Planned Obsolescence.

I'm learning a lot while I'm in Provo. Someone came back to Ender's place for a date and said, "I really need to DTR with that girl." Puzzled, I asked the obvious: What's DTR?

Determine The Relationship.

The next day I asked my friend Emma for some other choice acronyms, and she pointed out EC, which stands for Eternal Companion and NCMO (pronounced Nic-Mo), which is Non-Comittal Makeout. As in, we're making out, but it doesn't mean anything. As in, "I think we need a DTR, that was our third NCMO."

Everyone in Provo has their own language for dating, and dating is all about looking for who you will marry. Marriage is on everyone's mind. Dating and the church, as evidenced by this:

The world of Provo is something I only dip into on the weekends, though - all I get to see is the whirlwind of frozen yogurt trips, viewings of Legally Blonde and bike rides to nowhere. I sleep in my terrible cave on the weekends, where my housemates play their instruments loudly into the AM, editing their covers of popular songs to get rid of the sex and swearing.

It's hard for me to explain Provo, except that there is more space than I am used to - space between houses, space on the road, space in restaurants. It makes me feel like I am always early to the party after the constant crowd of San Francisco.

I think I like the road quite a bit more, where road trip songs are taking on new meanings, and we blast This American Life, stand-up comedians, rock and hip hop as we drive from oil well to oil well, conquering the nearly bare ground with our blue dye.

Ender's brother Shawn has joined us, intent on making money for both his grad trip to the Czech Republic and his new baby Phoebe:

There he is with a horny toad we found and named Rocky while we were spraying a vicious little bit of Utah wild called "The Right of Way," or "the Pipeline." It's a gorgeous bit of backwoods Utah cut right into the hills and mountains, but it's a pain - we fill up uncomfortable, thin-strapped backpacks with our broad-leaf killer and hike with an eye out for thistle and tiny yellow flowers; noxious plants that threaten the gas (I assume its gas) pipeline. When we're empty, we trek back to fill our packs, then hike back to where we were.The pumps are hand powered and vaguely like the Ghostbuster proton packs.

Luckily, for the next week, we are truck bound in and around the wild sage of Vernal, amongst mosquito-ridden oil wells. Here's a full view of our truck:

That truck got us into trouble yesterday, when I was driving us home for the weekend and the accelerator pedal decided to suddenly go into cruise control. This is a feature not actually included on this particular Dodge, so I fought the acceleration in a scary bit of downhill valley, looking in vain for a shoulder to pull off on. When we did, we could only get down to the 10 mph in the shuddering car, both my feet on the brake while Ender turned the key to off. The brakes smoked and our hearts returned to normal just outside Heber City, a happening place with an Arby's and not much else. The car is still there, to be fixed on the weekend, ready for our return this coming Monday.

There is no such thing as a normal day in this new life that I've chosen. Every week is something new and strange, be it the extended stay hotel in Vernal where Shawn, Ender and I watch Arrested Development and Hey Arnold, the wild pipeline with its lizards and Subway sandwich breaks, or the oil wells where a bad wind could make us quit for the day:

That's Ender with a neat little gadget, measuring the wind, trying to determine whether it is safe to spray chemical from the back of the trucks. The only thing that's constant is our plaid shirts and sunscreen, a constant question of where we are going to eat (we've got to look forward to something) and sleeping like a stone.

Next post: San Francisco, I Miss You.