How do you say, “I'd like to finish your class, but trying not to want to kill myself seems to be a full time job?”

I wonder if I'm not doing something right, or if I'm just irreconcilably broken. Maybe that crucial part was knocked off long ago, like the rear view mirror came off that Cadillac when your teenage son backed it in too close to the mailbox. Or the time he didn't know what the fuck he was doing when he tried to rebuild the engine.

Some days I wake in the morning and my skin feels tauntingly intact. I would give anything just to be held, but my craving for someone to take a baseball bat or a knife to my back seems like a more honest version of the same desire. So I do the dishes; try not to cry, shake it off. Keep moving. Get dressed. Do something else. Fight. Remember to want to fight. Try, at least, to remember.


It's tempting to just tell her to give me a fail, leave it with everything else in the wreckage behind me. There's legitimacy here; I am trying, really, to build something new. New things need space to grow. The idea of tapping out is liberating, but also, angry and frustrating and sad. I love this work; I don't just like it. It uses me, all the intellectual muscle built up from years of reading useless crap that was never going to be any good to me if I was a physicist or a dancer. It's about taking the things I was inexorably drawn to, almost against my will, and weaving them into something useful and beautiful and real. I don't want to loose it forever.

"Young wives are the leading asset of corporate power. They want the suburbs, a house, a settled life, and respectability. They want society to see that they have exchanged themselves for something of value."

-Ralph Nader

My front yard has become weirdly important, ever since someone suggested it as a way to deal with fear. When fear is such a big part of you and your life, honor it; do the things you reasonably can to be more safe. Then after you've tried that, after you've given yourself that chance, choose the compromises you want, if you decide on the trade-off for more time and freedom.

As far as the outside of the house goes, the idea is "show no weakness"; don't look like a victim. Don't look like a target. It's become a very tiny, personal crusade. I find myself watching all the time--which houses seem like easy marks, like places where you could get away with it? Which ones don't? More tangibly, what are the details that make that difference? My goal is: just from looking, it will be clear that someone cares enough about the people in this house not to let things slide. Just from looking, it will be obvious that we who live here are well taken care of.

It's an enlightening study. Learning to do is hard, but so is learning to see, and suddenly there's the obvious connection that I've never made; to make things so clean and tidy and neat like that, to make a space that emanates strength, you have to be aware of your surroundings. You have to notice little details. It's a natural connection, so much more than just learning to bother--which is important enough on its own.

Somehow this is more important to me than everything else I should be working on. It's a slow building; half a step, stand back, consider--what can I do, with the tools I have? With the strength I have? How many more days will it take to finish weeding around the driveway? What other tools would be good for the job? Is there any way I might take that stump out by myself? Will it make a difference to sweep away that dirt, does that edge need to be straightened? Is there a solution to the weeds next to the house without buying pavers? My imagination is on walkabout; this will be a showplace, beautiful, clean, bountiful, precise, liveable. Just keep working every day, thousands of baby steps.

Stages and details of maintaining an everyday life are so new to me. What I'm probably best at, in fact, is keeping it nominally together after everything has gone to shit--and assuming that it's always going to be that way. I am scraping a different life from weeds and black clay, handful by handful.

Humans need each other; independence isn't about pretending we don't. Independence is having some measure of control over your relationships.* I imagine there are healthier and less healthy ways to go about this. Maybe healthy independence means being able to maintain a standard of how you will interact with others--how you will deal with needing and being needed--and being able to walk away from relationships that insist on violating that standard.

Of course, by definition it also must mean building relationships, of some kind--and keeping them. Because humans, we need each other.


*Credit for this insight goes to Tyrel.

Confession: what I have been thinking about is fashion. Part of this taking-care-of-myself nonsense. How very women's magazine.

History? Armchair fashionista, all longing and anger and doom.

I started without a chance, no money, sacks of old hand-me-downs many times picked over, two blocks from the public library. I can tell you about the Dior dress. I can tell you about thread count, and rayon viscosity, and the de-constructed genius of Chanel. I can identify silk and cashmere from their synthetic counterparts by touch, from walking down the aisles of value village and examining every piece, from stealing into banana republic for moments at a time only to fondle and gape.

I wear enormous men's wool hiking socks under four year old sauconys, layers of plain threadbare t-shirts, black thrift-store jeans, sometimes hats.

