Tell 'Em Big Baby Sent Ya!

Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, "I just don't care"?
 -P!nk

I used to be somewhat more adventurous of a person than I now am. I don't know when exactly it was that I turned into a fuddy-duddy, but it happened a few years ago. I woke up one morning, and there he was: a bona fide fuddy-duddy, staring back at me in the mirror.

You'll all get older someday, too. That's both a threat and a promise.

I think that it is a good idea, nonetheless, to occasionally take a look back at some of those things that used to be part of your routine and wonder why you don't do some of those things anymore, maybe even to do some new things that might scare you a little bit. For example, going to Lagoon at least once every summer.

It's something that your very own Angry White Loner used to do, but until a couple of weeks ago, he hadn't been to the friendly confines for 13 (count 'em, 13) years. It was beyond time that he give it another try and go on some rides, for heck's sake.

When I talk about doing things that scare you a little, I'm not, of course,  advocating doing unnecessarily stupid things, such as drag racing through your neighborhood or tying rubber bands together and then bungee jumping. Or even eating at Five Guys Stomach Flu and Food Poisoning. Ever.

It was good to be back at Lagoon and to try to, once again, erase those horrible memories of having worked there for a summer when I was 17 years old.

OK, a little off topic there. Anyway, the rides have changed a great deal in my 13-year absence from the park. Some of the ones that were there last time are still quite terrifying, like The Rocket. My ride on the new(ish) Samurai was quite possibly the most frightening experience I've ever had. And I've witnessed a terrorist attack up close.

I spent the course of the ride much like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, chanting, "I do believe in spooks! I do believe in spooks!" over and over again, until after what seemed like 17 straight hours strapped in, it mercifully ended, after which I basically French-kissed the ground and promised her that we'd never, ever fight again.

When you've not been on a roller coaster or other amusement park ride for 13 years, you apparently have about 13 years' worth of motion sickness to make up for. That, or the lap bars fit a bit more snugly than they used to, if you catch my drift. Whatever the reason(s), I had to sit out for a few rides while my friends continued to party on. I never fully recovered that night, but I did end up going back on a few more rides to round out the evening. And I'm glad that I did.

It's what fun is. Or what it used to be. There's still more fun to be had.

YOLO Guy Takes a Chance

Over the weekend, I went to a singles dance. Because, like the disco song says, there are times when you've just gotta boogie-oogie-oogie till you just can't boogie no more.

It had been far too long since the Angry White Loner had last attended a dance. As a result, admittedly, he found himself being a wallflower for the first hour or so he was there, talking to friends and acquaintances on the sidelines and doing a whole lot of people watching in the meantime.

I love to people watch. You can sure learn a lot about others by doing it—especially at a dance. During my period of wallflowering, one of the individuals I observed was what I can only assume was a rather shy guy sitting in the corner, wearing a YOLO ("you only live once") t-shirt.

Eventually, yours truly made it out onto the dance floor and wowed the ladies with his mad skillz. No surprise there.

YOLO Guy, however, remained seated for most of the rest of the evening. That is, he remained seated until the moment the DJ announced the final song of the night.

At this moment, YOLO Guy decided that enough was enough and it was finally time to take advice from his own t-shirt, because, after all, you only live once. (Unless you're a Buddhist. Or Shirley Maclaine.) He asked a girl to dance, and he finally made it out there, in spite of his shyness.

The moral of the story is: It's never too late. Also, the people who overcome their fears are the ones who do something about it and don't let themselves be held hostage by them.

Kudos to you, YOLO Guy. It took you a while, but, as they say, it's better late than never. For some people, it's enough of a victory to overcome shyness just by showing up to a dance, let alone getting out there and dancing.

If the Gondola's a-Rockin' . . .

I went on a fun date Friday night.

*Long pause while Mom falls off of her chair, dusts herself off, and then sits back down to read.*

It started off with a short, hour-long hike near the Snowbasin ski resort and ended up with me nearly wetting my pants in public for the first time since I was seven years old.

Following said hike, my date, whom for privacy's sake I'll refer to as Pure Prairie Girl, saw a flier and noticed that we happened to be at the Snowbasin resort on the same night as a stargazing party, which was being held up at the Needles lodge overlooking the resort. On a whim, we decided to change our plans and join in on the fun.

To get to the Needles lodge, which stands at close to 10,000 feet above sea level, we would need to ride a gondola lift to the top. This little piece of information made us both a tad bit nervous, as we each have an admitted fear of heights. Nevertheless we enjoyed a 13-minute ride up to the lodge. (Yes, my OCD side came out, and I timed it just to be sure. The girl taking our lift tickets at the base of the mountain told us it would be between a 12- and a 15-minute trip, and she was correct.)

Once we were on solid ground again and our gondola riding was half done for the night, we enjoyed a good dinner and toured the lodge's bathrooms—me in the men's and PPG in the women's, of course—discovering that they were the coolest-looking bathrooms I had ever seen and were nicer than most people's houses. The toilets were not stalls but we actual, separate rooms, with a doorknob and everything.

Oh yeah—there was also that whole stargazing thing. Admittedly, I know little-to-nothing about astronomy, so I was content to look through the various telescopes and be grateful that I could make out any objects at all. The nearly full moon was out, as well, adding a great deal to the experience.

Then, at last, came the gondola ride back down to the resort. PPG, the other five people in our gondola, and I had descended for no more than a minute before the ride came to a stop, presumably to assist another passenger in a wheelchair to board a different gondola back at the top. The sudden stop caused us to sway back and forth above the rocks and darkness below and much more violently than I would have preferred, making at least three or four of us—myself included—extremely nervous for the next minute, which seemed more like a half-hour in Nervous Nelly Time.

