It had been almost what 4 maybe 5 months since I had been in a show. After dealing with all the pointless and stupid crap that I put up with in the last show I was in with one of the female cast members, I had decided to take a theater break. Yeah 4-5 months isn't that long, but when you have been doing shows as often as I had in the past it was quite the break. The Scera was going to be starting their summer season soon, and I already had the shows planned that I wanted to try out for. They had The Wizard of Oz, All Shook Up, and Fiddler On The Roof planned for the Summer. I planned on trying out for the first and last one, mainly cause the director of the middle show is a horrible person, that directs horrible shows. A show she did last year made the least amount of money and was the worst show in the history of the 25 or more years the Scera has been around. So I try and stay away from her shows. Besides one of my favorite directors was directing the last one and I love to work with him. A director by the name of Jeremy S. was directing The Wizard of Oz. I made a show that he directed a few years back but decided to drop out due to some people issues. I really thought doing this show though would be fun and so I gave it a shot.
Auditioning is still the bane of my theater existence and I shall hate it till the day I die. I walked in the room sang my song and he commented on how he liked my voice, which made me feel better. Then he let us know that they would be sending out a callback email later that day, and that callbacks would be that Saturday. I went about my day and got my email around midnight. They had called me back for the Tinman! I was pretty stoked. I went home printed out the music that I needed for the callback and went along my way. Callbacks were killer. The dancing that we had to learn was pretty intense and I always tend to worry that if they ever asked us to dance by ourselves instead of the groups they put us in, I would be screwed. Luckily they take groups of like 6-8 and have them all go at once. So we all look retarded instead of just one of us which is always nice. They then let everyone go and put us in our groups to sing of girls and guy parts. We Tinmen were the very last ones to go, and it kinda sucked cause we were there for about 6 hours. Long day.
What was cool is that they lest us know if we made the show by that night. Which is always nice cause you don't have to be paranoid for the next week waiting to see if you got in the show or not. I made the show as a Crow/Ensemble. The Crows were considered a lead which was cool and we got our names in the programs and such. Basically there was three of us and our job was to heckle the scarecrow during his song, we got to sing and dance and threw in a bit of a funny part from a show that I can't remember for the life of me. I was actually surprised that I got a semi lead part and not just ensemble, mainly because that seems to be all I get when I audition at the Scera. So it was cool to get a decent break out of the normal role.The rehearsals were pretty easy and at the same time pretty stressful. It was a lot of hard dancing like usual, which I actually like, but at the same time sucks cause it means I have to work harder then probably everyone else to learn it. Especially since for the last week and a half of rehearsals I was out of town for a business trip. My partner for the partner dance as again Lauren. Love the girl, she is so fun to work with and really a big help. The show itself was just a blast. No drama, well mostly no drama, a lot of really great people and made some great friends. The performances went really well. We had a girl in the cast that thought she was all that and could do anything and was friends with everyone. She was some sort of dancer, but she wasn't that great so I don't know why. But one night she tried a stunt fell down and apparently busted her elbow or something. I had to fill in for her in one of the dances. We did have a few technical issues with the Virtual Wizard never really working but all in all it was such a fun show. The directors were awesome and we had some big audiences. Really loved the show, and being a Crow was my favorite. We were only on stage for maybe 10 minutes, but the 5 of us that were on stage(3 Crows and Dorothy and Scarecrow) seemed to really get the crowed into the show. Overall it was a ton of fun and I look forward to hopefully working with this director more in the future.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Life Lessons
It has been a pretty interesting couple of weeks. I went and tried out for a show down at a new theater in Provo, an old roommate of mine that I lived with last year opened a new theater with his wife. They had done a few shows in the last few months since they had been opened but they kept casting within the people that had helped open the place. From what I read the shows were pretty great. So I was interested in getting involved with the theater, hopefully with a show soon. I had just gotten done with The Wizard of Oz, which was a great show. I was looking for something else to do that would be a last party show before I had to buckle down and start preparing for the wedding. Not much that was going on that I was available for. Mainly because the two shows that I had wanted to do, South Pacific at the Hale and Little Shop of Horrors at the Scera were getting done at times close to our wedding. South Pacific starts the day of our wedding, and Little Shop ends the day after our wedding. So I was pretty much stuck in a show rut so to speak because there wasn't anything going on that I would be able to do, until the wedding was over.
I was looking around on Facebook one day and a friend of mine posted an audition for The Echo Theater that was going on Wednesday. It was for what they were calling the Echo Ten Festival. Basically it was a bunch of shows that were short 10-15 minute plays that were written by all sorts of directors from all sorts of places. I guess they originally had 69 people submit shows and came down to just 17. They needed us actors to come down, cold read for a few shows and then if the directors wanted to get more out of us they could ask us to read their pieces after. The show was also opening in a week and a half and only running for that Thursday and Friday unless the audience liked your show so much that they voted you through to the Saturday showing of the best shows. So I decided to talk to my fiance and make sure that it was ok to audition and went down and tried out. I'm not the best cold reader nor do I think that I'm very good at straight plays. Which are non musicals, you have to rely on your emotions in the scenes and being able to portray the message with words and movement rather then music and dance. Which I don't think I have ever been very good at. But I figured what's to lose? It's a fairly new theater that hasn't gotten quite that much exposure yet and could use the actors. I went and auditioned for my friend Critters show. He was directing Adam and Eve. There wasn't many people at the audition and I was kinda worried how things would pan out. Reading was fun though, I read with some young lady that I don't think got called back to be in any of the shows because I didn't see her at the first meeting. Everyone seemed to like my read and I was asked by a couple of the other directors to read their plays as well. I was kinda really hoping for Adam and Eve, but I read the others just as best I could. We waiting around for other people to show up and another guy walked in and read one of the plays that was more of an angry one. I got worried though because the moment after he got done reading, 3 of the directors that were there wanted him to read for their show, including Critter for Adam and Eve. So I got up and left before he read that, cause I didn't want to hear or see him read it better than me. Also the woman that I worked with in Christmas Carol that made it such a horrible experience was there, and she tried to be all nice and full of crap towards me but oh well. I was hopeful that I wouldn't be cast in the same show as her. They had another day of auditions that weekend, which worried me again, cause it sounded like they had a lot more people lined up for that day. So I kinda just sat around and waited over the weekend to see what was going to happen with the show. I got a text from one of the directors that asked me to read after I read Critters play. She wanted me to play a medic in her show called Trenchman. I didn't really have any intention of doing that show, and actually did the cold read bad on purpose so she wouldn't want me...but she did anyways. lol So I waited for a couple more days and then I got a text from Critter. He wanted me to be Adam in Adam and Eve! I was so stoked! We started rehearsing the next day and I was going to get to meet the person playing Eve.
We had a read thru for trenchman and don't get me wrong it seemed like it was going to be a fun show, but I wasn't that excited about it as I was for Adam and Eve. They guys that I was going to be in trenchman with all seemed pretty fun and we got along great together. It was just a matter of memorizing lines and getting the show to work. Our performances went well but it for sure wasn't the strongest of the shows that were done.
We had planned to have rehearsals for Adam and Eve after trenchman. So I usually just ended up waiting. So that Monday I was waiting around and about 20 minutes after my other rehearsal was over this Red Head walked in. She came up to me asked if my name was Mont and introduced herself as Paige. She was going to be playing Eve and apparently was a good friend of Critters that he just called up and asked if she wanted to play the part. Critter got there and we got into it. Let me tell you something about this kid. Living with him I always knew that he was a great actor and had studied it in school and it was pretty much his love. I had never worked with him before except for 2 nights were I was an extra in a film that he was in. I had remembered him telling me that he had studied acting in Russia and a few other places besides school as well, but man did he put us to work. Lets just say that I have never worked so hard in my life for a show. Especially one that had only a week and a half of rehearsals. He took that hour and a half that we had and did all sorts of great things. Warm ups that are the best ever, running scenes over and over until both he and us felt they were right. We were 2 days from opening and we hadn't finished the running the whole show yet because of it ha. No I've never been in any acting classes or done any kind of special training besides my vocal training that I started last year. So I felt a little inadequate because everyone that seemed to be a part of this festival had some sort of experience. A lot of the things seemed really weird to me at first and I think critter could tell. So we just kept running things until they felt right.
