blind dates

My aunt Jamie, who is one of the funniest people I know, has been working very hard to arrange a marriage between her nephew (me) and her niece ( who is not my cousin). This situation officially became scary when my aunt left me a voice-mail that said something like: "Zac, you better be excited cuz I've got your wife picked out." Well, it looks like things are starting to come together and we are actually going to meet sometime in February. She lives in Rexburg, ID and, of course, I live in Salt Lake, about 4 hours apart, so we're going to meet in the middle in the thriving metropolis of Malad (which is French for disease or something) to prepare for the rest of eternity. I guess we're going to double with my un-cousin's sister, who happens to be engaged. This somewhat reminds me of the last blind date I went on. On that particular date we doubled with the girl's cousin and her date. For most of the date, the two cousins talked about family stuff that didn't make any sense to me- it was actually one of the only dates that I've been on that I couldn't wait to end. The girls name was Bret, which is my Dad's name (and my middle name), which is weird. I was really tempted to tell her that she had the same name as my Dad, but I never got the nerve. I actually regret that now. Well, I guess I'll see how this next shot at blind dating works out. At least I know that she doesn't have the same name as my Dad- but being my Aunt's niece is still kind of strange.

I'm your angel, baby.......

I just got my hair cut by an obese lady with oxygen tubes in her nose. She was definitely not your average beautician. After asking if I wanted dreadlocks, she proceeded to simultaneously cut my hair and sing "I'm your angel, baby, let me rock your cradle." When she was done she asked me if I was glad that she had cut my hair the way I told her to and not the way that she thought would look good. I'm not sure how I was supposed to respond to that question. Then she let me know that I didn't have any split ends, "which is a good thing," she said. What????

Bag Ladies

I saw an interesting statistic in Harper's Index: the chance that white American women worry about becoming bag ladies is 1 in 2. The chance that African-American women worry about becoming bag ladies is 1 in 3. Why are women so worried about becoming bag ladies? I don't think very many women actually experience being bag ladies during their lifetime, and anyway, would it really be that bad?

Hypothetical Situation

Don't you love it when people ask you a question about a "hypothetical situation" thats so obviously real that your answer begins with, "I think you should....." That happened to me today. After I began to answer, the person who had asked the question decided that if she re-asked it and switched the genders of the people in the story that it would make it "more" hypothetical. All it really did was make it weird because she was referring to herself as a "he" and to the boy as a "she". She succeeded at confusing me, but I was surprised at how well she kept the "he"s and the "she"s consistent throughout the story. In the end the answer was still, "Just marry him."

Any Qataris Out There?

I need to find 15 people from Qatar who speak Arabic. If you are Qatari please let me know.

Am I Delusional too?

The last two nights I have been watching the new season of American Idol just like the majority of American TV viewers. At first I actually felt like a bad person for indulging in entertainment that exploits the embarassment of other people. But then I realized that America has a problem with delusionality. I think that sometimes we focus too much on pursuing our dreams whatever they may be. Rather, we should look at our lives and figure out who we are, what talents we do and do not have, and how much we are willing to sacrifice for our dreams b4 we start dreaming. Well, I'm afraid that I may also have the "American Idol" complex. I recently applied to be a contestant on The Amazing Race. I might embarass myself worse than some of the American Idol wannabes. Am I delusional too?

Happy MLK, JR. Day

This year I went all out with the MLK JR. Day celebrations. It started last week with a performance of Angela's Mix tape starring Eisa Davis on Tuesday. Wednesday I went to the lecture by Angela Davis and decided that I don't like prisons (I'm not sure what to do about that, though). Friday was the MLK Commission on Human Rights luncheon at which the President of Spellman College in Atlanta spoke. I also met a creepy guy named Steven there, but thats a story for another time. Friday night I went to a concert by the Spellman College Glee Club. On Monday the festivities culminated with an electrifying performance by Guapale. I think she's pregnant- if anyone knows for sure let me know. Anyway, I hope everybody's Martin Luther King Jr. Day was as good as mine.

Zac's got Crap for Brains

I am writing this blog to officially confess to myself and the world that I am an official sign-up-aholic. I am aware that this is the first step to recovery. I've had this problem since I was in high school and I signed up for the French club, the German club, the Civic club, Jazz band, Pep band, Cross-country, track, school musicals and plays, choir, wood shop, seminary, ballroom dance, hike and bike club, academic olympiad, and Aca-deca. I think I even signed up for the Business Professionals of America, and I know I wanted to sign up for Future Farmers of America. Anyway, this has continued to haunt me- like the day I signed up for three different marathons, and the day I signed up for a second major, and the day I signed up for a global scavenger hunt (this was like three days ago). This morning I went to a scholarship fair hoping to sign up for some scholarships but left after signing up for a dance-a-thon. I signed up to be a package handler at UPS once and ended up doing that for a year and half. My co-workers loved to make fun of me. Everyday they would taunt me: "Zac's got crap for brains". After signing up for a dance-a-thon I'm wondering if they were right. Its a 26 and a half hour dancing event at the Student Union and I can't even sleep! Well, I've done the first step to recovery, but I'm not sure what to do next. If anyone is familiar with the steps to overcoming addictions please let me know.
*this post has been edited from its original form in consideration of my more sensitive readers.

