Omelets

Another week of training is rounding out to be another dark mark on my past. I kid. Mostly. Ironman training overall has been a good experience. The same way everything crappy I've ever gone through that has made me "stronger" is a "good experience." Like that time Cathie threatened to send me away for a summer in 1996 to work on a farm because "it builds character." I, on the other hand, without knowing exactly what it was, was quite sure I had plenty of character. It's probably ironic that I then faked a broken toe in hopes that all farm talk would cease. I also faked the broken toe because I was jealous of Aaron Ludwig's crutches and attention. I got a lot of mileage out of that toe. Literally.

We are now a mere 5 weeks and 1 day away from the race. As I typed that, my hands started shaking so much I had to hit the backspace key 15 times during the course of that sentence. I'm also doing that thing where I start contacting an old friend in a distant state more often when I know I'm going to be seeing him or her again soon so that it's less awkward when I do see that person. Except it's with God this time (we've already planned out our first 24 hours together (May 6th)--tandem biking, a visit to the ice-cream shop, and then some snuggling while we talk about who's going to get kicked off of The Biggest Loser next).

T-Shirts Now Exist

I have incredible news: We've made t-shirts. I know what you're thinking, "But Eli! I just bought 13 Snuggies! I don't even wear t-shirts anymore!" Rest assured, I have thought about this, and I too rarely wear clothing anymore, especially since I've learned several new ways to tie the Snuggie in the back, courtesy of Yahoo! Answers. Also, recently I discovered--you may want to be sitting down for this--the Snuggie is basically just a robe you put on backwards! (Or should I say, a robe is basically a Snuggie you put on backwards?). I know. Anyone who has had a robe, has had the opportunity to experience the Snuggie. I'm as upset that I lived so many years without discovering this as you are.

Back to the t-shirts. My wonderfully talented friend Anna Swayne, who prints t-shirts when she's not too busy with her fight club or watching animal abuse commercials, has helped me out with some great new t-shirts. She presented the first one to me recently and I loved it so much that I wore it for 7 straight days without taking it off. You can imagine how uncomfortable it got when I took my Tuesday shower and had to wear a wet t-shirt until it dried 8 hours later. In any event, I'm quite confident that you'll love the shirt so much that you will be willing to wear it instead of a Snuggie at least once a month.

Eli Poppins

This weekend I spent some quality time with my 7 and 3 year old nieces. My sister and brother-in-law skipped town and their responsibilities for the weekend and asked if the two girls could come and stay with me. I obliged, having no business being in charge of children. Things I learned this weekend:

1. Kids need to be drinking something at all times. Or they will die.

2. If what you're trying to do with children takes them more than 5 minutes away from a restroom, it aint worth it.

Biking in Moab

Last weekend I went south with a number of friends (Dan, Anna, and Emma) to give Paul Cyclemon a spin in Moab. I hoped Paul and I would hit it off very quickly, as we are sort of down to the wire on this whole execution date Ironman thing, in which I will be firmly planted on top of Paul Cyclemon for about as many hours as are in a work day, attempting to haul my crying self across desolate terrain. I should mention, however, that there is now a good chance that I won't be doing any biking at all; I accidentally stepped into some standing water barefoot earlier today in the locker room at the gym and I spent the better part of this afternoon googling foot amputation options. I'll keep you posted on that.

Unfortunately on the way to Moab we discovered that the Girl Scouts have apparently now moved their war against self-control to the front of grocery stores. Where we buy food. Where they can't be dodged. I will be looking into food storage options for next year so I can avoid the bombardment of solicitous sex in a box, pawned by thousands of innocent looking yet consistently unfriendly prepubescents in pigtails. But until then, I'll continue to succumb to their cheap addictive substances and scarce coveted resources.

Paul Cyclemon

I purchased a bike last week. Before registering for the Ironman, I thought there were exactly 3 kinds of bikes:

1. Tricycle: I had one of these as a very small child. One day I hooked a wagon up to it, loaded my baby sister Micalyne into it, rode down the street to a house owned by a rugged man named Harry who used to put on flower-patterned dresses to wash his car in the driveway, dumped her out, and rode back home. This was one of my many childhood attempts to rid myself of said sister and reclaim my status as youngest child. I also used to encourage Cathie to walk quickly in stores, knowing that Micalyne was unable to walk as fast as either of us if we really booked it. I believed that if we got far enough ahead of her in the store, she would be lost, Cathie would forget we brought her (or that she ever had a little girl at all) and we would go home and never speak of her again. I'm not sure what this says about Cathie. Or of my perception of her parenting skills in 1989. But rest assured, my plan never worked. And as if she can sense my history of ill-repute spanning across 2 decades, Micalyne's 2 year old child today despises and fears me like The First Eye hates happiness.