One night sticks in my mind and is kinda where the title of this post comes from. There is 2 scenes in the show were Adam and Eve each have their final straw moment. The moment where the other says something or does something that just pushes the other over the edge. Eve's was because Adam wasn't understanding what was wrong with her and kept pushing to the point where she yells at him to leave her alone for a moment. She starts crying but tries to not show too much to Adam. I guess I should probably give some back ground on the show. It takes place after Adam and Eve get kicked out of the garden and are starting to realize what they got into and how they feel. Also how they start realizing that they do like each other, and how to deal with starting a family and being the father and mother of all nations. Adam's "angry moment" I guess we can call it comes after Eve asks him if she wasn't the only girl on earth would he still want her. He being the typical guy and wanting to think about it, says "that's a good question" Eve gets obviously hurt and while Adam tries to explain his reasoning for that question she storms away from him. He yells off at her about how he is happy that she ate the apple and how she really is beautiful to him, he just never realized it until after...after meaning the moment they were kicked out. The play takes place literally 30 minutes after they were thrown out.
Now Paige was a natural at getting mad and being upset with someone else. She has been in theater forever and has taken some classes..It's also just acting so it's pretty easy at times for some people. I on the other hand had a really hard time when my time came to get angry. I'm not an angry kind of person. Especially when it comes to the opposite sex. I hate seeing them cry or feel sad or anything of that nature. Especially if it was my fault. Both Paige and Critter could see I was having an issue and what he did next kinda changed my perspective on acting and what I have been doing for the last 4 years. You see whenever I get a lead part in a show, I kinda would just go through the motions. Memorize my lines and my blocking what and where I'm supposed to be going and doing. I've never really just let the character take me over and make it my own. Critter wanted me basically to just sit and yell at Paige, and even thought it was just in an acting sense I couldn't do it. Mainly because I knew what the next lines were and how it kinda tears us apart for a moment. So he sat us down right in front of each other and had us just look into each others eyes. Not saying a single word until we felt it just naturally flow out of us. He didn't want us to yell at each other, just kinda look into each others eyes until we felt connected.To be honest with you I have never done anything like this in my life. The closest thing to something like this that I ever did was when I was in The Princess Bride and we did mirroring. Kinda the same thing but instead of just sitting there holding hands motionless and quiet until one of us decided to talk, one person does a movement and then the other one follows. Well we kinda joked for a bit, but Critter was pretty adamant that we just sit there looking into each others eyes until we felt each other is what he said.
I really had to think hard about this one. He wanted us to basically become one of those married couples that I always thought were so weird. They finish each others sentences, they can look at one another without saying a word and just know what the other is thinking, feeling, wanting. I also just felt kinda silly, mostly because this once again is something that I have never done before. So there I sat across from a woman I have only known for a a few days trying my hardest to just connect with her, in what I can only describe as pure love for a person. Now yes this is a theater project and yes I am engaged and very much in love with my future wife, but and theater people will probably understand more than non theater people, I had to find a little bit of that love for my partner Paige. She was a great actor and I felt like she was way better then me. So there we sat, holding hands and looking into each others eyes. Probably for a good 5 minutes before anything was said, and it all seemed really really weird to me for those few minutes. I'm guessing she had no issues with it whatsoever because she has done things like this her whole life, but it was probably awkward for her because I was making it that way. Then after a few minutes of her awkwardly staring into my probably looking back at her awkwardly odds things just seemed to click in my mind. I instantly calmed down and the words just kinda flowed out of me. It kinda seemed like I was having a conversation with my future wife after we had known each other for a really long time. We went through the scene and Critter was so happy that we finally had gotten to that point. We were only an hour into our 3 hour scheduled rehearsal but he said he was so blown away with how smoothly that went he just said go home. So I went home that night and kinda thought about what had happened. I think for the first time in a long time I actually saw myself as my character instead of a person pretending to be something they weren't for others entertainment. The rest of the rehearsal process went pretty good and we felt ready for the opening night. We ran over our lines every night before we went on stage, just to help us work on consistency and flow of the show and we got it down pretty dang good. We performed the show only 3 times and with our total rehearsal schedule the whole process was less the 3 weeks. It felt like it had been something we had been working on for so long though. Our show was selected to be in the final performance, which we thought was pretty awesome because only 5 shows were picked out of the 15 shows that were done through out the two different showings. We didn't win any awards but come to find out that we were nominated for best show and I was nominated for best actor. Something I never thought would happen. It made me feel pretty good about myself. But it also taught me an important lesson that I think I can use throughout my acting and my marriage. It is one that I am so thankful that I spent the two and a half weeks working for and I look forward to getting better and better.
I was looking around on Facebook one day and a friend of mine posted an audition for The Echo Theater that was going on Wednesday. It was for what they were calling the Echo Ten Festival. Basically it was a bunch of shows that were short 10-15 minute plays that were written by all sorts of directors from all sorts of places. I guess they originally had 69 people submit shows and came down to just 17. They needed us actors to come down, cold read for a few shows and then if the directors wanted to get more out of us they could ask us to read their pieces after. The show was also opening in a week and a half and only running for that Thursday and Friday unless the audience liked your show so much that they voted you through to the Saturday showing of the best shows. So I decided to talk to my fiance and make sure that it was ok to audition and went down and tried out. I'm not the best cold reader nor do I think that I'm very good at straight plays. Which are non musicals, you have to rely on your emotions in the scenes and being able to portray the message with words and movement rather then music and dance. Which I don't think I have ever been very good at. But I figured what's to lose? It's a fairly new theater that hasn't gotten quite that much exposure yet and could use the actors. I went and auditioned for my friend Critters show. He was directing Adam and Eve. There wasn't many people at the audition and I was kinda worried how things would pan out. Reading was fun though, I read with some young lady that I don't think got called back to be in any of the shows because I didn't see her at the first meeting. Everyone seemed to like my read and I was asked by a couple of the other directors to read their plays as well. I was kinda really hoping for Adam and Eve, but I read the others just as best I could. We waiting around for other people to show up and another guy walked in and read one of the plays that was more of an angry one. I got worried though because the moment after he got done reading, 3 of the directors that were there wanted him to read for their show, including Critter for Adam and Eve. So I got up and left before he read that, cause I didn't want to hear or see him read it better than me. Also the woman that I worked with in Christmas Carol that made it such a horrible experience was there, and she tried to be all nice and full of crap towards me but oh well. I was hopeful that I wouldn't be cast in the same show as her. They had another day of auditions that weekend, which worried me again, cause it sounded like they had a lot more people lined up for that day. So I kinda just sat around and waited over the weekend to see what was going to happen with the show. I got a text from one of the directors that asked me to read after I read Critters play. She wanted me to play a medic in her show called Trenchman. I didn't really have any intention of doing that show, and actually did the cold read bad on purpose so she wouldn't want me...but she did anyways. lol So I waited for a couple more days and then I got a text from Critter. He wanted me to be Adam in Adam and Eve! I was so stoked! We started rehearsing the next day and I was going to get to meet the person playing Eve.
We had a read thru for trenchman and don't get me wrong it seemed like it was going to be a fun show, but I wasn't that excited about it as I was for Adam and Eve. They guys that I was going to be in trenchman with all seemed pretty fun and we got along great together. It was just a matter of memorizing lines and getting the show to work. Our performances went well but it for sure wasn't the strongest of the shows that were done.
