My landlord recently decided that emptying his house would make it easier to sell, so he gave me and my two roommates less than a month to move out, which I don't think is legal, but whatever. I decided to make this unwanted move an upgrade. I moved closer to the heart of Salt Lake City proper, where it turns out I go all the time for protests and other forms of recreation, and I picked a studio apartment so I'd have more space and have it to myself. Alas, I didn't pay enough attention to the location. My window is next to not two, not four, but six lanes of traffic. And the traffic. Never. Stops. Six months of this will either cure my natural sensitivity to noise or drive me to jump off the balcony. Also, I didn't actually have the space to myself.

The first thing I did when I saw this bug scurry up my cupboard was take a picture and ask Google Gemini, "Is this a cockroach?" I'd never actually seen a cockroach in person before. Like bedbugs and tapeworms, cockroaches are a horrifying fact of life that I'd somehow been blessed to avoid until now. Of course it was a cockroach, since it was too small to be an ICE agent. In my search, I found another one inside the (otherwise empty) cupboard, flailing around on its back for some reason.

By the way, I thought these things were supposed to be impossible to kill, but I found it pretty straightforward.

​This one was still twitching fourteen hours later, though. Its antennae would twitch whenever I moved my finger within a few millimeters. That was cool. Anyway, I found a third one behind the fridge, and that one proved more of a challenge. I moved the fridge a bit, climbed on the counter, tried to kill the roach with a yardstick, and then, when it tried to run under the fridge and out into the room, I jumped down and shone my phone flashlight to scare it back. I repeated that process a few times and said some bad words. After fifteen minutes or so, I got it when it did run under the fridge and out into the room, and my feeling of triumph made the whole frustrating experience worth it. Then I found a tiny bug under the sink. The next morning, a guy sprayed the cupboards and behind the fridge, and then the next evening, I killed another big one running across the floor toward my bed, and the next night, I killed two big ones, a medium, and six tiny ones in the bathroom. I've continued to find occasional tiny ones in the sink and the bathroom.

I try to take a spiritual approach to all this. The cockroaches are a problem I have to solve, but I'm not going to despair over them. I'm keeping in mind that unlike ICE agents, they aren't inherently bad creatures, they just evolved to do their own thing, and they have as much right to exist as I do, but I'm bigger than them and don't want them here. That's the circle of life.

Speaking of ICE agents... well, what can I say? What unique, valuable contribution can I make to the discourse about the murderous fascist secret police that hasn't been made yet? I attended a vigil for their latest murder victim last night, and I attended a protest today that, with just twenty-four hours' notice, was massive. I'm sure bootlickers and bots on social media are already lying about how many people were there, demanding to know why we weren't all at work on a Sunday, claiming we were all paid to be there, and the usual stupid shit that conservatives say to keep their delusion going. The fact remains: Salt Lake City is PISSED. Just in time to get our own influx of ICE agents at the end of the month, reportedly. There's a non-zero chance that I will become one of their murder victims. I'm a little scared, but it comforts me to know that my parents will have to live with the fact that they voted for my death.

Oh, but speaking of paid shills, one of the guys that the Republican legislature flew in from out of state to collect signatures to try to overturn the anti-gerrymandering proposition that the people of Utah voted for a few years ago showed up at our protest to collect signatures. That was a strategic error. He couldn't go anywhere without people following him and warning everyone not to sign. His response was to put on sunglasses, flip people off, and say, "You guys are assholes." Haha. Of course I wish these guys no success, but in today's economy, I don't fault them for taking this job. They haven't crossed a moral line that makes me think less of their worth as humans. Unlike ICE agents. I'd let my family starve before I'd accept a $50,000 bonus to murder people in the street. ICE agents are scum, and they will get their justice someday. Not tomorrow, but soon, I hope.

I have written occasionally about the time Hayden Nelson of the Logan City Police Department verbally abused me and made me suicidal, the department's refusal to conduct an investigation and share the results with me as promised in its own complaint procedures, the other city, state, and federal agencies that declined to help or simply ignored me, and Angel Echevarria's lawsuit against him and twelve other cops for "unlawful seizure, detainer, arrest and false imprisonment; intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress; negligent training, employment, and supervision; assault; and false testimony among others." Incidentally, the city has since settled that lawsuit by giving Echevarria money, even though Mayor Holly Daines assured me that the city was confident it would win. Awkward. Anyway, I didn't know if my writing had an effect or was just so much screaming into the void, until I found out that Hayden himself had taken notice. I found that out by finding out that he'd blocked me on LinkedIn, where I got this picture that sometimes accompanied my writing.

It didn't take long to make another LinkedIn account and confirm that he hadn't just deleted his. Mind you, the following screenshot is from June 1, 2024. I've already written about it in my memoir published at the end of that year, Goodbye Mormonism, Hello World: My Slightly Pretentious Search for the Truths of Life, the Universe, and Everything, which you probably haven't read. I put off writing about it on my blog for some time because I refuse to let him dictate my life, but I always meant to sooner or later - not just to get back at him, an impulse from which I've tried to distance myself, but to help ensure that he never works in law enforcement again. Oh yeah, spoiler alert.