I resent my passion, because this is what's expected of me, as a woman. I resent it because it at first was fueled so entirely by expectations of others which I would ABSOLUTELY NEVER be able to meet. But--there are things you need. Clothes to wear, for example; to sleep in and hike in, to work or work out or go grocery shopping.

I resent it also because it is most commonly followed with such vapid, brainless persistence. There's nothing say with clothes if your entire world is clothes, nothing but self-referential circles to chew off your tail in. It is social appropriateness; it could be art.

I definitely don't have this clothing and gender stuff figured out. It helps that my closest guy friend is an artist and dresses well--equality, or at least a taste--what would the world be like if everyone would dress well? Prettier, for sure. More expressive. Aesthetic preferences say something about your soul.

I've been coming together about it in pieces. Slowly.

I used to have a rule about relationships: no one got to hit me. It was a bad rule.

I'm not for people hitting me--but: what has to happen for things to get that far? People, in this society, don't make that sort of choice out of the blue. Before that, there is a slow eroding of boundaries, a demolition (until he's trying to get you to stay) of all the things that made you want to be with him in the first place. By the time he thinks he might be able to get away with that--before he has a chance to get away with that--you are invested. By the time things have gotten that bad, you care about him--things are complicated--you know he can do better. And he can.

But he doesn't.

You might say that rule at least worked; no one ever did hit me, who I was dating. But, things got worse in different ways. Any time there's a sharp, clear line, people will find a way to work around it.

Now I have more and different rules. No one gets to threaten me with violence--not by saying something about it, not by throwing things or hitting things or knocking things over close to me, and expecting me to stick around. No one gets to try and change who I am--not even if they're trying to change me into something I want to be. That's my job. And, no one gets to treat me like I'm stupid.

I'm not stupid.

Early third wave was all about independence; do things for yourself as much as you possibly can. I'm a believer in the iron rule--never do for others what they can do for themselves. That's my standard of independence. I also believe in its unspoken corollary; don't hesitate to help people with the things they can't do for themselves. And, don't hesitate to accept help with the things you can't do for yourself. To complicate matters, independence costs more for some people than for others.

Sometimes the trade-offs aren't fair. I can spend a lot of time and money on taking charge of my own safety, but how much freedom do I loose for it? That, perhaps, is the most frustrating gender inequality that I see in my own life. I want to travel. I want to walk alone at night, to feel cool air and quiet and not fear. I want to spend my money on things I need, like repairs to my house, and things I want, like concerts and books and amazing food. I want to be in a relationship where I'm not paranoid about whether this is someone who would keep me physically safe, if I needed it.

photo credit goes to my friend Adi Lopez :)

In keeping with my ongoing feminazi kick, this morning I picked up two books by Jessica Valenti.

The first is called Full Frontal Feminism; a young woman's guide to why feminism matters. I find it frustrating. I think she's trying to do the same thing that bell hooks is trying to do in Feminism is for Everybody (a book I highly recommend, though not as highly as Feminist Theory; from margin to center)--make an introductory primer, something that says, "this is what we are, what we are not, and why we are relevant to your life."

I see four main problems in Valenti's work. First, her writing isn't particularly focused or clear--it often includes disorganized rants. Second, she oversimplifies like there's no tomorrow. In fact, she oversimplifies like there's no ten minutes from now. Third, while I understand that she's trying to appeal to an audience of "young women," her approach (including a lot of swearing) definitely has no chance of reaching the audience that most needs it--young conservative religious types.

Lastly, this book hasn't done anything to improve my opinion of "pro-sex feminism". Though I like sex, I find it problematic to set it up as necessarily good. For instance, when I was a teenager I ran into a fair few guys with the approach, "sex is good, so you should have it with me--if you don't mind too much." Sex-positive doesn't really describe individual autonomy, in a strong sense, over one's own body. That includes respecting people's choice not to have sex, ever, if they so choose. Insofar as one has to weigh in on these things, I'd consider myself to be (politically) sex-neutral.

Also, though I appreciate the value of writing about feminism for women, I'm with bell hooks; feminism is for everybody. I'd prefer it if this were written in a way that's much more inclusive of men. I'm halfway through, we'll see if it gets better.


