In case you missed it, a former post from this very blog that you're reading right now, edited slightly for length and clarity, has been published in the latest edition of an online magazine called Magnets & Ladders. It is available here. It's the turtle story, if any of you remember that.

This is my first attempt at getting something published and also my first successful attempt at getting something published. It makes me happy enough to stop caring about the five hundred things going wrong with my life. For that I have my friend Adrienne Rouse to thank. She made me aware of this opportunity and I figured I may as well go for it since it might behoove me to actually start publishing things at some point. I suppose if I do manage to leverage this as a stepping stone that eventually leads me to my dream career as a bestselling novelist, I'll be forever in her debt and obligated to let her visit my mansion whenever she wants. Well played.

Today was my last day at Jenson Online, for a while and possibly ever, so that I can focus on school and fulfill my potential on assignments like I wasn't able to do last semester. Since I was such a good employee I'm welcome to return whenever I want, so that's a nice safety net to have, but whether I do or not depends on what progress I'm able to make on my actual career goals in the next few months. Like, it might help if I actually get something published. Just a thought. With any luck, I'll soon have a job in the USU English department, but that's contingent on whether I can out-compete people with equal or superior writing skills. My best chance is to focus on what makes me unique, which is that I'm almost the only person in any writing class I've ever had who tries to write funny things (and, if I may flatter myself, usually succeeds).

When I started at Jenson Online nearly two years ago, of course I had just escaped from the call center. After much prayer and debate I decided to quit that job so I would have time to go in for an interview for this one. Even though I had zero ten key experience. I practiced really hard to make sure I could pass the ten key test that accompanied the interview, and then I did so well that I knew I would get the job despite a couple faux pases like forgetting to stand up when the guy shook my hand. And then I realized that my hunt-and-peck method wouldn't work while I was reading the ISBNs out of the books, so I had to learn it the right way within the first few days. I was very blessed to get this job, is what I'm saying. At that time I thoroughly enjoyed it but knew the excitement would someday wear off. I compared it to a marriage, or at least how I imagine a marriage would be, where you start off crazy in love and then slowly the banalities of real life take over and the magic is lost, and you have to remind yourself how blessed you are to be with this person. So I guess this is a divorce over someone younger and more beautiful.

And I learned today that a former coworker I barely knew somehow discovered my blog and told another coworker about it who told another coworker about it, and they like it. I know I'm a great writer, but I feel like my posts all summer have been hastily and poorly written, so that was a nice confidence booster. I was actually just thinking about giving up on it. Since 2018 started my previously satisfactory pageviews have gone through the floor despite doing everything I can think of to search engine optimize the site. I don't know if it's people turning off their cookies or what. As I write this my stats tell me that today I've had 64 visitors and 424 page views, meaning that each visitor viewed an average of 6.625 pages, which is somewhat typical and makes little or no sense to me. If my site is really so compelling that people keep looking at additional pages after they first stumble on it, then it should be rising organically through the search results and getting more and more visitors. It was getting more and more visitors until 2018 started. Now it won't no matter what I do. Any time the stats start going up and I think this stupid slump is over, they plummet again.

One thing I had hoped to do was have a substantial following on my blog so that when I published a book, I could advertise it here and already have loyal fans eager to read it. I don't think that's going to happen now. I've been at this for well over three years and the lack of discernible progress has been quite discouraging. But I feel encouraged now. Even if only a small cluster of local people get enjoyment out of it, that's something and I hope I can continue to please them. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

As most people reading this are already aware, Russell M. Nelson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has started an initiative to stop calling The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "the LDS Church" or "the Mormon Church" or "Mormonism" and to stop calling Latter-day Saints "Mormons". So I'm going through my website and change most instances of "Mormon" to "Latter-day Saint" even though it will do my search ranking no favors. I'm not going through all my old blog posts because that would take far too long. These new guidelines are, of course, less than convenient, and almost certainly will be very detrimental to the Church's visibility online and in the public consciousness, but I choose to trust that President Nelson knows what he's doing. Who said religion was supposed to be convenient? A prophet who always just reaffirmed one's pre-existing opinions would be useless. President Nelson says this can't be done, but the Lord wants it done so it will be.