Couch-surfing Video, Part 2

A few items today. First, I finally wrote a bio for the About Us page, so if you get bored enough, check it out and let me know what you think.

Next, Part 2 of my couch-surfing story from The Porch a couple of weeks ago is now available on Youtube (see below). This show went really well and it was incredibly fun to meet so many of you. Hopefully we can do some more of these in the future in some other places. In the meantime, thanks for watching, and reading, and commenting, and helping life stay strange. 

Finally, one of our strangers, Jessica, emailed me a quote this weekend that I thought I would share with everyone else.

"Our 5 senses are not enough in our daily lives. We need to use our sixth sense: our 'sense of humor.' Humor isn't about merely telling jokes; it's the way we view the world. We can take our goals and responsibilities seriously, but take ourselves lightly." -G.K. Chesterton

Here's to developing that 6th sense so we can actually enjoy the other 5. (Sorry if "6th sense" just gave you the heebie jeebies).

~It Just Gets Stranger

Open Water Torture

Terrible things took place on February 25, 2012. My life will now be divided into two sections: before 10,000 daggers stabbed every part of my body at once, and after. While my BD (Before Dagger) memories will be featured in technicolor, the AD (After Dagger) memories from my life will forever be in black and white when I reminisce. And not the classy-film kind of black and white. The depressing-film kind of black and white.

My Ironman training buddy Dan and I headed to Hell south this weekend to bike part of the Ironman course and swim in the lake. It is no exaggeration that I envisioned this weekend to look like the latter half of an anti-depressant or Viagra commercial, with the peaceful smiling, graceful bike riding, and slow motion nostalgic splashing in the water. Reality: It ended up looking more like the latter half of Titanic. But without the romantic self-sacrifices. Or the nudity. And ironically, because of my swimming experience I will probably now need anti-depressants for the rest of my life. And maybe Viagra.

Sleeping With Serhei Video

I just spent the weekend trying to swim in an icy body of water. You may have heard my screams if you were in any of the following states at the time: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, California, Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, Being. Story to come--if ever I recover.

In the meantime, please enjoy the first five minutes of the story I told last week on The Porch about couchsurfing with Serhei. I will be sending this video in as part of a humor competition I'm currently competing in. Your hits on the video will make me look super popular to the judges and will thus be greatly appreciated (I will reward you in hugs and Facebook pokes (do those still exist?)).

~It Just Gets Stranger

Texts With A 12 Year Old

I'm in the middle of a humor competition for attorneys and I'm supposed to send a short video of me attempting to be funny so a bunch of people can sit in a back room somewhere and judge me (it's high school social circles all over again). The top six from this round will compete in finals in New York at a comedy club in May. We'll be shooting the video this Thursday on The Porch at Muse Music in Provo. I didn't expect to be on The Porch again but I'm so excited to be back and would love to see some of you there (I would even love to see all of you there, but some of you are probably serial killers so maybe it's best to just have the "safe-for-societies" out). I've sent invites to Larry, The Queen of Colors, and The First Eye, but I'm not expecting much as none of them have ever really been there for me when I've needed it the most. Lohan will be there, of course. But that's just because he depends on living inside me to stay alive (bless his heart). Doors open at 7:30. Please come and laugh super hard, even if it's forced (I have no problem with fake laughter).

In other news, my good friend Matt sent me screen clippings of a recent text conversation he had with a seventh grade girl who texted him thinking he was a seventh grade boy she apparently has a seventh grade crush on. Below is the conversation. We love you Matt. And we all hope you don't end up on "To Catch a Predator" one day.

Phone Upgrade

Hell froze over.

Long-time readers may remember my phone-purchase debacle of 2009 when I finally upgraded from my flip-phone to one that I thought was the most technologically advanced piece of machinery that would likely ever be developed by the civilized world. I sincerely believed in 2009 that a phone that you didn't have to flip open to use and could take pictures was a sign of the times and we were most definitely within two years of the Apocalypse. I also picked up a parasite named "Lohan" that year. While Lohan was the bane of my existence in the early part of his life, he has since become like family to me. We sometimes play a game I've named "throat-tickle" involving sitting over a hot bowl of chicken soup after starving myself for 24 hours with my mouth gaping open. I must say, however, I do feel pretty used most of the time. It's a relationship of give and take, where I'm always the one giving, and he's always the one taking. He's basically like, well, a parasite.