The Mud Run

Exactly five weeks ago Annette called me and asked whether I wanted to participate in a team 10k race. I agreed, even after she told me that it was called the dirty dash and that "parts of the course are a bit muddy." Thinking I would just wear older running shoes and prepare to get a little dirty, I put the date on my calendar and didn't think about it again. Then yesterday happened.


As it turns out, "parts of the course are a bit muddy" was somewhat of an understatement. And "prepar[ing] to get a little dirty" was grossly inadequate. This was an obstacle course made up mostly of deep mud pits, swamps, walls to climb, and a 5,000 person mud wrestling fight spread out over 6.2 miles buried deep in the mountains, miles from where anyone could hear your scream. Teams of five were required to finish the race together and "help" one another through the various life-threatening obstacles. Our team was: Annette, me, Adam, Cory (commonly referred to as "boy-Cory" so as not to be confused with "girl-Corey" who would NEVER be caught doing something like this), and Justin.


Teams: The 1,000 or so teams each had a unique and creative name with costumes to match. We saw everything from pink tutus to clown suits to one very unfortunate costume idea where a group of horrifically out of shape hairy men wore nothing other than angel wings and underwear (gag reflex). Our team, however, was classy. We wore simple yellow shirts that said "dirty lawyers" on the back.


The race:


Mile 1: We ran up a giant hill that was, at that moment, getting sprayed down by a "sprinkler" which could much more adequately be described as a "fire hose." Being less than 60 degrees outside, this was less than pleasant. The screaming began exactly at that moment and did not stop for at least 2 hours. The remainder of mile one consisted of climbing a giant mountain. Those with the heavier costumes (such as the prisoner themed team who had full prisoner jumpsuits, heavy boots and were chained together by 50 feet of links) started to regret their poor choices. Those of us with lighter costumers started looking for a sneaky way to just get back to the cars.


Mile 2: 10 sets of high hay-bails littered the course. Adam hurdled them like an Olympian, forgetting that he, like the rest of us, is too old to do that anymore without repercussions the next day. His knees are most definitely feeling it.


Mile 3: Cue the mud walls. This place will forever stand as the site where I lost all self-respect. Five foot walls made out of sliver-prone boards jetted out of thick mud, which in some spots was deep enough to stand in up to the thigh. Someone stood on the side of the walls with a fire hose, spraying anything that moved. Mud was thrown. Things were said. By the time we got over the last wall, our group of five was rolling around in a giant clump of dirty, violently shoving mud in one another's ears, faces, hair, and (as I was accused of doing to Cory on multiple occasions) mouths, all except for Adam who was mostly skirting our dysfunctional team, intent on staying as clean as possible. Women and children stood on the side and watched us with their mouths gaping open, not really sure if they should call someone after Cory, Justin and I finally got up and left a sobbing and barely moving Annette laying on her back completely buried in mud all except for her nose. For those who were wondering, chivalry is definitely dead.


Mile 3: Cue the swamp. We now each weighed a solid 50 pounds heavier. Having poorly chosen to wear three-layer long basketball shorts, which were now filled with heavy wet mud, I found myself having to hold them with both hands to keep them from falling down. This wasn't practical and the next chance I got I stopped, took them off along with my shirt which was now 15 feet long, and threw my clothes to the side of the trail. Thank heavens I had Under Armor on. Also, thank heavens I was still slightly more modestly dressed than some of the teams and so didn't draw as much attention as running through the mountains with 5,000 people around in my underwear might draw on any other given day. Just after the clothes were ditched, we came across a deep pit filled with muddy water which was difficult to climb out of even without Adam violently pushing us back in each time we were almost to the top. I may have landed on a small child at some point. It was hard to say. By this time everything basically looked the same. Then things got bad. We came upon a giant swamp that smelled like a mix between an airport bathroom, mildew, Guatemala, and every farm you've ever visited. Exercising poor judgment, we each engaged in more mud wrestling here (once again, except for Adam). Promptly after the swamp, all silently promised to set an appointment for a 4 hour intrusive physical immediately after the race.


Mile 4: Tires and fences. The sun multiplied the already bad smell by exactly 1,000.


Mile 5: Water balloons were thrown at us by shocked and terrified spectators who, I'm sure, were witnessing something different than they had expected.


Mile 6: We climbed a giant hill to get to the world's largest slip-n-slide that cascaded the very steep hill we climbed. It had 5 places across to slide down, separated by air-filled cushioning. It was basically one of those giant blow-up castles but in slip-n-slide form. And being sprayed down by yet another fire hose. The five of us sprinted and jumped onto it on our stomachs at the same time, expecting a peaceful yet exhilarating glide down the mountain. Wrong. By the time we got to it, the slip and slide was covered in gravel which we skidded across on our stomachs going well over 50 miles per hour for about 200 meters. Blood-curdling screams could be heard from Logan to St. George until the slip-n-slide spit us out at the bottom into yet another mud-pit. For reasons I'll NEVER understand, Annette and I then thought it would be a fantastic idea to continue sliding down the hill on our stomachs, believing the mud looked soft and inviting. WRONG. Thu mud was cold and full of rocks. Cue more screams. We then gained composure and ran the rest of the way down the hill, all holding hands, five people across until we reached the final mud pit which was basically just a pool of muddy water. Adam dove into it head first and was completely unrecognizable when he reemerged. The rest of us carefully crawled through it, wondering how much of it was mud and how much of it was blood.


