Comming Up For Some Air...But Still No Air

Well, needless to say...wait, if it's needless to say then why say it?

I'm going to ramble on with a few things.  For people who are interested in where I'm at, read on.  The rest of you who don't know me will probably not care.  It's one of those types of posts where I'm not writing anything thought provoking.  This is more of a journal entry.  So, with that being said...

When I set out to blog many, many, years ago, it was a way for me to find myself, figure out who I was and discover, if not rediscover, what was truly important to me.  It was a place to find my truth, my voice, and to express it in a place where I wouldn't feel censored for speaking it.

Obviously, over the years I had many ups and downs, most of which I never documented on this blog.  And for the most part, I've pushed passed a lot of the religious bullshit that shaped much of my insecurity and self loathing.  And now here I am, with little to say about most of that and when I do have something to say, I have little desire to express it all that much on here.  In fact, I much prefer to voice it with my own voice, face to face, one on one, with people in person.

When I first started my YouTube vlog, I thought there would be times where I would voice what I needed to say on there, but even then I didn't feel strongly enough about it to sit down and make the video.  But when times came where I had the thought to say something, and I felt strong about it, even  motivated and ready to put it out there, but a few days later the strong feelings would pass and I no longer had any interest in it.  And then there were even several times where I actually started work on the video, even recorded many things, and then, never did anything with them.   And with all that, I've found that I've been losing my inspiration for not just vlogging but other many things. 

One of the things driving this is the realization that I don't want to start arguments with people on YouTube.  A discussion, perhaps, but even then I'm not really wanting to spend the time going back and fourth in comments.  But what I usually end up getting is nothing but a few trolls posting some bullshit comment that does nothing to add value to anyone's lives.  Of all the places where some of the worst trolling happens, it's YouTube and I certainly don't want to deal with the level of bullying that goes on there.   Even though I'm a very tiny slice of that one billion plus member community,  where the majority of which are passive users, it's the tiny, narcissistic, trollish group that gets to me.

Every once in a while I'll get a notification on a comment I made on someone's video several years ago. Someone replying directly to me with a sarcastic, trollish, ad hominem.  The best I can do is just flag the comment and delete the notification.  So far, I've only needed to block a few people when they persist.  I don't ever wish to engage with people like that.  I actually feel like smacking them up side the head, but that's not practical or even possible.  In reality, I wish I didn't have to even deal with them in the first place.   For some reason, of all the social media I deal with, YouTube has some of the worst people in the world on it.

Another reason is the fact that I've screwed up the audio on several of the videos I took which made them almost useless, and that alone has killed much of my motivation for doing any more with them.  I had done a whole bunch of video for Gay Pride in DC, talking to people in the Mormons for Equality parade contingent, and interviewing an old friend from college who was there marching with them.  Only to get home and realize that the audio track was completely unusable.  Ugh!! That really sucked the life out the entire project.

Still, other reasons is because this is challenging work, and I don't have the support from any of my friends which just makes it all that more challenging.  And it's not that they just don't help, often they get in the way and even try to sabotage my efforts.  Either by doing and saying things that compromise the usefulness of the video or by just not being supportive in what I want to do when I need help doing it.

I need better friends.

I really feel like I'm entirely on my own here, and quite frankly, I don't live in an area of the country where the local community has much of a collaborative spirit anyway.   I have wondered about what it was that made this place so frustrating to live, and why everything I've tried to accomplish at work was a constant uphill battle with other egos just to do a simple task. That is, when they aren't actively working to create a crisis in order to jump in to save the day for extra pats on their backs.

Well, after 10 years, and several years talking with my therapist, I finally put my finger on it.  Up until the mid 50's-60's, this place was entirely isolated from the rest of the country.  And much of it still is isolated to this day.  The locals, in order to survive, completely relied on themselves.  They only saw others as a tools to get what they wanted.  And once they were set they didn't care what others needed.  You would think that such a place would drive a more collaborative environment but that's just not the case.  Outsiders were even treated worse and only as a possible source of money.  And even to this day, outsiders are still treated this way.  Sure, visit and spend your money but you are not welcome to stay.  I've lived here 10 years and I've found no friendship with the locals.  The only people I'm friends with out here are also outsiders like myself.

To make my point, I mentioned to one of friends here, one who had been living here for 20 years, and I asked him if they have any friends who are true locals.  They thought for a moment and realized that all of their friends, every single one of them, were not originally from the area.  Then I asked him to take note of all the people in the high level, high profile, management positions at work, many of them who were younger and less experienced and hired within the last 5 years.  Every singe one of them were locals.  Born and bred here.  What was wrong with this picture?   I've felt for a long time that I was really in a dead end position here, and there is no doubt now that it's true. 

Anyway, back to the crap.  I suppose I could be more positive, after all I've been doing some fun things this past year, what with Dragon Con in Atlanta and the Maryland Renaissance Fair.  (All activities that I have to travel many hours to attend.)  But much of it has gotten a bit overshadowed by the stress of not having a car.  The  engine died on mine and I don't have the cash-flow for a new car.  It's going to take a huge chunk of my savings to get it fixed.  I have to essentially buy a used car.  But in this case I'm buying a used car to get the engine out of it and put it in mine.  Thereby  keeping my old car for the price of a used one and I don't inherit any of the issues that come with the used car.  Sort of.

What made the whole issue so much more frustrating was that it happened pretty much the week I was to leave for Dragon Con.  I couldn't even get a rental, The rental places were all out of cars.  This place is rural and I have to use a car to get anywhere.  There is little to no public transportation out here.   I drive a minimum of 45 miles one way just to visit my doctor or buy groceries.  Not having reliable vehicles is a death sentence to one's well being out here. And in the last two years I've had to deal with a government shut down which caused me to lose two weeks of pay, then not getting any cost of living raise because my company wanted to invest it into buying out two other companies rather than support it's employees, and then a sudden influx of unexpected expenses such as hitting a deer, and later losing an engine, and a new threat for another government shutdown, I've been feeling the terror of being forever stuck with little hope of relief.   And getting a job elsewhere has not been successful in the decade I've been trying.  Every few months I look into it and I field a few calls but in the end it all dries up rather quickly.

And then more feelings of isolation come from this weekend being Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.  I'm seeing my friends talk about it and post their pictures and I'm feeling especially left out.  I should stay off social media because, yes, it does make me fell like I'm missing out.   My 2011 trip to Folsom Street fair was an awesome and very memorable time of my life and it's something I wish could be a regular thing. And it burns me up that it's so far away and so inaccessible to me now.

God damn, as much as I've been getting really comfortable and complacent living out here, with a new and nice house and a rather lenient although frustrating job, I've been feeling more and more isolated from what I really want in my life.  People who are on the same page as me.  And for all the things I want in my life, this place has to be the furthest from all of it that one could possibly imagine.

As one, rather wise, life-coach tried to implore to me, "Are you ready to give up something good for something great?"  And I've been thinking about that for a few years now.  And I'm getting there.  I'm starting to find my courage.  And as my relationship with my boyfriend has grown immensely in the last year, I'm starting to see that I do have support in that relationship.  The trouble is, it's a long distance one.  5 hours drive between us.  It's time to close that gap somehow. 
 
In closing, I took this just before complete eclipse and before clouds rolled in.
It's not great but not bad for a simple snapshot camera.

The Super Blood Moon of 2015. 

Anxiety Rooted in Self-consciousness

Hello, blog.  It's been a while.  Many things have happened, many changes, and many things still the same.

I've found a huge level of happiness over the years since coming out of the closet, leaving the LDS church, and essentially taking control over my own life.  I feel like I've grown up a lot, especially in the past year.  I started and ended one of the worst relationships I've ever experienced (I don't think I'll ever write about it so don't ask or wait for it), I moved to another state, bought a house, and started asserting myself at work more (I'm still working at the same place I've been for the past 10 years), which is something that I should have been more diligent at before, but there were reasons I never asserted myself and it was hard to confront it, and I'm still trying to confront it.

What I'm getting at is Social Anxiety.

It has been the biggest thing I've struggled with, and at times has turned what would otherwise be fun and rewarding experiences into complete terror.  And to the extent that I've been able to gain a level of self-awareness of it, it still eludes me in many ways. Although, I've come to realize that it has been rooted in and played a huge role in all the areas of my life where I seem to constantly fail.  (Even in this blog.)

For so many years I've been extremely self-conscious about my appearance, hobbies, interests, they way I talk, what I say, you name it.  No matter what it was, I would find a way to feel like I was being harshly judged for it, and that fear of judgement, and subsequent rejection was devastating to me. I could only find value in myself only if others valued me.  And, of course, that value from others was always fleeting.  I would end up just turning it all back on people and reject them before they had the chance to reject me.  I found solace in being alone.  Unfortunately, that solace became a prison over time, especially once I started to find myself.  I realized that even though I was an introvert, I was still very much in need of socialization, even with people I don't even know.  In other words, I'm not a strong introvert.  In the Meyers-Briggs evaluation of personality, I'm just a hair to the right of the midpoint between Extroversion and Introversion. And just for the sake of completion, my Meyers-Briggs personality type is INFP, which explains a whole lot of why I have trouble in other areas, but I digress.

For me, social anxiety is highly dependent on context and for the most part it's pretty much what I bring to the table in regards to my own personal beliefs about myself.  In talking with a boyfriend the other day, we discussed what it was that kept us both hiding in our little hobbit holes most of the time.  We talked about what it was like to be in crowds, why some crowds felt safe and energizing and why other felt draining and threatening.

