Yay!

He's no Ron Paul, but my second favorite will have to do. And to be perfectly honest, I'm pretty happy and excited that he made it. This coming from an elected Republican...or perhaps "Obamacan" would be more fitting.

Feeling pretty crappy about life right now.

Here's to hoping this mountain I've been climbing is just a grain of sand.

WHA!?

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are going to be on Oprah today! That's like my three favorite women on the same TV show!

Steve

I have this friend Steve who lives in Montreal, Canada. I've talked to him online since I was 14. Sometimes he calls me, mostly when he's drunk. I tell this kid everything. All my worst secrets. Sometimes its really good to have a foreign friend that you don't have to interact with day to day. Especially on your downer days because you don't want to bring any of your day to day friends down with you. And he cares enough to listen but is detached enough to not get depressed. Someday I will fly to Canada and meet this kid.

Also, I've been wanting to go out and get drunk lately. Or at least tonight. (yes, that's right, the slippery slope to eternal damnation. go on and judge me.) I've never tried drinking, but in my mind I want to be in a happy carefree pub somewhere drowning my sorrows. Maybe some dancing. Eating peanuts. I want to wake up shitfaced with fuzzy memories of what happened the night before.

I have never wanted to drink until recently. It's probably not a good idea. I think red hair means you will be a bad drunk and a nearly certain alcoholic.

Happy Mother's Day

Robbie and Greg helped me make a present for my mommy last night. Thank goodness for a 24 hour Kinko's...


This is a picture of our old Chevy station wagon. Our family of eight rode in this vehicle from since I can remember until I was in high school. This looks like one of our many trips to Utah. You can just barely see my mom in the back cleaning out barf , courtesy of whoever had to ride in the nauseating backseat.
This is a quote from a book Marjorie Pay Hinckley wrote. I love Marjorie Pay Hinckley. And this is the present I gave my wonderful, selfless mom.

Happy Mother's Day everybody.

Back in school!

I'm back in school!

I'm taking math 1050, college algrebra (sort of like algebra 2 in high school) and philosophy 2050, ethics and values. That's only until mid-June and then I switch to Biology and Astronomy. I should have all but two general eds at uvsc knocked out by fall.

It was only my second day and math is already kicking my butt! The class goes really fast and I don't remember anything about math. I'm keeping up with homework and going to tutoring every day. I think I managed to bomb our first pop quiz this morning, but hopefully I'll be ahead of the game enough next time to do well.

I went to tutoring today and had some guy help me with a problem I know I missed on the quiz. I thought I had done it all right, but came up with the wrong answer, so I had him look it over. The problem was that the guy was from...I want to say Ireland or Scotland? Maybe South Africa? I couldn't tell. But yeah, that was the problem. I just listened to his accent and didn't really conprehend anything that he said. It was mesmerizing. The entire time he was basically telling me I had forgotten to subtract 4 from 10. I had to tell him I was fine and to go away before I actually figured that out because I couldn't think about math while he was talking.

Philosophy is sort of a joke. We spent the entire class yesterday debating whether or not the cap on a whiteboard marker was indeed red. Our conclusion: color is an experience all in the mind, even after you break it down to the measures of wavelengths in angstroms reflecting off of objects. I didn't really participate in this debate. It was sort of silly because in this class you can't really argue anything because the only thing you can prove to anyone else is that you think and perceive. Actually, you can't even prove that to other people, it's just the only thing you can assume reasonably about other people because it is the only thing you know for certain and can prove about yourself. Blah blah blah. It might get more interesting later on when we actually talk about ethics and values in medicine, politics, and more practical areas. Hopefully an easy A.

I'm going to be the best man at my older brother's wedding! I don't even really know what that means, but I'm happy about it. Also, as my little brother will be on his mission in Germany during the wedding, I've decided I'm going to make a lifesize cutout of him to stand in the reception line. He's getting me a high resolution pic of him in his suit with his nametag sometime this week.