Not only did he make a career change, he changed his last name to "N." That is rich. That is priceless. I have to imagine I played some part in this, since all search results for his name and employer were either from my website or news stories about the lawsuit against him, and I know he was aware of the former. (He may or may not have also been aware that I mentioned him by name in my Master's thesis, which does not show up in those searches.) At this point, if he were merely stupid and poorly trained as opposed to being a bad person, he could have recognized the unnecessary and unwarranted trauma that he caused me, done some self-reflection, and reached out to apologize. He chose to block me instead. That silent reaction speaks volumes. Logan is much safer without this unintelligent bully serving and protecting it. I hope he treats phones better than he treats human beings.

Hayden, if you ever read this, I guess you know you miscalculated when you assumed this terrified, confused boy couldn't do anything about you abusing him. You really should go a step further and try the self-reflection thing. Just because you changed careers and your name to avoid the consequences of your actions doesn't mean you've become a better person. If you're not interested in becoming a better person, then I guess I can't explain why you should be. Did I mention how glad I am that you're not a cop?

On a more positive note, you became a factor in my journey out of Mormonism and into an existential crisis that was so worth it, so thanks for giving me the worst day of my life, I guess.

I almost feel like I should be grateful to this fascist regime because protesting against it has given me a purpose and brought me together with a community of beautiful humans. I moved to the Salt Lake area to be closer to friends I already had, but now I never see them, and I see new ones almost every week instead. Whatever works, eh? Recently, though, we've branched off from protesting into doing monthly clothing and food drives. I can't take any credit for the idea or the logistics, but I contribute a little, and I show up and help run them. We did our second one today. It was already much bigger than the first, and quite a beautiful experience. I was less self-conscious and more proactive in talking to the people who showed up instead of waiting for a real adult to do it.

Any appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I've always tried to be a good, generous, and loving person. I have given to homeless people, but I can't afford to give to all of them I see, so I usually avoid eye contact because making eye contact and not giving them anything seems like a slap in the face, but I know treating them like they don't exist is also a slap in the face, so that eats me up inside. Anyway, I just wanted to say that being good, generous, and compassionate is not some radical new concept for me, but today was still a profound, transformative experience. I talked a lot to this one homeless woman who stuck around for a while. She clearly had some mental illness, and I didn't understand half of what she said, but she was still really fun to talk to. She radiated such goodness that despite her weathered face and missing teeth, I could honestly say she was beautiful to me. I felt so good to know that I helped to improve her life and the lives of others today.

I wish we could do more, of course. I wish we could give them all homes. It is extremely fucked up that we as a society have normalized letting mentally ill people become homeless and then treating them like parasites. If my own mental illness were a bit more severe, or if I hadn't been blessed to know the right people who have helped me out over the years, I could have shared their fate. I still might someday. I can't even imagine having the fortitude to live like that without killing myself. I hope society will someday provide everyone with what they need, and maybe the backlash against this fascist regime is what we need to move us in that direction. These clothing and food drives are a chance for us to show what we're for, not just what we're against, and maybe we can keep growing them bigger and drawing in more people and doing more things until we've created heaven on Earth. I doubt that will happen in my lifetime, but I can be part of the push in that direction. I try to remember that my life not just as an end in itself, but also part of history that will affect future lives for better and for worse.

In unrelated news, the LDS missionaries in the Ogden Mission sent me an inspirational message last night even though I removed my records from the church in 2022 and moved out of those mission boundaries in 2024. I assume they found my number written down by the missionaries I briefly talked to before I moved. Actually, I was thinking about the ones I ran into in a parking lot and accepted a Book of Mormon from, but when I went to link to a post about it, I remembered that the post was actually about another occasion when I let a different companionship visit my apartment. I'm nice, okay? So anyway, this is the sort of thing that would piss off most ex-Mormons, but I'm cool with it. However they got my number, I trust that the missionaries acted out of love and a desire to enrich my life, and I appreciate that. I did feel enriched. As I've said before, I want everyone to be nice to the LDS missionaries, who for the most part are good kids sacrificing eighteen months or two years of their life to do what they believe is right. They're not to blame for everything that's wrong with the LDS Church. I hope these missionaries didn't text another ex-Mormon who was mean to them.

I spent New Year's Eve with some friends and ate a pot brownie for the first time. I assumed it would be essentially the same as my beloved Kush Kubes, and I didn't inquire about the dosage or anything. Oops. It was much more intense than a Kush Kube, and it was, at first, fun and frightening at the same time. Even as I felt unconditional love from the people around me, engaged in deep spiritual conversations, and laughed at silly things, I felt anxious about the non-zero chance that a SWAT team with the wrong address would break down the door. So much of our lives is entirely out of our control, and sometimes I find that unbearable to think about. I also experienced some degree of ego death and felt like I might fall asleep and never wake up.