The Showers: We wandered around like zombies until we found the showers which consisted of about 10 rows of 10 or so spigots wedged closely together so that about 200 people, at 2 people per spigot, stood almost touching each other, desperately trying to get clean before the water gave them hypothermia. We stood in the crowds of near-naked people that slowly and silently inched forward into the showers. I suddenly got the feeling I was in a horror movie that took place in Woodstock. When we finally stepped under the spigots, I no longer knew what happiness felt like. Loud screams echoed through the mountains as the five of us stood in our skimpies and scrubbed while the hundreds around us did the same. Sometime during what was most definitely the WORST shower of my life (and that's saying something--I've been to a lot of pretty questionable places), I stepped squarely onto a tack of some kind. Welcome tetanus to the list of other things wrong with me.


After the showers, I saw the grossest thing that happened that day. A man walked into a porta-potty barefoot. Ew.




Adam, Cory, Annette, and Me (Before)



Adam, Cory, Annette, Justin, and Me (After)

We finally escaped the mountain and spent the rest of the day scrubbing and soaking. And planning our team name and costumes for next time.


Should I be worried about the tack?


~It Just Gets Stranger

Kyiv Temple Trip Pictures

Temple at night

Bre, Me, and Mark in front of the L'viv branch house. This was built after the three of us served in L'viv five or six years ago. Notice that I am holding my First Amendment Law book, as I frantically tried to stay caught up in school all week although I was living on trains and totally exhausted.

My good friend Roman and I reconnecting

Public Trambai--this is how I spent 2 years of my life

Natasha--this girl and her mother joined the church while I was in Rivne six years ago. She was 12 at the time.

Patron housing next to the temple

Temple at night

Church on the temple grounds

Temple at night

"Big Mama"--this was my travel group's favorite thing to see last year in Kyiv. She's larger than the Statue of Liberty. And scarier . . .

"Kyiv Ukrainian Temple"

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"

My friend Brea and I in front of the temple

Orthodox church in Kyiv

Brea and I on "High Castle" hill in L'viv

Old church in L'viv. The statue on top is Christ sitting at the base of the cross with his hand under his chin, thinking.

Very famous opera house in center square in L'viv

L'viv street

Natasha on the left and Yanna on the right. Yanna is the little girl I mentioned in my last post. Yanna and Natasha were baptized on the same day.

Yanna "Talmage" and I

Kyiv temple

~It Just Gets Stranger

Ukraine Temple Dedication

I sit now in the basement of the Sheremetovo airport in Moscow Russia, stranded in hour 14 of what looks to be a 17 hour unexpected layover. I say "unexpected" because I had carefully planned my escape from Eastern Europe to give me exactly one hour in Moscow. When I arrived this morning from Kyiv, however, I was quickly ushered through several confusing lines and stripped of my passport by a woman in a power suit (one who, I think, meant business, if you know what I mean). For the next thirty minutes, a young Ukrainian couple and I wandered the airport searching for our passports, frantically hoping against all hope that we would find them before our flight took off in less than 40 minutes. When we did find them, we were screamed at in Russian and sent away to check back in a few hours. Once a few hours had passed we were finally told that for very vague reasons our flight had been cancelled but not to worry as Delta was pleased to try to get us onto the next flight 17 hours or so later. This would be fine news for me, a Moscow lover, if I actually had a current Russian visa; but as is, I am not allowed to leave the walls of the cigarrette smoke-filled airport. I feel EXACTLY like the reverse version of that Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal."


Fortunately the airport has about 20 stores to browse. Unfortunately exactly 18 of them are exclusively liquor stores (which, if this sort of thing happens frequently, seems totally reasonable). After doing some yelling of my own (but in much less fluent Russian), I was sent down to the first class lounge. Not all it's cracked up to be, but a huge improvement from standing in the borsch-breathe angry crowds upstairs. 


The trip to Ukraine was one of the greatest experiences of my life. For the last seven days I've slept on trains, wandered cities, reconnected with long lost friends, caught drunk men falling down long metro escalators, chatted with cute old bobushkas on the streets, eaten 30 kilos of vafly and fresh bread, up-chucked 40 kilos of vafly and fresh bread, hit up street bands, and flown by the seat of my pants. And I've loved every minute of it.


I went to Ukraine for the Mormon temple dedication which is a huge deal for members of the LDS church in this part of the world. This is the first Mormon temple in eastern Europe and members all over Ukraine, Russia, and a number of other countries have been praying and hoping for this day for about two decades. A lot of work went into the preparations and construction and the temple and grounds are absolutely beautiful.


