Photos of People Having an Authentic Time at my Wedding

I'm going to give you a bunch of details about the wedding with some actual wedding photos, etc. in the coming days. But for now, I want to leave you with this gem.

In the chaos of the morning and the photos with family and friends, someone took my phone. I think it was in my pocket and it was suggested I remove it for the pictures. I don't remember, really. It was all a whirlwind.

At the end of the wedding, my friend Caitlin handed my phone to me, saying she had it for a few hours and "don't worry. I took lots of pictures of people having a very authentic time."

I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and took the phone. On the drive back to the house I started looking through the photos she captured and discovered, well . . .

It's Raining Men

I say that I’m not a cruise person. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a good time last week with all 6,000 members of my family on a boat in Alaska. But the good time was had in spite of the boat, not because of it.

It’s probably because I’m a snob that I say this. Not generally. I don’t think I’m a general snob. I think I’m a travel snob.

I’ve got a friend who has a theory that everyone is a snob in at least one way. Even the most laid back person has at least one thing they are a snob about. Maybe you’re a food snob or a movie snob or something really specific, like a toothpaste snob or a Dr. Who snob. We all have at least one thing about which we are particular to the point that we almost subconsciously look down on others for having different (read, worse) taste.

Well, I’m a travel snob.

That doesn’t mean I stay in the Ritz and fly first class. Being a travel snob for me means seeing the world without being a “tourist,” whatever that means. It’s about going to places lazy people won’t deign to suffer. Places where you probably won’t get giardia from a hut in a town not found on maps.

I think the first time I ever even saw a cruise ship was in 2016. My friend Adam and I were in Helsinki and we needed to get to Estonia. We found out you could purchase one-way tickets across the water on a cruise ship that was making stops in both places. It was a three-hour or so ride. We, the temporary-ticket holders, were ushered to the buffet dining area of the ship to find a seat at some table. We sat with the cruisers, our noses slightly upturned, as they avoided us because we hadn't showered in a few days. 

8 Seconds of Heaven

My sister Krisanda called me last week and left a voicemail to invite me to a school function for my niece, Kate. It was an assembly, with music. Kate is in the fourth grade. I assume this was the Utah celebratory history assembly—the same one I participated in when I was in fourth grade in nineteen hundred and mumble mumble.

Side note, my new thing is to say twentieth century years as “nineteen hundred” such and such because it always makes people look just a little puzzled, but then they never ask me about it.

Anyway, since I’m uncle of the year, I totally forgot to respond to my sister or to put the assembly in my calendar so I just didn’t go.

Look. I have somewhere between 8 and 20 nieces and nephews. I love them all, but I just can’t keep track of the stuff and things anymore. How did that lady who lived in a shoe do it. It must be different when they’re your own kids. And when you live in a shoe. You probably don’t even have to have a job to afford to live in a shoe. You can just spend all of your time learning your kids names and going to their state propaganda assemblies.

The point is, I’m a suckface who forgot his family.

I'm not sure how it has already been 25 years since I participated in the Utah assembly. We practiced the hell out of our recorders in preparation. The class was ecstatic the day recorder rehearsal arrived because it was something different and because what ten-year-old wouldn't love the chance to own something that makes a very loud and obnoxious noise when you blow into it?

Connie Crochet

I was about 7 when I spent my first ever one-on-one quality time with grandma on my mom's side. At least, that's the first time I remember having quality one-on-one time with her. My family was visiting her in her small farm town on the Mexican border in southern California in the house where my mom finished high school.

Grandma ("Nonna") was only 60 at the time. I can't believe that's true. I just had to use a calculator to verify because that seemed so impossible to me. In my mind, she was always this little old lady, and 60 is not old to me anymore.

Anyway, we had been at a family party one night in the small farm town when my grandpa showed up. My grandparents were divorced long ago and my grandpa had done some bad things over the years and he wasn't a particularly pleasant person to be around. I was a small child so I was relatively unaware of what was happening, but looking back I can fill in some blanks and see that it was decided by my grandma and the other adults that she would head home pretty shortly after he arrived.