I'm trying to get rid of my last little bit of gut before my birthday. I swear its impossible. I've started to do interval training (for instance, 2 minutes sprinting, 2 minutes jogging/walking, repeat a bunch of times) instead of just steady cardio because I read in some magazine with a really ripped guy on the cover that it burns fat better. We'll see about that.

I love playing Scramble on facebook! Challenge me, please!

Gotta get to work soon. Later

A brief campaign video.

Robbie and Evan helped me slap this together last night and Robbie insisted that I post it here.

Donut and Denmark.

Its past 2 AM and I just went to 7-eleven for a donut. Cake. Pink Frosting. Sprinkles.

And I was thinking that I'd like to go to Denmark. Maybe if I get really good grades in school this year I'll reward myself with a trip to Denmark in the summer. And Germany, to visit my little brother.

Just some things.

In-N-Out Burger will be in St. George, Utah next week! I used to work there in California! Trips to Vegas are going to be a lot less necessary now.

I watched Waitress again the other night with Robbie and "Potentate". Man, I love that movie. I get a little emotional watching it, even.
"I was addicted to saying things and having them matter to someone." - Jenna

*sigh*

There is this song that I heard on the radio the other day. The lyrics go something like this "Girl you gotta know, every time you go, out the door, that its not alright" I looked up the lyrics on google and elsewhere but can't seem to find the right song. Anybody know who sings it?

I took my nieces to hike the Y (my second day hiking the Y in a row) and they made it the whole way! Granted, we stopped at 8 of the 11 trail posts on the way AND I bribed them with a surprise treat at the end if they finished (bagged cotton candy, but regardless, that's pretty hardcore for a 4 and a half and 7 year old! I remember taking my little brother up there for the first time and I'm not sure who did better...The view was really hazey that day because of dust or pollution or something, but it was still decent and my oldest niece even wants to go again and asked if she could invite friends next time. I'm so proud. I hope I have instilled in them a love of hiking to see wonderful, bigger pictures.

Everyday this week I have been looking at pricing on cruiser motorcycles and even some scooters. I think that will be my next major purchase in life.

I cut my hair after seeing some recent pictures of myself. I now have sort of a mini mohawk thing that goes all the way down the back of my head and i'm diggin' it. I got it the morning before meeting with my local Republican state senator....but I wasn't thinking about the meeting that morning. When I realized what I had done, I was concerned for about 3 minutes. But then I just wasn't anymore. The meeting went well. More of a presentation really. My local state senator is actually pretty decent in my opinion. More political involvement to come.

Ron Paul will be in Caldwell, Idaho on the 25th of April before the Idaho Republican caucuses! I may just head on up to Idaho to see him speak. The thing is, the Utah County Republican convention is on the 26th early in the morning and I have to go to that. I'm not sure if its worth being dead tired at the convention the next morning...but it might just be...

I've been pretty busy lately, but I have this nagging feeling that I want to get into something totally mindless. Like nintendo or computer games or comics books or Lord of the Rings or Magic the Gathering. Actually, scratch Magic the Gathering. But I sort of miss the feeling of getting totally lost in a world not my own. Robbie and I are even thinking of going to Comicon in San Diego this summer. Comicon is basically the largest gathering of sci-fi/fantasy/comic book/whatever nerds on the planet. They're having the writers of Lost come this year, so that might be cool to see.

I'm so excited for school to start! And my job is tolerable and I kinda like it sometimes! I think this will be a good year.

Thoughts on a closed chapter in Pinetree's very short love life.

Things could have worked with Jon. We were both pretty commited to our relationship. It could have lasted for a long time. We hit a plateua and in my mind it came down to three options:

One, we could keep on going out the way we were; one of use travels 56 miles or we meet inbetween, we go out and do something together or with friends, and then we go back home again.

Two, I could drop everything and move closer to (or even in with) Jon and find work and school up there. We could see how things work when we're in each others' lives day to day.

Or Three, we could call it a good run and break it off altogether.

Staying the way we were was getting time consuming, stressful and expensive.