I related my experiences going to Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA.  Four days of shoulder to shoulder crowds reaching as many people as 100,000 during the Saturday parade.  I feel fine for the most part, except in the elevators.  But going to Ocean City, MD in the summer time to walk the boardwalk, it's all I can muster to just get the walk over with and get the fuck out of there.  And then there are places like MAL where I have this cognitive-dissonance of feeling fine but also out of place.   What was the underling thinking in each situation?

Well, with Dragon Con I feel like we are all equals. We are all there to have fun and share in our appreciation of science fiction, fantasy and its associated pop culture.  It's a very liberal and progressive crowd for the most part, which invites creativity, acceptance and even celebrates our weirdness. And for the most part, even the ones who are rowdy and drunk the entire weekend are tolerable.

Ocean City, on the other hand is a place of very limited social diversity.  Mostly east coast working class vacationers, hetero-normative families, and often there are loud, obnoxious, young adults who binge on alcohol while cat calling from the balconies at the bikini clad girls on the boardwalk below.  Daily sexual harassment is the norm there. And the air is thick with tobacco smoke.  And as such, I judge these people harshly.  I feel as if I'm much better than they are and it disgusts me that they pollute places making them unsafe for women and gay people.

But then, events like MAL, and even in small ways, Folsom Street Fair and Gay Pride, the crowds can be a bit rowdy but they are friendly, and I feel safe.  They, after all are my people or at least friendly to my people and I know I'm one of them.  But, at the same time, and this is especially true at MAL, I feel like they are all much better than me and that I'm really not good enough to be there.  I'm not gay enough, or I'm not good looking enough or whatever I believe I don't measure up to.

The troubling thing about all this is that it's not rational to believe these things even when at times my beliefs have been validated by certain events.  The thing is, those times were because of outliers, they did not represent the group, and I know this.  But it's just so easy to cast aside the reality to reinforce the fears.  And those fears run deep, and they are strong and overwhelming.  And even though I can play logic games with those beliefs to talk myself out of them, it doesn't' always work.   And I feel like I'm not making any progress at all.   But really, I have made a bit of progress.  I've realized how I've been unknowingly contributing to the social anxiety which I wasn't aware of before.  I've learned a bit of nuance about my judgement of others and myself.  Also, medication helps, so there is that.

So, now, what's next?

I've started a new chapter in my life this year.  I'm putting myself out there a bit more than I ever have before.  I started vlogging on Youtube.  It's a way to confront my self-consciousnesses and social anxiety in a rather detached way.   I'm forced to confront myself when I do this.  I have to watch myself back while I edit the videos, I have to look at myself in a third person and know that the person I'm looking at is me, even though it doesn't feel like me.

This has been an interesting exercise to see where I have been self judging and self-censoring and where I continue to do so and what I've been doing to divert it and try to get people to focus on something else.  It's also interesting to see what ends up being the "something else" I try to use.  It's a strange thing to view myself in a detached semi-objective way.

I've been heavily editing and trying to polish my videos for the same reason I edit and try to polish my writing.  But, no matter what I do, the video shows a much rawer individual.  One prone to stammering, not talking in complete sentences and otherwise eviscerating all that is proper and eloquent grammar.  All of which are things I'm very self-conscious about.  Sometimes I'm sliding in and out of Utah/Maryland/New Zealand/North Carolinian accents.  Something that I had no idea I did until I started this vlogging project.  I'm finding it more interesting than disturbing now and I'm becoming more aware of how I'm perceived and in small ways, I'm starting to like the person I see in the video.

In all, it's been fun and frustrating at the same time.  Frustrating in that I have a very boring life with nothing to really vlog about and I'm constantly battling with technical problems such as sound problems and crappy white balance.  But its fun in that the editing process is creative yet very challenging like piecing together a puzzle.  I've always had an interest in filmmaking and this has re-sparked that interest, which I had long thought had died. 

A Moment to Think

I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that I'm always late to the party.  Whenever I show up, it seems everyone has had their fun and on their way home.  This isn't fully literal in the sense that I'm going to a physical party, it's just a way for me to express how I feel about coming out so late in life.  Not just coming out to the world, but coming out to myself.  And not just with sexuality, but myself as a whole person and who I am and wish to be.  I've spent nearly four decades keeping myself locked away, isolated.  Most of my childhood was in a deeply religious rural environment where my only safety was in my room with the door locked, especially when my dad was home.  I grew up with very few friends whom I couldn't often see because we lived outside of town, but I would end up losing them every few years anyway as we kept moving to new towns.

I'm quite often left with bewilderment, anxiety, and an extreme sense of invisibility to the gay community at large.  I'm not accustomed to being flirted with, hit on, touched by others or to touch others, and I'm unsure of my place and boundaries in relationships with others.  All too often, my instincts have been maligned by my upbringing so I've been conditioned not to trust them.  And in my attempt to reconnect with my instincts, I often misinterpret and I end up being impulsive in ways that bring discomfort to others.   I sincerely hope that I've not offended anyone or made them uncomfortable with how I've behaved in their presence.  If so I'm very sorry.

I know for many out there, events like MAL, are a fun party like atmosphere to enjoy what we love, but for me it's still a nerve racking experience, filled with fear, anxiety, self doubt, and an overwhelming sense of feeling like an interloper.   But I would like to publicly thank Sir, Gunny for his more than generous efforts and more than generous time he took away from his own family and friends this weekend to help me keep those feelings subdued and show me what is possible. 

Going forward, I feel some slight hope that I might see a future in this, but too much is nagging at me to know for sure if I'm ever going to have much more than what I've already been given.  I don't mean to end on a low note, but I must be realistic with myself and honest with how I feel right now.   I'm sure things will change; they have to, for better or worse, but it's difficult for me to understand what lies ahead.  I have no context for this.

Is the break over?

After over 4 years and 4 Christmas holidays not setting foot in Utah, I went back to Utah to visit this year, and become reacquainted with family and the changes that have taken place with everyone and myself.  That being said, I ended up at Starbucks for at least one day.   I actually like Starbucks, I was just hoping for something of a local flavor.  Fat chance it seemed in the northern suburbs of Salt Lake City.  

Five days in to my trip I still hadn't had any alcohol since the plane ride.  The family party, which was normally on the day after Christmas, had been moved to the following Saturday because my sister's family were still getting over their illness.

I wanted to get some alcohol for the party but I had no idea where these Utah state controlled liquor stores were and I had no GPS.  I ended up calling a friend in New York who talked me through it over the phone only to arrive and find out it didn't open until 11am and I wasn't going to wait around all morning for it to open.  So, I sent a text to my brother-in-law to pick up some Jack Daniel's Honey Whiskey on his way in later that day.  I was hoping for the single serve bottles but found out you couldn't get them in Utah.  So we had a large bottle that he and I drank from.  The other half my dad decided he wanted it, much to my surprise. 

Early in the week my mom and I went driving around the valley looking for a new winter coat as I badly needed one.  We tried REI, Cabalas, A.A. Callister, and I ended up finding some nice winter riding boots.  I had my eye on them for years.  It's hard not to buy tall boots when they are right there in front of me, and they fit.  My mom offered to pay for them but I declined as they were an impulse purchase we were there to buy a coat and we should stick to the plan no matter how much it costs us in the end.  You might get the impressing that I like shopping.  Nope.  I don't.  But having my mom there assisting, made it easier.

But one thing led to another and I realized I couldn't wear my new boots around unless I had some new Levi's to tuck into them.  I packed light this year and only brought basic pants and shirts, nothing more different than what I would normally wear to work.  So we went to look for pants.  I was quite surprised that the 501 button fly ones fit me really damn well, despite my fat thighs and butt and huge belly hanging over my belt. They made my boots look damn good on me.  I wore my new jeans and boots pretty much the entire week. I even wore them home on the plane.

I had hoped that I might get to meet up with some of my furry acquaintances in Utah whom I had gotten to know over Google+.  But they were all too busy with family which is understandable this time of year.  But I did have a chance to meet up with my friend Jen whom I had gotten to know through her blog and the Facebook ex-Mormon groups.  She has horses!  And it turns out that impulse boot purchase paid off as I got to go riding.  Well sort of, the horses were not in the mood, so we relented and let them eat.  But we didn't get off.  We sat on them while they ate.  We showed them. 

I'm so glad we sat there.  The smell, the touch, the movements, of these animals allowed me to dissipate my anxiety.  The anxiety that hit me when I pulled into her driveway.  It's hard for me to meet people I already know in person.  And this one hit me particularly hard and quickly.  In the 90 minute drive it took me to get to her house, I was feeling calm and joyful to be going.  But upon approaching the house and pulling into the driveway, it hit me hard.  I couldn't get out of the car.  All I could do was send a text and let her know I was here.  I'm sure she realized that without the text  but I sent it anyway.  Thankfully she had gotten past her anxiety of meeting me and came out to the car to get me.  And that is what I needed.  I think I had become consumed with the fear of rejection, and when she didn't reject me, I started to feel ok again.  Still, the anxiety still took time to dissipate, and I still found myself pulling back a bit, not really relaxing and letting myself be all there. 

