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Thank you, home teacher

Friday, September 29th, 2006

So I have the hardest time going to sleep at night.  I get to sleep around 2 or 3 AM, which means I only get five or six hours of before I’m up and going to work.  That may seem like a lot to some of you vampires, but it’s insufficient for me.

I have to come up with tricks to stay awake at work.  Most of the world has discovered this fabulous invention called “coffee”, but I’m not allowed to use it because of my religion.  On the other hand, there’s no explicit rule against hot chocolate, so I was a junkee of that stuff for a while.  Alas, you can only drink so much and still have it be convenient, as your bladder’s needs start to overwhelm your need to remain conscious.

I’ve tried M&Ms too.  I can fall asleep in the midst of all sorts of activities: sitting up, reading, listening to music, watching TV…even typing, standing up, or walking…but I can’t seem to fall asleep while I’m chewing.  So if I only eat one M&M at a time, a bag will last me like an hour or two.

However, there are 8 hours in a day, and I don’t want to eat 4 to 8 bags of M&Ms.  Have to keep my girlish figure.

So I’ve started listening to online radio.  Listening to music is prone to knock you out faster than listening to nothing, so the channels I tend to use are comedy themed.  The first day I listened to eight hours of stand up comedy, I came home and was twice as funny as I usually am.  Unfortunately, it wore off and now I’m boring again.  Also, I think I’ve heard Eddie Murphy’s Raw like 30 times now, and I’m starting to use the F-word more than all other words put together.  So whereas it kept me awake for a time, it’s both failing to be new and interesting, and having detrimental side-effects.

So on Sunday my “home teacher” dropped by for a visit.  For those of you not in the know, I’m Mormon (or more correctly, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).  Every male who keeps the rules is given the job of home teacher.  As a home teacher, he is assigned a couple of people or families that he is to visit every month, bringing them a short spiritual message, and offering them any help that he can provide.

Now, home teachers generally get assinged in pairs, so each one has a “home teaching companion”.  On this particular Sunday, my home teacher went stag.  What’s more, I thought he seemed a little anxious to get through his message quickly.  On the other hand, he brought some awesome banana spice bread (or some such baked goodie), so I give him an A+.

He also gave us a suggestion (us is my roommate and I).  He suggested that we tape speeches given by leaders of our church (or commit them to mp3, anyway), and listen to them during our drive to work.  Now, I don’t particularly drive to work (bicycle), but I do sit at work for eight hours a day doing horribly repetitive, moderately mindless data-entry-esque labor.  So the last couple of days I’ve been listening to religious sermons.

Well…you may have your issues with organized religion, and you may think it causes closed-mindedness and to a certain degree, fanatacism.  I kinda agree.  On the other hand, I’m a whole lot nicer after two days of being told that God loves me, there is a point to life, and that it’s worth it to keep trying.  Conclusion: thanks home teacher and church leader people for getting me listening to this stuff.  Read more...

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Family Home Evening

Monday, September 18th, 2006

So I’m Mormon.  We seem to be a bit of a hermit as a culture.  We often  only associate with other Mormons.  This may be especially true for single Mormons who want to get married, as you’re not supposed to marry “outside the faith.”  Even if you just want to go out on dates, you’re not supposed to do that outside the faith, since you might fall for someone and then marry outside.  By the way, that may all seem nutty and dogmatic and closed-minded, but there’s a rhyme to the reason.  If you’re interested to know the whys and wherefores, feel free to e-mail me.

In any case, I was at an activity tonight with about 200 other single adult members of the church.  It’s called “Family Home Evening.’  It usually happens every Monday night in someone’s house and only involves their immediate family.  For singles, though, who have yet to produce an immediate family, there are larger gatherings at the local church building, usually in a basketball gym/theater that is referred to as a “cultural hall.’

Tonight for Family Home Evening we had an open-mic night, which translated into layman’s terms is “singer-songwriter slow-moving love ballad night, with one poem and two white guys beat-boxing”.  It wasn’t so bad, really, although I don’t know how singer-songwriters manage to get anywhere, given that their music tends to be so un-percussive and generally bland.

The thing that bugged me about tonight is that looking around the room, I was struck that I’m never going to stop being a single Mormon.  Well…I suppose I could stop being Mormon first, and then perhaps I would be able to stop being single.  If I maintain the Mormon-ness, though, I don’t know how I’ll ever meet someone I’ll actually WANT to marry.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t lots of beautiful girls, and lots of girls who are attractive in more ways than just beauty.  There might even be a girl or two for whom I could fall.  I just don’t think any of them will ever want my strange butt.  I often think of myself as a social retard.  I just seem to put people off.  I don’t try to.  I guess I’ve just never learned how to make them happy to be around me, so instead I make them uncomfortable.

So…alas.  What’s a boy to do?  Well…if he’s Mormon and making some attempt to follow the rules, he’s going to be a virgin for the rest of his life.  That’s what he’s going to do.  Yuck.

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