Thankfully, the second book (He's a stud, she's a slut, and 49 other double standards every woman should know) looks better. While some of the same snags are still present, the format--basically, two page chapters on a focused topic--does a lot to clean up her approach. It goes over all sorts of inequalities, from well known ones (viagra is routinely covered by health insurance, but birth control is not) to the more obscure (women pay more for the same cars and haircuts.) The format also lends itself to browsing, which I'm fond of. It's the kind of book I'd want to keep a copy of on my coffee table--good for a thought provoking two second reminder of how the little things don't add up.

Be afraid of the lame
They'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old
They'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold
They'll inherit your blood
Apres moi, le deluge
After me comes the flood


I must go on standing
You can't break that which isn't yours
I, oh, must go on standing
I'm not my own, it's not my choice



(soundtrack to the book. . .)

* * *

I was ranting to Jacob at the restaurant yesterday:

"I stayed up for an extra two hours after work to finish reading The Handmaid's Tale. I read it before, a long time ago, and didn't begin to understand.

Now I find it real, horrifying. Compelling."


I don't know why feminism feels so central to me. For all the substantial violence I've been subjected to in my life, there's little I can point to as concrete evidence of oppressive widespread patriarchy that doesn't come off as paranoiac whining.

Paper-thin parodies of liberatory thought that find their way into the popular consciousness don't scratch the surface of the problem that concerns me, personally, the most; I want to be taken seriously. Women are taken seriously at some things, a few things, but the largest parts of me are most interested in being in the places where we aren't taken seriously--continental philosophy, hardcore non-humanities scholarship, violence, emotion.

I want to be taken seriously without giving up fun.

And I want my priorities to be taken seriously, even when they don't match up with the patriarchal ideal--stay at home mothers, for instance, are not a solution to the complexities of adequate childrearing in an egalitarian society--and yet these complexities deserve to be understood, dealt with, respected, maybe even solved. Wanting to be safe, but not patronized by a "protector" (who himself is free to subject you to whatever he likes; see: God) is not "trying to have it both ways."

Still, I feel that I must be exaggerating; it can't be that bad.



The waitress came back with the receipt and returned my debit card to him.

Things are not done.

This

http://blip.tv/file/3122155/

is a great intro to the idea of "the essential subject" and "the other"--which, I should mention, is the most applicable-in-my-own-life bit of philosophy I've yet encountered.

I should also mention that I think the clip provides a really interesting example of something that may be hypocrisy--I find myself critical and sympathetic. The piece critiques something foundational to current gender construction, and at the same time uses current gender construction (maybe ironically, but functionally as well) to market itself. You can see this in the visual storytelling; the visual and comedic style constantly stops you and says, "Look! Pretty girl! Pay attention." Whether that undermines it's broader message or not (I think it does) is an interesting question.

Lately, I've been thinking about a lot of things that I'd traditionally consider a waste of time. In honor of this: my first fashion post. Not cultural critique of fashion, just fashion. With no commentary. At all.

We'll call it an exercise in restraint.

Outfit--

Shirt:

http://www.textilejunkiebrand.com/inc/sdetail/142

Corset: I love the green, but for this particular outfit, I think greys--maybe with one that matches the hat color.

http://www.clockworkcouture.com/?q=handsoftimecorset

Gloves:

http://www.clockworkcouture.com/?q=woolengloves

Skirt:

http://www.totally-ballroom.com/images/details/d_2836.jpg

Boots:

http://www.shopping.com/xPO-Born-Born-Thicket-Womens-Boots

Overcoat:

http://www.clockworkcouture.com/?q=blackwoolmilitarycoat

Hair: something like this, but with a bit more pulled back--and maybe in a more interesting color, or more than one more interesting color:


Hat:

http://media.rei.com/media/ll/5b6e1928-453f-40c1-8599-147c57008471.jpg

Jewelery: maybe these? I'd also keep the pocketwatch, but in silver.


http://ruthwaterhouse.com/studio/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/276e.jpg

Lest anyone get the wrong impression, I'd like to make three things clear. First, I'm not deeply attached to this, it's just an idea I've been kicking around; please, discuss. Feel free to prove me wrong. Second, I'm generally--and still--an advocate of a very man-friendly reading of feminism, which is not clear from the content of this post. Lastly, I like men. A lot. Even if this theory happens to be right. Ok, now we can start.


I have a theory that since men held so much material power in sexual relationships for such a long time--the ownership of all property, children, and spouse, and a greater right of divorce, among other things--women have, for a long time, been more or less forced to do the work of emotional and interpersonal regulation for both parties.

