Back by popular demand, another dating story:

As you get older you learn that certain things appeal to you. Frankly this always surprised me to find out because it seems like you should just like everything or like nothing, but that concept that certain things are just instrinsically pleasing to one person and not to another is puzzling to me. Anyway, I have learned that I like (among many other things of course) two things: philosophy and South Africa. Hence my tendancy towards LD debate, public speaking and education and then to movies like "The Power of One" and speaking S. African accents as well as dating two guys (both white) from S. Africa. This story miraculously combines the two. :)

So I took Philosophy 202, winter 2000something from a professor named....hmmm... Art Stewart? I want to say, hmm... don't remember but you would know him if you knew him (that made sense). He had a very interesting accent and very original speaking syntax. He speaks..... with emphasis.... on.... certain words..... that makes.... you somehow pay attention.... to those.... words. It's hysterical. His class was brutal and as soon as class started you were madly scribbling notes in an effort to keep it all straight in your head as he rattled on about all this info that surprising all made sense in the end. Some of the class was devoted to discussion but mostly it was just lecture and then writing papers (which had to be perfect--our TA was a Nazi)

In this class was a very interesting person. Everyone knew Brigham because well, he stood out. He was tall and skinny with dark hair and he wore these pants--he had 3 or 4 pair--that were painted in all these funky ways. Like one pair was white with pink and red designs down the leg. (he's wearing them in the picture but you can't really see it that well)  He would wear regular shirts with them but his jeans, were just, original.

So one day, walking back from class--the furthest building out at BYU, Brigham and I fell into conversation. He was interesting and tall and funny and hey, spoke with the dreamiest South African accent ever. So this continued for a few days, and things were progressing nicely.

Then that next week, they had the Multicultural Week at BYU and Brigham was in charge of the South Africa booth. I went to visit him one day and we were talking as we sat at this booth all arrayed with S. African stuff. A man came up to the booth and Brigham stood up to talk to him a few feet in front of the booth, leaving me still sitting AT the booth. Another guy walks up to look at all the stuff and starts asking me questions. Now a note here: One of my talents seems to be accents. Put me around someone with one for a bit and I can imitate them very easily. This comes out in everything, but it's particularly fun with Spanish which has many more accents to play around with. I had many a person comment back in the day when I was dating Chileans and working all day with Mexicans that my Spanish was a very interesting mix of elements. Anyway, back to the story... So being around Brigham for a few days now, I totally pull off the accent and talk to this guy who asks where I'm from exactly and what my favorite team is there. He seems satisfied finally and walks away, leaving me DELIGHTED with myself that he believed I was from South Africa. My little prospect Brigham was equally impressed when he got back and we went out to lunch (HA I earned that one..lol)

Brigham and I finally did go on a date. Two official ones in the end. The first one, was rather... interesting. He picks me up and we go to the English Club's annual party. He says he figured I would know all kinds of people there and would just love it. Well, I didn't because I really hadn't started the actual English portion of my degree yet, I was still in the GenEd stuff and so I didn't know a soul. We watched a movie I hadn't ever heard of and ate chips. Gratefully, we left afterwards and got ice cream and talked and things turned out okay.

That next week we hung out every day and almost every day Brigham had something for me. One day it was this type of candy that his parents had sent him from SA. It was chocolate on the outside but like spun green sugar candy on the inside. Kinda like a green crystal. Anyway, it was good but even better when you took it and used it as a straw to suck milk through. You ended up with a type of minty chocolate milk and kinda a cool experience. Another day he fed me a Vegamite sandwich, which was pretty good too. Another day I told him I couldn't see him because I had a 10-page research paper due the next day and I hadn't even started on it (spending too much time with him lounging on the Spring grass apparantly) so he brought me cookies so I could "keep my strength up" he tells me. By all accounts, he was a sweetheart to me.

So that next weekend, we go out on another official date. This time we go to this play thing at that one theater there in Provo. It's a little theater where you sit there and the actors are like walking around you doing the show. It was pretty good. Brigham seemed to think that I was this really fanatic English person apparantly so he would try to come up with this English type stuff to please me. It kinda worked. Points for effort at least....

