Sheldon

I didn't change the color of my site on purpose. It just kind of happened while I was editing, and it looks fine so I can't be bothered to change it back. And I wonder what's up with all the visits I've been getting from Russia recently, of all the non-US countries that could be visiting me. That country is not Anglophile and is one of the most sparsely populated in the world, so it wouldn't have been my first guess, but whatever, as long as someone is visiting.

I received this in response to my General Conference post a few weeks ago, but didn't see it until just recently because it went into my "Other" folder and I rarely look there. It said, "Just wanted to tell you that I appreciate your honest blog you posted on 1 Million Mormons on FB. It's brave to write about your honest questions and observations, and even more so to actually post it on a TBM site. Best of luck to you and stay strong. It's a hard road to travel, when you question anything in the church. I've been there myself."

I didn't intend for that post to be "questioning" per se, but I'm well aware that my perspective on these things is sometimes less than orthodox and probably rubs some people the wrong way. I didn't get much flak over that post, though. Several people clicked on it, a few people liked it, and one person commented to tell me that my foundation was obviously built on the sand and that my feelings of complacency before conference came from Satan. She urged me to pray a lot. I was annoyed for a moment, but since she was evidently motivated by genuine concern I decided not to be. At least she cared. I've seen worse and less sincere comments in that group. One time someone shared an anti-Mormon meme she had seen going around and asked for an explanation or refutation of it, and instead mostly received rude comments telling her in essence to shut up and not think about it and stop trying to criticize the Church. The "best" of these comments was "The stone is rolling forward, get out of the way or be crushed." (Gee, that doesn't sound cultish at all.) I gave those people a piece of my mind.

So anyway, I appreciated that message, which is why I brought it up.

The most life-changing article I've read for a long time: Why Must We Hate the Things Teen Girls Love? I've never understood the hate for One Direction. I've been reminded of what "Weird Al" Yankovic once said in response to criticism for having the band Hansen on his short-lived TV show (paraphrase): "Just because your kid sister likes them doesn't mean they're the devil." Nonetheless, I have often mocked the Twilight saga, and after reading this I decided that I never will again. Or at least I'll try not to. Don't expect me to be perfect.

The funniest article I've read for a long time: How To Be a Successful Millennial Ex-Mormon (A Guide for Beginners) Obviously, those who don't share my hobbies and interests probably won't find this nearly as funny as I did, so if you fall in that category, just trust me that it's hilarious, despite being almost too accurate to be satire. Really, virtually anything that makes fun of millennials gets a thumbs up from me. We/they deserve every bit of it.

I was going to talk about how 93% of communication is nonverbal and what a disadvantage that puts me at, but upon trying to check the statistic I discovered that it's kind of bogus. I'm not even surprised, but I'm annoyed because I was going to use that to segue into a spiel about how important emoticons are for conveying inflections and emotions in written text that don't come across otherwise, which is one area where I disagree with Matt Walsh (I don't want anyone to think that I agree with him on everything, although I admire his chutzpah even when he's wrong), who looks down his nose at pictures as if they are inherently inferior to his high and mighty words. Emoticons, as should be obvious, just take the place of the facial expressions that would be used if one was speaking in person. Adding more punctuation marks to our language would help too.

^ That first one would be perfect for the occasional girl who briefly attempts to flirt with me.

No, I didn't insert those comics to take up space because I don't feel like writing a post today but feel pressured to because Bracelets and my other two anonymous fans will be disappointed if I don't. It's not at all a crushing sense of responsibility.

How I felt about my novel before I took a Fiction Writing class: This needs a lot of revision, but nonetheless it's very good and I'm very proud of it. How I feel about it now: I can hardly stand to look at this abomination. Granted, that's probably in part because I'm just sick of reading it, too. Familiarity breeds contempt.

It's a total coincidence that I found an opportunity to use this strip again.

Because many people were absent from Fiction Writing this last time around, we got into groups of three instead of four, thus requiring one of my usual mates to sacrifice herself. But I had printed four copies of my short story, of course, so I gave one to her after class. She threw up her hands and yelled with delight. I believe the term for that is "fangirling". It was the most flattering reaction I've ever gotten, and gives me hope for the future, as long as I can a. generate this enthusiasm on a much larger scale and b. channel it into financial remuneration. I will share that story here at some point, of course, but I need to revise it first. It was so rushed that I forgot to finish a sentence on the first page. I hope she wasn't bitterly disappointed.

In honor of the day that today is, I'm sharing this wonderful and underappreciated song, and now you understand why I couldn't just put this off until tomorrow even though I don't feel like it today.

Meco - Werewolf (Loose in London)