I thought about moving closer, but really I just don't want to. And it's not that I don't do things like that on a whim ever, because I do. Moving would just put a lot of other people and priorities in my life on the back burner. And, perhaps the fact that I don't feel the desire to get up and go highlights more foundational issues with our relationship.

There was a lot that really could have been better. We don't share tons of interests really. For instance, he is huge on cars. He watches car shows on tv, works for a car company, dreams of owning many luxury cars someday...I don't know the first thing about them except that I like the look of old BMW's so I bought one. And I'd like a motorcycle, but other than that I could really care less. I like politics. He knows he is a democrat from a family of democrats, but really doesn't care for it as much as I do. I like trying new foods, he likes to stick with what is good and familiar. My sense of security comes from being as free as possible from all entanglements; school, work, debt, property, etc (there are good sides and downsides to this...maybe a whole other post on this later.) His sense of security comes from having a steady job and schedule and being able to have the good things in life that he wants. I like playing regular sports for fun, he likes the less conventional ones like skiing and golf and he wants to get into scuba diving. I like to read, he doesn't. He likes all Pixar/Dreamworks animated films, I'm more choosey about my kids movies.

Our upbringings were completely different. I grew up in a fairly diverse urban area in a small apartment with five other kids at least two states away from our nearest relatives in Utah. He grew up in a house in a pretty well off family in a small rural Mormon town where most of his extended family lives on the same couple of blocks. His aunt and uncle live next door, grandma in the next house. Our family dynamics are very different. My family feels like a collection of very different people who stick together because they are a family. His family is sort of like a unit where individual members feel like they have to break out on their own from time to time. If that makes any sense...

I don't feel like we connect on a basic level as well as I do with other friends.

Regardless, Jon is kind and funny and hard working and adorable. It was all workable, but does that make it right? I don't really think so. Based on my very limited experience, I think one can make something work with a lot of different people if one chooses to do so, but it might not be the best idea to just stick with the first one who does, especially when one is 21 years old and has a lot of other things he needs to get done in life....like getting through school.

Obvioiusly we broke it off. I don't think there will be any problem with remaining friends. I'm okay about the whole thing and I'm pretty sure he is too. He is going to try to date other people. I don't think I'm going to. We'll see.

The last four months were the only real legitimate relationship I've ever had and they were good months for the most part. I feel like I can say I know what it feels like to date a guy and work at it, and that's a good thing.

I also, oddly enough, feel like it wouldn't be as huge of a stretch to date a girl now, either. Being attracted sexually to someone is huge, but it's importance dwindles in time and you fall in love with everything else about a person. I've always known this, but it's hard to date a girl or even consider it when I'm wondering what it would be like to date a guy I'm attracted to instead. Well, now I know. And aside from the beginning parts, I'm not sure it's a hell of a lot different, as controversial as that is.

I think I will hold off on dating anyone for a long time. But it's a thought. I feel like I can make a much more valid judgement on that sort of thing now.

Man, there is a lot I could say...but I'm going to wrap this up.

But before I do, I should probably add this: I don't think that gay relationships are any less valid or meaningful than straight ones. It's really about what you choose for yourself, and when your decisions aren't hurting you or anyone else, they should be respected and even supported. If I know you, you're my friend, and you choose to be in a relationship with someone of the same sex, I will have your back. If I ever have kids or a family, you'll be welcome there. My spouse and/or kids won't ever think to look down on you for it, regardless of what my own family ends up looking like.

A new friend of mine has a quote on her facebook page that says "God belongs to everyone." I like that a lot. And I believe it.

Happy and Annoyed. But mostly happy, really.

HAPPY:
I fixed my car myself for a dollar a couple of days ago!

