Smurf yourself

Immediate Reaction

2009-05-25T03:37:00.000-06:00

I needed to capture this feeling, because I don't know what it'll have turned into tomorrow....

2:34am

Connie
Hey kid, are you ok?

Robbie
yeah...
talking to ritchie
give me a sec

Connie
I am sorry.

Robbie
ok back

Connie
What is Ritchie going to do?

Robbie
he's driving up there
i don't know if he has a plan
he's going to find out about life insurance

Connie
that's ritch

Robbie
haha “well that's just rich...”
how are YOU doing?

Connie
I am worried about you guys
How about you?

Robbie
yeah, i haven't had any emotional reaction yet at all
i can’t tell if it’s still coming
or if i already did that

Connie
I am worried about money. Sad to say.
That's how I felt when my parents died.

Robbie
yeah. you were getting money from him, huh?

Connie
yes.

Robbie
yeah

Connie
Let me know if you need anything.

Robbie
k. thanks. i think i'll be ok
if he has insurance, then we’ll have a funeral for him, i guess. i don’t know who would come, besides his kids.

Connie
Work starts this next week, right?

Robbie
how did your talk go?
yeah on friday
if there's a funeral, i won't be able to make it

Connie
great. good spirit there

Robbie
and not just because of money
good:)

Connie
That is ok.

Robbie
yeah
i really just didn't like dad, mom

Connie
I doubt that any of your brothers but Ritchie will go

Robbie
nicole will make randy go
if they even have one

Connie
I know. You will grow to love him as life goes on.

Robbie
they asked ritchie what he wanted done. he said to take his organs

Connie
what?!?

Robbie
so weird to be responsible for a body like that
poor ritchie, responsible for dad even now

Connie
They are so worn. I feel bad.
He is pretty shook up

Robbie
yeah. what are they going to use? his liver? heart? brain?

Connie
lol

Robbie
i do love dad
but i'm glad to have him out of my life.

Connie
That is how I felt about my parents.

Robbie
my bishop had counseled me to cut him off

Connie
I still do

Robbie
and it just seemed so cruel
this weight

Connie
sorry.

Robbie
because i worried that if his kids cut him off, he'd kill himself
but he made me so unhappy
and now i don't have to decide that

Connie
I think you can rest easy that he was in a good place when he died.

Robbie
yeah
he says he’s been clean for at least six months now, but you never know
i think so

Connie
And leave it at that

Robbie
i wonder how he died
Could be another suicide attempt. O.D.

Connie
probably a heart attack

Robbie
yeah
he didn’t leave any kind of warning
man
48 years old

Connie
drugs

Robbie
that's so tragic
just wore himself out

Connie
true

Robbie
it's a sad situation
but i feel i mourned him years ago
mourned who he was to me

Connie
we all did.

Robbie
yeah

Connie
You are ok in your feelings

Robbie
anyway, i am sure you are tired.
ha thanks

Connie
Yup. I wanted to see if you were here. Be good.

Robbie
thanks
love ya mom
talk to you later

Connie
I love you. Bye.

2:47am

Big Hate

2009-03-09T23:00:00.004-06:00

My
roommate just sent me a link to a story in this week's TV guide that
deals with the show "Big Love" on HBO. It's so upsetting to me, that
I had to share it with you all and hope you can take a second to send
the people at HBO a note explaining how you feel about this. Here's
what he sent me:

"Many of you may have heard of HBO's television show, Big Love. It
came out a couple of years ago, and it shows polygamous families.
When it first came out, the church came out with a strong statement
against Big Love and Polygamy. You can see the statement here:

http://tinyurl.com/ce2fat

"However, as if the polygamy weren't bad enough, HBO has taken their
unscrupulousness to new heights.
On Sunday, March 15, 2009, HBO will be airing an episode of their series Big Love in which they will be showing individuals dressed in full temple clothing (you can see the
picture right in the TV guide itself).

"You can see the advertisement here (on page 48):

[but seriously, says robbie, be forewarned that you can see sacred
temple stuff even right there in the TV Guide. So that you don't have
to look at it if you don't want to, here's the text from TV guide that
accompanies the picture of Jeanne Tripplehorn in temple clothing:

It’s one thing for Bill and Barb Henrickson’s inner
circle to know they have two other wives at
home…but letting the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints in on the secret? That’s a whole
other story. “It’s almost a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’
policy,” says executive producer Mark Olsen. Their
under-the-radar status will change this week when
Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) faces the consequences
of breaking the rules and is called to an excom-
munication hearing. “We researched it out the
wazoo,” says Olsen, who along with executive pro-
ducer Will Scheffer hired an ex-Mormon consultant
to help the set and wardrobe designers re-create
even the tiniest details. “We go into the endow-
ment room and the celestial room [areas of the
temple], and we present what happens in those
ceremonies. That’s never been shown on televi-
sion before,” says Olsen. Adds Scheffer, “But it’s
not for shock value. It’s really a very important
part of the story.” The decision won’t be without
controversy: According to a church insider, “If they
are in fact trying to emulate those rooms in any
way, that would be extremely offensive. The gen-
eral public is not allowed in our temples yet. Not
even all Mormons are. We consider them very, very
sacred.” Heaven help us. —Rochell D. Thomas

And in case you need to see it for yourself, it's here:]

http://tinyurl.com/bxbmmg

"Please help stop HBO from airing such an offensive show! You can go
to the link below to submit a comment to HBO.

HERE

"It's imperative that we get as many people to voice their complaints
as possible before HBO airs the show. Please pass this information on
to as many people as you can!"

-Kim

I just submitted my response to them. This is what I said:

First let me say that I am a gay Mormon. The Mormon church has done
some things that many find offensive recently. But it doesn't hold a
candle to what you are doing. I can't believe what I'm seeing in the
TV Guide. HBO, you have crossed a line with your depiction of sacred
parts of the temple on your program "Big Love." In the past you have
been much more sensitive, refraining from showing garments and other
things that are sacred to Mormons. But we are in a new era, where it
is suddenly politically correct to disregard the opinions of Mormons
because they sometimes don't align with current popular (at least in
the media, if not among voters) sentiment. I am outraged at your
contempt for a minority group like the Mormons and everything we find
sacred. You may not agree with the LDS church's stances or doctrines
or behaviors, but you should be able to still respect us as human
beings and afford us some privacy.

With disdain,

Robbie Pierce.

At this point, I also feel it's a good idea to point out the response the church has posted. In a way, the main message is just to ignore this. I think they realize that if we create more frenzy at this point, it will only cause more viewership when the thing actually airs. I would avoid big public protests at this point and stick to privately e-mailing HBO and sharing thoughts with friends. The church's response is found here: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma

Sorry 'bout the soap box! I'm not usually one to forward on stuff
like this, but since the show hasn't aired yet, I figured maybe a
large enough response might be effective. Which means this is your
official call to forward this message on to those you love. Up an' at 'em!

Tamra's Adoption Video

2009-01-27T21:14:00.004-07:00

This is a video about my good friend Tamra. She's one of the most wonderful people I know, and this is something very personal and spiritual that she shares. There are so many couples who are looking to adopt, and so few of them ever get the chance, because so many girls end crisis pregnancies with abortions. Here are some things to think about:

Click here!

$$$

2009-01-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Help Evan get a scholarship! He deserves it! And he's close!

State "O" the Union
Brickfish

Banality and a Possible Remedy??

2008-10-25T01:20:00.005-06:00

Stacey (pseudonym for a Chicana student at my work, thick accent): Why haven't you been at work in so long?

Me: I was in a play!

Stacey: You were playing?

Me: No, I was in a play.

Stacey: [dubiously] Ohhhh.

Me: Do you know what that is? A play?

Stacey: [blank look]

Me: Como un drama.

Stacey: [realization dawning] Oh you mean like with puppets! Only with like, people.

Yeah, folks. That's me. The King Friday of the human beings.

Which, actually might not be too far off the mark, since my friend Brett, who suffers from pupaphobia (Yeah, that's the real word for the fear of puppets) was so disturbed by the picture of me in my "Seussical" Grinch costume that he asked me to remove it from my Facebook profile. I figure I tricked him into watching "Labyrinth" with me, I can oblige him this once.

But I open this post with that conversation primarily to introduce the idea of saying really dumb things. I'm not talking about dumb like what Stacey said, but more dumb like when the fly on the wall is wishing he were anyone else. Do you ever have that experience? You have a captive but not especially captivated audience, and you start to realize there's not really a great ending to this story in sight? Well, my friends, I think I may have found a solution. Check out how much this story I related yesterday was improved by the new technique I like to call "Unexpected Self-Deprecatory BSing" (USDB), and note that the (*) marks the point in the story when I realized how predictable and boring the story was, even to me:

Me: Someone left a box of donuts in my ethics classroom from the previous class today, so I ate one, and soon everyone had taken one. Mine wasn't great, but I'm on this new poverty diet where I lose weight by only eating what I can afford, so I can't turn down free food these days. Anyway, the class weird girl took a bite of hers and then immediately chucked it into the garbage, saying "Yuck! This is gross!" I was so annoyed that she would just throw food away like that. And this is in my ETHICS class, where we're always talking* about how hungry I am, because it's the class right before lunch.

Instead of the bored nods while they waited for me to finish whatever trite thing I was saying so they could say "yeah" and start immediately in on their one-upper stories, I received a peal of laughter from the roommates. Boring story averted. It only worked because a) it made me look like a jerk, and b) in their minds, they had already begun to tune me out, sure as they were that I was going to say what I had actually originally intended to say: that it's a shame to waste food like that when there are so many starving brown children in the world.

Another conversation made me laugh tonight.

America (my roommate's girlfriend, not the entire country, the way Bernie Mac used to talk to all of us): What should I be for Halloween? I have a long black dress.

Chandler (another roommate, famous for his interminable pauses in not-especially scintillating sentences; no seriously, we once clocked him at 9 seconds mid-phrase): Oh, you could totally wear the dress and put a red hourglass on your abdomen, and tell everyone* you're a super hero named, like, "The Hourglass" or something.

I actually thought he was serious for a moment on that one.

All I'm trying to say is, please, friends. Watch for the signs that I am disinterested in your story, so you know when to apply the USDB technique. The signs include, but are not limited to:

1. I leave the room, but mumble "keep going."
2. I fall asleep.
3. I pretend to fall asleep (more common than, but indistinguishable from, #2)
4. You are telling me about a dream you or anyone else had.
5. You started the story with many people listening, but suddenly I am the only one still listening.
6. I start laughing at inappropriate times, and when pressed explain that I was laughing at something someone else said, at a different time.
7. You find you are talking about your pets.
8. I pretend to have lost my signal, even if it's an in-person conversation, and not via cell phone technology.
9. I suddenly offer you food, gum, karaoke, a breath-holding contest, or anything else to otherwise occupy use of your mouth.
10. I start another, better, story, and then when you stop me, I say, "Oh, it was hard to tell if you were finished."
11. You are Mr. Samson, my U.S. History teacher.

Again, if you sense any of the above conditions, that is the perfect time to implement the USDB technique, which also, I just noticed, incidentally stands for "Unforeseeable Suicide for the Deliverance from Banality." Weird.

K, Time for some Joseph Smith

2008-10-23T03:13:00.002-06:00

So, yeah. We're on the question of unquestioned obedience. And also the fallibility of ecclesiastical leaders. So I offer up some more quotes, which, together with the one in the post below, should hopefully generate some interesting discussion.

First, Joseph Smith on blind obedience.

“We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark that they would do anything they were told to do by those who preside over them [even] if they knew it was wrong; but such obedience as this is worse than folly to us; it is slavery in the extreme; and the man who would thus willingly degrade himself, should not claim a rank among intelligent beings, until he turns from his folly. A man of God would despise the idea. Others, in the extreme exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was necessary, and that no matter what the saints were told do by their presidents they should do it without any questions. When Elders of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions of obedience as to teach them to the people, it is generally because they have it in their hearts to do wrong themselves.” (Joseph Smith, Millennial Star, Vol 14, Number 38, pages 593-595).

Note that he doesn't say that it's wrong for leaders to tell us what we should do. It's just wrong for them to tell us not to question them. Questioning is fine, then, and necessary if we are to decide for ourselves whether a commandment is "wrong."

Next, everybody else on the abililty of the prophet to lead us astray.

Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it but you don't need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.
[LDS President Marion G. Romney (of the first presidency), quoting LDS President (and prophet) Heber J. Grant "Conference Report" Oct. 1960 p. 78 ]

"The Lord Almighty leads this Church, and he will never suffer you to be led astray if you are found doing your duty. You may go home and sleep as sweetly as a babe in its mother's arms, as to any danger of your leaders leading you astray, for if they should try to do so the Lord would quickly sweep them from the earth."
[Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 9, p. 289, 1862.]

"The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray."
President Wilford Woodruff (considered scripture as it is canonized at the end of the D&C)

First of all, I believe the things said by our latter-day prophets. Not because I'm told to, but again, because I pray about these things. More on that in a minute.

Now, I know these latter quotes may seem to conflict with the first one. But I choose to view them as a double assurance. I sure do love the idea that anything the prophet tells me to do, I'll be safe in doing. I also love the idea that with each individual principle, I should still be thinking for myself.

Maybe it makes more sense to me than I can convey to others, but I really believe in questioning AND obeying. Joseph Smith condemns those who obey without question. But we're also in trouble if we don't obey at all. How do we reconcile those thoughts?

My personal solution is to pray for the ability to obey, to align my will with the Lord's and the prophet's when new commandment comes down. My approach to the church's counsel on Proposition 8 is exemplary of my general attitude toward new commandments. I don't go in with the question of whether to believe. I go in knowing I need to (I won't be led astray, right?) asking for the ability to do so. I still need to know for myself. I believe religious crazies come about in two ways. One is they listen to someone else and don't think for themselves. The other is they listen to some inner voice and ignore reason. We are taught in 2 Corinthians that "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." Two witnesses include a) the prophet and b) the Holy Ghost. If we listen to just one of these sources, we're in danger of becoming a religious extremist. I know this doesn't help those who feel they have earnestly sought the will of the Lord and felt inspired in ways contrary to the teachings of the prophets, but I have never had a problem, when earnestly trying, to reconcile my feelings with the direction from the prophets. It sometimes takes some mighty prayer, but it has always worked for me.

The nice thing about these two quotes is that Joseph Smith specifically mentioned that it's wrong to obey a leader (he doesn't specify what kind of leader, other than to say "president," which is a whole 'nother discussion) when one KNOWS that it is wrong. We are also told that we will never be wrong to obey the prophet or the twelve apostles acting as a whole. For that reason, I will always obey, even if I don't understand. I say "understand," and not "agree," for a reason. I will be sure that I feel something is right before I obey it. I need to know it comes from God. But I don't need to know WHY. I'm fine with that coming later.

I also think it's important to note that I read a lot of arguments against the church's recent stance that include the doctrine that the church is perfect, but its members are not. That, to mean, means that we might some time catch our prophet in a sin, and our testimonies should not be shaken if we do. It does NOT mean that the prophet will issue a commandment or direction that is not aligned with God's will.

Anyway, I hope these posts help people to understand my perspective, and maybe figure out where to look for some of their own answers. I find myself talking about prophets and gays and politics in about 90% of my discussions these days. I'm not trying to be super persuasive here, but rather to explicate my thought processes. I firmly believe that I can be a faithful Latter Day Saint, obey the prophet, and think for myself. I hope that in the very least, people will recognize that my own obedience to dictates from the "brethren" does not come with no price or cost.

Love you all.

--Robbie.

Or, In President Hinckley's Words

2008-10-22T15:40:00.002-06:00

I understand that there are many people who view the church as less of an all-encompassing authority than I do. I guess you can feel that the church is the best thing for your life, even if you don't agree with all its teachings. But not me. I can't rationally believe in PART of an institution that tells me I need to believe in ALL of it. I'm an all-or-nothing kind of guy.

Which is why I have felt so befuddled lately by all the invitations to sign a petition against the church's stance on proposition 8, to visit www.mormonsformarriage.com, or even to fast for Prop 8 to be defeated. I can't fathom using a tenet of my religion to fight against, well, my religion. Maybe it would be different if it if it seemed less cut and dry to me, as I'm sure it does to my friends who send me these invitations.

Anyway, today a guy I kinda know posted this on his Facebook page, and I love it. It's what I've been trying to say, only he does it with much more gravitas and holy authority than I could, and I invite everyone to read it. Talk to you later!

From a talk entitled "Loyalty," given by President Gordon B. Hinckley during the priesthood session of the April 2003 General Conference.

"Now may I say a word concerning loyalty to the Church.

We see much indifference. There are those who say, “The Church won’t dictate to me how to think about this, that, or the other, or how to live my life.”

No, I reply, the Church will not dictate to any man how he should think or what he should do. The Church will point out the way and invite every member to live the gospel and enjoy the blessings that come of such living. The Church will not dictate to any man, but it will counsel, it will persuade, it will urge, and it will expect loyalty from those who profess membership therein.

When I was a university student, I said to my father on one occasion that I felt the General Authorities had overstepped their prerogatives when they advocated a certain thing. He was a very wise and good man. He said, “The President of the Church has instructed us, and I sustain him as prophet, seer, and revelator and intend to follow his counsel.”

I have now served in the general councils of this Church for 45 years. I have served as an Assistant to the Twelve, as a member of the Twelve, as a Counselor in the First Presidency, and now for eight years as President. I want to give you my testimony that although I have sat in literally thousands of meetings where Church policies and programs have been discussed, I have never been in one where the guidance of the Lord was not sought nor where there was any desire on the part of anyone present to advocate or do anything which would be injurious or coercive to anyone.

The book of Revelation declares: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15–16).

I make you a promise, my dear brethren, that while I am serving in my present responsibility I will never consent to nor advocate any policy, any program, any doctrine which will be otherwise than beneficial to the membership of this, the Lord’s Church.

This is His work. He established it. He has revealed its doctrine. He has outlined its practices. He created its government. It is His work and His kingdom, and He has said, “They who are not for me are against me” (2 Ne. 10:16).

In 1933 there was a movement in the United States to overturn the law which prohibited commerce in alcoholic beverages. When it came to a vote, Utah was the deciding state.

I was on a mission, working in London, England, when I read the newspaper headlines that screamed, “Utah Kills Prohibition.”

President Heber J. Grant, then President of this Church, had pleaded with our people against voting to nullify Prohibition. It broke his heart when so many members of the Church in this state disregarded his counsel.

On this occasion I am not going to talk about the good or bad of Prohibition but rather of uncompromising loyalty to the Church.

How grateful, my brethren, I feel, how profoundly grateful for the tremendous faith of so many Latter-day Saints who, when facing a major decision on which the Church has taken a stand, align themselves with that position. And I am especially grateful to be able to say that among those who are loyal are men and women of achievement, of accomplishment, of education, of influence, of strength—highly intelligent and capable individuals.

Each of us has to face the matter—either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing.

Thank you, my dear brethren, you men of great strength and great fidelity and great faith and great loyalty.

Finally, loyalty to God our Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every man in this Church is entitled to the knowledge that God is our Eternal Father and His Beloved Son is our Redeemer. The Savior gave the key by which we may have such knowledge. He declared, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17).

Pray to your Heavenly Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and always, under all circumstances, by the very nature of your lives show your loyalty and your love . . .

Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?
Now is the time to show.
We ask it fearlessly:
Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?
(“Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” Hymns, no. 260)"

Preparation H

2008-10-12T15:24:00.003-06:00

Well, that's what my roommate Evan is calling Proposition 8, the amendment to the California State Constitution that would define marriage as between a man and a woman, effectively ending the current state of legalized gay marriage there.

Now, I'm a faithful, somewhat liberal, gay Californian Latter Day Saint living in Utah. Not that that fact lends my thoughts on this matter any more validity than anyone else's. Just that I want people to know where I'm coming from. I am aware that the word "gay" connotes entire lifestyle choices to many readers here, so I will clarify: I am attracted almost solely to other men, but I also believe the Church when it says that to act on homosexual desires is wrong. Many would call me naive in my attempts to remain faithful to my religion, but I am insulted by the notion that people (particularly homosexuals in this instance) are incapable of controlling their impulses and living by a higher moral law. I am very tolerant of others' making the choices from which I intend to abstain. I also know many people sneer at the idea of tolerance because a degree of disapproval inheres therein, but I can think of no other word for how I feel about it. I try to live by a double standard when it comes to ethics and morals: I am very permissive with others, while trying to maintain a behavioral stricture for myself.

I struggled with the Prop 8 issue the moment I heard about the letter from the First Presidency to the members in California. I was disappointed that this issue received so much more attention than other recent moves from the church intended to reach out to its homosexual population, such as the pamphlet entitled "God Loveth His Children," which can be read in the church website. I also wish the government would stay out of the marriage issue altogether, and was saddened to see that the Church was supporting a constitutional amendment that would only serve to further enmesh the legal apparatus with the issue of marriage. I also have many friends (a brother and a best friend included) who are living active gay lifestyles. I love these guys. My best friend is dating a wonderful guy right now, and I would love to see them happy together forever. I also have a very strong sense of live-and-let-live morality; do whatever you want, as long as your actions don't impinge upon my own liberties. And the issue of gay marriage feels like one of those times when it couldn't hurt the church to allow the gays to change the label of something they already have.

A few feeble reasons have been presented. The case of the Catholic Church choosing to discontinue their adoption agency in Massachusetts after the judicial decree that they place children with gay couples is evidence that maybe at least some of the Church leaders' warnings are not merely slippery-slope scare tactics, but rooted in verifiable past experience. The Church's claim that marriage is ordained of God could be expressing a claim that marriage is not a societal contract between people, but rather something older, immutable, and God-given.

Still, these are claims that pale in comparison with the apparent (or perceived?) effects on the homosexual people of disallowing marriage between two members of the same sex. Furthermore, these claims are not ones that could be made to persuade someone in any secular light. To me, the obvious choice is to allow gay marriage.

However, I am cognizant of the fact that I have not attained the longest view on any earthly matters. I do have a testimony of a living prophet (and that testimony has been reinforced recently due to my soul-searching on this issue). It is strange to me that the church is taking such a strong stance on what appears to be a political issue. My political views are sharply contrasted with the commandments I've been given from the church. But I have to remember the watchtower metaphor: the man up in the tower shouts warnings and instruction to the people below, and the wise heed his words because they know he knows something they don't.

For me, it all boils down to this quote from President Harold B. Lee:

"The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. …

"Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church was organized. We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through his prophet, 'as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; … as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.' (D&C 21:4–5.) There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory.' (D&C 21:6.)" (in Conference Report, Oct. 1970, 152; or Improvement Era, Dec. 1970, 126).

The promises made in that quote are powerful, and they're what I truly want out of this life. I really do believe these words from one of our latter-day prophets.

I do worry that people will read a quote like this and become myrmidons. That sort of unquestioned loyalty is what leads to the worst of inhumane atrocities. So let me be clear that I would never obey a commandment with which I disagree. But I will appeal directly to God to ascertain that a new commandment is indeed from Him. That's what our leaders have counseled us to do (indeed, it's the counsel that led to the first vision in the first place): to appeal directly to the source of all wisdom. One can receive a second witness of the prophet's words through the Holy Ghost.

That's the invitation I'll be making to my friends who are pondering what to do and on which side of the line to pitch their tents. The invitation to not just go out and vote based solely on political ideologies or visceral reactions to sensational pleas and anecdotes. Nor do I want people to vacantly follow the instruction of any leader or activist. I would have people take all of those things into account and ask God in humble prayer (being willing to have a change of heart if the answer is contrary to the one expected) what their responsibilities are vis-a-vis Proposition 8. If you happen to get a different answer from mine, I will support you in your decision, knowing that you (like I am) are choosing to act on your conscience in the best way you know how.

When I did that, I received an answer that I can't rightly defend to other people using the usual logic and rhetoric. But when people ask me how I can possibly defend such a notion, I can view it as an opportunity to bear my testimony of a living prophet, whose purpose is to be the mouthpiece for God and help set a common course for people in a time when so many divergent paths are viewed as the right one.

In fine, I don't urge you to vote yes on 8, but I urge you to turn the question directly to your God and act accordingly. Whatever decision you make, I love and respect you, and I hope the best for you and for all of us.

--Robbie

[edit: Thanks for all the comments! I've left a response to each down at comment number 23 or so. I appreciate the discussion!]

Overshare

2008-10-06T09:03:00.004-06:00

So I'm in the Scera production of Seussical in Orem (Go see it! Runs through the 13th!). And I'm the Grinch. My costume comprises a red vest, red Superman boots, a green feauxhawk wig, and a tinselly green onesie. There is one other element of the costume that most will never have occasion to see.

After the first dress rehearsal, the costume lady clutched my arm and discreetly asked me if I had any "support," because I was going to need it. A few minutes later, my friend Shelley pulled me aside to tell me that the choreographer had asked her to talk to me about needing some "support" down there. Then the lighting guy slipped me a little note saying I might consider some "support." So, I got the picture. I guess the scene where all the Whos and I make a Christmas toast and then I do a special little Christmas jig was a little disconcerting. Thanks everyone, for the message! I went straight to Walmart and purchased a jock strap/cup contraption.

It took a while to figure out how to get the cup into the jock strap (I'm making assumptions about the distinctions between those two things, so sorry all you athletes if I'm getting the "support" terminology all wrong). Turns out the athletic support apparatus is super uncomfortable and is trying to perform a pre-conception abortion. I hated it. A few nights into the show, I experimented and found that leaving the cup out still afforded me enough support to not have to worry about the floppage factor. Or maybe we just have the emperor's new clothes factor here, and nobody's telling me. At any rate, I got used to having no cup on, and it just sat in a bag on a shelf during the shows.

Until that fateful day that I forgot the jock strap part. What to do!? This is a kids show! But then the Grinch had an idea, an awful idea. The Grinch had a wonderful, awful idea! I got some gaffers tape, and fashioned a sort of tape harness to hold the cup to the outside of my normal underwear. Problem solved!

This new arrangement was far more uncomfortable than before, but I was thinking of the children. Not my own, future children, obviously, but the ones in the front row of the audience. But there was an unforeseen benefit. You see, there is a "special needs" boy in our cast whom we'll call "John." For some reason someone had given him a large wooden stick, which he was thrashing about like a bō staff. And as soon as I walked into the room, he inadvertently hit me very hard in the crotchular area. I doubled over in reflexive pain, but then straightened up, realizing that my progeny were spared. It was the Holy Spirit that made me forget my jock strap that night, asserts one of my roommates. We're calling it "The Miracle of the Athletic Support and the Retard with the Stick." I have an e-mail in to the Vatican.

Moments later, I was approached by a Who named Devi who is a kind and shy married woman. She touched my arm, leaned in, and whispered, almost conspiratorially, "I have a question for you about the whole 'cup' situation." Her husband was standing within sight behind her.

My eyebrows went up. "Okaaaay...."

She leaned in closer. "Do you want me to bring out an extra cup for you, or do you just want to steal the Mayor's during the toast?"

Oh. Props. Right.

Well, hope you all have a wonderful day.

Lords-a-Larping

2008-06-10T00:09:00.001-06:00

Well, folks, it's finally here. The online version of the movie my friends and I worked so hard on last spring. Please, if you like it, link to it, e-mail people the link to it, send us feedback at lordoflarp@gmail.com. The goal is to try to get a writing deal for a sitcom for the Sci-fi channel. Maybe I'm shooting too high, but we'll see where this goes. Also, if you'd like a DVD copy, we'll make you one (with extras!) for $5 once we get that system set up. Pre-order by e-mailing us a request at lordoflarp@gmail.com. Hope you enjoy! Also, we loaded up a pretty big version because we didn't want to cut down very much on the video quality, so depending on your internet connection, you might need to wait for it to load a bit. You can also try them at their youtube locations here, here, and here.

A Little Blog Help, Anyone?

2008-05-13T12:02:00.002-06:00

I did something bad, and now all of my posts on my Confessions Blog feature my full name. So I've hidden the blog away, but I'm hoping there's someone out there who can maybe help me out with this? It's a technical computery kind of a problem, and I could always go through and just post them all over again from scratch, but I'm not really looking forward to that, because there are like 138 of them. Anyway, if you'd be willing to help, let me know!

New Old Blog

2008-05-08T06:18:00.008-06:00

I have decided to go back and do a more readable version of this blog. I'm starting at the beginning, editing type-os, adding new perspectives on old stories, slipping pictures in there for illustration's sake. I'm leaving out the lists and the self-references, changing people's names to their real names where I can remember who I was talking about, and trying to increase the over-all enjoyability of the blog for people who are not me. This blog will stay here, but I will be directing people to the other one in the future. You can find it at thebrainypoetcorner.blogspot.com. "The brainy poet corner" is an anagram for "Robert Anthony Pierce," as I've previously hinted. Anyway, I just finished souping up the first two posts on it, the first of which is a combination of the two oldest posts on this blog that really tell one humorous story, and the second of which is an extensively re-worked retelling of why I quit my once-upon-a-time job at Tahitian Noni International. I hope you enjoy then either for the first time, or thaht you enjoy the improvements.

Peace.

The R List

2008-05-01T03:31:00.004-06:00

So, Oprah's magazine, "O," contains a list called the "O List," which is full of the latest things that Oprah thinks are neat. I have decided not to let Oprah tell me how to live my life. So here's the R List:

freerice.com Whoever invented this website is a genius. You get to play a game that teaches you vocabulary, and every time you get a word right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the World Food Foundation or something. The money comes from advertisers whose banner ads at the botton of the page are refreshed every time you get a new word. Splendiferous (a word I actually learned from Oprah)!

collages I don't know why I never collaged in school, but lately collages are my new thing. Eventually, I will have an entirely collaged wall in my room.

