Dried Mangoes for Everyone?

Ok, first check out this post. It’s a pretty quick read. Brave, right? Now, if you’d like, check out this post. I can give you the basic details if you want, because the second post is kind of long and what I want to point out is at the end of the post. Basically, this guy taught Sunday School at his regional YSA conference in Seattle and the lesson was on apostasy. Towards the end of his lesson he brought up the fact that he is gay and talked about coming to terms with that when he was 19 and I think somehow weaved it into the lesson.

I read the first post a while ago, and when I first read it, my immediate reaction was that this guy is crazy. As I read his bullet points explaining why he did what he did though, it made much more sense. There are reasons to be open and comfortable about my situation. Good reasons.

I’ve thought about how open I’ve progressively become in the last year or two and the wonderful things it’s done for me. I feel like a much more whole and connected person. There’s not the compartmentalizing that was going on before. (This person knows and so I can act like this in front of him but that other person doesn’t so I have to act differently for him.) I was always very cognizant of who knew and who didn’t know and being aware of that definitely mattered.

Now it’s gotten to the point that it’s impossible to keep track of who knows and who doesn’t know and more importantly….it just doesn’t matter. I no longer keep track and therefore no longer try to tailor who I am to whomever I am with. I just am. I act instead of react. I feel whole.

Another side effect of being more open is that I am becoming increasingly more comfortable telling people. I’m finding people don’t care as much as I thought they would. I should state however, that I am in a young single adult ward in a fairly liberal city. My experience would probably be different if I went through the same process in a family ward in Boise, ID. Not that there’s anything wrong with family wards in Boise, ID.

ANYWAY, I talk about all of the above because I have been asked to teach the priesthood lesson at our multi-regional YSA conference in July. Before yesterday I would probably never have even considered admitting to being gay in a setting like a testimony meeting or in a class at church. I’m 90% sure I still wouldn’t, but yesterday and today I’ve been thinking, what if I’m teaching the lesson and it would fit perfectly into the lesson and even help enhance the message. What if the Spirit asks me to go there? Would I go there? Maybe…

Crack and IKEA

Last night I helped my friends BC and NC pack up their Penske moving truck to make their move across the country to upstate NY. As a gift, BC gave me the pictured IKEA chair that he didn’t want to take with him. Mine has darker wood though. After we loaded up the truck, I took the chair down to see if I could fit it into my car. I couldn’t. So I proceeded to dismantle the chair a little so that it would fit. BC lives (or I guess now lived :( ) in Chinatown. If you are familiar at all with Portland, you’ll know that Chinatown is not the best part of town. It’s kind of sketchy.

So there I was, dismantling an IKEA chair at 11:30 at night in khaki’s and a white polo in Chinatown. As I was working, I noticed a guy come out from BC’s building in shorts and flip flops just kind of casually hanging out on the sidewalk. Another guy approached him and there was an exchange of brown paper bags. They were probably no more than 30 feet from me. I realized that I was witnessing my first drug deal up close and personal. At some point a lady joined the two and I’m not sure what her role was. Maybe a prostitute thrown in for frequent flyers? Not sure. When the deal was done and the dealer walked past me, he asked, “What’s wrong, did you break that chair?” I just smiled and said no.

Perhaps the best part of this story is that several months ago, maybe even a year, I witnessed a man defecating on a garage door in the exact same spot. As I write this, I have two thoughts. One, if the Portland Chamber of Commerce stumbles upon my blog, they will for sure be contacting me to do some promotional/travel/PR work for the city. Two, if I ever run out of things to blog about, I’ll just park my car on Everett between SW 4th and 5th and just wait for the magic to happen.

On Coming Out Organically

There are now about a half dozen people who I have told about my blog. This morning I realized that I am coming out with my blog in much the same way I’ve been going through the process of coming out about being gay (or whatever language you prefer). Doing it wholesale seems weird. I’m finding I prefer a much more gradual, organic approach. One by one. As it comes up in conversation. Sending out a mass email declaring, “Look at me!!” isn’t really my style. Just like making some grand, wholesale declaration of homosexuality isn’t either. And even then, it’s not like you can make the grand declaration and be done. You will continue to meet people who won’t know. I wonder if that’s part of the reason that some people seem to become gayer after coming out, so as to avoid having to keep telling people. Just let them know right up front with a full on gay assault.