If you could have seen my face there in the darkness—and thank goodness no one, especially my date, could—it would have been sheet-white. And for a gringo, my face is already pretty white. You also might have seen my fingernails slowly boring holes into the seat below me.

After the aforementioned minute, the gondola, fortunately, ceased its rocking and came to a standstill. After another minute, we were back on our way downhill. There were no other stoppages, thank the heavens, and I nearly French-kissed the ground when we arrived.

I said nearly. Horseshoes and hand grenades, people.

The Angry White Loner's High School Reunion

Last night, I attended my high school reunion, which was held at the Little America hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. As many high school reunions go, it was an event I both looked forward to and, at the same time, dreaded.

How many years has it been since you graduated from high school? you ask?

I can't make myself say how many years it has been, unbelievable as the number is to me. I just can't make myself type it. But we were the Bountiful High School class of 1993. I'll let you do the math.

In spite of my apprehension about attending, two main ideas stood out:

1) Being one of the few single people at my class reunion was not as bad as I feared it would be. I met some old friends right at the check-in desk, including Andy and Scott, and they agreed to let me sit at their table, get to know their spouses, and catch up with them and their families' lives. Many others also went out of their way to talk to me and to say "hello."

Included among that group of people was one of my seventh-grade tormentors, whom I referenced not long ago here on this blog in my review of the movie Bully. He was the one to approach my table and to initiate a conversation. Not only that, but he seemed genuinely interested in my life and spent 10 minutes chatting with me as if we were old friends.

I want to believe there is such a thing as water under the bridge. Perhaps the hatchet can finally be buried on that matter. I have hope that it was last night or soon will be.

I even had a good, long talk with someone who served as a studentbody officer during our senior year but whom I did not know very well back then. I have a knack for remembering faces and names, and recognizing that person and saying "hello" was all it took for us to become friends.

2) Some things remain exactly the same, while other things have changed.

By and large, people sat at tables and snapped photos with their old high school cliques and social groups. Some people have changed very little physically and were instantly recognizable. Old friends were the same good-natured people I have always known. The girl who (unbelievably) agreed to go with me to the senior prom is still drop-dead gorgeous.

The flip side of that thought is that time and experience seem to be the great equalizer. No matter how popular or important some people thought they were in high school - and that is one of the few unfortunate things about that time in our lives - things such as baldness, grey hair, *ahem* slowed metabolism, and other signs of getting older, as well as challenges and heartache, seem to have affected most everyone to one degree or another.

As the saying goes, into each life a little rain must fall.

Overall, it was a very positive experience. But I can wait for the next reunion.

The Man of Aluminum and His Kryptonite

I just read online somewhere (source: somewhere) that the new Superman movie Man of Steel soared (ha ha! . . . get it?) to an incredible $113 million in box office earnings over the weekend. That's a lot of money! Putting it into figures we can all understand, it is the same as approximately .0066 percent of the current national debt.

Contributing $7 of my own to the cause, I caught the film yesterday along with a handful of family members. It was certainly a trip down memory lane for me, as once upon a time I was a strange, little kid who liked to dress up in my Superman costume nearly every day, often accompanying my poor, embarrassed mother to such public places at the grocery store and Primary activities while dressed in said outfit.

Now a strange, big kid, I must admit that I enjoyed the film immensely. Not to give away too much, but Dwight Schrute of "The Office" fame makes a cameo appearance as a childhood friend of Clark Kent's who grows up to become the manager of a Kansas IHOP. Also (and these are real spoilers now, so feel free to put your fingers in your ears and chant "Lah lah lah lah, I can't hear you!" until the end of this paragraph): There is surprisingly no mention in the film of either Lex Luthor or of kryptonite, two staples of the Superman universe.

True and seemingly unrelated, but bear with me, story: For Halloween a few years back, I created one of my favorite all-time costumes by tearing off a roll of aluminum foil, folding it around my head, and going to a Halloween party as one of the characters from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs - you know, the scene in which they create aluminum foil hats for themselves to keep the aliens from reading their minds? People at the party apparently had not seen Signs (their loss entirely, am I right?) and were utterly bewildered, thinking I was some sort of mutant Hershey's Kiss.

Ergo, if I were a superhero, I would not be the Man of Steel but the Man of Aluminum. And my one weakness, or kryptonite, as referenced in my previous post, would be: talking to women on the phone.

After all of these years of trying (and failing) to perfect the art of conversation over the phone, it's still no easier in my 30s than when I was 16 and was planning my first date. It can be a fine line trying to be funny/charming and coherent, while showing an earnest interest in her and what she has to say, and often I end up being none of the above.

One thing remains constant: I am a dweeb.

Sometimes, I stay awake at night wondering exactly how women feel about talking on the phone to someone who sounds very nervous doing so and is trying not to come across as, oh, say, Ted Bundy. Are they amused by it in a you're-such-a-moron fashion? Are they trying their hardest not to burst out into laughter? When they agree to go on a date, is it motivated by pity? I have even heard of a third school of thought: They actually see it as someone who is moving forward with a date request in spite of his fears and/or nervousness. I daresay, some are even impressed by it.

Whatever the answer may be, I can certainly understand why people find security in texting or e-mails or Facebook or what-have-you. It's a lot safer that way - especially if the girl declines the date request. That way, there's no awkward conversation that follows ("Well, will you be washing your hair on Thursday then?") and a can't-get-there-soon-enough hanging up of the phone.

Nevertheless, fellow males and Justice Leaguers, I admire the fortitude you show me in moving ahead in spite of your fears, for I believe that we all have them with regard to the opposite sex and also that this is the only real way to conquer our fears in the long run. I have accepted the phone call as a necessary evil in life and will need to keep phoning (preferably texting) women now and in the future.

Just don't expect a Man of Steel on the other end of the line.