My family hasn't been all that troublesome in my life since coming out.  They may be Mormon, but they take the religion on their own terms, which is what I wish the rest of the Utah Mormons would do.  I even found myself in a conversion with my dad and later with my brother-in-law about BDSM.  I had a brief moment when I felt awkward when my dad asked about MAL and what I did there.  But as with my mom, the conversation was challenging but never got awkward.  The conversation was friendly as I talked about what it meant to me and many people and that for many, its therapy.  Just like my mom, he gets it but doesn't get it at the same time.  Just like how I get why they remain Mormons but I don't get it at the same time.  And just like that, the conversation quickly moves to politics as we commiserate on the pathetic state of Teabagging Republican dumbasses or the embarrassment that is the Utah Governor and the stream of Attorney Generals.  There was little to no mention from anyone about the gay marriage drama happening at the time.  The few mentions were from a random nephew or my dad reading to us joke making fun of the Governor about in City Weekly.  

 Times have changed.  I would never have had the freedom to be who I am twenty years ago.  So it's good to know just how far, not only I've come along, but the rest of my family as well. And in many ways, they had passed me.  I hadn't been aware of it because I had moved out 20 years ago.

My main reasons for avoiding them was their general emotional dysfunction, co-dependency and the triggers from them and of being in Utah.  I needed the space to find and break those triggers.   And now gauging my experience over the week, it seems that many of those triggers have gone, mostly within the last year.   

But, I'm still not so sure that I'll ever move back there.  My last day there I spent the day with my brother-in-law.  We went to one of the local micro breweries in Layton and attempted to order some tasters for the beers they severed.  I sat in stunned silenced as the waiter tells me that I'm restricted to only two 4 oz tasters and then 1 beer per hour after that.  Only two tasters?  One beer per hour?  I wonder if Utah will ever legalize adulthood. 

Moving Along

It does go without saying that it has been a while since I've written anything on this blog.  My last post doesn't count because I was reposting something I originally wrote for Facebook.  But, it was something that should have been posted here.

Things in life have a way of changing.  I haven't been all that busy, but I have been remarkably lost in activities of distraction, which fed my writer's block.   Not that my writer's block was a problem per say, but that I was allowing my distractions to take over, not letting myself mediate on anything long enough to develop something to write about.  In essence, I've been coasting and not doing much with myself.  Letting my job any my living situation be an excuse for not participating in life, depressed mostly.  It's been like that pretty much since July.

The beginning of 2012 right up through June was intense and left me somewhat numb.  Aside from a few outings such as Dragon*Con, hurricane Sandy, which I chose to spend with a friend in North Carolina instead of suffering through the intense anxiety I went through with hurricane Irene the previous year, and a Christmas holiday in Seattle with some friends, I basically coasted on that numbness.   But all during that time, I noticed that I have been markedly feeling and thinking differently about things.  And I've been feeling the need to get back to writing as the dawning of this new year has given me a sense of allowance for renewal and awakening.

It's been a few weeks since MAL 2013 and yet I still find that I'm decompressing.  It was, as always, a remarkable experience for me as all socially intensive situations are.  And with that I've been able to measure how far I've come in the last few years as well and get a sense for how far I still have to go.  And the results are, I've come along way, and I've got a long way to go.  And with that, I would like to put this out there as a way to say thank you to the universe and the people involved, even though I've already thanked them in person.  

It's embarrassing to admit that I walk into these social situations with a tremendous amount of anxiety that paralyzes me and overwhelms my senses.  I'm quite often frozen, inhibited and shut off during these moments.  The social anxiety is often all consuming and takes away my ability to be engaging and cheerful.  It's all driven by my fear of judgment, rejection, and dismissal, for being imperfect and lacking in knowledge and experience, and unworthy of love.  And for the most part, I think I hide it pretty wall, except from the most astute observers.  But in the end, I just end up angry at myself for putting myself in social situations that creates more anxiety. I literally shut down emotionally from that anxiety leaving me in a state of mind that I was afraid of being in in the first place.    Last year at MAL that's pretty much how it went.  Even though I left there a changed person with some new found awareness about what it meant to be authentic, I was still stuck in not accepting that I deserved a place there.

This year at MAL, I had a very different type of experience that gave me some new and profound perspectives.  I learned some amazing things about myself and what it means to be a person of love, worth and value which is allowing me to feel much more gratitude than I ever have before.  I'm feeling a shift in my outlook and in my inward look, that is permissive of myself to be myself, whatever state that may look like, in whatever amount of stress I might be under, in whatever might be holding me back from expressing my wants and desires.

I'm allowing myself to be OK with the person I become when I don't know what to say, the person I become when I feel vulnerable and scared or when I'm calm and funny.  I'm allowing that person that I am at that time, and not judging him with expectations of what he should be doing or could be doing. I'm allowing myself to be what I am and only what I am in the moment and state that I am, which is now.

I can't say that I did all this on my own. Sure, it took a large amount of self awareness and willingness and book knowledge, but it took some education and wisdom that many wonderful friends have been able to give me, and some select moments of trust with some other friends at MAL as they literally, and figuratively, held my leash through the process without judgment, criticism and rejection, giving me the permission I needed to be who I am during all those states.  The simple act of going through the motions of all these states, practicing within a safe environment, which I have all the book knowledge of but I don't have the actual practical experience, in order to start that process of deprogramming decades of self doubt and self hatred.

What happened was a profound healing experience that lifted me to a higher plane of self love.

Sometimes, it really does take someone to help.  To literally be there with me and give me the permission, safety, and respect that I need for that healing experience to happen.  I've always been taught I can only do it on my own.  But I know now that's not true and in some cases, not possible.  I'm now more willing to not only ask for that help, but more importantly, allow myself to receive that help when it is offered.

But most importantly, I've learned that I can trust again.

Thank you all.  I hope that I can carry this with me as long as possible.

My New New Year

I originally posted this on Facebook on December 21, 2012. 

Happy Winter Solstice everyone.

Today marks the dawning of a new year.  For me, it's a time to re-evaluate what is important to me and work toward better awareness and alignment of what I believe vs. what I truly value.
Each day is a step in a direction.  Not necessarily forward, but a step nonetheless.  And when each step is taken, it is unknown the direction I have taken until well after the footprint has settled.

Looking back, it has been an excruciatingly difficult year.  I've had many profound experiences which have permanently and profoundly changed me.  For the good or bad?  That's not a judgement that can be made with much clarity any more, nor could it be.  When such things happen, they challenge and change beliefs and perspectives.  What once had been called good is now called bad, and what had been called bad is now called good.  Each item settling into a place where it best belongs.  And in the end, the labels of good and bad fade into meaninglessness until it all just exists as experience.  What I take from it is a new or expanded awareness.  And not to be too ironic in my dismissal of the labels of good and bad, awareness is a good thing. 

I may be remiss in not sharing the deeper parts of my life with people but, somewhere along the way, I had found that such openness wasn't always welcome.  So, out of a sense of self protection, I keep things to myself for the most part.  However, this is changing. To what extent, I can't say.  Future awareness might further level my caution.  Wait and see.  I'm just going to take it one day at a time. 

This year I look forward with anticipation, wonder, and unfortunately, a great deal of anxiety, to what is coming.  But with that, I'm working to not look forward so much that I miss what I'm doing right now.  One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, one second at a time.

At the risk of sounding saccharine, I want to thank the many people in my life who have, over the past year, made a difference to me in profound and long lasting ways.  Some of you may not even realize it as we have never met in person, but your presence here and the things you've shared with me publicly and in private messages have meant a great deal to me.  Don't take my silence as lack of gratitude.  It's there; I just don't always express it.

Winter of 2012 Assateague Island, VA

The Thoughtless Police

Lots of discussion going around on Facebook, on blogs, amongst distant friends in distant cites and elsewhere, all talking about all the great people in their lives, all of the wonderful dates they have been on all the wonderful support and sex they have with their dates, partners and spouses.

The envy, the jealousy, is difficult.  I do not like being alone,  I do not like going months if not more, with no one to touch.  And what makes it all worse is that I have no idea when the next chance will come.   And for whatever reason, some of those people are drifting away.  And some are now starting to avoid me.   I respect their rule of not sticking their dick in crazy.  I'm sorry I'm crazy.  I don't mean to be. 

Every status I see, every post I see, every picture I see setting on the desk of a coworker where they are flaunting their heterosexually, every god damn moment my co-worker has to talk about his fucking girlfriend, is a moment I want to die.  

I would really like to be happy for them.  I would really love to feel the joy and happiness they have. I would love to be able to have it so that I could share it as well.  But then, would I share it?  Would I do that so that I would be an insufferable prick to someone else who is dealing with profound isolation and loneliness? Would I be so insensitive that I would thoughtlessly share my happiness with others in ways that taunt, and mock them?  

I probably would.  

 

I Am Still, No One

I haven't posted in a long time.  I've been stuck in a sort of a midway point between, "It's too esoteric to post, besides who am I that anyone would care about the strange things in my mind?"  to  "I wish there were people out there who could understand me in all the forms that I inhabit."

It's self defeating in that I'll never find those people because I just can't bring myself to tell all there is to tell about myself.  What is it?  Fear?  Lack of trust?  Am I still in the closet about certain things?   That goes without saying. 

Obviously, what you don't know is what's in that closet.  Now, considering how I hint at things, some may think they know and can even guess, but most likely they'll be wrong.  Well, some people might get lucky and guess correctly but I know that most will not.  However, I want them to guess because if they guess correctly, then I know that I don't have to explain it if they don't get it.  And explaining it is something I just don't want to have to do.  Because, in the past, it has not lead to more understanding, it has just lead to more, "WTF?  You're a fucking freak!"