On Saturday night a giant cultural celebration took place in Kyiv where members of the church from all over Eastern Europe put on amazing dance and other music performances to tell the history of Christianity and Mormanism in this part of the world. They talked about sacrifices and amazing acts of kindness and courage of people throughout Ukraine. The event was incredibly moving for the thousands in attendance. It was even more special for many of us who were able to reconnect with people we hadn't seen for many years. One of these people for me was a little girl who I last saw when she was 9 years old and I said goodbye to her in a dirty hallway while her mom lay passed out from narcotic consumption inside their rat-infested apartment. I've wondered for five years whether she was still alive and safe. She is alive and well and seeing her again was one of the most emotional moments of my life. After the celebration and before, people stood around as long as they could, hugging and crying.


On Sunday I went out to the temple site for the dedication itself. I sat next to a family I knew five years ago from a tiny Ukrainian villiage several hours away from Kyiv. It was surreal to be there with them and to think about so many of the good and hard times we had together. They sobbed as the dedication took place. One woman from Kyiv told me through tears that never in her life did she think she would ever see this day.


After the dedication I jumped on an all-night train to L'viv with a couple of American friends I knew from Ukraine. We stayed in L'viv for two days and visited old friends and enjoyed one of Europe's most unbelievably beautiful cities.


Yesterday I rolled back into Kyiv just in time for Acia's wedding. (You'll remember, I worked with Acia last summer in Moscow where she became one of my closest friends). After the civil ceremony, the small wedding party drove out to the temple site for the sealing ceremony. We rode in a rented van together out to the site and as soon as the temple came into view off in the distance, the passengers started clapping and tearing up a bit, not quite used to seeing the building there in Ukraine. The ceremony was absolutely beautiful and it was an unbelievable experience for me to be a part of it. We finished the evening with a traditional Ukrainian dinner together.


I will never forget this week. Whether you appreciate Mormon temples or not, it is hard to see a group of sweet people receive something that they have wanted so badly for so long and not feel joy for them. I have been thinking a lot about freedom lately. I read recently in one of my law school books that "liberty is the secret of happiness and courage is the secret of liberty." I couldn't help but think all week of these wonderful people, truly some of the best people I've ever known, and appreciate the incredible acts of courage I've seen so many of them undertake despite mounds of adversity. And I've thought, their courage has given them something that is making them so happy because it is giving them the liberty to worship and partake of beliefs they sincerely hold to. And I've wondered what I can learn from them as I continue to figure out my life and future paths in my consant quest to define liberty, courage, and true happiness.


But for now, I'll just focus on getting out of Moscow.

Love you all.


~It Just Gets Stranger

Belize and Guatemala

Made it back from Belize and Guatemala on Saturday night. It was an amazing experience. Krishelle, Will, Megan and I started in Belize City (AKA--the sketchiest of all sketch places of all time) and ended in Guatemala City. As usual, we made absolutely no plans before going. And we ended up seeing every square inch of both countries. As a result, I never again want to see a bus, boat, plane, or anything else that moves.

Krishelle is posting the long detailed emails we sent home during our trip and I won't bother repeating that here. Rather, I'll give the list of the stranger things we encountered:

1. MIS-guided by the Lonely Planet Guide, we ventured out to something that we thought was an island called Tilapita. What resulted was a horrifically miserable day of traveling, the most terrifying night of any of our lives in a four dollar "hotel" that had a dirty toilet right in the center of the rodent infested concrete room, a day of getting chased by pink-eye infected dogs and pigs on the world's hottest/dirtiest beach (of which we were the only visitors), another night in a four dollar room where we suffered from the worst sunburns any of us has ever experienced, a long painful escape by boat through croc-infested waters (I'm really not kidding), and an infinite amount of hours on several buses until we finally made it back to civilization (during which the urination incident occurred). My entire body is still peeling and I look like leprosy.

2. We stayed at a place that I think I've seen on every horror movie made before 1970, run by an old couple who starred in each of those films. Likely the targets of the next murders, we rolled out of there just in time.

In the middle of the constant strange moments we explored jungles and ruins, snorkled with sharks, backpacked through cities, tubed down rivers in deep dark caves, zip-lined in the trees, dodged the crazies, befriended the funnies, and searched pharmacies desperately for Aloe Vera. Now we'll spend the rest of our lives in recovery. I need a vacation.

Now life has hit me. And hard. School starts on Monday and I'm wondering why I ever committed to do twice as much as anyone should be able to do. But it will all work out. It somehow always does.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Deseret News Marathon

It is finished.

The marathon started at 5:30 in the morning, so naturally the race coordinators demanded that we be loaded into the shuttle busses to head to the starting line by 3:15 AM. This was no big deal, of course, because who doesn’t want to get to the starting line up in the dark mountains 14 and a half days before the race starts? So all 900 or so of us got out of the shuttle just before 3:30 to wait in the dark for two hours at roughly 40 degrees for the race to begin. What did we do to pass the time, you ask? The following:

Tent: One two-sided tent was erected, large enough to hold about 100 people standing, bodies pressed up against one another. Being the middle of the night, the runners were quite tired and those who ventured into the tent just stood in the eerily quiet and shockingly thin crowd, swaying back and forth with their heads down and eyes closed. To those of us outside the tent, this looked much like a scene out of “I am Legend.”


