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Raised on Lies and Magic

I bought some shoes from a drug dealer. I don’t know what he laced them with, but I’ve been tripping all day! Hello my pretties! I'm contemplating how being raised Mormon is still affecting how I interact with the world.  At eight years old I was taught a formulaic prayer to cast out evil spirits. One time when my dad came home and found four of us kids angry and fighting, he had us kneel in a circle and we each took turns praying that exorcist prayer until we felt the spirit of anger leave our home.  I don't know how old I was when I heard the story of the three Nephites who in 32 BC asked Jesus for the blessing to live forever so they could spend a millennia spreading the gospel. Subsequently, I heard lots of stories in church from people swearing that some stranger approached them to give them exactly what they were looking for and they just knew that person was one of the three Nephites.  There was also the idea that if I prayed with a pure heart with real intent God ...
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Youth is beautiful! Why don't the young know this?

I asked the gym instructor if he could teach me to do the splits. He replied, “How flexible are you?” I said, “I can’t make it on Tuesdays.” Hello my pretties! I am not so young anymore and the rule is: if you are older than thirty, you should get off the internet, or at least don't hang out in young spaces and taint all the young people with your oldness, especially if you are commenting and stating how old you are to a bunch of young people. That is basically like spreading cooties on the playground.  Well, I'm about to be the playground cooties spreader.  I'm not so young anymore (I won't state my age, but let's just say I could by my kid's grandmother.) And as I get older I'm noticing changes: my skin is not beautiful anymore. Which is weird, because I never thought my skin was beautiful, but now that it's gone, it was beautiful. My never muscular body has lost all of its muscle definition. I get rashes all the time (is that an age thing? It feels li...
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Raise a glass to the sociopath!

When I was at the gym yesterday, everyone kept asking why I was sitting still on the stationary bike. I’m going downhill dude, mind your own business.  Hello my pretties! I'm a little distracted today. I haven't kept up my blogging routine, which is funny because I've been home more. One thing I love about my job is they close for all the bad weather, so I don't work nearly as much as I could. That was part of my reasoning when I chose it. I haven't been to work for six days, it's like a vacation. I get to sleep in and write all day. Except that I have barely slept in and I haven't been writing. Maybe it's time for coffee.  Yesterday I watched a fascinating video about sociopaths and how they work. The video was just a woman talking, let's call her Janice. Janice was a diagnosed sociopath and also a licensed clinical psychologist, so she had a unique perspective on the condition.  I think there is a lot of fear in our society around sociopaths becaus...
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Two Roads Diverged in a Wood

Two fish are in a tank. One looks to the other and says, “Do you know how to drive this thing?” Hello my pretties! This morning I thought about my old friend, Angie.  Angie was my best friend from middle school and into college. I went on family trips with her. I knew her grandma and cousins. I cried when I read about her dad's death on Facebook. But Angie was never Mormon, which didn't bother me in middle school but by college when I doubled down on Mormonism, her lack of membership got in the way of our friendship. We probably would have drifted apart sooner or later, even if I wasn't a superior Mormon, but I wish I had been different.  This morning when I thought about her, I realized that I think about her every day, at least I have for the past few years and there are so many people in my life who were important to me and now, despite thinking about them regularly, I barely talk to them. And that makes me sad, but it's also kind of nice thinking of all the people I...
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Hugs and emails. It's hot cocoa time.

I will now be signing all emails with this disclaimer:  On average it takes me two days to overthink the best response to your email. You can be assured that I will reply to you in my head and forget to send you an actual reply. In the future, please save us both the stress on our mental health and avoid sending me any emails. Hello my pretties! On Sunday I received an email that caused me a lot of emotional turmoil. I spent the next few days working on my response. I cried, I got angry, I wanted to ignore it, I wanted to slam out a response and send it.  What I've done is write and edit and edit and edit some more. Today I thought I was ready to send it off, but instead of sending it to my mom (who is the final recipient) I sent it to my brother for feedback.   I have lots of issues with my mom. I haven't been able to talk to her for years now. I didn't really decide this, it just happened because whenever I thought about talking to her I got panic attacks. So on Sunday ...
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Is this my victory over evil?

Every morning I announce I’m going running, then I don’t run. It’s a running joke. Hello my pretties! As I've said before, I watch too much YouTube. Then I stop watching YouTube and I feel better about life and everything else. Then I stumble onto YouTube again and the cycle repeats. The truth is YouTube is not just a destructive addiction, it also has valid, wonderful things on there I don't want to lump in with the garbage.  YouTube has helped me: Process religious trauma and articulate so many things actually wrong with Mormonism. Process past abusive relationships and how to move on and be stronger. Learn how to think critically.  Learn how to think philosophically. YouTube is an awesome learning tool, but it is also an entertainment tool and YouTube entertainment feels terrible to me.  So if I focus my YouTube time on learning then I can learn all kinds of things. I heard a rumor of a woman who learned accounting from YouTube and got a corner office without ever gett...
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It's been a few days since my last entry for a reason.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.   Hello my pretties! Well it has been a nutty week. After an active shooter incident, I just spent the week wrung out at work. I didn't need this. Work feels like an emergency room, constantly being on my toes, reacting and triaging everything that walks through the door and barely getting anything else done. I guess that kind of job works for some people but not me. I went home every night and crashed a deep and senseless crash, only to wake up, unrested, and go again.  I spent all week feeling really frustrated and then yesterday happened. Yesterday I went to an hour and a half meeting where they gave us more problem solving tools. "I am not this person!" I screamed in my head. I don't want a job of surprises and riddles and new people every day.  I am over forty. After a life of feeling too young, too overwhelmed, too new at everything, I now feel more stable, more mature, ...
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