Still a lot of PTSD, still a lot of fear.   Yeah, I still hate rejection in some things.  Especially the things that get closer to my core. 

I'm finding once again, that I still have yet to find a community that I feel will accept me, care about me, support me, allow me to embrace and express myself in its hypersexual from, and even communally share that experience with me.   Are there communities out there like that?  It seems like there are but they don't seem all that accepting to me.   Am I fooling myself into thinking that such things exist?  It's really hard to know.  I spent one day at Folsom Street Fair last September and one weekend at Mid-Atlantic-Leather Weekend (MAL) back in January, and it sure as hell give me the impression that they do exist.  Despite the attention I got from some tourists at Folsom, I still walked away from those experiences not knowing anyone any better than I did before.  I felt like I have essentially wandered through a convention of cliquishness and exclusivity that I couldn't conform to.

At MAL, I met a few amazing people, and made some acquaintances, but they drifted off, others, after meeting, severed their online connection to me.  Confusing, frustrating, and sad.  There is something wrong with me, I get it.  I'm sorry.  I really don't have a clue how to talk about it, what to talk about, who to talk to and where to go with it.  And really, with no face-to-face, I'm at a loss.

I have so little connection, so little opportunity to travel and engage with others who share that life, being so isolated geographically from all of it, I've never been given a chance to really immerse myself fully, to really find myself, understand how it connects to me and what a lot of it really means.  I'm still trying to strip off the old masks, tear down the old walls from the Mormon cult I grew up in.  I've been isolated from everyone really; even in the cult I isolated myself from it as much as I could.  Few friends in life, difficult to form new ones, social awkwardness seemed to be the defining factor in all things.   And in isolation, social and physical, I ended up developing my own ideas and eccentricities about the way I view life and sexuality.  And even the closest community that I found that aligns with mine, the gay/leather/kink/BDSM communities, which seem to be steeped in its own dogma of identity, that it shuts me out for not conforming.  Confusing, frustrating and sad.

Reclaiming Complex and Nuance

This post is about my anger, frustration, pain, anxiety, fear and all that baggage that is associated with my inability to know what to say about my dear sweet friend who attempted suicide yesterday. 

But before I get into my shit, I want to direct you to Mr. Doodle's:
Top 10 Reasons Why I Left the Church
Top 10 Reasons Why I Came Back to the Church

Feel free to leave Mr. Doodle a comment or write your own blog post about your top ten reasons you left.   If you haven't left the church then write a top 10 reasons why you stay or came back.  But by all means, avoid calling people to repentance if they don't agree with you.  It's not going to convince anyone.  Mr. Doodle has every right to do as he please for whatever reasons he has.   As do I and as do you.  But just know, if you say I should do things a certain way, convince me first how your life's path can possibly have anything to do with the reality of mine when it comes to your own self-awareness of what I perceive.   In other words, if you can get inside my head, you would know what to say to convince me. 
  
I don't have a top ten reason why I left myself.  It's more like a top three.
#3 Co-dependency runs rampant and is self-sustaining.
#2 A dogmatic culture of "one life fits all" philosophy.
#1 It's a twisted, abusive, homophobic, fallacy, of conditional love which imposes unnecessary complexity and nuance into the social lives of vulnerable people where there otherwise would be a naturally simple existence. (see #2 & #3)  

Yes, I'll say it; my life is still being complicated by the baggage that comes with deeply imposed, completely unnecessary, fallacies of religious belief, which create a complex and nuanced social climate that only an omnipotent god could navigate, a complexity and nuance that must be danced around and walked on like a fucking, god damn, eggshell so as not to frighten the overly sensitive egos of the superstitious, busy bodies.   If you are offended by that classification, ponder it for yourself why that is the case.  You may have a blog post you could write for your own blog. (Post a link to it in the comments if you like.)

I used to love the word 'nuance'.   As a music composer it was the nuance of the performance and harmonic selections that separated a good piece of music from a great one.   I used to love the word 'complex' because, as a composer, I could stun my rhythmic sensibilities with layers of poly metered rhythms that was both invigorating and meditative.

But I've learned to distrust these words.   I've seen them used against me.  Thrown back at me as yet another means by which I am to compromise my feelings, sensibilities, life experiences and just plain life, so that fearful superstitions will not be challenged in their inability to look at anything other than the shadows on the fucking wall.   

Navigating these waters, wading through the mud, balancing on a pin head, opening a fucking window, is now this delicate and unattainable "complex and nuanced" perfection that must be played in just the right way or they revoke their love, shut off all dialog, close down all ability to communicate and then they take their ball and go home, a ball that was gifted to them by the one seeking an understanding dialog in the first place.  All the while, as they leave, they are screeching the need for empathy and understanding.   

Empathy?  Yes, amongst the complex and nuanced wash of social engineering is the word empathy, a concept that is imbued, in this case, with conditions that only go one way because only one side of that dialog understands and practices it.   The other side can only pay lip-service to it.  

I sit and watch with full understanding, yes, even empathy, all of the struggles and fears that have embodied those who can only pay lip-service.  And I can understand why they can only pay lip-service, but I can't say a single thing about it.  I can't tell them what my path of life has been, I can't talk about my experiences, fears, struggles, joys, loves.  I can't even begin to express how our experiences are wrong for each other.   All I can do is just listen and let them tell me I'm a perverse and evil miscreant because I cannot believe and live as they do.  I understand why they believe and say that  but I can't say anything about my reality.  They won't listen.  They can't listen. They can't understand.    They are like little babies who only know the world as it exists inside of their heads.   I understand why they can't understand even if the words fail me in explaining it.  But I can only sit there for so long before I have been drained of my will to live.  I resent having to babysit these adults. I've got a life to live; I can't waste it away trying to open a dialog with unreason.  And yet I keep trying.  It's leading to insanity.

I have, for the most part, learned to no longer believe that I am a perverse and evil miscreant, but only when I'm rational.  But the strange nuanced and complex world of the human psyche can still be triggered into readopting those old beliefs, and often in subtle and gradual ways.  Before long, the mind has switched into a new consciousness, into another space, another reality where I only know, understand, and experience these irrational beliefs and nothing else.  If the head-space is irrational,  I can't think my way out of it.   I become the baby who must be babysat.  And now I'm the social burden that only a nuanced and complex pandering of my fragile ego can pull me out of.   And if I'm lucky, I'll get the empathy I need before I've convinced myself that I must die.  This is fucked up!

Nuanced social navigation is an unnecessarily activity when religious dogma is not imposed on a person's identity, thus warping the very reality that is our existence.  Life is not complex when religious dogma is not imposed into every aspect of it, especially aspects of life where it  cannot offer anything of value, which is all of it.

I would love to say that religious dogma is to blame for this social dysfunction but I can't.  All it really does is use us and abuse us and keeps us stuck in it.  There is no way around this.  We are like this because we evolved to be this way.  What I can only hope for is that we will eventually evolve out of it, so that the words 'nuance' and 'complex' can go back to being words to describe aesthetics rather than the navigation of social dysfunction.  But, religious dogma doesn't believe in evolution.

What Have I Really Lost?

Over the past few weeks since my big friend fallout on Facebook, I've been thinking about what happened with the breakdown in communication.  Why did it break down?  And why did it break down so badly?

I had a lapse in good judgment, vented publicly some old hurts, didn't use the best choice of words, and managed to offend some, despite the fact that none of it had been directed at them or anyone in particular.  Sometimes I'm rational; sometimes I'm not.  That time I was not.  When others rant and vent about things, whether it's directed at me or not, I have an understanding about what is going on.  I know that they may be irrational, that what they are saying is not really about me.  I know not to take it personally.  That's why I allow others the space to vent.  But I had forgotten that not everyone has that same understanding and some things I said were taken personally.

There was no way I could help them see the error in what they were saying, believing, and assuming about my meanings or intentions.  But that didn't really matter; I didn't know what my intentions were at the time, which was why I was venting.   We were talking past each other.  So I just stopped talking all together and let the other person say what they needed to say and believe what they wanted to believe, about me.

All these years of progress, of letting go and moving on, trying to become a whole, self-defined individual, by reprogramming my thinking, vocabulary, humor, self-expression and identity; they all had no idea of who I was anymore, what I was about, why I felt the way I did.  And I was trying to explain it.  Albeit, poorly, but I was trying.  They just didn't understand; they also didn't really care.  They, for the most part, really wanted me to return to the way I used to be.  That wasn't possible. So in the end, I lost their friendship.  This was more than a stupid Facebook de-friending; this was the real deal.

But, was losing them as friends really what hurt so much?  No, what really hurt was the profound realization that when leaving the Mormon religion, letting go of god and all such religious belief, learning about a bigger picture of the world and how it worked, I had actually lost my ability to communicate with them.  I had lost my ability to see things through the eyes of Mormon politics, theology, culture and dogma.  I can still understand all these things, but I no longer understand them from the point of view of a believer.  But, when I was a believer, my understanding of them troubled me.  Could that have been because I was never a true believer? Or was I simply noticing things that others were not seeing?  And then getting frustrated and hurt as any attempt I made to describe or inquire about my observations were mocked and dismissed.

It reminds me of the story, Flatland by Edwin A. Abbot, a story that has had a subtle but profound impact on my life ever since I was introduced to it in 1986.  In that story there was a Square who lived in a two dimensional (2D) world who suddenly, albeit with much drama, found himself in a three dimensional (3D) world.  After that experience, no matter how hard he tried, he was never able to convince anyone in the 2D world about the 3D world.  That's what happened to me.  I could no longer see it only in 2D; I had the 3D version.  And the 3D language wouldn't translate to 2D without losing much of its information and meaning.