Tina Fey Basically anything this woman does is magical to me. Just recently saw "Baby Mama," which was brilliant. Also loving her in 30 Rock on NBC these days.

Kroger brand Lemongrass and Basil hand soap Seriously, I never knew my hands could smell so good. Also it kinda a little bit makes me crave spaghetti. Hmmmm.

Astro City Comics I know you think comic books are for nerds. Well, you're right. But if you're a nerd, check these out. They just might change your life. And I'd be happy to lend them to you.

Dolly Parton "I hope that people can see that beneath the wigs there's a brain, and behind the boobs there's a heart." That's probably not an exact quote from her, but close enough. I know she's an old-lady country singer, but her songs are witty, catchy (see: Nine to Five), and sometimes downright inspiring (see: Travelin' Thru). I'm just going to say it: I have a testimony of Dolly Parton. Amen.

Scentsy Candles Kinda gay, I know, but my friend Haylee sells them, and they actually smell precisely like the things like which they're supposed to smell.

Barbecuing And not just to make up for the candles. I really love a good barbecued cheeseburger or chicken, and come to find out, it's easier than it looks!

Taking children away from polygamists Yeah, I'm all for it. You can't just start a community where you give birth over and over and then swap all your teenage daughters as wives with all of your old cronies in exchange for their teenage daughters for your own wives. That's wrong. And while some people are boycotting anything from Texas, i fully intend to buy MORE of whatever it is Texas produces in order to show my support of a difficult decision. So the question is, what exactly do I buy? Pace Picante Sauce? A t-shirt that says "Don't mess with Texas?" An armadillo? Working on it....

And on an opposite note:

Gone, Baby, Gone Overlook the fact that it was directed by Ben Affleck (he does have an Oscar, and not for his acting), and ignore the language, and you'll see a really great movie that probes some really hard themes.

Moab What a great little town in Southern Utah. This is where you go to see all the arches and canyonlands, and it's beautiful. Glade, Greg, and I took a trip down there, stayed at the Lazy Lizard hostel, took a crepuscular hike through a verdant canyon, watched the dawn warm the glowing red underbelly of Mesa Arch, and had our breaths taken by Delicate Arch. The ruddy terrain left us all in sanguine spirits.

Glade for President Or at least for National Alternate Delegate for the Republican Party. Check out the video Wills, Evan and I helped him make. I'm so proud of our little Glade!

And that's about all I have.

Things that have NOT made the R list include vegetarianism, gardening, and the fact that it is snowing and it is May and i still live in Utah. That's not really very much to complain about, given all the things that are working so efficiently at making me happy lately.

Until next time, smurferinos,

--Robbie

LIght Bulbs

2008-04-16T03:33:00.002-06:00

So I heard a new light bulb joke today, and so mostly for the benefit of Glade, here it is:

How many Bush Administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

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None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any report of its lack of incandescence is a delusional spin by the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably and anything you say about its going out undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

That's all for today, kids. Love ya!

Snoop News

2008-04-02T22:56:00.002-06:00

Seriously, you should check this out.

A New Post!

2008-03-28T14:28:00.005-06:00

I basically need this picture so I can link to it elsewhere. It all has to do with my obsession for Lost. This is going to be the mother of all (recent) blog posts because I promised you the story of the Valentine's Day Surprise, plus I just finished an eight-page sociology paper that I want to share with you all. And besides, it's been a heck of a while. But first, for your reading pleasure, I'll also include a transcript of a conversation that went down in my film class the other day and had me rollin'.

Girl [interrupting teacher]: Wait a minute! Didn't you say we were going to have a special guest this week!?
Teacher: Oh, you mean like we had the other week when we talked to a real cinematographer who worked on the set of CSI?
Girl: No! I mean, didn't you say you were going to have someone in here to observe your teaching, and we were supposed to make really good comments and make you look good?
Teacher [turning to the gentleman sitting next to her]: Heh heh, yeah, I kinda prepped them that you were coming last week, kind of as a joke, and kind of so they would be prepared.

[beat]

Girl: Oh. This is a really great class.

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So a few days before Valentine's Day this year, I decided to make some enchiladas (I make really good sour-cream-based enchiladas, based loosely on my mother's recipe). As I was at the supermarket purchasing the ingredients, mostly on a caprice I decided to buy some red food coloring and make special Valentine's enchiladas. Valentine's Day Surprise, I would call it. As I mixed tons of food coloring in with the filling, my roommates expressed their disapproval. I can't blame them; It really did look more like a Jell-o salad than anything one would want in his spicy Mexican food. But if I think something is funny enough, you can't stop me from doing it.

The Valentine's Day Surprise was a huge success! Meaning that I thought it was delicious AND hilarious, while no one else would really touch it. Over the next couple of days I ate tons of that stuff, as well as making other special Valentine's treats, like Valentine's coconut juice, Valentine's milk, etc. Man, I think I am funny.

Of course, none of that was at the forefront of my mind on February 14th when I was staring, in complete shock, at the bloody stool in the toilet in the college's men's room. My thoughts went kinda like this:

"Oh. Crap. I am broken. How far up my digestive tract am I bleeding? That is so much blood! Aaaaaaa! Do I need to take this to a doctor? How am I going to get that out of there!? Maybe there is a plastic bag in here like lining the trash or something. But then what? Do I go to the rest of my classes? Can I just carry that thing around with me in my backpack? Surely people will smell that, even through a plastic bag. Maybe I should call one of my roommates. Should I even be standing up? What could have caused this!?"

At which point I remembered the Valentine's Day.

Surprise!
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In case you are trying to call me, don't. My phone's battery died. And then I broke it. And then I lost it. It's pretty much the Rasputin of phones. And if you left me a message at any point in the last three weeks, I don't hate you (probably); I just never got it. Some day when I have recovered from the financial crisis I like to call "tuition," I will get a new phone.
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Finally, here is the paper I wrote today. It's mostly a book report for my sociology class. I find this stuff to be terribly interesting.

Analysis of “Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism”

Michael LaFeber was wise to chooses Michael Jordan and the Nike Corporation as his subjects for his book, “Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism.” First of all, because attaching the name “Michael Jordan” to the title of his book (and subsequently telling Jordan’s life story throughout) was guaranteed to sell more copies of the book, thus getting his message about a new global economy to more people. Secondly, because Jordan’s story really does align well with the history of this new economy. Jordan’s career falls somewhere between example and metaphor of American culture and technology and their effect on the world. Finally, this book is about power. It is about a powerful man, who represents a powerful nation. The central argument of the book seems to be that America’s ability to change the world is massive, and that we as American citizens must now wield that power responsibly.

The first chapter of the book (pp. 27-48) is all about basketball. This chapter details the history of basketball, its inclusion of blacks in professional leagues, and the beginnings of capitalist endeavors to make a profit from the sport. Also discussed is the subject of Michael Jordan’s home life in North Carolina and his college years of playing basketball. LaFeber uses this chapter to set the stage for the broader economic and political topics that will be discussed later, as well as to ease the reader into a long-range sociological way of thinking about things that we 21^st-century Americans take for granted.

Chapter two contains an interesting section entitled “Enter the Transnational Corporation.” Here we are introduced to Nike, a company that is American, but somehow has more than half of its employees, as well as more than half of its sales, abroad. (p. 55) The idea of a corporation dealing internationally is not a new one, LaFeber informs us, but the idea of the new transnational corporations of the 1980s differed from that of their predecessors in a few major ways. These new corporations no longer relied primarily on American markets while dabbling in foreign markets, they traded less in goods than in ideas and designs and knowledge, they relied extensively on foreign labor, they committed huge amounts of capital to overseas advertising, and most importantly, they were able to transcend national barriers and therefore were immune to many of the governmental restrictions formerly placed upon corporations. (pp. 54-56)

Later in this chapter we learn of the history and impact of satellite communication technology on the world. Wealthy and powerful men such as Walter Murdoch and Ted Turner created enormous cable networks that would cross international lines that could bring the same news and entertainment (and naturally advertisement) to people all around the world (p. 71). Turner, we learn, banned the word “foreign” from his broadcasts on all stations, preferring to think of his network as global instead (p. 72). The fact that satellite television preceded the internet might help to explain the idea that America’s culture became so pervasive on the world scene; after all, the most important difference between the two is that the internet allows two-way communication, whereas satellite television allowed what America was broadcasting to be seen by the world without allowing for a response from the world back to America. According to a statistic from the book, 80 percent of European television programs came from the United States, whereas only one percent of American shows originated somewhere besides the U.S. (p 110).

The one-way nature of this exchange is supported by more statistics in chapter three. Here, LaFeber concedes that Europe and Japan did indeed supply the American market with many of their goods (mostly in the form of electronics, vehicles, and high fashion), but he is quick to point out that “(t)he $2 billion or so of high-fashion exports into the United States were dwarfed by the many billions of revenue generated overseas by Nike, McDonald’s, and Disney.” (p. 81, emphasis added)

LaFeber interweaves these facts about the early effects of huge American corporations on the world (along with the first intimations we see of resistance from a foreign nation, France) with stories of Michael Jordan’s growing athletic success and national stardom.

Michael Jordan and the head of Nike, Phil Knight, both benefited enormously from the new global communications and economy that were in place by the 1990s. Knight had found that it was lucrative for him to move his business to where there were fewer regulations imposed on employers. The first Nikes were manufactured in Japan in the 1960s, but with the boom in communications technology on the 1970s and 80s, Knight saw that “production could be done nearly anywhere.” (p. 103) As Japan became more successful and started endowing its workers with more rights, LaFeber reasons, it became more profitable for Knight to move production of his merchandise to other Asian countries, starting in Korea, Indonesia, and Viet Nam, and landing eventually in China. (p. 104). A Reebok official referred to this constant movement (in which his company also engaged) as “chasing wages around the globe,” and admitted that “[t]here has to be a better way.” (p. 155)

Sadly, these new Asian sources of labor were beneficial to Nike precisely because they exploited the workers. According to U.S. women’s groups, the “Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Chinese workers… suffer from inadequate wages, corporal punishment, forced overtime, and/or sexual harassment.” (p. 144) 90 percent of the workers in Vietnam were “women who worked twelve-hour days [and many] reportedly fainted from exhaustion and malnutrition (p. 148). Adding to the ethical problems of manufacturing in impoverished China was the 1989 killing by the communist Chinese government of “large numbers” of dissenters, which caused Congress to restrict trade with the nation. Fortunately for Nike and other transnational corporations, President Bush vetoed this restriction. (p. 105)

Not only did new communications technology supply new, cheaper sources of labor, but it also provided entirely new pools of consumers. Unfortunately, many of these target groups were unable to afford the products with which advertising aimed at them tantalized them. Reports surfaced of inner-city children selling drugs or even killing each other in order to obtain the Michael Jordan Nikes they had no licit means of acquiring (p. 91).

At the same time as these more negative aspects of the Nike company were coming to light, Michael Jordan experienced a succession of setbacks to his image. He was at the center of scandals that focused on his gambling, his association with shady characters, and his refusal to wear Adidas paraphernalia in front of the world at the Olympics (pp. 96-101). As Jordan felt his privacy diminishing, and in the wake of his father’s murder, he retired briefly from the National Basketball association (pp. 121). In the interim, he played professional baseball, though his statistics weren’t very impressive.

During all of this (the exploitation of Asian laborers, the advertising targeted at poor black audiences to whom Nike nor Jordan reached out, and Jordan’s personal tragedies and shortcomings), the media and technologies that had once elevated Jordan and Nike to their global statuses turned on them. LaFeber describes a “Faustian bargain” that they had made with the media: they had put themselves under the world’s microscope in order to make money, but were stuck under the microscope when there were certain aspects of their existence that they would prefer to have remained unexamined (p. 115). Sales of Nike products, as well as sales of other Jordan-endorsed products, continued to climb, but Jordan and Nike had to pay “a price for being dependent on the new media.” (p. 153)

As Nike and Jordan grew rich off of other countries, those countries began to show signs of change. Sneakers hit the runways in Paris fashion shows (p. 109), South African street gangs “called themselves ‘The Young Americans’ and the ‘JFKs,’” (p. 138) while McDonald’s (another Jordan endorsement) shut down German, Austrian, and Swiss street vendors (p.140) and reached the point where it was feeding “one percent of the world’s population each day.” (p. 156). This cultural influence America and its corporations was having on the world is what is called “soft power,” soft because it’s consensual and not a forced influence like military might or political maneuvering (p. 109). One is not to believe that the word “soft” implies that the power is weak; American soft power had a very real effect on other nations, “not only chang[ing] buying habits in a society, but modify[ing] the composition of the society itself.” (p. 157)

This could be a good thing. One could cite the new existence of a small middle class in China as an example if U.S. democracy beginning to have a positive influence in a foreign market. The fact that American goods were not forced upon other nations, but rather traded (p. 156), highlights a major difference between this new “cultural imperialism” and the old traditional “imperialism” against which the Americans fought in the Revolutionary War.

The problem, as the world saw it, is the same as with capitalism here in the United States: he who has more capital begins with an advantage (p. 164). And on the global scale, this means the U.S. The United States had the upper hand on capital and the new technology because at the end of the Cold War, it had “adjusted to the post 1970’s technology and Communism had not.” (p.162).

The final chapter of the book focuses on the effects of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11^th, 2001, on the global economy. Interestingly, the terrorists, who were fighting against the overreaching arm of American cultural, economic, and military influence, were able to accumulate power and perform their terrorist acts only by using the very communications technologies that had been used to spread that American influence in the first place (pp. 166, 181). Osama bin Laden was, in a way, the anti-Jordan, while his shadowy terrorist alliances became the anti-Nike. Bin Laden used his popularity in the Islamic world and the power of satellite television to sell people on his political ideals, while Al Qaeda took advantage of the same border-blurring transnationalism that Nike and other American Corporations had been enjoying for a few decades now (p. 173).

Also interesting is the way in which America’s vision of a peacefully globalized economy was hobbled at the same time Jordan’s career was ended due to knee injuries (p. 171). The spread of the American economy into other countries had flourished at the exact time that Jordan’s career and fame had, and in 2001 and 2002, both felt the effects of having driven too hard and too fast.

America by this point was so engrained in the cultures and economies around the world that when it suffered from a major technology crash during the years on either side of the terrorist attacks, it ended up hurting other countries (those which relied upon American purchasing power to pay for the goods they produced) even more (p. 172). The American government’s reaction to the terrorist attacks had similarly devastating effects overseas. For example, new government sanctions against immigration “prevented the movement of cheap, or highly specialized, labor from one country to another.” (p.173)

The September 11^th attacks had other sociological effects on the world, as well. The American government hired an advertiser to try to sell American democratic and capitalistic values to Islamic nations (p. 182). It also began to attempt to censor the news media with regard to the war in Afghanistan that ensued after September 11^th (p. 183).

LaFeber points out that not all of the effects of the new globalization are negative. One huge benefit appears to be the fact that as women in developing nations are made more aware of international issues, they have slowed their birth rate, leading analysts to believe that the once-impending crisis of an ever-expanding population has now been averted, as it looks like the world’s population might level off at 9 billion, instead of passing the 10 billion mark and continuing indefinitely. (p. 184). LaFeber claims that due to the new technology, “women were watching satellite television, [and] learning about small families and contraceptive devices from western television programs….” (p. 184) “U.S. expansion and profits,” he asserts, “were neither naturally good nor naturally evil.” (p 186)

The book ends on an embittered note, contrasting Jordan, who has unprecedented international clout but has never taken a public political or social stance, with black baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, who in the 1940s inspired blacks across national lines with message of human rights (p. 188). LaFeber’s message here is clear: A powerful entity, such as Michael Jordan, or, through metaphor, The United States of America (which in actuality means each of us, the American people) has a responsibility to make sure that its considerable power, which is by nature neutral, is used responsibly. Jordan and Nike could have reached out to the inner-city youth, to the impoverished blacks of America, or to the practically enslaved workers in Nike’s overseas factories. The same technology that has created such an imbalance in the world market has also been used to educate and liberate people and to do an incredible amount of good. But if we Americans are not careful and respectful with the enormous influence this book proves we indeed wield, we have the potential to do an incredible amount of harm.

P.S. Thanks for all the feedback on the previous post! I love you guys! You inspire me to write more often.

P.P.S. I kinda came out to my entire Sunday School/bishopric & wives dating panel on Sunday. It was... great? More next time? Maybe.

God's Country

2008-02-16T02:20:00.003-07:00

Evan and I got the same e-mail, only with our names switched, on Myspace from the train we worked on over the summer. Someone has made a profile for it, apparently. The e-mail wasn't very nice, and I'm guessing someone saw our blog posts. It said:

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It sounds like you had an experience on board the train. Could it be that you really weren't a server or could it be that you were scared to go out on the train without Evan. Oh my bad, you are Mormon and could not possibly be gay. And we know if you had those kind of feelings you can go to school to learn how not to be gay.
Such a shame you and you 'friends' find it necessary to trash the vehicle that allowed you to make as much money as you did. Good riddance to you and your kind and if you ever get the yen to come back to Alaska, DON'T! We don't like opinionated, rude, or weak people up in here in God's Country.

KARMA IS A BITCH..............................

All Aboard!

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Well, anyone who remembers my days as a writer for the 100 Hour board knows that I don't take that kind of attitude without responding tenfold. I really did try to tone it down, but that one sure got my hackles up. Here, then is my response:

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I have to make some assumptions about your meaning here because some of your statements lack lucidity. Could it be that I wasn't really a server? I assume you mean that maybe I wasn't cut out to be a server. Because I definitely was a server on that train. And I for sure was a very successful server in the job I had before I ever went to Alaska. Yes, I could have put up with more crap from you and made more money than YOU could make elsewhere, but I actually have open doors in my life. You go ahead and keep that job. You're just like a guest on Jerry Springe who is going to go back home to her abusive husband because in all actuality she's probably too white-trash to get a decent man. Me? I'm outta there. Why put up with all that crap when I could be making as much money in a decent working environment? Now don't think I wasn't making a lot of money up there. It's just that so much of it was being taken by dishonest management. That was coupled with the fact that I had to pay hundreds of dollars in order to provide a doctor's note before returning to work, even though I never once called in sick to work. Your office mismanaged so many things it just wasn't worth it to me to even try. I worked my butt off to make the customers happy in that job, and my customers loved me. My fellow servers gave me positive feedback. My managers had (and still have, obviously) no idea who I am or what I am capable of or what I am worth.

Your ad hominem attack on my religion surely doesn't hold the kick for me that you seem to hope it would. You seem to try to insult me by calling me gay, and then you turn around and insult me for being Mormon because of Mormons' stances on gays. Sounds like you had a negative experience with Mormons or homosexuality or both somewhere along the way, and for that I'm sorry. But most of the Mormons and gays I know (which is more than you know in both categories) are good and happy people who are just trying to do the best they can. I don't know about this school you're talking about to teach gays to be straight, but it sounds to me like no wilder a claim than the idea that people could come up to Alaska for the summer and have a good time earning lots of money on the McKinley Explorer.

Interesting that you don't say who you are. Your name on Myspace is "All," and I'm guessing your last name is "Aboard." Cute. I'm guessing you're in management, because you are actually defending that God-awful company. It says you're a panhandler, so I'm guessing you actually live in Alaska. It says you're 99 years old, so that points to Lorelle, but on the other hand, you sound a bit drunk, so maybe it's Kim. If this is Matt, I'm sorry. I felt you were the only person in management at that company who did a good job, and my attacks on the company were never meant to be aimed at you. Then again, it says you are fat and male, which makes me think of that one fat guy who worked in the office and was engaged to the little chirpy but sweet girl. I think it was John, maybe? Yeah, I could see John using words like "yen" and using sarcasm as a primary defense mechanism. It's probably better for you that I never find out which one you are, because for an employer to say those things about Mormons and homosexuals is clearly illegal.

Anyway, I've moved on with my life. Sorry you're stuck up there and this misery has to continue to be your existence, but I'm actually in a really good place right now. I love my job and I'm going to school and the other day in class when the teacher brought up having to work for incompetents, it actually took me a few minutes before my Holland America experience came to mind. I take that as a good sign.

I haven't enumerated my reasons for not sticking with the job here in this e-mail, because I am assuming you already saw my blog post. However, in case you missed it, here it is:
http://smurfyourself.blogspot.com/2007/07/alaskan-adventure-hooray.html

You don't like opinionated, rude, or weak people in Alaska? No wonder you all seemed to hate each other. I don't even know if it's worth it to point out that that last statement of yours was opinionated AND rude, because you seem to have very weak reasoning powers.

I don't understand why you would say "Karma's a bitch" to someone who has moved on and is infinitely happier than he was when you knew him. That statement would seem to apply more to someone who is miserable and treats others like crap who is stuck returning year after year to a miserable job that treats him like crap. If Karma is such a bitch, maybe it should get a job as a manager at the McKinley Explorer after Lorelle keels over or Kim gets thrown in the drunk tank. Neither of which will happen too soon.

--Robbie Pierce

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Next time: My Valentine's Day surprise!

Pismeeyawf

2008-02-05T22:20:00.001-07:00

One of the eskimos at work has to write a list of everything that pisses her off. I told her I'd do the same, so here goes, in no particular order:

1. Ann Coulter
2. People throwing snowballs at me
3. Holland America cruiselines
4. Deaf culture
5. That particular aspect of Mormon culture that leads us to believe that men are responsible for women's righteousness
6. cops
7. dollar coins
8. cheating in board games
9. uses different parts of speech in a list
10. pregnant women drinking
11. racism (when you're not joking)
12. potato bugs (the Jerusalem Cricket)

Well, that's about it. I guess I'm not a very angry person. At least not compared to the girls at work. Oh, speaking of which,

13. getting kicked in the nuts by a stupid angry girl right before she rips my shirt.

My Year in a Nut's Hell

2007-12-31T16:55:00.001-07:00

2007 began for me with an ethereal stop into a cozy English pub to ask for directions. It was called The Pelican Inn, and everyone inside was really drunk and really British and slightly helpful. Eventually we gave up on our destination, as the roads were all washed out. But Evan and I couldn't help but shake the feeling that if we went back looking for The Pelican Inn in the daytime instead of on a spooky, foggy morning on New Year's Day, it just wouldn't be there. Especially because we weren't even in England. We were in the woods in Sausalito, CA. That's kind of how I feel about this whole year. In ten years when I look back, I don't know what I'll have filed away in my brain for 2007. So here's my attempt to cement proof I even did this year before it vanishes into the mist.

So. By the holiday.

New Years was spent camping in the Redwoods, my favorite place on earth, with Evan, Justin, and Wiggle. It rained the whole time and was freezing and beautiful.
On Valentine's Day I took the girl I've loved for years to dinner. She told me I "get" her. Then she told me about this other guy, and when it comes to who actually gets her, it's him. I don't get it.
Saint Patrick's Day was spent at Los Hermanos, peddling yucky "Mexican"food to a bunch of grouchy old Mormons who don't believe in tipping or wearing green.
On Easter I bore my testimony in church.
Mother's Day was spent getting ready to go camping and to Disneyland with my mom and step-dad and 5-year-old sister.
My Father's-Day phone call was cut short because dad was at work at Home Depot, and I was at in my apartment in a scary Eskimo ghetto.
Independence Day was a let-down, since it doesn't ever get dark enough for fireworks in Fairbanks, AK in July, and I ended up on a plane most of the day anyway. The company barbecue consisted of hot dogs, to which I'm allergic, so we went and ate pizza in a bar.
Pioneer Day started out on a plane as well, on the way back after giving up on that horrible job. We opted out on fireworks and went to see Hairspray with Caitie and her mom. It was wonderful, and we saw fireworks from the freeway on the way home anyway.
Halloween was spent at my new job at a school for euphemismed girls. I didn't get to dress up as Urkel, as I had planned.
Thanksgiving was also my birthday, and I had to work, but my friends did Thanksgiving dinner with me at Tara's house before I had to go to work. Wills made a Turkey, and Evan dressed up in full pilgrim regalia for the occasion. Jordan lured me unwitting into a reenactment of the first Thanksgiving by stealing the food off my plate, even though I was the one who cooked it. The when I stabbed him with my silverware in an attempt to steal it back, he made me sit in the corner, which was referred to as "Oklahoma." That night the girl I took out on Valentine's Day told me she was still interested in me and was considering leaving her boyfriend for me.
I got to play Santa for Maggie, since she and Rusty and the folks were in town again for Christmas. Then off to a 14-hour shift at work, during which that same girl let me know that she had chosen to stay with the other guy. Bummer.

Most of the big events in my life fall on holidays. But lots of other stuff happens, too.

2007 was the year that:

My dad's second divorce was finalized. He celebrated by going out with his new ex (Darla II: The Meltdown, as opposed to the woman he left mom for, who was named Darla I: A New Hope) and getting drunk or worse and not showing up to Home Depot for over a week. He lost his job and his apartment and now lives with a maid named Rosa, we believe. He's gone dark ever since he was supposed to show up at the rehab center in Healdsberg where he was during my mission.

I learned a traditional Eskimo greeting: "Hey! Can I have two dollars?" I would fend off the throng of Eskimo beggars by beating them to the punch and asking them for two dollars before they had a chance to ask me.

I bought the most expensive thing I've ever owned: a Nikon D40 camera for $650 in Alaska. That's more than my computer ($300 including the scanner/printer) and my car (another $300) combined. Got some great pictures with the camera, and I have them all backed up on the computer now.

Our house was broken into and burgled. Burglarized. Whatever. I just know it wasn't "robbed" because the biotch ladycop on the phone gave me such a hard time about reporting the wrong crime. Anyway, someone took all of our stuff out of the house last week while we were all asleep. The take: Jordan's iPod, Aarons record player, speakers, and record collection, the apartment DVD player, and my Nikon D40 camera and my computer. Bummer. The cops only dust for fingerprints if there has been a homicide, apparently, which begs the question, "who do I have to kill to get the police to do their job around here?" I had even dusted everything the morning previous. Oh well, when did the police ever help anybody?

Also my car broke down. Been getting rides from some great friends, including Ryan and Evan, foremost.

I came up with a surefire new weight-loss method: poop more. An easy way to ensure it works is to get food poisoning by eating a chicken burrito at Beto's at 2:00 a.m.

I got all enrolled for school and will soon be taking classes at UVSC,which will soon be UVU, and hopefully will soon have a film program. For now I'm a Behavioral Science Major.

I finally got my Utah driver license and registered to vote as a Republican. Glade says that makes me an official Utahn now. Before you get your hopes up, Mom, I just registered as a republican to help swing the primaries in favor of Ron Paul. A little party crashing, if you will. Soon as March rolls around, I'm back out.

Evan and the gang and I finished our film, Lords a-Larping. Episodes two and three are slightly stalled in the works, but will come eventually, have no fear.

I was invited to be in the musical program, Joseph Smith: The Prophet. We recorded a DVD and a CD. Wonderful testimony builder, that.

I watched my two best friends as one started to drift away from the church and the other started swimming toward it. I love those guys.

I went to see Wicked in L.A. with Evan, Ronnie, and Sheri, and fell in love all over again with the ocean. I also went to Vegas with Glade and Evan, and again with Evan and Tara.

I was called as FHE committee chair in my ward, which is the second time I've had that calling in this ward. Also I don't like it, but whatever.

I've started to actually enjoy reading the Book of Mormon. Weird.

I've also started receiving notices about my ten year class reunion this May, which has me a bit freaked out. I need to hurry and do something with my life.

Anyway, that's my life this year. Obviously, other stuff happened, but that's what I'm going to look back and remember. Some happy, some sad. Mostly anti-climactic, I feel. Lots of build-up to something awful. Lots of fizzling out. But I also feel fresh hope on the horizon, like the first spring breeze. I'm happy, healthy, and I feel an energy I have missed for a while now. Things are going to move forward, whichever way that is from here.

Finally, a more philosophical note. Sometimes in this life, we are carried along. Sometimes we are led. Other times we are given directions, and have to walk about on our own. And sometimes we're merely released into the wild, to see which way we'll go. Our path is tortuous, and is meant to be. Usually, as we're coming around a bend, we make the mistake of thinking that in the direction in which we're currently headed lies our final destination. "That's where I'm headed," we think, "and so it must be where I'll end up." But the twists and turns are leading us somewhere unexpected. Coming up over a hill usually reveals only more hills. If your final destination were whatever you could see from here, you might as well stop right now, because that hill and this don't really differ so much. But we move forward based on the faith that beyond all the hills there is a beautiful blue lagoon, people waiting to greet us with drinks in hand, a peaceful end to the journey. So for now we trudge along and find beauty in what we have. We know that just because the road bends south toward the barren dessert, or north toward the frozen forest, it doesn't mean that that's where we're going to end our journey. Unless we stop walking halfway through....

If you zoom out far enough from the rainbow, you might see that it's just a sheen of oil leaking from under your broken-down '93 Ford Tempo, into a mucky puddle of stagnant water that has been ever growing these last six weeks of relentless dismal rain. That's when you squint your eyes and just look at the rainbow, and give thanks to God that He showed you this infinitesimal beauty in the midst of a vastly grey and dreary world.

