My first flight back from New York was delayed for over two hours. I waited in line for over an hour to try to rebook, but when I was near the end, they started boarding and said it was too late to rebook. Then they stopped boarding and said they would be delayed another two hours. Then after ten minutes, they boarded the rest of the way. Like every other flight on this trip, my connecting flight was also delayed, so by running as fast as I could - and to the person who said "Excuse you," I would like to respond, "Lady, this is an airport. You should assume that anyone in a hurry has a good reason for being in a hurry" - I made it while they were still boarding. Then my boarding pass didn't work and they made me wait for everyone else to board and then they messed around on a computer for a few minutes while I panicked a little. Then I boarded, and then we sat on the runway for two hours before the flight, along with all other westbound flights out of Philadelphia, was canceled. I've been stuck in Philadelphia, or more precisely Tinicum Township, for two days. Although I'm kind of pissed about having to pay for a hotel room for two nights instead of sleeping in the crappy basement that I already paid $600 for this month, I'm rather stoic about being stuck per se. Hundreds of people got screwed over at the same time I did, and it wasn't the airline's fault. As part of my spirituality, I took this opportunity to remind myself that humans are not the center of the universe and I have no right to resent the weather for not giving a shit about my travel plans. I'm taking a damn train next time, though.

I didn't have time to see the big tourist sites in Philadelphia proper, but I wandered around a little and found Governer Printz Park, site of the first permanent European settlement in Pennsylvania, which was Swedish before the Dutch and then the English took it over. It has seven replica log buildings and informational signs all over. It's cool that the history of European settlement goes back so much farther here than in Utah. You can feel it in the air even though most structures are obviously not that old. Ironically, though, I've seen more Trump and police brutality flags and signs both here and in New York than I do in Utah. Fascism is alive and well in small New England towns. George Washington must be weeping. I had six hours between when I had to check out of the hotel and when I needed to check in at the airport, so I wanted to walk the three miles in between them, but the last mile had no pedestrian access. I took the SEPTA bus, and I didn't know exactly how the fare would work because the bus system I've been accustomed to for the last thirteen years was free, and I didn't have time to explore my options while everyone waited for me to pay so they could get moving, so I paid the $2.50 with a $5 bill, reasonably expecting that the machine, like every other machine I've seen in my entire life that accepts cash, would give me change. It didn't. And of course customer support blamed me for being confused and under pressure instead of acknowledging that their system is needlessly stupid. I hate that neurotypical people are immune to logic.

While on vacation, I spent a few days arguing on Facebook. I know I can't stop people from being bigots, but I refuse to live in a society where bigots can speak their minds in public without getting pushback, and I also really enjoy being able to insult and cuss out bad people without a shred of guilt. I saw a feminist post getting overrun by maggots, so I called the maggots out. Over a thousand women reacted positively to my comment, perhaps a couple dozen personally thanked me, and the maggots got pissed. Most of them had nothing interesting to say. Four of them said "Hope she sees this bro," and others accused me of white knighting, virtue signaling, being an incel, being a rapist, patronizing women, trying to get women to sleep with me, and so on. This, of course, says volumes about the maggots themselves. It says, first of all, that they know their own behavior toward woman is shitty, and they don't care. Secondly, it says that sex is the only thing that could motivate them to stop being shitty. These men are scum and proud of it. So most of their comments don't deserve to be remembered in any form, but here are a few from the "Holy crap, why do people like this exist" category.

This maggot, who's living proof that feminism needs to exist, actually shut up after I said, "You're not challenging my views, you're reinforcing them, because I would rather die than become a pathetic shitstain like you." Dare I hope that caused him to do any soul-searching? I meant it, too. And if I had a son who grew up to be like Adam Davis, I'd smother him in his sleep.

Oops, Jesse Bowman said one of the quiet parts out loud - he doesn't think rape is a big deal. I'm sure most of these maggots would agree. Oddly, he also thinks someone is forcing men to be construction workers.

The staggering intellect of a Trump supporter, ladies and gentlemen. I support Black people existing without getting murdered by cops, and I support democratic nations not being invaded and subjected to war crimes by dictatorships. These are incomprehensible stances to modern Republicans, whose godawful policies and values require them to side with the aggressor and shit on the victim in seemingly every situation, no matter how irrational or incoherent it makes them. Note, too, that this delusional maggot took it upon himself to speak for women despite over a thousand of them in this thread showing that they don't share his views. And I doubt there's even a coherent thought process behind his conclusion that speaking up for women against a sea of misogynists makes me the "pouty and rapey" one. Fascism aside, I can't stand people like John Steele who think they're smart when they're actually dumber than drool. In an ideal world, they wouldn't be allowed to vote.