ANNOYED:
I had to fix my car because when I idled at stoplights or wherever, the "check engine" light would come on and it smelled like gasoline. I took it to a mechanic and he wanted to charge me $125 to replace the fuel pump regulator; $50-something for the new part and $75 for an hour's labor. So I looked down at where he told me the fuel pump regulator is and saw that there was a small plastic hose that wasn't connected on one end. I tried to reattach it but it was too small. Looked like it had shrunk. I went in to the parts section of the mechanic and asked a different guy if I could buy a new hose of that size. I bought a small piece of rubber hose to replace the old plastic one. My car's "check engine" light no longer comes on, nor does it smell like gasoline. I spent about a dollar and a minute fixing my car once the problem was pointed out to me, and this schmuck wanted to charge me $125 for it. Jerk.

HAPPY:
After a few weeks of consistently hitting the gym (pretty hard I might add) and eating healthy I had my body fat percentage tested and it was 6%!

ANNOYED:
I still don't have a six-pack. I have a nice line between abs one and two and a "kinda"-line between abs three and four if I flex my stomach really hard, but still a gut at the bottom. I thought the results of the body fat calculator thing MUST be wrong because I've read in several books that one should normally be able to see a six-pack at somewhere between 12 and 7 percent body fat. I took the test repeatedly and got the same results, within about .5 percentage points. Ridiculous. My body just does not do this six-pack thing...and yet I keep trying. I did eat a whole lot of junk this weekend just out of spite. Back at it next week though.

HAPPY:
The family was all over for conference today. :)

ANNOYED:
I was planning on going to priesthood session with my brother in law. I changed downstairs and came upstairs around 5:40 to find that he had left already. He was making a big fuss over getting "one of the soft seats this time." I guess he just figured I could meet him there. Whatever. So I drove over to our normal church building only to find no one around. Apparently they were only broadcasting at the stake center. I just don't know where our stake center is. I probably could have found out, but at that point I was so irrationally ticked off that I just skipped out on it for the first time since I was 12.

HAPPY:
I went to the gym after that. Then I got invited over to eat dinner by a friend.

ANNOYED:
I'm not sure where this friend lives or if he was even having dinner at his own house. I texted him twice to ask and got nothing. What the hell!? People are such flakes...

I know I shouldn't complain because I do flakey, stupid, careless things all the time. And because it annoys me when people complain a lot because someone flakes out on them. That's life. Buck up and get over it. Find something else to do with your time, right? Right. Its just extra annoying to me tonight for some reason and I want to to be a hermit-bum in Mexico right now...

Okay, really that's not completely true and life isn't bad at all to me right now. In fact, if we compared it with all of the other lives on the planet right now, my circumstances in life are likely somewhere in the top one percent. At least top five percent. Even if you really stretch out every issue and worry in my life AND I'm having a horrible day, I'm still probably somewhere well in the top ten percent. Those annoying things above were really about the worst I could come up with for all of you tonight and even they were all coupled with happy things.

And there are lots more happy things. I feel a lot better because I've been exercising and taking care of myself lately. I got elected to a very small political office - though I'll save stories on that for a later date when a little more political dust has settled. I'm working on getting back into school in the summer and I'm really excited about it this time. My brother is going to get married. My niece April is walking and she is adorable. She says words, but mostly just "hi" all the time. My room smells like the fresh linens scent candle on my desk. My dad and I had a good talk the other night about the gospel and ambiguities in life. I'm broke, but I get by just fine and I'm happy with what I have. Life is good - there's just enough conflict peppering it to taste.

Recent Events in Pictures

Ran a race in Moab with Josh and Erik! Our initial plan was to run the half marathon, but by the time race weekend arrived we chickened out because we really haven't been training enough to to run a 13 mile race. We only trained once all together. We ran about six miles and then headed to the nearest Wendy's for cheeseburgers... I might have been able to run it this time; I did it two years ago, but it would have been slow, ugly (even more so than the above picture) and painful. So we all signed up for the five miler which is almost as much glory for less than half the work :) And then we pigged out on post-race food and got massages from pretty girls.

We also hiked up to Corona arch and just goofed off around Moab. We got to stay at the old River Rafting warehouse where Erik worked this last summer. It was a pretty relaxing weekend.