I feel sorrier for people in some other languages, though. In Spanish, "Mormon" is "Mormón". "Latter-day Saint" is "Santo de los Últimos Días". Spanish speakers are now expected to say nine syllables instead of two. The full name of the Church, "La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días", is twenty syllables, while "Iglesia SUD" is seven (because the letter S is pronounced "essay"). And they're probably no longer allowed to jokingly call it "La Iglesia de José Smith y Un Dios" (The Church of Joseph Smith and One God - get it, because the words use the same first letters as the actual name. Spanish humor is weird.) And the loss of recognition overseas will be even worse than in the US. Even people I met from India had some idea of what "Mormons" were from watching "South Park", even though "Mormons" in India are literally one in a million (literally), but of course they had never heard of "Latter-day Saints".

Tomorrow: Bear Lake. Monday: College. And that's as far in advance as I know anything. Fingers crossed that this semester will be less stressful than the last one.

I always thought family history was less fun than watching paint dry, but now that I've actually stumbled on a part of my FamilySearch tree where there are people missing that are actually possible to find and put in, it isn't so bad. I'll resist the temptation to go into detail about it because I know nobody cares and I don't blame them. But I'm finding a lot of cool seventeenth-century Dutch names to give my daughters if I ever have daughters. Stijntie Pieters Nicholson, Tryntje Thyssen Nicholson, Giertje Egberts Nicholson. They have nice rings to them, don't they? Of course, the problem with naming daughters is that some man will probably come along and change their last name, ruining your meticulously arranged nomenclature. It's a travesty.

And I do briefly want to share one story I found and really liked. It's about Wiliam Henry Brighton, son of William Stuart Brighton and father of William Stuart Brighton, who was the father of William Henry Brighton. "There is one more thing that I would like to tell about Grandpa Brighton and that is at his funeral one of the speakers, Mr. Bagley, made the remark that Grandpa had lived a good and long life and that now that he had died his troubles were over and that he [Mr. Bagley] had also lived a good and long life and he wished that he too could die and be through with his troubles. Well, that is exactly what he did after giving his talk. He just sat down and died. Of course that shortened the funeral up some but it was quite a thing for him to get his wish."

I don't have much time to write blog posts since I'm chugging away on my memoir. I'm hoping to get it published next year or possibly the year after that. It largely depends on how much I need to revise after learning more about non-fiction writing this coming semester. But I want to get it done and out there so that is provocative title will hopefully kick-start the career I've put off for far too long already.

Adrian is, in my estimation, the best writer in our fiction class, coming in two slots above me. I was disappointed by his absence on the day that my first story was workshopped, but he sent me a message via Canvas, the website that USU uses for various stuff. Because I had not been in school for a year and a half prior to this semester, I forgot all about checking for Canvas messages and didn't notice it until about a week ago. I want to reproduce his message in its entirety here because it made me smile so hard.

"Hello Chris, since I sadly could not make it to class today I am sending my comments on your story over this email. Hopefully they will assist you with revision.

What works well: 

--I honestly love this story. The first sentence is masterful in my opinion, perfectly setting up the amazing setting and interesting characters. The allusions to space-related things throughout (the Jetsons, Ernie's moon song) are just amazing and work really well to create a specific tone and mood for the surface of the moon itself. 

--Jane and Chantelle's characters are examined well through what they enjoy (for Chantelle, pointing out Jane's abnormalities and for Jane, "living the experience," and we get some great interiority from Jane through all her instances similar to "but she saw no reason to tell her" or "she couldn't care less." The image of Chantelle's bright green eyes hidden behind blood-red bangs is just phenomenal. Figurative language works very well when it occurs, especially when it connects us to character, such as the "dead human skull Jane had seen once" and her beautiful meta-descriptions of earth.

--By far the strongest aspect of the story, however, is the dialogue and interaction between the characters. Every single line from each of them chastising the other is just drop-dead funny, and their familiar relationship of bully and victim is made fresh and new through the specific, unique things they say to one another. The LEVELS which each go to to in terms of criticism are just astounding, from inventing "lunar wolves" to snapping directly back at every chastisement each offers the other with a perfect response. And, oh my God, the PUNS--even down to the friggin title! So awesome. Their extended interaction is honestly so interesting that it carries the whole story by itself.

What needs improvement:

--I didn't get that they were on the moon, and not an alien planet, until page four. Mention it immediately to help the audience withhold one specific image of the setting throughout.

