Cell Phone POW! #4

This picture comes to you courtesy of me! I got some other good pics this week that I’m sure I’ll use in the future, well except for yours, Quinn. Sorry my phone ate it. :( This one was taken Wednesday while I was out running some errands during lunch. I’ve seen this rectal clinic building before, but it occurred to me when I saw it again yesterday that it would make for a good POW! If I had taken a wider shot, you would see that this short ugly building sandwiched between two taller buildings has two small windows with bars on them. I was going to take more pictures but then someone was walking up to the building and I figured having to walk into that building would be bad enough without having someone taking your picture. So I’m thinking there’s no way this is really what the sign says it is. It’s gotta be a front for something else. What though? Get creative.

I don’t really have any more explanation about last week’s POW! other than that it’s a goat with a bag on its head. I don’t even know where Stina saw that goat, but I’m guessing it was at work or on her way to or from work. She works in the country. I did, however, like the image that Courtney painted of Stina knocking the goat unconscious to take it home to make artisan cheese to sell at the farmer’s market. She’d totally do it.

Remember how I told you about the guy at work that shaved the top of his head so he could be an elderly Harry Potter for Halloween? I kind of assumed that he would just shave the rest of his head after Halloween was over. Nope. He’s just letting the top grow out. Somebody should tell him it looks ridiculous.

I went back to Yakuza (the place I mentioned in this post) and got a full on kobe beef burger, as opposed to just a kobe beef slider. The burger was incredilicious X 5. I went with Stina and interestingly enough, the beef patty (the word patty seems insufficient though as the slab of beef was like an inch thick) had a thin layer of goat cheese on it. Courtney, may actually be on to something. Stina may have some sort of weird obsession with goats and their cheese.

One more thing, if baseball preempts Glee one more time, I’m gonna go all Nancy Kerrigan on those baseball players.

One hot mess of thought

I’m not sure if I’ve ever blogged about this before but I know I’ve thought about it. I’m too lazy to go through past posts to check. If the first part of this post is a repeat, then deal. I have a really fantastic counselor. Some of you have heard her speak or present and know what a wonderfully wise woman she is. In one of our sessions we were talking about her approach to counseling. My memory of the conversation is a little bit hazy, but I remember her saying something about how counseling/therapy isn’t about the content of our lives. I kind of understood what she was saying at the time, but it’s something that I’ve been chewing on ever since (I seem to use lots of food imagery in my posts).

Now I’m going to jump a little bit. Remember, it’s all about putting together all the pieces. This past week, a friend sent me an article by Phil McLemore entitled Mormon Mantras: A Journey of Spiritual Transformation, which much more eloquently expresses what I was trying to express in my inaugural post. Phil’s article is definitely well worth your time and there are several themes in there that I could probably do many other posts on. Read it. The idea I wanted to focus on from that article for now is the following:

Many people associate their spirit with their mind and personality. However both one’s mental activity (thoughts and emotions) and personality traits can be observed. Whatever we can observe is not really us. We are the observer: the capacity to observe is a characteristic of spiritual awareness.

Our minds—which include our perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, as expressed through our bodies and behavior—were intended to be reconciled to perfections of spirit. However, we are seduced so much by the noise, form, and activity of the material world that we lose awareness of our true identity and become identified primarily with our thoughts (mental noise) and bodies.

Ok, so that might seem kind of weird and mystical and hard to grasp. I’ll bring it down to a personal level now. About a month ago, I had a session with my counselor that included lots of discussion that was nearly exclusively about my homosexuality. At the end of the session she asked if I realized that was the first time we spent the whole hour talking about just that.

Jumping again, I often use my blog to come out to people. I recently told a friend about my situation, gave him the address to my blog and said that I blog about balancing being both a Mormon and attracted to men. I just quickly scanned my posts though (I guess I’m not so lazy anymore) and rarely do I blog exclusively about homosexuality. I’ll make reference to it here and there and I’ll have an occasional post dedicated to it, but it’s certainly not the focus of my blog.

