A real lesson

I'm not very good at expressing my feelings. Well, that's not entirely true. I have no problem at all letting people know about my frustrations or opinions, but when it comes to real, heart-felt emotions, I tend to keep those bottled up inside.
I think that the real problem that I've had in the past with this is that people who I really care about don't know that I care about them, and they sometimes just assume that I hate them.
Over the last year or so, I think I've gotten a little bit better at this. Here's one thing that I've learned during the process: When you do vocalize your appreciation for someone, it amplifies it. That doesn't just apply to when you tell the person, but anyone. Like if I admit to my roommates that I like a girl, suddenly I start liking her more.
I'm not really sure if this is a good side-effect or not. Was I better off back when I wasn't even trying? I don't think you can be disappointed if you don't have any feelings.

Weird faces

I just got back from the copy center in the Tanner building. The girl that was helping me was wearing what I would describe as a "cute outfit." (Though admittedly I know little about anything "cute," so I might be wrong in that assessment.) I remember thinking that it was too bad that she didn't have a prettier face.
Then she and her coworker surveyed me about some girls that, according to them, are generally considered hot, but that these girls don't find attractive. One of these was Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, and the other was some red-headed girl from some pussycat group that I'm not familiar with. The copy center girl said that she could see why people found these singers attractive, but that she thought that they had "weird faces."
Is that irony?

The Israeli Formula

Last Christmas my brother Troy and I went to the mall by our house to look for Christmas presents. As we were walking around checking out the high school girls, we got stopped at one of those booths that they have for businesses that aren't going to last long enough to pay rent. This girl at the booth started telling us about all of these useless accessories that they make for cell phones. I probably wouldn't have listened to her, but she was so hot. She had dark hair and skin, and she had a hip style about her. She had this great accent, too. (We found out that she was from Israel.) Troy and I were totally hypnotized.
After flirting with her for about 20 minutes she convinced me to buy a microphone that clips on to the cell phone so that you can have it play over your car radio. A pretty handy thing, right? I bought three of them.
So this weekend my dad was in town visiting, and we had dinner at University Mall. My dad got stopped by a large breasted woman with pretty eyes at one of the booths. She had a pretty accent, so my dad asked where she was from. Israel. She convinced him to buy some nail care products even though he was embarrassed to be seen holding them. He bought three sets.
The moral of course is that if you have some product that can't sell itself based on its usefulness then all you have to do is put it in the hands of an Israeli girl and someone will buy it. You can at least count on the Casteels.

Priorities

I had a date for lunch today. She called me when she got out of class, and I was supposed to go pick her up so that we could go out to eat. She just had bad timing, really, because I was in the middle of a head-to-head match on Halo 2. I mean, I couldn't just leave in the middle of a match. Who does that? So I made her walk over to my apartment.

Fondu You

So you're into a certain girl, and you try to spend time with her to ascertain whether or not that interest is mutual so that you can take further action. One day it seems like she is totally into you, and she's flirty and happy to see you and sad when you leave and can't wait to see you again. You think that things are good. Then the very next day she acts like she couldn't care less if you were even friends or not. Every guy that's ever liked a girl knows what I'm talking about, and I think we've all experienced the ITB-reversal. Why does she do this?
So I've been described as being a "fondu pot" by a few girls that I know, as a metaphor for how I'm different every time they interact with me, and that they never know what they're going to get. I've known a lot of girls who have told me that they just "don't get me" or that they don't know "what to make of me." I had thought that with such a consistent review, they must be right. Recently, however, I've realized that never has a guy told me that he didn't know what to make of me, or that he didn't get me, or that "sometimes I think me and Bryant are friends, and other times I think he doesn't like me at all."
My conclusion: I am not a fondu pot at all. It's girls. They're the ones that are inconsistent and unpredictable, and they've seen me through their inconsistent eyes and been unable to understand, not because I'm always changing, but because they are. It's not me, it's you.

No hawk

The mohawk had to come off this week, due to legal complications, but it's been a fun experience. Here's some of the responses that I've experienced:

Con

People stare a lot. Sometimes I would forget that I had a mohawk, and I'd just see this guy staring at me and wonder if he knew me or something, or see some girl that just couldn't take her eyes off of me. I'd be pretty sure that she must've wanted me bad, and then I'd remember that I had a haircut.

Pro

I went to the zoo the day after I got the 'hawk, and little kids would stare at me like crazy. They're even more shameless about it than adults, and don't mind staring. They're really nicer about it, though. I think that most of them haven't yet learned to hate people that look different, so they just thought I was interesting or something and I ended up having all of these little kids telling me stories about the snakes and bats that we were looking at. Apparently it's easier to make friends with little kids when you look funny. Maybe clowns should start wearing mohawks.

Pro

A girl in the Detroit airport gave me her phone number and wanted to hook up with me in Vegas. I suppose it's possible that she liked me because of my charm or boyish good looks, but since I don't really get a lot of girls offering me their phone numbers, I'm going to assume that the mohawk was the new thing that encouraged that.

