Hair

I’ve had…

• Brown Hair
• Black Hair
• Blue Hair
• Red Hair
• Green Hair
• White Hair
• Yellow Hair
• Calico Hair
• Long Hair
• Short Hair
• No Hair
• Straight Hair
• Curly Hair
• No Hair on top, Hair on the sides

But today I noticed a new hair…GRAY HAIR

Kill me now.

Suck It.

If you are LDS vote “YES” on Prop 8.

This might sound a bit odd, but if you are an active member of the LDS church and you like the LDS church and you want to continue being a “card carrying member” of the LDS church, I won’t be sad if you vote “YES” or donate money to support the passing of Prop 8 in CA.

It is no secret I was raised LDS although I do not consider myself LDS anymore, but at one time I was. Because I was an active member I made many friends who are LDS. These friends have accepted me and my lifestyle as best as they can. Most know about people I go on dates with and most were with me while I was coming to terms with being a homosexual, and most support this decision (I think). So it makes me sad that the LDS church decided to put many of their members in an awkward position…do we vote how we want and potentially lose our Temple Recommends, or do we follow the prophet and vote “YES” on soemthing we don’t agree with? This homosexual is giving you permission to feel guilt free when giving your 10% to the supporters of Prop 8. The last thing any LDS person needs to do is rock the boat just enough, and speak out one to many times and draw attention to themselves.

One area with the LDS culture I had issues with, and this is NOT Anti-Mormon, was I wanted to know for sure if it was true. There was a time I felt it was true, and I said I knew it was true…but I had no concrete evidence other than a “feeling.” I remember asking my bishop if this was normal, and he told me it was. He told me that sometimes we have to have faith in things we can not see…he talked about things like air and radiowaves, they are there but we cant see it. I kind of got it and later was thinking about it and I just couldn’t shake the feeling that my question wasn’t answered. Because of radiowaves and air tangible things happen; cell phones ring, people don’t die, balloons get bigger…but I had yet to see something tangible happen that proved the church was true. I also want to point out that I did and do believe in a God and he/she can and has made tangible things happen. Anyway so I talked to the bishop again and explained that I believed in a higher power because tangible things can and have come from God, but I still wasn’t sure about the LDS church, so he said I should read about it. He gave me a few books and told me to read them and it should answer my questions. I got the books and found they were all written by LDS authors, I didn’t read the books because even at age 16 I totally understood one of the most fundamental concepts of journalism, bias. I told this to the bishop and I remember the conversation turned a little more serious than before. I don’t remember the exact words used but the feeling I got was if I read anything about the LDS church, or did any studying out side of the approved reading list I was going against the prophet, and I could become Anti-Mormon. Growing up Anti-Mormon people were scary…they burned Book of Mormons on Brigham Young grave, they would break into churches and do satanic rituals…or so I was told, and shown in a movie called Gods Army. In the end my questions were never answered, but I got a lesson on having faith and following along even if you don’t know if what you are doing is right…because it could be Anit-Mormon of you to look outside your beliefs for answers.

Back to Prop 8. The LDS church has all but said Vote YES on Prop 8 or you are not being obedient to the teachings of your Latter-Day Prophet. They are encouraging members to give time and money to pass this Proposition, the LDS leaders, who you sustained, are asking you, without saying the words, to vote “YES.” Don’t put yourself in the position of having to defend your loyalty to the leaders for this. If you feel Prop 8 needs to pass, give money. If you are LDS and want to see Prop 8 defeated, give money. Think about it this way, if Prop 8 passes homosexuals get to live in the status quo, and so do you. I think in this case an LDS person who is against Prop 8 has no good choices, support Prop 8, I understand.

Now that I am off my soapbox I want to go on record as saying there IS a divide between Mormons and Non-Mormons in Utah. This divide gets bigger and bigger everyday and the Mormon church getting involved in Alcohol and now Prop 8 has made the divide even bigger, and there is no way anyone can say the divide isn’t there. Leaders of the LDS church can talk about unity and being good neighbors for hours, but their actions in the instance of Prop 8 do not align with their talk.

