Oh, the Pudding.

Warning: This 'un is a tad bit long. (Understatement).

Oh, the Saturday.

I have locked myself in my room, so that I can do homework.

Of course, I have my Internet browser in Gmail, as always. I hover over my poor inbox like a vulture, hoping for an email from someone, anyone. I also have iTunes up, and I am listening to my usual batch of music.

I am busily working on calculus, and I am getting tired. Tired enough to fall asleep... I turn my music up louder and get back to working. Sluggishly.

Dink.

I open my eyes, and wipe the calculus off my face.

Dink.

What is going on?!?!

Oh. The Google chat. Ryan is talking to me.

We chat about random things for about fifteen minutes as I do calculus. The good thing is, I am now awake. This is why I keep my chat open when I'm working... harder to fall asleep that way.

Then, rather abruptly, he asks if I'd like to go on a walk.

I should have seen it coming, really. I mean, he was kind of asking about what I was doing... and how busy I was. And if I had devoted the entire night to goofing off just yet. So maybe the walk question wasn't as abrupt as I thought it was.

Immediately after asking if I'd like to go on a walk, he starts talking about random other things, like haircuts and such. I think he was half-hoping I hadn't noticed the line asking me to walk with him. The thing is, I told him I would walk with him. But he continued talking about haircuts for another few minutes until he finally noticed what I had said about the walk, at which point he says something like, "Wait... did you say you WERE up for a walk?"

Silly boy. We decide he'll meet me at the bottom of my back-door stairs, so I grab my keys and tell Jackie that I'm going.

Unfortunately, sly little Jackie asks exactly the wrong question. "A walk? With who?"

"Er... Ryan..."

Jackie pretty much explodes with energy. "A DATE! ANOTHER TALLY MARK!" See, we have a little white board in our kitchen where we keep track of how many dates we've been on. I had three tallies. Jackie prances over to said white board and happily puts a fourth tally mark by my name. I blink. I hadn't actually thought of it as a date.

So, stubbornly, I make my way to the board, and erase the tally mark. "Not a date."

"Well, did he ask you?"

"Yeah. Just now."

"It's a date!" She marks it up on the board again. I erase it again, and walk out the door,knowing full well that I'll have to erase it again when I got home... whenever that might be. I didn't see the sense in counting it as a date. I mean, it wouldn't have counted as a date if it had been Clifton, or Will, or any of my other guy friends. Silly Jackie.

Even with the Tally Mark War, I got outside first. When Ryan comes out of the neighboring hall and sees me already standing out there, he runs over.

Oh, the pudding (translation: oh, the adventure). Ryan decides to show me some fun stuff. We start by exploring Upper Heritage (we live in Lower Heritage). He seems to have a particular destination in mind at first. This destination ended up being Whitney Hall... which had a spectacular Peanuts mural in the window, the best by far depicting Lucy as BYU and Charlie Brown as Utah. Of course, Charlie Brown had tried to kick the football, and Lucy had stolen the football just as he was about the kick. It was amazing.

Then we explored on the inside. We discover that in addition to having four floors instead of three, Upper Heritage Halls also have more washers and dryers, a larger sundeck, and a nicer and bigger piano room. We sneak around stealthily and make our escape from the strange alien building from the basement door.

Now we make our way west, to the pretty little path alongside the stream near the bell tower. We stop at what Ryan says is "his bench." He tells stories about his EFY adventures and chasing ducks around. He even had a video of duck chasing on his phone that we watched. I think we both would have been up for some duck chasing had the ducks not moved to the other side of the stream (smart ducks).

Upon my comment, that I hadn't ever actually touched the bell tower, we climbed the stairs to it. We decided it would be fun to climb up it if we had been ninjas. However, since neither of us had enough ninja skill to climb up it, we moved on to the Bean Museum. We were going to go inside, but I figured out that it closed in ten minutes and that it wouldn't be very nice to scare the workers in there.

