saliva

Towns in Utah have names that seem normal but are really weird. Like Salina (pronounced like Saliva) and Scipio (pronounced like Sip-e-o). I think they are trying way too hard to be different. 

But, there are some great things about towns with weird names.

 Like sometime they have stores called Burns Saddlery where you maybe buy a vest and share it amongst the four of you. 

And sometimes they have restaurants called Famous Mom's Cafe where famous people like Chuck Yeager have eaten. But sometimes they also have creepy little shops that smell like cigarettes and the walls are covered in hand prints and the owner just stares creepily at you the whole time you're there and you're glad there are four of you there all together instead of just one of you. 

Also sometimes it rains the whole time you are there. 

But always it is worth the trip because you have drawn fake mustaches on your fingers and purchased a Bruce-like vest and drawn up a list of rules (numbers 1 through star) regarding the keeping and sharing of the vest that will dictate the manner in which you will be connected forever. Or, at the very least, for the next 4 months.

bruce

Today was my creative writing final. We all sat around, ate pizza, drank sketchy Bruce-made punch and swapped war stories. Some were true and some were fictive, but all (well, mostly all) were enjoyable. My favorite was a tale (a true one?) about the beauty of roadkill. It was deadly serious. Also loved were a waking dream about a special-ops clown and poem about colored people. Oh how I will miss Conversations with Bruce.

hilarity

Do you ever think that you are really funny but no one else seems to think that you are as funny as you think you are? This happens to me often. It used to happen to my brother Brinden all the time. A classic example: As a young child, Brinden enjoyed making up his own knock-knock jokes. He loved them. Usually he laughed so hard at the mere thought of the joke he had just crafted that he wouldn't even be able to tell the whole thing because he was laughing so hard. One I remember (or possibly mis-remember) went something like this:

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"A lion who's in the bathtub with a cake on his head and then someone comes in and there are bubbles..." He trails off as his laughter increases from small giggles to body shaking gafaws (the sounds people make when laughing are quite hard to spell). As Brinden would laugh everyone else would just gaze at him with with looks of concerned wonder on their faces.

As Brinden has gotten older his jokes have gotten better. Like once at dinner he told us a story his friend had told him about a girl at a camp where she was a counselor. The camper was named Jessica, but preferred to be called Miss Shale (M-I-S-S, Shale). When he told the story and he quoted Jessica, excuse me, Miss Shale, he spoke in a fantastic black American accent that had everyone laughing. (It's not racist if that's how she talks—you know what I mean.) Then he continued to speak like that the whole rest of dinner. He is a crack up.

I guess I think of myself more as clever than funny. I like to say things that people have to think about for a second before they laugh. Sometimes I explain the joke and I think that's really funny ("Get it? Because Bruce wears a vest.") but usually I'm the only one that laughs at that part. Karim says that my dad and I tell smart people jokes. She doesn't usually get them so what does that say? 

Fun fact: if someone says something that you don't think is funny but was supposed to be, you can fake laugh like so: ar ar ar or op op op. (Although, I must say that some people find it offensive. I myself find it regular, says Megan.)

Sometimes when I am walking home alone I think back on my day and, in remembering something I either said that was funny or should have said that would have been funny, I smile really big and laugh out loud and I wonder if anyone thinks I am crazy. I know that Steph would because everything is better if you pretend that everyone you see is a member of an insane asylum. You should really try it.