Thankfulness III

2007-11-23T06:09:00.001-07:00

Thanksgiving again, and here's my list:

Carrots (great in Jell-O)
My friends (including the best roommates a guy could ask for)
Costa Vida, Bajio, and Cafe Rio
An excellent job, doing things I love and actually care about
That I'm not as old as my family all thought I was this morning
Thanksgiving dinner with good people
That I punched a girl in the nose at work today, and totally got away with it.
That for the first time in my life, I have a car, a cell phone, a job, and a bank account all at once.
Beautiful sad music.
The stars, and that they shine here at any time of year.
Red maple trees.
My family, I guess, even after today's insult.
Communication
My mission
The ending of the harry potter series.
That it really hasn't snowed here yet.
Long-lost friends, found again
Utah (I never thought I'd say it either)
My ward. Seriously, I love those guys.
My computer and my mp3 player
Past parental indiscretions.
The movies, music, and games I got for Birthgiving (Gravy's term for half birthday half Thanksgiving)
Clouds
The mighty ocean
The fact that there are still so many wonderful things to discover.
Ron Paul
Antiseptics
My one dimple
The candle factory
As in years past, that I'm not an Eskimo (Though after having lived in Alaska, I really really mean it now).
Five-hour phone conversations in the middle of the night.
Bees.
That I'll be starting school again in January.
Our movie we made, and everyone in it, and that the sequel will be done before too long.
The Holy Ghost.
My kind and off-beat bishop.
Tobler chocolate oranges.
IHOP and my favorite waiter
That I'm not a woman.
This whole amazing life.

I'm filled with a lot of love tonight. I'll see you.

--Robbie

America's Hundred Wost:

2007-11-19T00:45:00.002-07:00

So while I was digging through my blog archives searching for the Thankfulness lists I'll be using when I post on my birthday, I came across the list I did entitled "America's 100 Best." I had a lot of fun listing my favorite two things from each of a hundred different categories I made up out of my mind. I liked it so much, I decided to make that list's antithesis. I now give you "America's Hundred Worst:"

1: Classical Composer: Debussy (Chopin)
2: Muppet: Elmo (Wayne)
3: Game Show: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (The Price is Right)
4: Vegetable: Capers (green beans)
5: Candy Bar: Take 5 (PB Maxx)
6: Sitcom: Everybody Loves Raymond (Wings)
7: Movie: Master of Disguise (The Miracle of Birth)
8: Food: Capers (lasagna)
9: Superhero: Spawn (Blade)
10: Number: 5,280 (pi)
11: Color: Grey (puce)
12: Foreign Country: The Philippines (Georgia)
13: Band: The All-American Rejects (Boy Meets Girl)
14: Smurf: Smurfette (Vanity)
15: Burger: Sonic (Wendy's)
16: Magazine: Maxim (The Watchtower)
17: Book: Haunted (Fascinating Womanhood)
18: Asian: The bad guy on Season 2 of Prisonbreak (Imelda Marcos)
19: Crime: Child Molestation (Police brutality)
20: Season: Spring (Winter)
21: Elvis Song: Blue Christmas (Jailhouse Rock)
22: Musical Instrument: Bagpipes (Slide Whistle)
23: Insect: Potato Bug (W.A.S.P.)
24: Spice Girl: Sporty (Scary)
25: Provo Location: BRG (the mall)
26: Stephen King Novel: Delores Claiborne (Cujo)
27: Restaurant: Los Hermanos (Red Lobster)
28: Place: Hell (Salt lake City)
29: Gem: Citrine (Amethyst)
30: Famous Lesbian: Rosie O'Donnell (K.T. Lang)
31: Video Game: Golden Eye (The Sims)
32: Comic Strip: For Better or for Worse (Ally Oop)
33: Letter: U (Y)
34: Bird: Stellar Jay (Crow)
35: Natural Disaster: Blizzard (Avalanche)
36: Mouse: Ratatouille (The Country Mouse)
37: Disease: Alzheimer's (Progeria)
38: Political Party: Republicans (Constitution Party)
39: Painting: Anything abstract (Jesus at the Well of Bethesda)
40: American Novel: Haunted (The Andromeda Strain)
41: Musical: Cats (Grease)
42: Tree: Really, how can you hate a tree? (Ficus)
43: Baseball Team: Tigers (Yankees)
44: Ice Cream Flavor: Peppermint (Peanut Butter)
45: Landmark: The St. Louis Arch (Hole in the Rock)
46: Merit Badge: Citizenship in the Nation (Fingerprinting)
47: Language: ASL (French)
48: Dinosaur: Plesiosaur (Brontosaurus)
49: Disney Movie: Mulan (The Aristocats)
50: Spice: Anise (tarragon)
51: TV Show: The O'Reilly Factor (Teletubbies)
52: Pet: Tarantula (Cat)
53: Female Vocalist: Janis Joplin (The Dixie Chicks)
54: Continent: Antarctica (Asia)
55: Cereal: Meuslix (Peanut Butter Crunch)
56: Fast Food: Taco del Mar (Pita Pit)
57: Weather: Snow (Sleet)
58: Hair Care Product: Shampoo that burns you (Aquanet)
59: President: W (Nixon)
60: Dr. Seuss Book: Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (The Cat in the Hat Comes Back)
61: Word: Potential (funner)
62: Sexual Position: Haha just kidding again (Congress of the Crow)
63: Old Person: Lorelle in Alaska (My maternal grandfather, who's dead)
64: Harry Potter Character: Fenrir Greyback (Grawp)
65: Weapon: Guns (the A bomb)
66: Thing to Eat: Poop (Razor Blades)
67: Classic Rock Band: Rolling Stones (Heart)
68: Animal: Spiders (naked mole rats)
69: Fruit: Pumpkin (Gooseberry)
70: SNL Alum: Chris Farley (Will Ferrell)
71: Root Beer: Barq's (Dad's)
72: Curse Word: C Word (SH Word)
73: Flower: Broccoli (Rose)
74: Sport: Basketball (Lacrosse)
75: Greek God: Ares (Iris)
76: Board Game: Monopoly (Yatzee)
77: Beatles Song: Paperback Writer (Imagine)
78: Hymn: Come All ye Sons of God (I am a Child of God)
79: Jelly Belly: Cappuccino (Licorice)
80: Punctuation Mark: Slash (Ampersand)
81: Bone: Patella (T-12)
82: Car: Hearst (Oscar Meyer Weinermobile)
83: Soup: Clam Chowder (Cream of Shrimp)
84: Black: Will Smiff (Anita Hill)
85: Cologne: Anything in a bottle shaped like a pheasant (Axe)
86: Comedic Movie: Master of Disguise (Jackass)
87: Card Game: Slapjack (Egyptian Rat Screw)
88: Job: Janitor (Assistant Crack Whore)
89: Category So Far: Tree (Bone)
90: Holiday: Take your Daughter to Work Day (Veteran's Day)
91: Marsupial: 'Possum (Wombat)
92: Organ: Rectum (Nose)
93: Football Player: Terrell Owens (Bo Jackson)
94: Jam: Apricot pineapple (Mint)
95: Appliance: Cuisinart (Toaster)
96: Fish: Moray Eel (Great White)
97: Meat: Fish (Pate)
98: Soda: Grape (Anything Chilean)
99: Tool: Bone saw (auger)
100: Actress: Angelina Jolie (Mary Tyler Moore)

Decorated

2007-11-12T02:03:00.001-07:00

An original poem for this holiday season:

Decorated
Cut down in the forest
Only a stump remaining
Dragged back home to Mom
Lower limbs trimmed away
Propped up
Dressed nicely
For all to see
Sapped of life
Adorned with ornaments
Filled with memories
Family gathered
Gifts given
Speeches made
Tribute paid
Then dried out
Hauled out
Left on the curb
Purpose served
Alone
Forgotten
The War Hero
Decorated

Happy Veterans Day, everybody.

Scholarship Essays

2007-10-01T16:23:00.002-06:00

Essay #1:
Please write a brief biographical sketch about yourself.
Limit your response to 300 words.

Mom had four boys by the time she turned 24. Dad worked awful hours in the stench of a tannery to support us and put himself through nursing school. She had joined the LDS church while living in foster homes; he was the youngest son of a single Mexican immigrant mother. Both ignited in their children a love of learning and virtue. Dad rid the house of its television, insisted his boys say “yes” instead of “yeah,” and taught us the names of every bone in the body. Mom ran a daycare from the modest duplex, took the kids on weekly educational fieldtrips, and shopped at garage sales for the best surprise we knew of: armfuls of used books.

As the oldest of the boys, I was the first to finish high school and serve an LDS mission. I served in the frozen southern reaches of Chile, learned Spanish quickly (thanks to Mom’s grammar lessons and Dad’s sangre Mexicano), and spent my mission loving and teaching the Chilean people. When I returned, I attended community college in Napa, California, then moved to Utah to attend BYU. I went to the beginning of a semester of BYU, but found I was financially unprepared and dropped out to earn some money first. I became a waiter, determined to follow Dad’s example by working hard and supporting myself. Within a year I had worked my way to the top of the restaurant’s hierarchy as general manager over two restaurants and almost two hundred employees.

The restaurant job was enjoyable, but my parents’ emphasis on education still burned within like an ember. Hence, I am applying again to BYU, hoping to get my English Language degree so that I might stoke the flame of my education and share its light with future generations.

Essay #2:
Please describe your educational, professional, and other goals. Describe how BYU
will help you achieve them. Limit your response to 300 words.

I have a slightly out-of-focus vision of my future. I’ll describe it to you the best I can. Of course, anything I write here is subject to unforeseeable change, but for now I’m working vigorously toward this vision.

In my future, I will attend BYU and receive a bachelor’s degree in English Language. During my time there I will find a virtuous and patient woman who will consent to marry me in the temple. I will take the appropriate classes to make myself eligible for consideration as an employee for the Church Education System. I will proceed to teach seminary or high school and get my master’s degree in something Englishy. Then I’ll teach Institute, and eventually get my doctorate. Along the way, I plan to continue in my hobby of writing fiction and screenplays. I believe I can work happily for a time as a writer of uplifting, educational, and entertaining programming for television.

Meanwhile, my wife will be bearing (or adopting) many children, and she’ll stay home from the workplace to raise them. It will be a home with plenty of books and education and love. We will live somewhere between San Francisco and Seattle. My wife and I will both serve in a wide variety of church callings, and will dedicate ourselves to living the gospel and teaching it to our children. Eventually I will teach English or linguistics classes at a University. My wife and I will die happy and old. We will have made significant contributions to education. We will have built up the church in our area and raised happy, interesting children. We will not have forgotten that it was at BYU that we first met, and where we began our commitment to learning and higher education.

Or I could go to UVSC, marry a woman with a nose ring and pink hair, get my degree in waste management, and manage a dump in Nevada where I have to work Sundays and my wife has to get a job to supplement my meager income at a convenience store where she meets a flashy man with a motorcycle for whom she eventually leaves me.

(OK, I didn't really put in that last paragraph)

Essay #3:
Please list and/or describe your participation and leadership during the last three
years in extracurricular activities, including performance groups, athletics, cultural
and civic clubs, and church and community service. Limit your response to 300 words.

I am always involved in some project or other. Most recently, I have written, directed, and acted in a series of short films that my roommates and I have been working on, mostly for fun, but also to have in our portfolios. A few years ago, I was a writer for BYU’s Hundred Hour Board—an exclusive question and answer forum that provides answers to students’ questions and allows its answerers to write creatively and do important research—though I wasn’t yet an official BYU student. I enjoy projects where I can write and be creative.

I also find occasion to perform meaningful service through my church callings. During the past few years I have been able to serve as a Family Home Evening group leader, Family Home Evening committee chair, and Sunday School president. These callings have given me the opportunity to plan dinners and activities for groups of 150 students, to prepare spiritual lessons, and to work with and organize the efforts of a variety of different people. I have also used these opportunities to effect service for the greater community, by organizing canned food drives for the needy and starting an annual Christmas toy drive for the children at a local battered women’s shelter.

I love music, and have been a member of Latter-Day Sounds, a traveling fireside choir that shares its testimony through uplifting spiritual music. I was also a member of the choir that performed Rob Gardner’s Joseph Smith the Prophet in Salt Lake City last year.

My employment has given me the opportunity to work with many people who are immigrants from Latin-American countries, and I have made audiotapes and taught lessons to help these wonderful people become proficient in English and learn enough about U.S. history to be able to pass their citizenship tests.

Nurture

2007-09-28T04:18:00.000-06:00

“We can’t have you in here with the other girls.”

The other girls shift skittishly, sensing the storm on the horizon.

Ursula sits on her haunches on the chair of her desk with her muscular brown arms folded on top of her black ashy knees, her back pressed uncomfortably against the bars on the window, her forehead and eyes pointed at us as though pure rage might explode out at us. Her neck swivels menacingly; the vituperation continues as the staff members warily close in. “Bitch! I don’t need your fat-ass face in my face! You want something in your face, go get another cheeseburger!” To another: “Just come at me! I’ll rip your titties off!” To the nurse: “You! Black girl! I’ll kill your baby!” The nurse takes a step backward and sideways, trying to shield herself behind some wall or counter or piece of furniture she wishes were there, letting her hands flutter like birds around her distended belly in their search for the most protective place to alight.

“We need you to walk into Investment.”

The girl has become rigid, barely moving. Her breath is an ursine growl. The last thing she says is “You’ll have to take me. And I promise it will be Prob. Lems.” She punctuates each syllable of that final word with another around-the-world sway of her neck. Her eyes lose their focus, and a roar, guttural and startling, emanates from between her clenched teeth and angrily parted lips.

“Get the other girls out of here.”

The other girls leave their desks, their pens, everything. They funnel through the door in an ovine panic, following the staff to safety. They get jammed in the doorway, rammed into each other in their attempts to simultaneously leave quickly to escape harm and linger to witness the melee. A wispy girl, Rachel, is pushed, misses the doorway, and gets hit in her clean teeth by the wall-mounted pencil sharpener. She is swallowed up by the stampede, bleeding slightly from the corner of her mouth, led down the hall, and into a new classroom. The nurse looks sternly at all of them as she pauses pregnantly, then closes the door and gives them new pens. They strain to hear, quiet for the first time all day. The first sentence they can make out is:

“You have until the count of three to walk on your own. You are going either way.”

The men of the staff close the circle on the animal, hands forward, shuffling apprehensively. It bares its teeth, growls and screams.

“One.”

Its painted claws clatter dangerously on the desktop.

“Two.”

Saliva pools on its lips.

“Three.”

Two men advance, each grabbing a wrist and a shoulder. The moment it is touched, the animal begins to thrash truculently, kicking, gnashing, jerking its strong arms in an attempt to knock the men off balance. They pull it off of the desk, away from the wall, and two of the women grasp at the flailing legs. It bends at the knees, the hips, the neck, trying to free itself. In a surprising move, it yanks its hand inward instead of out toward the attackers, and is able to catch the back of a man’s manacling hand in its teeth.

“She’s biting me!” he caterwauls madly. Several pairs of hands grasp at its nappy head, its strong jaws. The man doesn’t let go of its arm, though fangs are piercing his skin. Blood vessels are mashed between gnashing teeth and the bones in the back of the hand, causing an instant black and purple ring to shine through. He finally manages to pull the hand away, leaving a bite-sized roll of scraped skin in its mouth. It continues to spasm and scream, shaking its head from side to side in order to drench them all in its slobber. They rustle it into Investment, down to the cold pavement floor, and nimble fingers remove its shoes and belt. The nurse reappears with a hypodermic and doctor’s orders. Heavy hands hold its hips and thighs and head. A flash of brown fleshy buttocks lasts just long enough for the injection. They wait.

After a few minutes, the struggling has stopped. The man with the bloody hand has gone to watch the other girls, a wad of paper towels pressed to the wound. The thin girl, Rachel, shaken and jealous, raises a malnourished arm like a tentative twig growing in time lapse. “May I break chair structure and come ask you a question?” she asks sheepishly. He nods his assent, eyes still on the smashed plum that is the back of his hand. The closeness of her small voice seconds later startles him. “I need to isolate. I feel like I’m going to explode.”

“Sit there in the chair in the hallway, facing the wall, and stay where I can see you,” he instructs impassively. Every other hand in the classroom erupts into the air, each straining to peak above the others. A few girls blurt out. “But!” “Me too!” “I can’t!” The man’s glare successfully conveys his unwillingness to tolerate nonsense this day. Most of the hands have sagged back down even before he says, “We’ve all just been through something stressful. Nobody is in trouble here. Please stay on task. You can’t all isolate at once. Rachel, write me a Feelings Paper and come back to your desk.” They settle back into the work of eavesdropping on whatever might be happening in Investment.

“I think we’re okay to let her go and back out of the room.”

They stand up and start slowly for the door. Without warning, it wheels up and around, punches the heavy-set woman in the face, aims a clumsy kick at a man’s knees. The woman throws her hands to her face. The man pulls the knee to his chest, swearing on one leg. There are still enough of them to grab it again and get it into a submissive position. This time they let it go and bolt for the door, which they close. They can hear it growling and panting, slamming its bulk against the other side of the heavy door. The long string of invective resumes. They exchange glances, wishing they could be anywhere else. Anywhere calmer.

“Rachel. It’s been five minutes. You need to rejoin these girls or face a Natural Consequence.” His voice carries out to her in the hallway, but she pretends not to hear. “Rachel!” he says, not more loudly, but more emphatically. She turns her head, and he sees the wet tears on her face and in the chopped bangs that she parts by pushing them to either side of her plastic-rimmed glasses.

“I did it again,” she bleats.

“What did you do?” he asks, as he cautiously stands up.

“I self-harmed,” comes the pathetic response. As he comes around, he sees the electrical outlet on the wall. She has ripped the face off of it, and a shard of the hard plastic is clutched in her slender right fist. He sees the red viscous droplets on the edge of the weapon, continues around her and sees the bright poison red spreading all across her left forearm, seeping out of a six-inch cherry-pie gash in her pale skin, soaking darkly into the leg of her sweat pants, making sticky scarlet elbow prints on the chair. He cries out in alarm, then grabs for his radio. “Code Nine in Classroom Four!”

The ensuing commotion of staff members and radios and paramedics and craning girls is enough to drown out the commotion the beast is making a few rooms down by banging its head against the door until it tires itself out. “I hope you know what you are responsible for today,” comes the bitter voice of the fat staff lady through the little hole in the door of the animal’s cage. Her voice is muffled a bit by the bag of ice she is holding up to one side of her face. “A lot of good people have been hurt trying to help you, but do you care? No. I hope they press charges. I don’t get paid enough to deal with you.” But the animal doesn’t hear her, and really doesn’t care, and sleeps through the rest of the afternoon’s events.

It sleeps through the fat lady’s attempts to sting it with guilt, in order to assuage her own guilt about her size. It sleeps through a man’s testimony to the police as he gingerly favors one knee. Through the police officers’ assurances that the school won’t have to deal with this one anymore, because she’ll spend some time in Juvie and then she’ll be back to her mother’s, if she’s out of prison herself by then; after all, no other school is going to take her after this one. It sleeps through a frail girl getting stitches up her arm and a reward of all the attention she has been craving today. It sleeps through a nurse’s phone call to her supervisor, saying that she just had to get away, and that she might not come back at all, at least not until the baby comes. It sleeps through the gossip that spreads through the school, and its own elevated status as another rebel who showed the staff what was what. “Oh, I bit a staff member once,” they brag and lie. It sleeps through that, too.

It sleeps through a man’s sobs. The man has pulled over to the side of the road, just as the clouds mockingly burst. He wipes the tears off his glasses on his tee shirt with a bandaged hand, amazed by the catharsis that begins to spread through him. But still he sobs and sobs, for himself, for the girls, for the world, forehead on forearms on the steering wheel. The hail bangs unfeelingly against the roof of his battered old car.

Soon, the animal will be returned to the wild. “Untameable,” they’ll say.

God damn the bastards who raped that little girl.

L!A!

2007-08-26T01:35:00.001-06:00

So instead of wasting my time typing up all of our fun adventures from our trip to Los Angeles, I thought I would just copy and paste everything Veronica said, and just add my own comments in there in brackets. She did take copious notes, after all. Here they are:

It would be impossible to detail the happenings of this epic trip with any sort of literary distinction. However, I will tell you that it was quite mighty, and will no doubt live on in infamy for many weeks, if not months to come.

That said, I will now whet your appetite with brief snippets of what actually happened, and leave you tantalized, to wonder what these things really mean.

Tuesday, 6:00am. Wasn't sure what was happening until I realized that I was talking to Evan on the phone, and I had probably fallen asleep whilst packing.

7-or 8 something am: Robbie schools me at BOMB, but I will eventually exact much revenge and carnage upon him later.

Hang on, wait. I can't find Tuesday in my notes...

Lots of mention has to go out to Evan's hilarious impressions of the Conchords.

Oh, okay here it is--the all awaited summary of Tuesday night, as copied verbatim from my notes:

(Disclaimer: as one of the favorite recurring quotes of this week has been "That's Racist!" prepare yourself, if you're in any way delicate.)

(Dialogue follows Robbie as he shuffles down the street in his best impression of an Asian tourist, several of which we had just seen)
V: "Are you flexing your butt, Robbie?"
R: "No, it just looks like that."
E:(totally out of nowhere) "That's the Grand Illusion."

Other Tues happenings...

While driving haplessly down the 10, almost got smooshed by an inconsiderate Semi Truck. Has anyone noticed? Why is it always the psycho drivers who DON'T have the "How's my driving? 1-866-TELLUSOK" signs? I ask you.

Ooh, here's a fun one. After our departure, at our first stop in Las Vegas (in the GHETTO of LV) [in 100+ temperatures] we noticed that the car would NOT start. Broken battery. So, for EVERY time we turned the car off for anything on the way down to LA, we had to find helpful citizens who would rescue us with an electric charge. I used my Oliver Twist face whenever possible.
Twice though, (or was it thrice?) [thrice] we were rejected, and some of the best excuses I've ever heard were given. Such as,
"Oh, this car doesn't do that." said the rich snobby guy as he and his dearest, "Muffy", stepped out of the Lesabre.
"I can't help you. This is the company car." said other unhelpful corporate type man.
[The third was "sorry, dude, but this is a bicycle." Ha, no. Not true. The third was that they were "really late."]
All I have to say about that encounter is God Bless Canada.

Wednesday. I'm glossing over some stuff because I'm tired and can't remember everything.

We ate lunch in the same Chinese restaurant where they filmed Rush Hour. Cheapest food EVER.

Surprisingly, considering my dislike of the general populace as a whole, Chinatown was my favorite part of our meanderings that day. (Just kidding. That's racist!)

GRAUMANN'S CHINESE THEATER.
Things I noticed:
One, I had way more fun standing in the footsteps of the guys, because Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marilyn Monroe ALL had midget feet and made me feel like a freak of some kind.
Danny Kaye, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, and Nicholas Cage were all very humble in the signing of their names. But their feet were huge.
Matt Damon has freakishly tiny hands.
I couldn't find Mark Wahlberg anywhere, but it was probably for the best. If I had been able to, there would probably be some very embarrassing pictures of me trying to cuddle with that particular slab of concrete.

Other observations from the Walk of Fame:
Several guys playing bagpipes for money, although I think they could've gotten more if they had a sign saying "We'll stop for cash."
6.5 foot Diva/Drag Queen dressed as some kind of demonic creature gave me a "Ummmhmmm". Not really sure, but I'll take that as a compliment.
Saw Darth Vader with his helmet up, and was surprised to find out that he's actually Latino, and doesn't look like James Earl Jones at all.
Robbie finally found the star for Cuba Gooding Jr., and was at peace with life.
Stupid Musketeer wannabe [and Supergirl] forced us to take picture, and then demanded tip. We didn't even want one with him anyway. I would've just deleted the digital photo and been like, "No harm, no foul."
Homeless man on Hollywood and Vine held sign that read "I bet you a dollar that you read this sign." I REALLY wished I had a dollar to give him, cause that's what I call creativity.
Also discovered that Batman is actually a Mormon, after taking in evidence of G-lines under the Batsuit.

Later...

Standing in line for WICKED TICKETS:

Didn't win the lottery again, second night in a row. Convinced it was my fault, bad karma from not giving that guy a dollar.

"I heart transvestites." [No recollection of all of what that is referring to. That's racist]

R: [Peering through the crack of the door] "Hey, I can see the stage!"
S: "No, you can't."
R: "No wait, I can see a poster of the stage!"

Evan: "I hate Argyle. If it were up to me, we'd bomb Argyle."

Random, I don't know where this goes.

The Labrea Tar Pits: (White Trash Day)

S: "The tarpit has tasted Robbie, and it desires him."
E: "I like the thought of it being a living thing. And it's gonna HUNT YOU DOWN."
S: "I bet that tarpit gets bored with that same ol same ol...gazelle carcass and giant sloth pelvis."

Rubbing Elbows with Famous People conversation.

E: "I didn't talk to him. But I saw him through the glass and I said, : ' O."

THURSDAY:

Whole morning at Venice Beach. Also part of afternoon. Read the entire book Twilight. I LOVE the beach for this reason.

Robbie has a big mouth. Enough said. [Veronica was too busy menstruating to swim].

Wicked was the single most pivotal moment of my life. It marked the first time I have ever fervently wished to be a mythical creature, and practice the dark arts. And to be green.

FRIDAY:

R: "Isn't it funny that we're going to a place called Fuller to fill up our gas?"
...Ten seconds later...
V: "Isn't it funny how the town is called Fuller, and we're getting gas here?"
R: "I just said that."
V: "I know. I was quoting you."
R: (WTF look)
V: "It doesn't matter when you said it. A quote can be resaid anytime."
E: "Yeah. Like my good friend Ronny once said, a quote can be resaid anytime."

I still think that John Lithgow was in Bill and Ted's SOMEWHERE. [He's not]

Until next time, kids! I don't know why I've been on this irreverent streak lately. I'll post something in a more serious tone next time.

What I Did In Church On Sunday

2007-08-16T17:07:00.000-06:00

People are always asking me why I'm afraid of midgets. Well, here's the definitive answer, in storybook form. It's a definite departure from my norm. I offer this flotsam up in the wake of my last post's political incorrectness:

Man, I don't know what's wrong with me. The last thing I need is to be haunted by a midget ghost. I hope you enjoyed this.

Powwow

2007-08-14T14:10:00.001-06:00

Further dashing my hopes that I may someday live a “normal” life, Ty Mansfield (King of the Gay Mormons) called me the other day (to proposition me, he said; I told him I was going to tell the internet). Apparently the leaders of the Navajo Nation wanted to meet with us the next day because they are trying to restructure their government and need to know what to do with the 2005 law they passed stating that marriage is only between a man and a woman. So we went.

I must say I was pretty nervous. I may have been mistaken for an Indian in the past, but I’m not one, and I had no idea what sort of cultural barriers I might run into. Do you shake hands? Or do you just raise your palm and say “How?” Is “Navajo” plural? Is it offensive? Was there any way I could score some Navajo tacos out of this deal? Was I going to have to smoke something? Did thinking about these questions automatically make me unqualified to help them?

So the next afternoon I texted Ty “What are you wearing?” which cracks me up. He didn’t answer in time for me to change my own outfit, so I showed up in a nice shirt and tie, and he showed up in the standard shorts and polo. Oh, well. I don’t mind being overdressed. Plus at least I didn’t go with my first thought, which was this: “Hmmm, it should be something part Indian. What do they wear? Feathers? And then something part gay… A feather boa! Perfect!” Really, all you gay Indians out there, if you want to start building understanding and tolerance in your community, you probably need to start building your outfits around the feather boa. I think snakes are even sacred to your people anyway. Wasn’t your Quetzalcoatl god a feathered serpent? It’s a good thing the American Indians have me to sort out their complex social issues for them.

So we showed up and Ty apologized for what he was wearing, probably mostly to make me feel more at ease, because the nicest any of the Navajos was dressed was a bolo tie, which I felt was a little stereotypical. The obvious leader of the group was an elderly man who had served as Supreme Court Justice in the Navajo Supreme Court for 13 years. The rest were aides or interns or something, but their opinions seemed to matter. They asked question after question for an hour and a half, and we answered them all. Each of the men seemed to have his own individual agenda, to which our words were constantly twisted. The whole meeting seemed a large balancing act, paring away what I didn’t believe, some from this side, then some from that side, until we got to the core of it.

Here are some things that I gathered that seem to matter to the Indians:

Their government and laws (they have their own constitution that does not fall under the U.S. constitution) have grown inorganically, mirroring our constitution. A push is being made to return their government to its traditional setup, with spiritual leaders called “medicine men” at the head. A problem with this is that the medicine men’s treatment of early signs of homosexuality is to send the person into the desert for nine days. That’s a long time.

The Navajos have not ever had a case of two of their citizens of the same sex trying to marry. They view the law as moot, built to reflect the current political trends in the U.S. At the same time, they worry that such a law only engenders prejudice, and would not want the laws they have set up acting as the catalysts for hatred.

Many fear that the Navajo people have forgotten their roots and rich heritage. According to the leader, gays were traditionally treated with much respeck (that's a Navajo word they taught me that means "respect"). “Just like you would treat a firstborn son or twins with respeck,” he said to me, which I felt was the sentence which most clearly pulled back the curtain on the differences between our cultures and mindsets. We learned that that mindset had changed over the last hundred years, as conservative U.S. values have seeped into their community, and that several of the current leaders among the Navajos have begun to accept those values as a part of the Navajo historic heritage (the same thing exactly has happened among the Mormons; we're forgetting that our church membership wasn't always aligned with the Republican Party).

The Navajos also don’t wish to make a homosexual person feel that he or she must necessarily live a homosexual lifestyle just because he or she feels homosexual desires. Their first law is respeck for all people. They also seem heavy on the “live and let live” policy, for which they have another special Navajo word they taught us that I don’t remember.