We had planned to have rehearsals for Adam and Eve after trenchman. So I usually just ended up waiting. So that Monday I was waiting around and about 20 minutes after my other rehearsal was over this Red Head walked in. She came up to me asked if my name was Mont and introduced herself as Paige. She was going to be playing Eve and apparently was a good friend of Critters that he just called up and asked if she wanted to play the part. Critter got there and we got into it. Let me tell you something about this kid. Living with him I always knew that he was a great actor and had studied it in school and it was pretty much his love. I had never worked with him before except for 2 nights were I was an extra in a film that he was in. I had remembered him telling me that he had studied acting in Russia and a few other places besides school as well, but man did he put us to work. Lets just say that I have never worked so hard in my life for a show. Especially one that had only a week and a half of rehearsals. He took that hour and a half that we had and did all sorts of great things. Warm ups that are the best ever, running scenes over and over until both he and us felt they were right. We were 2 days from opening and we hadn't finished the running the whole show yet because of it ha. No I've never been in any acting classes or done any kind of special training besides my vocal training that I started last year. So I felt a little inadequate because everyone that seemed to be a part of this festival had some sort of experience. A lot of the things seemed really weird to me at first and I think critter could tell. So we just kept running things until they felt right.
One night sticks in my mind and is kinda where the title of this post comes from. There is 2 scenes in the show were Adam and Eve each have their final straw moment. The moment where the other says something or does something that just pushes the other over the edge. Eve's was because Adam wasn't understanding what was wrong with her and kept pushing to the point where she yells at him to leave her alone for a moment. She starts crying but tries to not show too much to Adam. I guess I should probably give some back ground on the show. It takes place after Adam and Eve get kicked out of the garden and are starting to realize what they got into and how they feel. Also how they start realizing that they do like each other, and how to deal with starting a family and being the father and mother of all nations. Adam's "angry moment" I guess we can call it comes after Eve asks him if she wasn't the only girl on earth would he still want her. He being the typical guy and wanting to think about it, says "that's a good question" Eve gets obviously hurt and while Adam tries to explain his reasoning for that question she storms away from him. He yells off at her about how he is happy that she ate the apple and how she really is beautiful to him, he just never realized it until after...after meaning the moment they were kicked out. The play takes place literally 30 minutes after they were thrown out.
Now Paige was a natural at getting mad and being upset with someone else. She has been in theater forever and has taken some classes..It's also just acting so it's pretty easy at times for some people. I on the other hand had a really hard time when my time came to get angry. I'm not an angry kind of person. Especially when it comes to the opposite sex. I hate seeing them cry or feel sad or anything of that nature. Especially if it was my fault. Both Paige and Critter could see I was having an issue and what he did next kinda changed my perspective on acting and what I have been doing for the last 4 years. You see whenever I get a lead part in a show, I kinda would just go through the motions. Memorize my lines and my blocking what and where I'm supposed to be going and doing. I've never really just let the character take me over and make it my own. Critter wanted me basically to just sit and yell at Paige, and even thought it was just in an acting sense I couldn't do it. Mainly because I knew what the next lines were and how it kinda tears us apart for a moment. So he sat us down right in front of each other and had us just look into each others eyes. Not saying a single word until we felt it just naturally flow out of us. He didn't want us to yell at each other, just kinda look into each others eyes until we felt connected.To be honest with you I have never done anything like this in my life. The closest thing to something like this that I ever did was when I was in The Princess Bride and we did mirroring. Kinda the same thing but instead of just sitting there holding hands motionless and quiet until one of us decided to talk, one person does a movement and then the other one follows. Well we kinda joked for a bit, but Critter was pretty adamant that we just sit there looking into each others eyes until we felt each other is what he said.
I really had to think hard about this one. He wanted us to basically become one of those married couples that I always thought were so weird. They finish each others sentences, they can look at one another without saying a word and just know what the other is thinking, feeling, wanting. I also just felt kinda silly, mostly because this once again is something that I have never done before. So there I sat across from a woman I have only known for a a few days trying my hardest to just connect with her, in what I can only describe as pure love for a person. Now yes this is a theater project and yes I am engaged and very much in love with my future wife, but and theater people will probably understand more than non theater people, I had to find a little bit of that love for my partner Paige. She was a great actor and I felt like she was way better then me. So there we sat, holding hands and looking into each others eyes. Probably for a good 5 minutes before anything was said, and it all seemed really really weird to me for those few minutes. I'm guessing she had no issues with it whatsoever because she has done things like this her whole life, but it was probably awkward for her because I was making it that way. Then after a few minutes of her awkwardly staring into my probably looking back at her awkwardly odds things just seemed to click in my mind. I instantly calmed down and the words just kinda flowed out of me. It kinda seemed like I was having a conversation with my future wife after we had known each other for a really long time. We went through the scene and Critter was so happy that we finally had gotten to that point. We were only an hour into our 3 hour scheduled rehearsal but he said he was so blown away with how smoothly that went he just said go home. So I went home that night and kinda thought about what had happened. I think for the first time in a long time I actually saw myself as my character instead of a person pretending to be something they weren't for others entertainment. The rest of the rehearsal process went pretty good and we felt ready for the opening night. We ran over our lines every night before we went on stage, just to help us work on consistency and flow of the show and we got it down pretty dang good. We performed the show only 3 times and with our total rehearsal schedule the whole process was less the 3 weeks. It felt like it had been something we had been working on for so long though. Our show was selected to be in the final performance, which we thought was pretty awesome because only 5 shows were picked out of the 15 shows that were done through out the two different showings. We didn't win any awards but come to find out that we were nominated for best show and I was nominated for best actor. Something I never thought would happen. It made me feel pretty good about myself. But it also taught me an important lesson that I think I can use throughout my acting and my marriage. It is one that I am so thankful that I spent the two and a half weeks working for and I look forward to getting better and better.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
He works in funny ways
Well hello again,
It's been a while since I've posted anything and I'm not even sure if people still read this thing but hey, it's better then writing in a journal for me so I'll keep at it when I can.
I wrote a post a few months ago about an activity that another ward in our stake invited us to attend. It was during February and it was before the dreaded day of Valentines, so it was obviously a dating type of activity where they were gonna try and pair us off with people in their ward, and try to make the activity as awkward as possible with the games they had us play. Now I will be the first to admit that I do a lot of embarrassing things(not really for me, more for those that are with me at the time) HA and I pretty much have no shame, but when it comes to playing games that put me in an awkward situation for another person, especially someone of the opposite sex I can get really reserved and it just isn't good. Boy did we play those kinds of games. Kissing Rugby. A person of the opposite sex sits in the middle and has a member of the same gender protect them by kissing the person of the opposite gender that is trying to kiss the person in the middle...yeah...not my kinda game...yet these are the kinda games/situations that our leaders love to put us in for some reason all the time.
Needless to say I wasn't planning on going to the activity at all. 8 had rolled around and I was still nestled at my house doing some homework I believe.(probably not but I'll go with it, because it makes me sound better.) I got a text from a friend of mine about 30 minutes after 8 telling me to hurry up to the activity because there were only like 4 guys from our whole ward there. You see our ward is really close with each other. We are usually hanging out together during the week or we go on camp outs and things together all the time. For some reason though a lot of the other wards in our stake are not as close as we are at all. So we usually stay away from things like this. I had decided a few months earlier after I had broken up with my ex that I was going to steer clear of the ladies for a while. I was tired of nothing working out on both ends, but I knew if I didn't show up he would be a angry guy for a while. He apparently had been trying to get a lot of us there, because when I pulled up so did 3 of my really good friends. We all walked in played some of the really boring dumb games and were getting ready to bail when they herded us into another room to do a speed dating thing. They gave us 3 minutes to find everything out about the person on the other side of the table and when the ding sounded we had to move on. OH JOY 3 minutes to try and soak in tons of info about people I didn't really care to get to know in the first place. The thing that made it even worse was that not a lot of people in the other ward seemed very interested at all in playing this game. Our ward was going crazy with people in the other ward and they were just kind of like ok, whatever I will talk to you. I got pretty much all the way around the room, when I got to a girl that was sitting next to a friend of mine in the ward. We got talking and come to find out she was the younger sister of the guy that told me to come to the activity in the first place. We got talking and we had a lot of fun. There was a bunch of candy in different bowls and she handing me a candy heart that said something I can't remember on it. She looked at me and jokingly said "Here take my heart" So I did and I ate it. It was tasty. The ding sounded and we moved on, I got about halfway down the next table when she shouted out hey I want my heart back to give to this guy. I told her that I ate it, she was sad and the night carried on. She seemed like a really great girl that I wanted to get to know better. I failed horribly in trying to get her number that night because she ran off, as did most of our ward, right after the activity was over. So I had the night to sit and stew and think about how I was going to get her number. I also realized again that while I had told myself I was done dating, a person was put in my path that totally destroyed that thought and I was once again in the wanting to know her more phase.
