Self-Portrait as

Remember when i wrote about how your average hardcore Mormon has a shitty spiritual immune system? Well, here's proof: a letter to Ask Mormon Girl from a poor guy whose family FREAKED OUT when he drank a cup of coffee:

Recently, while traveling with my brother I was waiting for a very early morning flight. I stopped to get breakfast and without thinking bought coffee. My brother was deeply offended. Several days later, my parents called requesting that I do not drink coffee in front of them because of its offensive nature.

Seriously: can you imagine someone being that upset by a simple cup of coffee? It beggars belief, which is why people try to insist that Mormons aren't really that fragile. Thank the FSM that some aren't. But unfortunately, too many others are.

The Q&A was also posted at Mormon Matters, where it provoked a variety of responses. While most commenters agreed that the parents had over-reacted and were out of line, several defended the parents' mindset and tried to justify it, pointing out, for instance, that when you're a visitor, you might refrain from activities that make your hosts uncomfortable.

OK, sure: we all moderate our behavior in others' homes. But the guy ordered a cup of coffee in a freakin' airport, and his family took offense. He didn't snort cocaine of his parents' dining table; he ordered a cup of coffee in a freakin' airport.

And one guy talked about how he tells his friends, when they apologize in their own homes for drinking, that there's no need to apologize.

I liked what a subsequent commenter had to say in response: "the fact that this friend would feel that he OUGHT to apologize to a guest for doing just as he pleases in his own home, tells you a lot about how judgmental and disapproving Mormons are often perceived as--and in fact really are."

Mormons really have a lot of work to do to make themselves less offensive to the rest of the world. And developing stronger spiritual immune systems would really, really help.

I was recently subjected to a feeble and mildly irritating insult from someone wearing too much makeup, a silly hat and an EFY t-shirt. It took little time to shrug off the attempted insult, but I did have to struggle to figure out what on earth EFY stands for.

Then it hit me: Everybody Fuck Yourself.

But no: that's only what it SHOULD stand for, or, God willing, what it WILL stand for in the future, most of the time. Currently, its main association is with BYU's Especially For Youth program. Which I think is what the t-shirt wearer was involved with.

But as a bit of internet slang, EFY has a lot of potential. Just lost a flame war? Bow out with the parting shot EFY. Thinking everyone you're talking to is a stupid douchebag who should, well, fuck themselves? Just write EFY and they'll get the message.

I encourage you to find uses of your own for this vibrant, useful and exciting acronym.

TTFN! (Yeah, I'm old school. I prefer that to TTYL.)

The worst illness I've had in years coincided with my mother's death. Travel arrangements were complicated by the fact that I was too sick to fly after I went to meet my mother's doctor at the Mayo Clinic, which actually worked for the best since it meant I couldn't leave my parents' house when I'd planned and instead was there when my mother collapsed and entered the final phase of her illness.

But it still really sucked to have a head so full of phlegm that I couldn't get on a plane without my eardrum bursting. I had a chest infection, an eye infection, and both a middle and inner ear infection. God, it was AWFUL, though admittedly not as bad as liver failure.

I finally resorted to antibiotics to clear it all up, which I don't like doing because I'm allergic to a lot of them. I also tried every home remedy I'd ever used successfully in the past. My favorite was hot water with lots of lemon, ginger and honey. It's not surprising that I would like that, since I love ginger beer, which is basically the same thing except served carbonated and cold.

I almost bought a four-pack of Reed's Ginger Beer the other day at the grocery store. It's been so hot, and a cold, crisp ginger ale is really refreshing.... but Reed's is a bit pricey and I'm trying to economize. Then it occurred to me to me to wonder: could I make my own?

So here's what I did:

Check it out:

The water at the northwest corner of the Great Salt Lake is pink. It's PINK. According to the Wikipedia entry on the Spiral Jetty, the color of the water "is due the presence of salt-tolerant bacteria and algae that thrive in the extreme 27 percent salinity of the lake's north arm, which was isolated from fresh water sources by the building of a causeway by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1959."

