March 14-18

It's time for me to remember the days surrounding St. Patrick's Day last year.

March 14. In the morning, I went over to Cougar Dental to get my wisdom teeth out. They gave me laughing gas, and it was a very uneventful operation. The dentist gave me a little bag of gauze and some fluid I was told to rinse with. He told me not to eat chips or other things that might get caught in my gums. I remember being confused because the instructions said to rinse with a capful of the liquid, but the cap was tiny. I was also instructed that I no longer needed to bite on gauze when it was white. I went up to my French lab. I was the only one in the room, so the TA was talking exclusively to me, and then when he asked me to speak, I said, "Je préfère ne pas parler," at which point he kind of gasped when he saw the gauze, "car le dentiste a enlevé mes dents de sagesse." He seemed sorry for me. Other people in the class later showed up, and as I was leaving, I think I was explaining why I hadn't had them removed before my mission. I think I changed out my gauze, and it was still pink, and I was running low on gauze, so I went into the Twilight Zone (like a convenience store on campus) to try to find some gauze. My friend Carrie saw me there and said hi; I pointed to my mouth and said "wisdom teeth" to let her know why I couldn't talk. There wasn't any gauze in that store, so I walked down to South End Market right by my apartment to look for gauze there. They didn't have any either, so it was back across the street to Cougar Dental to ask for more gauze. The hygienists took me back and bundled up some gauze for me, and the dentist came and asked to see in my mouth. I let him look, and he told me I didn't need to bite the gauze anymore, even as he gave me the gauze the nurses prepared. I felt confused and a little bad for taking it. What was I going to do with gauze if I wasn't supposed to bite on it? I went back in my apartment and had lunch. It seems that sometime in the ensuing days, my roommate Chad and his fiancée Sierra were surprised I was up and about after the operation, since she had recently had hers taken out and it was very painful for her. After napping and eating, I went back up to campus to work, since my computer didn't have Microsoft Word yet. I called my boss, Reid, and when he answered, he said, "I'm just getting in my car." It was a little later than usual. I just had a quick question for him. Then I worked in the library. Then I went to South End Market again and got some mint chocolate chip ice cream and went to my apartment and watched the "May the Wind Be Always at Your Back" episode of The Flying Nun. I journalized as follows:
"This morning I talked to Reid before I went to get my wisdom teeth out. It was a very simple procedure--they numbed me up, and gave me laughing gas, and I didn't even know when the teeth came out. I had to have gauze in my mouth, so I went to French lab with it being hard to speak. I was going to work, but I needed more gauze and lunch, so I came back home. I asked the dentist for more gauze, but he said I didn't need it, even though they gave me some. I made lunch and took a nap, and then I went back to campus for hours to work. I came home and ate mint ice cream while watching the St. Patrick's Day-ish Flying Nun episode."

March 15.  In the morning, Carrie texted me and invited me to go on a hike with some friends. I thanked her for the offer but thought it might be best if I not exert myself because of my gums. I went and did some errands. First I got lunch at Kneaders because I wanted to get a key lime tart with my meal. They had Easter cupcakes, and I made a mental note that I would have to return to get one when it was Easter time. Then I went up to Eliane French Bakery, where I awkwardly tried to speak French with the owner. I asked for a macaron à pistachio, and he corrected me pistache. I also got a green shamrock-shaped meringue. Then I went to Lolo's grocery store, where I got a small package of Rolos to put in my little pots of gold for the next few days. I was feeling a little bad about all the sugar I was eating. Then that evening, my roommate Jordan and I went up to the evening session of our stake conference. I think I had been asked to make sure people sat in the middle of rows so that people wouldn't have to climb over them. I don't like talking to people, but I was glad to have an excuse to make people sit in the middle, since that's one of my pet peeves. But there was only one person I had to tell to sit in the middle. After the conference, they had brownies, so I had my share of mint ones. My former home teachee Autumn was there with her fiancé, Scott, and she knew about my rules and noted that I got the green ones. Then we went back to our apartment. and I watched the "Leprechaun" episode of Bewitched. Jordan watched it too, at least part of it, and later his girlfriend Laura came over and Jordan said, "You missed Bewitched."

March 16. In the morning I had to go to a priesthood leadership meeting. They had a panel of Relief Society presidents from the various wards so we could ask them about home teaching. One of the RS presidents was Leanna from our ward; another was on the staff of Schwa, the student journal I was working on. Someone asked about whether it was acceptable to date those you home teach; they said you could but you would need to deal with the consequences if it didn't work out. The overall answer for the various questions seemed to be "It depends." Leanna said that guys should be nice to their girlfriends' roommates, because they might end up home teaching them--she said that experience had happened to her. After that meeting, I walked to stake conference on 900 East. I was wearing my shamrock tie, and when Megan Ward saw me in the halls, she complimented me for my tie. One of the speakers was a bishop who told a story of a guy who got married fast and was expecting a kid. Then he said, "Go, and do thou likewise." Then he sat down. Everyone was in an uproar (mostly laughing) that he had done that. There was debate as to whether he had sat down without closing ("In the name...") or if he had closed his talk but no one could hear him. I wrote my two blogs. I journalized as follows:
"This morning I had to go to a Priesthood leadership meeting. They had a panel of RS presidents answering questions about home teaching. I think President Stratton is out of touch with us college kids--who can go on two dates a week?
"In the later session, one speaker told about someone who got married and was expecting a kid in six months time, and said "Go, do thou likewise." Then he sat down. It was really weird.
"Then we went home teaching. That's always a little awkward. Then I've been blogging and such."

