Basketball injuries and Halloween

Everybody gather round for a super exciting story. Okay, first - look at this picture. Do you see my nose? Do you notice little bits of blood on it? How it's kinda-sorta damaged? Yeah, well... let me explain. So, I had a super hot date this week with an amazing girl - but I was a total jerk. At the end of the night I tried to move in for a kiss - and BAM! she punched me right in the nose with all of her might. I didn't give up easily and went in again - and BAM! Another hit, damaging the side of my nose. I don't know what's up but that girl can bunch in a manner that causes more scraping than normal punches to the face... I'm also not certain why she decided to punch my nose instead of just give me a nice shiner. It must just be her way, I guess. Anyhow, we're going on a second date this Tuesday....

Well, either that or I just made up a story. You guys can decide. In other news, there is a group of us that gathers together to play basketball every Thursday. A few weeks ago I twisted my ankle pretty bad while driving to the basket and landing on my own teammates foot. I actually kinda ended up tackling her, but I got hurt a lot worse than she did so she didn't beat me up or anything. That's only on dates. Despite the pain in my ankle I keep playing, but I have to play with my glasses on because I let my prescription for contacts expire and haven't made a new eye appointment so I can get some more contacts. Maybe I should do that soon, considering that something weird might happen while playing basketball. Something like, say, running into somebody who's arm hits my face in such a manner to cause my glass to flip up and kinda scrape the bridge of my nose. If something like that were to happen I could possibly get a scab similar to the one I got from that hot date last week.... Hmmm - maybe I shouldn't worry about it. That kind of thing seems HIGHLY unlikely. It's much more likely that a girl would punch me in such a manner when I try to kiss her on the first date, cuz that's totally my style, all aggressive and stuff. And after beating me up she would happily accept a second date with me. And I've never made up non-existent female companions for myself before. So you know that nothing like that basketball injury I just described could ever have happened, right?

So - now that we have that cleared up. This weekend was Halloween! I like Halloween.... it's kinda fun. Last year I was the Green Lantern. Because I was the Green Lantern last year I had these sweet spandex tights that I bought so that I could be the Green Lantern, cuz he's a superhero and wears tights. Well, for some random reason, perhaps the proximity to Halloween, this Thursday I decided to pull out the tights and go old school Dwyane Wade on the basketball court. Cuz the tights were totally the coolest thing in the NBA until David Stern got upset and changed the dress code so that he could deny Dwyane Wade that most basic of human rights, the right to wear tights! Fortunate fool that I am, I never made it to the NBA and so David Stern's fascistic rules do not apply to me! Thus, I wore my tights proudly as I played the games of basketball that, if it weren't for that hot date who beat me up, may have resulted in my nose getting scraped. Sadly, I tend to ruin all the nice things I get in life. And my style of basketball tends to be the hussle and dive on the floor style... which may lead to floor burns when not wearing tights and holes in tights when I wear them. That's right, I have a hole in my tights.... The Green Lantern may never rise again - how sad is that?

Luckily, my friend Tara had an idea for a different costume for me this Halloween. I have to admit that I kinda slacked this year and was not prepared at all with about a week before the big day. Well, Tara contacted me on facebook and basically commanded me to be Popeye the Sailor Man (that's right Tara, COMMANDED! mwahahaha [with and m]HA!!!). Well, I kept on procrastinating even after I finally had some idea of what to be and didn't try to put a costume together until Halloween day. Needless to say the result was somewhat less than spectacular as show in the picture to your right. I had to make a makeshift pipe out of a small plastic cup and a drinking straw. I didn't have a proper sailor hat to wear so I borrowed one of my friend Phil's hats. He later gave it to me (that's right, now I have a super sexy hat for my second date with that one girl that may or may not exist). You can't tell in this picture (another picture of me in this costume is rumored to exist, but I have not seen it yet - I may update), but I bought two small tan towels and drew an anchor tattoo on them then used elastic bands to tie them around my forearms, bought me a can of spinach, some navy blue pants that were totally high-water, and a nice black polo shirt to finish the ensemble. Also, I do a terrible Popeye voice. I am ashamed. We had a big ward activity handing out candy to kids and then a dance afterwards - others in this picture include from Left to Right: Melissa Penman, Arianne Barrus, Isaac the Sailor Imitator, Mike Stafford, and Melissa Richardson. Costumes are: olympian, elvis, Isaac, Ron Burgundy?, and pirate - in case you were wondering. After the dance some people went and watched the Orphanage, an excellent Spanish-language horror film.

In other news we had a semi-Stake Conference this weekend. Because President Packer came two weeks ago they didn't do the normal Sunday sessions of conference but we did have the adult session on Saturday night. Our ward was supposed to sing and the bishop's wife was really worried about people showing up so I told her I'd try my best to be there. In one of the all time tragic moments of my life a friend from the ward had an extra ticket to go listen to Tony Blair speak! I was crushed as I had to keep my promise to Sister Levin and miss out on THE Tony. I have some interesting Tony Blair anecdotes to share - but I'll save those for another day. PS - my nose hurts a little bit. Not as bad as when I think I broke it though.