I will gladly tell men like this to fuck off again and again and again. I will gladly take their abuse and dish it right back out. Standing up for what's right is its own reward, putting maggots in their place is a huge bonus, and the gratitude of the people I'm standing up for is also nice. I suppose that does make me a virtue signaler, and to a bigot, that's the worst thing I could possibly be. Oh well.

I'm on vacation with my grandparents in New York for a couple of weeks, and I'm not going to put much effort into this post. My first flight was delayed by two and a half hours, which would cause me to miss my second flight, so American Airlines' system automatically rebooked me on an overnight flight arriving at 6 a.m. without telling me. The bag check-in lady was able to get me on another delayed flight to Dallas instead of Chicago, and I made to the end of the boarding line with a few minutes to spare. I would like to add my complaint to the many complaints about the Salt Lake airport. I cannot comprehend why I had to walk through empty space for twenty minutes to get to my gate. Why the hell didn't they put the gates in that empty space instead of the empty space? How the hell did this arrangement get designed, approved, and built? I hope everyone involved never works in their respective industries again.

So now I've been to Texas. I have no other reason to want to go to Texas because its governor is a bellend. I had five hours to kill at the airport because my second rescheduled flight was, of course, delayed, and I walked around for a while and I worked on the new book that I just started for a while. I sat with my computer at a charging station by the gate and paid no attention to the pretty young woman seated across from me until a guy across the room yelled at his kids for running around, and I looked over there, and she grinned at me and said, "They're losing their shit!" And I said I couldn't blame them for being bored, and she agreed. And then it occurred to me that I could keep talking to her by asking how long she'd been delayed and stuff, but it also occurred to me that just because a woman spoke to me didn't mean she wanted to have a whole conversation, so I didn't. She went back to her work, and then she went off somewhere.

When it was time to board, I was in the second-to-last group, so I didn't get in line. She returned and also didn't get in line. As I waited, my eyes wandered around and didn't look at her. But then they did look at her, and it seems like she was looking at me before that, because she immediately looked away as an involuntary smile sprouted on her face. I mean, I wasn't in her head and I don't know what the synapses in her brain were doing, but her smile looked involuntary based on my short lifetime of observations and personal experience. I've had the exact same reaction when someone I found attractive looked at me. So this brought me to the realization that, against all odds, she probably found me attractive. Though unusual, this would not be unprecedented. I've been asked to ladies' choice dances. I've been flirted with and realized it years later. That girl in the USU library in 2013 who started a friendly conversation by asking me about a simple point of grammar that she could have taken a few seconds to look up on her computer was probably flirting with me.

I kept waiting for this pretty young woman to get in line, but she kept not getting in line, so I got in line and then she got in line right behind me. And the line moved slowly, and I made a point of pretending not to notice or care about her presence, although sometimes I would turn my head so I could kind of see her and she could see that I could see her and she could talk to me if she wanted. I didn't dare to talk to her. Bad things happen to me when I have that kind of confidence. I imagined her getting on one of the feminist subreddits I frequent and complaining that she can't go out in public without men being attracted to her. Really, I see complaints like that. Apparently some women hate being approached by men in public at all, even if the men don't harass them or refuse to take no for an answer. And they hate it when their guy friends turn out to be attracted to them, even if their guy friends don't harass them or refuse to take no for an answer. Maybe I'm a misogynist for not feeling even a little bit sorry for those women.

As she stood behind me in line and I let her into my peripheral vision, this woman twirled a lock of her hair in an exaggerated manner. This was a less obvious sign of attraction, since I couldn't prove that it had anything to do with me, but nobody else was twirling their hair, and it's such a well-established sign of attraction that it inspired a hilarious Argentinian commercial where a guy has dinner with his girlfriend's family and charms her mother, grandmother, and father so much that they all do it. (Her father has short hair, but he grows a long lock just for that shot.) I became hopeful that since we seemed to be in the same boarding category, we would sit together, and then it wouldn't be weird for me to talk to her. Her seat was several rows up from mine. I decided I would muster my courage during the three-hour flight and talk to her at the baggage claim. She wasn't at the baggage claim. I hate being me.