We moved on to a curb in between the ruins of Deseret Towers and the Museum. Apparently this curb also belongs to Ryan, again, because he spent time there when he came up for EFY.

Then... the deserted Deseret Towers. Ay, where there once stood U and V Hall, now stood two large piles of dirt. How sad. We wanted to explore that, but decided it probably wasn't safe and went around it to the Morris Center. It is surrounded by large piles of red leaves, obviously neglected by the landscaping crews. We peer in through the window. Weird. It's all... empty and spooky. We proceed over the remaining four towers, and look inside. Apparently, this is where Ryan lived when he came up for EFY and it was sad for him to see all the furniture thrown out the windows. There were large fences around the three northernmost towers, and we would have scaled it and explored in there had there not been a sign on the fence warning of a $300 fine.

Well, that's when we decided to move on. We passed the Morris Center again, and then walked past the Marriott Center to where Helaman Halls was. We didn't explore that, but instead saw the new Hinckley Center and decided to explore that. Unfortunately, that was closed (it WAS a Saturday). So...

That's when I decided to show Ryan around the JFSB. That's where I work every morning. He was thrilled about there being two computer labs in there that he didn't know about. I showed him a nice little study area with an expensive Persian rug. He wanted to go up the balcony on the top floor, but it was locked, sadly. Then... on the top floor, we saw that there were stairs still going up. Ooh! We stealthily climb up those and try the door at the top, but that is locked too. I'd imagine that actually led to the roof-roof. I'll never know I guess.

After that, we explored the library. Ryan knows a lot more about the library than I do... besides the SWKT, that's practically where he lives. We explored the moving bookshelves, and he showed me his favorite study spots. Then we found the little model of the entire BYU campus. It's amazing how detailed that thing is. Amazing.

We were about to ascend up the stairs again when we saw a humongous picture of BYU. Of course, we had to go back down and look for places we knew on it. We found the Creamery on Ninth... and thus we found our places near it. Ryan knew a whole lot about the Creamery... apparently it used to be called Carson's Market, and his dad used to work there. After that, we looked up and saw through the Atrium glass that it was dark outside.

We decided to go home. But then, as we passed the Wilk, Ryan decided he had to show me the Memorial Room too. We went in there, but we could see next door that something was happening. So we left. Then we walked home. Ryan gave me two hugs (the second was better than the first), and then I walked up the stairs and into my apartment. No one was home. At all. I shrugged, reduced my tally marks to three, looked at the clock and... Ahhhh! That walk was two and a half hours. Sick.

Not sure what to do now, I sat down at the piano and started playing. Someone knocked. I opened the door. It was a pair of Jackie's friends from Helaman Halls from her home ward. They came in. A few minutes later, Jackie came home.

Here comes the funny part (at least in my opinion).

And then, as I re-entered my room after a long break from calculus, Jackie tackled me. She grabbed me by both shoulders, and gave me this strange, intense look. "What. Happened."

I blinked. "Uhhh... we walked..."

"AND?"

I wondered what that was supposed to mean. I explained that "nothing" happened and I only got a hug, supposing she meant something along those lines.

She let me go, but she was still giving me those suspicious looks.

Well, I confronted her about it later. Here's the dealio according to Jackie. Her friends had been "spying" on Ryan and I and had told her a tall tale about how we were making out, as a practical joke on Jackie (she is very gullible sometimes). Silly people. My reaction to this little rumor was a mixture of shock and laughter, which eventually ended up on my face as a raised eyebrow. No wonder Jackie was so confused and freaked out. :)

But no, the apartment rumors didn't stop there. I don't know if any of you have ever lived in a building full of girls, but if you say something about a guy, it isn't long before the whole building knows about it and has made it gospel. So... guess who happened to be half-eavesdropping? Ashley.

In this case, half-eavesdropping is more deadly than full-eavesdropping. Because guess what key words she'd pick up if she wasn't listening all the way? "Jenna..." "Ryan..." "making out..." "walk..." "Nooooo!'

