Don't know if I've said this before but...

I love The Good Men Project. A lot. In fact, I'm surprised that more of this isn't just links to their articles.

Here's a great one. If nothing else, I'll just drop it here so that I can reread it later.

http://goodmenproject.com/sex-relationships/10-ways-to-deal-with-your-partners-sexual-past-because-you-have-to/

I should definitely be sleeping

What is this mysterious sleep schedule of which you speak? I know of no such thing...

What's keeping me up:

- Emma Watson's absolutely brilliant UN address announcing the HeForShe campaign. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, you should check it out before reading whatever nonsense I'm about to ramble off: http://youtu.be/-yopcw45WMw

- Metacognition (and thinking about metacognition, which is an Inception-esque rabbit hole in and of itself)

- I don't know if I believe in a capitol-T "The One" but rather maybe multiple "ones" corresponding with different points in life - each with their own inherent likelihood of producing varying degrees of lasting happiness/contentment. I don't know how my history of "ones" breaks down on the spectrum of just-befriended to broke-up-with to give-it-time, but I'm grateful for extenuating circumstances putting me places and what I've learned from all of the relationships of which I've been a part: platonic, failed, or otherwise... And maybe this would make more sense if it wasn't 6 in the morning, but if you're reading this then you already should have read the stream-of-consciousness warning :)

- And finally, I really have no idea how dating works in LDS culture - ESPECIALLY Provo culture (not that I have any interest in conforming to that particular batch of norms). Out of all the girls I've dated, none have ever been LDS... Some sort of mix between never really having any LDS people around to date once I started dating & not being the kind of person an LDS girl would probably want to date for a while. Either way, it's particularly odd in Provo because there seems to be all this stress of only dating someone to whom you will (or at least very likely could) end up engaged. Not that I'm a fan of break ups or that I haven't already had enough of them... Maybe I'll just draw this out at some point.

I kinda lost track of that particular cognitive train, but I guess the cliffnotes version is as follows: I'd be totally cool with the next person I date being the (lowercase) one beside whom I tiptoe into eternity, but I'd like the relationship to be free of all the pressure of Provo's dating pipeline subculture.

And now that I'm hopefully going to sleep soon, here's something completely different! This picture encapsulates how I feel the entire #NotAllMen reaction to the #YesAllWomen thing a little while back. It's funnier if you've seen Game of Thrones (and if you haven't I'd love to watch it with you and have long, intellectual conversations about the societal correlations & non-traditional means of character development). Stay nerdy, my friends.

What I learned today: Beethoven was black.

Or at least mixed...

http://uncle-baconface.tumblr.com/post/97202338422/im-confused-about-what-beethoven-was-doing-in-the

Thank you, Tumblr, for helping me learn things and for providing another example in an already long list of history being whitewashed.

I would just post the comments but, alas, I don't know how. Sorry.

September 11... A little differently

The United States was attacked 13 years ago. We learned that not everyone likes us, that our government agencies fail at communicating with each other, and that mortality is fleeting. 

However, apparently we did not learn that there are consequences for our own terrorist, subversive, and destabilizing actions in the Middle East for the nearly 50 years leading up to 9/11. We did not learn that destroying a democracy we don't like makes it difficult to use "establishing democracy" as a valid excuse to expand military action beyond those responsible for 9/11. And we did not learn the big lesson from the aftermath of WWI: that love, compassion, and help will prevent future violence better than violence, intimidation, and fear.

What happened that morning was tragic. Thousands lost their lives in the space of a few hours. Looking back at the journal entry I wrote as a middle school kid, there was a lot of anger and fear - even though I was just a kid. But with a more global (and still ridiculously limited) perspective, I can't imagine how kids in the Middle East must have been feeling when some white people from across the world spent 48 years inciting rebellion, arming/training terrorists to fight for them, using world-ending weapons as threats, being abandoned, and then being condemned for not having stable governments . How like an abusive father we must have seemed to them - sometimes showing up to wail on them, sometimes their friends/neighbors, sometimes the central location for their entire religion... How hopeless, how terrifying, how entirely powerless would that make me feel? How eager would I be to listen to someone who said they could make me feel safe again? If I thought that there was even a slight chance that my children would grow up in a world free from what I had seen growing up...

What happened that morning 13 years ago was wrong and unconscionable... But even though I disagree with the use of violence in almost any imaginable scenario, I can at least understand what those responsible might have been thinking/feeling. I guess what I'm trying to say now that the years have calmed the initial sea of grief and anger is that instead of saying "we're coming for you", I wish we would have learned how to say "we're sorry".

An open letter

To the man who jokingly said "I don't see how anyone can be a Christian and a Democrat":

Allow me to first say that I agree with you, but not in the way that you think.

See, at the end of the day a Democrat and Republican are not all that different.

They bicker and argue, one side saying we're right & they're wrong.

The other saying everyone is right, unless they disagree with us.

And either way, they are both capitalists profiting off of the common man being stirred up in anger against his fellow man.

I don't think the Jesus in whom I believe would be either of those.

But if the Savior of the World were forced into one of these broken, corrupted organizations let's see if we can figure out where he'd be...

1) Jesus was Middle Eastern, not white. So there's that...

2) He spoke against slut-shaming, insisting that only the sinless could cast stones and commanding that we, with our limited circumstantial understanding, "judge not lest we be judged".

3) He provided miraculously efficient health care at no cost whatsoever to those in need regardless of their social standing.

4) Despite having access to more than enough heavenly firepower to do so, when confronted with violence he turned the other cheek instead of standing His ground.

5) He said that everyone should pay taxes, with no mention of exceptions for tax havens, offshore banking, or ranching in Nevada.

6) The Christ in whom I believe commanded us to love others as ourselves; not just the straight, white, heterosexual, cisgender, property-owning, educated, married males.

7) He commanded the rich man to give EVERYTHING he had to the poor, and may have been homeless Himself.

8) Christ encouraged women to take ownership of their own spirituality and spent one of His last breaths tending to the financial/social security of His mother.

9) Some of the most powerful, important experiences of His life happened out in nature... and didn't destroy any of it in the process.

10) His only act of aggression was flipping a table and clearing merchants from the temple: this act was non-lethal, did not cause any recorded harm, and amounts to pushing a door-to-door salesman outside after he forced himself into your home.

So to sum it all up, he was a socialist and a pacifist who supported universal healthcare, the distribution of wealth, and human rights.

But none of those things matter. Both major political parties amongst the Jews at the time fought against Him, and I don't see how the Democrats or Republicans are all that different from the Pharisees and Sadducees. So you're right, I don't think Jesus would consider himself a Democrat; but that doesn't make your position as a Republican any less precarious.