But, unlike the Square, who seemed perfectly content to live in 2D, until he was forced into the 3D, I was never satisfied by 2D.  It had stopped working for me. I saw too many contradictions and conflicts.  Many were essentially swept under the rug, and dismissed by those who claimed to have all the answers.  I needed something different, deeper, more meaningful and more applicable to now rather than only looking at that the imaginary future.  So I took a different path and learned things about my world that now make sense to me.  But they all seemed diametrically opposed to what everyone else believed.  At which point the communication gap went from a crack to canyon.  And all this time, I hadn't realized just how big that canyon had become.  And just like in the story, the misunderstandings across that divide would often elevate to frustrations, insults, and conflict.  Especially when I was reminded of the hurt I had felt while living in my old 2D world.

I can't force anyone to see things from my point of view.  All I can do is just say it and those who are looking will find it.  That's how it worked for me; I went looking for it.  But now that I've found it, I want to talk about it.  But, not everyone will like what I say.  I know it's not my problem even though they all may think it's my problem.  I have to let them believe what they wish, and if that means they want to believe I'm a bad person, then that is their right.

I'm not saying this to mean that I'm better than they are.  3D vs. 2D is not an "us" vs. "them" idea.  It's just that in one particular aspect of our lives we don't see things from the same perspective and understanding.  My thinking shifted perpendicular to theirs.  What they see as a circle, I can now see as a sphere or a cone, or a cylinder.  All they see is a circle.   But the huge irony of all this is that we both claim to have "the big picture". 

Throughout the story of Flatland, there are several events where a higher dimensional being is trying to communicate to a lower dimensional being about what they really are, and failing every time.  The only time it was successful was when one of those beings, the Square, was physically moved into the 3D space.  At which point it all became clear to him.  But by doing so, he crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.  And even though, in the end, he remained trapped in the 2D world forever, his thinking had permanently changed the way he viewed that world.

And like the Square, there just isn't any way I can go back to thinking in 2D.  3D is so much more engaging, enlightening and rewarding.  And there is a hell of a lot of stuff in 3D to learn and experience. I just can't spend a lot of time thinking in 2D anymore.  And yet, I must caution myself.  The Sphere in his arrogance, refused to accept the Square's suggestion that higher dimensions were thinkable.  And quickly showed that he was just as limited in his thinking in 3D as the Polygons were in 2D or the Line was in 1D.  Those worlds worked for them just fine and they saw no reason to look beyond them.

In my haste, I've found myself getting too attached to my new 3D world and assuming that it is a complete picture, and in my own arrogance have tried to force in on others who have no desire to know if it.  Also, my attachment has in the past closed me off from discovering 4D, 5D, 6D and so on, in other areas, until something drastic hits to knock me out of it.  The funny thing is it took a nervous breakdown to make that "leap of faith" in to the 3D realm for me.  I would hope that it doesn't always have to take such drama to gain new perspectives.  Many people seem to have done it without all the drama; it seems silly to keep doing it with all the drama.  But, I guess that's probably a bit optimistic to make such an assumption.  Whether that drama is internal or external, there is always going to be drama.  The Sphere was offended and chastised the Square for suggesting that 4D or 5D could be possible.  And the Square was imprisoned in 2D for attempting to talk of the 3D world, which had been made illegal.  At least it was better than execution, which was the other option.  And in all cases, the object in the higher dimension would arrogantly try to impress upon those in a lower dimension a differing view of the world.  Conflict ensued. Drama.

I guess the easy thing to do is just say nothing, keep it too myself and shut myself off from the world in order to avoid the pain of rejection and ridicule.  Or, say something, and just accept that all my old friends believe that I am their enemy.  Compartmentalize, perhaps?  I don't know.  I really hate it when people tell me that if my friends can't accept me now, then they never really were my friends.  Is that really true?  I just don't buy it.  Or, am I just stubbornly trying to hold on to the past?  I prefer to think that we can no longer have expression in friendships because we no longer speak the same language.  Or is that just being naive?  I would hope not.  I've had friendships suddenly "come back" to me the second I found myself in 3D.  When all that time I thought they had turned their backs on me, they were really there, just standing outside my range of vision, waiting for me to turn and face them.

The Missionaries Are Coming

Formspring Question:   "what do you do when you see missionaries coming?" 

This is a good question, and quite frankly, I'm not sure the best way to answer this.  The reason being is that I live in a region of the country that doesn't have any missionaries, so I don't get to see them coming in the first place.  The last time I had missionaries in my home was in 2006, when I was still trying to be a good Mormon. But they weren't even working in the boundaries of their own mission.

I live on the edge of the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Mission.  Physically, that's only five miles from the border of the Virginia, Richmond Mission.  The missionaries that visited me were from the Virginia mission and had been working this area by special permission from the Philly mission.  Not sure why, it was just one of those things.  But when that stint was over, they never returned to my little town.  Sure, the Philly mission then put some Elders in my ward which was 40 miles away in another city, but they never ventured outside of that other city.

Incidentally, it was interesting to see all of the "letter of the law" church members throw up their arms in disgust that these missionaries were not following mission rules because they left the boundaries of their mission. Whatever, some Mormons seem to think they know better than the missionaries or even the mission president for that matter.  There is sort of mistrust they have with them.  I know I felt it when I was a missionary in New Zealand, especially amongst the American Mormons who were visiting or living in the country.

But, I digress.

So to answer the question, at this point, I can only speculate while looking back this last summer when I "stumbled" across a pair of Elders while visiting the big city.  In that case, the only thing I did was take their picture.  But I consider that to be a situation where I was the one who the missionaries saw coming.  They were already there and I walked into the area.  That's not going to give me any reason to engage them at all.

The thing with all of this is that I really have nothing to say to them.  I honestly don't think there is any sort of conversation I could have that would be meaningful to them or me.  I've let the idea of religion go and the whole concept of god, priesthood, Jesus and church and stuff really has no meaning to me.  In fact, the way I look at the world differs so greatly that I find I end up talking past people regarding the way I view and experience spirituality.

And besides that, missionaries only have a single duty and that is to find people to teach.  People who want to learn about the church.  I don't fall into that category.  I could care less and I'm even less interested spending time on a conversation that would bore the ever living crap out of me.  But I'm not going to say that I would outright avoid them either.  After all, they are just a bunch of cute young men doing what they think is right.  You can't blame them for that, can you? 

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough.  I really should try to answer this person's question in a more meaningful way as in, what I would do, or how would I interact with them...if I absolutely had to.   In that case, I'm going to need to ponder on the possible scenarios if they came knocking at my door.
They are as follows:

1. What I could do.
2. What I'll probably end up doing.
3. What I really wish would happen.

1. What I could do is ask them their names, where there from, how long they've been out, offer them a drink (of water) and then flirt.  Depending on my mood, the flirting might range anywhere from friendly banter to overt sexual passes.  Of course, I will probably end up crossing the line into creepiness and won't realize it, especially when I ask them if I can take their picture.  Either way, my intention would be to distract them as much as possible.   I was very distracted and distractible when I was a missionary, and during those moments of distraction, I sometimes found myself amused when it stressed the hell out of my companion.

2. What I'll probably end up doing is being very polite, not really say anything other than to tell them that I'm a Gay, Ex-Mormon, Atheist, Liberal, and let them continue so I don't waste their or my time.  But if they persist, and some do, I'll resort to flirting.  In either case, I'll be trying to take their picture, which might require flirting anyway, or at least a little flattery, which is almost the same thing.  I guess scenarios 1 and 2 don't seem to be all that much different in the end except for the part about them finding out I'm a Liberal.

3. What I really wish would happen is that they would come knocking while I have half a dozen boyfriends over for a heavy, gay, BDSM fetish, play party.  And without batting an eye, I would nonchalantly invite them in as if they were expected.  How would I know if they weren't the friends of a friend, probably the naked one over in the corner, bound to a St. Andrews Cross and being flogged?  Who knows?  He did say he had two friends coming over, right?   And if they did want to talk about spiritual experiences, perhaps I could demonstrate how a bondage table, sleepsack and carefully placed electrical probes could be used to induce them. 

Yeah, I think I just lost a few followers to my blog right there.

Anyway, the looks on their faces would be...priceless.  

And, there would most definitely be a camera ready to take their picture.

Formspring Questions

Well, I jumped on another bandwagon and added the little Formspring thingy-ma-jiggery-doo to my blog a few weeks ago.  I thought, what the hell?  I'm slowly becoming a bit more settled in my life, and don't feel like I have to jump up and down about everything that goes on, for the most part anyway.  I'm starting to grow up a little bit I think.  Not that I've reached an emotional maturity that matches my physical age, but I'm just saying, you know, that I'm less of an asshole.  Actually, I don't really know what I'm saying.

Anyhoo,  

I'm open to fielding questions from my blog readers (I think I have about 9 of them) in case someone wants to get to know me better.  But the questions don't have to be about things gay or Mormon or whatever.  You can even ask anonymously.   Hell they don't even have to be questions.  Of, course I reserve the right to ignore them if they, well, you know, are not coherent, but I might have fun with them anyway.  BWA HA HA HA!  etc.

I've already received my first question about a week ago and I'm going to post an answer soon.  Proof that I intend to get around to things eventually.  Not that I procrastinate or anything, I'm just not all that ambitious and I like to take my time on things until they are "perfect".  Also, I'm trying to "suffer" through some back pain right now from diving off a horse and it makes me grouchy, tired and prone to putting things off.  But that's to be expected.