We ended up hanging out a few times at FHE and much to the then dismay of her older brother who I was friends with got her number. We started talking and I found out how old she was. 19 :( Why couldn't there be any girls in the ward that were somewhat near my age that were interested in dating? Oh well I thought, I asked her out and it was kind of a roller coaster from there. I found out later down the road that her dad and of course older brother were against me going out with her because of the age difference. I've got 8 years on her and I could see their worry at that time. Her mom though believed in her daughters judge of character and was ok with the date. We had a great time, went to dinner and went and saw Comedy Sportz which is a fun improve to kinda show. We ended up spending the next couple days together and one thing led to another and we are now engaged! Pretty stoked about it all even though it's still kinda weird for me. I love the girl and she is the best thing to happen to me. Supports me in all I do and I know we are going to have a great life together.
I just find it funny that we met in an activity that I originally had no intent on going to. I'm sure we would of met later down the road, but what if things didn't go the way that they did? Would we be engaged right now? Or would we know that the other existed. I'm sure being in the same ward we would of eventually met, but she had plans to move out on her own soon for school and I most likely would of never met her then. Just crazy how things sometimes work out huh?
It's been a while since I've posted anything and I'm not even sure if people still read this thing but hey, it's better then writing in a journal for me so I'll keep at it when I can.
I wrote a post a few months ago about an activity that another ward in our stake invited us to attend. It was during February and it was before the dreaded day of Valentines, so it was obviously a dating type of activity where they were gonna try and pair us off with people in their ward, and try to make the activity as awkward as possible with the games they had us play. Now I will be the first to admit that I do a lot of embarrassing things(not really for me, more for those that are with me at the time) HA and I pretty much have no shame, but when it comes to playing games that put me in an awkward situation for another person, especially someone of the opposite sex I can get really reserved and it just isn't good. Boy did we play those kinds of games. Kissing Rugby. A person of the opposite sex sits in the middle and has a member of the same gender protect them by kissing the person of the opposite gender that is trying to kiss the person in the middle...yeah...not my kinda game...yet these are the kinda games/situations that our leaders love to put us in for some reason all the time.
Needless to say I wasn't planning on going to the activity at all. 8 had rolled around and I was still nestled at my house doing some homework I believe.(probably not but I'll go with it, because it makes me sound better.) I got a text from a friend of mine about 30 minutes after 8 telling me to hurry up to the activity because there were only like 4 guys from our whole ward there. You see our ward is really close with each other. We are usually hanging out together during the week or we go on camp outs and things together all the time. For some reason though a lot of the other wards in our stake are not as close as we are at all. So we usually stay away from things like this. I had decided a few months earlier after I had broken up with my ex that I was going to steer clear of the ladies for a while. I was tired of nothing working out on both ends, but I knew if I didn't show up he would be a angry guy for a while. He apparently had been trying to get a lot of us there, because when I pulled up so did 3 of my really good friends. We all walked in played some of the really boring dumb games and were getting ready to bail when they herded us into another room to do a speed dating thing. They gave us 3 minutes to find everything out about the person on the other side of the table and when the ding sounded we had to move on. OH JOY 3 minutes to try and soak in tons of info about people I didn't really care to get to know in the first place. The thing that made it even worse was that not a lot of people in the other ward seemed very interested at all in playing this game. Our ward was going crazy with people in the other ward and they were just kind of like ok, whatever I will talk to you. I got pretty much all the way around the room, when I got to a girl that was sitting next to a friend of mine in the ward. We got talking and come to find out she was the younger sister of the guy that told me to come to the activity in the first place. We got talking and we had a lot of fun. There was a bunch of candy in different bowls and she handing me a candy heart that said something I can't remember on it. She looked at me and jokingly said "Here take my heart" So I did and I ate it. It was tasty. The ding sounded and we moved on, I got about halfway down the next table when she shouted out hey I want my heart back to give to this guy. I told her that I ate it, she was sad and the night carried on. She seemed like a really great girl that I wanted to get to know better. I failed horribly in trying to get her number that night because she ran off, as did most of our ward, right after the activity was over. So I had the night to sit and stew and think about how I was going to get her number. I also realized again that while I had told myself I was done dating, a person was put in my path that totally destroyed that thought and I was once again in the wanting to know her more phase.
We ended up hanging out a few times at FHE and much to the then dismay of her older brother who I was friends with got her number. We started talking and I found out how old she was. 19 :( Why couldn't there be any girls in the ward that were somewhat near my age that were interested in dating? Oh well I thought, I asked her out and it was kind of a roller coaster from there. I found out later down the road that her dad and of course older brother were against me going out with her because of the age difference. I've got 8 years on her and I could see their worry at that time. Her mom though believed in her daughters judge of character and was ok with the date. We had a great time, went to dinner and went and saw Comedy Sportz which is a fun improve to kinda show. We ended up spending the next couple days together and one thing led to another and we are now engaged! Pretty stoked about it all even though it's still kinda weird for me. I love the girl and she is the best thing to happen to me. Supports me in all I do and I know we are going to have a great life together.
I just find it funny that we met in an activity that I originally had no intent on going to. I'm sure we would of met later down the road, but what if things didn't go the way that they did? Would we be engaged right now? Or would we know that the other existed. I'm sure being in the same ward we would of eventually met, but she had plans to move out on her own soon for school and I most likely would of never met her then. Just crazy how things sometimes work out huh?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Speed Dating
Last night our ward was invited to another ward for their activity night. This ward has decided to invite one ward from the stake every month to join them. Another ploy for meeting new people and such, which I think would be pretty fun depending on the activity at hand. Ours last night was not the case. I don't mind them wanting us to get to know other people and such, but some of the games that they have us play are just ridiculous and put everyone in really awkward situations. When I got there they were playing a game that looked pretty fun, but since I was late I just got to watch, but they were all intertwined and had to get all out of the group into one big circle. Looked like fun, and turned out to be the least awkward game of the night. They next had us get in lines, boys and girls and gave each of us a number. We were then supposed to get in groups of our numbers and prepare for the fate of which ever weird game was heading our way. I don't know if there is a name for the game, I'm sure there is but basically we got in boy girl fashion, each took a tooth pick and were given a lifesaver. The rules of the game are as follows get the live saver from first to last and then back without touching it or letting it hit the ground. Basically we had to get as close as humanly possible to people we didn't really know at all and pass along this candy. My team won, but it was still pretty weird. We then played kissing rugby. Basically the guys are given a letter, the girls a number and someone starts in the middle, boy or girl. A number is called and a letter and if the person in the middle is a girl, the guy has to get to her and give her a kiss while the other girl tries to stop him. Likewise it's the other way for the girls.
