kinfolk

I saw this video for Kinfolk Magazine on frolic! and absolutely loved it.


Kinfolk from VsTheBrain on Vimeo.

I visited Kinfolk's website and read their manifesto, which I also loved:

Kinfolk is a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings.  We recognize that there is something about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year holiday extravaganza, that anchors our relationships and energizes us.  We have come together to create Kinfolk as our collaborative way of advocating the natural approach to entertaining that we love.

Every element of Kinfolk - the features, photography, and general aesthetics - are consistent with the way we feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and less contrived.  Kinfolk is the marriage of our appreciation for art and design and our love for spending time with family and friends.

I love it!

nuclear fallout? meh...

If I am ripped from my sleep in the middle of the night, I tend to immediately assume the worst.  There was the time that my doorbell rang at like 1:00 AM and I looked through my peep hole and saw a box on the doorstep.  I was afraid to open it because I was convinced it was a bomb and someone was trying to kill me.  It turned out to be a box full of presents and candy from someone at church trying to be nice.  Next time, maybe try leaving the present and ringing my doorbell during waking hours. 

Last night my sleep was cut abruptly short by the loudest and longest clap of thunder I've ever heard.  It was so long and loud (and we hardly ever get thunderstorms in the northwest) that I was convinced that something had exploded.  I looked out all my windows trying to find the flames that would inevitably be lighting up the night sky.  I saw nothing, so I decided put on some clothes and go outside to find out what blew up. 

Before I made it back to my bedroom to dress myself, I heard falling rain.  I concluded that I had only heard thunder and crawled back in bed and listened to the falling rain through my open bedroom window as I tried to go back to sleep. 

That lasted for about a minute and then it occurred to me that I had looked at the weather before going to bed and there was nothing but sunshine in the forecast.  That's when it became abundantly clear that I wasn't hearing rain.  The only logical explanation was that a nuclear bomb had exploded nearby and I was hearing fallout from the explosion raining down.  The thought occurred to me that I should get up and shut my bedroom window to protect myself from the fallout, but I fell asleep before I got around to doing it.

honesty with strangers (or coming out at church)

Last Friday, John G-W posted about an experience he had while visiting the North Visitor Center at Temple Square in SLC.  I ended up having a somewhat similar experience at church on Sunday.  I think I've mentioned here before that up until February, I had been attending a singles ward (congregation).  Most people there knew I was gay.  I didn't necessarily go around making sure everyone knew, but anyone who knew me very well at all knew, and then word spreads from there. 

Anyway, I started attending a family ward in February and a few people know I'm gay, but most people don't.  There is a guy in that ward who is probably somewhere around my age (early 30's) and is married and has some kids.  I see him at church and we must also be on the same grocery shopping schedule, because it seems like the past few weeks, whenever I'm there, I seem him there.  We'll smile and say hi, but have never spoken to each other until yesterday. 

He approached me after sacrament meeting and introduced himself and then started to tell me about a girl who he wanted to set me up with.  I listened while he told me about her and thought about how to handle this conversation.  There's the option of saying something vague and no thank you and safely walking away from the conversation.  He kind of forced me into another option.  Here's how the conversation went:

"Thank you, but I'm not dating right now" (which technically isn't true, but I figured that as far as his conception of dating goes, I'm not dating.)

"Can I help you put a stop to that?" (At this point, I realized that I was going to tell him I was gay.  I hesitated for a few seconds)

"Probably not, I'm actually gay."  (He actually did a fairly decent job of masking his surprise.)

"That doesn't mean you can't date girls!"  (I was actually kind of surprised by his tenacity.)

"Oh, I've already tried going that route and it didn't work out very well for me."

He said that she and I could just be friends and that if I ever changed my mind and wanted a friend to hang out with to let him know.  I thanked him for thinking of me and we both said "nice to meet you" and went our separate ways.  

far between

Things are moving along with the documentary.  Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote a fantastic article for the Salt Lake Tribune on the project and this short promo for the film was also released.



If you haven't already, go to the Far Between page on Facebook and "like" it so you can receive updates on the progress of the film.

You can also listen to this interview with Kendall by John Dehlin at Mormon Stories.