In the mean time, check out what Kiley is doing.  Now THAT is what I call ambitious.  Especialy #28!

Kiley is just awesome.  I could totally be a lesbian for Kiley!

Demagogic Seeds

This post over at USU SHAFT spawned a random memory from my past.

Back in 1985, I attended a Mormon fireside in one of the North Logan, Utah stakes where some music "expert" talked about how the evil music industry used reel-to-reel recorders for evil and other such nonsense, reasoning that because they had the ability to play the tape backwards, it allowed them to create or manipulate this so called "back-masking".  He used several examples including the infamous Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" to prove his point.  (See videos posted at USU SHAFT)

The Akai GX-4000D,
one of my many tools
I used for Evil.

When he ran the tape backward the first time, I personally
couldn't hear anything in it.  However, before he played it again, he made sure to read to us what it was suppose to say. Then, while he was playing it, he would lip-sink to it to make sure the suggestion registered.  I thought it was a stretch but many in the audience gasped in horror during the demonstration.

I lost a friend that night because I just happened to own a reel-to-reel recorder.  Never mind that the model I had was incapable of reverse playback, it didn't matter, he berated me in front of everyone, then got in his car and left.  He was my next door neighbor.  He had driven me there; he was my only ride home.  I was left to ponder his and the speaker's words with frustrations and shame on that long, cold, dark and lonely walk home.  For a few months after that, he continued his efforts to embarrass and shame me in front of other peers at school and church.  The bridge was burned.  No matter how nice he was to me later in life, I never gave him any more of my time.

Looking back, that whole thing reminds me of something...  ah yes,  Alma 32:28-43, where Alma compares the word to a seed.  Go ahead and read it, I'll wait.  I'm not going to get into a detailed word for word analysis, instead I'm going to simply state my own cynical and biased summary of it which is:  Plant that seed whatever it is, and nourish it with your own misguided beliefs, fears and prejudices, and it will grow into whatever irrational zealotry you want it to be.  And no, I don't care if you believe that that is a gross misinterpretation.  It doesn't really matter.  As scripture, it makes as about as much sense to me as JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".

But, I digress.

That night at the fireside, the words of a religious demagogue with his fears and prejudices were planted in the mind of my former friend.   The words appealed to his ego so he nourished them until they bore fruit to which he based his faith upon.  The result, conflict where there never was before and would never have been at all.  So, is that a good seed or a bad seed?   It's hard to say because for him it was a sweet fruit, for the rest of us, it was rotten. 

I think too many Mormons are oblivious to the fears and prejudices they use to nourish the word because of how easy it is to get caught up in the fears and prejudices of the people they trust.  It's not hard to see such fruits in the Mormon church when it comes to pretty much anything involving homosexuality.  Fear, fear and more fear.

When I got to college, I was able to escape much of that stupidity, but my fear of rejection had been amplified that night.  Sadly, I still don't have it all out of my system.  I still get paranoid that I'm going to be rejected for something stupid like, for instance, being gay.  I really don't need to go on anymore about what those demagogic lunatics, Mormon or otherwise, have to say about homosexuality. And since I never know what new shit they are going to stir up, I'm constantly playing it safe, especially around the ultra-religious people I have to work with everyday.

Nonetheless, I get the urge to want to poke them a bit to get the rejection over with quicker rather than tip toe around all of the time.  I really get tired of holding back my life to make sure someone else's life remains comfortable.  I'm tired of nourishing myself with my own fears and prejudices just to protect someone else from facing theirs.  I want to move on and put all these people behind me for good.  But, I don't do it.  I don't poke them.  I'm too afraid to be alone.

sorry

Sigh.

I need to apologize for my post on Saturday.  I'm still wondering if I should delete it or not. I guess it could stand as an example as to why I shouldn't write things off the cuff.

My "friend" doesn't deserve to be bad mouthed that way.  Just because I had a problem with him that day, doesn't give me the right to slander his character and I wasn't being completely rational either.

The truth is, having a place to go and a person to keep me occupied, no matter how narcissistic, kept me out of my head long enough to let the suicidal feelings pass. I was at least rational enough to realize that.

But, I'm still in a dilemma.

You see, there are two issues I'm dealing with.  My occasional depression with its  suicidal feelings and my increased health problems with my heart, which have made the depression worsen.  Neither one happens at any predictable schedule.  Neither one will put me in any immediate danger.  The real danger is going to be when they both hit at the same time.  If that happens, I will not be willing to seek medical attention when my heart lapses in to fibrillation.  And if it doesn't kick out within 24 hours, I'll be killing myself with the inevitable stroke or strokes.  This scared the shit out of me.  There is a chance that I can kill myself, or rather allow myself to die, if such conditions align.

This realization hit me last evening while I was out walking in the dark, on a deserted beach, many miles away from a road or any sign of life other than the birds and mosquitoes.  At that point, I knew my depression had lifted because I realized that I was now in a position where if my heart went into fibrillation, I wouldn't have the strength to walk the 5 miles back to my car, passing out in the process of trying.  I also wouldn't be discovered for days if at all, at which point the strokes would have killed my brain by then and my body would have been carried out to sea when the tide came in.  That too, scared the shit out me.  I almost started running back to my car completely freaked out because I no longer wanted to die.

I have no idea what to do about it.  Depression makes me irrational and I don't realize it until after it's passed, at which point I'm glad I don't do what I had been thinking of doing while depressed because during the depression, the irrational seems completely rational.

As for being alone?  I don't know what to do about that either.  It's not as if I know anyone who I can share those long, isolated, no moonlight, walks on the beach with.  FUCK!   It's statements like that that trigger me to get depressed!  God DAMMIT!  fuck this shit!  And fuck my life.

Today used to be my Birthday

Without trying to sound dramatic, today is my birthday and I'm just waiting for it to get the hell over with it.  I HATE being alone on days like these.  Sure, there is an expectation of what I think a birthday should or could be, a happy celebration of my birth, but birthdays are also like the holidays to me, empty and void of genuine well wishing from most people.  There are a few exceptions, VERY FEW, and those few are the only ones that keep me here.  It's too bad they are all thousands of miles away.

I can understand everyone wishing me a "Happy Birthday". It's expected and many do mean well.  But they don't stop there.  They have to rub it in with things like this:

"I hope you're having a fabulous day, filled with lots of happiness, friends and/or family with you!"
"Hope your livin' it up today. Have a good one."
"I hope you get to go do something fun to celebrate the day."
"Hope you do something fun"

Etc.

Everyone expects birthdays to be a special day where you get to do something special, and I'm one of them.  But its specialness is really a stupid idea that I need to let go of, because here is the cold hard reality:

It's no different from any other busy, late summer day.  And today was typical of what happens.

I had asked some other "friends" if they would like to do something today for my birthday but, either they were already at some other event (that I was not invited to) and couldn't hang out, or they just didn't want to do anything.   So I was just going to find something to do on my own.  I was feeling the depression start to hit me early this week so that was not helping it.

So, this morning I woke up groggy and frustrated from a restless night caused by an unbearably stressful and mindless job.  Immediately I got a call from a "friend" who wanted to drive out to The OC* and watch the Red Knights motorcycle procession honoring the fire fighters killed on this day in 2001.   That sounded interesting so I agreed to go.

On the way, I told him that it was my birthday today.  He was surprised and actually thought I was joking. I wasn't surprised that he would do that.  You see, this person doesn't really pay much attention to the thoughts, feelings or lives of other people.  If it's not about him, it doesn't matter.  When he called me -- and he calls me often -- he was merely just bored and looking for something or someone to entertain him.  I've known him for 5 years.  I have to tell him every year that it's my birthday.  I don't expect him to care.  But he will at least buy me dinner, because by his own definition, it's expected.  He'll just do it.  I'm not manipulating him, I'm just taking advantage of his predictability.  But it comes at a cost.

We get to The OC* and I have to listen to him complain about... oh, I don't know.  Who gives a shit anyway?  I stopped listening to him after the fifth time he mentioned how he regretted wearing a black t-shirt in the heat... the whole time.  I finally told him to either walk in the nearest shop and buy a white t-shirt, (there being a shop every 100 feet for the next two miles of the boardwalk) or shut the fuck up.  After a little back and forth about how he would never do that etc. he finally stopped complaining.   But it doesn't stop there. His excessive narcissism kicks in and he as to express himself on every little thing he thinks, sees or does.  And I'm expected to listen with deep interest and even laugh at his non jokes.  Also, I must be prepared to be outwardly and aggressively dismissed, sometimes quite rudely if I dare express anything that interests me and doesn't interest him.  No, I'm not exaggerating here.  And No, I'm not pretending to care about his interests either.  I pretty much ignore him but he really thinks I care, even if I tell him I don't!   He really is that narcissistic!

There is nothing as depressing as being surrounded by people and still feel utterly alone.  But, being out in the sun on a crowded boardwalk with an asshole is better than the alternative, which is sitting at home contemplating ways to kill myself.  I resist going home because to do that is to face my loneliness head on and I just don't want to lose myself in the suicidal thinking.  It's best to stay distracted for now, at least until it passes.

Anyway, because of his incessant boredom and his need to be doing something, we end up missing the processional anyway.   The only reason he wanted to go.  Typical.

