"Pray for adventures." --JD Taylor

Last night I had a totally new and slightly awkward experience. First of all, have you ever noticed how watching a movie is different from watching live theatre? Probably the biggest difference is that in movies, the actors and crew can't hear or see you, so you can say and do whatever you want and be completely candid in your reactions. Unless, of course, one of the actors is in the room with you as you watch. THAT is one of the weirdest experiences in the world, and that's what I did last night. Watched a movie while one of the actors was in the room. As a matter of fact, we were in his house. (His enormous, rich, taxidermy-filled house.) The movie was a short, rather creepy short film called "Dead West." It's also extremely difficult to be objective when you recognize the face of one of the actors as the guy on the couch across the room.
A friend of everyone's in the theatre dept. here, Ryan Wood, recently graduated and went down to Salt Lake to try his luck in the world of church film. And it totally took off, landing him roles in all sorts of things. For all you Mormons out there, he played Hyrum Smith in "The Work and the Glory" movie. ("You've got to stop beating everyone at stick-pull.") He just got done filming for another church movie in which he plays Oliver Cowdry, and they're still filming for the other "Work and the Glory" movies. But since he had a break, he came home to little old Rexburg, ID. In "Dead West," he plays a bank robber/murderer (creepy) and was shot AND hung. Exciting stuff, huh?
All his stories made me want to do the same thing...go down to Salt Lake, get an agent, make church films. How fun would that be? Maybe I will someday.

Second item of blogness, as I was sitting in the living room last night, listening to Brazilian dance music, sipping a virgin screwdriver (that's a drink) and playing "Pop-up Pirate Russian Roullette" by myself, it occured to me what a great day it had been. It was a day off for me and Sarah, and we had planned to go up to West Yellowstone for the day, but decided against it. Around noon, it was so beautiful out that we decided to get in the car and drive to the park on the other side of town. As we were climbing into the car I said "Oh, it's so gorgeous out here! We should have gone to West." She gave me this look and I got this big grin and said "Should we?" She grinned back and said "Let's do it." We ran back in the house to grab some more stuff and took off! It was so much fun. A great drive, and we stopped at the Playmill and said hi to everyone, and then we decided to go for a walk on one of the trails nearby. It was looking a little rainy, so we decided to only take the 1-mile trail. As we neared the halfway point, it started HAILING, so we started running. Life lesson #76a: "Running in hail is painful." We stopped under a tree to rest for a minute, and as we were trying to shelter ourselves and catch our breath, we hear the unmistakable roar of a bear, fairly close to us. We looked around quickly and couldn't see it, but then again, we were alone in the woods and it was hailing, so it was hard to see ANYTHING. We just looked at eachother and said "Let's go." We ran most of the 1/2-mile that was left of the trail, mostly because everytime we stopped to rest, we heard it again. But we made it back alive!
Then, we got home, and I napped and read and played and ate, and then we went to Ryan's.
My good friend JD says to pray for adventures. He learned that on his mission. So I have been, and I can't figure out if I'm having more adventures, or if I'm just realizing more what adventures I do have. Of course, some adventures I could probably do without...adventures like tripping over Alexis when entering Ryan's house and nearly knocking over one of two 3-foot tall vases, which are from 6th century China and cost $75,000 EACH, and which casually decorate the foyer. Then again, no harm was done and it makes a great story, so I'm grateful for the adventure it was.
I challenge you all to pray for adventures...see what happens. Unless of course, you want to live a safe--and dull--life, in which case, carry on as usual.