Anyway, finally we go to Burger King--the one right there on Bulldog and University--I always laugh whenever I go by it... Where I told him, hey, can we talk? Sure he says and smiles. He tells me later that he thought to himself, she's going to tell me how much she is in love with me. I'll just sit here and be cool. So go ahead he tells me. Well, I say, I have really enjoyed this week but I have this problem. I think that this is a lot more serious for you than me. I just think you're cool and fun to be with but that's it and if I'm right, it's a lot more than that for you. I didn't want to give you the wrong impression. He was, needless to say, shocked to death that I wasn't spouting my undying devotion and we talked a bit more and he took me home. The weekend passed and Monday morning Philosophy class comes around....

Now, again, this class requires you to scribble furious notes and there is Brigham, sitting ahead and forward of me, not his usual seat, and he's just sitting there. No notes, no anything, just sitting there as the lecture goes on and the rest of us are taking notes. I keep looking at him weird and he is just kinda looking at me and I'm thinking, what the crap is he doing??? Finally I look up and he is writing something. Good... But then to my dismay he holds it up for me and on his paper is written in big letters "No Woman, No Cry" I just glared at him. He did that three or four times but that's really the only one I remember. I was (as HM would say) BURNT!!! I finally just put my hand by my eyes and ignored him the rest of class. He held up several more signs but I just ignored him until the bell rang and I stormed out. He finally caught me halfway back to the main campus and I was furious. Finally I walk to my bike and by this time we were kinda talking but I was more like yelling at him. Don't remember what I said really, I was mad except that at one point I said, "Brigham that was CRAP!!!" and he flinched. At that moment I remembered that the word "crap" in SA is a cuss word and I felt bad. :)

At this point my memory fails me how the rest really worked out. Brigham is a FANTASTICALLY good web designer and he had a website that chronicled all his past girlfriends and the stories associated. It was pretty funny and I wish it was still up. Now he has his adult married one I found: http://www.brighamgriffin.com/ so you can see he's way good at designing but unfortunatly the old girlfriend site is no long up. Sad... I had a whole page dedicated to how heartless i was. It was cool. Even had a picture of me up there that he took one Sunday afternoon at the park. He gave me a copy so I can post it but that's all that remains. I used to have friends who knew us both come up and say "oh hey, you are one of his girls on his site huh?" LOL... funny funny...

Anyway, this story ends interesting. Brigham and I didn't speak for a few months, following the traditional "3 month separation rule," but remained good friends for a long time after that. We would get together at least every few months and talk about our tragic love stories. He dated this girl who was one of my best friend's best friends, named Chia (no clue how it was actually spelled) who served her mission in S. Africa and hence another tragic love story with her that I heard all about, through both my friend and him. Then finally he dates this one other girl, another tragic story and then finally, he meets his current wife.

Now the funky part about all this was going to the reception. Chia, my best friend Brooke, and I go to see Brigham and say congrats and Chia and I just stare at his wife. First off, Chia and I look an amazingly amount alike: tall, blond, slender and kinda the same type of features. We both walk up to his wife and she even SOUNDS like us! So there were the three of us and looking between her and Chia and me, I was like, wow, at least he knows his type!!! We were like three sisters. It was downright trippy. Brigham has always been a sweetheart and wanted nothing more than a wife to dote on so I'm sure he's a great husband.

Anyway, some other interesting details to this story: during our "friends" period, which was actually a period of several years, Brigham and I actually did a lot. We coached a city-league soccer team--actually I think we did that shorty after we met and during the whole drama.(and I can't find the journal that has our official team picture in it and feeling kinda mad about it actually). I remember riding bikes to our game and him pinching my rear and me getting very mad at him over it. LOL.... Anyway, we coached a soccer team and they were awesome. Super kick butt team.

Later he started a band called "Politika" because he said "chicks dug guys in bands." They even did a concert in that open stage place in SLC and I even got a shirt out of it that said "Politika Groupie." (pic is kinda bad but you get the idea).

Also somewhere in there I remember I gave him this note on some register tape--it was this poem or quote thing and I wrote it with marker so that it made the color go all funky with this shadow and anyway, he put it up like a chair guard all around his room.

If I remember right, he even wrote a song about me and our drama and performed it with his band. LOL...

Oh and he also after about a month, or so, gave me this PACKET of papers, all with his picture as the watermark with this funky hairdo, narrating to me how heartbroken he was over me and how he had gone on a quest up into the mountains to find peace... LOL... I still have them if I could ever find that freaking journal...gr... funny funny. Viva South Africa baby...