My Fondest Dreams

So its New Year's Eve and I am at the Holliday Inn in Ellensburg, Washington listening to the UB40 version of "I Got You Babe", wishing I had a "Babe", and writing a Blog. Pretty exciting, huh? Well, its more exciting than you think, because I've discovered that I have a really strange, superstitious side to me. I generally tend to not be superstitious at all, but for some reason fortune cookies really get to me. I actually believe them sometimes and that kind of scares me now that I think about it. Anyway, on September 28 I went to a friends wedding and got a fortune cookie. My fortune said "Your fondest dream will come true by the end of the year". I've spent the last few months trying to figure out what my fondest dream was so I would know what to look forward to. Well, there are now less than three hours left in the year and I still don't know whats going to happen. Its been very stressful. My dad had to go to Washington this weekend I was trying to decide whether or not I should go with him. I had three choices for the end of the year: I could stay in Idaho, go back to Salt Lake, or go to Washington with my dad. I had a hell of a time trying to figure out which place would be the most suitable for the realization of my fondest dream. I thought it would probably be best to go back to SLC, but then I thought that if its really supposed to happen it will happen regardless of where I am so now I'm in Washington. My mom called last night and made everything even weirder. She wanted to know if a Japanese guy had called me. Apparently someone had called my home in Idaho and wanted to talk to me. My mom said he sounded like he had a Japanese accent and he talked really quietly, but she didn't get any more information than that- she gave him my cell number and thought he would call me. This morning I woke up with all kinds of ideas of who this mystery caller was and how he could possibly be related to my fondest dream (don't interpret this wrong- my fondest dreams aren't necessarily romantic). I've spent the day in suspense and anticipation. Well, times running short and I'm starting to lose faith- I wonder if fortune cookies depend on faith. Maybe I'll learn not to trust fortune cookies so much. If anyone knows who the mystery caller is let me know.

Tupac

I recently read an article about the life and music of Tupac Shakur that really fascinated me. I've been reading quite a bit about him since then and made the discovery that he was incredibly talented outside of being the king of rap. He wrote a lot of poetry and a book of his poems has actually been published. The book is called The Rose That Grew From Concrete. Here is the poem that the book is named after- I think its really cool.

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.

DDR

I think I spent more money playing arcade games this week than I ever have in a given week. Actually, it was only one game- Dance Dance Revolution. I think I spent about $2. I've never really been into arcade games or electronic games of any kind until my friend Julia enticed me to start playing DDR with her at her apartment using a playstation and DDR pads. I slowly progressed from the beginner level to the light mode, and now I can even pass the standard mode sometimes. Well, last Friday after our Ramadan break the fast dinner (I will write about this in the future) we plopped a few quarters into the DDR machine at the Union arcade on the U campus and started stomping on a machine to the beat of techno music while flourescent pink and green lights lit up around our feet. We finally went public with our dancing/video game playing talent. I have heard that only Asians can really play DDR, but Julia and I are working hard to break that stereotype. We met at the Union once again on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday to play the game. Thursday we played for a couple hours on the playstation. DDR is a great game- its fun, its good excersize, and it involves music. It couldn't get any better. If you haven't tried it several times you should.

I've Been Flimped

I suppose that I should use this first blog to explain what it means to be flimped. To be honest, I don't think it really means anything, but some linguist back in the seventies proposed that it would be impossible for a language to have a verb 'to flimp' where 'to flimp something' means 'to kiss a girl who is allergic to that thing'. For example, if I were to flimp whiskey, that would mean that I kissed a girl who is allergic to whiskey. Anyway, its kind of silly, but I don't see why such a word couldn't exist. It would be a good way to talk about people, when you don't want everybody to know who you are talking about. A conversation could go something like this:
Me: "Hey Jonny, how was your weekend?"
Jonny: "Rad"
Me: "What happened that was so great?"
Jonny: "I flimped papaya"
Immediately I would know that he kissed Harriet, because she is the only girl that I know who is allergic to papaya. I do realize that there are some problems with using "flimp"; it requires that both participants in the conversation know who is allergic to what and that the "what" that they are allergic to isn't something like peanuts or bees or cats or penecillin because those things don't narrow it down very well. Anyway, good luck flimping.
(Oh, I should mention that Jonny and Harriet aren't real people [however, they may have been inspired by real people])