She probably thinks I wasn't attracted to her and/or failed to pick up on her signals. The first one isn't true, and surprisingly, neither is the second. A third, less likely possibility is that she thinks I'm a weird Republican who refused to flirt back without verification of her chromosomes. I don't want her to think those things. But because I think almost constantly about death and what may await us afterward, it occurred to me almost immediately that maybe when she dies she'll have one of those life reviews that many people describe after they die and come back, and she'll revisit our brief moments together and see my thoughts and feelings and finally know the truth. Maybe she'll know that I thought she was very pretty. Maybe she'll know that her unsolicited vulgar remark gave me a positive impression of her personality. And maybe she'll glimpse the ocean of trauma that made me fear her more than I fear being alone.

I had a bit of a drug flashback this morning while I was half-asleep and delirious. Not the cool oneness-with-the-universe part, just some of the weirdness. I wonder how often that will happen. It's been almost two weeks since I ate the mushroom gummy. I don't regret it yet.

Today I'm still with extended family, and tomorrow I'm moving to Midvale. Where I was excited before, now I'm nervous and depressed, and I'll probably just have to wait that out. I think this move is a good thing, but it comes with an opportunity cost, as change always does. Anyway, I'm going to make another brief post. Of all the things I could write about after this week with family, I think the most important is a recommendation to all parents or prospective parents of young children to not let them watch an awful show called Blippi. My little cousin loves that show. Lots of kids love that show. But I could tell within seconds from the host's overenthusiasm and goofy voice that he thinks kids are stupid. I could tell the difference between this show and superior kids' shows that aren't excruciating for adults to watch because the writers put some actual effort into them. I knew I couldn't be the only adult who recognized this, so I did some research, and after accidentally finding out about the disgusting viral video that Stevin John did before he became Blippi, I found this Current Affairs article that explains why his garbage show won't help your children develop imagination, critical thinking, or empathy. (I actually think it's kind of weird that the author brings Trump into it, but his points are well made.)

My Blippi-loving cousin is so uncultured that he complained about watching Mary Poppins, which I felt an urge to watch for the first time in a long time because we flew a kite. I appreciate more than ever how funny and heartwarming this movie is and how good the music is. I also realize now that even though it's sixty years old, if it came out today, conservatives would melt down over its woke feminist and anti-capitalist undertones. Of course there are the obvious bits about women's suffrage that don't affect the plot in any meaningful way, but I can also imagine certain YouTubers complaining that all of the male characters in the movie are made fools of by female characters. George Banks is hotheaded and irrational and mean compared to Winifred, and Mary Poppins manipulates him with ease. (I also realized what a gaslighter she is to him and the children, but that's neither here nor there.) Mary Poppins scolds Bert and Uncle Albert for their foolishness. Michael can't snap his fingers, and at a pivotal moment, he says something dumb and Jane tells him to be quiet. Oh, how the YouTubers would hate that if Disney did it in 2024! And why does the movie's female protagonist have to be practically perfect in every way? The Mary Sue jokes write themselves. As for the anti-capitalist part, the bank (run by white males who are portrayed as jackasses, of course) is portrayed as an antagonist. Childlike whimsy and nonsense and frivolous expenditures to benefit wildlife are portrayed as superior to acting self-important and making frugal investments in colonialism.

Jeez, that was too easy. If I didn't hate my mannerisms and my voice, I'd make a YouTube video about it instead of a blog post and make some real money.

My page that includes the full text of LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson's 1987 talk "To the Mothers in Zion" has undergone a significant spike in traffic in the last couple of days. I can guess why. General Relief Society president Camille Johnson spoke on Friday, and she talked about balancing her education and career with raising a family, without mentioning that she was in direct defiance of the prophet at the time by having a career at all. Countless other Mormon women sacrificed their career ambitions because the prophet told them to. He didn't say, "Make your own decisions based on your individual circumstances." He didn't say, "Motherhood should be your highest priority, but you can do other things too." He said, "Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s calling is in the home, not in the marketplace." He was not ambiguous. He was not open to interpretation. This was only six years before I was born, and when I grew up in the 2000s, I was still being taught at church that married women shouldn't work outside the home if they had a choice. My YSA bishop was also very adamant about that as recently as 2021.

And now, as anyone familiar with its usual lack of transparency and accountability would expect, the LDS Church is quietly pretending that didn't happen and celebrating a woman who disobeyed the prophet. But of course many people are seeing through that and calling it out. And apparently some of them are using my copy of the talk as a source. Glad I could be of help. On the flip side, several Mormons are lying that the church's vendetta against working mothers was just "culture" or the "interpretation" of a few zealots in your ward, and that's also infuriating but not unexpected. I understand all too well the cognitive dissonance that comes from facing the reality that the men you've been taught to revere as mouthpieces for God were as misogynistic as they were racist.

