Where's the butter?

The other day I woke up after pushing my snooze button a few times. I went through my daily routine of showering, dressing, blah blah blah. I bet I take the same number of steps carefully placed in the same spot each morning.

I walked into the kitchen and found my roommate, Darin, rummaging through the fridge while his toast awaited on the counter. He heard me come in and asked, "Have you seen the butter?"

I'm the one that buys butter, so naturally I'm the person to ask when the butter has gone amiss. I don't use the butter too much so I don't typically know where it is. "No. Is it missing?"

"Yeah." Darin pulled his head out of the fridge. We tag-teamed the butter search as I stuck my head in. Top-shelf? No. Middle? Nothin'. Bottom? Notta. The butter was missing. There wasn't anyone else home so we were left in the dark as to the whereabouts of the butter. We started to theorize where it could be. We checked our roommates' rooms (you laugh? We've solved many mysteries by looking in roommates' rooms). Still nothing. Darin joked that knowing Paul, he took it to work (who would take an economy size tub of butter to work?). We munched on our butterless toast. Darin texted our roommates, asking if they had seen the butter. Finally we heard back from Paul. His text read:

"Yeah...About that. I had to butter my muffins so I took the butter with me to work. I figured no one would miss it for a day."

True story. I tell no lies. We didn't see our butter again for a week.

Non-fiction, non-stress.

Why has it been almost a month since I last posted? One word: Finals. But I'm back!

I've always said you can know a man by three things: His collection of books, movies, and music. What about me? Well, aside from the music and movies, let me tell you about the books I like to read.

Most of the books I own are non-fiction. I was once on a date and the girl mentioned that she likes to mostly read non-fiction. I agreed. She said she thinks that's a sign we are getting old. It's true. I rarely see an old person reading works of fiction. I've been thinking, why do I like non-fiction so much? I don't really know. I think it has something to do with the fact that I know what I'm reading really happened. For instance, I'm reading this autobiography by Larry H. Miller. It's keeping my attention better right now than a John Grisham book I started. The Grisham book is by far more riveting. But I'm more riveted to the autobiography. There's something about reading someone's own words about him/herself. It's as close to looking into someone's soul as you can get, I feel.

For instance, I'm also in the middle (I'm "in the middle" of about twenty books at any given point in time) of reading Joseph Smith's journals. People confide to their journals in a way that is unlike confiding even to another person. At one point J.S. says "I feel very well in my mind the Lord is with us but have much anxiety about my family, etc." That sentence says more to me about who J.S. was than a thousand scholarly articles.

I also like to read speeches. I think I like speeches because I don't have as big a commitment when I start a speech as I do when I start a multi-volume work of fiction. The speech will take ten minutes tops to read, then I can move on to something else. If I have a book of speeches, I don't have to start at the beginning if I don't want. I can open to any old speech I want, whenever I want.


Also, I've noticed that I feel more satisfied (in general) when I finish a work of non-fiction. I feel like I've gained something. I read Angels and Demons this summer to see what all the hype was about. It was a good book. I couldn't put it down. But, in twenty years, before I remember what it was about I'll mostly remember that it stressed me out! Each chapter ends in a cliff hanger! I force myself to keep reading so I'm not left hanging, only to be left with another cliffhanger! Ah! When was the last time you read a stressful speech by Winston Churchill? I submit never!