So Ashley perks up in her chair and exclaims with a gleeful look on her face, "What? Jenna and Ryan went on a make-out walk?!?!? Oooohhh...."

At this point, I have my face buried in my hands while simultaneously trying frantically to make it absolutely clear that nothing happened whatsoever.

So Ashley knows it isn't true. But... Ashley and Rochelle happen to be the kind of people who don't care if it's true or not. If they think something is funny, they'll spread word about it regardless of its verity.

By some miracle, the "make out walk" rumor disappears after that. Thank the heavens above. Until...

It's Sunday night after midnight, when Jackie gets home from a late night solo walk. She had been talking on the phone with a guy friend. But she was all alone. Immediately, Rochelle, Ashley, Christina, and I pounce on her. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! Walking alone talking on the phone to a guy...

The latter phrase evolved slowly from "walking alone on the phone with a guy" to "walking alone talking to a guy" to "walking alone with a guy." I am so upset with Jackie's lack of safety precautions that I haven't noticed this transformation of situations that we are denouncing...

All of a sudden, someone in the frenzy yells, "WELL THEN! If we going to punish anyone for walking alone with a guy, it should be Jenna! TWO AND A HALF HOURS WALKING ALONE WITH RYAN!"

All eyes are now on me, venomous, and yet gleeful at the same time. Ooh, not good. Ashley pipes up, "Oooh, and they were making out!" Ooh, definitely not good. Not good at all.

At this comment, the venom disappears and the glee of new-found gossip takes over, causing a large explosion of "WHAT?!?!"s and "REALLY?!?!"s. Jackie's sins are forgotten completely. Now mine are foremost in everyone's mind.

I vehemently deny that I made out with Ryan. Vehemently. And just when I thought I had convinced them, Christina butts in slyly. "Wait a minute. You keep saying 'I didn't make out with Ryan...' What about him? He made out with you, didn't he?"

At the uproar that follows this little snakebite, I flip into the hallway. Now pressed against the wall, I shake my head and mutter, "No, no no no no no no..." At this point, I decide most fully that I do not like girls' senses of humor. Especially when it comes to guys.

So now I wonder... was the pudding worth its price?

Mini-Story

Hallelujah!

I am done peer-editing Erik's paper after much procrastination. Erik wasn't there... but Roy and Ian were, and I said goodbye as I happily skipped down the stairs of Shipp Hall, the men's hall in my ward.

I make it safely to the ground floor. This is quite an achievement for me... I'm not much for agility or grace.

I burst out the front door of the Shipp into the cold, but I am elated. And then.

Without any warning whatsoever.

I am soaring through the air, almost gracefully. I mean the only oppositional force acting upon me here was the gravitational force (and perhaps a negligible air resistance), so my center of mass executed a perfect parabola... until my knee hit the concrete, sending me into a spectacular somersault onto the grass, where I land, spread eagle, facing the Shipp.

The grass is quite cool and comfortable. I am slightly bewildered as to how I got there though. I tilt my head up at the Shipp and inspect my surroundings. A teeny little set of three stairs in front of the hall wave at me gleefully. I suppose it's not often such a small fleet of stairs gets a victim. I was thankful that there was only one passersby at the time.

I don't remember my foot hitting the pavement, but now my shoe is sporting a large hole where my big toe should be. My palm is also stinging.

I get up clumsily, and after regaining my balance, I skip the remainder of the way home. Once home, I pull up my pant leg and inspect my knee.

Ooh, a skinned knee!

I clean my wounds with Rachel looking on. We decide my unfortunate fate had something to do with waves of manliness (or perhaps gorgeous) that hit me from behind, causing me to splat on the pavement.

Moral of the story: All those guys in the Shipp should be a little less manly and/or gorgeous for my safety.

So.

I haven't sent off an email for like...two weeks. Two whole weeks. As these two weeks were happening I thought they were quite boring. But I guess I might have a few mildly interesting stories. Maybe.

As with all my stories, all the details are probably not exactly accurate. But I have to make it interesting somehow.