Music: Inspirational ‘80s music with the occasional Dixie Chicks interlude was blasted directly into the unfortunate ears of those not in the tent (I’m mostly just grateful they weren’t playing on repeat that horrid “I could really use a wish right now” song that every radio station across America seems to be in a contest to play the most times per day). This, of course, made me ask myself the same question I’ve been stewing over for several decades now: what is the deal with distance runners and ‘80s music? Football players tragically have their country music. Basketball players have their rap. Wrestlers have ring worm. And distance runners have inspirational ‘80s music. Even before the ‘80s, distance runners were listening to ‘80s music.


Porta-potties: Ugh. Two long rows of potties, back to back, jetted out from the tent opening. Initially individual lines for each potty formed, sending me into all out panic mode as I was absolutely not ok with an entire line focusing solely on how much time I was going to spend in there. I contemplated just holding it for the next six hours or so until I got back into the safety of my own home. But others must have felt the same way because just then the lines sort of merged together so that each now targeted four or five potties instead of one. Much less intimidating. The potties on the row facing the tent were quite popular, and the lines extremely social. The potties on the back row, on the other hand, seemed to be for the more tired and nervous poopers. I climbed into a line (on the back row, obviously) and waited my turn only to find to my utter horror that inside the potty it was as dark as when you go on a tour of the Timpanogos caves and they turn out the lights to show you how you can’t see your hand. I stood for moment, firmly resolving that there was no amount of emergency that would ever get me in one million years to touch anything in there. 

Never. Ever. Ever. Never.


Vaseline: I bought a whole new tub and began glopping handfuls of it onto every exterior part of my body until I weighed a solid 32 pounds more than when I got up in the morning. I did this while in mid-conversation with a new friend I made in the Porta-potty line named Lauren (because, when better to make new friends than in Porta-potty line?). I realized I was being rude and immediately offered her some (as one hand completely full of the stuff slipped down my shorts). She looked bewildered and declined the offer. Moments later she disappeared and I never did see her again.


Socializing: Normally the true socializing doesn’t begin until the marathon starts and runners spread out a bit. This is actually a very calculated process, not un-similar to dating or high school lunch tables. Everyone knows you don’t want to make friends with “weird guy” early on in the race. THAT would be social suicide, as you will also be dubbed weird guy from that point forward—something impossible to overcome. You also don’t want to hook up with an emotional leach (these are sometimes hard to spot early on), over-enthusiastic guy (who, not shockingly, is usually also “weird guy”), or ultra-competitive guy (for obvious reasons). Once you’ve picked your friend/friends comes the awkward task of trying to figure out how and when to split up (as you will definitely not finish the marathon together—again, just like dating—in my experience anyway). I normally stress about this for the first 18 miles until we just naturally drift apart without saying anything, grateful that the awkward “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation has been entirely avoided. Because we had two hours to kill, this socialization process got a world record early start, which was completely fascinating to watch (I had already blown it with Vaseline girl and so spent the rest of my time trying not to look too clingy or enthusiastic as I was quite sure some were already dubbing me “weird guy”).


The Start Line: The race finally began right after the announcer explained that one man there was on his 300th marathon (this got oooo’s and ah’s), and that a woman was completing her 129th (which normally would have gotten oooo’s and ah’s but thanks to a very poorly planned out order of announcements, only got one guy in the back to yell out “weak!”).


Mile 1: I met up with Sarah who seemed like a good safe bet to have as a friend. She also seemed willing to run at whatever pace I chose. I recognized that it was very possible that she could beat me but I decided long ago not to let women running faster than me in marathons hurt my ego (this has not translated into any other race distance yet, and hopefully will not for several decades to come) as I learned that, for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand, women who limp and have a hard time carrying in groceries from their vehicles are often able to step into marathons at a moment’s notice and run at an all-out sprint for 26 straight miles without breaking a sweat. I think this has something to do with estrogen, Oprah, and whatever makes mothers lift up cars to save their children in emergencies (a claim of which I’m still a bit skeptical).


Mile 2: I explained to Sarah the Vaseline experience with Lauren (hoping she hadn’t already heard through the grapevine) and asked her whether she thought what I did was odd. She quickly responded, “oh, some people are really just different.” She never did explain who she was referring to.


Mile 3-6: What I assumed to be rather pleasant conversation took place. Guy in long shorts with a sweater flew by us like the apocalypse was coming. I predicted that we would see him again at some point, and that it wouldn’t be pretty.


Mile 7: Sarah abruptly said, “you should run up there and try to catch those guys.” I wondered if my last comment about how I’d be happy to share the Swedish fish zipped up in my back pocket around mile 19 once they’re nice and warm, was a bit much for our relatively new and still blossoming friendship.