There's a pattern often found in abusive relationships. Anybody who grew up with a severely physically abusive parent will recognize it; constant threat of violence changes the way you see the world. Your behavior and emotions are absolutely dominated by the goal of keeping yourself (and perhaps also the people you love) safe--which you do by trying to keep your abuser happy, at basically any cost. There is not possibility for give and take in this sort of relationship, no honest communication or mutual recognition of needs. The child is basically not allowed to have needs, particularly not emotional ones.

This is exactly the sort of power over others that has traditionally been afforded to men within marriage, generally without negative physical, legal, or social consequences. Despite the fact that, even in the most brutal times, there were probably lots of men who were decent enough not to engage in this sort of terrorism, I think the fact of it's possibility probably had a large impact on women's functioning over time.

And so we arrive at the (usually essentialist) argument that women just care a lot more about relationships and emotions than men seem to. I think this is definitely the current state of affairs, and that if we're interested in any form of gender equality it can't and shouldn't be ignored.

Here's some evidence:

When addressing ethical challenges women are more likely to place a high value on taking care of people's emotions and creating collaborative solutions to problems--instead of focusing primarily on principles, as men are more likely to. Regardless of technically having access to all fields, women still choose their work by very predictable criteria--on average, we're far more likely than men to be motivated into our career path by wanting to help people. We also want a lot more emotional feedback from our professors then men do.

Perhaps most tellingly, we perform far better--especially in technical fields--when placed in classrooms with no men, whereas men perform the same or worse in single gender classrooms.* Usually people explain this in terms of men showing off for women, and women "showing off" their suitability as mates by not being intellectually intimidating.

I think it useful to contextualize this differently. What is a woman doing when she chooses not to be intellectually intimidating, other than looking after the emotional welfare of her potential colleagues and partners? And why is it that, rather than recognizing that by looking after people's emotions she is performing a valuable service (maybe the reason some studies show that men perform better with women in the room?) which needs to be done by somebody in order for everybody to function well, we simply try to "empower" her out of it?

This is a problem I see with basically every kind of "women's work." Liberating some women from housework doesn't change the fact that housework definitely needs to be done--and that this problem is often "solved" by hiring someone of a lower economic status to do this thankless job instead. Encouraging women not to be completely bound to parenting doesn't change the fact that parenting is a spectacularly important project, which deserves to be done well. The wage gap (for the same hours working outside the home) between mothers and non-mothers is far larger these days than the wage gap between men and women; chew on that.

When you look at the lives of great intellectual men, they are often littered by complicated, even ugly relationships with bright or even brilliant women who never accomplished anything particularly visible themselves. Maybe, there was work going on there too--work of a different kind, work that we ought to recognize. Maybe it will never be possible for women to reach their full technical and intellectual potential until men start to reach their full emotional and relational potential--until men start carrying their weight in doing the work of relationships, along with all the other marginalized kinds of work traditionally left to women.



*Not better or worse as compared to one's classmates, but on national standardized tests like the GRE subject tests.

She was answering the wrong question, of course--the question I actually asked. She talked about doing lots of things (not just school), not letting yourself be owned by a world that's poisonous to you. She teaches for only a month straight; adored as she is some places, she still has no stomach for the establishment.

I did not expect that every question would be like mine, but they were--almost all of them. How do I deal with it when people commodify my sexuality? How do I teach my son not to be a part of this ugliness? How have you done it? How do we hang on to our truth and ourselves in such a messy world? This is what we were really asking. We have read your work. There's no hiding how clearly you see, so share with us--help us--save us. Help us untangle all these things; help us know we're not alone.

And she feels invaded by it, I think, by all our asking and our wanting--but also, loved.


She signed my feminist theory--Day!! in sweet sisterhood --love, bell hooks.

I am glad.

I'm sure it was too stuffy--the thing that I actually said. It was nervous, the first question of the class. "So you were in this complicated relationship, and you were this young, religious, rural black girl going to Stanford, and you expressed difficulty fitting in with the academic establishment--difficulty writing about things you had no interest in. . . and you talk about how this was a time of finding your voice. . . did you ever resolve that, feel like you found a place in academia? What advice would you have for a student now who was having struggles finding a place in the academic world?"