I had been fighting with a cousin who was a few years older than me and I really didn't want to be at the family party anymore either. My mom must have noticed that because I was suddenly being sent out to my grandma's car, arm-in-arm, to head back to grandma's house. Two buddies who were breaking away from a party early to go have our own party.

Half Ironman, 2019

The worst part of doing a half or full Ironman, besides the swimming, biking, and running, is the whole week leading up to the race. You're supposed to go to bed early and eat boring food, but not overeat, and say your prayers and stuff, and exercising that much self control for several consecutive days is torture.

By the time the race comes, I just want it to be over. I just want it to be over so I can go back to my usual lard-face slothful life.

I got to St. George for the half Ironman powered by your podcast recommendations, which you gave me on the Facebooks. Skylar couldn't ride down with me because he apparently loves his school and his future more than making me happy by keeping me company in the car for four hours.

He rode down with Bob and Cathie later that night. I'm told they sang 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, but they started with 12,000 because the trip was so long. They even stopped on the way and got matching tattoos of Celine Dion. Bob and Cathie now plan to sit on Skylar's side of the aisle at our wedding.

Joke's on them though: my side will have Celine Dion.

Then Saturday morning arrived. I got up at the ungodly hour of eleventy o' clock because for some reason they make everyone get to the lake TWO HOURS before the event starts.

I'm A Bad Person

My older sister and brother-in-law ditched town and their responsibilities for a little vacation and my siblings and parents were put on a babysitting rotation for their four kids.

Mine and Skylar's turn came last weekend. Friday evening to Sunday evening, to be exact.

Look. I don't have natural parenting abilities. I'm incapable of talking to children. I don't know what to say. I address 5-year-olds like they are middle-aged insurance defense attorneys. Every exchange is a legal transaction. When my 11-year-old nephew tried to haggle on bedtime last Friday,

Nephew: What if I just stay up for 30 more minutes?

Eli: You'll go to bed now.

Nephew: But what if I promise to clean my room tomorrow?

Eli: You'll go to bed now and you'll clean your bedroom tomorrow.

Nephew: This isn't fair!

Eli: I don't speak whine.

Nephew: But it's not fair!

Eli: Unless you have something of value to offer me, this negotiation is a waste of my time.

HE'S 11. I'M A MONSTER.

To Become a Star

We had to vacate our Airbnb in Kyiv by 11:00, which was unfortunate because our train didn't leave for L'viv until about 12 hours later. Despite our best attempts to pack lightly, at least two out of the three of us decided to bring with them enough clothes to start a new life over here. I'll let you guess which two out of the three are guilty by smelling us.

I thought the best option might be to wander to the hostel down the street and ask them if we could just pay a little to store our bags for the day. I should have been deterred by the hundreds of google reviews that warned me of the five-flight stair climb and very average Eastern European customer service. But I wasn't. And when I entered the place and asked my simple question I was met with several eye rolls and half a dozen phone calls to Stalin-knows-where, during which the hostel employees attempted to negotiate an international peace treaty for the foreign travelers in front of them.

When homegirl got off the phone she informed me that we would have to rent a room for the day, which was $10, but then she warned me that she wouldn't dare leave anything whatsoever at that hostel because "it's more dangerous than prison in this place."

I asked her to repeat herself several times, sure that there had been a miscommunication. But each time she did, the warning became starker, finally ending with "I don't even bring my wallet to work."

Kyiv's Raccoon Man

We landed in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon and found a taxi to take us to our apartment. "She's Got It" by Venus was playing on the radio.

Taxi Driver: Vat zis mean, she got it?

Eli: It means she has something special.

Taxi Driver: Vy zey not just say "she have somezing special?"

Eli: It's just a saying in English.

Taxi Driver: Vat so special about zis voman?

Eli: I don't know.

Taxi Driver: Vy he sing about her if he don't say vat so special.

Eli: Look. I haven't slept in like 40 hours. I'm incapable of engaging in philosophy at the moment.

How To Get Through Winter

As you know, this is The Year of Creativity for me. You can tell because of all of my artistic face tattoos.