Miles 8-13: Sarah and I split without saying another word. I spent the remainder of these miles wondering if her telling me to speed up was just another way of saying that I was too annoying. No resolution on that still. By the end of mile 13 I was told that I had averaged 6:31 mile pace so far, almost 30 seconds faster per mile than I intended to go. Oops. I didn’t slow down however, as I wasn’t quite ready to face Sarah again.


Mile 14: Woman standing in front of her cabin in a nighty while smoking coughed on me as I went by.


Mile 15: I passed apocalypse guy who was sitting down on the side of the road looking totally bewildered and traumatized.


Mile 16-21: I started eating my baggie of Swedish Fish, which were warm and soft, as predicted.


Mile 22: No mile marker in sight. Sarah caught back up to me and we both started having a panicked conversation about whether mile maker 22 was still coming or whether they just forgot to put that one out. Sarah swore she hadn’t seen a mile marker in several miles and wondered if the next one would be 24ish. I was sure this was overly optimistic and desperately tried to convince myself that the next one would be number 13 so I would be very pleasantly surprised either way even though the last one I had seen was number 21. (I employ this same tactic when looking at the time during boring classes).


Mile 23: The beloved mile marker was found. Sarah left me. My ability to care was almost gone as I was now swaying back and forth across the road, occasionally saying out loud in slurred speech, “I can’t believe how good I feel!” (try mimicking this yourself so you can get the full effect) as though that would make all the pain go away. It did not.


Mile 24: Suddenly “only 2 more miles” didn’t sound that great.


Mile 25: Now on the parade route. And just in time for me to get unreasonably emotional, losing breath as I got choked up upon seeing a float from Salt Lake’s sister city, located somewhere in Japan. I then snapped out of it and wondered what the point was in having a sister city, especially when absolutely none of the residents of either city are in any way aware of the forged familial connection. Then I remembered that my legs were about to fall off and that the guy in front of me seemed to have recently pooped his pants (likely another nervous pooper), so I had more important things to worry about.


Mile 26: I suddenly realized that if I ran really fast, I could finish this miserable thing sooner (plus I would look so good in front of all those people waiting at the finish!). So I broke out of my bounce-walk (this is a step below “churning” which is a step below jogging) and set a world record for the 100 meter sprint, not really sure where the sudden burst of energy came from (probably had something to do with the warm Swedish Fish—bet Sarah wished she hadn’t turned them down earlier on!). I finished with a 3:36. Eh. It could have been worse. (And it was worse four years ago when I ran the same course about 30 minutes slower because David used peer pressure to get me to run it but failed to use the same technique to get me to train for it. Thanks David).


Aftermath: Rolling around on the grass, crying, unable to walk . . . the usual. Sarah found me and explained that she started crying around mile 25 (I assume she saw the Japanese float too. Or the guy who pooped his pants. Or maybe she felt bad about our big fight at Mile 7).


So there you have it. 40 years from now when I consider running a marathon again, I’ll take the lessons I learned today, and completely ignore them, as I’ve now done twice.


Is it really that strange to share Vaseline with new acquaintances? Old friends? Weird guy?

~It Just Gets Stranger

A Tragic History of Sports

This may surprise you all but I'm not very good at sports. That was actually a huge understatement. And this is probably the thing I am most self-conscious about in life (besides my foot disease). The thing is, I should be at least ok at sports. I'm in good shape. I work out every day. I'm young (relatively). I spent most of my childhood with all the neighborhood kids engaged in highly combative street hockey, football, baseball, and one really confusing game we invented involving bicycles which always ended in drama between all 10,000 kids on the block--fights which inevitably resolved themselves over night so play could resume the following day. In fact, I was once a scholarship collegiate athlete (but it was for distance running, which I'm excluding from the category of "sports" for purposes of this blog post and for the sake of avoiding the argument about whether running up and down hills and in circles is considered a sport, of which I stopped taking sides in 1947 when I finished college and moved on with my life). But the truth is, despite much of the exposure to sports as a child, I have a long tragic history of being absolutely terrible at any activity involving a ball. So what I would like to do today is give you all a rundown of my personal organized sports history:


1990-1991: Bob and Cathie enrolled me in a community t-ball league. It was a full calendar year before I realized that rounding the bases led to points. My parents have a picture somewhere of me with one hand behind my back grasping a half-eaten doughnut, the other hand holding onto a participation trophy (the only way I was ever going to get a sports trophy as a six year old). I am thoroughly convinced that of those two things, I was there for the one I was evidently trying to hide behind my back.


1992-1994: Machine Pitch. My only two memories of the experience were, 1. A kid got hit square in the face with the ball and bled all over the field and, rather than feeling any concern, I remember wondering whether he was on my team (because I had no idea--and no, it never occurred to me that my whole team was wearing the same uniform). As a result, I spent the rest of the season running to positions far in the outfield so that could never happen to me. Which leads to memory number 2. I was standing somewhere in the outfield and the ball landed literally within four feet of me. I thought it was a bird so I ignored it (let's face it, I wasn't paying attention). Another kid had to run halfway across the field to pick it up when I utterly ignored the screams from my coach and all 20 other teammates.
 