They then took us into a room where we were to line up on tables girls on one side and boys the other. The basic rules of speed dating are this. Each guy is given an amount of time to talk to each girl in the room. Basically it's a really fast version of a first date.....in my opinion it's a pretty stupid way to get to know a person. So much info is thrown at you from so many different people at one time that it has to be hard to remember it all if any of it. So basically we just go through the motions. There were a couple girls that were pretty fun to talk to, but most of them just kinda sat there like ok go ahead....This is what I don't get, can't they come up with any other games that don't include us doing exactly what we do every Sunday? Just sit and talk. It's funny because our ward is so close. We love being together and doing whatever. Yes we have our clicks, but everyone is pretty chill with each other. We have all noticed that in so many other wards this is just not the case. Not always that they dislike each other or anything like that, but it's very rarely that they embrace other wards. Ex. When this whole putting together of YSA wards into stakes was put into play by the church they hoped that people would be able to meet get married and so on, because everything they did was meant to put us together lots more. Our ward was moved out of the building we were in because it was also a family ward building and moved down to a building where there is now 3 wards. One for the handicapped then 2 singles wards. We initially were put together and had church at the same time. The switch was that one ward went to sacrament first and the other ward started with classes first. We had a munch and mingle I think twice a month. This was all done to see if this would work. Not only did it not work, but we were asked by the other wards bishop to switch our time because they didn't like dealing with us. I just laughed at this. It was pretty dang obvious that their plan wasn't going to work though. Each ward was set in their ways and friends and hardly if ever talked to one another. Munch and Mingle was supposed to make us mingle and talk with one another, but each ward sat on one side of the church and never talked to the other. It's great that they want us to meet one another and all, but I think some of the ideas lack luster....basically forcing a bunch of teens to do things they really don't want to do never really works. It usually gets the exact opposite reaction. Which is what I have noticed a lot of in the last few months. I hope the dating world around here starts to change soon though. Either that or I need to find the club that is out there of people that actually want to get married. Instead of just hanging out, or dating everyone and their dogs till they get bored....Not my lifestyle anymore...But it's getting harder and harder to find a way out. Thus we will continue to do participate in the awkward speed dating games and forced love days...
They then took us into a room where we were to line up on tables girls on one side and boys the other. The basic rules of speed dating are this. Each guy is given an amount of time to talk to each girl in the room. Basically it's a really fast version of a first date.....in my opinion it's a pretty stupid way to get to know a person. So much info is thrown at you from so many different people at one time that it has to be hard to remember it all if any of it. So basically we just go through the motions. There were a couple girls that were pretty fun to talk to, but most of them just kinda sat there like ok go ahead....This is what I don't get, can't they come up with any other games that don't include us doing exactly what we do every Sunday? Just sit and talk. It's funny because our ward is so close. We love being together and doing whatever. Yes we have our clicks, but everyone is pretty chill with each other. We have all noticed that in so many other wards this is just not the case. Not always that they dislike each other or anything like that, but it's very rarely that they embrace other wards. Ex. When this whole putting together of YSA wards into stakes was put into play by the church they hoped that people would be able to meet get married and so on, because everything they did was meant to put us together lots more. Our ward was moved out of the building we were in because it was also a family ward building and moved down to a building where there is now 3 wards. One for the handicapped then 2 singles wards. We initially were put together and had church at the same time. The switch was that one ward went to sacrament first and the other ward started with classes first. We had a munch and mingle I think twice a month. This was all done to see if this would work. Not only did it not work, but we were asked by the other wards bishop to switch our time because they didn't like dealing with us. I just laughed at this. It was pretty dang obvious that their plan wasn't going to work though. Each ward was set in their ways and friends and hardly if ever talked to one another. Munch and Mingle was supposed to make us mingle and talk with one another, but each ward sat on one side of the church and never talked to the other. It's great that they want us to meet one another and all, but I think some of the ideas lack luster....basically forcing a bunch of teens to do things they really don't want to do never really works. It usually gets the exact opposite reaction. Which is what I have noticed a lot of in the last few months. I hope the dating world around here starts to change soon though. Either that or I need to find the club that is out there of people that actually want to get married. Instead of just hanging out, or dating everyone and their dogs till they get bored....Not my lifestyle anymore...But it's getting harder and harder to find a way out. Thus we will continue to do participate in the awkward speed dating games and forced love days...
Monday, February 6, 2012
Crazy Weekned!
Wow what a weekend. From the Superbowl which do to the team that lost I won't be speaking much about the game...I love the Patriots, they are my team always will be. They just didn't make the plays they needed to. The Giants got a lucky break yet AGAIN and had a few more plays then the Pats. It just surprises me how many fair weather fans that they have. I will never stray the course lol. Can't wait to see them come back next year with hopefully a better defense then this season.
Enough on that now. Friday was a pretty sweet day, work went on for what seemed like forever. We had a pretty cool ward activity coming on that night though. We were doing our annual Hockey game. The guys and I all piled in my car and we headed up to the game, what a game it was! Honestly hockey bores me to death to watch. Especially if there is no fights or anything like that. It's just back and forth with a little puck. I do enjoy playing though. Yes I know that doesn't make any sense. Everyone in the ward had a whole section of the stands to ourselves and we kinda all spread out. The usual group of us were together and we got all riled up, shouting and screaming FIGHT FIGHT...The mascot from the U was there and we taunted him like no other. He was making his rounds and got in front of us and tried to get us to cheer for him but I got a BYU chant going. It was pretty dang funny. The bird didn't look pleased at all. He walked off and we got back to the game. Well the bird came back like ten minutes later with a couple cans of silly string and dowsed our hole group. We all took off after him and he ran off. Good times. The game finished finally, we lost. The cool thing though was that we got to go play broom hockey on the ice after. It was pretty sweet! I've only played on the ice a few times without skates and it was pretty crazy. Our team won and it was fun. We all left and I went to bed around 2 after I cooled down a bit. Saturday morning I woke up pretty stoked cause I had a date with someone that I have been pretty interested in. This was gonna be our first date and she was planning it all cause she lives up in Salt Lake and I don't know the area to well. Well I got up on that morning ate, took care of the animals and took a shower, got out of the shower and had a text from said date. She had to cancel because she had "Work" Asked if she could do a rain check which I was fine with until I asked if this weekend would of been better for her. No response. I have learned from previous time being rejected that not hearing back after something like that usually means that she wasn't interested in the first place, but was just being nice..I thought I was done dealing with high school girls. Guess not.
So my whole day was kind of shot, because I had planned things around driving up there and spending the evening with her. Now I had nothing to do and was kinda feeling down on myself. I had to get some pants fixed and drove up to my grandparents to see if my gma could get them fixed for me. She of course did because she is awesome. We got talking, the main topic of course was how I need to get married soon lol. They were going to dinner with my parents so I decided to tag along. It was pretty fun. I saw my old partner from Christmas Carol there and we talked for a bit. After dinner I headed over to the Scera and got my ticket for A Night Of Broadway. I have a few friends that are in the show and a couple of them I haven't seen in a pretty long time. So I figured I might as well go. Besides what else was I gonna do that night? Also I always run into a few friends when I go see a show. It was a pretty amazing show. I have always wanted to try out for the show, but never did, but next year might be the first time that I do. I hooked up with some of the friends in the show after and it was great seeing them again. They did an amazing job! Also got to see Amy Lyn W. I have admired her videos ever since I first saw them and was so stoked to see her perform that night. Man she did not dissapoint one bit, she was phenomenal! She seems like a pretty incredible person. I just went home after the show and kinda chilled for a bit before bed. It was a pretty fun day, but I would of enjoyed spending it with my date for the night. Who I still haven't heard anything back from. Pretty sure that is done with.
Sunday came along and I was super nervous about my new calling. A calling from the stake is always something freaky to me. I got my first one before my mission. They asked me to be the single adult rep for my stake. No clue why. I was 19 about ready to leave on a mission and I was put in charge of keeping track of a ward of people that I never had even been to. About a 3 years after I got home I got my next one. DON"T ever answer your phone at 6 in the morning on a Sunday! Not a good idea lol I answered the phone and it was my stake president. He wanted me to come in at 6 I convinced him to let me wait till 7. What I didn't tell him is that I was up till 5 that morning with a girl I just started dating that night. I was called to be in the elders quorum presidency. Was there for 3 years...super tough but very fun calling. I learned a lot. So I was a little worried about this next one. I got to the church and we went into a room to talk. They called me to be an assistant ward clerk. My new job is basically to take care of anything that has to do with members. So that should be fun. Probably will learn a ton there as well. Church was fun, then headed to the Superbowl party. Party was fun, Superbowl made me sad...