The topic for tomorrows blog…the mysterious dissapearance of Jeff.

Suck It!

When I had it all.

So recently I have been a bit down, and I don’t know why. I know I normally have wild mood swings where in one day I can feel every emotion possible, but every so often I just feel like crap for days, weeks and sometimes even months. When I feel like crap for more than a few days I like to think back on things that make me happy, I do this in a futile effort to make me smile. There is also another component to this funk I get into…I don’t want anyone to know. Most people who know me expect a certain Jeff, and rather than explain why I am depressed, I give them the show they are expecting. Oh and sorry if this post seems a bit down, but it is how I feel.

Anyway the times in my life I think back to when I am going through one of these phases are: Summer 2000, Summer 2002, and Summer 2003. There wasn’t anything really special about these times, and the only way I can explain these times were, I had it all and I knew it.

Summer 2000 was a fun time for me, I had just graduated high school and was living at home and had no real worries. I was surrounded by friends and my parents had given me my first taste of freedom. I had no curfew, no real rules and this was when I first realized they were fun people, not the oppressors I thought they were. I would stay up late talking to friends, driving aimlessly around Salt Lake and chatting on line with these same friends who lived 4 houses away until the early morning. I worked full time, but even work was fun. I felt like an adult, but was still able to act as irresponsibly as I wanted. I loved this time and I knew it was great while it was happening. I knew the reality of the moment was great, and I remember thinking that when I was older I would look back on this time as special.

Summer 2002 started out crappy, I finished my first year of school at USU, and had moved back home with my parents. My friends I had lived with for 9 months were moving away, going on missions, or weren’t coming back to school. I remember crying the first night I was home in my old bed which is huge because I don’t cry, but within 2 weeks I was back into my old life. It was again a time of no responsibility, but one that wasn’t wasted. I had a full time job but would spend 3-4 days a week in Heber with a few really good friends. I would drive an hour each morning to go to my low paying job and would drive back to Heber after work. Again, at the time I knew this would be a time I could look back on and my memory wouldn’t have to embellish anything.

Summer 2003 was probably my favorite. My friend Sauerkraut, Kirsten and I rented this dumpy apartment together, we fondly named it the Roach. Before we moved in, I lived in my car for more than a week in Logan Canyon. I took baths in the restroom at the Ranger Station and loved it. Oh and it was a big secret too. My family is pretty hard core LDS so the fact I was living with 2 girls would have killed them *I now see the humor in this, because if I was to shack up with a girl tomorrow they would weep tears of joy.* Anyway, when we moved into the Roach we would stay up late listening to loud music, dancing, taking night hikes, stealing stuff from the loading docks at the DI (something that would come back to haunt me later) and having wild parties. We found an old wheel chair that we used for a chair at our kitchen table. We had no money, but were so happy. Now for a few neat stories. When Sauerkraut and Kirsten were in the front yard I would get in the wheel chair and purposely ride it down a flight of stairs and throw my body out of the chair and scream “MY LEGS, I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS!” while cars would slow down and watch in horror as these two girls would do nothing and go in the house embarrassed. Story numero dos. I was on the front porch one day smoking and let out a fart. I looked inside to see Sauerkraut in the kitchen with her jaw dropped, my fart was so loud she could hear it in the house even though no windows were opened.

So those are the three times in my life I look back at and wonder what it was about those periods that were so unique. I guess I just want a time like that again, when everyday I would wake up excited to see what would happen next, a time when going to bed was dreaded because the fun was put on “pause.” I miss that feeling of always having something to look forward to. I miss the feeling of the moments…I can’t even describe it, but each moment had a specific feeling and I loved it. Oh well, I guess life is just a few fleeting good times book ended by shit.

Suck It!

Oh and Pandora.com is potentially the greatest invention since … I can’t think of anything funny…but Pandora rocks.