1995-1996: Soccer. My friends and I were all on a team together, self-named "The Jolly Green Giants" because of our bright green shirts. We lost every single game. I have more than one memory of sitting down with a friend on the field in the middle of play. Also, sometime during the season Danielle Diamond sprained my finger when I told her she kicked like a girl. I'll tell you what--she sure didn't fight like a girl.
 
1996-1997: Jr. Jazz Basketball. Obsessed with the NBA, this was a natural activity for me to be involved in and probably the first sporting event that I took seriously. Too bad I played on the same team for 2 years and never once scored a basket. Ever. Or did anything impressive at all, although I tried regularly and desperately. I still feel those same terrified feelings I used to feel every Saturday morning when I would wake up and realize that I was going to have to go play for an hour in front of a crowd of people if I think about it long enough.
 
1998: Jr. Jazz team 2. Thinking the experience would be more enjoyable, I joined a team with several friends. This was largely the same group that I played soccer with in '95. And unfortunately we weren't much better at basketball. But I did make a 3-point shot in the very last game of the season. Unfortunately it was an accident, magically going in when I tried to pass the ball to someone who was several feet away from the hoop (who I later realized wasn't even on my team). I think we still lost this game by 20+ though.
 
1998-2002: Cross Country and Track & Field. All I had to do was run. I never had to catch or throw anything. Sure I was terrible at running but it was nothing that several years of 2-a-day gruelling practices and border-line-abusive coaching couldn't fix. But I promised I wouldn't talk about this as an actual sport for purposes of this post. I only bring it up to account for the sudden halt in other athletic endeavors.
 
2005-2009: I spent a good portion of these years pretending to be busy when friends encouraged me to join intramural teams with them. I did take a tennis class sometime during this period that wasn't too disastrous. Although it was the beginner class. And I'm pretty sure I was the worst person in it, getting beat by the pregnant girl on more than one occasion (in my defense, I wasn't the only one who thought she belonged in the intermediate class. Plus she was only like 7 months pregnant. I would like to see her try and play me at 9 months).
 
So you can imagine how excited I was when my new ward invited me to come play softball last Tuesday night. After conveniently getting a phone call every time it was my turn up to bat for the first half of the game, I finally got pushed out to the plate. About half-way there I realized that I hadn't held a bat since I was about 11 years old and my neighborhood friends and I decided to start a pretend gang, in which my weapon of choice was baseball equipment (100% of our gang activity consisted of ringing doorbells and then pretending to fight in neighbors' front yards until we all lay dead on the grass. The neighbor would stand and watch and then awkwardly clap while slowly backing into the house. I think we were trying to get some message across that was never really clear to any of us). I swung once and hit the ball directly to the pitcher and made my walk of shame back to the team and then spent the next 4 days in emotional recovery. Is there anyone out there who can help me?


~It Just Gets Stranger 

The "M" Word

I will be running the Deseret News marathon in less than 40 days now. This will be my third attempt to tackle the beast. The first attempt was in 2003 in Park City. The result:

Miles 1-10: High-fiving strangers, thumbs-upping the locals, and the occasional jump-and-heel-click.
Miles 11-13: Fatigue. 225 stops in the outhouses lining the trail. The realization that I never attempted to run more than 10 miles in training.
Miles 14-19: Tears. Some number close to the population of the entire state of Utah passes me, including one old lady using a walker.
Mile 20: Blood in the urine. Yup.
Miles 21-24: Delirium. Hunger. I actually ate one of those power-gel packs that they truly can only get people to eat who are at the brink of starvation.
Miles 24-26: Crawling. Blood Blisters. A six year old girl who started 5 hours late passes me.
Next 3 months: In home hospice care. (I deserved a Lifetime movie).

In 2006 I made my second attempt to tackle the beast in the Deseret News marathon. The result:

Repeat of the 2003 event, but much much slower.

So here we are. Just 40 more days. If you want to see what I look like dead, please attend.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Oil Change

Last week I went somewhere to get my oil changed. There are only 8 things I hate worse than getting my oil changed (8. Moving, 7. My foot disease, 6. Wet locker room floors, 5. Animals, 4. The Blackberry Pearl, 3. Swimming laps in a pool, 2. Laundry, 1. Grocery Shopping). This is partly because I have no idea what I'm doing when I walk into these places. Normally I have a little pep-talk with myself before I go in, sometimes driving around the block two or three times to make sure I get through it. It usually goes something like this: "O.k. son. It's just an oil change. These people can't ruin your life unless you let them. It's o.k. to say 'no' if they offer you something you don't want. Be firm. You are a strong person. That doesn't have to change just because a bunch of men covered in grease are yelling at you using words you don't understand in a small dirty room that smells like popcorn, cars, and coffee. Why on Earth do they offer popcorn in there anyway? Do people actually dig a handful of oily popcorn out of that machine that clearly hasn't been cleaned since 1975 and has black fingerprints all up and down the sides? By the way, you need to stop by the grocery store on the way home and get some milk. Might as well pick up a couple of bags of Peanut M&M's while you're there. Oh, and apples."