Pro

At the Braves' game in Atlanta I got put on the big screen. When I saw them with their Fan Cam putting people up on the screen, I was pretty sure that I was a shoo-in, so I had Kim get ready, and she got a picture of it as evidence.

Pro

After the game, the lady selling Braves visors liked my haircut and gave me one for free.

Con

At said game, I got really sun-burnt. The loss of a super-power is pretty unfortunate, but let's not dwell on that anymore.

Con

Camille doesn't like me anymore and Kim thought I looked ugly.

Con

The term "WT" was used to describe me on a much more frequent basis (rivaling the frequency with which I actually deserve it).

Pro

My boss, surprisingly, didn't even care. He just took pictures of it and put them on the wall.

???

The bishop didn't express an opinion. He just kept asking, "What happened?" over and over. I didn't really have a good answer for him.

Con

I got pulled over in Nephi on the way back from Las Vegas (where I'm just another one of the many freaks and didn't get any special reactions at all). I was going pretty fast and it was obvious when the cop had seen me, so I pulled right over before he even had to turn his lights on. I would have thought he'd be pretty appreciative of this, but he wasn't pleased with me at all. He even threatened to take me straight in to jail.

It's possible that the last one didn't have anything to do with the mohawk, since I hear that Pete Lattin got arrested in Fillmore just for speeding, and he's a pretty clean-cut guy. I don't imagine that the mohawk helped, though. In fact, just for contrast, consider what happened to me today when I went to court for the same ticket. Today, however, I was mohawk-free and I wore a shirt and tie. The Judge told me to go get my ticket reduced by the DA, despite that I admitted that I deserved the ticket that I got, and the DA cut my fine in half upon hearing that I was a BYU student.
I think that people might treat you different as a mohawk-wearer, but even so, the pro's seem to balance out the con's. I just don't understand why everyone doesn't have mohawks. I guess it's a good thing they don't, or they'd all be super-villains like me.

Fondu Pot

Ash and her friends say that I'm a fondu pot because I'm different every time they encounter me. Well, this girl that I work with today told me that I'm hard to figure out, and that she never knows what to make of me. I think I ruin the Dixie Chicks' whole Wonderbread vs. eTicket thing, too, because I don't fit nicely in any categories. (Although that might be a bad example, since their system doesn't make a lot of sense anyway.)
Anyway, I just thought that maybe y'all would want to know that nobody really gets me, not just you guys.

The best of times, the worst of times

I realized yesterday that my best moments are the same as my worst moments. Here's a ranked list of the best and worst things that happened to me yesterday:

1. I saw the girl that I like yesterday. It's the best thing because I like seeing her, and the worst thing because I feel like a tool because nothing's ever going to happen between us.
2. I spent $10 at Taco Bell. It's the best because it was so good, but the worst because I'm ashamed of myself for spending so much money on lunch.
3. I played the soccer accuracy drill in the ward activity. It's the best because it's the first time I've gotten to play soccer since I hurt my leg (details coming soon) and it's the worst because I did really bad and got out in the first round.
4. All we did at work yesterday was watch Star Wars fan films. It's the best because we goofed around all day, and the worst because now I'm going to have to work harder to get my project done in time.

That's all I can think of. It's a neat phenomenon, though, huh?

Girlfriends

It's kind of amazing (and by that I mean weird and uncomfortable) that I can hang out with several of my ex-girlfriends at a time, especially since I've never actually had a girlfriend at all (not unless you count That Girl in high school, but everyone knows that your first romantic encounter is a mess and that you end up thinking it more important than it really is).
I think the issue there is just that I'm afraid of the word "girlfriend." You know how when you start dating someone, all of your friends want to call her your girlfriend, but every time they say it, you start to feel sick to your stomach and need to point out that "She's not my girlfriend." And then you panic and break up with her before something serious happens.
Well, I just don't quite get the same feeling with the term "ex-girlfriend", so I'm ok with that being thrown around to describe my previous love-interests. So the girls with me just go straight from normal friends to ex-girlfriends, with this weird, awkward stage in the middle. (I didn't do very well in Chemistry, but I think that's what plasma was.)
Maybe everyone has that issue and they just don't actually hang out with their ex's. I guess normal people hate each other when they break up. Maybe people don't really mean it when they say "Let's just be friends," but I always pretend that they do.

Smooth

Remember that girl that next-semestered me? Well, I didn't tell this story, but I decided to take her up on the offer this semester, and we went out a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, when my opinionated side came out it kind of rubbed her the wrong way and it was a pretty awkward date.
So yesterday I saw her in the Talmage building and she didn't even look at me. She did one of those things where you look at the ground and pretend that you didn't know that person was there.

That's so cute... What's your name again?

There's a girl in my ward that I'm rather fond of, and her roommate plays soccer with us, so I've been going over there rather frequently to invite the roommate to soccer practices and remind her of the games in hopes that I'd be able to talk to this girl that I like. Last night I went over there and the girl I liked wasn't there, so I was sitting around talking with the soccer roommate. Then the girl came home, and when she walked in the door she looked around, and went back to her room without talking to anyone, and didn't come back out. Have I been successful in giving the wrong impression about which roommate I'm interested in?

