“Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.”

My nose is raw from repeated blows. You always think tissues are soft and gentle until you have repeatedly wiped your nose with them. Each time it feels like a lower and lower grit of sand paper. By the end of the day I’m somewhere at 30 grit (gravel glued to the paper). But other than that I’m feeling much better and work wasn’t too bad. Of course it’s hard to complain about going to work when you haven’t been in four days.

Now, fresh out the door from work I get a call from my good friend 1220 (Izzo, Heath, H. Thomas Bryant, call him what you will) letting me know that some friends of his are going to go see Napolean Dynamite. Not wait in line for a free screening and then end up going home unfulfilled like so many teenagers Saturday night mind you, but really going and seeing the movie. It was in regular release now and so I figured, “Finally go see a funny movie, I have greatly anticipated, with a best friend?” I love Mike Tyson’s punch out, but it will still be waiting for me when I return to Castle Greyskull. So I am off to Sandy to team up with Izzo. It lightens the load when I only have to drive to Sandy. Alhough I can’t imagine having to commute that everyday. What some people do in the name of “Bro”-dom .

The movie was hilarious. Although I found I had to tell myself to relax and just enjoy it. I have found that people who have a heightened sense of humor, which is to say that people tend to think they’re funny, often can be very selective of what they find funny or allow themselves to laugh at. It was typified in a “behind-the-scenes” special I saw about Saturday Night Live. When all the cast members meet to pitch there skits and ideas to the rest of the cast and most importantly Loren Michaels Wednesday nights, nearly every cast member and writer mentioned to the interviewer that you try to never laugh at someone else’s stuff. It’s as though by laughing at someone else’s jokes or acts, you are saying they are good and better than you, but if you don’t laugh you are somehow...better. And often I find myself caught up in some sort of twisted comic elitism. Particularly odd since I’m not even a comic. But I relaxed and just enjoyed the movie. It was quite funny.

After the movie we dropped off Heath’s friends and it was still early enough and we both had the munchies. So what do you do when you and a buddy have the munchies and want to just chill. You ‘stoop.’

\Stoop\, n. [D. stoep.] (Arch.) Originally, a covered porch with seats, at a house door; the Dutch stoep as introduced by the Dutch into New York. Afterward, an out-of-door flight of stairs of from seven to fourteen steps, with platform and parapets, leading to an entrance door some distance above the street; the French perron. Hence, any porch, platform, entrance stairway, or small veranda, at a house door. [U. S.]
       -- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

‘Stooping’ is a long lost forum for fraternal dialogue and exchange. Seemingly forgotten are the days of young men and boys passing the afternoon and evening hours away on the entry way to a local housing establishment or community market, talking about the joys and excitements of life (girls and money) as well as lamenting and consoling one another on the daily pressures and problems of life (girls and money). Well not for me. I still love a good ‘stoop.’ And my ‘stoop’ is a little franchise called 7-eleven. I’ve been going for there for over a year. They even have them in Hong Kong. But last night I was not in a foreign land, I was in Sandy, Utah. (Which now that I think about it, can be about as foreign as China). Izzo and I sat on the curb in front of that 7-eleven and we just talked. Like I’ve said before, it’s like therapy. You have someone to confide in and talk about things openly with. Not judgemental or authoritative, often times simply a sounding board for your thoughts. And what makes it great is Heath thinks like I do, analogously. Comparing situations to everything from Off-Track Betting to Aerospace Communications. Perhaps what I like most of all is that many times talking to Heath is like having a conversation with a part of myself. You learn a lot when you talk to yourself. And besides...

...I like myself.