Once the pep-talk has taken place, I go inside and do my best to make them think I know all about cars but I'm just having them change my oil because I'm too busy to do it myself. Employee then looks at my car for 3.2 seconds and then approaches me with a long list of things that he swears up and down have got to be fixed that day or several small children in China will die. Usually, in an attempt to feel like someone who actually takes care of his car, I choose one of the things on the list to agree to while declining the rest against employee's judgmental head shakes and warnings. I then sit down in the waiting room again with stale popcorn and girl with giant bump-it Utah hair who is screaming into a cell phone about how cute someone else's hair and shoes are. Then employee walks back in and calls out that they are finished with the Sentra. I pause for 23 seconds and look around the room to see if anyone else is going to claim it because I never can remember what kind of car I drive when I'm put on the spot like that in front of so many people. When I finally check out, I always end up paying somewhere around twice the amount I had anticipated. Oil change place, one. Eli, zero. I get into my car and before doing anything else I quickly study the new sticker they've placed on the windshield, telling me the exact date they expect to see me again. I consider it the new dooms day. Another day to dread, now months away. And I speed away promising myself next time will be different.

But last week something special happened, throwing me into a whole new routine. I stopped by the place on my way home from work. I was dressed in what I thought was classy business casual, complemented with my favorite green socks. When employee came into the waiting room to get me, he looked me up and down and said in a voice reserved for breaking bad news, "Oh, it must be laundry day."

Eli: Huh?
Employee: Laundry day. Because of how you're dressed.
Eli: Yeah . . . What?
Employee: Well I just mean . . . obviously you're wearing that.
Eli: You mean my green socks?
Employee: Oh yeah, the socks too.
Eli: Too?
Employee: No offense. I think it's great man! I love it when people dress however they want, whenever they want.
Eli: Well I don't dress like this all the time. I'm just coming from work.
Employee: Oooooooohhhhhhh. Do you work at a call center or somewhere where they don't care about how you look.
Eli: . . . So how's that oil change coming?

For obvious reasons, I would like to officially award "Oil Change Employee" the "Tellin-it-like-it-is" award.

Getting my oil changed is darn near moving between wet locker room floors and animals on my list of things I hate. Darn near it.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Shigella's

To catch up a bit, the semester finally ended (much later than it was scheduled to go). The week after finals I was packed away in a tiny prison cell for five straight days frantically trying to bust out a nightmare of a paper we'll just call "Satan" before returning, for the 256,127th time (give or take 4) to the Contract paper beast I feel I have sacrificed any hope for a social life to complete since January. Sometime toward the end of that fiasco, I packed up everything I own (which currently consists of a paperback "Crime and Punishment," sheets, mismatched art and souvenirs from various third world countries, leftover prescription medications that have all gotten mixed up and are now a part of what I like to call "the surprise variety pack," that horrible lice-ridden shirt I bought in Mexico a year and a half ago, 10 toothbrushes, and enough pin-striped slacks to clothe several impovrished countries) and moved to Uncle Will's basement in Salt Lake to start my new job.

The move did not go without drama, unfortunately, as exactly 37 minutes after arriving at Uncle Will's house I abruptly ran my car into the side of his garage. Fortunately he wasn't home at the time which gave me a few minutes to gain composure, clean up the pile of debris (which by the way seemed to be more massive than the pre-crash car was itself) and quickly try to come up with a story that began "you won't believe what happened!" and ended "and that's why none of this was my fault." Fortunately and miraculously the big crash did absolutely no damage to Will's house, causing me to forfeit what may have been the most sensible plan: to immediately drive back to Provo and call Will to tell him I wasn't going to make it after all. Also, miraculously, Krishelle and I were able to use bright-red duct tape we found in Will's garage to bandage the vehicle back together so that it no longer looked like a recent participant of a monster-truck show. This was a huge relief as I was absolutely convinced immediately after it happened that the mysterious they would have to tow my car, along with half the neighborhood, to the nearest junkyard.

48 hours later I received my very first ever speeding ticket. Two weeks shy of my 10-year driving anniversary, they finally caught me (I like to look at my relationship with the police as a hostile fugitive situation). Pathetically, the ticket was for going five over down a street on which I thought I was actually going too slow.