Well, I haven't said anything about that dance I went to with Ryan... I guess I'll write about that. It was last... Saturday. Yes. I do believe that is right. Rachel and Clifton as well as Hillary and Robert decided to join me and Ryan and make a six-some group. Intrigue and excitement. And, since it was girl's choice dance, us girls were in charge. However, neither Hillary nor Rachel seemed particularly thrilled about planning anything for a dinner... So... I decided to make spaghetti and garlic bread and all that exciting stuff. I called up the boys and told them all when to show up... and then I started my work.

It was like an intricate symphony -- everything had to be timed perfectly. Well, I got the meat and the sauce and the noodles timed perfectly. Even the garlic butter ended up right on schedule. I got the butter on the bread and stuck it in the oven at the right time... and then I forgot about it while I made the finishing touches on my spaghetti recipe. I was quite proud of myself. Except for that burning smell. It was really annoying and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was burning. And then it dawned on me as I set the table...

Oh yeah. Garlic bread.

It would have been divine garlic bread if I hadn't forgotten about it. I had made the perfect garlic butter, and smeared it nicely on the perfect loaf of garlic bread from the Creamery.

I opened the oven door in panic ... and there was the blackest bread I'd ever seen in my life. Along with a billowing cloud of black smoke. Just then I heard a knock on the door. Looking furiously at the clock, I see it's about time for the boys to show up. I dash to the kitchen-hallway door just as Rachel opens the hallway-lobby door... Rachel doesn't have time to greet Ryan or Robert (both were standing there, looking in quite inquisitively) before I blurt out at her, "Rachel! Don't let them in! Keep them in the lobby! Stall!" I don't see Robert's face at all after that, but I caught a glimpse of a bewildered expression on Ryan's face before I slammed the kitchen-hallway door shut in order to prevent the smoke detector from going off.

My cooking-fire-response-team mode has kicked in. However this response-team-member and the cook in me are having a huge argument. With the oven safely turned off, I open the windows, open the back door, prop it open with a chair, turn on the fan (quite useless really, but just in case it helps...). Then I get the Febreeze (for lack of real air freshener) and spray the kitchen down). I stir the sauce, finish setting the table, and then...

I make my out to the lobby. That's where I get some very confused looks from Rachel, Hillary, Robert, and Ryan (sooo many R's!). I was confused too... so... I resorted to a grin. "Garlic bread," I said. "I put it in the oven. Then I forgot about it." That seemed to explain all. I went back into the kitchen, where it smelt faintly of smoke. I heard a knock on the back door. In came Clifton, who informed me it didn't smell like smoke any more... So... I retrieved the others from the lobby.

I wasn't breathing very well. The mad cook in my head was hitting me over my real head for that garlic bread mistake. So, I was starting to grow a bump through the top of my skull... and I pretty much did. I shoveled spaghetti onto six plates... and then I sat at the table. And I couldn't sit still. The mad cook in my head was distracting me (wouldn't you be distracted if you had a mad Frenchwoman screaming about your stupidity and your ignorance relentlessly?). Eventually the spaghetti on the plates disappeared, and the dishes disappeared soon after that.

Now came the fun part... getting to the dance.

So. Three couples = six people. One car = five seats. ... ... Five seats = six people? Yes. That seems about right. Trust me, I'm a math major. Six very small and sardine-like people, though. Rachel and I get in the middle. Then Ryan and Clifton come in on either side. SQUISH. Wow, that's pretty much... wow. I never realized how valuable the air was until I couldn't breathe it. The four of us struggling in the back, Robert gets in the passenger seat, and Hillary gets ready to drive. She looks quite pale. ... Very. She's obviously quite nervous about driving people all the way to Heber.

After about an hour of reciting the Muppets, having a This-Is-The-Song-That-Gets-On

-Everybody's-Nerves (Clifton & Rachel) vs. Yellow-Submarine (me & Ryan) duel, breathing in crazy rhythms, giving one of Ryan's friend-girls advice about college application essays (don't write about chickens) via a cell phone, and even some Yu-Gi-Oh impressions, we finally find the train station.