What I meant was different. What I meant was: You understand, I know you understand, it was in this book and I couldn't stop reading. . . You know what it's like; he was important to you, and for the first time you were with someone who loved what you loved, loved the work you knew you were for. He was the man who you could write with, who you could try to be free with, this rare and precious thing. He was strong and kind, and the gateway who ultimately restrained you. It was complicated. You understand.

You understand because you stayed after he left you bleeding. You understand because you stood in the kitchen and listened to him fuck with your reality, claiming one thing when he'd said the opposite right before. You understand because, for all the help he gave, he also held you back; in the twelve years you were together you didn't publish, but after, after there was a flood.

After, was there freedom and loneliness and peace? Is it worth it, being alone, but making something? And must that be the choice, only to have one?

And how do you make that change? How do you stand up to the establishment--this establishment that hated you--enough to work for it, how did you come to respect yourself after investing so deeply in someone who would not respect you?

This feminism class was definitely a good idea.

Today, Irigary. I'm not sure what she's saying, and I'm not sure I will agree with it at all when I do understand. But: she tries to make an accounting of how things are and what there is to do about it, taking into consideration both 1) the obvious differences between the sexes and 2)the role language plays in psychology and the construction of power. So far, it's refreshing and intriguing. . . and, let's face it, slightly creepy. (As one girl in my class put it, "anyone else here feel a little bit molested after reading this?") I'm hoping to get together a study group and really cover it in depth this summer.

Also about feminism class: awesome people. The only thing that tempts me to return to school this fall is the possibility of getting enough people together for an advanced feminism class, which surely would have the same effect and then some. :)

bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks. . .

On the plus: one hour with just me and my class. And I do tend to contribute to the discussion.

On the wtf: there's some sort of luncheon, to which xendofthelinex (my favorite kitten loving stalinist, who is not even in the class,) was invited, and I was not. (!) :( Pick me, Shannon, pick me! Is this what I get for not adequately sucking up to faculty?


but mostly I am absolutely buzzing. In the flesh. . . I've spent all day reading and re-reading her work. . . I wish I could afford to buy more of it. It's just all so alive, and I've never found another thinker I so closely, deeply, and frequently agree with.

How often do you meet your hero?

It's astonishing how often I start considering some problem that I find really interesting, or that otherwise relates to my life, and it immediately turns to, "I've really got to get around to reading ___________ book." From today:

Infantilization of women by otherwise decent guys: The Macho Paradox (Jackson Katz)

The question of whether systemic violence is necessarily the case in a global economy: Empire (Negri and Heart)

What to do about elitism in education: Literacy with an Attitude (Patrick J. Finn)

Whether female sexuality inherently entails victimization: The Second Sex (de Beauvoir, of course. . . though to be clear, whatever she says, I don't expect to believe her)

How to prune my new plum tree: The Backyard Orchardist (Stella Otto)

Whether I should go all out and get micronutrient soil testing (mostly for fun): Introducing soil science (Brady)

Whether capitalism has any merit on a macroeconomic scale: MIT Opencourseware, and the economist. Ok, so that's not a book. Still. . . you get the idea.

Clearly, I am an addict.

When I found this in The Second Sex, it was unbelievably resonant.

"At ten or twelve years of age most little girls are truly "garcons manques"-- that is to say, children who lack something of being boys. Not only do they feel it as a deprivation and an injustice, but they find that the regime to which they are condemned is unwholesome. In girls the exuberance of life is restrained, their idle vigor turns into nervousness; their too prissy occupations do not use up their super-abundant energy; they become bored, and, through boredom and to compensate for their position of inferiority, they give themselves up to gloomy and romantic daydreams; they get a taste for these easy escape mechanisms and loose their sense of reality; they yeild to their emotions with uncontrolled excitement; instead of acting, they talk, often commingling serious phrases and senseless words in hodgepodge fashion. Neglected, "misunderstood," they seek consolation in narcissistic fancies: they view themselves as romantic heroines of fiction, with self-admiration and self-pity. Quite naturally they become coquettish and stagy, these defects becoming more conspicuous at puberty. Their malaise shows itself in impatience, tantrums, tears; they enjoy crying--a taste many women retain in later years--largely because they like to play the part of victims; at once a protest against their hard lot and a way to make themselves appealing. Little girls sometimes watch themselves cry in a mirror, to double the pleasure." pp. 296-297

Beauvoir here describes one way of embracing Otherness--specifically, the way that Twilight and millions of other romance novels are about. I remember very clearly at a young age being aware that I wasn't fulfilling this obligation of femininity. I was too happy, too healthy, too energetic and independent and selfish (in the way that children are) to be worth paying attention to. Perhaps in earlier generations this embrace of victimhood was generated out of repressed activity, but for me the self-modifications formed a solitary, powerful drive: less independent, less competent, become dependent, attacked, and therefore defensible or even loveable. I remember being frustrated at how impossible it was for me to really be a victim, and therefore a heroine--the status I wanted more than anything else in the world.