Now, here are some points that I made during the meeting:

First, they may have never had a case of two Navajos of the same sex trying to get married, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It’s the same with Utah: I can’t imagine wanting to live in Utah if I were trying to live in a gay marriage and adopt children and all. There are better places for that. But that doesn’t mean our law is moot. There are activists out there who would try to get married in Utah specifically to challenge our laws. And the fact that we have a law set up means that we already know in advance how we are going to deal with that when the time comes. I told the Indians that their nation would probably someday come to a similar point, where their laws are being tested not from within, but by a movement from the U.S. that aims to challenge their beliefs. Inorganic laws can serve as a good preemptive defense against inorganic activism.

Next, I told them about the changes we helped effect in the BYU Honor Code, and how the most important part to me was that it now specifically states that a person can be open about his sexuality. Homosexual behavior is still not allowed, but the new wording prevents the problem of the rule itself fostering anti-gay feelings. In this way, the law takes responsibility for itself.

Furthermore, I said, I would never want to coerce someone into living what I believe. I also would not want to push someone into living the opposite of what I believe. What I would rather do is clear the way before them and let them choose their own path (that’s how Navajos talk, right?). I gave the example of the teenage boy who went and got a tattoo without asking for parental permission, an action which was clearly against his family’s values. His family, however, maintained the attitude, “oh just let him do whatever he wants.” The flaw in that thinking is evident when one takes the teenager’s actions to the next level. What if what he wants is to do drugs? I told those Navajos that it’s fine to let people make their own decisions, but that doesn’t mean that at any point we stop teaching them our values and spiritual traditions, and that we have a responsibility to those over whom we have a charge to help them make good decisions, as well.

I don’t know how much anything we said actually reached them, or whether they’ll be able to communicate any of it back to their government in any useful way, but I felt that the meeting went very well.

After the meeting, we talked to one of the aides, who, it turns out, is Navajo and Mormon and a closeted homosexual. Yikes! Sucks to be him. He is working in his government right now, trying to bring about social change, which is the reason he can’t come out. He’d lose his job. It was really neat to talk to someone who was fighting the same fight, but on a different battlefield. My prayers are with that kid. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to mix three different clashing cultures in one life. I hope he writes a book.

Anyway, I do have one regret from the meeting. It’s that probably if I had just remembered to bring some firewater and beads to the meeting, I could right now own a LOT of Arizona. Yeah, but who wants it anyway, right? I mean... right?

Freudian Slip

2007-08-03T00:15:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm in Washington. I'll be back Monday night, latish. So, I don't have much time right now, so I figured I'd just post another poem that I have saved in my drafts for just such a time. Enjoy. I'm still working out the ending.

Freudian Slip

There WAS no summer.
We sat high on the edge of the spring, bored,
waiting for the inevitable fall.
She eyed me a little,
owed me a lot;
I let her.
She had a strange piece of mind
wedged in her smile,
leaves left
tangled in her sloppy hair
the brush struck and stuck
in the tangles and tendrils.
"So knotty today," she sighed, coil-ly

In a matter of secs,
the fall came.
We slipped.
The hole whirled past us,
the whole world passed us,
lightning fright'ning away
foreign twenty blackbirds,
rousted from their roost.

...And now here we are together in a moment of calm...
...The you and I of the storm....

Then it's upon us again, the sky
rains on the back of my neck, and a bit in my mouth.
The weight of it all; I'm lead.
Then, nothing.
I am her fading crush;
Her fading crushes me.

p.s. If you have a few minutes (which you obviously do if you're reading blogs) go read Evan's blog. He's hilarious, and I think his writing style is similar to mine, with the feeling that he's just talking directly to you, and the fact that he seems to interrupt himself all the time.

Other Thoughts

2007-08-02T23:50:00.000-06:00

K, here's a poem I wrote a while back. The last line is something odd that someone odd actually said to me, and the rest of the poem grew out of there. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think this might be about. I am wondering if it's clear enough.

Have to find something else to think about

That man has a hook arm

Metal, impenetrable arms

Wait—How does he pick his nose?

Dead fish in the marketplace, grey, cold, dead

Almost out of money; have to return to work soon

Razor blade, poisonous, keen

Where are my house keys!?

Okay, they're in my pocket

I can’t do this

No drinking fountain on this damned bus

Blood, worms, dust

Forever unused bottles of nail polish and perfume

Our little bridge over the Napa River going by

A stop, and there goes Captain Hook

More Mexicans get on

The barren future

Getting sleepy

My headrest is gone

You

Awake again

Where are we!?

Downtown, all the people, moving, unmoved

So thirsty, always now

Foamy, spongy food; all I get anymore

Is that Tina Davidson? Has she heard?

Just look away--Can she see?

Uncomfortable bench, no seatbelts

Rusted, sinking nobody

Mouth dry, needing kisses

Have to pee, have to hold it

Always, always, have to hold the liquids in

Time to clip my nails again; no reminder

Last month is swallowing me

Train of thought slipping

You

Quickly, anything else

Scientific advances within the last hundred years

(not ENOUGH!)

Mom's meatballs

A kitten, and fleas sucking the life out of it

Frowning Arabian crossing guard, sweaty

Should have seen the signs

STOP

A bit ill; no more corn flakes at home

Chuck's baptism, creepy, necessary?

Guy across the aisle looks like a turtle, wizened

Cracking world made of solid ice

A bell, a light, a lurch!

Now down the stairs, left, right, left

Yellowing, lumpy mayonnaise spilt on the counter last night

No one to clean it up

No one to clean it up for

Cold, insensitive smiley faces, like stars

Distorted by the atmosphere, rushing blindly past

Gamma rays on my head, hungrily biting my face and neck

Raining that day, not like today

Powdered misery, just add water

Shouldn't have eaten those microwaveable nachos for breakfast

Pushing the pavement with my feet

Should have learned to cook for myself

You

Have to let go

I waste too much time

What does despair taste like? Does it taste ugly?

Gouging blade in a dying wrist

Spiral checkerboard in my eyelids, hell

Here at last; the grass looks nice, green

Need to call Mom back

The empty spot of ceiling over our bed

Linoleum composure, easily wiped off

No one to clean it up for, either

How sad the caretaker woman must feel, no teeth

All her friends deep in plots against her

How do you spell resolution? How do you do it?

My shadow is being midgety right now

Falling across the erect slabs of marble

I can’t help but step on him, on you

Veins pumping black tarry sadness

Here I am, here.

Can't ever make some people happy

But I still bring flowers

You

I only think of you when I run out of other thoughts

Media Recommendations

2007-07-26T02:26:00.000-06:00

I've seen some great movies and read some great books recently. Just thought I'd report here. Movies first:

Transformers: surprisingly good! I expected a lot of rubbish with some familiar old characters, and I was hardly prepared for this delightful adventure. The writing was incredible! Of special note was the main character's mother, whom I found to be hilarious. Evan and I went to see this one twice.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: This movie was much better than the bloated, depressing book from which its script was adapted. I don't know why, but I got very excited at the end with the battle between the forces of light and dark, and also by the editing in the final battle between Harry and Voldemort that takes place in Harry's mind.

Hairspray: The music in this movie was inspiring. The entire cast displayed an enormous talent, the message was timely and important, and it avoided slipping into the dubious Hollywood morality. It has a fluffy exterior, but underneath it is an important movie that everyone should see.

Ok, I know all three of those movies aren't supposed to be very deep, and they won't win a Best Picture Oscar, but they all were very well done. Much better than your average summer blockbuster fare. I wouldn't be mentioning them here had I not been so favorably impressed. Books next:

The Poisonwood Bible: Sadly, I don't have many people left to whom I can recommend this book, since I seem to be the last one to discover it. I was very impressed with Kingsolver's daring experimentation with voice. The book was shocking, heart wrenching, and didactic. It tells the story of a preacher and his wife and four daughters who travel to the Congo in the 50's as missionaries, and each chapter is told by either the wife or one of the four daughters. Each has a very distinct perspective and voice. Eldest daughter Rachel is skeptical and aloof, and inadvertently uses humorous malapropisms, all the while providing a metaphor for the average American's refusal to see what the United States was doing to the Congo. The twins are next, with Rachel speaking in lofty and idealistic tones, and we follow her down a path of disillusionment that ends in a harsh but crucial place. The other twin, Adah, has suffered brain damage and is literal and belligerent, writing in palindromes and wordplays and making deep, resounding metaphorical connections between the family and the African nation. Youngest daughter Ruth May is optimistic and naive, her imaginative and uneducated voice being used to illustrate otherwise hidden dangers in a tone heavy with dramatic irony. The mother speaks from many years later, with a deep melancholy and richly wise hindsight, all proffered in a dizzyingly poetic style. It's an absolute joy to read this novel, which begins as a story about the one family, but by the end has drawn all of the Congo under its scope.

Cloud Atlas: I don't know what inspired me to pick this up, but I was looking for something that was as much fun and experimentation as The Poisonwood Bible, and I found that in Cloud Atlas. Cloud Atlas opens with a man named Adam Ewing presenting us with his 1849 journal, using an old-fashioned English where words are spelled however they sound. Right in the middle of one of his adventures, indeed, in the middle of one of his sentences, his story comes to an abrupt end and we are introduced to Robert Frobisher, a gifted musician with an uninhibited sex life and a knack for getting himself into and talking his way out of trouble, all told through a series of letters to a former lover, which employ shorthand, often leaving out the subjects of sentences and abbreviating important words and names. Before reaching any resolution there, we begin "Half-lives: The First Luisa Rey Novel," which is a story corporate intrigue set in the 1970's. In the middle of that story, we begin to read a hilarious memoir of a publisher named Timothy Cavendish, whose misadventures are told in Cockney slang. Then we're on to the science-fiction story of Onmi 451 clone designed to feed people in a restaurant in Korea in the near future. This is presented in interview form, and the language of the future has been truncated and streamlined, so we end up with words like "xpect" and "fritened." This character's confused perspective matches ours, and as the world becomes clearer to her, so the story does to us. Finally, we begin the story of a post-apocalyptic people whose language is only in spoken form, and who long for relics of the once-civilized world. The language in this section is the most bizarre of all, representing an English corrupted by hundreds of years of benighted thinking. At this point in the novel, the story turns around, and goes back through all of the stories we've already read, finishing them off and answering our questions. What is strange is that each main character seems to be in possession of the previous sections of the book (an idea I've long considered for a book idea I've been working on), and each main character seems to be the same soul, reincarnated over and over throughout time. It builds to a neat climax several times, and astonishingly, only when you reach the end of the book do you realize the overarching themes that were surely present the whole time. Full of self-allusion and tricky, sparkling wordplay, this novel also punches out an important moral about power and greed and living as a part of a society, and how an individual's downfall will be the same as a civilization’s downfall if the citizens don't keep their pride in check. It's really astonishing, and I recommend this enjoyable read to anyone who loves language.

Finally, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Yes, this is the end of the Harry Potter series, and J.K. Rowling did it exactly right. I don't want to post any spoilers here, and I don't feel I need to explain what the book is about (who doesn't know at this point, right?), but I do want to say that this was very much the most moral and important book in the series, with lessons about sacrifice and loss and friendship and forgiveness. It was also more honest than the other books, with well-established "good" characters coming under new scrutiny (Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, etc.) and "bad characters finally getting a chance to bask in a more positive light (Snape, the Dursleys, the Malfoys, Wormtail, etc.). The characters all became much more detailed and richer. The questions were all answered in a very appropriate and sometimes unexpected way. And I felt the action sequences were more enjoyable than ever, primarily because so much happens, and secondarily because more is at stake. No fewer than seven good characters from previous books die in this one, which is hard to take, but makes Harry's struggle all the more important. If you haven't read the Harry Potter books, I strongly recommend them. They are very life-affirming and humorous and warm, and above all, remarkably well plotted. I know everybody has probably already told you, but they are not just kids' books. They are human books

Well, kids, that's it for today. I just learned about Google Feed Reader, which might change the way I do things on the Internet, and I recommend you check it out. Especially because I update this blog so unreliably, and this will automatically inform you whenever I do. Okay bye.

The First Thing I'm Going to Do When Evan and I Get Back!

2007-07-22T02:22:00.000-06:00

Go tubing down the Provo River!

Go to Zupa’s with Kaylene!

Go stargazing!

Finish watching Heroes with Ben!

Go to outdoor movie night at Sundance!

Go camping all around Utah!

Go to IHOP in the middle of the night!

Go to a baseball game and watch fireworks with Caitie and Janeen and co.!

Edit our movies!

Get a car, a job, and pay my debts to the Po-lice.

Eat at Bombay House!

Watch the season finale of Lost!

Go swimming whenever I want!

Other craziness!

Everyone's welcome!

A Rude Awakening and a Golden Moment

2007-07-19T18:58:00.002-06:00

Despite the causticity of my previous post, the days of drudgery have been interspersed with life-affirming moments. One of those I feel acutely this morning (afternoon? There is no “time of day” here). This post will probably erode instantly into abstraction, which might effect a fine juxtaposition when coupled with the minutiae of the last post. This one’s more about my feelings, a topic about which I have much less writing experience. Deep breath.

I’ve never really liked myself. I can see all the things that other people like about me, sure, but I can see all the other things as well. Now don’t worry, folks, this isn’t some sort of suicide note. I’ve actually never had suicidal thoughts. I don’t hate or pity myself; I just find that I usually prefer other people. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who’s amusing but insubstantial to have around. If life were a TV show, I’d be the wacky neighbor, popping in and out randomly, leaving people shaking their heads affectionately. “That Robbie!” they’d all intone upon my departure, turning to clean up whatever mess I’ve made and return to their normal lives.

Now, for all of my preaching about not basing one’s sense of self on the opinions of others, that’s exactly what I do. One of my greatest strengths is my adaptability. I feel very natural taking on the characteristics of those in my vicinity. Many people would see this as “fake.” But it’s something else with me. I simply admire the people I choose to have around me, and genuinely want to be more like them. This is especially true of my closest friends. People like Caitie, Evan , and Glade are so amazing to me, that I start to try to emulate them and soon forget who I am besides a patchwork of them. This would probably be fine if a) it weren’t a bit unsettling to the people I’m Single-White Female-ing, and b) I hadn’t realized that I’m doing this when I woke up this aftermorn.

At this current crossroads in my life, I have many forks in the not-too-distant future. Do I buy a car? Do I go back to school in September? What job should I get? This sort of thing normally stresses me out, and I find myself wishing for some sort of Life Consultant who could look at my monetary situation, my dreams and aspirations, my whole life, and tell me what to do next. And sure, it’s obvious to YOU, the reader, that that person should be God, especially when I go and capitalize “life Consultant” like that. But when you’re IN that life, it’s a little more difficult to constantly remember that. And so I find myself trying to weasel my friends’ opinions out of them, since these issues overwhelm me. I really do operate with a whole support system made up of people whose opinions I value more than my own. But if I take a couple of steps back, I see that I’m an adult, just like my friends, and I DO have a relationship with God, and while I love my friends and would do anything for them, and trust they would do anything for me, I need to be functional enough that if those friends were to suddenly go away, I’d be sure to remain stable. I’m not far off from that already, and I’m not talking about severing my attachments to my friends, but I’m talking about giving them breathing room. Letting them love me for who I am instead of how well I can emulate them. I still want to cultivate the best things I see in these people. Caitie’s ability to make everyone around her feel loved. Glade’s scrutinizing and analytical mind. Evan’s solidarity in doing only those things in which he believes. Ben’s refusal to back down from a deep-felt conviction. Kaylene’s expression of gratitude and excitement about life. Wiggle’s unflagging loyalty toward her friends. Rachel’s graceful compassion for those in need. Brett’s ability to find humor in any situation. Jon and Sara’s utter faith in the people they love. And this list goes on, with more people and more traits from the folks I’ve mentioned. What I don’t need is to adopt, say, Caitie’s taste in music, Evan’s choice in schools, Glade’s political stances, etc. Not that I disagree with any of these things. This is the fine point above which I’m hovering: I can love these people without desiring to be just like them or have them be just like me. The things that are right for me are not necessarily right for them too, and I can love that Ben loves computers without having to love computers, too.

An example, in the form of an initially seemingly unrelated story, which I hope you find funnier than offensive:

A Rude Awakening

One day I was mistakenly quarantined on the train. I’d vomited, you see, which is pretty normal for me, but scary in the tourism industry because of something called the Norwalk Virus, which they had to be sure I hadn’t contracted before letting me continue to serve food to the crustomers. Normally there are no witnesses when I puke at work, and I just go about my day as usual afterward. This instance was different, though. As I felt the glands under my jow throbbing, and knew my lunch of pasta primavera was about to force itself back out of my digestive system, I ran for the bathroom and threw the door open. There was Kate, the car manager, wearing gloves and a smile on her face. “I JUST finished cleaning the bathroom!“ she exclaimed proudly.”

“Oh!” I tried to make my panic look like enthusiasm.

“I cleaned out the toilets, took out the trash, wiped up the whole floor--”

That’s when I puked (mostly) into the trashcan. I swear it was exactly like that. In one ghastly second, her pride at having accomplished something unpleasant was squashed. Poor lady; she’s very nice.

So they put me on a car that had no passengers on it, and I promptly fell asleep. I was awakened to a bizarrely surreal experience.

A portly bald black man in his late thirties was shouting. “Boy, it is NICE up in here!” He took a seat across the aisle from me as I sat up, stunned and a bit unnerved. And then he started to tell me his story. He was the manager of the cars for Royal Celebrity Cruises, and he’d had a girl disobey him after he told her to do something mildly illegal to save himself some paperwork. And he’d been so angry, he’d come to our car to cool off. The thing is, his language was the foulest of any human being I’ve ever encountered. He described explicitly his wish to inflict oral sex upon the girl in order to teach her a lesson, his possible future sexual encounter with another of his female employees in the restroom of our empty car, and the problems posed by the stains the bodily fluids would leave on his uniform. He even began to act out a sexual encounter with an imaginary woman who was under the table where he was sitting. I just sat there, still in a daze from having just awakened. Eventually he stopped talking and jauntily tromped back down the stairs and out of my life. The end.

Now, I know that story doesn’t quite fit in yet, but I’m getting there.

My plan had always been to be a teacher when I grow up. I really love working with people, and explaining things, and having my summers free to go do whatever I want. So teaching sounds like the perfect job. In fact, one huge lesson I’ve learned from this Alaskan summer is that I need to be doing something I actually love. I’m considering trying to get a job as a substitute teacher or at a school for troubled youth when I get back to Provo. Now, I know the latter is what Evan does, which is actually why I haven’t done it in the past; I didn’t want to end up copying him. But the more I consider it, the more I realize that my favorite job I’ve ever had was as a youth counselor at efy. I loved teaching the kids and being an example and friend and moderator for them.

But I also really love to be creative, to write, to make films, to be funny. And with Evan’s express interest in going to film school and Rachel‘s suggestion I become a writer for television, it has been easy for me to stoke my enthusiasm for that creative outlet. I’m not copying Evan, but I’m finding in myself the things that I see in him. And we work very well together. In just about a month I expect to have finished editing parts two and three of our film project, which I believe is a hilarious success and is due in large part to the successful creative synergy that exists between us. And it’s reassuring for me to link the next few years of my future to another person, to think, I’ll just go to school where Evan goes. These sorts of decisions make perfect sense when you remember that I’ve been esteeming Evan’s opinions and judgments as having more value than my own.

A man named Christopher came to see me one evening before I could get off the train. He works for Royal Celebrity and wanted me to visit his office the next morning. I had told my own manager in very brief terms about my encounter with that crazy black man, and I suppose the word had gotten over to RCT’s office, and they had fired the fellow and were building a legal case against him, and wanted my testimony for the record. So the next morning I went down there, and told them ALL the disgusting things the man had said to me, and they thanked me very much for my time and candor and promised appropriate actions would be taken I was mostly indifferent about the man’s fate, but wanted to help the company if I could. Christopher offered to drive me home. He asked me what I was studying and I told him I’d been studying English and was considering switching to film. He was a film enthusiast himself, he told me, and had recently been working on short films with the scout troop he leads. Which of course begs the question is he LDS?, which it turns out he is. And he told me he took classes in film at BYU, and has enjoyed film as a hobby ever since, on top of his career working on the railroad, which he enjoys immensely. This information was really important to me. I can’t say why, but I felt an unnamed impact from these words, and pondered them for a while afterward. And what I’ve realized is that I don’t have to give my life to film just to feel fulfillment from it. I don’t need to earn money from a movie I’ve made to be able to enjoy the effort.

So the new plan is this: I’ll try to hurry and finish school (I earned enough money to be able to get back into that now), meanwhile working in some sort of teaching capacity. I’ll get my English Language degree, as previously planned, and if I find I’m enjoying teaching, I will go in that direction, and if I find it lacks the creative outlet I need after all, I can use that degree and the few films we’ve made to pursue the job as a TV writer after all. Maybe I can do both. And if Evan and I can continue to work on video projects in the future, I’ll be ecstatic, but if our paths eventually diverge, I’ll be ok, and I’ll still love the kid just like I still love Brett, though I get to see him too infrequently.

What cracks me up is that this recent self-discovery, the whole new plan for my future, would not have lighted in my mind had that perverted old man not awakened me from my slumber, had I not been puking on the train that evening, had I not been in Alaska in the first place. So at least one good thing has come from all of this. And I use this story about film school and Evan as an example of the new mindset I’m going to try to employ. There’s one more story that helps to explain why this has all come to a head this morning, why I awoke today with a feeling that I need to be more myself.

A Golden Moment

The day after my surreal experience with Nasty McNasterson, I had to get back to Anchorage, but I was still quarantined. So they put me back on the empty train car and didn’t let me out. Luckily, the kindly, overworked lady who arranges our housing arrangements in Fairbanks provided me with snacks for the long ride. Among these treats was a carton of something I’ve never tried. Cherries. I don’t know why I’ve never eaten cherries before, but I never have. And here was a whole carton of sweet black cherries.

Anyway, I admit I slept for most of the trip. In the “evening” I woke up, stretched, and dug my book out of my backpack. Thus began one of the most serene and beautiful experiences of my life.

The sunlight came in relaxed and lazy, lounging sideways, as the sunlight is prone to do in Alaska. The birch and alder and spruce whirred by in a strobe-like blur of white and green and brown. The cottonwood trees had released a flurry of white cotton pixies, swarming and whizzing silently and gleefully past the windows in millions, lending a snow-globe effect to the afternoon. Crystal clear ponds reflected the blue of the sky and the white of the cumulus clouds stacked up above the horizon in all directions. My eyes could scarcely take in all of the beauty, and a peace settled over me. My attention turned to the interior of the train car, to the bowl of ripe cherries, and I ate one. Delicious! The juices burst into my mouth, ripe and sweet and unexpected, like a show of affection from a child. I realized that the blackest cherries were the most delicious, and I soon had a cup full of their pits. Amid the sensual beauty, I turned back to my book. The sunlight cut a sharp angle across the pages, the fibers of the paper casting shadows, tiny and definite, on each other.

Then I looked at my hand, which was holding the book open. My skin is a honey beige, more golden than most people’s, and in the yellow sunlight it looked healthy and warm. I turned to look at my reflection in a nearby mirrored panel on the wall, and the sun again cast a favorable light on me, entering my eyes at a slant and seeming to illuminate my irises from inside; they glowed like electrified amber. And for the first time I can ever remember, I thought, “I am beautiful.” Such an astonishing thought! I have never seen beauty in myself like this. I’ve grown up wishing for lighter skin like my friends, blue or green eyes like the kind I personally find more attractive, a different body altogether. But in that moment of peace and beauty and spirit, I was able to see myself through different, more fiery and perceptive eyes. I was able to see myself as an essential part of a whole wide beautiful world, inhabited by astoundingly good human beings and remarkably brilliant ideas and preposterously delightful nature. There is beauty in places I’d never thought to look. In cherries, in trees, in myself.

And this is the big thing I’m bringing home from Alaska: a recognition of my own worth and beauty. A new-found respect for my own desires and dreams and abilities. A love as deep as ever for the friends who have helped me to become who I am so far. And a determination to forge a path forward to that unique person that I, and no one else, is meant to become. I love you all.

--Robbie

another picture i took....

Alaskan Adventure! Hooray!

2007-07-16T17:10:00.002-06:00

yeah, I took this picture

So Evan and Glade and I (I've decided to stop using pseudonyms on here because they're just plain old confusing) decided to get jobs in Alaska for the summer. We got hired by Holland America to work on the train as waiters! Such a crazy idea!

So, I normally try to remain pretty positive on here. But Alaska is Hell and i don't even have the energy or the emotional wherewithal to spin this one. Caitie thinks the reason I felt inspired to come here was to help me gain an appreciation for the Utah things in life. Like, you know, sober people, stars, friendly neighbors, happiness, etc. Stuff you can't find here in Alaska.

The pay at our job was pretty excellent. But the hours were crazy, and above (or below?) all else, the management was corrupt, inefficient, and unreasonable. And mean.

And ugly and old. Let me paint a picture for you of how life (if you can call it that) is on the train. At five thirty in the morning you wake up (I just realized I've become Mr. Jeffries, the Saturday School teacher/babysitter who used to sit around and tell his depressing life story in the second person so you would really feel his pain) and you get ready and bike down to the railyard. At this point you try your hardest to avoid any kind of interaction with Lorelle, who is, as Evan points out, that one secretary monster from Monsters Inc. Further description for those who haven't seen that movie, or who have successfully blocked it out: picture a reptile, only pink, with wispy whitish hair and strange glandular growths on her eyelids and bulldog jowls. Then picture that it's attached to an oxygen tank with a canula in its nose and it's really mean. No need to further describe its voice, as that should have been in place when I said "reptile." Also it swears a lot. As you arrive at the railyard, this monstrosity is stomping about the grounds, snorting fire and venom from its pustulated nostrils. Should you successfully evade the beast and jump onto your train car, you run into a Catch-22. Your job at this point is to take an inventory and ensure that your car is amply stocked for your two-day journey. The problem is this: If your car is missing anything (e.g. dessert, silverware, tablecloths, crackers, etc.), you will be in trouble if you don't restock it from the storage units at the rail yard before the train takes off. In theory, everything should be stocked the night before by the Russian night crew anyway, but there is a lack of language understanding or work ethic or something in that department, so you end up needing all sorts of stuff the next morning. Now what you're supposed to do is get one of the lingering Russians to run to the sheds and hand you the stuff, because the train could move at any second and you can't be getting on and off. But if Lorelle sees you, she will yell at you, because she is horrible. Her entire job description must say, "get in people's way and go to any lengths to impede their work." So really your efforts will almost surely be in vain, and since you're going to get yelled at anyway, you might as well cut your losses and just ride without crackers for the day, and only get yelled at the one time when it's discovered you're out of them, instead of once when you try to get more and then again when you‘re out later because Lorelle didn‘t let you have them.

Now, there's another succubus stomping about the trainyard in the mornings named Kim. She looks like, hmmm. Okay, you know "Arthur?" The children's books and TV show? She looks like one of the monkeys on that show, with dyed red hair and orange, wrinkly chimpanzee skin. And she has smoked too much, so her voice is raspy and her teeth yellow and flat, like an herbivore. Kim and Lorelle. I hate each of them more than the other. In one morning I have been yelled at by one for "hiding out on my car when there are no customers on it and I should be helping someone else" and by the other minutes later for "not staying on my car so I can be found when they need me." I've been yelled at three times by Kim in one morning for being late. I've been yelled at for getting off the train to grab supplies, and then minutes later for sending someone else to do my work for me. I have to be good for the rest of my life so when I die I don't go to hell and have to see these ladies again.

So let's just assume you got out of the yard and over to the depot, where you pick up the guests. Your job is to either a) load their luggage onto the train (and I swear some of these people packed their grandchildren in their "carry-ons"), or b) stand at the entrance to the car and tell people to "watch your step" as they board, due to a 4-inch drop back down after they've already come up the steps to get on the car. The guests will be annoyed with you for stating the obvious, and will often say so, cantankerously: "I can see that!" Either that or they will ignore you and fall anyway. One of the highlights of my trip was the woman who did both. "Watch your step ma'am!" "Don't you people think I know how to--" and then she fell. Hahaha.

The customers. They are old and rich and picky. Also, I think most of them are not really rich, and are spending beyond reason already, which is why they're so unhappy. Many grouchy people seem to think they will be happy if they can only go on an expensive vacation. But my experience has proven that grouchy old people are every bit as grouchy and old regardless of their settings. And nice or young people ride Princess. Now don't get me wrong--there are nice people and young people mixed in with all the liver-spotted bags of piss and vinegar who comprise the majority of our passengers, but they're not the ones who really influence the outcome of your day, or demand comment cards at the end of meal service.

So once you've got all the undead onto the train, you immediately serve breakfast. If someone on the train is going to die or just have a heart attack or stroke, this is generally when it's going to happen, even before the train gets moving. Yeah, yeah, it's sad. Partly because somebody just died and partly because now you have to wait for the paramedics and you'll be an hour behind schedule, but mostly because you have to listen to the rest of the gargoyles upstairs saying things like, "Well, is this going to affect breakfast?" and "It's almost ten o'clock! We should be eating lunch by now!" Seriously, they say that crap when someone has just died. I have no idea if they have an exaggeratory streak or if they actually eat lunch at ten o'clock because they are old. I also don't know if you turn like this when you're old or if this is just how everybody used to be during, like, the depression. "Here's your tip! Seven dimes! Oh, wait one second, I'm going to take one of those dimes back because you were out of crackers. There! Why don't you buy yourself some nice moon pies and go see a picture show!"

As far as I know, only two people have actually DIED on our train so far this year, and I didn't personally see either of them. I was the first one there when a man inexplicably fell and stopped breathing and turned blue, but we had a nurse close at hand, who revived him, thank goodness. He had gross teeth and I think I might be afraid of CPR.