Yes, the dance is on a train. Really, great fun. I pretty much pretended to dance, although I'm sure it was quite obvious I had NO idea what I was doing. Ryan pretty much did know what he was doing and put me to shame. Hillary also shamed me with her dancing skills.

The ultimate shame came when Ryan, Clifton, and a towel started dancing. Yes, that's right. The Towel Dance, which words cannot describe. Oh, how I would have died for a video camera right then. Yes, died. It would have been worth the camera. We danced for awhile. Or at least everyone else danced, and I had a few arguments with my feet, who resisted every possible dance move that came up in my mind.

Then the six of us moved off to the seating cars, getting hot chocolate and cookies on the way over. Rachel, Clifton, Hillary, and Robert commandeered a group of four seats. Ryan and I sat across from each in another group of four seats. I was quite content (how could I not be, sipping hot chocolate?) and had my legs propped up on the seat next to where Ryan was sitting. I think we were all talking about something random. And then Ryan got up and grabbed my feet (presumably to move them when he decided he'd rather sit next to me than across from me). Now, recall that I had an argument with my feet earlier. Here I pay the consequences, for both feet had sworn an oath to neither listen to or talk to me for the remainder of the night. I will my legs to bend; they do not. Instead the rest of me tilts. Which results in hot chocolate all over the front of the man-shirt I happened to be wearing (Ryan and I dressed up as Gilligan and Skipper, respectively). The warmth all over my front triggered the mad laughter/giggle mechanism, quite involuntarily. Ryan finally ended up where he'd like to sit. I ended up making better friends with Clifton's dancing towel.

Well, after the chocolate had partially dried, the seating situation kind of led to Ryan and I having our own conversation (there was sooo much distance between us two and the other four... we couldn't hear each other's dialogue). I can't remember what it was about for the life of me, but I think it was interesting. At some point the other four left (not sure when that happened... they were sooo far awaaayyy) and then a slow song came on, and Ryan decided to teach me how to slow dance.

I was more hesitant than I usually would have been I think... the last experience trying to cooperate with my feet didn't end well. After I got over the initial shock that my feet were begrudgingly cooperating somewhat (they must have decided I got what I deserved with the hot chocolate incident), I was able to look up... kind of... 'cuz Ryan was right there and that meant I'd have to look right at him. Which would have been a lot easier if he didn't have such nice eyes, truthfully. It would have been easer to dance with Clifton because he has blue eyes (I think?). Anyway, I think I should get lots of bonus points for learning a life skill (that's slow dancing). And Ryan should get bonus points for teaching me.

Eventually we found the other four back on the dance floor. We all danced a little more, and then we ended up back in the seating section. This time Hillary and Robert got to be the lone two. Clifton, Rachel, Ryan, and I had some random fun bobbing our heads in time, debating who in our rooms would get married first (unfortunately, I was placed pretty close to first... I personally don't think that's going to happen. I'm determined to go on a mission...). The train eventually ended up back at the station, and we all piled back into Hillary's car.

Rachel, I think, was the least comfortable this time. She was the only one we didn't manage to get into a seatbelt... so Clifton, Ryan, and I threw our arms around her to, uh... secure her? It was pretty much amazing. As time wore on, hands drew back until no one was holding Rachel steady (I think Ryan was last to move his arm... Least selfish of all us?). So, I guess, if we had gotten into an accident, Rachel would have died. How sad. Well, we called Jackie before midnight to avoid getting "grounded" and then... and then I got really tired. Rachel had a very comfortable shoulder on my left, as she was a little elevated due to the close quarters. Ryan had a comfortable hatted head on my right. I tried both out as pillows and decided that Rachel's shoulder won. Rachel, your shoulder is amazing. If you were taller in real life, I'd be using it as a pillow all the time.

We eventually got home, and piled out of the car. I got a few nice hugs (yessssss) and we all went to bed.