All in all besides getting stood up on my date the weekend was pretty fun. I'm used to doing things by myself. I'll admit that it does take a few months to get used to again after going through a break up, but I am used to it. I really do with that I didn't have to be though. I really would enjoy someones company. Especially around this time of year. I feel pretty lonely during the month of February. I kinda go into my cave during this time of year, but that's for another day to talk about.
Enough on that now. Friday was a pretty sweet day, work went on for what seemed like forever. We had a pretty cool ward activity coming on that night though. We were doing our annual Hockey game. The guys and I all piled in my car and we headed up to the game, what a game it was! Honestly hockey bores me to death to watch. Especially if there is no fights or anything like that. It's just back and forth with a little puck. I do enjoy playing though. Yes I know that doesn't make any sense. Everyone in the ward had a whole section of the stands to ourselves and we kinda all spread out. The usual group of us were together and we got all riled up, shouting and screaming FIGHT FIGHT...The mascot from the U was there and we taunted him like no other. He was making his rounds and got in front of us and tried to get us to cheer for him but I got a BYU chant going. It was pretty dang funny. The bird didn't look pleased at all. He walked off and we got back to the game. Well the bird came back like ten minutes later with a couple cans of silly string and dowsed our hole group. We all took off after him and he ran off. Good times. The game finished finally, we lost. The cool thing though was that we got to go play broom hockey on the ice after. It was pretty sweet! I've only played on the ice a few times without skates and it was pretty crazy. Our team won and it was fun. We all left and I went to bed around 2 after I cooled down a bit. Saturday morning I woke up pretty stoked cause I had a date with someone that I have been pretty interested in. This was gonna be our first date and she was planning it all cause she lives up in Salt Lake and I don't know the area to well. Well I got up on that morning ate, took care of the animals and took a shower, got out of the shower and had a text from said date. She had to cancel because she had "Work" Asked if she could do a rain check which I was fine with until I asked if this weekend would of been better for her. No response. I have learned from previous time being rejected that not hearing back after something like that usually means that she wasn't interested in the first place, but was just being nice..I thought I was done dealing with high school girls. Guess not.
So my whole day was kind of shot, because I had planned things around driving up there and spending the evening with her. Now I had nothing to do and was kinda feeling down on myself. I had to get some pants fixed and drove up to my grandparents to see if my gma could get them fixed for me. She of course did because she is awesome. We got talking, the main topic of course was how I need to get married soon lol. They were going to dinner with my parents so I decided to tag along. It was pretty fun. I saw my old partner from Christmas Carol there and we talked for a bit. After dinner I headed over to the Scera and got my ticket for A Night Of Broadway. I have a few friends that are in the show and a couple of them I haven't seen in a pretty long time. So I figured I might as well go. Besides what else was I gonna do that night? Also I always run into a few friends when I go see a show. It was a pretty amazing show. I have always wanted to try out for the show, but never did, but next year might be the first time that I do. I hooked up with some of the friends in the show after and it was great seeing them again. They did an amazing job! Also got to see Amy Lyn W. I have admired her videos ever since I first saw them and was so stoked to see her perform that night. Man she did not dissapoint one bit, she was phenomenal! She seems like a pretty incredible person. I just went home after the show and kinda chilled for a bit before bed. It was a pretty fun day, but I would of enjoyed spending it with my date for the night. Who I still haven't heard anything back from. Pretty sure that is done with.
Sunday came along and I was super nervous about my new calling. A calling from the stake is always something freaky to me. I got my first one before my mission. They asked me to be the single adult rep for my stake. No clue why. I was 19 about ready to leave on a mission and I was put in charge of keeping track of a ward of people that I never had even been to. About a 3 years after I got home I got my next one. DON"T ever answer your phone at 6 in the morning on a Sunday! Not a good idea lol I answered the phone and it was my stake president. He wanted me to come in at 6 I convinced him to let me wait till 7. What I didn't tell him is that I was up till 5 that morning with a girl I just started dating that night. I was called to be in the elders quorum presidency. Was there for 3 years...super tough but very fun calling. I learned a lot. So I was a little worried about this next one. I got to the church and we went into a room to talk. They called me to be an assistant ward clerk. My new job is basically to take care of anything that has to do with members. So that should be fun. Probably will learn a ton there as well. Church was fun, then headed to the Superbowl party. Party was fun, Superbowl made me sad...
All in all besides getting stood up on my date the weekend was pretty fun. I'm used to doing things by myself. I'll admit that it does take a few months to get used to again after going through a break up, but I am used to it. I really do with that I didn't have to be though. I really would enjoy someones company. Especially around this time of year. I feel pretty lonely during the month of February. I kinda go into my cave during this time of year, but that's for another day to talk about.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Belonging
So this post is kinda a bummer post....if you don't want to read please move on...if you do, you have been warned lol...
When I was around 7 or 8 my dad came up to Utah to visit his parents. He spent about a week here I think talking to them and doing stuff with them and all that stuff. He originally only planned on a weekend but for some special reason he told us that he was gonna be here longer. He came home one night and asked me to come downstairs from my room cause he had something that he wanted to tell us. He said that the main reason he stayed down there was cause he was looking for a job and a place to build a house. Basically in a nutshell he told us that he was moving our family from California to Utah. I remember going back up to my room trying to figure all this out. What about my friends? School? The Beach? Disneyland? Not only was he going to be moving us up to Utah, but he was thinking about doing it in I believe it was 2 weeks. He had already let his boss at the police station know and had already put our place up for sale. It sold in only a few days and within that 2 week period we were packing things up and getting ready to drive up to Utah.
Leaving my home down in Cali was probably one of the hardest things that I have ever done. I remember just spending the whole drive down here crying with my mom(she never has liked it here) almost the whole drive to Utah. It was so foreign to me when we got here. There was no beach, no Disneyland, no Seaworld, I had left my best friend and wasn't really sure what this place was like. I made some friends and a few of those have lasted a really long time and 19 years later we are still pretty close.
I write this today though for a few reasons..number one is that I really never have felt like I fit in here, or belong here. Yes I have made plenty of friends, but a lot of them have been through other people and usually don't stick around more then we see each other a couple times a year. I have been picked on since the first moment I moved to Utah. Something that was totally new to me and to be honest if I stayed in Cali and grew older can't guarantee would of not happened if I had stayed down there. All I know is a lot of it stemmed from the fact that my family was one of the first few to move to the area we lived in from Cali. The teasing and such really never faded away and still lingers some today. It's a hard thing to bear sometimes. I've learned to do my best to just brush it off and have gotten pretty good through that, but at times I just wish it would stop. Acting has helped me a lot put on a good face when I'm feeling down but at times I wish I could call out for help from those few friends that I have that understand.
I've never really felt like I belong here though. I have found that keeping to myself more than actually being with people here is what makes me comfortable, but it's not something I want. I would love to be the guy friends call when there is a party going on, or they need a guy to go out with their girl friends friend, instead of spending a lot of Friday and Saturday nights either going out by myself or just staying home. I would love to get married and just devote my time and love to my wife but I seem to be doing a pretty horrible job in that area as well.......It's not that I haven't tried, but after some of the things that have come to pass with the girls I dated, it almost just doesn't feel worth it anymore. I've got a lot to offer and I wish someone here would just see past the faults that seem so ever visible about me and give me a shot. I tend to relate better to girls that aren't from here, and understand the weirdness that this state can bring to outsiders at times. Yes I have lived here for longer then I did in Cali, but I feel like those 8 short years there I felt more loved and welcomed then I have in my almost two decades here. People there are so much more willing to accept who you are rather then change you. It's a lot easier to date there and at times a lot less stressful.