Right when I got back from Moab, I started packing for California. We stayed with Robbie's brother and sister-in-law in Sacramento the first night and then took off for the redwoods in the morning.



Redwood trees are enormous. We drove through this one......and slept in this one. See below.

At first, only Greg and I were going to sleep in the tree. We were jumping up and down excited about how lucky we were to find this perfect hollowed out tree so close to our campground. I was stoked. We got camp set up and started to cook our foil dinners when the rain started. Turns out the tent that Jessica and Robbie were going to sleep in isn't very rain proof, so we all got cozy in the tree together. Ultimately I think we were all pretty glad we did, though Jessica didn't get a lot of sleep... We played around in the redwoods the next day. I found this really sweet log you could bounce on up and down like a trampoline. This is Robbie and I having bouncing wars.
This is a giant tree. Note how tiny Jessica is in comparison to this huge tree.
Here we are in the roots of a tree that fell over. We had a huge fight that morning as to who got to wear the pink. Jessica won. Next day we camped by the beach. Theres a giant wall of sand behind where we camped and behind that is the beach. On our side of the giant sand wall there were herds of grazing cattle.
Jessica lost her slippers in cow poop river.Jumping off a sand dune.


Ah, back to the bay area..... :)

Sunset beach. Aptly named.
Amigos.
Baywatch.

It was Greg's birthday that night and he is from the south so we took him to Bubba Gump's. We got all the desserts on the menu. I'm not smiling with my teeth here because my mouth was full of chocolate.The next morning we wandered around San Francisco. Here is Robbie inside Grace Cathedral.
We just happened to stumble upon this in Chinatown. I like to think that this is just always going on in China town. See that rope full of firecrackers? It was long and hella loud.

Mighty cool dragon. We beat this dragon into submission so that we could take a picture with it.We wandered a bunch more and met up with one of Greg's friends, who is the girl in the middle in the above picture. Some Germans took a nice photo of us that we will use as an album cover someday. We wandered into to a toy/comics store where Robbie and I picked up the latest edition of Astro City, which, if you've ever read comic books in your whole life, you should check out someday. After wandering we went to Golden Gate Park. This was sort of fun but mostly exciting for Robbie and Greg who know about plants and flowers and their names and that sort of thing. It was here that my brother called me to tell me that he is engaged. Going to marry late in May. Greg took tons of pictures that I'm not going to bother putting up. I liked this plant because it looks like chiles. Or Christmas lights.

Some delicious honey suckle that we ate. Some disgusting plant that Robbie insisted on trying because he knew it was edible. Imagine celery, but more bitter and horrible.

Of course we had to eat here before we left. Robbie and I both worked here when we were in high school.

Fast forward to yesterday, and here is us at Festival of Colors at the Hare Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. I love the Hare Krishna Temple. If I don't get married in a real Mormon temple, I want to be married at the Hare Krishna one. I wish I had a picture of it handy. You can probably find it somewhere back in my blog a couple years ago. Its sort of like the Princess Jasmine Castle but with mountains in the background.

Now we are mostly caught up.

It just keeps on going

*Sorry for this post...It was late and I was bummed when I wrote it. I don't really feel like this all the time. A good friend wrote me a nice letter when I first posted it, and because of that I decided that I'm going to leave this post up. This is part of me and sometimes I feel like this.*

Maybe some of you that are older and wiser than me can give me some insight on life.

I read a few of my blog posts from way back when (2005) tonight and stood back from my life and thought about what it looks like so far.

If you were to plot my life from beginning to end, all twenty-one (nearly 22) years of it, you would see it like a radio signal with a constant frequency where after a certain point, the waves get progressively smaller in magnitude.

The good times come and go, the bad times take their place for a while, and the cycle continues on and on. But the more the good and the bad continue, the less effective each becomes. The good seems to get progressively less joyful. The bad seems to get progressively less nasty. I can appreciate most good things but I know they are nothing new, and that bad things will come again. I know how to deal with most bad things because I know that eventually there will be happiness and good things again.