Naturally I was more than ready to ditch the country for Mexico with Krishelle and Will last Wednesday. I was warned that the town we were going to, San Felipe, had not had fresh edible food since an accidental delivery in 1967 but I thought all would be well as I've got pretty low standards anyway (but not as low as my last roommate who I saw one Sunday afternoon eat a cold hotdog covered in cheese from a can, mustard, mayo, sour cream, and wrapped with two different kinds of lunch meat, causing me to give up food for 40 days even though Lent was months away). Wrong. Immediately after arriving in San Felipe, several hours south of the border and away from anywhere with people, we plopped down in a restaurant that every major world humanitarian organization would put all efforts into shutting down if the roads to San Felipe were reasonably driveable by something other than army tanks, and ordered what seemed to be the safest option on the menu. Something, which I am now convinced had literally been eaten at least two times before, was molded into the shape of a burrito and delivered to us on a cracked and stained plate. We spent much of that afternoon laying on our backs, moaning and wondering whether we would ever be able to eat again. Sometime around 4:00 Will informed us that it wasn't a surprise that we all felt sick as that was the exact restaurant that gave him Shigella six years ago, which the doctor told him he had gotten from consuming someone's feces (that only explained part of the flavor. Oddly, everything we ate in San Felipe tasted like seafood, and not the good kind of seafood but the kind that that kid in the first grade used to refer to in his daily joke at lunch when he would say, "Do you want 'see food'?" And then he would open his mouth and point at the chicken-fried steak soaked in expired chocolate milk he had just gnawed through. His name was probably Brad). Krishelle and I both gave Will blank stares for the next 12 minutes, wondering why on Earth anyone would ever return to a restaurant that gave them Shigella. Then I remembered how many times I've gone back to Beto's and it suddenly didn't seem so crazy.

We then spent the next several days laying on a gorgeous hot beach, making our best efforts to do absolutely nothing (including returning to the restaurant that we had now nick-named "Shigella's").

And now here we are. Work has been great and the break from school has been nice. Here's hoping for an exciting and strange summer-

~It Just Gets Stranger

2L

The final final ran its course on Monday morning. I came out of the test, got cornered into an awkward and slightly contentious conversation regarding some of the most recent and most frustrating law school drama, and then almost literally RAN out of the doors. Tragically I was back mere hours later doing research for my professor and facing the reality that is my substantial writing paper, which I have high hopes of finishing this week. And here we are.


This week has been all about saying goodbye to 2L. Feeling some of the premature nostalgia for the experiences and friendships that I'll miss. Trying to cope with some of the bigger disappointments. Taking in how much this year has changed me. I've been trying to figure out how to write this post in a way that truly represents what's in my burned-out head. I'm not sure I'm a good enough writer to be able to do that.

Who knew that 2L would turn out the way it did? I didn't. It was far more exciting and dramatic than I ever expected. It was more fun and stressful that I thought it would be. More ups and downs than I hoped for. More hours than I anticipated. More emotional exhaustion than I thought possible. More satisfying than I believed it would be.

But 2L was hard. It was really really hard. And even now as I type this, I can feel the weight of the 2L year on my face, on my shoulders, and in my head. I'm a very different person now than I was one year ago. More jaded in some ways. More aware. More sensitive. Less sensitive. More consumed with battling and trying to understand the fine line between hope and realistic expectations.

2L taught me that one giant disappointment doesn't have to mean that all future goals are impossible. At least it taught me to hope for that. It taught me that challenges are much easier when good friends are consistent. It taught me that sometimes spending time with my family on a Sunday afternoon is better than comfort food. It taught me that hard work is satisfying but it comes at a cost. And at the very very end it finally started to succeed in teaching me a lesson it attempted to teach me all year--that a person needs balance in their life. Yes, it did take all the way to the bitter end for this to begin to click.

This was the year of grueling competitions. This was the year of the Swine Flu and Surgery. This was the year interviewing. The year of staying at school until all hours of the night to meet deadlines. The year of income tax law. The year of laughing hysterically with some of my closest friends about some of our most embarrassing shared experiences. The year of using Corey's phone to text myself compliments and apologies that she would never have sent in real life in order to show the whole school. The year of party planning with Annette between our frantic struggle to master the federal income tax system after our other friends bailed on us for an equally miserable IP Moot Court class. The year of sitting in study rooms for hours on end with Jeff to practice closing arguments and Moot Court problems until we had that ringing sound in our ears (Tinnitus?). The year of accidentally running 15 miles up the canyon with Joe despite not having exercised for a month or two. The year of plotting with Corey about how we could become best friends with all of our professors. The year of accidentally telling an interviewer that I once ran a 2:15 marathon. The year of saying hello and goodbye to new and old friends.

As I sit here now at the law building while my friends around me clean out their carrels and excitedly talk about their summer plans, my feelings are mixed. I'm a bit somber. I'm excited too. Nervous and unsure. I wonder what this summer is going to be for each of us. How we'll all be so different when we next see each other, four months from now, after returning from all parts of the earth with another summer of intense legal work in the real world under our belts. I'll miss them. And I suppose this is just a preview of a much more permanent break that we'll all experience one year from now.

It's time to close this chapter. This chapter opened 12 months ago as I set off excitedly for Russia. Looking back on that now, I see a person who really had no idea what the next 12 months would bring. And it makes me wonder what will unexpectedly transpire in the next 12 months. I hope that whatever it is, it will be exciting, in a good way. Interesting, in a good way. And a little bit stranger, which doesn't come any way but good.

So farewell my dear friend, Mr. 2L.

~It Just Gets Stranger