Anyway, I formally joined the Unitarian Universalist church today because it's been a good spiritual community that shares my values. It's been at the forefront of social justice movements in the United States instead of getting dragged kicking and screaming behind them like some churches I could mention. I first became aware of it over a decade ago when I had a friend who'd converted to it from the LDS Church, and then I visited it for a religious studies class. I thought the building was weird. It's literally a house. And I understood the appeal of the whole "Love everyone and believe whatever you want" shtick, but I didn't like it. That's exactly the sort of liberal claptrap that I'd been taught to dismiss. Love isn't enough, I thought. You can't just believe whatever you want, I thought. There's objective truth and it matters. At some point, a random woman stopped me on the sidewalk, and I don't remember what she said exactly, but basically she sensed a lot of stress or anxiety in me and suggested I check out Unitarian Universalism, which I didn't. In hindsight, maybe she was led by the Spirit. Or maybe she said that to everybody.

Long story short, my perspective has changed. A lot of what I thought was objective truth was actually bullshit, and I have a lot more humility about how much I don't know and probably never will. I still value truth and I still intend to seek after it for the rest of my life, but I no longer think it's the most important thing. I think love is the most important thing after all. Why should God be more concerned about what we believe than how we treat each other? I've increasingly noticed that people who think that way are insufferable if not horrible people. After I lost my faith, I shopped around a little for a new one because I desperately needed the community. And I ended up sticking around with the Unitarian Univeralists, and after a year or so they asked me if I wanted to formally join, and I saw no reason not to. I don't believe it's the "one true religion," and it doesn't claim to be. It's just a community that works for me and a tool for doing good in the world. My imminent departure from Logan puts a bit of a damper on things, but I'll love this congregation while I'm here and then maybe I'll find another in Salt Lake. Things don't have to last forever to be worthwhile.

A week ago, the LDS Church had its Relief Society (women's auxiliary) anniversary broadcast. The announcement was cringe. The women's meeting being led by a man is old news, but this time I also noticed that none of the female leaders have names. Sarcasm aside, I guarantee that most Mormons don't know what they are.

I can't believe that the church's PR department or correlation or whomever is still so tonedeaf that it didn't bother to suggest this token of basic respect that could be extended without having to change any of the sexist teachings or policies. I said something less inflammatory to that effect in a nuanced Mormon Facebook group, where dozens of women agreed with me while a man accused me of "white-knighting" and silencing any hypothetical women who may have disagreed with me. And women kept telling him he was wrong, but he just would not shut the hell up. He suggested that I should have let "someone with skin in the game," a woman, post about it instead. I want to go on public record stating that I do have skin in the game because women are people and I'm also a people. If you need something more specific, though, I have nieces being raised in this church, and I don't want them to settle for as little as their mother does. (I'm talking only about church stuff. That wasn't a jab at my brother-in-law.)

That was nothing to the controversy that would follow, though, because of course the sexist teachings and policies are still the real problem. The church received one of the biggest social media backlashes I've ever seen after it posted a quote from J. Annette Dennis, one of the female leaders whose name wasn't on the announcement.

First off, she conveniently says "that I know of" so you can't accuse her of being disingenuous if she just doesn't know much about other religions. Even without that caveat, her assertion is unfalsifiable because of circular logic. I'm pretty confident that Mormon priesthood power and authority are imaginary, but to believers, they're the only valid power and authority, so they automatically trump whatever other religions let women do. But even from that perspective, they're largely meaningless in this context. Women objectively don't need priesthood power or authority to do ministering assignments or anything else that they do in the LDS Church outside of the temple. When men perform priesthood ordinances, the belief is that those ordinances aren't valid in God's eyes without the priesthood, and that's reasonable enough on its own. But women don't perform ordinances outside of the temple. They only do things that they and any woman or man in any religion could do without the "priesthood." The women in my little Unitarian Universalist congregation do everything that the men do without any "priesthood." The LDS Church gives its women nothing and tells them that the nothing is something and the something is the most special thing ever.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise, then, that this claim that Mormon women have priesthood power and authority is only a decade old. It was a total retcon by Dallin Oaks in response to the Ordain Women movement. "We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings," he said in the April 2014 General Conference, "but what other authority can it be?" Hmm, I wonder why they weren't accustomed to speaking of it. Maybe because he just made it up to pacify feminists and dissuade them from demanding actual equality for a few more years. I wonder if he exchanged any tense words behind the scenes with Boyd Packer after his doctrinal innovation almost humorously contradicted what the latter taught in General Conference a few months before I was born: