The Best Two Years, and Beyond

I spent a good deal of the weekend listening to two old cassette tapes, which I dug up the other day. Cassette tapes, in case you were wondering, came along way before MP3s and iPods and also preceded CDs, which are sadly becoming more and more passé these days.

These tapes had spent a few years collecting dust and basically just lying around. One tape was a recording of the sacrament meeting in which I gave my "farewell" address before heading off to the MTC and then the mission field at age 19, and the second recording was of my "homecoming" talk upon returning from Peru two years later at age 21.

I can sum up the experience in one word: Wow.

It all brought back so many memories to listen to myself speak on both occasions, and I don't like to listen to my own voice all that much, so it took some patience and self-consciousness, too. It was interesting to listen to my young and eager but not-so-wise-in-the-ways-of-the-world self speak before departing and then my heavily Spanish-accented self (much more than I recall being at the time) speak somewhat extemporaneously and much more fluidly upon returning.

Reflecting back on those times and on the perspective I've gained since then, it's interesting to me to hear now, from many different sources, that the mission is "the best two years" in your life. Certainly, it was an amazing, unforgettable, growing, and educational experience that I'll never, ever forget, I saw some very beautiful and also some very ugly places, and I made many friendships that I hope to carry with me into the eternities.

But "best two years"? Well, if my life has already reached its greatest point at age 21, then I've been living through years of disappointment, with additional years of disappointment still ahead.

Another school of thought, and the one that I agree with, is that the mission is "the best two years" of your life up to that point of your life. You then return home, go back to school, work, marry (well, two out of three isn't bad), etc. and then make the next year the best year, then the year after that, and so on.

Have the years since my return home been disappointing? Has it been nothing but a downward slope? In some ways, these years have not turned out at all like I expected they would. I've had my share of disappointment, trials, grief, thorns in the flesh, and unfortunately also consequences when I've not done some of the things I should have done or I've let opportunities slip away. To quote John Lennon, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Nevertheless, I've also been richly blessed at the same time. I've been given opportunities to work, to play, to study, to learn, to develop talents, to grow, to date, to meet new people, to travel, to give, to receive, and to take uncertain steps into the dark future, one day at a time—some of which have paid off, and others have not. And I wouldn't have missed nearly all of it.

Except for January 2008. That was a tough month that I never want to repeat, ever again.

How Does *He* Know?

I was listening to the old iPod the other day, shuffling through my playlist of Disney songs, when a familiar voice began to sing. It was the melodious voice of my favorite Disney princess, Giselle, played by Amy Adams—who hasn't really left the Church, ya know. She's just been inactive for past few decades.

Anyway, the song I refer to is "That's How You Know" from Enchanted. "Does he leave a little note to tell you you are on his mind?" she inquires. Does he "send you flowers when the sky is grey?" Or "does he take you out dancin' just so he can hold you close?" Or "dedicate a song with words in just for you?" "Don't treat her like a mind reader," she adds. Don't take her for granted!

All of these are valid and important questions in a relationship, Giselle and/or Amy. A man should do all of these things to let a woman know that he loves her, or else really really really likes her a lot, with chocolate syrup and a cherry on top.

Fair enough.

Generally speaking, though, men also tend to have a difficult time figuring out whether, after they've followed Giselle's advice and have done all of these things, or have at least attempted them, whether she loves him back, or even really really really likes him back.

This is partly due to the fact that women, often by their own admission: (1) tend to drop hints rather than to say directly what they are feeling or what they want, (2) can be driven by emotion more often than men are, and (3) can be confusing, as one tends to come from Mars, and the other from Venus. (Yes, ladies, I'm sure we're equally as confusing to you sometimes. Maybe more!)

Now, don't get all upset and write me nasty comments or e-mails. The Angry White Loner has said in the past that women are the world's biggest mystery, and he's just trying to figure out this part of their personalities right now. On this night, in this blog post. (No one person should take any of this personally.) He is actually looking for some practical advice, generally speaking, and is trying to foster a positive discussion on the topic, because his friends and readers, all six of them, give pretty good counsel. He would, in fact, welcome answers to any or all of the following questions:

Does she want to spend time with you, or is she just scared of being alone?

Does she see spending time with you as a priority or as an obligation?

Does she often claim to be "busy," or does she go out of her way to include you in her extracurricular plans?

Does she, you know, pretend like she acknowledges your existence out in public, and, if so, will she approach and/or talk to you when others are around? Are any and all dates carried out only when she's checked an re-checked the neighborhood for spies and gossipmongers?

Are you plan B, C, or D because her girlfriends happen to be busy that night?

Does she get excited for the next date because, just as Café Rio employees get excited on your 11th visit, a "Free Meal!" is coming?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Movie Review: 47 Ronin

Over the weekend, I watched a little gem of a film called 47 Ronin, which arrived on DVD via Netflix. Rarely does a movie inspire the Angry White Loner to write a review of it here on his blog, but this was one of the select few that made the cut. Add to that the fact that I watched this one by myself, ergo there was no one else present to hear and chuckle at my various witty remarks.

So, here they are.

In a nutshell, 47 Ronin stars Keanu Reeves as one of 47 samurai seeking revenge for the death of their sensei. That is the plot summed up in one sentence.

I wanted to like this film. I did. But as soon as Gedde Watanabe, who also played Kuni in UHF, appeared, all I could hear was him telling Keanu "Stupid! You're so stupid!" over and over again in my head.

Among the other highlights:

 - The ronin sign a contract in blood using their thumbprints, which coincidentally is also the way by which you can exchange old DVDs or CDs at Graywhale store. True story.

 - The plot is actually somewhat parallel to The Princess Bride. Yes, *that* Princess Bride. Really. There's a wedding that the good guys try to stop, with the hero, once thought dead, trying to save his beloved from marrying a Humperdinck of a weasel of a bad guy. There's also magic and miracles and all of that stuff. Only it appears that 47 Ronin is the rejected first draft of that script and is set in Japan.

 - Ronin apparently both have choreographed dressing and undressing routines that they perform in unison. I did not know this.

 - The white dog/dragon from The Neverending Story apparently appears to help Keanu fight one of the baddies.

 - Not since Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones have special effects been wasted so needlessly to help a character eat something by lifting some food to one's mouth via the Force (or, in this case, hair, or magic).

A bunch of other stuff happens in between, but I fast-forwarded through all of that. Isn't technology amazing?

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 47.

People Are More Important

The other day, I was working on my laptop at McDonald's - Mickey D's, in case you were not aware, not only has (arguably, I realize) good food but also free Wi-Fi - when I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between a rather frustrated father and his teenage son over on the table adjacent to me.

The situation was basically this: The boy was paying a lot more attention to his iPhone than to his father, to his meal, or to basically anything else going on around him. I don't know if he was texting or playing Angry Birds or what, but he was far more involved in the virtual world than in the real one. The father did not like this. He repeatedly asked his son to put the phone away. Finally, the father said, "People are more important than iPhones."

This is not the kind of wisdom one normally expects to hear at McDonald's or at most any other public place, for that matter. But I feel that it was a profound statement nonetheless.

In my own travels, it has not been uncommon to see a good number of people paying more attention to their iPhones, iPods, iPads, flux capacitors, or what-have-you than to other people, and it usually makes me feel sad for these folks. There are the more-obvious examples of this happening, such as people texting while driving their cars or a couple having a text conversation while sitting right next to each other. There are also the less-obvious examples, which include people sitting alone in a corner, away from the crowd at a social event, texting someone else and essentially giving out the message that "present company" is just not that important. I am also told that there are people who stay up into the wee hours of the morning texting their friends for hours on end.

Don't get me wrong; like Kip in Napoleon Dynamite, I love technology, and it has done a great deal to improve all of our lives and the way that we communicate. I'd rather have a text conversation with someone than no conversation at all, or I'd prefer to send out a mass text to, for example, my improv troupe when it would save me the effort of making 30 different phone calls. But texting is something like #15 on my list of preferred communication methods, and I'd much rather have face-to-face interaction with people. Also, the purpose behind texting, for the most part, is with the goal in mind of seeing that person or persons in a face-to-face setting later on.

But Angry White Loner, you say. You send me about as many texts as everyone else does.

To which the AWL replies: That's quite possibly true. How about we meet up face-to-face and discuss it over dinner sometime?  Your treat, of course. ("You," in this case, is a single woman that the AWL wants to get to know by sending random flirty texts.)

Admittedly, if he were Superman, the AWL's kryptonite would be talking to women on the phone; he doesn't deny it. (Speaking of which, the AWL has a ticket to see the new Superman reboot Man of Steel this Saturday, and he wants to get in on the hype. There may very well be a movie review forthcoming.)

At any rate, perhaps that's a topic for another blog post. And perhaps the wise McDonald's father's message was meant for me just as much as it was meant for everyone else. Speaking of whom, if we ever meet again, sir, it will be my privilege to buy you anything you want from the dollar menu.

Your treat, of course.