It's been a really good focus for me for 2017. I've immersed myself in more writing and Strangervilling and that has been incredibly therapeutic. Strangerville Live, which we launched at the beginning of the year as a part of my Year of Creativity has been one of the most fun projects I've ever had. And all of it so far has led up to my niece telling me that my hair is "a little out of hand."

Seriously. If you haven't listened yet, you need to check out The World of Babysitting. These stories are giving me life right now.



The last few weeks of work have been like a roller coaster for me. A really long, unfortunately-bumpy roller coaster that often happens until about 2:00 in the morning. But without the fun parts.

So I decided that I needed to take on a new creative hobby because my life philosophy is why be exceptional at a few things when you can be pretty bad at a lot of things?

The World of Babysitting

I have a special treat for you today for a lot of reasons.

So a few months ago I wrote that thing about how I was watching Ollie and Duncan and they both ran into the dorms at the college by my house and the door locked behind them. Then you guys were all like "I'VE HAD THE WORST EXPERIENCES BABYSITTING CHILDREN" so I decided we needed to have a Strangerville episode about it.

This episode includes contributions from Amy Rose AND The Suzzzzzzzzzz. My niece, Emrie, also showed up for what might be the funniest conversation I have ever witnessed in my life.

You guys. I'm not kidding. I actually thought I was going to hurt myself during this interview. Even Meg, who never ever laughs no matter what ever, was leaning against a wall, with tears of joy coming out of her eyes.

You need to listen to this.

Meg's daughter, Ivy, makes an amazing appearance.

We also had my sister Krishelle and local storyteller Rachel Miller. I didn't mean to "the Professor and Mary Ann" their contributions. (Did that joke make sense? I'm leaving it.)

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

I have a work thing this week in Chicago, or as Bob and Cathie like to call it "DON'T GET MURDERED." I'm staying with my childhood best friend Sam. He's an orthodontist and apparently they get up at negative elventy o' clock in the morning for work because he was long gone by the time I rolled out of bed.

I realized that I had totally forgotten to pack my computer charger and underwear when I got out of the shower and tried to get dressed and quickly finish drafting something that needed to be filed in court today. And so, totally unfamiliar with the city and desperately wanting not to get murdered because then Bob and Cathie would be all like "SEE WE TOLD YOU" and that would be super annoying, I ventured out onto the streets.

Thirty minutes later I found a store that sold both a universal charger AND underwear.

Checkout Woman: 9:00 AM and you out buyin' underwear and chargers.

Eli: And I found both in the same store! It's a Halloween miracle!

Checkout Woman: We have fresh-baked goods, too, if you're looking for breakfast.

Eli: Shut up. You had me at hello.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Chicago

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Duncan got neutered today and he's sitting next to me completely and totally high. Like, out of his mind high. He's been staring at his bone for 35 minutes without moving or looking away. Also, he seems kind of mad at me. And his eyes look so sad that three angels just lost their wings.

Dropping him off at that place this morning was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. And now I feel so bad for him that I can't look at him for very long because I start getting teary eyed. I keep wanting to say that today has been harder on me than it has been on him, but then I remember what it means to get neutered.

Duncan wins this one.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Condo Clothes

Last weekend I decided to convert my body into a senior citizen. I did this the best way I know how: eleventy hundred hours of yard work.

Y'all. There are muscles that yard work requires of the human body that literally no other task also requires. The closest any physical activity has ever come to forcing the same kind of exertion out of the body as yard work does is probably Crossfit. But since all of those people are going to be in a coma by 40, it's really kind of a waste anyway.

I don't understand it. Look. I'm not an 18-year-old gymnast. I know that. I didn't even spell "gymnast" correctly on the first try. (I should have just left my initial spelling so you guys could all be like YOU GRAMMARED WRONG YOU IDIOT which is sort of my favorite thing about you. Well, that, and when Awesomesauciness yells at us for not being old. WRITE THE BOOK ALREADY. 1,200 pages of stream-of-conscious writing without punctuation is all I ask.)

The point is, I don't think that I'm the most physically-fit human being to ever live. But I'm not in bad shape either. I mean, I am an Ironman [flexes both biceps, kiss two fingers, and then holds a peace sign up to God].