So there are a bunch of pieces. I’m not sure I’ve brought it all together in one coherent idea or thought. Maybe it’s better if I don’t. I guess maybe it’s that I think sometimes we become prisoner to the content of our lives instead of seeing the content as clinical material that we use to create something better with. Act instead of being acted upon. What did you think? Was that all just a rambling mess? What did you get out of the article? Is there another idea in there you think I should explore in another post?

Three Classy Ladies

I have a couple of posts brewing (but not stewing, because beef and barley is gross). It’s a busy week, though and the posts are taking some effort to think through and pull together. In the meantime, here are some gems to keep you entertained. I may have something for tomorrow.

1. Has anyone heard of Elna Baker? I first heard of her in an interview that BCC did for her recently released memoir, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. She’s a Mormon comedian in NYC and has done bits on NPR and for the Onion. I got her book for my birthday and I’m excited to crack it open.

2. If you have children and a home, you should read my friend Margaret’s blog, bonbonliving. You should also read her blog if you enjoy the writings of a witty, insightful and stylish woman. We used to work together at BYU and passed the time eating microwave popcorn and taking online personality quizzes and downloading music on Napster. Those were the days.

3. If you are wondering how you can help children in Uganda, check out my friend Ellie’s organization, Peace for Paul. It’s a nonprofit that is bringing kids in off the streets and out of the slums and giving them the opportunity to go to school and to live in a more stable and loving environment. They are raising money to buy land for an orphanage and to sponsor more children and could use whatever you are able to give.

There you have it. Three classy ladies. Check them out.

Cell Phone POW! #3

Here's this week's POW!, submitted by Stina. All I know is that the animal is a goat. That's what Stina told me anyway. My question, however, is how do you know it's a goat with that thing on it's head, hmmm? How do you know it's not a satyr like this or like this or like this? Maybe that's a magic bag on it's head and he believes it will make him become either fully man or goat. Or maybe he's just embarrassed by his half man/half goatness and hides his shame under a bag. What do you think is going on here? Explain.

Last week's POW! was a table at the Jordan Commons movie theater in Sandy, Utah. It was late and the table had already closed for business, but I'm guessing they were selling spiced nuts or something. Oh, and when I asked for no graphic porn, that doesn't mean you couldn't have gotten PG-13. I liked Quinn's idea that it was a registration table at a speed dating conference.

Just some other Friday odds and ends now. Can someone tell me what the deal is with this Calfskin Formal Bow Pump for men at Brooks Brothers? Is this something you wear with a tux? Is it a European thing? Will I get beat up by the Elder's Quorum if I wear those pumps to church?

Today at work a guy is dressed up as an old man Harry Potter for Halloween. He shaved the top of his head (this guy goes all out every year) so that he has an old man, receding hairline cut. He's wearing glasses with round frames and a white shirt with a green striped tie and a black robe. He looks exactly like Henry B. Eyring. It's uncanny. And a little disconcerting.

(The) Darkness

Last year for Halloween I dressed up for the first time in several years. My friend Andrew talked 4 of us into doing a group costume with him. We were a band of supervillains called The Darkness. Or maybe it was just Darkness. We debated between the two and the difference was important. I can’t remember which it was now. We all had names that started with D. I think I was The Devastator. Or maybe that was someone else. There was The Danger and The Deliberator. I can’t remember the other names. Damn, it’s only been a year and already the details are sketchy.

Some details aren’t sketchy, however, like how much time we spent making these costumes. This wasn’t a deal where we just looked for crap around our homes or made one trip to Goodwill. Andrew doesn’t do anything half way.

The color scheme for our costumes was black and silver with red accents (I promise I was the only gay one). We ordered black unitards and printed our logo (yes, we had a logo) in silver on our chests. Our individual names were printed in silver down our arms, and we had a tramp stamp in back and surprisingly enough, I can’t remember what it said. Maybe some of the others can help me out with the details. We also had really cool silver utility belts with the logo on the buckle.

