January
Looking down from our camp within the hills, Elon and I scanned the field below, noticing a nomad riding towards us. She was rather shy as we barely heard her murmur, “Ciao.” Her name was Denise Villeneuve (she was a journalist, and was not related to the director). Her horse looked hungry and unhappy, so we shared our final ham bratwurst with her. In what seemed like just two seconds, the horse we had written off as weak suddenly leaped off the hill with such a superb arc, Elon and I could only stare as they galloped away.
February
The first time I played D&D, the storyline involved the top aristocracy calling to impeach the president. The prosecutor, a republican nestled in his large chair, was hoping he could win the case. I watched as an orc named Ronan testified, switching the focus to the vice president. Although the giant veep was a brutish ogre, no blemishes were on his record. He walked slowly onto the stand, wearing a smile and a two-piece suit, looking confident that he could defend himself.
March
Every time I saw Bob Ross, he reminded me of my grandpa Arlo. After considering two other options for his doppelganger (Nicolas Cage or Gene Wilder), I decided it had to be Bob Ross. My brother Ian and I watched over my grandpa, and since he basically spoke no English, I would have to interpret or Ian would never understand him. I’ll always remember when he was cutting my hair while eating and he tripped over his bowl of hummus, inadvertently falling on me. Hair was flying madly in every single direction and as I grabbed a towel, kombucha had already dripped onto the carpet where I had been sitting.
April
Without a doubt I was a huge iPhone fan, but since my iPhone’s screen was broken, I traded it in for an Android. The emojis all looked different and it died in less than one hour (a battery issue, probably). My aunt Angie recommended that I try hard-resetting the phone to fix the problem. Since she’s a tech aficionado, running through her instructions worked perfectly. I treated her to dinner to express my gratitude, and before we took our seats I ordered her favorite item: a rabbit stew.
May
After one week by the Bay of Bengal, Wayne, Ricky, and I headed inland. The snowfall in Kathmandu blinded us. After being near the seawater for days, I couldn’t handle this weather. We finally saw a house in the distance that looked big enough to have an attic or kitchen. After a whole night sleeping in the warmth indoors, which felt sublime, Ricky noticed that there was finally sunlight outside.
June
The summer after college, I was trying to fix my imbalanced diet so I started eating homemade poke and other healthy foods. I decided to do a seven-mile run to my professor’s lab, which was like an urban dungeon filled with cool robots. My professor waddled over to his desk in the back room and showed me a prototype robot that was smart enough to program a language from scratch. Leaning forward in his chair, he used an elaborate galvanometer to measure the current in its malfunctioning circuit. With a series of quick movements, he trimmed a number of wires to fix the problem.
July
If I picked a name from a hat to direct the movie about my life, I hope I’d get JJ Abrams. I was (and still am) a huge fan of him directing Star Trek, taking the crew from Phobos to Neptune and beyond. I think his direction would bring out my normally hidden verve and passion for life. He’d probably have a scene where I high-five someone and exclaim, “I am incredible!” to everyone within earshot of me. With his composer’s help, a song like Pippin's in Return of the King with a flare of horns in the background would make the scene really dramatic.
August
I always wanted to try a physical sport like rugby or kickboxing. I finally got a membership at the boxing gym, but before I could go, I accidentally placed my thumb right onto a sharp nail and injured it. Getting hurt is something that I dread in general, so this was scary for me. I tried to hold my thumb still and mop up the blood, but the wound degraded so I couldn’t box for days. After six days it finally started to bleed slightly less, and after that it got better faster than I expected and I made a speedy recovery.
September
The day after Christmas senior year, I found out my friend got a callback to be an American Idol finalist. As I would learn, he meant to skip the audition because he couldn’t afford the flight, so I decided to forfeit my vacation and take him there in my motorboat. As I was finishing the preparations, we saw a slender otter, damp after emerging from the water. My friend thought that was a good omen, but as we were passing Seattle, I dented the motorboat when a strong gust of wind pushed us into a dock. At first I was worried, but my friend declared, “The hull is secure,” so we pressed on and arrived just seven hours later.
October
Joe, as well as my other classmate named Wade, convinced me to play football, a rather dangerous sport, after the recess bell rang. When we were on defense, Joe would whisper the play that the offense was calling. Wade quarterbacked and took off running towards us so aggressively that it looked like he had major anger problems. Luckily Joe was a macho bartender, so he was able to guard against the aggression and tackle Wade. Wade laid exasperated on the turf as one of his receivers came over to help him up.
November
The restaurant my buddies sent me to had six great condiments. My friend Andres denounced their mustard, but I think he needed more time to savor its taste. Another interesting condiment was made from cucumber, linseed, and tomato. The warm uni chili ketchup was the best; better than most sauces I’d tried before. Other than that their cooking was a sham: burgers were stale and their pizza was cold.
December
Instead of going to class, I would (when possible) duck out and pretend I was at Hogwarts. I would go to the school cafeteria and imagine I was in the Great Hall, even though I was eating Muggle food like donuts, chicken, or apples. I’d paint coins to look like sickles and galleons and store them in a spare cabinet or on top of the counter. I used to make mediocre gin and tonics and call them butterbeers, even though they tasted totally different. My teacher, Mr. Beaumont, realizing I had skipped class five times in a row, told me to say goodbye to the wizards and come back to school.
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