HurlGuts McJones Rides Again

Ah, summertime is upon us, that blessed time of year when our blessed northern hemisphere is blessedly tilted towards the blessed sun, raising our daytime temperatures to a blessed 110 degrees or something stupid like that so all the flesh melts off our faces, leaving us faceless for time and all eternity, until our flesh grows back with some heavy duty skin grafts. Yes, that's right. 

Would you like to know what else is happening right now? Well, Emily went to do her little nails. Rivers sleepeth. I can't think of anything else interesting. Oh wait, here's something.

                             

I ate a tuna sandwich in the hospital's new tuna sandwich eating room. Yes, you're seeing that right. There's hexagons everywhere. Hexagons on the floor. Hexagons on the ceiling. Hexagons inside OTHER hexagons. SO MANY HEXAGONS! What do you think of that? Huh?! What do you think of the hexagonal tuna sandwich eating room?

Well, that about wraps it up in a big shroud of sizzling tinfoil. Until next time, keep your suspenders on. What is getting suspended exactly with suspenders? Your body? Your pants? Oh heaven help us understand the suspenders before it grows too late.

8 April 22nds

April 22nd, 1998 - Wednesday

I'm not quite 11 years old. I'm in 4th grade with Mr. Devin... no, that's wrong. Mr. Kevin Dunkley. Pug the Cat had some baby kittens today. We certainly don't know who the father is. We never know. Tomorrow, I'm going to come home from school and find dead kitties in the box, and I'm going to cry. And Sheridan is going to stay up all night keeping watch to make sure whatever killed them doesn't come back and kill the survivors. But something will kill them anyway.

April 22nd, 1999 - Thursday

I don't actually remember anything from this day, other than... I'm not quite 12 years old. I'm in 5th grade with Mrs. Simpkins. Right now, I'm off track from school, which means I'm in the midst of a 2-week break. My classmates don't really like me. I play with Doug Schmutz sometimes who's pretty loyal. The only thing I write in my journal from this day is,  "I wish I could go to school today." I WISH I COULD GO TO SCHOOL TODAY. That makes no sense. Probably just so I can see Brandy Sargent. Her dad is a cop. Obviously, with a name like SARGENT.

April 22nd, 2005 - Friday

I'm not quite 18 years old. It's 11th grade. I tried to run for Senior Class President and failed miserably. I don't even know why I ran. I didn't take any of it seriously. It was all just a big joke to me. This all came to a head in the Exec Council interview when I realized, hey. I have no idea what I'm doing. Bret Voran won. As she should've. Isaac and I finished our costume waver job. Emmett joined our family last week.

April 22nd, 2006 - Saturday 

I'm not quite 19 years old. About to graduate. It's Senior Ball today with Stacy Bracklehiney. It turns out to be pretty boring and uneventful. The dance is crowded, hot, awkward because I hate dancing, hate yelling at my date while we're dancing because it's so loud and we can't hear each other. I think there are eclairs or cream puffs or something to eat for refreshments. A day date consists of going around the neighborhood trading things for better things. Eating burgers. Playing at Kerrah Kelly's house. At one point, I'm sitting by the pool with Stacy, Steve, Eric... maybe Heidi as well? And it's fun. I'm content. Somebody jumps in the water with their clothes on. Steve maybe? Eric? And we all have a good laugh. And I'm content in that little group, while most everybody else hangs out in the house. And I'm content after the dance, as I drive Stacy, Isaac, and Lacey home, although Stacy and I never know what to say to each other. Because I'm content in a little group, not in a room with hundreds of people dancing and yelling. Because I'm an introvert. But at the time this is actually happening, I don't know that. And I wish I did. Also, Eric and I are friends today. He's an introvert too.

April 22nd, 2007 - Sunday

I'm not quite 20 years old. Things have changed. I'm on a mission. Today is special, the day I get to baptize my first baptizee. Her name is Erin Donnely, and she is a very smart very talented high school student who asks REALLY good questions, so good that I don't know how to answer them, so I usually just defer to Elder Walker. We've obviously rushed this baptism. Right? I mean, we're just trying to get her baptized before I get transferred. Is she even ready? Does she actually believe? Well it doesn't matter because WE'RE BAPTIZING HER, DANGIT. I guess we'll just live with whatever happens down the road. But it's okay because ERIN'S GETTIN BAPTIZED!!