Anyway, as I was saying, I much prefer a more organic approach. I tell friends as it comes up in conversation. There have been some friends that I’ve gone out of my way to tell, but those were friends who I wanted to hear the news from me. (That sentence structure seems weird, but I’m not sure how to word it.) I do it this way because it feels honest to me. I’m not trying to hide anything, but I also feel like its just one part of me and not the first thing people need to know about me. Plus, I like to let people get to know and like me and THEN tell them. Then they are trapped. They already know that they like me, so it’s not like they can just write me off as a crazy homosexual. They have to do some reconciling in their heads. That might sound a little bit manipulative, but I don’t think it is. It’s honest for me. As I said, it’s not the first thing people need to know about me, but if it comes up, I’ll toss it out there for them to chew on. Like delicious dried organic mangos. Mmmmm.

Bling Dental

So on Friday I went to the grand opening of a dental clinic. Sounds boring, right? Wrong! It's the dental clinic of another momo (I don't like moho, not sure why). Anyway, the name of the clinic is Bling Dental and it's decorated like retro 60's industrial chic. Everything was either white or silver. It was the most beautiful dental office I've ever been in. I didn't try them out, but I was told that the chairs were massage chairs. Anyway, they had sushi and wine and drag queens and tooth-shaped ice sculptures. It was completely and ridiculously over the top. I felt a little out of place, but I won a sonicare toothbrush, so I was pleased. Yes, Matt, I copied and pasted this from the email I sent you. :)

Question

I wonder how many people woke up this morning and wondered what the eff is wrong with their TV.

The blogger formerly known as Brandy

I'm no longer blogging under the pen name of Brandy. I recently posted a comment on another person's blog for the first time with this account. I saw that it posted my name as Brandy and I was immediately weirded out by it. So I'll go by Jon. No offense Brandy. I think you're great.

Homemade Lingerie

This is the picture from an article in the August 1971 edition of the Ensign (pronounced en-ZYNE). The title of the article is “Lingerie: Feminine and Modest”. I’d copy and paste the text as well but the basic gist of the article is that you can make your own lingerie at home that is, you guessed it, both feminine AND modest. I’m sorry, but THAT’s a night gown. Not lingerie. The fact that this is an article in the Ensign is creepy. Then add that it was written by a woman who, at the time, was a member of the General Relief Society Board and it gets creepier. Don’t worry, there’s more. The girl in the picture has the same last name as the author of the article and is quite possibly her daughter??? This comes to me from my friend Mo. Here suggestion for the caption under the picture: I am smiling at this flower while I think about my homemade lingerie and [whispered:] sex.

Here's a link to the actual article, lest you think this is some kind of joke.

I'm hemorrhaging BFF's

Last summer I lost two BFF's. My friend GB, who I met at church and who helped me get through Wednesday nights graduated and took a job in Seoul teaching Korean children to speak English through the arts. A job he was made for. He went to Seoul to join my two other friends KD and KH, who were already there doing the same thing. KD iniated this migration to Seoul, so the bleeding is partly her fault. Then my sister moved with her husband and child to Hong Kong within the same month as GB.

KD returned from Seoul for a brief stay in Portland, but she is moving to the District. Of Columbia, not red light. She leaves in the next month. BC is is also leaving for the east coast, but he's going to upstate NY. There's too much history to go into there, but in the 2 years I've known him we've been through a lot and learned a great deal from each other.

This post is probably very uninteresting to anyone but me. So just keep on walking. Don't call 911 or worry about me. I'll just lie here and bleed.

Not Without My Haircut

I got my hair cut over the weekend. The lady who normally cuts it had to leave the country. She went to Iran to try and get her ex husband to sell their house so that she could get her share of the money and come back to America. This is real and not the plot of the sequel to Not Without My Daughter. Although, I might be able to talk Roya into helping me turn her experience into a screenplay. We might even be able to get Sally Field to reprise her role as Betty Mahmoody. I’ll keep you updated on how that goes. In the meantime, however, Roya set me up with another lady at her salon. This lady cut my hair on Saturday and I’m pretty sure she has never given a man a haircut in her life. She used electric clippers for the whole thing and didn’t even really use scissors to even it out. It’s the worst haircut I’ve ever gotten. I was so sad when I got home and tried to do something with it. When I was still at the salon, I was still hopeful that it looked weird just because there was no product in it and the lady didn’t really style it. Nope. It really is a bad haircut. Next time, I think my salon substitute is the one that needs to make a trip to Iran. With Alfred Molina. Reprising his role as Sayyed Mahmoody.