So you serve breakfast to the old people, you and your partner for the run, forty consumers at a time. This part is hellacious, but not more so than most other restaurant jobs, except for two factors. All your tables come in at the exact same time. And you're in a congested box that shakes both continuously and sporadically. When the first forty slobbering zombies have finished consuming their scrambled eggs and reindeer sausage and human brains, you have to politely make them take their "coffee and conversation" back upstairs to the "dome" and set up for the next forty. This will probably take a while, since you are still out of silverware and have to wash the whole set between seatings, thanks to Lorelle's diligence.

After breakfast you start setting up for lunch. And you serve two rounds of lunch, and then you set up for dinner. Then two rounds of dinner, and then you're there. I didn't skip your break; you don't get one. This is, of course, simplified. The main challenge lies in convincing people that they do not get to choose when they eat on the train. "Hello, sir, we're ready for you to come down to eat dinner now." "Hell we just ate lunch not four hours ago! We'll come down in about an hour." But you just have to make him come now. You can't be serving someone an hour after everyone else, because you have to be setting up the dining room for the next meal at this point. But the old badger will be so upset, cussin' and cryin' and making his wife fan him off and tell him he's making a right scene and they can go to dinner now if they absolutely must (with a scornful eye shot in your direction at that point). And what you CAN'T do is yell, "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was the midnight BUFFET train, and everybody eats whatever they WANT! You know what, Let me just go get my good friend Conductor Bob and tell him that couple in seats 7C&D would like him to delay the train for a couple of hours so they can eat whenever the fancy catches them!" Instead you must say something far more obsequious and self-demeaning, like, "I know, folks, I'm sure you've had a rough-and-tumble schedule these past few days! I wish there were something I could do (to you [you think, don't say that part]), but I promise we have a very delicious tender pork loin drizzled with a bourbon glaze and served with sweet potatoes and seasonal vegetables, and you will love them right up and forget all your cares and woes and such!" And then you realize how one turns into an insane, murderous clown or a Carebears villain, and you begin to slowly hate yourself.

And then when you bring out their hot tea with lemon and sugar and cream ("What! No honey! What kind of a place has TEA but no HONEY!"), they actually have the presumption to say, "This must be a great job! You must love this! Getting to ride the train all day!" And you are required to lie and tell them that it isn't hell.

Now what is it that really makes it hell? We haven't even gotten to that part yet. It's that on any given day at least one of the following will not be working: air conditioning, fridges, stove, handicapped elevator, bathrooms, order-taking computers, printers, the other server. The bathrooms are most likely to be out of order, which means the people have to go up and down three flights of stairs, which I admit is no easy feat when you have one foot in the grave and the other on a shaking staircase. The air-conditioning is the next-most-likely thing to go, which means all of your leathery old people will be moaning, sweaty, leathery old people. If either the bathrooms or the air conditioning is not working , it's probably your fault and will be deducted accordingly from your tip. You should have known better. The final irony on all of that is yet to come, and you will see exactly why these broken things make the train ride hell.

So now you're in Fairbanks, and all of your co-workers go get drunk and/or stoned and you eat some ice cream that is not very good but is very close-at-hand, and then you go to bed in the hotel or stay up until one or two wishing Jose would turn off "King of Queens" so you could sleep. And if you've ever wondered why there are handrails in motel showers, it's for people who work on the train. When you work on the train, you see, the ground never stops moving. I had heard this, and expected a vibrating, or a swaying, or maybe a gentle shaking at worst, but I was not prepared for the ground's random lurching beneath my feet. It’s especially bad when you close your eyes, and handrails or no, at least one employee gashed his forehead open when his shower unexpectedly moved about five inches to the left. I have no idea what it is in the brain or inner ear that makes it do this, but you will still feel this effect the next morning at five thirty when you're up again and headed back to the train to do it all over, only headed south back to Anchorage.

When you get there, you fill out a little report on what's not working. An example:

"Two of the four automatic sliding doors between the kitchen and the dining room come slamming shut unexpectedly and knock the food out of my hands. The toilets didn't work at all in this car and the customers were quite loathe to go to the next one. The computers didn't work and we had to do all of our orders by hand, which took an extra half an hour per seating and resulted in several mistaken orders."

This report is fun to fill out the same way Madlibs are, because you know nobody will ever read it again and you can say anything at all and it won't mean anything to anyone! "Two of the ninety-seven automatic hungry doors between the weasel and the singing room come swallowing shut sexually and knock the carburetor out of my elves."

For, you see, they don't actually fix any of that crap. So the next time you're on the train, you still won't have air-conditioning or toilets or computers, and the decrepit old people will whine once again, "well, if you knew it was broken, why didn't you get it fixed?"

And while broken toilets and air conditioning mean stingier, angrier consumers, they first and foremost mean that you have to work in a congested, 90-degree box that is shaking your full bladder. Maybe the old people are too hot, but they're not running around in and out of the kitchen, and maybe they have to wait in a ten-minute line to use the restroom, but you don't HAVE ten minutes to wait in line, so you have to hold it. Which just makes you grouchier, which affects your tips, and it makes you sweatier, which drips on the customers and their food, which affects your tips.

And here's the final insult: The Blind Drop. This is unethical and immoral on the company's part, and I'm pretty sure it's also illegal. In a normal serving job, the waiter collects all his cash and credit card slips throughout the shift, an at the end he can total up all of his sales for the night, turn that in, and whatever remains is his tips. In The Blind Drop, the waiter is expected to keep track of his sales. The company could (if they wanted to) print out a little slip saying how much you're supposed to turn in, but they don't, ostensibly because it cuts down on theft, though they can't describe how when pressed. This is especially hard when your tables all try to pay at the exact same time and need different amounts of train (as I’m proofreading this I see that I inadvertently inserted the word “train” instead of “change,” but I think I’ll leave it as evidence of the brain damage [stroke?] inflicted on me by the change), and all of that is compounded by the idea that servers on the train serve six meals, two times each, over the course of two days before it comes time to turn in their money. There is no good system of doing this, and one doesn't have time to run and make change every time a crustomer (I just invented that word) says "keep the change" just to separate the money into different bags. The bottom line is, you get to the end of the second day and you have money sitting around, and you don't know whether it was tip money or money for someone's order and if it is whether it still has the tip in it or what. And so the company tells you to just stick it in with your deposit if you're not sure. "That's too bad," Kim says, "You lost it." If you accidentally mix up the two piles (which I did on my FIRST DAY), they tell you just to turn in all the money, and then you just never hear about it again. If you forget to take out all your credit card tips, and realize the next day and go tell them you accidentally deposited an extra $160, they tell you that they didn't notice any discrepancy in your deposit. One of two things is going on here. Either they are stealing all of the extra money themselves, or they actually don't check the money bags against any sort of a list that says how much everyone should be turning in. In which case, we the servers could actually be taking a lot more money out than we were owed, which is a hypothesis upon which I've been sorely tempted to experiment, at least until I had reclaimed all the hundreds of dollars I know (and those I suspect?) I've lost to the company or its minions.

Anyway, it's hard for me to do anything where money is the only end goal. I wasn't raised with a lot of money, and I don't really even like the concept, and I actually feel a lot of disdain for people who flaunt theirs. So it's hard for me to put myself through that kind of hell only for monetary gain. I'd much rather be poor and happy, any day.

And once I realized that, I realized that I couldn't work there anymore. In fact, right in the middle of typing this up, I got a phone call:

"Robbie?" [Yeah, that's my name, by the way, gentle reader, as though anyone who reads this doesn't already know that these days]

"yep." I said it all lower-case, just like that, because there's only one reptile who has this number and I knew her voice immediately.

"This is Lorelle. Weren't you supposed to have a meeting with me this morning at ten o'clock." Not a question, you'll notice.

"well...."

"Yes you were. This isn't a really good way to keep your job, Robbie [ironically, this is the first time she's gotten my name right. I've been "Bobby" for two months]. I suggest you get down here right away if you want to keep your job."

"Well I don't. I guess I quit."

"Oh. Well, okay."

"yep."

"Oh. Well, okay."

And then one of us hung up, I don't remember and it doesn't matter which. And the reason I only "guessed" I was quitting was because Evan and I had been hoping to go to Denali National Park on the train to go rafting and stuff before anyone noticed we weren't working for the company any more. Oh, well.

So, Evan and I are coming home. A week from today. July, 23, that is. So everybody get Provo ready for us, because we're coming back, and this time we're going to LIKE it, dammit.

Unexpected News

2007-07-03T02:31:00.000-06:00

First, you can see my Alaska pictures here.

Next, guess who got married after all....

Coming soon.

2007-06-22T01:26:00.000-06:00

well, before I could hit the publish button, I accidentally deleted the several hours' worth of work I just put in on my pictures from Alaska. So I need to go to bed and I will do this all again on Sunday. Sorry kids.

A Natural Death

2007-06-08T14:12:00.000-06:00

Here's one I wrote a while back on the topics of death and assisted suicide. I dug it up today because my buddy Mark says he's been thinking about those topics. So this one's for you, buddy.

On the way over there

Father said something

I didn't understand

about youth

in Asia and Mother horrored at him

as though he had just said “murder”,

dropped the M-bomb

[embalm] in our happy family van.

“She had to be alive

so our son could have a chance

to meet that woman who used to sing

and make strawberry cheesecakes,”

she said,

“and besides it's just the moral thing to do,

the natural thing.”

I had no idea

until we had arrived

that we were going

to visit a woman's old srange feet;

claws, veins, and coldness;

great grey gargoyle's feet

at the end of a

slab

of a bed.

I did not want

to touch the old strange woman attached to those feet,

yet strong adult hands

firmly pushed my narrow scapulas

and all of me

toward the alien tubes,

tubes robbing the death from her nose;

toward her eyes, eyes

like bitter cold mood rings;

toward her teeth

like a wooden chest in the attic

whose cracks have widened with time;

toward matted grey hair

[grave hair]

like frosted grass concealing warm bugs.

Mother said

she used to sing things

with a once unblistered tongue,

shout hello to her grandchildren

from her porch

with a twinkle

in her clear sapphire eyes,

but all that was here

was like some unearthed

and eroded artifact

that offered no hint as to the essence

and spirit

of the ancient civilization that had once possessed it.

Then terror and dread

[dead]

as a crow's leg of a hand

appeared from under the yellowing crocheted afghan

[shroud],

one of the hands that mother said

used to bake strawbury

pies and roll meatballs.

It acted autonomously,

clutched and explored my shrinking face,

her skin cold like ashes

where one might expect warmth.

Life--

no, aliveness--

pulsed in and out of those tubes

to her nose and body

like thick bitter cough syrup through a straw

and then she looked

at me,

or rather something dark and outside looked at me

through my great-grandmother's eyes.

I was on display here

for a fossil to observe

like a Bizzarro museum.

My inside places got all cold and hard,

and my clothes slackened a bit.

Exhausted,

she released me

and I backed away,

away,

not caring if I bumped into a chair

or a stack of flowers on a TV tray,

doomed to perish

with their faded

recipient,

or best those foreign metal canisters of essence

forcing aliveness into the worn

[worm] body,

away

from the dust of that sterile

lifeless tomb

of a

living room.

there were adult whispers then

and strained feigned faces

while I sat in the coroner

drawing shallow frowning faces in my breath

on the window,

trying to shudder off the

dead

flakes of her skin on my young face.

Months later

they buried those feet

along with the rest of the woman

I had met that night

where a little decay

would finish making her into dirt.

Left unburied

was the part that Mother righteously said lives on,

the part that sings and makes spaghetti,

the part that sadly I had never met,

it having departed long before our delayed encounter,

her carcass having been draggled through the morals of relatives

and in the end left alone to survive.

Storm

2007-05-13T04:22:00.000-06:00

Happy Mothers' Day, everyone. Here's a poem I wrote about my own mother a few years back. It's based on the account of Peter as found in the Bible.

Storm

The clouds finally burst one December night with a phone call,

Lightning travelling along the wires,

Thunder awakening her where she slept,

Tossing and turning

On her flimsy wooden fishing boat,

Alone.

A woman

On the other end of the line

Said he's not coming home

And in a moment the sun was gone from the sky.

Soon the storm was raging,

The depths of hell dumping down from the heights of heaven,

Her delicate head getting heavier with the weight of the cold rain,

The swells trying to toss her off kilter,

Children clinging to her thinning wet housedress,

Apostles huddling in terror,

Ghosts on the waves,

Bills in the mailbox,

No one to steer the ship.

The whole universe waiting for her to face her storm,

Grab the wheel,

Save them.

But the wheel had come loose,

The rudders were broken,

The ship could not be steered.

"I cannot even save myself!"

She yelled in her prayers at night.

"I cannot weather the storm."

She rocked herself to sleep,

Hugging the cold places on her back where his arms belonged.

The long night dragged on,

Creaking timber,

Cracks in the boards where the water was forcing itself through,

Where she couldn't keep everything together.

And in the fourth watch of the night,

Sometime in mid-January,

In the center of the pitching waves and the pitch black,

She looked out over the tumultuous sea

And faced her God.

She could barely discern his face

Through the rain and mist and darkness and distance,

But she called out to him.

"Lord, if you are there, please bid me to come to you."

And he said, "Come."

She looked around at her small house,

Two kids to a bed,

And she looked at her empty résumé,

And she looked at her empty cupboards,

And then she peered over the edge of the small boat,

And looked at the murky, stormy water,

And imagined all the eels,

And sharks,

And tentacles down in the sludge.

Finally she looked up at her Lord, who was still beckoning,

And she stepped off her porch

With her briefcase and a sack lunch,

And went to work.

She did it!

She was doing it!

She didn't need to swim.

She could walk all the way.

And she sat behind her desk,

Filing papers and earning money.

But then she knocked a stack of papers off the desktop,

And she bent to pick it up,

And she looked down,

And she saw the swirling sea,

She saw that the wind was boisterous,

That no one would ever love her,

That her children would starve

And she'd never make it on her own.

She was afraid.

She started to sink,

Up to her neck in bills,

Over her head with raising a family,

Drowning in cold turbulent loneliness.

With her last breath she gasped,

"Lord, save me!"

Immediately,

Jesus dived into the water,

Sank into the sadness with her,

Stretched forth his hand,

And caught her.

Wet, and shivering,

Tangled in seaweed,

He pulled her onto the boat,

Wrapped her in a towel,

And hugged her to let her know she was safe,

His arms warming her back.

He closed his eyes,

The clouds parted,

The wind ceased,

The boat stood still,

The bills were paid,

The children were fed,

And the spots of longing on her back had vanished.

When the sun came out,

Pouring golden light on the gray sea,

And she was made perfectly whole,

Jesus left her side.

She stood again,

Went to the edge of the boat,

Looked out across the gentle waves,

And whispered over her placid sea,

"Thank you, Lord, for rescuing me.

Please help me learn how to walk back to you on my own."

She got out of bed, got ready,

And went to work again

With a prayer in her heart.

Dick

2007-04-29T02:50:00.000-06:00

Let's forget for a moment that he shot a man in the head (it WAS a lawyer, after all). And forget that he's the less-popular VP to one of the most unpopular Presidents in this country's history. I can even let go of the fact that several members of his staff are currently under criminal investigation and have been removed from their positions. All that aside, he's just kinda old and creepy.

But, for some reason, the First Presidency of our church decided to invite him to speak at the recent commencement ceremony at BYU.

This, naturally, caused quite the uproar. Students have been pretty upset that the church would invite someone who's so obviously connected to one party to come to such an important event. This girl I know (I can't remember her name right now but she was in my ward and would come to church with this amazing Something-About-Mary gelled hair every week) actually organized a sort of counter-commencement at UVSC for all the students who would rather hear speeches from the Green Party's Ralph Nader and other, less-important Democrats. Ashley Sanders! That's her name. Anyway, everyone's been asking me, "So, what's your opinion on this whole Dick Cheney thing?"

So here it is:

Probably not the best PR move by the church. Then again, who really cares who's speaking at some university's commencement? Does anyone at BYU know who's speaking at anyone else's commencement? Does anyone outside of BYU know about Dick Cheney's coming? I doubt it.

Also, protests? Really? When did those ever work? I mean like since the Boston Tea Party. And I'm only making that an exception because it's famous, not because I know whether it worked or not. For all I know it just pissed off the Brits and then the Indian-clad colonists had to pay for all that tea they ruined. Not to mention the townspeople then had to throw a LOT of lemon and sugar into their harbor the next morning. But see, this is what I don't get. To me it seems that the intent of the protest is simply to annoy The Man to the point where he acquiesces. Good plan, except that it only ends up making The Man upset, which prompts him to stand his ground even more obdurately than before (Mrs. Stevens would be so proud of the way I'm using all of my 11th grade vocab words in this paragraph). And today's protesters (at least the protest organizers) are aware of this. So the real object of the protest is not change or dialogue. It's just attention. It's the toddler who's learned that crying sometimes gets him what he wants not because it's what Mom thinks he needs, or even because Mom is tired of hearing his cries, but rather because Mom doesn't like the way all the other Moms are looking at her. It seems a very unethical way of going about social change. Coming at the problem from the rear.

Also, Dick Cheney is not Vice President of the Republicans. He's Vice President of the United States. It's not like you get to just not recognize a President you didn't vote for. This isn't Mexico. Yes, he's a Republican, but he didn't come here in the name of the GOP. He came here in the name of the Presidency of this fine nation. I doubt his speech had anything to do with keeping the illegal immigrants out or how Utah is the best state because it's the only one that has a law that explicitly allows students to carry concealed weapons on public college campuses (I'm not making this up). Just as I'm pretty sure the speech by Darth Vader or whatever his name is was not about legalizing gay marijuana (I decided partway through typing those two ideas just now that I would make them just one idea for simplicity's sake). I imagine both speeches were just the same recycled boilerplate: "You are the future...blah blah blah...worked hard to get here...make a difference in the world...smartest and best generation...crap crap crap." Just like my high school graduation, except without everyone quoting Semisonic's "Closing Time."

My point is this: a graduation ceremony is one time that should definitely not be divided by bipartisan politics. If it had been Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore, I would probably have been right there supporting the protesters. But it wasn't. It was the Vice President, and I think we can show some respect, even if we don't agree with his politics or his age or his hunting practices. Ashley Sanders and the others who helped her in her "celebration of alternatives" really missed the boat, in my opinion. This day should have been about the students, and the future and making a difference in the world, and all that crap--not about whether we agree with everything that the speaker might have said or done or voted for in any other situation. I hope that next time something like this occurs, people can just swallow their pride and stop trying to cause headaches for the administration. That's all I have to say about that.

Poet and Vanity, at Least, Return

2007-04-15T02:44:00.000-06:00

You're probably expecting me to say something about how I haven't posted in forever, so I'm not going to. Or maybe you think I'm going to say something about how we got the BYU Honor Code changed earlier this week, but enough people have already been talking about that, and it would just lead to a bunch of fags leaving comments on my blog, and this blog isn't for those people. So instead I'll make my first entry on the new computer I recently bought about what happened to me this morning. Which is that Dulcinea (she doesn't want me calling her Carrot any more) woke me up with a phone call saying that her roommate was having a wedding luncheon in an hour and she needed a love poem. And since I really don't like anyone else's poetry but my own, and also since my only happy love poem to date is from the perspective of an unattractive black woman, I decided to just write a new one. After sleeping for another forty minutes, that is.

I think my mind is actually sharper when I'm tired. But maybe it's actually that the part of my mind that detects sharpness is duller when I'm tired. Either way, I sent a poem to the wedding luncheon. I think it's pretty good, though unpolished, and apparently the bride and groom agreed. One thing you must keep in mind is that the couple, though loveable, is pretty nerdy. The groom is a physics T.A., and the wife is a relief society president, so this one was for them.

Gravity

There is a Force
That permeates the Universe
And keeps order.
We call it Gravity, though it is known by another name,
This force that keeps two heavenly bodies hurling together through the blackness of space.
And so I revolve around you, and you around me,
And both of us around the Sun,
Year after year.
They (the scientists) say
That just maybe the moon was formed from matter taken from inside the earth,
Pulled like a rib to form earth's own companion.
I do not claim that anything inside of me could have created you;
If so, that rib was my best quality before it was lifted out.
You run my tides, and guide my seasons,
And in the darkest night of winter,
After the evenings and the fall,
When the Sun has hidden his warm face,
You are the lesser light to rule my night
And keep me in your glowing embrace 'til break of day.
If we could eavesdrop on atoms,
Observe the smallest molecule of matter,
We would see that this Force runs every bit,
For deep within the sun,
Hydrogen atoms run on the same principle,
One proton and one electron, forever locked in holy orbit,
Until one bright and glorious day
When the two finally come to rest together,
Matter is transformed into pure light,
The light of the Sun, a million nuclear blasts,
Which extend out into the Universe,
Or right here to our backyard,
Falling gently on our apple tree, entering its leaves, and making it grow.
And as we watch the years go by, the moon traveling around the earth, the earth around the sun,
The snow and blossoms and fruit returning and falling away,
We remember that in such a garden, with such a fruit,
Was love first made possible on this otherwise barren rock of a planet,
Where there had been no fall, no falling at all,
And beneath such a tree, with such an apple, a man first discovered this invisible force that keeps the Universe moving around,
And keeps us together, falling into each other.
Down this gravity well, forever falling in love.

Ok, aside from that I just noticed that I don't like anyone else's summary of the changes to the Honor Code, so here is the old, problematic section:

Homosexual behavior or advocacy
Brigham Young University will respond to student behavior rather than to feelings or orientation. Students can be enrolled at the University and remain in good Honor Code standing if they maintain a current ecclesiastical endorsement and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code. Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code.
Violations of the Honor Code may result in actions up to and including separation from the University.

And here is the new one that replaced it:

Homosexual behavior or advocacy
Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or orientation and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code.

One's stated sexual orientation is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior or advocacy of homosexual behavior are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings. Advocacy includes seeking to influence others to engage in homosexual behavior or promoting homosexual relations as being morally acceptable.
Violations of the Honor Code may result in actions up to and including separation from the University.

I think that's pretty great. We were part of the change. Which probably means my time here in Provo has come to an end.

How's that for starting blogging again, huh?

Christmas Rose

2006-12-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

I bet you were all thinking I wasn't going to blog anymore, huh? Well, that's not the case. It's just that I'm so busy with my new job as general manager of Los Hermanos (yeah, I know--ridiculous) that I haven't really had much time to write in here. But today is a holiday, and I'm waiting for Rascal to wake up so we can go play games in Salt Lake City, and also I've been thinking that today would be a good day to get things started and get back into the swing of writing in here again. I also have had several requests for the end of the Rose story, so what better day than, well, her birthday? Because yes, that's what today is!!!

So Wiggle and I couldn't remember what day Rose's wedding was to be. But we were pretty sure we had it right, so a week beforehand we decided to call her and find out. For some reason it didn't dawn on us that we were calling at one thirty in the morning. Wiggle did the dirty deed. She called and woke up Rose, and asked when the wedding was scheduled for. Obviously I couldn't hear what Rose was saying, but Wiggle waited a second and then gasped, "It was today!?" Then her countenance fell and she uttered a softer, "Oh." She talked for a while longer and then hung up and explained to us that Rose claimed to have gotten cold feet and canceled the wedding, but that she was still living with her boyfriend. And we haven't heard from her since, but it looks like our plan to stop the wedding worked, and we didn't even have to resort to Plan Bee, which was to release bees at the wedding, or Plan See, which was to rip off the wedding dress and let everyone, well, you get the picture. The end. Except yeah right, because that's what I thought before, and then I got her wedding invitation.

Other important events in my life: Drove to Phoenix and back in 26 hours (that's about 23 hours of driving). Bought a three-door '93 Ford Tempo. Spoke at a Stake Leadership Fireside in Laramie, Wyoming on the issue of same-sex attraction. Went to Seattle and played with Jessica and saw Wicked again. Got this crazy good new job. Have been doing the dinner group regularly. Got awesome Christmas presents from all of my friends. Went to a Barenaked Ladies concert with Wiggle, Rascal, and Pinetree ON my birthday (thanks for the extra tickets, Dice!), Also went to an Imogen Heap concert with some friends, have hung out with Rascal at least for a little while every day since the fireside in October, got an electric keyboard from the owners of Los Hermanos for Christmas, etc. Man, there are so many good stories in all of that, and I wish I had time to tell them all, but it looks like we'll have to make the abbreviated version suffice. Well, Rascal just emerged from his room, so I guess it's time to go up to Salt Lake. We'll see if I can keep up with this blog for the next loittle while. Maybe that'll be my New Year's resolution. Soon I should be able to report on the big road trip that Rascal and I are going to take back to California, hopefully with Blueshorts. Farewell, gentle reader, Until next time.

There Was a Missionary Went Forth

2006-08-28T00:21:00.000-06:00

Here's another I've had in reserve so y'all will have something to read while I'm busy with life. See some of you at EG Conference!

There Was a Missionary Went Forth

After Walt Whitman's “There Was a Child Went Forth”

There was a missionary went forth every day,

And every object he looked upon, that object he became

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,

Or for the whole two years or for all the rest of his years.

The mangy perros became part of this missionary,

And the frosted white fig trees and hail, and warm bags of roasted chestnuts tucked under his coat,

And the Antarctic wind roaring across the icy waves,

And the neighbor’s gigantic roan ox, and the fat turkeys, and the gregarious pengüinos,

And the muddy roads that try to swallow travelers’ feet, and the snow falling in the streetlights onto the black rolling ocean,

And the vaulted sky feeling so far away, and the sun setting like mixing paint behind the jagged cerro,

And the clouds parting on the horizon to let through picturesque shards of dawn, all became part of him.

The blackberry bushes and the frambuesa became part of him,

Flaky empenadas and frozen brown bananas, and the guinea fowl chattering in the back yard,

And the angry river threatening to rise right up to the house, and the weeks with no sunlight, and the mist swirling upon the perfectly reflective mountain lake right in the middle of town,

And the old drunk man begging by the bus stop,

And the teenage snakes, whistling, and vying for attention,

And the government employed women gossiping in an empty field with shovels, and the

shopkeepers in their tiendas, mindlessly watching their novelas,

And the viejitos crossing themselves for protection as they walked by, and the sad

Prostitutas on the corner by the bar,

And the crazy Mamita, laughing at her own jokes, kwa kwa kwa,

And the investigator who never quit smoking, and his hijitas with the most beautiful brown eyes,

And the old man in the hut, tending his pollitos and never missing church,

And the escrituras, the only friends from back home allowed to come along,

And all the wonders of ocean and mountain wherever he went.

His parents sent letters, which came to a p.o. box in Panguipulli, and then were forwarded on the bus that was the only inlet and outlet of the town,

The letters that sustained him and tied him to the realities of home.

Mother at home, offering advice and quoting scripture,

Mother asking for prayers, and encouraging and worrying, sending food and ties and most importantly a “Love, Mom” every week like clockwork,

Father, seldom, jocular, narrow-minded, faithless, supportive,

His letters, emphasis steered away from matters of God and faith and accountability,

The postcards, the packages, the biannual phone calls, the newspaper clippings, the admonitions,

The temptations of el diablo, the whisperings of the spirit, the shadow of doubt creeping in,

Hunger for knowledge, trust in companions, whom to teach and where to go,

Whether a day’s labor has made any difference, Whether the standards taught are the standards lived,

Men and women and families walking by in the streets, and which ones would be receptive?

The high, overly paved roads and the silly Toyland-colored houses, and the panaderías with their sticky berlíneres,

Taxicabs, carts pulled by bueyes, ice-slicked hills, frozen dirt paths converging in el centro,

Fallen fences, tundra, grapevines, wood smoke filling the valley,

The view from up on the hill where the whole village, the whole flock, looked like one sunken bustling jewel box,

The workers lining up outside the mousetrap factory and the lechería in the dark hours of morning,

The sheets of ice careening in the Straight of Magellan,

The stars striving to outshine each other,

The fleas and the bedbugs dead from the cold the next day,

The spot on the ground that leads through the earth’s mantle and comes up back home,

The stiff frozen line of laundry, the smells of running water and shivering sweat, the boots tragically still wet when it’s time to put them on again,

The desperate love, the long-sought testimony, the sincere prayers, and the sturdy faith,

These became a part of that missionary who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth and thrust in his sickle every day.

California Love

2006-08-15T02:17:00.000-06:00

Here are the highlights from the trip Pinetree, Carrot, and I took to California:

Monday

6:30 p.m.: We finally get on the road, after encountering traffic, having to stop to pay a phone bill, waiting for a friend who didn’t end up coming with us, and getting me some delicious succulent Chik-fil-A.

7:00 p.m.: We’re notice we forgot to get gas, so we head back, but only after making a wrong turn somewhere and driving out along some road that seems to go out into the center of the “Great” Salt Lake, surrounded on both sides by stinky water. “This is the place, dammit,” insists Pinetree. We eventually find a gas station in a God-forsaken little pueblo called “Grantsville,” ten miles off the freeway. We consider getting a hotel there, but decide against when we realize we’re still within sight of where we started.

Tuesday

1:00 a.m.: About an hour into my driving shift, Carrot notices that we’re almost out of gas. That’s okay, because there’s a town up ahead. Unfortunately, there’s not actually anything IN that town. We run out of gas about 6 miles east of Winnemucca, Nevada. I manage to get us off the freeway and almost all the way to a rest stop, but not quite. We discover that there is another car broken down nearby, covered in inches of dust. Our prospects look grim. Pinetree reveals that he has roadside assistance, and thankfully an hour and a half later a nice fat man we dubbed “Cesar” and his scary white assistant we named “Large Marge” bring us gas. A cop shows up, and Cesar tricks me into thinking that it’s illegal to run out of gas in Nevada. I totally fall for it. As we get back on our way, Pinetree dedicates Salt & Pepa’s “What a Man” to Cesar. Also we decide to never stop for gas again, since roadside assistance people can always just bring it to you.