April 22nd, 2008 - Tuesday

I'm not quite 21 years old. I'm in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. We're teaching a hot babe named Britney. We just met her husband today. We thought maybe he was going to murder us for talking to his hot wife, but he was nice. They won't go anywhere but we'll keep trying to teach them. Mostly because Britney's a babe. Just kidding. Kidding that we're teaching them because she's a babe. Not kidding about her being a babe.

April 22nd, 2015 - Wednesday

I want to go to Toquerville on Saturday to a star party. But it won't happen due to crappy weather. Rivers sick and in the ER yesterday. Emily and I will both be sick tomorrow, hurling our guts out. I have a dying depressed patient at work who can't tell the difference between dreaming and reality. Oh HAPPY DAYS! Oh, I forgot... I'm not quite 28 years old.

April 22nd, 2017 - Saturday

Ah, there, we made it. If I recall correctly, we went to Dixie Nutrition because I was jonesing carrot juice. Sharon McPherson... Webb? She was there. She's worked there for like, a billion years. I worked there almost that long. Like, 2 years total. Pretty close. Then we splash padded. The end.

Take These Broken Spleens

I made a list.

These are all things (mostly music) that remind me, in some way, of my mission, or of the months directly preceding or following.

Pre-Mission (mainly summer 2006)

Anything from Radiohead's Kid A album
Anything from Radiohead's The Bends album
(more specifically, songs from those albums remind me of driving to/from work at Dixie Nutrition during the summer of 2006).

Getting closer to mission (weeks and days before- "The Presence of Impending Doom")

"How to Save a Life" by The Fray
"Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche
Anything from Jeff Buckley's Grace album
Anything from Death Cab for Cutie's Plans album (especially Brothers on a Hotel Bed)

On my way to the MTC (October 18th, 2006)

Mormon Tabernacle Choir songs - "Homeward Bound" "Suo-Gan" & "All Through the Night"

First area )Hendersonville, TN)

"Nashville Tribute to the Prophet" album
"Float" album by Bell and Cardiff
"Garden Walls" by Mindy Gledhill
The smell of golden honey flavor handsoap (which I believe we had in the bathroom)
The cologne that Elder Call wore (don't remember what it's called... but I know it when I smell it).
"Believe" by Josh Groban (first Christmas out)
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" by Bing Crosby (first Christmas out)

Murfreesboro, TN

"I Feel My Savior's Love" by Jessie Clark Funk

Shelbyville, TN

Enya songs from A Day Without Rain album

Bowling Green, KY

Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music

Lawrenceburg, TN

Music from Colby Horton mix, including a lovely rendition of "Amazing Grace."
Music from Mindy Gledhill albums- "Sum of All Grace" & "Falling and Flying"
"Now We Are Free" from Gladiator soundtrack
"I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" by Mormon Tabernacle Choir (generally when driving to Pulaski, TN)

Post Mission Days

Music from Super Mario Galaxy
Music from Cave Story

What made all these "musics" and other things stick? Would I, at any other time in my life, have found the song "Silent Lucidity" to be that memorable when I heard it? Or would it just have been another tune that I I quickly forgot? What was it about having this impending anxiety of a coming mission that caused these things to stick in my brain? And not just stick in my brain, but to be actual instant reminders of a time and a place, and the exact emotions I felt at the time? Why does Josh Groban's "Believe" stick in my mind so much and remind me of my first Christmastime out? Why does the smell of golden honey handsoap instantly transport me back to my first apartment? There's nothing special about golden honey handsoap, is there? Because the smell carries the emotions. The song carries the emotions. What emotions? In the beginning, fear. Loneliness. Homesickness (especially during the first Christmas). Anxiety about what lay ahead. All these emotions magnified to an especially intense degree. Later on, music that drew me inward and gave me reason to reflect on the mission of Christ and the vast humbling opportunity of sharing the gospel and having stewardship over an area. Music that, in post-mission days, brings to mind the weird feeling of returning to society and engaging in all the childish garbage that was withheld from me on the mission, like vidiot games.

Well, that's all. This probably hasn't been too exciting, so I'm sorry.