The reason I discovered this is of course that I visited the Spiral Jetty, which I've wanted to do since I moved to Utah. In case you haven't heard of the Spiral Jetty, it's a sculpture constructed in 1970 by American sculptor Robert Smithson. It's hard to describe why this counter-clockwise spiral of rock jutting into a lakebed is so magic, but it is. It just is. Even with no water lapping at the rocks, it's magic. I was going to offer a feeble but inadequate account of why it's magic, but then I decided I'd just offer some photos instead--I'd let this be one of the times when a picture stands in for 1,000 words.

At Sunstone (which was amazing! The best symposium EVER!) I got into a discussion about whether the leaders of the Mormon church were wielders of power or servants. The model at the Community of Christ are that the people who hold leadership positions are supposed to serve through those positions. They minister. They're not just authority figures.

The argument was then made that the same is true of the leaders of the COJCOLDS.

But it's not true.

What's the name for the men in the positions of power in the church? They're general AUTHORITIES. I'll believe they're servants when they change their names to general SERVANTS.

They don't serve. They authorize. They impose policy. They are the prime shapers and beneficiaries of the power structure, and WE are THEIR servants. And that's the way they want it.

I am so damn sick of the unbearable fragility of Mormons. EVERYTHING THREATENS THEM. Just off the top of my head, I've come up with a substantial list of commonplace stuff that threatens your average hardcore Mormon, at least until they get a decent exposure to it:

• gay marriage
• actual gay people
• the f word
• profanity in general
• the phrase "Oh my god!"
• R-rated movies
• porn
• sex before marriage
• dating before you're 16
• getting married anywhere but in the temple
• the Equal Rights Amendment
• uppity women
• the idea that global warming might actually be real
• single-payer healthcare
• people who choose not to reproduce
• the existence of atheists
• dildos and other sex toys
• explicit depictions of sex, whether on the page, stage or screen
• face cards (not so much any more, thank the powers that be. But when I was young, it was SO EVIL to play with face cards, though the same game could be completely innocent if you played it with rook or uno cards)
• tarot cards
• Sunstone magazine
• bikinis
• Coca-cola
• alcohol
• coffee
• Starbucks cups (I know, it's crazy, but it's true: I've seen Mormons get upset that someone dared to enter their home with a cup from Starbucks. Hey, it could be a hot chocolate, you know? But it's that "avoid the very appearance of evil" thing)
• the very appearance of evil, which means not only something like simply walking into a bar oneself, but the dress and personal grooming of others,including
• exposed female shoulders, midriffs, or thighs
• sandals on men
• jewelry on men
• long hair on men
• brightly colored shirts on men
• multiple earrings on women
• tattoos

the list goes on and on. But most threatening of all is

I shouldn't be blogging right now--I have a million things to do, and at the top of the list is "Finish three papers for Sunstone," the first of which I have to deliver in twelve days. But something is really occupying my mind right now, and I have to address it while it's an issue.

I wrote about Mormonism for a Mormon audience for a long time--like, two decades. And the non-mo forums I published in were mostly literary magazines, because that's where people with MFA's in creative writing and PhD's in English lit are supposed to get printed to have a respectable cv and get academic jobs. OK, it's respectable, but it means that your stuff gets read by, like, four people.

Last year I started thinking, "I want to get PAID for my writing, at least a little bit, and I want to write for bigger audiences." So I started trying for bigger venues. Since then, my writings on Mormonism have appeared in the New York Times, Bitch, Religion Dispatches, and the Huffington Post.

I'm not awake enough to think of a title that is anything but descriptive. I am, however, awake enough to enjoy this video. I found it utterly charming. it made me want not just a cat but an engineer.

Four years ago I posted a link to this great video from John Safran, about how annoyed he is when the Mormons bash on his door before noon at a Saturday, 'cause he might have been out dancing to "Yaz and the Plastic Population" the night before. It was a great video, and I laughed really hard, especially when he got on a plane and came to Salt Lake City so he could go proselytizing with a copy of Origin of Species. But apparently it violated some copyright, so Youtube took it down. Mercifully, however, someone just posted a link to another video site on my facebook page, so I can post a new link too! But just in case this is a rogue uploading as well, you better watch it FAST.

Check it out! SLC is #7 in a list of North America's most bohemian cities.

In honor of SLC's boho cred, I'm posting a link to my favorite Dandy Warhols' song, "Bohemian Like You." Warning: NSFW.