post the fifty-sixth

This was a day full of seeing Board writers past and present (always a good thing). I studied at the library with Petra for most of the night. I'm always glad to have the chance to do so--it helps keep her from going 'round the bend. That's not something any of us need. I like being able to help people. We ran into L'Afro on the way out. She kept us talking in the library until it was 12:06 and we absolutely had to leave. I spent some time over at Petra's after which I headed home. I decided I was hungry; fortunately Uffish Thought was making ramen and offered to give me some. Who am I to turn down free ramen? I immediately headed over.

I was sitting on Uffish's porch while she was inside fetching some utensils when I saw someone shuffling across the street toward us. He had sort of a wide-eyed stare that completely unnerved me. He also had the air of a drunken person (pun intended). Uffish was quite cordial to him and invited him to sit and talk with us. He seemed friendly enough--he was just really creepy with the way he was speaking and phrasing things. He told us that he was a Presbyterian and that with all the Mormons around one could hardly hear a Hallelujah chorus around here. He felt it was his job to fix that and was going around teaching everyone the Hallelujah chorus. He then asked if we would be so kind as to give him a bit of our ramen. I thought it would be a bit rich of me to offer him some ramen that wasn't even mine in the first place. Uffish was only too happy to give him a bit of ramen (best not to upset a drunk guy) and went inside to fetch him a bowl.

I thought I'd go ahead and introduce myself to him while she was inside. He told me that his name was Joel--although some called him Shaggy. He wasn't quite sure why people called him Joel. If it were his choice he'd just go by the name "Crow." Crow was from Georgia and was telling me about all of the different Greek roots to the city names there (such as Atlanta and Rome). We sat and talked for a while about all sorts of things (all of which were just as random as what he was telling us earlier). At one point he insisted to me that he was a "magic man." That was wild. He even started to sing the lyrics to a Kenny Rogers song to us. He told us that learning this song was his "ticket out of here." Apparently Kenny Rogers will get him out of Provo and into the big time. He ended up singing the whole song to us while finishing off his ramen. After he finished he ended up just stumbling off and singing the song at the top of his lungs. It was all we could do not to burst out laughing while he was still in earshot.

It made for a pretty exciting ending to an already pretty good day.