I guess this post comes from a funk mood I have been in for the last year or so. I have wanted to write about this so many times but haven't quite found the words to say. I dated a girl back around 2010 that was someone I thought was incredible. I was just never enough. She ended it after about 9 months, talk of marriage and all that. Found out later she had been lying to me and everyone around her for the last 4 months or so of our relationship. It really hit home for a long time and it still really hasn't gone away completely.
I met someone in a show I was in back in April of last year. We shall call her Mel for short. She was a pretty incredible person from the get go. She was young only 19, but she new exactly where she wanted to go in life and was going for it the best she could. She definitely made me super happy and I loved being with her. She almost made me forget about the other horrible person in my life and what she had done. The funk would show up every now and then but seeing Mel it made it quickly go away. Yes she had things about her I didn't like, but started to have grow on me and learned to love. Which I'm pretty sure that's how it is supposed to go. Time went on and the feeling of being not enough for a person and that fear of her leaving me( even though I know she wouldn't) crept back into my head, and eventually led to her breaking up with me. We started talking again a little ago and it has been really hard ever since then. A bunch of those feelings for her came back and after I told her this I found out she had started to like someone else. Well that totally shoots me down. Ya see in Utah girls and guys here have this thing were they like to date about 3 billion different people at the same time, until one guy proves his point and gets the girl, and the other way around. I myself don't do well with this, and I really don't see how anyone else can. Sitting at home one night while the girl of your dreams is out with another guy wondering how the date is going whether she is gonna pick you or move on to someone else, is not my idea of fun dating.
So I sat in my desk at work realizing I had messed up another chance with someone I could really see a future with. She is incredible in every way. I realized that day that I was falling in love with her and once again had to fall back out of love while she pursued this other guy that she liked, knowing in my heart that I most likely won't get another chance with her, and to be honest I probably don't deserve one. I guess I felt that if I told her about the funk I was in at the moment that I was scared she would probably get scared and run off. Something that she probably would of never done. Instead of telling her like I should of, I held it in and pushed her away even more. To the point now that she treats me like someone that she just met or never really knew in the first place. It pretty much sucks. I guess we live and let learn but I would really like to stop learning and get to experience all the joy and happiness of having that special someone in your life and knowing that you belong somewhere instead of being in this lost state that I feel like I can't really get out of. I wish the best of luck to her and all her endeavors and hope that she finds that guy that treats her like the princess that she is, instead of the way I tried so hard to avoid but got pulled into. I'm way sorry for that btw.
I've decided to give up on dating for a while. Yes I'm 27 and need to get on the bandwagon, but I feel like I need to learn how to not screw things up. Which is something I do a lot of now. I really hate being alone, but I would rather be alone then alone feeling crushed for another missed opportunity.
When I was around 7 or 8 my dad came up to Utah to visit his parents. He spent about a week here I think talking to them and doing stuff with them and all that stuff. He originally only planned on a weekend but for some special reason he told us that he was gonna be here longer. He came home one night and asked me to come downstairs from my room cause he had something that he wanted to tell us. He said that the main reason he stayed down there was cause he was looking for a job and a place to build a house. Basically in a nutshell he told us that he was moving our family from California to Utah. I remember going back up to my room trying to figure all this out. What about my friends? School? The Beach? Disneyland? Not only was he going to be moving us up to Utah, but he was thinking about doing it in I believe it was 2 weeks. He had already let his boss at the police station know and had already put our place up for sale. It sold in only a few days and within that 2 week period we were packing things up and getting ready to drive up to Utah.
Leaving my home down in Cali was probably one of the hardest things that I have ever done. I remember just spending the whole drive down here crying with my mom(she never has liked it here) almost the whole drive to Utah. It was so foreign to me when we got here. There was no beach, no Disneyland, no Seaworld, I had left my best friend and wasn't really sure what this place was like. I made some friends and a few of those have lasted a really long time and 19 years later we are still pretty close.
I write this today though for a few reasons..number one is that I really never have felt like I fit in here, or belong here. Yes I have made plenty of friends, but a lot of them have been through other people and usually don't stick around more then we see each other a couple times a year. I have been picked on since the first moment I moved to Utah. Something that was totally new to me and to be honest if I stayed in Cali and grew older can't guarantee would of not happened if I had stayed down there. All I know is a lot of it stemmed from the fact that my family was one of the first few to move to the area we lived in from Cali. The teasing and such really never faded away and still lingers some today. It's a hard thing to bear sometimes. I've learned to do my best to just brush it off and have gotten pretty good through that, but at times I just wish it would stop. Acting has helped me a lot put on a good face when I'm feeling down but at times I wish I could call out for help from those few friends that I have that understand.
I've never really felt like I belong here though. I have found that keeping to myself more than actually being with people here is what makes me comfortable, but it's not something I want. I would love to be the guy friends call when there is a party going on, or they need a guy to go out with their girl friends friend, instead of spending a lot of Friday and Saturday nights either going out by myself or just staying home. I would love to get married and just devote my time and love to my wife but I seem to be doing a pretty horrible job in that area as well.......It's not that I haven't tried, but after some of the things that have come to pass with the girls I dated, it almost just doesn't feel worth it anymore. I've got a lot to offer and I wish someone here would just see past the faults that seem so ever visible about me and give me a shot. I tend to relate better to girls that aren't from here, and understand the weirdness that this state can bring to outsiders at times. Yes I have lived here for longer then I did in Cali, but I feel like those 8 short years there I felt more loved and welcomed then I have in my almost two decades here. People there are so much more willing to accept who you are rather then change you. It's a lot easier to date there and at times a lot less stressful.
I guess this post comes from a funk mood I have been in for the last year or so. I have wanted to write about this so many times but haven't quite found the words to say. I dated a girl back around 2010 that was someone I thought was incredible. I was just never enough. She ended it after about 9 months, talk of marriage and all that. Found out later she had been lying to me and everyone around her for the last 4 months or so of our relationship. It really hit home for a long time and it still really hasn't gone away completely.
I met someone in a show I was in back in April of last year. We shall call her Mel for short. She was a pretty incredible person from the get go. She was young only 19, but she new exactly where she wanted to go in life and was going for it the best she could. She definitely made me super happy and I loved being with her. She almost made me forget about the other horrible person in my life and what she had done. The funk would show up every now and then but seeing Mel it made it quickly go away. Yes she had things about her I didn't like, but started to have grow on me and learned to love. Which I'm pretty sure that's how it is supposed to go. Time went on and the feeling of being not enough for a person and that fear of her leaving me( even though I know she wouldn't) crept back into my head, and eventually led to her breaking up with me. We started talking again a little ago and it has been really hard ever since then. A bunch of those feelings for her came back and after I told her this I found out she had started to like someone else. Well that totally shoots me down. Ya see in Utah girls and guys here have this thing were they like to date about 3 billion different people at the same time, until one guy proves his point and gets the girl, and the other way around. I myself don't do well with this, and I really don't see how anyone else can. Sitting at home one night while the girl of your dreams is out with another guy wondering how the date is going whether she is gonna pick you or move on to someone else, is not my idea of fun dating.
So I sat in my desk at work realizing I had messed up another chance with someone I could really see a future with. She is incredible in every way. I realized that day that I was falling in love with her and once again had to fall back out of love while she pursued this other guy that she liked, knowing in my heart that I most likely won't get another chance with her, and to be honest I probably don't deserve one. I guess I felt that if I told her about the funk I was in at the moment that I was scared she would probably get scared and run off. Something that she probably would of never done. Instead of telling her like I should of, I held it in and pushed her away even more. To the point now that she treats me like someone that she just met or never really knew in the first place. It pretty much sucks. I guess we live and let learn but I would really like to stop learning and get to experience all the joy and happiness of having that special someone in your life and knowing that you belong somewhere instead of being in this lost state that I feel like I can't really get out of. I wish the best of luck to her and all her endeavors and hope that she finds that guy that treats her like the princess that she is, instead of the way I tried so hard to avoid but got pulled into. I'm way sorry for that btw.