Now, I'm sitting at home writing this while debating if this should be deleted or posted.  The day will be over in a few hours.  And I'm starting to feel like I might make it.  I don't know.  I was in the hospital again a few weeks ago because of my heart.  Is this the life I'm to have from here on out?  When is my heart going to kill me so I don't have kill myself?

* The OC I'm referring to here is Ocean City, Maryland. 

Lying for the Lord

Main Street Plaza's

A few years ago when I first came out to a 'friend' about being gay, he said to me that as long as I can answer the temple recommend questions I have nothing to worry about.  This 'friend' was a real letter of the law TBM type of Mormon.  In the long story of that coming out moment, it ended the conversation and we sat for a while in profound and awkward silence for the rest of the car trip.

Since I was just starting to push the boundaries of personal honesty with myself and my dealings with the church and church members, his statement about answering the temple recommend questions really bothered me.  Aside from the severe resentment I felt by my friend's ignorant and arrogant statement which implied that my value as a human being was based solely on how I answered a set of questions regarding my loyalty to a particular religious practice, I also realized I had never in my life answered those questions 100% truthfully.  But at that time in my life, I was still very deeply afraid of being ostracized by all my friends and family so I was feeling rather shamed and self-conscious about how I would still need to lie in the temple recommend interview which bothered me quite a lot.

In the end, I stopped going to church well before my temple recommend expired in order to avoid the renewal interviews.  I let them all assume that I had moved away.  That is until nearly a year later when they got my resignation letter.   Good times.

Anyway, the last time I had a temple recommend interview was 2006.   And since then, I've thought long and hard about those temple recommend questions and the agonizing interviews where I would fight with my own conscience, struggling to stare that interviewer in the eye and hope that he couldn't discerned my deceit.   So, in looking back, I'm going to right the wrong and finally tell the truth as my Inner Dialog "Hi!" was trying to get me to do all of these years.  "HA! It's about time."  Yeah, yeah, I know.

Warning: It's long. There are 15 questions to get through here so just deal with it.  Also, I'm not really going to write anything all that intellectual here.  "Dude, no one cares; get on it with it already."  Ok, ok.  It's really a bit of a rant layered with sarcasm and offensive language and it rambles a bit.  And yeah, it's going to offend.  "Dude, offend away! It's not your problem."

Ok, let's get this over with, shall we?  "Finally!"

Question #1:  Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost? 

Answer:  Yes. "Liar!"

Ok, ok.  So I lied.  Believing, or in my case, pretending to believe in the most fundamental doctrines of the church is also fundamental in fitting in to the prevailing culture.  If you don't believe, you don't belong; you are treated like an outsider.  To be treated as such in a community made up of 95% Mormons, ranges from simply being ignored to back stabbing to being overtly snubbed.  But that's only after they realize you didn't want to be a Mormon.  Besides, the remaining 5% were all beer drinking, adulterous, coffee drinking, intellectual, drug pushers who molested children and turned them into evil fornicating, feminist, homosexuals. And they all smoked to boot!  You don't want to be lumped in with them now, do you?  Yeah, I didn't think so. I think I'm justified in lying on this question. 

Question #2:  Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer?

Answer: Yes. "Liar!"

I never did understand the whole concept of Christ's Atonement and all that.  It just didn't make sense to me.  If God was an all loving, all powerful being, why in the hell did he need to have someone take the fall?  Really.  The entire Christian Gospel plan, Mormon or otherwise, still makes my head spin when I try to make sense of it.  But, as I said before, I'm going to pretend that I have a testimony of this ridiculous shit so that I won't be treated like an outsider.

Question #3:  Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?

Answer: Yes. "Liar!"

Sigh!  Forget about me going to hell for not believing in this stuff, I'm going to hell for being a big fat liar. "You're darn tootin', mister."  Isn't that a Laurel and Hardy movie?  "What?"  Never mind.

You know, there was a time when I believed this one.  But I realized I only believed it because I was in love with the idea of it.  When the facts hit the fan, so did my love of the idea.  

Question #4:  Do you sustain the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and as the only person on the earth who possesses and is authorized to exercise all priesthood keys? Do you sustain members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators? Do you sustain the other General Authorities and local authorities of the Church?

Answer: Yes. "Lie!  Dude! You're creeping me out!"

Oh my fucking god! What am I doing here?  Why am I doing this?  What the fuck?  I'm actually a bit creeped out by this question.  I've known too many people who have suffered severe spiritual abuse at the hands of these men.  Sadly, I didn't recognize that I was suffering the same abuse even though that creepiness feeling should have been an indicator that something was seriously wrong.  Still, I lie.  And I lie to myself.  It's no wonder I'm a bitter old man and I want to attack the Mormon church!  After all, they started it!  "Dude, you're not old." 

I just made the mistake of being born into it.  Yeah, mistake.  They told me that I got to choose my family in the preexistence because I was more valiant than the other souls.  Really!  So, it's my fault.  But these men also told me that because I was born under the convent (my parents were sealed in the temple before I was born), that I was double special.  But what they didn't know, HAHAHA, was that I was sealed to my parents later when I was around 4 years old.  I was never born under the convent.  So now what?  I guess that downgrades my specialness.  Why would an all loving, all powerful God, pick favorites for something so arbitrarily as that?  Honestly, what a complete asshole God is to his children. 

Question #5:  Do you live the law of chastity?

Answer: Yes. "Hey dude! You told the truth, HA! Well, sort of."

Ok, I didn't lie within the context of the intent of the question. But I wouldn't say it was by choice that I was celibate.  I didn't find having sex with women to be a temptation anyway. Hmmm, I wonder why. Is it because I'm righteous?  "No, it's because you're gay, dude!"  Ok, if I was gay then why didn't I have sex with men?  "Because you're righteous?"  Oh shut up, Internal Dialog!  The real reason was because I honestly didn't know it was possible.  That is really true!  "Ha! So THAT'S why they don't want people associating with The Gays! They might get ideas!  They might get educated or worse, recruited!"  Scary thought, isn't it?  Keep them in isolation; it will save their souls.  It's a testament to the level of repression and denial I was suffering.  And I do mean suffering. 

Still, I found a way to be "unchaste".  I used lots of mirrors!   "Dude, you really don't need to talk about this."  As a result, I have since expanded my definition of masturbation to be "solo sex" or sexual relations with myself, so I guess I did lie, just a little bit.  A tiny "white" lie.  "Dude! TMI."  Fine.

In any case, I'm bothered by the idea of sexuality as a basis for moral righteousness when it's really the lying, the deceit, and the manipulation, where sex is merely a tool, which really destroys lives.  But NO, it's all about sex, isn't it?  Sex IS the sin.  Sex is put up high on a pedestal and treated like something much greater than is really is or ever could be.  It's practically worshiped!  It's so sacred you are never to talk about it or utter the word!

SEX!  Say it!  SEK-SHOO-AL intercourse.  HO-MO-SEK-SHOO-AL.  SSSSSSSSSEEXXXX!

Seriously, stop using chastity as a euphemism for SEX!  It really makes it sound like we're trying to appear better than everyone else.  Oh, wait, we're Mormons, we are!  "I like sex."  I know you do, sweetie.

Question #6:  Is there anything in your conduct relating to members of your family that is not in harmony with the teachings of the Church?

Answer: Yes. "Truth!  Oh, shit, wrong answer."

Wait, what?  Can you repeat the question?  Seriously.  And please explain what you mean by "...not in harmony with the teachings of the Church" because there are some teachings of the Church that are not in harmony with the teachings of Christ.  I'm actually a bit offended by this question and because of that, I answer truthfully to point out the stupidity of it.  "Dude, you're not going to get anywhere with this. Sometimes the truth is not very useful."  You're right.  I'm joking, ha ha!  Everything is fine with regards to the family.  We're cool.  Sigh.  

I knew a fine lady who had her temple recommend revoked because her husband was abusing her.  The logic here was that as long as there was strife in the home, there was no way that she deserved the blessings of the temple.  And that she needed to go back and honor her husband so he had no reason to treat her the way he did.  Yeah, take a way an individual's only grounding spiritual avenue from an abusive situation because, after all, it's really the victims fault.  That's the sort of spiritual abuse I'm talking about from Question #4. 

I think our family did much better when we, for the most part, avoided the church as a source of any guidance in that regard.  I'm happy to report that things are cool now.  My response to this question was in looking back to the early 90's when things were really, really, really, really, really, really, bad.  Yes, that's 6 'really's.  In the 80's I would have used something like 47 'really's.   In 2006 it was still bad but I wouldn't use any 'really's.   "Really?"  Yeah, really. 

Question #7:  Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Answer: No.  "Dude, you might be lying here. Perhaps you should ask for clarification."

No, I will not ask for clarification. Remember what happened in question #6?  "Oh yeah, forget it."   Why is this even a question?  You need to explain to me EXACTLY what this has to do with my worthiness.  This question really fucking bugs me to no end.  I supported, affiliated and agreed with the most Christ like person I know, who just happens to be an atheist.  He was my grandfather.  You people seriously need to teach people HOW NOT to judge rather than make this entire gospel discourse about HOW to judge.  Question #7 to me really runs at the heart of why most Mormons are not capable of being Christians.   

Question #8:  Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?

Answer: Yes.  "Dude, you almost had me fooled there but your still lying."

I'm getting good at this lying thing in that I really believed I was telling the truth when I said yes to that.  But honestly, I would rather sit in the foyer talking to friends than in the chapel pretending to care.  And no, I don't have time to do that calling you asked me to do.  In fact, I think next Sunday I'm going to be out of town or something.  Yeah, my job, you know how it is?  At least I showed up to church and got counted and then did all that financial clerk crap that I was called to do.