From there we each added our own accessories and embellishments. I had a cool faux leather looking black cape and wrist cuffs with three steel spikes out the side on each one. The wrist cuffs were made of scrap linoleum and paper mache. The boys did furry briefs. We bought some black Hanes and then sewed furry material onto the Hanes. The easiest way to sew on the furry material and make sure they would still fit was to sew it on while wearing them. I may or may not have accidentally sewn my furry briefs to my jeans. We affectionately referred to the briefs as “loin warmers”. The girls were totally against the loin warmers at first, but then we explained that the added fluffy texture would help disguise certain things that would be accentuated by wearing a tight fitting unitard, they were totally on board.

I found some cheap boots to wear but they only came up barely above my ankle and looked kind of lame, so I used left over furry material to extend the boots to mid calf. Kind of like leg warmers. Here’s a picture of us receiving our much deserved prize for best group costume. I don’t think the others will mind me posting this picture. I think there are much more embarrassing ones on Facebook from the late night photo shoot we did afterwards.

Witchy Woman

I went to step class on Saturday morning. I ended up only doing the first half, which is just cardio. The second half is with weights and my back was feeling tight and knotty, so I opted out of the second half because I didn’t want a repeat of this.

I got there and got myself all set up and situated and this lady who I’ve seen at the class a couple of times was there and set herself up right behind me. This woman is probably at least 70 and is always wearing the same t-shirt when she comes to class. It says “Witchy Woman” on it. One time, a long time ago, she got mad at someone for setting up too close to her. The combination of her witchy woman t-shirt and that experience from a while ago and that fact that she has this really thick Scottish accent has left me with the impression that she is an angry woman. What is it about a Scottish accent that makes it sound like the person is angry at you? Another funny thing about this woman is that she also always wears those fluffy chenille socks that are meant to just be worn around the house. They are totally unelasticized and so they just bunch up thickly around her ankles. She also wears old school umbro soccer shorts and has short short white hair.

So she got all set up behind me and started to chat me up. At first it was fairly innocuous…weather changing, the class isn’t so crowded this morning, etc. Then she crossed the line into conversation that you save for people you actually know, like surgeries she’s had recently, her mother who is still in Scotland (who’s got to be damn near 100 years old), etc. As she tells me all this stuff, she starts to take her pants off. I know they were just warm up pants and she was wearing her umbro shorts underneath, but there was something about watching someone old enough to be my grandmother take her pants off that made me a tiny bit uncomfortable. I felt like I should look away, but she was talking to me and my mother taught me to look at people when they are talking to me.

Anyway, we can add her to the cast of characters at step. What to call her though? I think Witchy Woman would be too obvious. If Courtney and I needed to talk about her, she might catch on if she’s nearby. I’m thinking something less obvious. Chenille perhaps.

Cell Phone POW! #2

Here is the first Cell Phone POW! submission, which comes from my friend Matt. For an explanation of the Cell Phone POW!, please see Elmo down below. I thought about posting the picture and then explaining what it’s a picture of/where it was taken, but I thought it would be much more fun if I post the picture with no explanation and then leave it up to you to provide the explanation. It could be an explanation of what you really think the picture is of or about, or you could make up some ridiculously fanciful tale. (I realize I’m taking a bit of a risk opening it up like that, especially with this picture. No graphic porn, please.) Then maybe with the following week’s POW! I’ll tell you what it actually is. Or not. We’ll see. I do have a submission for next week though. This seems like it will be a nice Friday installment.