--In terms of worldbuilding, some things you use are working very well, like subtle mentions of slang like "stragging," "Philistines," and "space spit," all of which I just adore, and the fact that some channels on the moon's radio waves play music. Other mentions of things such as Jane's birth on Mars or descriptions of the system-wide space travel program that got them out there in the first place, however, work less well since they are mentioned briefly and without connection to the plot. Other descriptive phrases feel much too, er, "on the nose" and expected in terms of the genre, such as "the last person in the galaxy" or "like a disabled ship in a meteor storm." Just watch for moments like these which feel too basic, like something the reader him/herself would think to use given the setting, and focus on your interesting invented phrases and obscure, quirky references.

--Even though the character interaction is strong enough to carry the story in general, I do think that the narrative should be more condensed in terms of plot. While each conversation is golden in its own right, you should probably pick out the best ones and move quicker so that you have room to elaborate on other areas--such as a more lengthy description of the tussle that rips Chantelle's suit. Interaction w/ teachers and the other bullies at the end also felt sudden since we had not seen them before, so maybe switch back and forth from the main action to flashbacks that reveal Jane's relationship with all of them at the start of the trip to better establish tension throughout.

--I find it interesting that BOTH girls are unlikable/not entirely innocent in different ways, instead of just acting as an evil bully and innocent victim, but in Jane's case--as the main character--I think these aspects of her could see further exploration. She seems to feel NO guilt whatsoever to BREAKING Chantelle's space suit, but why? Would it serve the story better for her to find that she does, even though Chantelle remains so cruel to her? Take things a step farther based on what the audience knows about them by the end to expand upon each of their characters.

--The ending is great in terms of subverting expectations at first (I LOVE the fact that Jane makes a bomb instead of just giving her oxygen to Chantelle, as one may expect, but Chantelle's later reaction feels a bit wanting. For Jane to save her life and Chantelle to do NOTHING to change her attitude towards her felt jarring--she doesn't need to run over and hug her as her new best friend, but even a small mention to her cronies of "hey, maybe lets let her off the hook for today" or something like that would work great. Jane ends her character arc in a good place regardless, but for Chantelle to do NOTHING felt disappointing, as if the whole plot of the story did not accomplish anything between them. 

--The mention of the nanobots feels somewhat like a cop-out--as if the characters were never in any real danger if recuperation occurs so quickly and painlessly. 

Like I said, Christopher, AMAZING story, and I am truly saddened by the fact I could not take part in the discussion of the first sci-fi story I've seen in Charles' class during the past three years.

​Adrian

"A space hero. Like a regular hero, but in space."
--Favorite line

Returning home with a bag of laundry last Saturday, I was walking by the church on the boulevard when a vehicle pulled up near me and the passenger tossed a burning cigarette butt at my feet. I stood behind the vehicle and positioned my phone to take a picture of the license plate, but before I could, both of the guys inside got out. One stayed in the shadows while the other walked over to me. He had a shaved head, a tank top, and tattoos all down his muscular arms - in other words, he was yet another example of the fact that most stereotypes exist because they're true. "You got a problem?" he sputtered. "You got something to say?" He threw in a few swear words. I guess I was supposed to be intimidated. But I'm never afraid to die, and this night I was in such a dark place that my normal aversion to most physical pain was gone and I didn't care if he broke all my limbs. I had just spent stake conference hiding from my ex-crush, but this jackass with the maturity of a twelve year old did not instill me with one iota of fear.

"You dropped something," I said, pointing at it. I resumed taking the picture. Realizing that he had failed to intimidate me, he swore a few more times and went back to his buddy. I sent the picture to the police, and I don't know if they can actually do anything about it but it gave me a certain satisfaction.

​I deeply regret that I didn't just pick the thing up and toss it back in at them. Dear smokers: if you want to poison yourself, that's fine with me, Darwin approves, but keep it away from me and dispose of your cigarette butts like an adult.

We had Star Wars day recently. Bracelets referred to it as "such a revered reminder of our fandom" and that was when I knew her conversion was complete. I'm so proud of her. Anyway, this John Williams masterpiece that in 1997 replaced the cute but lackluster "Yub Nub" pretty well encapsulates how I feel about this hellish semester being over, not counting the first 37 seconds because there is absolutely nothing bittersweet about it.