I can only think promoting this paradigm does immeasurable harm. It encourages women to forsake authenticity, and in the process destroys what could have been meaningful relationships with fully developed human beings.

The fact that deep down we all know this goes on on also calls into question the status of almost any call for help. Closing a painfully rational circuit, I now experience this phenomenon simultaneously from both sides. Having long desired the role of the victim so strongly that I would have been willing to fake it, if I could*, it's difficult to sort out which things I experience because I'm trying to embrace my weak and desirable side, and which ones are genuine expressions of damage that's been done to me, needing to be addressed.

I feel guilty about my deceptive embrace of victimhood in the past, and my inclination is to assume all of my accustomed reactions are fake. They are not all fake, and--given that I am not particularly adept at understanding my reactions to trauma--I'm not sure if I ever have been fake, or if I just exaggerated.

Today I tried to listen to a podcast a friend had recommended to me. I made it twenty minutes in before it was hard to breathe. My persistent feeling is that I must be making all of this up, what I'm showing can't be any sort of real symptoms. . . sometimes I have to remind myself, this is real--you didn't decide to stop breathing. I really wanted to hear the rest of the podcast. I was not exaggerating. Moments like this remind me that a lot of it is far more real than I want to believe or admit.

The things I have objectively lived through will leave you with a decent amount of non-exaggerated shit to sort through. Recognizing that can be a mess. Honestly is important, and in general I think everyone honest with themselves knows they've done monstrous things at some point in time. If not, well. . . wait.

One day at a time.



*and in some ways I could. The waters got muddy very early on this.

edit: also, for the record, I almost never enjoy crying. . . but it has seemed. . . necessary?

Lately I think a lot about existentialism and feminism--particularly the Beauvoirian concept of Other, and immanence vs. transcendence. I wonder a lot about how to not be Other. Fashion, architecture, and cooking are interesting to me because they are inherently involved in immanence, but can become art--maybe, become projects of transcendence?

In dance they talk about something called spatial intent. It's used to describe a movement that really claims the space in which it takes place, where it's clear what the dancer's intentions are with regards to the place in which they are confined. I think life is the same way; maybe it's the passion we have as we approach the space we're confined to--even these inescapable projects of immanence--that makes everything worthwhile, or not.

I am tired.

I walked nine miles today. It's good to know I'm not lazy; I love exercise too much to accept that of myself. Whatever I'm avoiding when I put off work, it's not exertion.

Lately my treadmill keeps saving me. Sometime early in the day, I'll start having that caving-in feeling--like I've collapsed in on myself, and whatever remains at the center is emanating darkness. It's a bad mood to get stuck in, worse because once it properly sets, you feel guilty even talking to people--don't want to burden people, or contaminate them. My instincts are all pretty self-destructive at that point. I want to drip sweat in my sixty-degree living room, muse or propaghandi blaring at full volume, push my body till it breaks.

It never works that way, though; melodrama folds to reality. At first there's a sense of action, that at least I'm doing something about those desires--then a sense of accomplishment as the miles tally higher, I push my body harder--and finally, exhaustion takes the edge off of everything and I begin to lay plans for my day. There are papers to write, boys to kiss, classics to read and recipes to make. Maybe there's a revolution to fight. I have a garden to plan. There is today, and there is tomorrow.



Sometimes I wonder if I should leave Utah, or even just Utah county. I'm happier here than I've ever been--I pretty much assume places are places and people are people--but maybe somewhere else really could be different. Better. . . better for me, more likely to find people who could be good friends for a psycho like myself. It's quite possible that this was all about my abrasiveness, but I did somehow manage to loose all of my Mormon friends when I became communist. I'm really glad my family stuck around through it till they were able to see where I was coming from.

From an empirical standpoint, this state has some of the highest rates in the country for suicide, depression, rape, plastic surgery, and jello consumption. It makes me sad--I want to think better of Utahns.