Looking back, I was always looking for excuses, and quite often, I would make up shit to get out of going to church and avoid church callings and all that other crap.  I'm a bad person. "Awww."  As in Awesome.

Question #9:  Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?

Answer: Yes. "Truth! Except for that one thing..."

It should be blatantly obvious by now that when it comes to dealing with the church and people in the church, I'm a lying sack of shit!  Honesty only exists outside the context of my religious circle.

As a side note to this, there was once a Mormon city official my brother had to deal with who believed that the above question only applied to dealings with people in the church.  Outside of that, it didn't matter.  People who weren't Mormons were dishonest and the only way to deal with dishonest people was to be dishonest right back.  My brother finally got that particular Stake President fired from his job and then released early from his highly esteem church calling.  Those Utah Mormons can really be a handful sometimes.  Oh my goodness! 

Question #10:  Are you a full-tithe payer?

Answer: Yes. "Truth! HA HA! Suck it, sinners!"

Ha ha!  See, I'm a good Mormon!  I didn't lie.  And because I pay my tithing based on my gross income and then round UP, that right there makes me better than the low-life's who don't!  And it makes up for all the lying to boot!  Also, here is a little extra to help the poor.  Wait, what?  You can't help them unless they are active, full-tithe, paying members?  What the fuck!?

Sigh.  I deeply, deeply regret that I was a full tithe payer.  "And a snooty one at that."  Yep.

Question #11:  Do you keep the Word of Wisdom?

Answer: Yes. "Uhmm, this is a half-truth. I think."

Word of Wisdom or WoW.  Wow! Seriously, WoW!  Get it? "Dude, that's stupid, no one cares." 

Anywho, the entire WoW has been reduced down to the big four: Coffee, Tea, Alcohol and Tobacco.  Forget about all the other things stated in there, the big four are all this question is really asking.

Since I can't abide smoking or tobacco anyway, that's a nonissue.  Also, I don't like the taste of tea so I can at least feel smug about that.  However, I love my coffee.  Yeah, I'm going to tell people I like it but I'm not going to tell anyone I actually drink the stuff.  I mean, really, what good would come of it?  Remember that 5% I want to avoid being associated with?  I'm going to drink my coffee in secret! 

As for alcohol, the last time I drank that stuff I was around 10 or 12 years old I think.  It was a cheap but tasty red wine that my dad let me have.  I never got around to drinking much alcohol after that nor did I have much opportunity because I could never risk getting caught buying the stuff.  That made it easy to avoid.  I also didn't have many friends who drank.  The ones who did kept it to themselves because we would shun them when they did. You know about all that "avoid the appearance of evil" crap?  Yeah, we are real assholes, but we were righteous assholes.  So, except for an occasional coffee I was good to go.  Right? 

Apparently, coffee wasn't supposed to bar me entrance to the temple. But I could never know when I would get interviewed by some Mormon Nazi who would decide that coffee drinking was a greater sin than me lying about not having sex with myself.  "Dude! You never had it that bad."  Yeah, I know, but lesser things happened to other people and it really bugged the ever living shit out of me and put me on edge.

Now, I have a beer occasionally. And I'm not afraid to drink it right in front you!  Ha!  Would you like one?  There is still some in the fridge.  Or I could open that new bottle of wine I just bought that's sitting next to the coffee maker.  Hey, where are you going?  Oh yeah, you're avoiding the appearance of evil.  Touché. 

Now, what about the rest of the WoW?  It also says to eat lots of veggies and grains and eat very little meat.  And I do follow that. Well, not because of the WoW but because I feel like eating that way.  Some days I may actually go an entire day without eating meat.  I'm just not in the mood for it.  However, I'm a glutton for peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookie-dough-ice-cream so, no, I don't keep the WoW in its full context. Wait, the WoW doesn't say anything about gluttony?  Well it should! 

"We really need to move on here."  No, wait, I'm not done.

You know what else?  I don't think anyone really knows what the fuck the WoW is really all about anyway.  You know? For a short time there in the early 1900's, beer was acceptable under the WoW and refined flour was not!    And then there is this indecisive issue with caffeine and soda drinks.  And back to my previous point about all of the other stuff not being considered anymore.  What the...why the hell has it been twiddled down to the big four anyway?  Come on people!  Make up your mind!  Either get a revelation from God that sticks to something or forget about it!   Is God really that wishy washy?    "Actually, he is." 

Moving on... 

Question #12:  Do you have financial or other obligations to a former spouse or children? If yes, are you current in meeting those obligations?

Answer: ---

I was never asked this.  They all knew I had never been married so they just skipped it.  I wished they would ask, that way there would be more questions where I didn't have to lie. 

Question #13:  If you have previously received your temple endowment: Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple?  Do you wear the garment both night and day as instructed in the endowment and in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple?

Answer: Yes. "Lie? Well... yeah, you lied."

Ok, this is where it gets all weird.  I don't really remember what covenants I made in the temple; I was very young and naive back then.  I went through twice before leaving on my mission and have never gone back.  The experience was creepy and I never felt comfortable with it.  Besides, I only needed the temple recommend, not the temple experience, to look like a good Mormon.

As for the magic G's, quite often I would go around wearing only the top when I did wear them.  Does that count?  I thought of it more as a t-shirt to keep my sweaty armpits from leaking to my outer shirt but most importantly, it was to fool people into thinking I was a Mormon In Good Standing™.  As for the bottoms, I preferred that sexy animal print, string-bikini underwear for the sexiness and the support.  Besides, those darned magic G's would chafe my thighs like a motherfucker and the seams were always falling apart!  "Dude, I think you're going too far with this one."  No, shut up, Internal Dialog, I've got more to say about this.

I always thought it was ironic that people would tell me to buy those "mesh fabric" Gs because it feels like you have nothing on!  What the fuck?  Seriously, what the fuck?  I honestly can't figure out how to process that information.  Underwear that feels like you are not wearing underwear?   Here's a clue, why don't you simply NOT put any underwear on!  Yeah, I know, protection from harm and evil and all that hocus pocus.  So then, how come when I was on my mission and wrecked my bike and landed on my shoulder, there was a huge hole in my G's and my collar bone dislocated?   "Oh, please don't go there."  Was it because I was an unrighteous, lying, masturbator who didn't have any self control?  Just like all the other missionaries?  "No, Dude, that's not it.  Let it go."  No, it's because it was all a bunch of crap!  It was just another idea that I was in love with only so that I could convince myself that it might possibly be true.  What was I thinking?  Logic and reason, out the window because I was in love with the idea of personal body armor. "You weren't that bad about it." True, because I preferred my armor to look more like those sexy Star Wars Storm Troopers anyway.  "Ok, we need to move on."  That magic G armor was not sexy at all. In fact, it was anti-sexy.  But Storm Troopers, now that is what I call sexy body armor. Yeah, it's useless for blaster fire but who cares, so are magic G's.  I would totally do a guy while we were wearing outfits like that.  The base layer is Spandex for crying out loud!  Those magic G's were anti-sex.  Hey, I suppose that makes sense in the context of protecting a person's chastity.  Err, I mean sexual virginity.  Stick ugly underwear on them and they're fine.  Hmm, doesn't explain those gay guys with magic G fetishes.  What's the deal with that?  I don't get it. 
 
"Moving on?"

Sigh.  Moving on...

Question #14:  Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?

Answer: No. "Yeah, Dude! I think you might be telling the truth with this one. I think."

Yeah I'm telling the truth because I'm starting to see where this is all left to my interpretation.  What is the context of "sins", "misdeeds" and "resolved"?  Other than my habitual Lying for the Lord™, I don't know what else I would mention.  I did tell my mission president that I masturbated.  But have I resolved it?  Does simply talking about it mean it's been resolved?   I still masturbate in ways that would make your skin crawl and your sensitive little heart go running off screaming to ask God for mercy if you were to see the things I like to do to myself.  So, you really want to know?  Seriously?  I have pictures. "Dude! Don't even..."  And for something that gives me a profound spiritual experience, how do I know it's even a problem?   And that begs the next question, what is meant by "problem"?   No, I'm doing just fine. 

Question #15:  Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord's house and participate in temple ordinances?

Answer: Yes. "You speak truth! I'm proud of you dude!"

Yep, I believe I'm worthy to enter the Lord's house.  Besides, if my adulterous uncle is worthy, even while standing in the Celestial room of the temple, telling dirty jokes, than I believe I'm worthy too, even more so than he.  But the better question to ask is if I WANT to participate in temple ordinances?  And if that is asked, I'll probably lie.  Again, I want to fit in, despite the fact it is 2006 and the last time I was creeped out in a temple was 1991.   "Are you sure?" No, wait.  The last time I set foot in a temple was 1995 in Bountiful, Utah. But it was only the temple dedication and not an endowment session so it doesn't count.  "Oh, yeah. That doesn't count. Not as creepy."

Ok, well there you have it.  I've gone through the temple recommend questions, holding myself accountable for the lies I told.  And not only do I feel better about myself, I'm better person for doing it. "Dude, you're so cool, I love you."  I love you to; want to have sex?  "Dude! This is not the place to for that."  TMI?  "TMI."

Apologies to my uncle for bringing up his past transgressions. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have had that cognitive dissonance welling up in the back of my mind all these years.  Those jokes he told in the temple were very distasteful, even for me.