March 17. I think I finished up my Lucky Charms for breakfast; and they were special Lucky Charms that only had clover marshmallows. I was super excited to be able to wear my brand-new neon green Vans, my green pants, my St. Patrick's Day Snoopy shirt, my green socks, and my old green glasses. I went up to campus to work, and I tried to find some St. Patrick's Day music on my free trial of Google Play. During my break my phone informed me that Nate Garlock sent me a Facebook friend request. (Then he unfriended me at Christmas.) When I was done with working, I went to the BYU Bookstore to pick up my order of Microsoft Word, which work had paid for. There were also booths for the Choose 2 Give campaign, where you donate money that goes into scholarships and stuff. They were giving out yellow-green cotton candy, but I didn't get any, because they were having it outside and it was extremely windy, so they stopped. I donated some money, so I should have gotten a free t-shirt, but they only had kid sizes available at the time. Then I braved the wind to go over to BYU Studies, the job I had left three weeks earlier, to pick up the latest issue of the journal. Everyone in the office asked me what I was working on, and they were impressed with my outfit, that I was literally head to toe in green. The web developer lady Eden had apparently given people a hard time for not wearing green. She wasn't in, but Rosalyn, her assistant, took a picture of me to show her. After that, I went down to my weightlifting class. I had brought a green shirt to work out in, and as I looked out the window before class, I saw a guy also all in green, including light green slim-fit pants and green running shoes. I of course was wearing my green shirt and green socks (I can't remember whether I had kept on my green glasses). When I was doing some ab workouts, my spotting partner, Ryan, said something like, "You're the Hulk, since it's St. Patrick's Day and you're wearing green!" as a motivation. I didn't go running because it was so windy, and I also didn't know if I would have time. I went home, and for my "scripture" study, I watched a seminary video about an Irish convert. Then I went out and did some shopping. I went to Shopko and got some St. Patrick's Day pajamas, which of course I could only wear that night, and I got some Trix Easter fruit snacks which I could start eating the next day. I saw some mint chocolate cookies, which I couldn't justify buying because I couldn't eat them all in a day. Then I went over to Lolo's, where I bought a potato for dinner and an Idaho Spud candy. (Since potatoes are stereotypically Irish, I could eat it, especially since some potato candies are made specifically for St. Patrick's Day.) Then I went home and baked my potato in the microwave. That evening I went over to FHE, where they had asked me to share the spiritual thought. I printed off copies of the hymn I wrote based on Psalm 119. I explained to everyone that I had written it for my Early Modern English class, and they all seemed impressed with it, even saying we should sing it at church. Jared in my group even looked at the verses in Psalm 119 that it was based on. We sang the hymn, and people seemed a little unfamiliar with the tune, "Come O Thou King of Kings," which surprised me. Our activity that night was indexing, and some people hadn't done it before. One such person was Dani Robinson, who was sitting next to me. She didn't know her record number and didn't know if she had an LDS account; I pulled her number up but then she found her login information. Then she said to me, "Wait, why do you have my record number?" I said it was only because I was ward clerk. There were green cookies, which I could eat. The indexing batches we were working on were Philippine census records from the 1800s, so they were in cursive, and they were Spanish names, so they were murder to fill out. While we were indexing, everyone was playing music; when someone played Pharrell's "Happy," Jessica Andelin said, "I love this song!" I asked everyone if they wanted to hear the one St. Patrick's Day song I had, so I played Jan Terri's "Luck of the Irish," but my speakers aren't very good. Someone's playlist started playing Michael Bublé's "Cold December Night," and I said, "Wrong holiday." Eventually I went home and finished up the indexing batches I had downloaded, and since they were so hard, I vowed not to index for a while. Then I watched the "If the Shoe Pinches" episode of Bewitched, and then before I went to bed I had to look up what a shillelagh was.

March 18. At French class in the morning, Mme Petelo asked if we had done anything fun on the weekend. I said that I had had my wisdom teeth taken out and that it wasn't painful. She said, "Est-ce que vos dents sont déjà sortis?" "Oui." That evening, I picked up my friend Natausha because I had invited her to go to Cherie Call's CD release concert. As we walked to my parking lot, I told her about the experience I had recently had where a girl refused to get in the car until I opened her door. I asked Natausha whether she liked guys opening doors or whether she found it demeaning. She said it was nice but not necessary. In light of that conversation, I opened her door, but I don't think I did the rest of the night. On the way to the venue, I missed the turn, and I ended up having to turn around at the Trax station. Then I went back and parked. We went in and my name was on a list because I had already ordered the CD; Natausha turned in her ticket and got the CD. I told her we could get some lime popcorn, but she didn't want any, and I didn't feel like making my way over there. We talked about her shoes, because she had drawn on them. I talked about my sock collection and how I had socks for every holiday except for New Year's and Easter. I told her how much I liked Cherie Call (she seemed impressed when she learned that the cardstock sleeve she just received was a CD) and I said that I had been listening to her in the car on the way; she said she reminded her of our mutual friend Sariah's music. Cherie Call sang most of the songs from her new Homeless Songs album and some of her other standbys. One of the backup singers was Debra Fotheringham, and I was sad to see she had a wedding ring on. Before Cherie sang "Sweet Sweet Dreams," she said that she had songs about her daughters but wanted one about her little boy. I heard a mom behind me say to her little boy, "This is a little boy song!" I think her encore song was "It Passes All My Understanding." As we left, we talked about how it was hard to hear her voice above all the music. Natausha said she loved the songs that were from previous albums, saying she adored "Love makes me invisible." I told her "Memphis" was one of my absolute favorites. Then we talked about where she was living in the future. I mentioned something about both of the "Ward sisters," and she thought I was talking about sister missionaries, but I was talking about Cami and Megan Ward. When that was cleared up, she said, "It amazes me how different they are."