A Special TV Surprise

It was Survivor night, so the usual crew gathered in my home. I flipped on the TV. There we were, minding our own business, like good Christians/Jews/Muslims/Americans/muggles/beliebers, when suddenly,

Anna: IS THAT MATT BROOME!!!!???!?

Eli: No. Matt Broome would tell us if he was on TV. Surely he wouldn't keep something like this a secret.

We rewound the commercial because these are the days of miracle and wonder and you can do that now. We watched it eleventy hundred times. And we had a major debate. Well, not so much of a debate. More of a "everyone telling Eli he's wrong."

Adam: That's Matt!

Eli: No.

Anna: Yes it is!

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Yesterday someone accused me of "making up" the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease/oil" and this was a pretty intelligent person and it caught me off guard because I have been using that phrase for many years, almost to the point of cliche, and nobody had ever called me out on it. So suddenly I started to wonder if this was a twice up the barrel, once down the side situation where I have just used this so confidently that nobody ever thought to question me on it. So I took the Stranger Facebook page for some backup. And you guys backed it up, fanatically. (You can go read those responses here). And I just want to say that I'm grateful for social media because how else could we find such instant validation AND completely ridicule another human being en masse?

One more thing, the other day, Stranger Sandy Cook left a very helpful comment on Stranger explaining how to calculate your "middle age." So please take a moment and do this, if you haven't already.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Craft Lake City, Year 3.

Macy

I love titling posts with a female's first name because I know that at least 15% of you are terrified that I'm about to introduce you to one of Tami's family members. This is no such post, although I do think we need an update on Tami's newest hairstyle soon.

My sister called me the other day and asked me if I would watch their dog while they go out of town because "your entire social media presence is basically a virtual dog pound so we thought you wouldn't mind taking in another."

I never did think there would be a time in my life when anyone would consider me an option for dog sitting. But as I've explained on numerous occasions, Mr. Pants has changed my world view on everything.

I pretty much immediately and enthusiastically told my sister that I would gladly accept their request, in large part because they have a Boxer and I really wanted to post a picture of the dog to Instagram, including as a caption the lyrics to Paul Simon's "The Boxer" because I'm poetic like that.

Two days later, Macy showed up at my house.

Lifetime Original Movies

When I was growing up my older sister Krisanda and I used to play this game where we would take turns reading the names of movies printed in the weekly TV schedule that came with the Sunday morning paper. The person reading them would do it in a monotone voice and the person listening would have to guess whether the title was to a Lifetime movie, or something else.

Beware of Sisters

My sister Krishelle house-sat for me while I was in the Baltics. And by "house-sat" I mean "killed all of my flowers and broke my A/C."

Periodically throughout the trip, this text exchange would happen:

Eli: Hello.

Eli: Hi.

Eli: Hello???

Eli: Are you there?

Eli: HELP ME I'M DROWNING IN MY OWN TEARS!

Krishelle: What do you want?!

Eli: Oh, hi. Since you seem to be awake, how is everything going at the house?

2016 Ironman St. George 70.3

You guys.

You guys.

You guys.

You know this is serious because I never say "you guys" three times. I don't even say that more than I don't even say "y'all." AND I LITERALLY NEVER SAY Y'ALL.

On Saturday I competed in the St. George half Ironman. This is the third year in a row that I've done this. You may remember that last year I complained at you about how Satan is the ruler of St. George Utah and that it is so hot there that you can see the heat from space.

FROM SPACE.

And then I told you that that cop/Oprah/not-Paul-Simon/ended-up-not-actually-being-a-cop-if-you-read-the-comments woman cheered at me toward the end of the race and this helped me power through.

WELL WHERE THE HELL WAS COPRAH THIS YEAR?!

Bob and Cathie Need Each Other

Recently Bob and Cathie flew to Washington DC. The capital of the United States of God Bless America.

They had a layover in Denver. And for reasons unknown to their offspring, they felt it imperative to text all of us the step-by-step details of their every move. That's when we got the below text from Bob.