5:30 a.m.: We are in Reno. I really need a taco, but every taco place we find is closed. I start to slowly lose my mind, and Carrot begins to look more and more like a taco in my sight. I let her take the wheel, before I eat it.

7:30 a.m.: We arrive in Sacramento at my brother Nanny’s house. We make him get in the car and take us to where there are tacos. It’s a place called Adalbertaco’s, but for some reason by now I’m craving a burrito instead. Nanny and his wife are very gracious hosts.

2:30 p.m.: We wake up and go. Pinetree drives us to Carrot’s Gammy’s house in Napa. Then he goes to hang out with his high school friends in San Jose.

6:00 p.m.: Carrot and I eat with dinner with Tox and two old school chums, PFB and Mack. It’s good conversation, but the service is TERRIBLE. Plus I somehow get tricked into once again eating Italian, which I already know I hate. Ice cream after makes everything better. I spend the night at Tox’s, and Carrot goes to San Francisco to go clubbing with her mission friend. Pinetree and his friend Tootsie Roll come to Tox’s as well.

Wednesday

3:00 p.m.: Our day is just getting started and we’re at the Jelly Belly factory. By the miracle of miracles, we get Jennifer O as our tour guide.

Background on Jennifer O: She’s been in love with me since the day we met, Sunday school when we were both eleven. Also, she’s, well, special. She’s a genius, and I believe she has a wild case of Asperger’s Syndrome. She wrote me every week of my mission, more even than my mother did, special letters on unicorn stationery that covered topics from ESP to the time I said hello to her after 2^nd period Choir when we were in 7^th grade. She was there at the airport when I got home from my mission, sighing wistfully about how she wished I’d been released already so she could hug me. In more recent times, my obnoxious brother, Ouija encountered her at the supermarket and told her I’d always been in love with her. Thanks Ouija. Bastard.

So here she comes “cascading down the golden staircase” as Carrot puts it, pigtails in a hair net, fanny pack in place, and she’s OUR tour guide. Carrot almost dies in paroxysms of anticipation and delight. After the tour, Jennifer seeks me out and we have a “chat.” Jennifer tells me how crazy it’s been lately. “How long do you expect to be crazy?” I ask with a grin. At least through the summer. Okay, I didn't realize that's one of the symptoms, not being able to figure out when people are making clever jokes about you. I feel bad. Satisfied? Carrot asks about Jennifer’s fanny pack, since she herself used to collect them when she was “little.” Jennifer shows us all the contents of her bag, including a pad which she intends to use to write down my e-mail address. “Why don’t you just give her your cell number?” Carrot pushes. “Murmur murmur cricket phone,” I respond, and give her the address. Both Carrot and Jennifer think smurfinusa@gmail.com is cute, and it freaks me out to see them agreeing. Fortunately at this point, another visitor arrives.

5:00 p.m.: It’s my dad, and he’s driven over to Fairfield to see us, but doesn’t have time to eat with us. He’s acting extra shady, and who even knows what to suspect with him anymore? Carrot runs us through the usual (but funny) jokes about my dad’s being “Hot Rob” and how she’s going to be my mom someday. She tells Tootsie Roll to let her know about the dreams he’s bound to have about my dad the next morning.

6:00 p.m.: Dinner at Chevy’s which I like a million times more than the Mexican restaurant where I am currently a manager. Lad and Carrot’s cousin Dorothy meet us there, along with Dorothy’s new baby, Toby, which during the course of the meal ended up eating limes and french fries, getting stabbed (playfully?) by Carrot with a knife, and kidnapped by yours truly while the mom was in the bathroom.

10:00 p.m.: Back to Nanny’s. His wife has made dinner for us, but we decide to eat it for breakfast. We play Catchphrase, and the wife ends up being the big victor. She’s really great, and I’m glad cousin Dorothy hooked them up on their blind date a few years back.

Thursday:

1:00 a.m.: Captain Moroni helps me trick Carrot into setting up her own Myspace account. We stay up late and laugh a lot.

9:00 a.m.: I wake up and take a shower. Carrot reveals that she is NOT a morning person. Tootsie Roll wakes her up with news of his dreams about my dad, thus endearing himself to all of us. Nanny MAKES doughnuts (I know, I know: who knew you could MAKE them, right?) and we eat the leftover casserole that his wife made.

10:30 a.m.: we meet up with Don Music, who takes us rafting all day. Highlights from rafting include when Tootsie Roll tried to climb up to the jumping rock, but it was too far and he just climbed down again, and also when we tricked Tootsie roll into jumping into the rapids but then we lost track of him and he ended up clinging to a rock for quite a while as we gathered up the tow rope again and again to try to get it thrown to him.

6:00 p.m.: We stop at a gas station to check the fluids. Carrot gets on her gloves and starts doing stuff under the hood until two self-proclaimed “camel jockeys” come and rescue us. We talk religion and politics with them, and it’s great. Instead of “bye,” they wave us off with a “Stop bombing Lebanon!” Also, at one point, I am able to trick the camel jockey man into thinking I am Saudi Arabian, after he’s been railing on them for a while.

7:00 p.m. Carrot and I fake-offer to help make dinner, but are taken up on the offer. Carrot freaks out when onion-cutting gets in her eyes. Don Music’s family decides they love us in spite of our utter uselessness, and feeds us salmon, chicken, squash, fruit salad, cobb salad, and rolls on nice plates with a table cloth and real napkins and everything. Then banana splits for dessert, and we fall asleep on the trampoline watching the meteor shower.

Friday: We drive home. I knock out most of Nevada. We don’t run out of gas. All is well.

The end.

p.s. If you happen to see me, remember to ask me about Becki at the movie theatre.

Lucila: The True Story

2006-07-31T21:50:00.000-06:00

When I was in the MTC, I started dreaming about an old Mexican woman. She was standing on a green porch in front of a brick house, shaking out a rug. She had bright red lipstick on, and her hair was dyed black. I would wake up from these dreams with this feeling of love for this woman, though I had no idea who she was. One of our teachers told us that if we desired it, the Lord would bless us with love for the people we would come to teach before we ever even met them. So I figured this must be the case.

I left for Chile, and the dreams ceased for a while. At one point, a letter arrived from Mom that announced that my younger brother, Ouija, had dropped out of high school and moved back to our home state of California (they had all moved to Colorado right before my mission). She said in the letter that he had stopped going to church. I decided to have a fast for Ouija, that he would one day come back to the church and serve an honorable full-time mission. Being hypoglycemic, I knew that I wasn't really supposed to fast, but I figured the cause was great enough that it would be worth a few medical complications.

The next morning, as I was ending my fast, I began to have brown urine. This came and went for the next few months. The mission president's wife told me it was probably dehydration, and to drink more water.

I was transferred to Punta Arenas, a beautiful city at the end of the world where it snows on the beach and all the houses are painted bright gay colors like salmon and chartreuse and turquoise. And the dreams came back. By now I'd seen enough of southern Chile to know that the lady in my dreams wasn't down there at all. She was back in the United States. The dreams came with more and more intensity, until finally I decided to pray about what to do. I decided to talk to my companion about the issue. He agreed with my own idea that maybe I was supposed to go back and finish my mission in the United States. We decided to talk to Elder Moffit, my district leader.

Elder Moffit seemed to agree, upon hearing my story, that I needed to talk to the mission president about the possibility of an inter-mission transfer. First, though, I'd have to talk to the zone leaders and then the assistants to the president, and finally the president himself. So I sat down with the zone leaders, who supported me just as my companion and my district leader had. The next step was to call the assistants. Just my luck, I got Elder Camilla, on whose bad side I'd been ever since I met him at zone conference and, well....

Zone conference: Elder Camilla was up in front of the chapel presenting his new teaching program to all the missionaries. The idea was simple. We would teach the principle of baptism in every section of the first discussion. Part one was about God the father, and during that part, we would mention that through baptism God has prepared a way for us to come back to him. Part two was about Jesus Christ, and we could mention that we are following his example when we get baptized. And so forth. During the presentation, I was squirming a bit in my chair. It all seemed a lot like the Saturday Night Live character Subliminal Man to me. Finally, I had to say something. I raised my hand, and when called upon, I presented a different approach.

"This new system seems like it would work if our end goal were just baptism," I said. "But to me baptism isn't the most important part of the gospel. The atonement is. It isn't doing us any good to keep baptizing people if they aren't learning to utilize the atonement to help them to stay in the church. Why don't we mention the atonement in every part of the discussions? Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to return to him, so he provided the atonement for us.... Jesus Christ atoned for our sins so that we can be clean again.... Joseph Smith's vision taught us much about the nature of God and his love for us, and it's because of Joseph Smith that we now know so much about the atonement.... The Book of Mormon teaches us more about the atonement than we'd ever known before. Then by the time we get around to talking about baptism, we can say, will you accept the atonement of Jesus Christ in your life by repenting of your sins and being baptized in his name?"

Elder Camilla waited patiently for me to say all of that, and then started back in where he'd left off. "Well, Elder Smurf, that's a nice thought, but this is the new system we're going to be using for the next while. In the fourth principle--"

"Hold on a second." It was the mission president, cutting off Elder Camilla mid-sentence. He was standing up now, on the stand behind Elder Camilla. "I think Elder Smurf has a good idea here. Go ahead and have a seat, Elder Camilla." The mission president took the chalk from an aggravated Elder Camilla, erased what he'd had on the board so far, and replaced it with the details of the new system I'd thought up.

Anyway, the point of that aside is that that's the only other interaction I'd had with Elder Camilla before having to call him to tell him I needed to talk to the mission president about my crazy dreams.

So now I was on the phone with Elder Camilla, who informed me that the president was in a meeting. "What is this about?" he asked. So I told him the whole story, maybe a little more succinctly than previous versions of the story, because the call was long distance. He tried to "resolve my concerns," a trick they'd taught us in the MTC to help others to see the flaws in their own thinking. "So what you're saying is that you feel that the prophet called you to the wrong mission." It didn't even feel like a question.

"No, I know I was supposed to come here, but I feel that maybe it's time for me to go somewhere else. I've been praying about this, and I feel I need to at least explore the possibility."

Elder Camilla promised to talk to the mission president about my "concerns." He used the word a bit pointedly, so I'd know he felt this was just something I needed to resolve. Plus, the Spanish word for "concern" is the same as their word for "doubt," calling my story into further question. He said he would talk to the president and I could expect to hear back from him in the next few minutes.

I waited by the phone. It rang after only about three minutes. I picked it up and said "hello."

"Elder Smurf, junior companions are not supposed top answer the phone." It was Elder Camilla, and that was not a real rule. I hung up.

The phone rang again. "Can someone please come answer this phone?" I shouted to the five senior companions who were living with us at the time

"Why don't you?" someone hollered back.

"Because I'm not a senior companion."

My own companion came and answered the phone.

"Hello? Uh-huh. It's for you."

He handed me the phone. "Hi, Elder Smurf, it's Elder Camilla. The President does agree with me that the prophet did call you to this mission and he didn't make a mistake." This time he hung up on me, and I couldn't get in a word edgewise.

I was a little mad at this point. The zone and district leaders and my companion all came in and sat down with me. We all lived in the same house, after all. It was decided that they would all fast for me and my cause. I knew I wasn't supposed to fast, especially after the whole brown urine thing that still hadn't completely gone away, but I couldn't let all these young men fast for me without my doing my part. SO I agreed to fast along with them, starting right then.

The next morning, I woke up with something very, very wrong. I was starving, for one thing, so I got up, grabbed a huge salad bowl, poured in an entire bag of Chilean Cocoa Krispies and a whole box of milk, and ate it all with a gravy spoon. Then I was VERY tired, and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I lay back down on my bed and succumbed to sleep. I awoke just in time for lunch. My companion seemed very worried about me. he was sitting on his own bed, reading his scriptures when I came to. I felt better than before, though a bit weak. There were really no major problems, though. At last not until I stood up. And then everything went haywire. My heart was beating extremely hard and fast, as though I'd just been running. I took my pulse. 120. I knew that a normal heart rate was between 60 and 80 beats per minute at rest. We had a lunch appointment, and I thought we should try to walk the few blocks to the members' house and eat as we normally would. It was a Sunday, and we had church right after lunch, so this would be a good way to get the day started. By the time we got there, however, my pulse was up to 180. It didn't go back down all through lunch. I started to get a pain through the left side of my chest and my left arm and shoulder. "He's having a heart attack!" the mother of the household kept calling. She made me to lie down on the couch as she ran to the neighbors' to use their phone so she could call the family from our ward who had the car. They came and picked me up and took me to the hospital.

The Doctor gave me a pill to calm my nerves and everything went back to normal. He said I'd be fine, but that he wanted me to return the next day so that he could double check everything.

By my appointment the next day, my pulse had sky-rocketed again, and I was feeling dizzy and weak. He admitted me to the hospital to un some tests. I saw all kinds of specialists over the course of the next five days. I had blood taken from veins and arteries, I had sonograms taken of my heart, I was tested in a room where they did something nuclear to me as I lay on a table with some sort of spinning apparatus passing all around me in different directions like I was the nucleus of a cell. In the end, a neurologist came to see me.

I should mention that some time around my third day, I received a call in my hospital room from the mission president. "Elder Smurf, tell me about this dream," was the first thing he'd said. So I did. I told him all about it, and how I'd prayed and felt like I was supposed to go back to the United States. He said that maybe what was happening to me now was the Lord's way of taking care of things. I completely agreed.

The neurologist came to see me on the fourth day, and he had an idea about what was wrong with me. He'd just been to a seminar that weekend, he told me, up in Santiago, and he was the only doctor from Punta Arenas in attendance. There'd been a doctor there from the United States who had taught them all about a new disease that Chileans had never heard of before. They called it "sindrome de falla autonomica aguda," or "acute autonomic failure syndrome." he had some simple tests he wanted to run, makeshift versions of tests they'd have run on me if he's had all the equipment available in the United States. In one test, he monitored several aspects of my health while having me stand up and lie down alternately. All the tests confirmed his theory. He broke the "bad" news to me: he was sending me back to the United States.

It was a holiday that day, some Catholic saint's birthday, and there was a mad rush to gather together all of the missionaries who were in the city and collect enough money to pay for my plane ticket back to the United States, since the banks were all closed. We made it just in time, and I ended up leaving without really getting to say goodbye to the members or the other missionaries. I never got to see the mission president during all of that. Everything was a blur.

Meanwhile, my neurologist, who spoke only Spanish, explained to the mission doctor, a gynecologist who spoke only English, that I had experienced shortness of breath and that I'd need to stay reclined as much as possible. The mission doctor explained that to my mission president, who spoke only Spanish. He, in turn, called some people in Salt Lake City, who called my stake president in California, who called my mom's stake president in Colorado, who called my mom and told her that I was paralyzed and on a respirator.

Mom met me at the airport with a wheel chair.

She was relieved to see me walk off the plain, but cried when she saw that my weight had dropped fifty pounds in the five months I'd been in Chile. I weighed 125 lbs. when I stepped off the plane, and stood 6'2 as always.

I stayed in Colorado at my mom's house for a month. I still arose at regular missionary time, studied my Spanish every day, and did all the things a missionary is supposed to do. And I went to the doctor. I needed a clean bill of health before they'd allow me to continue my mission stateside. Miraculously, the day of the tests, I woke up and everything was fine. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me. The doctor had never heard of something called "acute autonomic failure syndrome," and he explained to me that I had probably caught what doctors call a "funny virus," a foreign virus that hasn't been documented yet. He signed the bill of health, and my mom's stake president faxed it off to Salt Lake. A week later I received a phone call and was informed that I'd be finishing my mission in Tennessee, Knoxville, and that I'd be going with three other missionaries who had just returned home from Spanish-speaking missions, and that the three of us would be the first Spanish missionaries in that mission.

When I got to Tennessee, I explained about the dreams to the mission president. He sent me down to Dalton, Georgia, where my first companion was a Mexican Elder who'd been called to serve in English. Our first day of proselyting, Elder Valdovinos took me to the government housing in a poor area of town. I was dumbfounded when we arrived. Every house in the neighborhood was made of brick and had a green porch. Just like my dream! I started to get excited. We hadn't gone two blocks before I saw her, not shaking out a rug, but rather shaking the dust out of a window fan. She looked exactly as she did in my dreams. Her name was Lucila.

We talked to her. We taught her the first discussion. She was very receptive. I was overcome with those same feelings of love I'd had in my dreams, and she seemed to connect with me very well. I came back with a brand new missionary on exchanges a few days later. She had loved the Book of Mormon, and wanted us to teach her whole family. We taught them all the first discussion. I came back again with yet a different missionary shortly after that, and taught the second discussion, the one that has the baptismal invitation. They accepted. Elder Valdovinos came with me again when it was time for the third discussion. This time a new lady answered the door.

She told us that Lucila and her family had been caught by the INS and that they'd been sent back to Mexico.

And that was it. I never saw her again. I have no idea what became of that family.

And the sad ending doesn't stop there. It was indeed a miracle that I'd been better on the day when I was given my doctor's clearance to return to the mission field, but as soon as we'd gotten out to the car, I'd once again become weak and dizzy and short of breath. I was throwing up a lot. I'd thrown up on the plane on my way out to the new mission. I'd thrown up all the tie between discussions.. I'd gotten so dizzy I had crashed my bike at a high speed and procured scars that I still bear to this day. Now Lucila was gone, and I knew it would be only a matter of time before I could no longer keep my illness hidden from those in authority.

And one day I got bronchitis. I had to go to the doctor to get pills, and he took my pulse and checked my file and confronted me with the truth: "You still have what you got down in Chile, don't you?"

I confessed, and he called our mission president (the doctor was also a member of the church). This was a Saturday. The mission president told me I'd be going home that Monday. I was sad. I spent Sunday night praying/arguing with God. He usually wins those. "I refuse to learn any lessons from this," I remember yelling at him at one point, "because every time I do you just throw something worse and more horrible at me. So that's it. I'm staying right here." Soon, though, my heart was softened and I was overcome with the knowledge that Christ had been with me through all of the trials I'd experienced, and that he was undoubtedly with me even still. I could feel his presence in the room with me.

And I came home. To California this time, since I was going home to stay. I'd lasted two months in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission. After being home for another month or two, I was released as a missionary. It was during that time that I wrote the poem, "Lucila." After my release, I was given the opportunity to speak in the ward from which I'd left. My brother, Ouija, came to hear me speak. I told the congregation the story of Lucila, and her sudden disappearance. I told them that I didn't know why I had to come home when I did, but that I knew the Lord was behind it.

Ouija met up with Don, his old best friend from high school. Don invited him to institute. He came to institute, and came back to church the next week. In fact, he didn't miss church again during that whole year. Don left on a mission. And a year after my homecoming, we were back in my old ward, only this time for Ouija's homecoming. He bore his testimony, shared some stories, and then he looked right at me where I was seated in the congregation. "My brother doesn't know why he had to come home early from his mission," he said. "But I do. If he hadn't come home right when he did, I wouldn't be standing here today." Of course I cried.

Ouija went on to be the top baptizing missionary in his mission in Mississippi.

I still don't know what all of that means. But I know I'm a better person for it.

Closer to God, My pride on a shelf.
I was looking for her, but instead found myself.

You and I

2006-07-14T19:50:00.000-06:00

You are the radiant yellow flower, sprouting suddenly in my hitherto well manicured lawn.

I am the child, exhausted and crying, holding your hand at the close of Disneyland day, whelmed by novelty and joy.

You are the centrifugal force, whirling me around so fast I think I might throw up, smearing happiness across the front of my clean white shirt.

I am Actæon, hushing my hounds and peering through the clearing at the goddess bathing in the woods, afraid you might see me.

You are the second source of light and gravity, burgeoning into the closed solar system I’ve created for myself, and exerting a new pull on all my planets.

I am the devourer, sitting at the edge of your world and drinking in the sunset until it sloshes around in my overfilled belly, groaning into the night.

You are the seasons, hitting me all at once and losing me in wonder and confusion and color and sunshine and cold, bitter, snow.

I am Argus, guarding my golden apples in my mighty tree with my hundred eyes, waiting for you to arrive with a happy story to lull me to sleep so you can pluck them all.

You are the neighbor child, coming over to draw me a pretty picture of a horsey, then putting all the crayons back in the box in the wrong order.

I am the baby, shrinking from your grasping, garish new world, trying to escape back into the comfort of the womb.

You are the moon, shining on a lake so serenely it tickles, and I want to shake your silvery beams off lest I laugh and ruin it all.

Please do not be surprised if you are left speeding alone through your flashy universe, while I walk away by myself down my solid familiar path through the dark parts of the forest.

For the Night

2006-07-13T23:41:00.000-06:00

Here's another:

for the night

The jungle grows dark, and I

just lie there, pretending to sleep in
the foxhole with
your skin,
flesh,
pressed against mine, struggling
to hold my breath as it gets
heavier and
heavier like a rucksack after a
full day's march. You
stir, and
I whirl
inside like I'm avoiding bullets and
dropping to the motherly ground,
exhilarated. I
sense your sleepy softness and
the hard muscle underneath, trying to
breathe you in
through the thin
patch of skin
on my elbow that
connects with your back. The crickets
grow quieter,
if there are crickets at all, afraid
like I am of waking
you and ruining my moment. I
shake, cold and rocks
and fear
are penetrating my
ribcage, but a blanket between
us would grant warmth while
rapaciously robbing me of your touch like
the naked little pickpockets in
the village. Hours
pass, and nothing moves but
my heart, and yours just
behind and the part in
my gut that must have to
hold perfectly still for me to fall asleep. Soon
the enemy is out, spying
on us with his garish
golden rays of
light pouring through the fronds and
tearing at my tired eyelids. It's
time to get up and march and
fight,
defend our country before
we are seen.

I do not fight for a nation or a people who
would not let me protect them
if
they knew
who I am, nor for a dream that
does not count my life
as worthy to sacrifice for it.

I fight for you, and
for the night.

Lucila

2006-07-13T01:05:00.000-06:00

Well, friends and neighbors, I've been about thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis busy with work since my big promotion and I've been training and all. Now, training will be over soon, but for now I just don't really have a ton of time to blog. But in happier news, I found an envelope with tons of things I'd written in the past, so I decided to share some of them here. Some are spiritual, some political, some sad, and some really really dark. This first one is actually based on a true story, which I'll tell you if you ask. It's not my strongest poem, (in fact it's the third I ever wrote, and it can feel a bit sing-songy), but it has special meaning to me. So here you go. It's called

Lucila

Deep brown eyes and long black hair:
I've seen her before, but I don't know where.
Ruby lips and golden skin.
A smile that seems to draw me in.

Kind of shy, but so am I.
Then everything's blurry and I don't know why.
She fades away. The world turns grey.
The dream is now over and it's time for day.

Lucila, Lucila, the girl of my dreams.
You're with me at night, but it's not what it seems.
I love you, I need you, don't know where you are.
I sense that you're near, but I know that you're far.

My stomach churns, my spirit burns.
I slip into bed as the night returns.
I count the sheep; I fall asleep.
I have an appointment I'm dying to keep.

Then there she is; she's crystal clear.
She smiles at me, assuages me fear.
We talk all might, it feels so right,
But then she is gone, the sun's dawning bright.

Another day just fades away.
The world is so bleak, the sun's shining grey.
Then fading light, O blessed night,
My soul comes alive with peaceful delight.

My spirits rise; I close my eyes.
But this time Lucila just sits and she cries.
"Come look for me. Come set me free.
I'm more than a dream; I'm reality."

I'm out of bed; I clear my head.
I'll keep looking for her until I am dead.
I search the world; I search my soul.
It's breaking my heart; it's taking its toll.

It's all for her, no thought for cost:
The mountains and oceans and deserts I've crossed.
I'm often lost and tempest-tossed.
I've been scorched by the sun, and bitten by frost.

Lucila, Lucila, the girl of my dreams,
You're with me at night, but it's not what it seems.
I love you, I need you, I've traveled so far.
I sense that you're near, but don't know where you are.

A burst of light, my soul takes flight.
Lucila is sitting right there in my sight.
She's here at last; it comes so fast.
I've forgotten the problems and pains of the past.

We both sit down, don't watch the clock.
We're happy together. We laugh and we talk.
But she turns her head, her cheeks turn red,
And her lips say words that bring icy dread.

"I hate to say, I cannot stay.
But our time is up and I must go away.
I'm glad we met. I'm in your debt.
But my heart's with another and my ways are set."

She shakes my hand and there I stand
As she walks away. This is not what I planned.
My heart won't tick. I'm feeling sick.
Oh, how could the fates have played such a trick?

Why did I come? What was it worth?
Why did I travel the ends of the earth?
The miles I walked? The pounds that I lost?
The heart that was broken, the continents crossed?

The road was long, but I grew strong.
I learned how to say, "I'm sorry, I'm wrong."
Closer to God, my pride on a shelf,
I was looking for her, but instead found myself.

Lucila, Lucila, she helped me to see
Who I truly am, and who I can be.
Lucila, Lucila, she's not what she seems.
She's gone from my life, but se's still in my dreams.

Temple Pageant

2006-06-23T03:01:00.000-06:00

Well, since I already just wrote all this out in an e-mail, I figured it would be much easier to just copy and paste it. Which is why I'm still not telling you about the eggs and the balloons. Maybe next time.

Okay, so the Manti Pageant. I have to say that I totally expected it to be dumb, mostly because of the way that everybody kept telling me how dumb it was except for the people who kept telling me how great it was, which were mostly dumb people. So I went into it expecting crap. I was therefore at least pleasantly surprised by the special effects, like the pillar of light and all the fireballs and things. Pinetree really hated it. He couldn't stand how melodramatic it was. I think he thought a pageant is more of a play than "2 : SHOW, EXHIBITION; especially : an elaborate colorful exhibition or spectacle often with music that consists of a series of tableaux." I have to admit that the tableaux were pretty unsettling. I didn't like how there were tons and tons of Joseph Smiths running around doing different things at the same time. The narrators had an impressive vocabulary. Jesus appeared to the Nephites directly behind a lighting tower, which I had predicted. Pinetree thinks it was a sign. The worst thing was the way that everybody moved their arms when they talked. Well, actually the real worst thing was this DORK that we took with us who got up in the middle and went to sit somewhere else so he "could feel the spirit." I guess he was annoyed by some of the comments that Pinetree was making. Pinetree later apologized, but I didn't think that was necessary, because his comments didn't keep me from feeling the spirit. When it was over Pinetree said that he didn't like all the patriotic themes running through it (I'm not sure whether the scene in which Brigham young sees Captain Moroni, several of the founding fathers, and some strange Indian who all tell him about the greatness of America is based on a real event, but either way it was heavy handed and seemed to promote the war in Iraq). And then this kid was all, "Well, if you'd ever read the Book of Mormon you would know that it's all about patriotism and America." And Pinetree probably wanted to punch him but he didn't. And then the kid said all these rude things to me and then he just disappeared. And then when I got home there were like a million (okay three) texts from him on my phone continuing the argument, which I thought was extra dumb. Anyway, I actually liked the pageant, I'll admit it, although I'm still trying to figure out whether I liked it as some sort of knee-jerk devil's advocate reaction to all the naysayers or whether I really was whelmed by the small-town charm and rustic coming-together appeal of the whole thing. I could tell that these people were really putting their hearts into this thing. Part of me was thinking, "Man, it would be fun to do this with my kids some day," and the rest was just terrified of all the Angel Moronis running around beforehand in drag-queen makeup asking us if we wanted to refer someone to the missionaries and interrupting our game of Apples to Apples, which I won by a lot.

Easter Eggs

2006-06-14T14:06:00.000-06:00

I know it's June already, so here's everything I've done all rapid-fire:

I went to Hero's wedding. Very posh.

Went hiking in Bryce and Grand canyons with the roommies. Astounding. Can't wait to get my pictures developed. Hurt my ankle and prevented us from getting to the bottom, which was way depressing.

Moved. I live with Pinetree and Chris and a kid named Nate and a loveable Spaniard who drives me nuts sometimes but I like him anyway.

Saw Heather Angela Hawks and her husband.

Hung out with all kinds of friends from back home, most notably Carrot.

Got into Fiddler on the Roof in the ensemble with Pinetree and Robb. It seems way fun, but the practice schedule might be too demanding.

Have an interview Thursday for a manager position at the restaurant where I work. That would be a major blessing.

Had my youngest brother come and stay for a few days, which was taxing. He reports that I'm old now, and that I care about things like "other people" and "not getting arrested." Well, it's not so much that as I was just worn out. I love that kid, but I have NO IDEA how to actually talk to him.

Joined a book club with Alecia, Pinetree, Garrett, Blueshorts, and some friends from work. We are starting with "Black Like Me," a non-fiction book about an investigative reporter in the 1950s who dyed his skin black and went about the south recording the differences in how he was treated. My month we'll be reading "The Things They Carried," a fantastic comprehensive novel about Viet Nam soldiers.

Got addicted to "Lost" and have now seen every episode in order with all our buddies except for the last four, which I'm sure we'll watch before too long.

Spoke in church and taught Sunday School and then got called as a district leader in the elders' quorum.

Ok, there were two more things I want to report, which are the Easter Egg Hunt (which was actually quite a while ago) and the Water Balloon War, but those will have to wait until next time, merely because I think I actually have some fodder there for writing.

Methinks the Smurf doth Protest too Much

2006-05-03T23:31:00.000-06:00

So I finally found one of these causes that I felt I could get behind.