Marinating vs. Stewing

This post is kind of a follow up to Help, I feel bad, in which I talked about the importance of letting yourself feel things instead of trying to avoid emotions. I talked a little bit about this idea in Just let it sit and marinate. That post, however, was more about letting myself feel something good, but the same thing applies to negative feelings and emotions too (or feelings and emotions that are traditionally seen as bad or negative anyway). Whatever it is we’re feeling, we need to let ourselves sit and marinate in it. Sorry for the germaphobes who are disgusted by the imagery of sitting in a vat of marinade with raw meat.

There are two ideas I want to explore. The first is the title of the post. I think it’s possible to sit too long in our emotions and for it to turn into a gross and stagnant stew. Beef and barley, probably. I also don’t think that it’s just the length of time that determines whether it’s a marinade or a stew. I think how we go about exploring what we’re feeling and what we do with it can determine whether it’s a marinade or a stew.

I’m having a difficult time though, pinpointing what the difference is in more concrete, tangible terms. I can sense the difference though. Marinating allows me to feel it but it also ends up moving me to a better place. Stewing is stagnant and holds me back. And it smells like beef and barley. Gross. Another thought I had was that maybe what I would consider marinating would be considered stewing by others and vice versa.

I want to know if anyone else has thoughts on this. What’s the difference between marinating and stewing for you? How would you explain it? Would you use food to explain? Would you put the cooked meat back in the same dish it was marinating in? If so, I don’t want to know what you have to say anymore and please don’t ever invite me over for dinner.

The other topic is what our role is if we are not the one currently marinating in something difficult but if it is someone we care about who is marinating. For this I will quote Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest. Read all about him at the Wikipedia link. He’s pretty amazing.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.”

Cell phone pic of the week (POW!)

Friday I went to a movie with some friends. We met at my friend Ginger's house to carpool and I found the above on the floor of her front room. It appears that someone pantsed Elmo and pushed him to the ground. Not cool. Look at those wide eyes as he reaches up with one hand for help. I, of course, had to snap a picture with my cell phone before leaving. I wish I could say that I stopped to help Elmo and his pants up, but I just kept on walking out the door after snapping the picture. Heartless. (cue Kanye)

Then I thought maybe I should start something called cell phone pic of the week. Or maybe just pic of the week so that it can be called POW! Have you captured something ridiculous or disturbing or silly or clever on your cell phone? Send it to me and maybe I'll put it up. The only rule is that it can't be staged by you, you just have to happen upon it and capture it digitally.

This could end up being the first and last installment of POW! It all depends on whether or not you or I find anything worth snapping a picture of.

What's this a picture of, you ask?

Apple crap. My friend Diana invited some people down to her parents’ house in Corvallis to make cider. Don’t worry though, it wasn’t the fermented kind…although I could probably let the cider that I came home with sit out for a while…

Her parents live in an adorable house kind of in the woods. Seriously, these are direct quotes from the directions she sent us to find the place. “over the railroad tracks, past the gas station/country store” and “about 20 feet later there are 4 mailboxes on your left and a dirt road on the right” and “go through the forest” and “ignore the tacky no trespassing signs.” Needless to say, my car got lost and appropriately enough, we ended up in a town called Tangent. Perfect.

Pressing cider was fun. Here’s a link to a Wikipedia article, however, the traditional cider press that is pictured there looks more like a medieval torture device as opposed to what we used. The picture above is what’s left over after you’ve pressed all the juice out. They just put it in the compost pile, but we were trying to come up with other things we could do with the apple detritus. I came up with bricks, if you mixed it with some sort of natural mortar and then viola! Organic bricks!!

After pressing cider, Diana’s mother fed us a delicious dinner of BBQ beef sandwiches and soup and fresh fruit and vegetables and apple pie and, of course, the cider we had just pressed, which was seriously amazing. After the food had digested some, Diana’s dad brought out his collection of didgeridoos. Of course. We took turns attempting to play, but for the most part just made a bunch of really awkward noises. After failing at that, a couple of us took turns on the piano, an instrument we were much more familiar with, and had a Wicked/Little Mermaid sing along. It ended up being a fairly magical day.