I'm so strong

I think the most embarrassing part about working out is seeing all of the girls that can lift more than me. Some of them even put weights on the bars. Can you believe it? I'm jealous.

Last night I had my first experience being hit on by another guy.
We went to this dance club and I was kinda just leaning up against this counter (just taking a break, of course, since I'm such a dancing fool), and this guy comes up next to me and kind of gives me the look up and down and then says "Hey," to which I naturally respond, "Hey."
So then he stands right in front of me with one arm on the counter behind me (kind of in the Rocky position) and he puts his face like 4 inches from mine and puckers up.
Now I've never done very well under this type of pressure, even with a girl (I'm like a deer caught in the headlights), so I don't know what to do, and I just lean away from him and look at him.
The guy realizes my reluctance and leans back and says "Oh, did you think I was going to kiss you? I wasn't."
Relieved, I say, "Oh, good."
"Why good? Am I ugly?" the guy says, with mock shock.
"Ummm..." is all that I can say. The guy just takes it in stride, though, and laughs that if he were really going to try and kiss me he would take me to the bar and buy me a drink first. "That would be a lot more classy," I say, and we just laugh and give each other rocks like guys do, and he goes off to flirt with Turbo Dave (who's a severe homophobe, and had to leave immediately afterwards).
On an only-slightly straighter note, I saw the prettiest girl ever last night at the same club. Troy said he's seen her there before and that she's a lesbian, so nothing could have happened, even if I weren't too scared to talk to her.

Girl Stories

Am I allowed to write about girls on this thing? I get dumped on by enough girls (and vice versa) that I think it would make my blog a lot more interesting if I were allowed to write about all of my drama. The problem with that idea, of course, is that a lot of my friends read this and there's no telling when the girl(s) that I want to gossip about are going to log on and be pissed that I write about them. After all, it was under just such a situation that this page got opened to the public in the first place.

A Three

I called the girl that I was supposed to go out with tonight, and she told me that she couldn't because she was too busy studying, and that I should call her next semester. She might as well have told me that her hair is so long now that it takes a few weeks to wash it. I deleted her number from phone. Boy, she'll be sorry come next semester.

Accidental Dating

My roommate is really good friends with this girl in the ward, and they studied together for the LSAT and everything, and they spend a lot of time together. She really likes him, but he's not interested in her as more than a friend. Well last night she was over and I asked her if she wanted to go to Final Cut with us tonight, thinking that I'd help my roommate out (against his will) by getting her to come along. Only I forgot a key phrase when I was inviting her: "with us." I think I accidentally asked her out. I hate when that happens.

Oktoberfest

Well, Sam tried to tell this story before I got a chance, but I used my executive override so that I can do it myself.
Last night I went to Oktoberfest over at Sam's apartment complex. When we first got there it seemed like a lame party, but they had free hot dogs and root beer, and I certainly never turn down free things. Then things got better.
Have you ever seen those shopping carts that have the little cars on the front? Well they had two of those and they had an "autobaun race" around the pool in them. Yes, around the pool. In the rain. A race. I was in the cart and Fat Tim was pushing, and he almost pushed me into the pool; it was scary. Then when I was pushing him the people we were racing against crashed and I totally ran into them. But we still lost.
Then they had the Miss Deutchland competition, and they had some crazy obstacle course set up for the girls to run through. The highlight was when these two girls started rolling on the ground wrestling to try and get to milk the "cow" first. But they didn't win. It was an injustice.
Finally, they had a 8 foot by 4 foot German chocolate cake made, and in the cake they had hidden a fake plastic ring. The deal was the whoever found the ring in the cake got $1500 store credit at some jewelry store that was sponsoring the party. When the brought it in all of the guys just dove in it. There were like 40 guys, and we were piled on 4-people deep. I was in it up to my elbows, and by the end I was just covered in cake, and then we hosed each other down to try and get the cake off, so I was freezing and dirty, and I didn't even win $1500. But it was fun.

I went to my first strip club tonight. In Salt Lake City. Two blocks from the temple. I even snuck a girl in that's not technically old enough to go there. I love my menace-to-society status.
My roommate Jordan had his band's first-ever show tonight; the band's kind of a unique mix of different styles: kind of like Ben Folds Five and Maroon 5 were having lunch and Guns and Roses came over to raid the fridge. I thought it was good (although they need a new sound guy: he mixed it all wrong).
Plus, I got to meet his managers and they seemed glad that I was a web designer so that they'd have someone to take advantage of when they needed a web site for the band.
Ok, the band goes through a lot of names and the one they settled on is Carnaby. What do you think of that? I think it's lame, but you should post your opinion so that there can be actual survey results behind my criticism. The other band name ideas they've had are the Pigeons, Solitude, the Fuse, Wax, Sugarhouse, and Red Window.

I ate the best enchilada ever last night. It wasn't even made by a mexican: pretty amazing, huh? More interesting, though, is that I met Dan finally. I have to admit that he's a pretty good looking guy. Good for him. Well, whatever is going on, I just want everyone that reads this to know: I really like cilantro.

I got a new arch-nemesis this week. His name's Dan. I've never actually met him, but he keeps me awake at night.