So life loses its ferocious roar and becomes a steady hum.

I remember even back in first grade, how excited I used to get about playing action figures and ninja turtles and swords and whatever else with my friends in our apartment complex. We could play from morning until night. Hide and seek at night with the older kids in the complex was mind-blowingly incredible. Ditch and Nintendo and soccer and making forts and clubs... all of that was pure joy.
I also remember, as first grade was a particularly painful year for me at school, how much it hurt to get teased and made fun of by the second graders that shared our class. I remember wetting my pants (one of the most horrible things one can do for his social life in first grade) and not understanding what was cool or how to fit in at all. My mom worried about me a lot that year because I would come home and cry or throw tantrums because of whatever had happened at school that day. Its sort of a harsh thing to say, but that was a very terrible year, and had I understood the concept of suicide at that point, I might have tried it some days. Is that just a me thing?

Life went on and things went up and down more. The rest of grade school got better and worse. *note added after this post was written for the sake of accuracy: That's not true. It just got better. I made tons of friends later in grade school and the rest of my life. Things were still hard in school sometimes, but not that miserable again until somewhere in high school* Middle school brought all of these terrible and consuming new feelings that started to complicate my world, but I could ignore them most of the day. There was wall ball and lunch time and Animorphs and computer games over the internet and track after school. We started getting cable television free because the signal somehow came down from the new upstairs neighbors. Mom tried to have the management shut it off three times but nothing ever came of that so she gave up.

In High School there was sexuality and music and sports and movies and some understanding of politics and there was religion and meaningful relationships. Not girlfriends for me of course, but friends, male and female, who I cared about.

College brought more and more of all that...I got quite a fill on all of those things as a follow up to the taste I had in high school.

And then the waves got smaller and lately they just keep getting smaller. There are wonderful things like having a boyfriend and going camping and seeing beautiful things. Running races and dancing and delicious food. Driving with the music blaring.

But I also realize how much more important money and appearance and background and status are than i ever wished they would be. How thats what you're counted for in life even though its so difficult to control any of them. And how happy times for a lot of people become dependent on all of these stupid things. And how there are so many ugly horrible things that people do that you wish they would all just go away sometimes.

But it all starts counteracting and things are weighed against each other and stuff just comes out equal and well...its just life.

And it keeps going until it flatlines and your heart stops and you die.

So, all of you people older than me... Are things going to amaze me again? Can I ever look at something without seeing the flipside? Is there a breaking point to all this at some point or do i just deal with life until I know how to suffer through more and more horrible things until nothing phases me anymore and I can just die?

I don't know where I'm going here really. I'm not sure if I analyze things right ever. I'll think and thing again and you just get a glimpse of what I was thinking in this moment. I promised myself I would actually post what I wrote though, whether it made sense or not. So here it is.

Meet the Parents

I just got back from an interview with Holland America to be a tour director this summer. I still have my black slacks and shirt and tie on as I sit here on my bed writing this.

Ack! I have such mixed feelings about this job! I was trying to feign excitement about it at the interview but really I was sort of ambivalent. I want to go to Alaska so I can earn lots of money for school next year and so that I can get a free cruise to send my parents on vacation. My dad, who used to be in the navy, has always wanted to go on a cruise to Alaska to see the glaciers.

On the other hand, I have an amazing boyfriend and great friends here in Utah and I want to get a jump on school, possibly even starting this summer. Also, there are so many things I want to do and places I want to go this summer and I won't be able to do any of them if I'm in Alaska...though I'm sure it will be great to see more of Alaska than I did last year.

So to sum this up, I'm totally cool with getting hired or rejected, but I'd like to find out soon so that I can start planning my life.

In other news, I drove up to Kaysville and met most of Jon's family yesterday. (He met my parents a few days ago)

First of all, Kaysville is way out there. I love it though. It's not the suburban, commercial, overrun with billboards and concrete and signs sort of place that Utah County and a lot of Salt Lake County are. Kaysville is still a lot of country. It's growing, but the houses are farther apart and there are still places where you can look out and see open spaces and big sky.

