So, when am I not?
Not sure why though. Christmas was good. Time spent with my family, niece and nephews, the podling. Chatting an hour and a half (unplanned) with bro in Montana… only to hear him, mid-conversation, suddenly channel my father by shouting “YOU get your butt back upstairs and in BED!” I nearly choked, laughing. It’s so funny hearing our own parents come out of our mouths. Especially from the one person in the family I would have sworn would NOT become like them. Apparently his youngest is somewhat like her daddy, in that she obeys the rules only so far as they serve her purpose. Beyond that… it’s all interpretation, baby. I’d love to see them, spend some time with them.
He’d love to see me move up near him. Actually, I think perhaps he’d love to see ANYbody he knew move up near him. But he does truly like it there. I think I might, too. Thing is, if I were going to move somewhere, I already have a place in mind. For the now. It’s just… things are complicated when sharing custody of the finest child ever born. Still… I’ll eventually have to go where the work is… where I can get a job that will keep me in food.
I do so like to eat.
Right. So Christmas was good, lot’s of family interaction with minimum tension. Pretty damned amazing.
I’m rested, finally, with only the remnants of something of a respiratory, sniffly, achey thing I suspect I contracted while on my weeklong excursion.
So why am I cranky? Maybe I’ll work that out as I keep typing here.
The Mormons have found me again. I’m not terribly surprised. After all, I converted at 11, and they’ve had a handle on me since, even though I was never what one would call a ‘conventional’ Mormon.
Maybe I joined the system just so I could buck the system. A girl’s gotta have something to rebel against.
In any case, I had thought they might lose track of me when I moved out of the house and got my own apartment. After all, things like divorce shock and confuse your average pious Latter Day Saint.
No. A gentle older couple appeared at my door today… I in my jammies, the podling in her fuzzy robe… and proceeded to ‘welcome’ me to the ward. They were nice. So was I… aside from NOT inviting them in when the tacit hint of “boy, it sure is cold and wet out today” was fielded.
I wasn’t in the mood today. Normally, I can put up with the monthly visits from well-meaning church members who are told, and truly feel, that it is their duty to bring a ‘message’ to specified members… to fellowship and friendship them into coming to church. I can spend an hour or so a month on that. After all, it helps me remember a few things about myself, as well as about the church.
And I figure it’s good for them to spend some time with someone who, while appreciating the finer point of the gospel, has NOT swallowed the whole thing, hook, line and sinker… simply because somebody said that’s the way it is. It’s a scary thing when, spending a delightfully frozen evening trotting briskly around temple square in SLC to look at the pretty lights… a little girl sees the statue of Jesus and exlaims “JOSEPH!”… “Uh, no honey, that’s Jesus…”
As my escort said… that’s when the indoctrination and brainwashing begins. Already this child placed as much meaning upon the existence of Joseph Smith as she did on the existence of Jesus.
So… yeah, I don’t quite get THOSE people… the ones that insist that the sabbath should be kept holy, and commerce should not be done on Sunday, yet after church they all go out to brunch at the nearest diner/coffee shop.
It’s not the hypocrisy that bugs me. It’s that these fresh-faced, wide-eyed, cheerful folk truly SEE no hypocrisy in their behavior. It’s that they raise their children to be SO innocent that their naivete makes them stupid, and prone to bad decisions and the influence of bad people the instant they are outside the influence of their sheltered little world. Sometimes… even within their safe cocoon. I have no wish to be judgemental, but the Elizabeth Smart abduction may well be a case of a girl coerced into leaving her family home because she was unprepared for the influence of someone with such evil intentions. As well… it may have been easier than it should have been for that guy to have access to her.
I’m not saying it was the family’s fault, really. They believe so deeply and strongly in their faith. It probably never occurred to them that such a thing could possibly happen to such good people.
Yeah. We sinners are a lot more cynical about the good intentions of the guy that comes to weed the garden. He may well be a nice person. But he might not.
I’m rambling.
No, it wasn’t the sweet older couple that appeared at my door unnanounced (which, even if you AREN’T Mormon… is a VERY bad idea with me. I despise the unannounced visitor.)
I was grumpy before they showed up, which is why I did NOT invite them in from the cold and offer them a nice cup of tea. (A joke. That would have made their eyes bulge even more than when I explained that I moved into an apartment because I am separated from my daughter’s father and in the process of getting a divorce. The only thing that would have been worse than offering them a cup of tea – or coffee – would have been to crack open a beer and say “Ya want one?”)
I have things to look forward to. Podling wants to see The Magic Flute as it’s broadcast from New York at the Edwards Theatre this Saturday. She’s more excited at the prospect than I am… so by all means I intend to make it happen. Then she gets to have one of her friends over for a sleepover that night. That should be fun, too. I’ll get pizza, and soda, and let them stay up past midnight… Try and find a movie or three that 11 year olds are into… Girl time.
School starts again on the 3rd. For 6 days. Then quarter break for a week and a half. Not really looking forward to that, because there is at least one class in which I am dreadfully behind. Oh well. That’s still not the cause of my grumpies.
