Remember the thought barf?

I've got a lot more of that swirling around in my head today.

First, I'm kinda way excited to tell you about hanging out with my Pretend Twitterpation Victim! (I'm getting tired of calling him that but I feel I can't just reveal the identity because then you'd all know. And that'd be embarrassing because I've been pretending to be twitterpated with the assumption I would never get a date with said victim... oh well. Moving on.)
Friday night, when I was (ironically) discussing a 'hypothetical situation' with one of my guy friends which involved Francine and Fritz and what all the confusing stuff was supposed to make Francine think, when I got a text from none other than Mr. PTV.  Remember the cool anonymous note date? With the ninja deliveries and singing in the car? Well he texted to fill me in that he found out one of the recipients of my random note had a birthday that very day! PTV: "Man, Heavenly Father's the MAN!" and then we discussed how cool being inspired is, and how it's kind of cool how you don't even realize that you're acting as Heavenly Father's hands sometimes. :) The gospel is great, and the Holy Ghost is sort of an amazing gift!
Amidst all this texting from Mr. PTV I was still feeling flustered and resentful of the whole dating game and totally not knowing where in the world I stand, or why he asks me out again, or how to not get my hopes up... (I'm a wee bit pathetic. I know. Remind me.) So I threw out the "It's waaaayyyy past my bedtime, so I'll talk to you tomorrow?" line. Which is a classic, because then I don't seem like a little puppy dog drooling over him, AND it has the question mark, so he gets to decide if we talk tomorrow which is more information to go into my Fritz and Francine hypothetical stories.
He said, yeah I totally should talk to him tomorrow and if I was going to drive through Panguitch (once again, blowing cover, one small detail at a time.) then I should definitely stop and see him at work because he would love seeing my smiling, or frowning, face. :p
So I maybe fabricated a more than half empty tank of gas, and a dire need to go to Panguitch to fill it up. ;) I also may have mentioned that, and that I was staying in Hatch last night, and how late was he working?
Long story short, I said maybe I'd have to stop by and say hi when I went to buy gas.
"That sounds like a great plan! Don't change it!" So... I didn't. :p
We visited about nonsensical things while he finished closing at work, and then went over to his house to get a sweater for me to borrow, had a paper air plane contest, in which I failed miserably. Despite my style and form.
"Is it ok if I show you my favorite place in the world?" (Is that even a question?)
"Of course!"
Asks to borrow sister's car. Secretly fills it up with gas, and drives toward Red Canyon.
Forgot blankets, so we froze to death and stargazed at the top of Red Canyon. Bryce night skies are insanely beautiful! In case you wondered. Also in case you wondered it's really difficult to hold still when you reeeeaaaally have to go to the bathroom.
We talked about everything from his mission, to The Alchemsit (which I'll have to blog about later), to things we've learned in life, and views, strengths and weaknesses, missions on earth, and thoughts on the gospel.
Um. How cool is that? We mostly just both rambled about lots of things... but it was awesomely fun. And I think there should be a sequel.
He gave me a cute hug, and told me to text him when I got to my Grandma's cabin safely.
Can I keep him? :p
(Also, he had that look again, which is going to drive me insane. And he said I'm very endearing actually. :p)

Next thought barf...
Recent work stories/quotes. (Because blog posts from me wouldn't be complete without stories that don't mean anything to you but are grandly funny to me. ;p)
Large Italian man, trying desperately to find a discount to help his gargantuan purchase not break him completely: "You are the best! These are my in laws, or else I would say something else to you. You see? Thank you. Never change! You are very kind!" (He got ten percent off as an educator's discount. :p It still wiped out $200.00 from his fancy little wallet.)

A man came through my line at least four times and I had made the comment we'd be old friends by the time the day was over.
Toward the end of my shift, I spotted him grinning and walking toward my register.
"Old friends?" I smiled at him,
"Old friends."
I scanned his items, handed him the bags and he turned to leave, throwing back over his shoulder, "We're leaving now..."
"Well, it was good to be friends!"
He paused, turning back around, "Good to be friends."

"Ooh... and how much for the eyelashes?"
"I think it's Revlon..." I said, after a moment to understand what she meant.
"No, it's genetics!"
blah, blah, blah, handing her a free poster and her bags...
"All that with a smile and those eyelashes! Thank you!"
Some people just make me giggle.

(This one was kind of my favorite. It was a unique experience.)
Before I could even say, "Hi, how are you?" The woman arm in arm with her husband piped up with:
"Thank you for your attentiveness to all your customers! You must see thousands every day!"

"Oh! And what is special about you?"
"... Well, I have four little sisters, I think that's pretty special." She laughs,
"Yeah, that is! And where are you from?"
(Insert answer to her question and small talk about growing up in small towns here.)
The middle aged lady gathered her things up, her husband still silently smiling beside her. "Well thank you. I'm so glad our paths crossed."
And with that, they were on their way!

(Marissa, this one's for you.)
I glanced up a few minutes after the woman and her husband left, and noticed a little girl leaning forward but managing to not fall on her face. Oh! That's a... leash? Holding her up? What in the world??
I promise, the first thing that came to my mind was: "My mother thinkth they're nethethary!"
And I giggled for ten minutes.


Next thought barf. Excerpts from The Alchemist, which I am still digesting, so I feel inadequate to discuss it intellectually. But I do recommend it. It's definitely a 'self aware' type of a book, and makes you think a little. I also find it slightly ridiculous. (I swear that's how most things are. I can't decide if I really love them, or if I think they're obnoxious.)

"...For her, every day was the same, and when each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises."

"I'm like everyone else- I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does."

"He realized: If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world."

"Once again he saw that, in that strange land, he was applying the same lessons he had learned with his sheep.  "All things are one," the old man had said."

"I'd like to build a display case for the crystal," the boy said to the merchant. "We could place it outside, and attract those people who pass at the bottom of the hill."
"I've never had one before," the merchant answered. "People will pass by and bump into it, and pieces will be broken."
"Well, when I took my sheep through the fields some of them might have died if we had come upon a snake. But that's the way life is with sheep and with shepherds."

"The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change. I'm used to the way I am."
  The boy didn't know what to say. The old man continued, "You have been a real blessing to me. Today, I understand something I didn't see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don't want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I'm going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don't want to do so."

"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."

"The camel driver, though, seemed not to be very concerned with the threat of war.
  "I'm alive," he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. "When I'm eating, that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other.  Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now." "

"Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees,"

"That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too."

And with that.
I'm going to try really hard to make it feel like Sunday despite being at work. Any suggestions?