It's called "Invisible Children." We did what they call a "night commute," which means we all sleep at this elementary school. When we wake up in the morning, we are still where we were when we went to sleep, which was surprising and disappointing, because I couldn't figure out which part made it a "commute," but the whole point was protesting Ugandan children anyway, so at least we got that accomplished. No more Ugandan children! Ever!

What made the protest a particularly foolish idea for me this time was that I ate at Chili's beforehand, and I got food poisoning WAY bad. I was sleeping there in the bark box, running every hour or so to the line of port-o-potties in this mad dash, and then once I made it, diarrhea was shooting out of me like a hose with your thumb over the nozzle. My stomach felt like there were cavemen in it smashing stones together to get fire out of them. After a few trips, I was also vomiting. Oh, man, did I ever vomit all over the inside of this one Johnny-on-the-Spot. I feel bad for whoever went in there next, especially if they were in as much of a hurry as I had been, and they end up sitting in that.

Morning's light revealed that one of my own little personal "night commutes" resulted in my glasses getting trampled underfoot. So, blind, battered, and barfy, I huddled with the masses for the photograph, then ran again for the toilet.

Now here's the part that showed how delirious I must have been--every time I woke up frozen and achy and sick, I would think, "No! Ugandan children don't get to just pack up and go home when they are sick! And neither will I!"

Well, I made it all night. Yes, I did. And was so sick that I spent the next thirty-one hours in bed, and the next day after that still extra sick (I didn't even get to protest Panda Express or Mexicans having to work jobs or any of the other protests planned for that day--gulp!). But I made it. Did my night commute, yessir. And those little starving Ugandan Brats better be grateful, that's all I can say.

Revolt

2006-04-21T00:44:00.001-06:00

Protest seems to be the word on everyone's lips these days. Sometimes it even feels like I'm in a real college town, what with all the demonstrations and campaigns going on around here.

My co-worker Keri, frustrated by the oppressive system we have at work for who gets to wait on which tables, complained aloud and announced her plan to bring about change when she gasped, "Why don't I ever make any tips? I am REVOLTING!"

I told her she'd just answered her own question. I don't think she caught the joke.

My friend Hero, also in the spirit of social reform, performed a small demonstration against the Malt Shop on University Avenue recently. He told the girl that he wanted the Wednesday student two-for-one special and asked for a shake and a root beer freeze. She sent the order back and then charged him almost eight dollars.

"Eight dollars! I asked for the two-for-one deal!"

"well, you can't get the two-for-one deal with the freeze. Only shakes," said the bovine employee, repeating the price through a mouthful of cud.

Well, Hero is the sort of being whose whole night can be ruined by one single interaction with an imbecile. This girl could have told him that he couldn't get the discount on the freeze before sending the order through. She also refused to cancel it. So he paid for the shake and the freeze, and when they came, he dumped half his shake on the carpet in protest. Then he said "whoops," stepped in the mess, and marched out of there. It was funny.

Meanwhile, real and actually organized protests have abounded recently.

One involved unattractive vegetarians standing on the street corner right in front of the restaurant at which I work, making out in their underwear and telling people to avoid meat, and handing out tracts with pertinent quotes about animals and their souls and brains from such leading spiritual and scientific leaders as Paul McCartney and Pamela Anderson. As I've said before, I think there must be some sort of animal by-product in soap, because Vegans always seem to need a shower. These ones had a mattress out there and had adopted the slogan, "Vegetarians make better lovers." If anything, having mostly-naked people dancing about in front of our store only increased our business that day, and I made sure to suggest the steak enchiladas or the beef chimichanga to every customer I got. I sold tons.

Then there were some whose causes I respected a little more.

The first surrounded a controversy over BYU's firing of a man named Todd. If you live in the Provo bubble, you have probably heard whispers of this story. The reason I am retelling it now is that I have a little bit of ironic personal involvement in this story.

Todd was a grown-up who worked for the BYUSSR, more legitimately known as the BYUSA. He had a number of job responsibilities, one of which had something to do with BYUSA "elections." Over the course of his years at BYUSA, Todd noticed some unsettling glitches in the operation of the BYUSA electorate machine. So he decided to write a letter in the Daily Universe which decried the entire process, pointing out that an anonymous cadre of randomly selected students were put in charge of disqualifying candidates, a power which he inferred had been used unfairly by members of the group to aid their friends.

Certainly the letter was timely; this past election was once again riddled with scandal as students were disqualified for getting photocopies of campaign papers run off with a discount at a private copying center rather than at whatever the committee deemed to be "market price," whatever that means (there is a rule in the election procedures that students need to spend their campaign funds only on items they purchase at "market price"). The discount they received was actually available to all the other candidates. It was time for somebody to speak up, and Todd was our man. He mailed out that letter to the DU.

So they fired him. That's right, BYU fired Todd for publicly calling into question practices of the organization for which he worked. They offered him hush money, saying that if he would agree to not disclose the reason for which he was fired, they would continue to give him health insurance and other benefits for a grace period. Todd, always one to stand against censure and the man, refused the offer and sent off another letter to the Daily Universe. Soon a full-scale real protest was in full swing, with students duct-taping their mouths symbolically.

Well, I see some interesting parallels between myself and this Todd fellow....

***FLASHBACK ABOUT A YEAR***

Once upon a time there was a small community of smurfs that lived somewhere in the woods of Belgium in stone houses that looked like mushrooms to the untrained eye. Further into the wood, they had a computer, and it was attached to the internet, and the smurfs found a BYU website called the Hundred Hour Board, where BYU students could anonymously and cleverly answer people's questions about anything and everything. They applied to write for the Board, and were accepted, and in the time during which our story takes place, they had been writing for the Board for several months, and it was their raison d’être. Then one day a dark oppressive shadow loomed over their idyllic little forest. BYUSA decided to censor the Hundred Hour Board. The poor little smurfs ran for shelter, but they were too late. Soon all was black in their forest. Were they defeated? No. They made a last-ditch effort to battle the forces of the evil bureaucracy, answering questions just as they always had. One day a question came in about how to improve race relations on campus. The smurfs pulled out all the stops, giving an informative yet amusing answer, citing examples shared with them by real minorities attending BYU. Before that answer could ever post, however, it caught the attention of one of BYUSA's cronies, who was floating around in the smoggy cloud overhead. He sent the smurfs a letter, demanding that they remove any evidence of actual instances of racism on campus. The smurfs refused, and used the last of their energy to respond angrily (although cleanly) to this unreasonable letter. But they were too late. The next time they tried to visit the computer, it had been slashed to pieces by BYUSA, and they were never able to log in on the computer again.

So you see, I can totally relate to Todd's little predicament. But if you grease the machine for long enough, Todd, eventually it'll slip and cut you.

Also I should mention that this Todd fellow is the selfsame troll who was censoring the Board, and who kicked me off. So while I admire the fact that you finally grew a backbone and tried to take a stand against the monster, I still have to chuckle at the irony of the giant monster swallowing you up after you helped feed it until it grew big enough to eat you too. Hahaha, Todd. Seriously, that's what you get, especially when you mess with THIS smurf.

I'm not still bitter about it, I swear.

Later that same week, there was another on-campus protest, led by a group called Soulforce. Soulforce was a group of thirty-two gays and lesbians who decided to rent a bus and tour religious and military universities to help stop "religious oppression" of homosexuals, as they put it. Their leaders said at a rally the night before the protests began that BYU was the "crowned jewel" of the tour.

I didn't attend any of the on-campus events, but I came near the protests at the park. I couldn't hear much that was being said because the rumble of the generator they used to power the microphone was louder than the microphone itself.

Soulforce's points were many. They cited the numbers of gay Mormon teen suicides (a BYU student named Matt even took the mic and testified about his own failed suicide attempts), said that BYU students are uneducated about and intolerant of homosexuals, and basically just complained a lot. They said that their surveys showed that more than ninety percent of BYU students said they wouldn't want a homosexual as a roommate. I'm skeptical, to say the least.

Your name: Smurf

1) Would you rather have roommates who are gay or straight?

a) gay ___
b) straight _x_

2) Would you be ok with a lesbian roommate?

a) yes ___
b) no _x_

See? Even I don't pass the test. It's all in the way you word it. And I present as evidence to the contrary Asmond, BAWB, Toasteroven, Gravy, and the Snake, all of whom willingly entered roommate situations with gay kids and/or were staunch defenders of them afterward.

At any rate, I had several beefs with Soulforce's message.

1: "Religious oppression of homosexuals?" I'm doubly offended. I don't appreciate three dozen hippies coming to my school to tell me that I'm at once oppressor and oppressed.

2: The use of Gandhi's and Martin Luther King Jr.'s countenances in their logo. I don't care if they DID have permission from relatives of the two men. This was a cause that a Hindu and a southern reverend would NEVER have been behind. In the words of Alecia, my sassy black manager, upon her hearing about the logo, "Oh HEEEEELL no!" That's just plain offensive.

3: The issues presented were for the most part issues from years past. Today's political climate with regard to homosexuals is one of tolerance at worst, even here in conservative Utah. The head lesbian was a minister for some religion and proudly claimed to have been excommunicated thrice, eventually leaving the church altogether and taking up residence with her former visiting teacher. She delivered an angry speech, much like those presented by other alumni, about how horrible it was to attend BYU. The problem was that she was speaking to a bunch of students who currently attend BYU and were having trouble seeing any of the problems she mentioned.

4: The idea of the homosexuals blaming religion for the suicides. It just pisses me off. The problem isn't solely with either side. The problem is the imagined chasm between the two sides, with poor youths feeling trapped with a foot on either side. Religion and homosexual tendencies are not naturally at odds. For years, churches painted the picture thus, but our church has come a very long way in the manner in which its leaders deal with those who experience same-sex attraction. We are aware that feelings of incongruousness between a religion believed to be true and an immutable sexual desire believed to be false can cause great psychological trauma to our young people. But just when our little bubble community seems to be taking steps to find middle ground, the other camp pulls away even more vehemently, and those chasm-straddlers are going to find themselves falling to one side or the other or down into the blackness. We need to be closing the gap from BOTH sides.

5: They weren't friendly. Tell them you're a closeted homosexual fighting to keep your sexual identity under wraps until just barely after graduation, and they'll welcome you with open arms and offer you the drinks they're serving in the corner. But stand with the small peaceful counter-protest (as I did) and suddenly you'll find an angry middle-aged redhead in a pantsuit storming toward you and unsavorily unplugging your music. Many of the lesbians from the bus decided to smoke on campus, or march around distributing fliers and otherwise breaking the protest rules set forth by the university. The smoking thing particularly got my goat, since not only is it a BYU rule that one cannot smoke on campus, but it is also against the state laws of Utah to smoke within a hundred feet of a public building. When students (such as my roommate Asmond) kindly asked the lesbians to refrain from smoking in front of their workplace, the lesbians took it as an affront on their message and their sexual identity and refused to either extinguish their cigarettes or move along.

The counter-protest was kinda weak, really. There was an insane hispanic woman with two people I can only assume were her own progeny, shouting "Shame on you" louder than the speakers AND the generator. "Let me tell jew something jew don't know," she said to me, advancing until she would have been right in my face had she been a foot taller. I let her, but she only told me things I already knew or that I still don't believe, like the idea that the gay movement is secretly being run by politicians and filmmakers who aren't actually gay themselves but rather hope to make a buck off the whole idea. Then there was a guy whose wife and daughter were playing on the playground while he distributed his own manifesto to the classy tunes of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir under a banner that read "You want your freedom of expression; please allow us ours." Then there was me, standing silently in the cold with my arms crossed, the ever non-partisan participant.

Why was I standing with the counter-protest? I just wanted someone to know that Soulforce does not speak for me. I don't think I'm a radical. I don't imagine for one second that I'm typical. But I like to think I am reasonable, at least. I didn't appreciate Soulforce's rhetoric. I didn't like their tying depression and suicide to homosexuality. I especially didn't appreciate that they purported to represent me. AND accuse me. As Wiggle so often repeats, "You don't KNOW me."

My old friend LLama was the one person whose actions that day receive a full endorsement from me. He was out there distributing lists of resources for people who are trying to deal with homosexuality in a positive church context. Way to be, LLama.

So, the point is that BYU seems to be at least taking a step forward by allowing these protests on campus, right? Especially after the American Association of University Professors put us on its list of censured schools in 1997 after a female professor was allegedly fired for being pro-choice and feminist.

But wait, by some coincidence(?), the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities happened to be visiting our school that same week that the protests were being graciously (and uncharacteristically) allowed on campus. This is the organization that every ten years decides whether BYU should maintain its accreditation status. So the question remains, is BYU actually becoming a more progressive school, or is it just trying to save face for the man?

Amid all this chaos, the Mexicans are enojados. It seems they feel they are under-appreciated. I'll agree with that. On May first, there is to be a nation-wide walk-out for all trabajadores of hispanic descent. In other words, the Mexican restaurant where I work is going to have an absolute dearth of cooks and dish washers that day. The owners are considering making Alecia cook fajitas and serving everything on paper plates all day. I guess Alecia is the next closest thing we have to Mexican after the real Mexicans and the Chileans and Salvadorians and all.

Now here's where it gets interesting for me. Norma and the other cooks and dish washers have told me that I'd better not come to work that day. After all, I am one quarter Mexican, and would be doing my old abuelita great dishonor by coming to work on that day. If our restaurant weren't situated exactly in the heart of downtown, I might just ignore their invitation. And also if it didn't have huge glass windows that look right out onto the street where the main demonstrations will be going on. And if the cooks hadn't been whispering about how they fully expect things to turn quickly into a riot.

And really, I do respect their cause, and my grandmother, and all. The last thing I want to be is a scab. So not only am I moderately interested in their cause, and medium terrified of the prospect of a thousand illegal immigrants hopped up on tequila coming at me with whatever the Mexican equivalent of pitchforks and torches is while I'm at work, and extremely excited about the idea of a totally good excuse to not show up for work for a whole day, but I also am relieved when I check my calendar and realize that the whole thing is moot because I have Mondays off anyway. I think I'll go have me some all-you-can-eat fajitas that day, as long as Alecia's cooking.

So there you have it, folks. Three major protests going on, all of which really relate to me (after all, I am a BYUSA-censored, homosexual, Mormon who is descended from illegal Mexican immigrants), and yet while I feel passionately about each of those subjects, I just can't find myself getting behind any of those causes.

You want to know the cause I CAN get behind? Protesting Panda Express. Seriously, Gravy and I always talked about marching in front of that store with signs that say "Don't believe their lies!" and "Panda Express is chicken" and distributing PETA-esque pamphlets that explain that there is no actual panda meat in ANY Panda Express products. I can't believe the number of people who still eat there, seemingly unaware of the flagrant false advertising. I hope Vero will be back in town on May first, because I am off work that day, and I'd bet she would help me with my movement. And that day is perfect, because there won't be any workers there to come out and stop us. Because after all, not only is their panda secretly just chicken, but their Chinamen are secretly just Mexicans.

Double Feature

2006-04-06T00:42:00.001-06:00

Part One: Homemaking Night

So Pinetree has this roommate. He's a nice guy, but he has some questionable taste. Like, for instance this poster that he puts up in their living room. It's all, "Marines: liberators, protectors, warriors." And it shows this marine all gussied up in his killing gear and it looks kinda like this, only nighttime:

And so naturally, Pinetree hates the poster, right? I mean, besides being flagrant propaganda, it's not like it's even a cool picture. Seriously it's lots lamer than the above picture. So anyway, Pinetree comes up with this ingenious plan. We're gonna steal the poster. Only we can't just take it down, because then it will be totally obvious that he did it, because who else cares what posters are up in somebody's house? So Pinetree decides to make up some girls and then we can frame them.

So I borrow some pink and yellow construction papers from Wiggle and write in my stupid-girl handwriting a message that's all, "If you ever want to see your poster again come to apartment 9 tomorrow at 7" or something. And then I cut it up in little puzzle pieces.

Then we decide to make some cookies to sweeten the deal, with a little note that's like, "There's more where this came from." But we also decide to make the cookies really nasty just because that's funny, right?

Well, a few days pass, and before we can get in there to do it we end up at Denny's at midnight with a buncha friends, including Vero Awesome. And she's all, "Time for frivolity, yo." So we're all, yeah, let's go make cookies. And somebody has the sweet idea to just buy some cookies at the store and then frost them with something nasty. So we choose toothpaste. The only problem with toothpaste is it might not be nasty enough, and there's a little note on the box that goes, "If more than the normal amount used for brushing is swallowed, contact a physician or a poison control center immediately." So we're worried they'll be all, "Mmmm, minty cookies" and eat 'em all and totally croak, as opposed to them being all, "Blech! Aquafresh cookies! Angry!" and then we all laugh. So we go to the store, and we open one container to see if it's nasty enough, but it's blue stripes, so before we even try it, we decide to close it back up and put it back on the shelf. But it's not staying closed, see, so we go to the tape aisle and get some tape and tape it shut and put it back. And the tape. We put them both back.

And then we decide on the Pepsodent and it's white, and it's me and Vero and Wiggle and Pinetree, and Wiggle says we need sprinkles to heighten the effect, and she's right of course. S owe get those too, and Vero wants to also give cookies to these two dudes we work with named Ryan and Greg who are roommates, so we get more cookies and we get cards for them. And we sit around in the parking lot, frosting the cookies with ghetto plastic knives I horked from the deli part of the store, even though it was closed and all these break-taking employees were sitting over there looking at me like, "What the? Did that Arabian dude just walk in here and steal plastic knives?" And yes, yes I did.

So we frost the cookies, and the womenfolk sign the cards (which are perfect to begin with because they talk about "more love where these come from" or some crap), and Vero gives us two wonderfully horrible long dyed-red hairs to frost into the cookies (one for each plate). Then we are still a bit worried about, like, what if the guy eats the cookies and is all, "mmm, like thin mints, delish!" and eats them all and dies. After all, the box the paste came in has that little warning on the bottom for a reason, I point out. So Wiggle suggests we just cut that thing out and tape it on the bottom of the plate of cookies. Good thinking, Wiggle! So we do, thus assuaging our guilt in a very legally permissible way.

And we go to Greg and Ryan's first, and Racherella tells us where they keep their key, and I go, but I can't find the key, so I doorbell ditch it and go running out of there like a rabbit from a dog show. But on the way out Vero notices that we got the wrong apartment, so I go back, and fortunately the plate and the card are still sitting there, and we take it to the right apartment and I go in and leave it on their counter and this time sneak out like a mouse at a, um, nother dog show.

And then we go to Pinetree's, and Vero Awesome takes the cookies and the feminine puzzle and comes back out with the poster (remember that's why we did all this in the first place?) and we give it to Dice and we go home and go to bed. It was frickin' awesome, and it reminded me that I can have mischievous fun without getting the police involved.

Part Two: Connections

I have been to see Dr. Robinson four times now. He's incredible. He talks to me for forty-five minutes, asking questions and taking these big long pauses as he considers what to say next. When I speak, he writes everything down, scribble scribble scribble, on his clipboard. He goes through several sheets of paper each time, because I can be quite loquacious. I told him next time I'm bringing a clipboard and writing down everything he says, and then pausing for a few minutes and sighing before responding every time, and see how HE likes it. I don't know if he even understood what I was talking about on that one. After the forty-five minutes he starts telling ME things, and the pieces click together, and I feel like I have been tricked into learning so much.

Anyway, the first time we were together, he taught me something cool that I had thought I already knew about myself and the way brains work.

He gave me an example. He said we take the word "cat." And we take the spelling of the word. He drew this all out for me on paper. He said we can take a baby and teach it that the word means the spelling, and it will learn it. You say the word, the baby will pick out the spelling. He said that we can then take the cat itself and teach the baby that the word means the cat. Then he said that we can also teach these things to animals. A dolphin or a dog or a bird can learn to pick the right one from among misleading choices. You say "cat" and the monkey will point to the cat.

The difference, he said, is that the baby will also automatically learn that the spelling means the word, as well. He will learn it both ways. He will also learn that the cat means the word. And then he will learn that the spelling means the actual cat and vice versa. Humans make six automatic connections where the animals will learn only two. It's what sets us apart as humans, he said. Our ability to make connections. Our minds become a web of connections and it's how we learn and deal with the world.

The cool thing is that I am well aware that my mind forms these connections. I assign everything a color, I spell it out in my head. I alphabetize all items in groups. Like you say "colors," and I start to think "amethyst, apricot, azure, black, blue, brown, burgundy, burnt orange, etc...." And that's just now off the top of my head. The Human mind is amazing. Given a minute or two, we can eventually find a specific link, no matter how feeble between any two given things. For instance, if you had to say how turnips are the opposite of marbles, you could. Or you could find a way in which carpets are the parent of Puff Daddy.

Anyway, the good Dr. R. next drew the word "Rob." That's my dad's name, as well as a variant of my own, since we technically have the same name. So then he wrote "Dad" and draws an arrow between the two. Then he wrote "me" and drew an arrow from "Rob" to "me." Are you picturing this? then he draws all the other arrows, back from "me" to "Rob" and from "Dad to "Rob" and between "me and "Dad" both ways. No wonder I balk at anyone's calling me "Rob," he says. I immediately connect myself to my dad, and his failures. He next wrote "disaster" and drew the arrow from "Dad" to that. And then all kinds of other scary things my dad has done. And all of it connected to me and my dad through arrows.

I'd always known my brain does that, you see. I just had only been paying attention to the aspect of the connection building that helps me to win board games. I wasn't aware that it was also leading to problems in my life.

So the goal is not to break down those connections, but rather to loosen them, and to build up stronger connections that will supersede those other ones.

This last time we talked about prayer, among other things. Dr. Robinson said he has some patients whom he can't cajole into praying, and that he thinks that's a major factor for success. And on the way home (I always walk home so I can process what I've learned), a thought struck me. On my mission I worked very hard to actually "pray always," as Second Nephi suggests. I spent a lot of time studying and pondering how to actually do that. And I learned some helpful methods. One has simply to direct his thoughts, whatever they be about, to God, keeping Him in the forefront of the mind at all times. One can in this way be sure that his actions are in step, as well. It's the idea behind the CTR ring. Every time you see it there on your finger, you remember the good that you need to be doing. On my mission I met a man named Elías, who was trying to quit smoking. This is not a happy mission story where we helped him to quit smoking and he got baptized and is now first counselor in the branch presidency. It's just a time that I learned an important lesson. One day Elías had a piece of string tied around his finger. He said it was to help him remember to not smoke. When asked about the efficacy of the string, he replied that it didn't work because it kept coming off, and he'd forget. So I gave him my CTR ring. I told him that every time he saw it or felt it or noticed it, he was to pray for the strength he'd need to quit smoking. And I promised him that every time I noticed that the ring was gone or my finger felt naked, I'd pray for him as well. And it worked, as far as reminding me went. I didn't need the ring to remember to choose the right. The absence of the ring could serve the exact same function.

So on this walk home from my weekly session with the therapist, I came to realize that praying always was simply a matter of making everything remind me to choose the right. I had to make ALL the connections connect back to God. I looked around me at the mountains and the sun and the long straight stretch of University Avenue and saw gospel symbolism and turned my thoughts to God. But it's easy with roads and mountains. I needed to connect EVERYTHING. Turnips and carpet and cats and Puff Daddy and my own daddy all need to make me think of God and the things with which he has blessed me and the things he requires of me.

And when I do spiritual things, like going to church or the temple or reading my scriptures, I need to relate them back to the rest of my life, so that those connections already exist when I go out into the world. I realized that's why Nephi also tells us to liken the scriptures to ourselves. It's why Christ taught his parables using images from the people's daily lives. Not just because those are the things they could understand, but also because those are the images the people would be seeing every day after Christ was no longer in their presence.

At one point this last week, Dr. Robinson just leaned back, sighed contemplatively, and said, "You're very weird." That has to make you feel great, right? When a guy whose job it is to deal with crazy people tells you you're very weird? Anyway, the week before he'd been telling me I needed to cut out everything gay in my life, because it could become a trigger. But this last time he said he wasn't so sure any more. I could tell he was struggling to reconcile this with his hard fast rules he'd (until then) entertained. At any rate, we both left there wondering what to do, but by the time I got home I knew. I need to consecrate myself a little more. I need to keep saying my prayers throughout the day, every time I need something or am thankful for something or thinking of someone. I need to connect my life and my surroundings to my God, so that all things point more directly toward him, because I owe him, and I love him.

Mood Music

2006-03-29T03:07:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts on music. I put three new songs over on the side here for El Veneno. I hope you guys will listen to all three. I love them all. The first (the one you are probably hearing right now) is from the CD that the Neverbird gave me for my birthday. I love the message it contains, about pressing forward when you're not sure about things. The next is War on Drugs by the Barenaked Ladies. It's one of the most moving songs I know of. They said at their concert that they were singing about a bridge in Canada that had the world's second-highest suicide rate (after the Golden Gate). When the city put a net under the bridge, people just moved up to the next bridge and started jumping from there. So that was the basis of the song, and it has helped me to understand people who suffer from depression more than anything else ever has. Finally, we have a song that is simultaneously funny and sad. It's called Jim Henson's Dead and Gone, by Stephen Lynch, the same guy who does Dead Puppies and If I Could Be a Superhero. I love Muppets, and so I present this song as an homage to Jim Henson. What a brilliant man, who really seemed to understand dreams and making them a reality.

In fact, my dinner group has recently been transformed into a dinner/muppets group. I love that. Turns out my buddy Robb is just as big a muppets fan as I am.

Robb and Pinetree both just got jobs at Los Hermanos. I love that job. I made $15/hour in tips again tonight. I have been making more than anyone else lately. It's been a major blessing. Alecia says I've been doing a great job there, which makes me very happy. I'm learning the joy of hard work, which was what I talked about in my testimony at this Sunday's Latter Day Sounds fireside in Ogden, speaking about the song Come Come Ye Saints. We can't fear toil and labor, but we have to wend our way with joy. The media would have us believe that work and joy are antithetical. That we work only so we can have joy later. But I believe that we are to find joy in serving, and not stop until we have finished our work or died trying. And then either way, it will be a happy day, and only THEN can we join the saints in crying "All is well."

Latter Day Sounds is so good for me. On Saturday Rachel stayed late at work and closed for me (I love that girl) and Nick let me off early so I could catch up with the choir in northern Utah. And so I took a bus to Ogden last-minute to go be with the choir. I ended up screaming in pain and cold in the pouring windy snowy rain, as I got drenched. It was super miserable, but we all have to make sacrifices for the things that are important to us, huh?

Like Pinetree has recently done. Wow. Dr. Robinson says that I'll have to get rid of every gay everything if I want to beat this thing. So of course I thought, "No, that is too much." But then I remembered the rich young man, and how he had been told he would have to give up all he had. And then i remembered Naaman, who really only had to give up his pride, but found that to be almost an insurmountable task, and I started thinking, "What wouldn't I be willing to give up in order to be the man that God wants me to be?" And really, there is nothing. So I am doing what I can with the Dr. Robinson suggestion. Cutting off contact with a lot of people. Identifying which parts of my life strengthen those dangerous connections that my brain makes, and cutting them out, as they stand in my way, triggers to the booby traps I've set for myself in years past, now obscured by dust. Time to bust out the pledge and figure out exactly where those triggers are, and dismantle them. Anyway, I had a long conversation with Pinetree about that yesterday, and then today he tells me he up and cut off someone who I know means a TON to him. I really appreciate his example. I feel like I learn so much from that kid. So now it's my turn to do the same. Time for some major spring cleaning.

I might be losing a lot of things in this process. A lot of friends. We will see.

But I will be okay. I have so MANY other friends who are so good for me these days. My friends from my ward, and from my choir, and from work. I love all of these people. On Friday Jessica and Goat and Wiggle and I are all going to go to see Guster. I am very excited. They have such haunting voices, and can sing melodies both happy and sad. Which brings me to what I really want to say tonight, a message inspired by everything in my life, and most recently and noticeably by the Jim Henson Company movie "Mirror Mask," which I recommend whole-heartedly to anyone who reads this. Anyway, on to today's moral:

I love music so much. It's so good for me. I like to listen to sad music best of all, because "sad" isn't easy for me to feel on my own.

I think sadness is beautiful, like rain and strong battered women and fancy melting candles and rooms all done up in red velvet. Like wildflowers growing raggedly from a crack in a barren rock, or like sputtering, flickering stars, fighting to shine their light down through earth's muggy, twinkly atmosphere. I want to cup the stars in my hand, make someone's sadness my own, protect it from the tempestuous winds of life, shade it from the overpowering glare of sunshine. In the summer, I lie in the crunchy golden grass and look at the ghosts of giants and heroes and magical beasts placed in the night sky to remind us that we all must pass on, that we are only visitors here in this strange land. And I love them. I love their stories. And then the sun comes out, and the stories fade to a soothing baby blue and all can be forgotten. The heroes and their tragic tales are lost. Their beauty exists only in the darkness.

Will Heaven be all light all the time? Or will there be shadows dancing from the fireplace onto the cozy earthen walls? Will there be the dark spaces between the stars, or will they all be filled in with such blinding light that there won't be stars any more at all? Will the forest still hold its dark secretive appeal, or will the leaves in the canopies be forced to move aside and let in the light, stripping the woods of all their murky mysteries? Will all music be in major chords, all clouds cumulus, all stories have happy endings? Will we mourn our damned loved ones? Will we have to forget we ever loved them?