It probably has something more to do with the fact that there is a place I’d rather be than here… and I am prevented from it by my own split loyalties.
Story of my life… there’s doing the right thing… and doing the right thing for ME… and the twain so rarely meet, it seems.
Yes. Boo-hoo.
It’s just life.
Maybe I’m just cranky because I’ve been eating crap daily, for at least 2 weeks.
Perhaps I should visit the market and pick up some green things… that aren’t green because they’ve been in my fridge for a few months…
I have the girl through the New Year… and this year… no gig lined up for New Year’s Eve. I’m glad, because I’m not in the mood for it. I’m not so glad because I could surely use the money I could make from it.
So podling and I will sit up, watch whatever giddy nonsense about the New Year is on network TV, toast it in with some sparkling cider, and then fall asleep. I’d like to do something slightly more interesting with her, but haven’t come up with any ideas. Too cold out for midnight stargazing.
At least we’ll be together, and I can look into that dear, smiling face and see the sparkle in her eye.
I can only love people who have that sparkle in their eye when they look at me. I’m sure that’s some sort of horrible narcissistic behavior… but it’s true.
I’ve typed a lot, and still haven’t banished the cranky. And none of it even means anything, other than reminding myself of where I am and how I feel.
Haven’t decided if that’s a good or a bad thing.
January 3, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped with a knife at her throat. Mitchell threatened to kill her and her family-he told her he had followers watching her family’s every move, and there are cults in Utah. She was old enough to know about them. How could she not have believed that he could kill her family when he’d kidnapped her, repeatedly raped her, repeatedly threatened to kill her and her family, abused her sexually, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and possibly physically, as well as neglected her and had her shackled to a tree with a wire cable for 2 months? She was terrified. Not all fourteen-year-olds are mature for their age. But you are insulting her intelligence if you think she believed that he was “God’s Chosen” anything. No fourteen-year-old is THAT stupid. And while I agree that her parents were stupid about bringing strangers to their home, no one forced Mitchell to break into it and kidnap her. He had molested children before, back in the 1980′s, and he had decided in 2000 that he wanted seven child brides. If he had not met the Smarts, sooner or later he would have kidnapped someone else’s daughter. Then whose fault would it be? People should never put their kids at risk, but according to national statistics, most kids who are abducted are abducted by people they know, not strangers. Mitchell was a stranger who’d worked at the Smart’s home for 3 hours ONE day. What do you do when you think you know your neighbors and best friends and then you find out they’re child molesters? That’s most often the case when children are molested.
January 5, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
Whoa.
Who the fuck are you? Get out of my blog. I don’t know you. This isn’t for people I don’t know and haven’t met. I don’t like strangers. You may leave now. Or be polite and introduce yourself cordially. It’s rude to leap into the personal emotional ramblings of a cranky person with a headache that you don’t even know. Cultivate some manners.
You don’t even have a real blog. Did you create a profile just to get pissy with me? You have absolutely no information about me, who am I, or how I think. You are not qualified to comment on my personal thoughts and ramblings.
And nowhere did I say Elizabeth Smart isn’t an intelligent person. She was clearly very smart, and recognized her opportunity to end the nightmare when it presented itself. That means she’s intelligent AND brave. Nowhere did I play down the nature of the asshole that kidnapped her. You will note I said I am NOT blaming her family. Or her. No question that blame for the crime lays squarely in THAT guy’s fevered, fucked up brain. It is my personal conviction he should be killed.
But have you ever been to Salt Lake City? Do you live there maybe? Do you know that to many people it’s like some weird Stepford land where children walk down the street on the way home and are told by neighbors they’re going to hell because they aren’t Mormon? This actually happens. Do you know that sweet little Mormon girls there are taught all about chastity and being a virgin when they’re married… so many of them, being naive or just not taught to think for themselves (or logically), engage in anal sex instead, because they honestly BELIEVE it’s ok, because they’re following the exact letter of what they’re taught. They have no understanding of the true spirit and meaning of the standards they’re supposed to uphold. They just do it because they’re told. And they get surprised when the evil world slaps them in the face, AND they have no frame of reference to help them deal with people who aren’t part of their happy little Utopia.
It’s a weird place. I’m not saying every Mormon is a weirdo. I have known many intelligent, normal, extremely successful, personable people who are Mormon. My speculation has dealt more with the fact that many Mormons are the way they are simply because somebody told them that’s the way they should be, and they’ve never TRULY thought it through. And they pay lip service to beliefs they’re told they should have, then blatantly defy them, and smile all the while, with their firm handshakes and their jaunty, cheery, upbeat attitudes, knowing they are SO much better than everyone else.
My disdain isn’t isn’t reserved just for hypocrite Mormons. You see them in every religion.
Additionally, there is not a person on this earth who has the right to tell ME anything about children being molested, or how at risk children are every hour of the day no matter who they’re with. You’ve got some balls, pulling that stunt.