Taxes are over and only cost me seventy dollars to file, and finally there is an end in sight to this semester, which will reduce my stress level considerably and give me more time to write things that are actually enjoyable. Naturally my motivation is in the toilet. Although 2018 has thus far been an almost uninterrupted stream of stress, loss, heartache, frustration, arthritis, and various other kinds of pain, it's only been the second worst year of my life because it's still not as bad as working at a call center and losing my dog.

​I did some stuff with FamilySearch this week. I did a face match thing to see which of my ancestors I most resemble and for that I took a new picture of myself. I think I look moderately attractive in the mirror, but in photographs I usually somehow come out looking like an unsuccessful lobotomy patient. So I limit the photographic evidence of my existence and use a picture of my dead dog on social media. Of course I was really surprised that I managed to get an acceptable picturee and if you haven't seen it yet, here it is. Notice how white I am, thanks to my English, Scottish, Danish, and Portuguese ancestry.

I can't believe all the people who don't know who Felicity Jones is and think I just picked a random name. Maybe I can trick God this way. I'll go in for the interview, and He'll be like "Hmm, so you never married" in a sort of vaguely judgmental tone. I'll be like, "Yes I did, look here, it says right here." And He'll be like "Oh yeah, my bad." Nobody tell Him about this post.

I happened to learn in the process that I'm distantly related to my bishop, my bishop's wife who is distantly related to my bishop, his first counselor, my ex-crush, and some other people. My ex-crush, in case you were wondering, is my ex-crush because someone told me I could do better. I didn't believe him at first. I thought, but didn't say out loud, how so? Is she a serial killer or something? I would actually respect that. Women are ridiculously underrepresented in the serial killing industry, and I admire any woman who manages to break through that glass ceiling. But I figured he was just saying that to be nice. I thought, but didn't say out loud, that if he wants to compliment me I'd be happy to give him a list of my positive traits so he doesn't have to make stuff up. At least if I can find the list. I may have accidentally thrown away the Tootsie roll wrapper it was written on.

This reminds me of a story. A few years ago, when I was about five or six, I had the biggest crush on Natalie Davis, who was about ten or twelve or something. I've been mostly into older women for as long as I can remember thanks to the sister missionaries who put me on their laps and tickled me when I was little, which is another story altogether. Anyway, Natalie had a twin, or maybe just a sister who looked a lot like her, I don't remember, but I could tell them apart and I knew which one I wanted. She had six siblings, if I recall correctly. My family and her family hung out a lot. I was closest to her sister Cheryl in age but sometimes I didn't get along with her and one time I called her a "sarcastic know-it-all", which was the worst insult I could think of. Natalie, or maybe her twin, was all like "How would you feel if someone called you that?" and I was all like "I wouldn't care." One night a bunch of us slept on her family's trampoline and she told us a scary bedtime story and my chest is aching from nostalgia just thinking about all this.

So one day I was at this church activity at some park somewhere and Natalie was sitting on a table talking to a friend, and I don't remember the thought process behind what I did next or even if there was one. I was very young and not entirely familiar with the principle of consent. I climbed up next to Natalie and kissed her on the cheek.

"Gasp!" said her friend.

Natalie, however, was unfazed. She said, "It's okay, we're related."

That was not what I had expected to hear. Yeah, somehow I missed that discussion of when our families met and found that out. But she's only my third cousin or something, I think, so I think that would have been all right anyway. But doing family history reminded me of her and that made me really nostalgic and motivated me to churn out several pages of the memoir that I stopped working on quite a while ago because it turns out that spelunking through my memories is super depressing.

I posted my second story for class a few weeks ago and this week it was critiqued, and while the ratio of constructive criticisms to praise was more even this time, indicating that this story was inferior to my first one just like I thought it was, it did seem to be funnier. Macie said this was the first story all semester to laugh out loud. I think the reason for that is because witty, rude, and/or sarcastic dialogue is inherently ten times funnier coming from a robot than a meatbag. Star Wars and Futurama have discovered this principle. And I think the reason for that is because robots are expected to be emotionless and subservient and logical, and humor lies in subverting expectations. Anyway, Adrian, who also happens to be the best writer in the class (I've ranked us Adrian, Natalie, me, everyone else) liked KC-1138 enough to take the initiative of drawing him for me, and that was the most flattering thing ever.

This is my second favorite Sisters of Mercy song. I don't know what to say about it other than it's awesome. And romantic. Since most of my music is gone for the foreseeable future, I've listened to the "Temple of Love 1992" single about twelve times a day.