I've decided to give up on dating for a while. Yes I'm 27 and need to get on the bandwagon, but I feel like I need to learn how to not screw things up. Which is something I do a lot of now. I really hate being alone, but I would rather be alone then alone feeling crushed for another missed opportunity.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Deer Hunt
So this years deer hunt was a blast! Well all deer hunts are great fun, but this one was ever better! Mainly because this year I actually got a deer! All by myself. You see Mr. Mont Connell here has had some issues with hunting and actually succeeding at it. I've shot 2 big game animals in my 10 or so years hunting. I got my first deer back when I was 16, and an antelope 2 years ago. Those were great hunts, but the deer hunt was starting to get pretty dang frustrating.
So this year the group decided we were gonna try an area that they had tried a few years back when I didn't have a tag that somewhat worked out for them. Man was I not excited about this area lol. Mainly because it was gonna take a 4 mile hike up a mountain to get to this area. Oh did I mention that there was no trail to this area either? So we got all set up and ready to go. The nice thing is the first time they did this hike was at 2 in the morning, this is not something that they wanted to do the second time around. So my boss and I took Friday off and we met up at his house got the group together and headed up the mountain. We got to the parking lot at the base of the mountain and got our packs all ready to go. Looking at this mountain I thought to myself and said what the crap did I just get myself into? This was gonna be all straight up. Crazy! I was reassured that there is a good chance that there will be some good size bucks up this high. So off we went. Man it was a long hike. Took us about 4 hours to get up the mountain and find a decent flat spot to camp in the trees away from the elements. We found a good place set up camp and our beds, which were pine leaves thrown on the ground for a bed cushion and a tarp. Pretty dang awesome. Then we decided to go scout around some. There was a pretty lake off to one side that was surrounded by a huge cliff. Yeah most likely will not be trying to shoot something off that side. We did see a buck down in that valley though. On the side where we were hunting just before nightfall we did see a few dozen deer with a few bucks in the mix. What we were hoping would happen in the morning is that the hunters that were on four wheelers or walking around would push the deer our way up over the top and right down the mountain right past us. From the deer that we had seen running around we were pretty hopeful for the next day. We got back to camp built a small fire and mad dinner and just chilled by the fire till we all got tired enough to sleep. Not much you can do on the top of a mountain at night so we went to bed pretty dang early around 9. Which is no problem since we would be waking up around 530 6 to get ready and set. We were in bear country and I had a pistol with me in my sleeping bag just in case. The guys all had their rifles loaded as well. I've always found it hard to sleep the night before the hunt cause I get way too excited. That night was no exception. I also thought a bear was in camp. Scared the crap out of me. I was awoken by something bumping into my leg then bumping my head. Well bears do that to see what it is and if it's alive or not. So I tried to stay as still as I could, cause I could hear deep breathing and was like well this just made the hunt a lot more interesting.......being attacked by a bear the night before has gotta be some sort of record on the list of crappy stuff to happen to someone while hunting list. I was about ready to look out to see what it was and point my gun and shoot a few rounds, when I realized what it was. I was sleeping next to my friends dad Keith and I was facing him. He moved and hit me and he snores like a beast. So I told him in the morning and we all laughed about it. We got up in the wee hours of the morning and started our hike up to our spots. Gerard and me were going up higher and the other 3 were gonna head straight out and wait by some trees. We got set and within about 20 minutes of the opening day of the hunt we saw our first deer head over the hill. All does. A few minutes later another group came up, the 3rd deer back was a buck! So I tried to get all things ready but we were on a weird angled hill and the deer wouldn't stop moving. So by the time I got ready they were too far away. So we sat for another hour or so looking at does and birds when I heard something rustling in the trees next to me. So I figured I would keep my eye on that spot for a while. Well after about 30 minutes a deer stepped out with it's head down eating some grass. I kept my eye on it seeing as it was only about 50 yards from me. It finally lifted his head to take a look around and it was a buck! A nice 4 point. So I took aim at it to make sure it was and told Gerard to take aim as well. Well that was a huge mistake....I turned around got my sights on him again. He had no clue we were there. I was ready to take my perfect broad side 50 yard shot on a nice buck. Had my finger on the trigger, held my breath, started the pull and the deer fell over. My heart sank. Here I was seconds away from taking the biggest deer I've had a chance to shoot at and I missed my chance. Keith noticed the buck way before we did and was watching it and was worried that it was gonna get away so he took the shot. Which is great! He got a really nice one. I was worried though. That shot was probably heard through the whole canyon and it would be a long time before another group came by. Or so we thought.
After about waiting for another 10 minutes or so and watching Keith make his way to a buck which had fallen down a small cliff, Gerard and I saw two deer come up over the top and stop between two trees. We couldn't tell what they were with our eyes cause they were about 420 yards away so I got set just in case and Gerard took a looksie. All of the sudden I hear they are both bucks! They were both 2 points, but the one in the back was bigger. I was excited! But also pretty dang freaked out. I had never taken any animal from farther then 220 yards. So even though I believed in myself that I could make the shot, I wasn't having my hopes up. The nice thing is that on the way up I told Gerard that I was willing to take any deer, he offered to help if I needed it. So I had him as a back up. This all went through my mind within about 30 seconds. I got ready took the safety off, braced myself, breathed then held it put my finger on the trigger, got the distance and wind and took a shot...................bang! The deer took off and the stopped another 10 feet from where it was. I shot below about and inch. So I put another round in and shot again.......Bang! High I hear...crap! This buck was not getting away. The other 2 point had already taken off was long gone, but for some reason this deer couldn't figure out where the bullets were coming from so he just stood still after running off a few feet. Ok I thought to myself. First shot was low second one was high aim in between those two spots and shoot again. Bang! Thud........That noise is always a great one...and a scary one. We looked at where the buck was and he was no longer there.....Did I hit him? Did I make the 420 yard shot? Gerard confirmed that he also couldn't see the deer. So I put in three more rounds and took off towards where he was. That walk took and seemed like forever! I really had no idea how big he was cause I just saw horns and put my cross-airs on a body. I didn't know if he actually was down, or just wounded and running. I got up to where I thought he would be and there he was just sitting down. I did wound him. Which made me sad. So I got set put in another round and got ready to fire...He saw me got up and tried to run. Bang! Hit, still going, another round bang! He ran a few more feet and fell. The adrenaline and excitement that ran through my body is something I can't describe. When I came up on him I got a view of how big he really was. He was a monster two genetic two point. What does that mean you ask? Well a buck will lose it's antlers after the rut each year. They grow back a few months later and will always grow back different. What was a huge 5 point one year could be a spike the next. It just depends. A genetic buck means that they grow the same points every year but they just get bigger and bigger. Which could actually be a good thing for breeding if the buck was a good size deer, but seeing as this was a two point he was just gonna produce more two points. Which could be cool, but from a hunting perspective not so great. So apparently I was doing justice to the population.
I got up to my buck and poked him with a stick to make sure he was done. I then jumped up in the air and gave the sign that he was done! Ah man I was so happy. Suddenly all that climbing and hiking was worth it and my 7 year stint without a buck was done. I had a huge buck. He was fat and had some really pretty antlers. Keith made his way up and said that was the biggest two point he had ever seen. We got to work boning out the deer and packing him up, then headed over to Keith's animal which was also a big bodied buck. We had tons of meat coming our way. We got back to camp and sat everything down, ate and took a nap. Time came to take the long trek back down and man was I not excited about this part. my pack alone now went from just weighing maybe 30 pounds to almost 90. Going straight downhill with no trail and a huge pack was gonna be killer. The hike only took us an hour and a half but it felt like forever...That thing weighed so much and I have never taken anything like that down a mountain. We got back though and got ready to go. I still couldn't believe I had gotten my deer withing the first maybe 4 hours of the opening day. It was so worth the climb we had to do to get our deer. The group went back up there later in the next week and we ended up filling 8 of 10 tags that we had. It was a great hunt.
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