In moving closer to God, will I have to be homogenized? Will we all eventually shine the same bright white, or can I shine golden, or spring green, or vivid tangerine? Will my dark desires be the catalysts that make me more like God, or will they keep me different? Do I give off my own wavelength of light just by moving close to God, a cosmic Doppler Effect that somehow allows my movement to shine my own color of beauty to the stationary viewer, even as I draw closer to the center of the Universe, where gods and matter end? Is my individuality burned up beautifully like a meteor as I draw closer to my goals? Is the incredible journey to sameness the thing that sets us apart in the end? Are our scars what make us beautiful?

I am still discovering so much. I love life. I love the light, and the dark, and the moments like these, right before the proverbial sun rises, when the field is still shrouded in mist, and everything is grey and blurry and coming coldly alive.

Genie in a Bottle

2006-03-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

I have finally decided what my three wishes will be when I find a genie. Go ahead, fates, and throw that magic lamp in my path. I am of sound mind and finally prepared for unimaginable fortune.

Here's the list:

1. That when I finally die, it will be by spontaneous combustion.

2. A CTL ring for my left hand.

3. That when I finish counting things, lightning will flash.

I don't think I'm asking for too much.

Odd Shaped Pots and Other Nonsense

2006-03-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Holy Hannah, I've been busy. Sorry I haven't posted recently. Here are the main items of business:

I went to Jon and Sara's wedding. It was so great. Here's the story in pictures:

I am not even going to try getting all that crap in order. Well, actually, I tried really hard, and it is just pissing me off now, and it has caused further delays, and so I give up.

But the point is this: Weddings are a TON of work, but they are awesome when the people are so right for each other and they're worthy and stuff.

I got to be co-best man, and give a toast and everything. It was so much fun. I shared the theory of the odd-shaped pots. I think now we will change it to the theory of the odd-shaped tupperware, and I will explain it here:

So you're looking for the lid to your tupperware, and if your tupperware is square or round, you can find eleven lids that ALMOST fit, but not the one that actually does. If, however, your tupperware is like a heart or a parallelogram or some long, thin rectangle, it's easy cheese to find the right lid. It practically jumps right out at you. So it is for weird people who are trying to find their soul mates. They can scan the crowd and immediately rule out all the normals and the people who are odd but not their kind of odd, and all that's left is their mate. So it is with Jon and Sara. They were so easy to set up because they were also so perfectly right for each other and wrong for anyone else. And yes, that IS what I said in the toast I made at the reception. Thank you to Jessica for sharing the theory with me in the first place.

We stayed at Shelley's brother's house, which made for what is probably the most entertaining story from the trip. When we arrived, it was the middle of the night, and Shelley's mom let us in. She was also staying there as a guest. She tried to get me and Shelley to sleep on the same mattress together, but Shelley was like, "why Don't Natalie and I share and then Smurf can have the mattress to himself. Good thinking, Shelley. Her mom was all, "Oh, please, you'll be in sleeping bags, and you can just put your heads at opposite ends. Ah, converts. Gotta love them.

But what was really strange happened before all of that. Because, you see, the moment Shelley's mom opened the front door, I heard a terrible grinding buzzing noise coming from the house. And the noise didn't go away. It would beep on and off for a minute, and then be a steady on noise for a minute, and then back to the beeping. That first night at the house was hell. I could not stand the noise. When I asked what it was, Shelley told me that it was some sort of ant repellant system, and that we couldn't turn it off. She also said that she couldn't even hear it.

So, I didn't sleep much that night. The next morning, Shelley was saying that if the neighbor's dog didn't shut up, she would go after it with a baseball bat. I tried, but I could not hear the dog over the buzzing. People were starting to think I was crazy. So was I. The next night Shelley gave me ear plugs, and those helped tremendously. I found out that her little nephews had been throwing paper airplanes at me all morning and I hadn't stirred. The following day, the kids told me that the noise was just coming from a little box in the wall, and that we could unplug it at any time. They thought my suffering was funny, especially because nobody else could even hear the horrible loud noise.

I learned a few things at the wedding, though, like that if you are a woman, the word "tool" also means some sort of lacy crap that is nice to spread around at weddings. And that brides care that all their glitter is the right way up on the tables at receptions, but it still has to look just like it fell there naturally anyway. And that taking your friend to Denny's and then walking around with him outside Disneyland and letting him look through the bars but not actually go in may be a lame bachelor party, but sometimes it seems to be just what a stressed groom-to-be needs. And also that you should stop your toast the moment everyone goes "Aaaaaaawwwww" because it can only go downhill from there. And I hope Sara learned that caesar dressing has anchovies in it, and should not be served at your wedding reception when your husband is a vegetarian weirdo.

There was also a little bit of chaos when we couldn't find the dumpster at the church building, but that wasn't enough to go into detail about here.

Seriously, I felt a bit bad about the bachelor party. I told Jon that I was going to get him a cake with a stripper inside, but then I remembered the whole vegetarian thing. I love when I can tell a joke in such a way that the recipient will say two or three more sentences and then say, "Wait, what!?"

Other stuff has happened in my life, so here are the news briefs:

I went to California AGAIN (northern this time) with my mom and Mack and the maggot. I got to sit in the back seat with the maggot and Mom and Mack sat in the front. Here's a sample of the conversation from the trip:

Mom: "Straight!" That has an h and an i!
Mack: But you were still on g!
Mom: Oh yeah.
Me: Uh, mom, "straight" has a g in it too.
Mom: Oh yeah. "Objects!" That has a j!
Mack: You can't use words that are on the truck!
Mom: But it's outside the truck!
Mack: Do you want to be outside the truck?

The point of the trip was to go to my brother Ouija's sealing to his wife, who definitely should no longer be called "flavor" on my blog, since they've been married for a whole year now. So that makes two trips to California for wedding-type things in the same month. An odd fact about the sealing: I accidentally learned her new name when I was working in the temple as a set-apart veil worker. Weird.

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n has moved here. I have also discovered Goat. And Carrot is back from her mission. It makes me extra excited that all my old friends are back in my life.

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Work is great. I've been super busy with that and my choir and the activities committee. Also, I just want to say that I love my friends in my ward. They are excellent people, all of them.

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Rose invited Dee to her bridal shower this past week. So as far as we can tell, the wedding is still going on, but maybe it's no longer a temple wedding. It's hard to say. If this wedding happens, I'm so going. And I'm also so inviting all of you, but you have to act like you don't know me at all the whole time, capiche?

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See, you'd expect me to have more to talk about with a whole month gone by, but that's just not the case. Especially when I summarize everything as neatly and compactly as I just have. In any case, My next entry will have much more detail and will deal with the events from a much narrower portion of my life, and will therefore hopefully be much more interesting. Word.

Oh, and everybody watch the Backyardigans. From Nick Jr.'s website:

"Each 3D CGI-animated episode of “The Backyardigans” is a journey into the kind of fantasy play that happens in every little kid’s mind. They’re epic, musical fantasy adventures, preschool-style, fresh from the minds of Five kids – a precocious penguin named Pablo, a laid-back moose named Tyrone, the appropriately named Uniqua, a shy kangaroo named Austin, and a Happy Hippo named Tasha.

"Every day they meet in their adjoining backyards to explore wherever their imaginations take them – be it a deep tropical rainforest, an enchanted castle, or a vast ocean.

"On each fully realized adventure, “The Backyardigans” sing and dance to tango or tap, jazz or hip-hop, calypso or operetta, rockabilly or Irish jigs.
That’s right, it’s a musical. “The Backyardigans” explore different types of music just as they explore the whole wide world without ever leaving their backyards.

"And best of all, after each adventure, they always get home just
in time for a snack!"

Seriously, you guys, this is my new favorite TV show after 24. I've only seen one episode, and the kids were superheroes and the music was salsa. It was so catchy I could hardly believe it, and the kids were pretending JUST like my friends and I used to at that age. My four-year-old sister was singing along and making me pretend to be the various characters with her. It was enchanting. I also loved that some of the characters had black voices. thy were all so freaking cute. I know that the Backyardigans is true with all the fiber in my beans. Amen.

Bob Ross Russ Rose

2006-02-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

"Gay is the new pink."

A girl said that in my dream last night, regarding the new positive regard (and even trendiness) which popular society holds for homosexuals. I don't know if that's as funny when it's not a dream, but it sure cracked me up.

I got a job. Los Hermanos again. I start Monday or so, I think. I'm really glad I don't have to wait to take the server test. So soon I'll be back serving tables, which I absolutely love.

Seriously, fans of music, check out pandora.com. The folks there did something they call the Music Genome project. They took music and analyzed it for its different attributes, and put all the information into a huge database. Then they created Pandora, which is designed to help you to find new music that you will like because of its similarities to what you already like. You go there and you type in the name of a song or a band that you like and it will begin streaming music like a radio station. It's truly amazing. I love almost everything that comes up. And if you dislike something, you just tell it and it will skip it. On Sunday I typed in Mormon Tabernacle Choir and was delighted when it started playing hymns, spirituals, and folk sings all morning. And the rest of the week I just type in a song that fits my current mood and they will play tons of music in that exact same mood. I know pandora.com is true with all the fiber in my beans.

I talked to the Bish about the Rose sitch. He was surprised to hear an old familiar name. He said that he and Rose and my previous bishop had had a special meeting once and confronted her with her roommates' allegations that she was a man. She was unable to refute the claims, but they were unable to prove it, and as she vehemently denied the charges, they let the matter go. The bishop was most interested in the tangible evidence I'd brought (namely, a photocopy of her driver license and her immigration papers), and asked if he could keep them to bring them to the stake president, who'd reportedly been right in the thick of the whole scandal when Rose was living here. So I don't need to worry about it any more, and Bish said the evidence was exactly what they'd been waiting for. So we'll see what happens next. There will doubtless be a mess, but hopefully I'll be a few steps removed from it. D and Wiggle are afraid that if Rose is confronted with the evidence, she may put two and two together and come blaming them, since it was their basement where the documents were stored when Heather Angela Hawks rifled through the boxes and scanned everything.

N is moving here this week. I am so friggin' excited. Lad is coming in two days as well. Wiggle and I are going to see Guster in Section 6, row 1, seats 17 and 18, when they come to town on March 30. Woo-hoo.

24 was SO good last night. SO good. Jack Bauer is the man.

And my little brother Rusty got photoshop, and this is his new picture, which I think is hilarious. This kid had the Bob Ross painting instruction kit when we were little and LOVED to watch the show. I know he's white, but really, he's my full brother. Promise.

Oh, and happy Valentine's day, I guess. This seems like a non-event to me, more than ever this year. Oh well. I have been invited to do things with two different Connies, which is SUPER weird because that's my mom's name, and I am named after my dad. I don't know if I'd be comfortable with either, so I haven't responded yet. We'll see what happens.

Chaito.

A Toast

2006-02-11T02:51:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks everyone for that little discussion. And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

I'd like to propose a toast. Lots of things make me happy, so here's to them.

To n, on her decision to move back to Utah for the sole purpose of being closer to me.

To Wiggle, and to 3:00 a.m. spur-of-the-moment trips to Park City.

To Mario and Silvia, the couple we brought into the church in Chile, upon the recent news that they got sealed in the temple.

To Jonathan and Topsie, whose wedding in fourteen days should prove to be the first happy one I've been affiliated with since my brother's.

To Jessica, for bringing me grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and chocolate money when I was in the depths of my illness.

To Pandora.com, for being the best music website I have ever seen.

To Hero, on his brand new engagement.

To a certain string-puller who got me eleven straight weeks of efy this summer so I won't have to pay rent. Yeah, that's supposed to remain a secret.

To the Lad, whose visit to Utah grows closer with each passing day.

To an anonymous goat on Myspace who informed me that Guster is coming and that tickets go on sale today.

To my cold, which is a great excuse for having not been out on a date this weekend.

To all the rest of my friends, for good times, lively discussions, and interesting stories.

Love you all.

I leave you with a little game I like to play called Gaydar. See if you can guess which of these two guys is a homosexual. I'll post the answer tomorrow. Enjoy.

The Heathen, the Hamster, and the Rose Revisited

2006-02-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a comment on the last post, but it got wayyy too long. It's probably even too long for a regular post, but Oh, well. If you feel you've had enough of the last post, then you will probably want to skip this one. But I'd also love to hear which side you take on the matter. Please be sure to read Pinetree's comment on the previous post, Masquerade, before commenting on this one. It's a good comment.

I'm glad my blog has caused some good discussion, but I'm afraid I must whole-heartedly disagree with you guys, Pinetree and Mustard. I'm not talking about judging whether a person is a good or a bad person. I'm simply talking about telling somebody, "I think that what you are doing is a mistake, and you might not be able to see it as such."

It happens all the time. Just last night I came very close to going on a (literally) last-minute road trip to California. It was 4:00 a.m. and some friends told me they were headed to San Francisco and had room for me to come along. In the end I didn't go, not because I thought it was a bad idea, but because I didn't have any impartial person around to tell me whether it made sense to go. Some people need that all the time, and I believe everybody needs it from time to time. In the case of the girl with the pink hair, I'm not passing judgment on her character when I tell her the pink mohawk is out of line. Am I passing judgment on her hair? Sure. Is it my place? No, it WOULDN'T be. Except that now that all of the relief society has lied to her, she's going to need to hear it straight up. And with this girl, if the bishop were the only one to say something, she'd think he was crazy. "The relief society all loved it." As it was, she thought I was crazy because I was the ONLY person who answered her questions about it with the honest truth. This girl was always asking why nobody respected her or treated her like a grown-up, but she was unwilling to hear that her mohawk and other inappropriate fashion statements were injuring her image. She believed that if people judged her based on her hair, that was a flaw in their character, not hers. I agree, but I also think that to cope in such a flawed world, we need to make certain sacrifices of our own personal liberties IF we want certain reactions (like respect) from the general populace. She really would need to hear the same message from many different people. I knew her better than anybody else at the time. I'm not just some random guy making this assessment.

In the case of Hamster and his wife, I think it's important to note that I was probably the ONLY person at the wedding with closer ties to Hamster than to his wife. Everyone else was on her side, if you had to draw the line that way, and I'm sure almost everybody in attendance was ignorant of the circumstances that made this wedding so terrible. Which were that the kid has totally unresolved and even unexamined homosexual tendencies, he had been having sex with his roommate during his courtship of the bride, and the two seemed to be rushing the wedding to both legitimize their physical relationship and to magically cure the groom of his affections toward men. I was NOT opposed to the marriage on the grounds that both are ugly and they will eventually produce frightening offspring. I mentioned their physical appearance to help illustrate the full tragedy of the situation, i.e. the bitter notion that they seemed to be settling for each other rather than just being two young people caught up in the throes of lust or any other such romantic ideal that might make the readership a tad more sympathetic and falsely understanding of where these two are coming from. Of course, the ideal would be that they could both work out these issues and approach the marriage from the position where both recognize the incredible struggle up against which they're putting themselves. But from conversations I've had with them, it really did feel like they were both blithely entering into some sort of panacean marriage: take one wedding ceremony, apply two sprinkles of the Atonement, consummate vigorously, and you can overcome whatever comes your way, so no need to actually change your lifestyle before jumping into all of this.

Am I saying either is a bad person? Absolutely not. I love these kids. Am I saying they made a terrible, terrible decision? Yes. Absolutely. No doubt in my mind. Is it my place to say this to them? Maybe not. But then whose? The bishop's? Do I really believe he'd been granted all the information I have? No. I came to this wedding as the only friend Hamster had, the only one on his side of the camp who really understood where he was coming from and what his likely motivations were in getting married. And I didn't say anything. I'm not saying I should have stopped it. I'm just saying SOMEone should have been that kid to call the emperor out on being naked in the street. Someone should have at least given Hamster something to gnaw on, something to get his wheels turning so he could come at this problem more perspicaciously, having mulled over the costs and making a sound decision to move forward.

Everyone seems much more naturally opposed to Rose's wedding. Why? Because it's making a mockery of marriage? Because her fiancé might be entering into this marriage completely unaware of what he's getting himself into? I submit that Hamster's case was the same on both counts. okay, so Rose's wedding is also in the temple, whereas Hamster's wasn't but I bet people would still be strongly opposed to Rose's wedding were it a temporal one.

Now, I don't think that I should be the one to pull Rose aside and explain to him(?) that to receive the blessings of the temple he'll need to go back to being a man and get rebaptized and whatever else will be required of him. I'm just not that close with Rose, and that is a very touchy subject that is bound to cause more harm than good. Which is why I'm going to the bishop. And if he won't talk to Rose's current bishop, then maybe I will.

Again, this has nothing to do with judging between good and evil. I don't believe that Rose is a bad person. I believe that Rose is a confused, scared young man who probably has almost worthy dreams of becoming a typical LDS housewife, and is willing to do whatever it takes to reach that goal.

Poor Rose.

In all of these cases, I don't believe that it's my place to decide what sort of punishment should be doled out. But I do believe that it is among the duties of a friend to offer advice. That doesn't always have to be the green light. A real friend will tell you when to hit the brakes, when you're going too far. You'd expect the good friend to pull you aside and tell you when you were about to go outside with your fly down, when you are too drunk to drive home, when you're about to rush into a marriage that you think will cure your homosexuality....

I stand by what I said in the post. Ideally we wouldn't have to be Paula OR Simon; we could each be creatures of balanced niceness and helpfulness, but in a valley so inundated with unhelpful but nice Paulas, I'll do my part to bringing balance and be a helpful Simon. Being a friend is not about saying what people want to hear. Like you did with your comment, Pinetree. It's made me reconsider, and though I haven't come to agree with you, I'm glad you felt close enough to tell me what you think.

There was a woman on American Idol a few weeks back who had quit her job to come on the show. And then she was awful. Simon told her she was awful, and then called her boss and personally asked the manager to rehire the lady, telling her the woman was very personable and a great salesperson, but she was a very terrible singer. That's what I'm talking about here with the Simon thing. Not deciding she's a bad person. Just that she's a bad singer. And my question is this: Why didn't ANY of her friends ever tell her she wasn't that good at singing? WHY!? What kind of friend lets you quit your job like that? That's a very bad friend.

I think I can do better than that.

Pinetree, while I disagree with your points, I'm glad we can even have these discussions. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but I don't do middle so well, so for now I'm sticking to my extreme side, until I can find a way to get extreme balance. Love ya much.

--Snappy Smurf

Masquerade

2006-02-07T01:24:00.000-07:00

"Paper faces on parade/ Masquerade/ Hide your face so the world will never find you."

Last Saturday, my new friend Snake and I went to a masquerade. We got masks at the local costume shop, and I wore my camel-colored leisure suit and my Guido wig, as well. I don't think I knew anyone there besides Snake, but we just danced and pretended we were the most interesting people in the room, and we had a good time. It was a bit freaky, all the masks and color and movement. Like the masquerade on Labyrinth, except without David Bowie sexually singing to a 15-year old girl with sleeves on her princess dress that would prevent her from drowning should she fall unconscious into a lake.

Earlier that morning, Wiggle, Blueshorts, and I went to a different kind of... well, let me back up a bit:

My friend (we'll call him "Hamster" to protect his true identity) had just recently moved to Utah from back home. I knew him in my singles' ward there in California. I had recently learned from a mutual acquaintance that Hamster a) had moved to Provo and b) also deals with Same-Sex Attraction (i.e. he likes boys).

I thought this was pretty funny. I called him up and hung out with him a few times. We met up again at Evergreen, actually, and we played games and caught up and laughed about our mutual plights. During Christmas break, I went with Hamster to his roommate's parents' house in West Valley. Things were great. During our time there, Hamster announced that he was dating his roommate's old high school friend, whom we'll call Gladys because I feel like it. The roommate (Roo) was a bit disturbed by the situation, but seemed to be in good spirits. Indeed, they made an odd couple, as the lady was taller and of a much more substantial girth than the fellow. She pretty much equals three of him.

The following week was a momentous one. During the first few days of their boyfriend-girlfriendhood, Hamster and his roommate Roo got it on. Yes, friends, they crossed that bold line between "appropriate levels of physical attraction between roommates" and "sex."

This was most unfortunate and unsettling for me, because Hamster actually kinda resembles a rodent, and I was really grossed out by the notion. Hamster told Gladys immediately the next morning about what had happened between him and his roommate, and she was forgiving.

Later that week, Hamster reported to me that his girlfriend was feeling bad because he and she had "gone too far" the previous night. The next day they were engaged for this coming April.

A week or so later, the wedding was pushed up to last Saturday. I got my wedding invitation through Myspace: "Come if you want. If not, we're still doing it."

Doing what? one has to wonder....

Anyway, I rounded up the troops and Wiggle and Blushorts and I headed to the wedding. We were a bit curious as to whether the debacle would still be going on, since we hadn't actually heard anything since the Myspace invitation. But when we got to the Orem Institute of Religion, the ceremony was in full swing, and one of their mothers was up there saying how proud she was of the two.

Then the bishop got up and offered generic advice that I'd heard countless times in marriage prep at institute. Then they had the ceremony. The bride was dressed in cream. The bottom of the dress puffed way out, which made her torso look like the fake bride atop a huge delicious champagne-colored wedding cake. Also, I hadn't had breakfast before I went.

The bishop told them to take each other by the right hand, but I think the bride heard "Take his hand with your right hand," because she grabbed his left and pulled him over to where they were to stand.

The ceremony itself was interesting because we were all leaning forward in our pews, wondering whether anyone would object or whether we'd all have to forever hold our peace.

Well, they skipped that part of the ceremony, which is lucky, because I don't think I'd be allowed to rail on the wedding if they'd said it. We all tensed up again when it came time for them to say "I do," but I was pretty sure he wouldn't back out at the last second, because she could totally beat him up. They were pronounced mammal and wife, and the bride leaned all the way in and kissed him. That kiss, to me, was a foreshadow of the remainder of their marriage, with her constantly putting in the effort and keeping up appearances and strong-arming her way through dismal months or maybe even years until finally she realizes she is suffocating and pulls away.

After the ceremony, they were allowed to say words from the pulpit. Gladys went first, and announced that she was glad that her newly acquired husband didn't have car insurance. She explained in a forward and engaging way that shortly after Hamster had moved here, he had crashed his car into someone else's car. She told us that Hamster had needed a ride to court, and explicated the miracle that occurred when the judge gave him a lower fine than those which he'd given all the other violators present that morning. After that, they'd gone to Taco Bell, and that was their first date. The hand of the Lord, she said, had been in everything they'd done that led them to this point. Good thing Jesus took away that kid's insurance, huh? And I'm not even going to touch the fact that the bride wasn't in white. She ended by saying to the audience, "I love him more than I've ever loved anything else." It's really sad because when I look at this kid, I think, there's something not quite human about this kid. He really looks like someone took a man and started turning him into a naked mole rat and then just stopped part of the way through the transformation. And then she had to go and say "anyTHING." Not "anyONE."

So then the groom spoke. The little fellow looked so happy up there. There was more joy in him than his tiny frame could contain. He kept saying "these past few weeks," as an awkward reminder to everyone that the couple had only been dating for a month and engaged for a little under three weeks. When he was done speaking, there was another all-her kiss, and then there was a closing prayer and it was all over. All over.

We talked to some of the other guests at the wedding. Everyone was dressed in their best Sunday smiles. We were all very polite and very "supportive." I don't know what it really means to be "supportive," but I've decided that in the church it means to show up, smile, and not mention the fact that somebody is making a very stupid and huge mistake with his or her life.

Wiggle wondered aloud on the way home whether any of Gladys' friends had even once pulled her aside and said, "Look, I think what you are doing might be a Very Terrible Mistake."

At any rate, they are married now. May they find peace and happiness and monogamy.

I do realize that today's post is a tad more sardonic and potentially hurtful than my normal posts. But there's this phenomenon I've recognized here. I call it "the Provo Effect," and I used to think it was the greatest thing since Cap'n Crunch. But now I'm starting to wonder.

Here in Provo, you see, it doesn't matter what you do. As long as you act like you're supposed to be doing whatever it is you're doing, everyone else will act like that as well. If you just walk into a stranger's apartment, drink out of his milk carton, and change the channel on the TV, he will say "Hey, what's up?" and act as though he's the crazy one for either not remembering you or being offended by what you are doing. And seriously, you can get away with it. And yes, I do know this firsthand.

So naturally, when I moved to Provo, I took full advantage of this phenomenon. I would knock on random doors and ask the girls inside for dinner, and they would whip something up, or give me the leftover pie from last night. I came to realize that the film Ocean's 11 wasn't exaggerating when it had the Mormon Twins tell Saul, the old con artist, "I think you should try Provo. I think you could do very well there."

But soon I started to see the downside. Have you ever watched American Idol during the tryout phase, and been like, "Why on EARTH do these wretched people think they can sing?" Well, the answer is, the Provo effect. Nobody is going to be the one to tell you that you can't sing, especially if you always sing with "self confidence" (a subject for a different rant). If you're a terrible singer but you sing all the time, and then you go up to your boss and say, "I'm quitting my job and I'm going to go make a fortune on American Idol," your boss is going to say, "Oh! I think you'll do great!" because first, nobody, even bosses, likes to be the one to tell you that what you are doing is not okay with the rest of the world, and second, at least now the office will be quiet enough to hear the Muzak playing overhead.

The world hates Simon Cowell, but really it should hate all the Paula Abduls out there who only hinder people's progression by never giving them the feedback that they need. In the name of being "nice," we are being dishonest, and it has to stop.

One day Heather Angela Hicks (she was still heather Angela Hawks back then) got a pink mohawk and spiked it up all crazy for church. I had been telling Heather from the moment she got the mohawk that I thought it looked terrible and trashy. And it really did. But after church, she was pleased to report that several of the sisters in the relief society had complimented her on her nice new mohawk. That's when it hit me. The Provo Effect was exactly the same thing as the Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome. And we're letting our emperors parade around naked!

Maybe all the people who have a proper sense of decency assume that the rest of us do, too. Let me assure you, though, that there are plenty of us who check the propriety of our actions against the reactions of those around us, like a sort of prosthetic conscience. Your failure to react genuinely does us a great disservice. Not that I'm trying to lay the blame for my own misdeeds on someone else. It's just that I think people care about what everyone thinks a little more than any of us lets on, and so it's time for us all to feel responsible for the opinions we share.

Instead of, "Oh, I like your hair," you can say, "Oh, I notice you got a new mohawk. Not something I would ever wear to church, but if it helps your sense of self worth, then I suppose it's a good thing." That comment, after about fifty repetitions from various members of the relief society, is going to send a message about the ridiculousness of the stupid haircut.

Hamster's wedding was the nadir of this effect. The event was the real masquerade of the day, with all of the guests hiding their true faces and feelings and putting on a facade of grotesquely exaggerated smiles. As long as nobody at the party shows his true face, nobody can be held responsible for the resulting tragedy, right?

Now, Hamster's wedding scared me for another reason, as well. Here he seems to have found what we all seem to be looking for (on paper, at least): a girl who proclaims to believe in the gospel and forgiveness and repentance and who is willing to overlook our shortcomings and marry us anyway. But any closer look will reveal that that is merely the facade; it's the lie hamster is telling himself. These two young people are in absolute denial about their future. They seem to believe in an impossible life in which they can merely divorce themselves from their feelings and breezily forgive away any trespasses against them.

Recent studies have shown that a large percentage of gay-straight marriages fail. Psychologists maintain that the only chance such a relationship really stands is through an incredible amount of communication between husband and wife. Well, Hamster and Gladys do seem to be able to communicate with each other. She was well aware of his indiscretions when they united in matrimony. My fear is that neither is really communicating with himself. Hamster is a fool to think that marriage will be his Pool of Bethesda. An optimistic, pathetic fool, whom I pity and understand, but a fool nonetheless. And Gladys is likewise a fool to think she can strong-arm him from place to place in the marriage, just as she did at the wedding, for the rest of their lives. She is going to squish the li'l fellow.

I hope that the mere fact that I can recognize the flaws in their thinking will prevent my making a similar mistake. I hope that someday I will find a virtuous woman who does have the capacity to love me and forgive me through all of my shortcomings, but at the same time will have a sense of her own worth and who will hold me to a higher standard of behavior rather than just continue to increase her tolerance of my misdeeds.

I wish that were the end of the post, but there's always another chapter to my stories, as Pinetree can attest after his on-campus run-in with (and run-off without) the Latina chick whose roommate had tried to get me to set the two up.

All that aside, though, I got an e-mail from Rose today. You remember Rose, right? The transvestite from my ward who got baptized while I was at efy? Click here for the story. Click here for her Myspace, including more pics if you log in. Well, she's getting married in April. To the boy she was dating right after her baptism several months ago. And she says she's saving me a spot in the temple. Of course, this puts me in the rather uncomfortable position of possibly being the only one to attend the wedding who knows that she is, in actuality, a "he." So I have set another appointment with the Bishop and I will be taking him the evidence that Heather Angela Hicks was smart enough to photocopy, and I will ask him what he thinks I should do.

This could easily be another wedding where I sit there with my mouth shut and say nothing. Just watch the embers fall and sit there, smugly reassured that I'm not the one responsible for the fire. But maybe it's time to be Simon, not Paula, and to call the disaster where I see it.

Sharkbite asked why I even attended Hamster's wedding at all. I told him that if there's a train wreck on the side of the road, you can't just drive by and not turn your head to look. Then again, I'm starting to realize that sometimes an emperor can parade by naked, and you really can just clamp your mouth shut and pretend not to see. Not everyone in the crowd believed the tailors and their nonsense about not being fit for our station, I've learned. Half of us are just clenching our teeth, hoping some kid will say what we aren't willing to stick our necks out to say ourselves. Oh, well. The first resplendent ruler, in all his glorious déshabillé, is gone, the next approaches, and all I can do is hope that at the end of the parade, there is Santa, and he's throwing candy.