By five in the morning, I hadn't slept at all, wasn't having fun anymore, and worried that my brain was beyond repair. My roommate was up, so I asked him to take me to the emergency room. This, incidentally, is the roommate who kept eating my food and using my stuff without asking, but I recently told him to stop after I went to fix my dry hands, found my lotion empty, and snapped a little. I didn't handle it perfectly, but I stood up for myself and kept my anger reasonably controlled, and he bought me more lotion, and I let it go. After he took me to the emergency room, I had more positive feelings toward him. Isn't that beautiful? I also felt love from the emergency room staff who gave up their holiday for me. It was a far more positive experience than my last trip to the emergency room, when Hayden Nelson of the Logan City Police Department made me go after he verbally abused me, and the staff treated me like an assembly line product they wanted to finish as fast as possible. This experience gave me some healing and closure. I obviously made a dumb mistake, but it was worth it, and I'm not sorry for doing drugs.

One of the lasting side effects of Kush Kubes is that I laugh and smile more often. Maybe the pot brownie was the reason that I laughed for a full minute at the ending to the Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" last night and continue to laugh every time I think of it. Why did it take me so long to watch Firefly?

My latest ebook, Lights Over Logan, is out. I have mixed feelings about the text I forced myself to write, but at least I love the cover. Okay, so, I paid an artist to draw the cover. I generously picked this random guy who reached out to me on Discord over a year earlier to offer his services and said he was "super duper cheap." Indeed, when I broached the topic, he said he would work for any price I named because he hadn't gotten a commission in years. Maybe now I know why. First of all, I was rather disappointed in the artwork itself. I asked if he could draw realistically, giving him the character concept art I made in ChatGPT and an example of what I had in mind, the cover art for My Teacher is an Alien.

He said, "Yes I can." That was a lie. What he gave me was not only not realistic, it looked like it was made in Microsoft Paint, albeit by someone more skilled than me. But whatever, someday the sun will run out of fuel and my hopes and dreams won't matter, so I would just deal with it and pretend this was a stylistic choice I made. And the lighting was pretty, so I would just accept it even though I told him multiple times that this scene was during a new moon, meaning maximum darkness.

I will say that at first, he worked very fast, and I would take a day or two to give him feedback because I needed time to think. But he produced this draft in late November, asked if I wanted any changes, and then ghosted me with no warning at all after I asked him for a change.

So, to recap in case the text is too small, I asked him nicely to fix the shape of the trees that don't look like trees, at least not from Earth. After eight days (rounding down) of no response, I followed up. Two days later, he said he was busy with school, which he had never told me would be an issue. After eight more days (rounding down) of no response, I said he hadn't warned me he was going to do this. That was the nicest way I could think of to say, "What the fuck, man?" He said he was seeing his family and didn't have his drawing equipment. That is to say, he hadn't brought his drawing equipment with him even though I was paying him to draw something for me and had told him I needed it by the end of the year. Still keeping my temper, I asked him why not. And then he had the nerve to get snippy with me and say he didn't have a deadline (not true), so I stopped keeping my temper. I later edited "an asshole" to "rude," but he blocked me anyway.

So this is where I learn a valuable lesson that artists' asses are made of gold and I must defer to their narcissistic whims with infinite patience, right? Maybe he hopes so, but no. Having already paid for "real" art and both received and been treated like crap, I felt not an ounce of guilt about enlisting ChatGPT to fix the crap. I did put it off until the last minute because I was afraid that ChatGPT would also crush my hopes and dreams by making a stupid mistake and repeatedly failing to fix it. But I had a little discussion with it about the changes I wanted (and had to explain that this scene was in Logan Canyon, not on an alien planet), and it threw together a prompt and gave me this on the first try:

Now, respectfully, if you try to tell me this cover is inferior to the original just because you know it was made by a machine, we'll both know you're full of shit. It's light-years closer to what I wanted, and any imperfections are probably attributable to the source material. I poured out effusive praise on ChatGPT. Then, at the risk of ruining a good thing, I asked for a couple more modifications. Mary should have had a backpack because the book mentions her using one, and the alien still didn't look as realistic as I'd prefer. So I got this:

In case you think the alien's backpack is an error, it's not. That was in the concept art. ChatGPT made the scene a touch lighter (unwanted, but not a big deal) and moved the alien much too close (kind of a big deal). But no need to panic yet. Picking my battles, I disregarded the lighting and asked it to "Make the alien stand further away, like in the original picture."

As you can see, ChatGPT failed to follow my instruction and moved the alien considerably further away than in the original picture. But you know what? I can live with that. It's probably better this way. More mysterious. Anyway, I decided to stop pushing my luck while I was still pleased. Now I'm working up the courage to try to fix the cover art for my first book, Crusaders of the Chrono-Crystal, which was supposed to look like 50s-60s sci-fi cover art but instead looks like PlayStation 1 graphics because the artist didn't paint over his computer models like he said he would. Some of these people deserve to be replaced by machines. Career-wise, I mean. I'm not wishing harm on them.

Lights Over Logan is out now as an ebook on various platforms.