It was a little bit weird at his house with his parents, but mostly good. They made small talk (though sometimes my mind went blanks and I didn't know what to say or what exactly they were talking about) and we had dinner over there. His mom makes amazing cookies, so really thats all I needed to like her. His parents are a lot like mine, actually. Mom is the more sociable of the pair and worries about her kids a lot and the state of her marriage depresses her sometimes. Dad is more distant, but very opinionated if you get him talking. I can understand these people.

After dinner we went to Jon's sister's place to watch the Oscars. His sister and her husband are way cool and a lot of fun. Jon's sister, Em, has a best friend, Kerry, who is a lesbian, and Kerry and her partner were there too. We had most of the gamut of sexuality covered in that living room. The lesbians were a riot to be with...extra hilarious girls. They fastforwarded through most of the Oscars though (tivo) and that was kind of annoying, but I guess Jon's sister and I were the only ones who actually wanted to see everything because everyone else seemed to cheer Kerry on when she grabbed the remote and pushed the fast forward button through whatever she deemed to be boring. I didn't fight it though, I just sat back and ate Reese's peanut butter cups to my heart's content.

We went back to Jon's place and talked and had some sweet sweet action in Jon's room (yeah, so nice...he's hot) and then I drove home.

I'm still feeling a little tethered in this thing. We're at the point where I know if it ended, it would hurt Jon. And me too a little...this guy is really incredible and I love him. There are so many things I want to do yet in life that would require me to move or be away though...I need to figure out how to make this work.

Tee-hee.

I've been laughing about this for about three days now. Hehe.

Sound off.

Here are some of my thoughts lately. They're a mess. Tell me what you think if you make it through.

Carol Lynn Pearson:
I read Goodbye, I Love You today. Its such a good book and if you're reading this blog I recommend it to you. It made me miss church a little. And California. It made me think of this time when I was about 8 and my Mom had a broken leg and the church really kept my family afloat. We had two Relief Society sisters over every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Different ladies in the ward brought our family dinner every night. Charity did not fail. You know what I love about the church? That. I miss hometeaching too, and service projects and teaching in priesthood.

On the flipside, the book also reminded me about that particular aspect of Mormon culture, especially here in Utah, where everyone is trying to look like they're perfect already. Like their marriage is great even when its on the rocks, and porn and homosexuality and divorce don't exist, and we pretend there isn't any tension about race or sex but there is. We keep hidden a lot of female self-esteem issues and male sexuality issues and the two exacerbate each other and lead to a host of other problems. Plastic (sometimes literally) women over 40 come into the Good Earth and get into even more debt searching for the fountain of youth because they're trying to look good for their husbands who have porn addictions which we know affect huge portions of the population here in Utah but which no one ever admitts to. So many women, including my mom and Jon's, feel stuck in their marriage but don't feel like they can talk to any of their member friends about it because that would somehow reflect poorly on them. Three girls I've worked with now are treated well on a surface level among all their peers here, but no one will get close to any of them or even consider dating them because they are black.

But enough of that stuff.

To get back on track, Carol Lynn Pearson is a fascinating lady with an obvious talent for uplifting. There were a couple times in the book when she talked about auras and psychological healing and intense meditation and that was a little weird. You can be into that and be a perfectly wonderful Mormon, but maybe you should keep that to yourself? Maybe not. Whatever, I still love her.

While I'm a little bit on the subject of women's issues...

Twilight:
This book is ridiculously popular with women and we've got to find something more healthy for them to read. I started the book because my sisters all love it and I wondered what the deal was. Its sort of a step up from a romance novel. I'm only on page thirty something though and I'm already starting to feel like being fake, pessimism, not eating, and people who have no interest in me are cool. And that nice kids are all nerds. Crap! This is not an outlook we should be cultivating in young women!

On having a boyfriend:
It's really pretty nice. Granted, the guy I found is kind and considerate and my best friends like him so far and he's gorgeous. I'm sure not all gay relationships are this great. I feel like I'm in a good one.

We went out to eat one night and the waitress asked us jokingly if we were on a "man-date". "Yeah, actually we are." I replied. Jon nodded his head. That took her off guard, but also made her nicer to us the rest of the night.

I'm sort of in awe of Jon and feel lucky to have him around. I'm not sure how to describe this really well, but I just like seeing him and watching him react to things. When I see something I think is beautiful, I just feel like I could lose myself watching it and how lucky I am to be seeing it, and that's the effect Jon has on me.

Also, I'm proud to have him as a boyfriend. I like how he treats people and I like having him around.

Sometimes I am afraid, but its a sort of afraid I get about a lot of things (jobs, apartments, car insurance payments, etc.) The fear is that I'm stuck. That I'm tied down to something and I can't get out of it, even if it is something good in my life. A good friend advises me that this is normal. Its especially normal for me, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much?

The other day I wanted to quit both of my jobs, pack up my things, and drive to Mexico where I would live and get better at Spanish until I felt like coming back to America. I know that sounds absurd but I was on the brink of just doing it (still might). And then I remembered that I have a boyfriend and that wouldn't be fair to him. And then I got worried because even though our relationship is not overly serious at all, I feel obligated to him and what if that obligation hampers my ability to fulfil a lot of goals and dreams I have in life which might require leaving or being on my own? Is this crazy? I'm sure it is. I think things will work out though. I'm okay going with this whole boyfriend thing for now. I'll take it a step at a time and do the best I can at it. I shouldn't be so fickle about everything.

Quotes from my spaz niece, Kylie (4):
"Jesus is pretty happy right now that I'm helping you."
"Jasmine is immodest but she has nice hair."

Jobs:
Getting pretty tired of these jobs now, though pizza can still be fun. I have an interview to be a tour guide for Holland America this summer. I'm not sure if I want that or not. I actually have something besides an education to stay in Utah for right now.

Politics and Election 2008:
I really haven't written anything since Super Tuesday and so much has happened. I voted. I even made it on the front page of the Daily Herald with a Ron Paul sign at the intersection of State Street and University Parkway. My dad and I did some campaigning in our home precinct and I'm happy to report that Ron Paul did about twice as well (6%) there than he did statewide (3%). He also did much better in my sister's precinct, where I'm living right now (about 4.5%). Still, Utah County as a whole voted about 93% in favor of Mitt Romney, and Utah State followed suit with about 90% for Romney. These are pretty magnificent numbers that you almost never see in democracies outside of pre-war Iraq, China, The DPKR, or Iran.

Two quotes from one of my personal heroes, Sir Winston Churchill come to mind:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried." and "The strongest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter."

Now Romney is out of the race (officially) and I'm not really clear on what happens to all of Utah's delegates to the National Republican Convention. All I know is that I'm going to try to be one of them this year. The Republican Party is hacking off its last leg, and maybe I can at least be a part of shaping it for someday down the road when it gets redeemed. If not, I'll just be independent or even democrat again just to fight the status quo here in Utah.

I'm pretty confident that I'll ultimately be voting for Obama at any rate. At least he's not duplicitous and he makes people feel good. And he's black. And another of my personal heroes, Oprah Winfrey, endorses him, so that really seals the deal right there. As goes Oprah, so goes the nation. And that can't be so bad...can it?

I never thought I would like Dolly Parton...

but it turns out, I love her. I'm planning my trip to Dollywood. Just so you all know, this video has a few clips from the Transamerica soundtrack, so if you're not comfortable with that, you probably shouldn't watch. This is the most wonderful song though...




I've got lots of thoughts on life and politics and things, and I'll talk about those later.

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A break from political videos. Jesse & Joy - Espacio Sideral

This is my favorite song right now, in English or Spanish. The music video is kinda crazy, but whatever.

This is kinda how I feel about it too.

(Don't worry, the blog will get less political in time. But for now, more saturation to come.)