Gemini: Maths

You'll be reduced to a fraction of your former self this week when both your numerator and denominator are divided by 12.

Pioneer Craft Hour: Jazz in the Garden

During the District’s summer, on Fridays around five, the sculpture garden sprouts picnic baskets, blankets, friends, and other lounging urbanites. Jazz and sangria flow, thanks to National Gallery of Art. My nikon jumps in my hands, and the shutter flies into action.

Life is a Mix Tape: A Welcome Home Mix

“We're really not that different, just a few steps from exploding” -Rocky Votolato

"Detox" after a Mormon mission can take months, but this little number from a dear friend most definitely eased some of the growing pains. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, even years after re-entry.

Track 13, Mix Tapes/Cellmates, by Rocky Votolato went on repeat until the CD decided it had had enough and burst into flames, but only after climbing out of the player and giving me the finger.

I later saw Rocky in concert at Velour in Provo. The venue wasn’t crowded, so the concert felt quite personal. He played his new stuff, which left us eager and excited. He played the crowd favorites, which made us dance and rejoice. Then he played Mix Tapes / Cellmates which brought us to our knees, and tears to our eyes.

This is the most sublime experience I’ve ever had, second ONLY to the time I found an enormous peanut butter cookie at Dunkin’ Donuts which had an entire Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup face down in the center.

Reading Rainbow: The Commitment

I used to think Ira Glass was a woman.

If you’re more familiar with The Diane Rehm Show than This American Life, and a friend invites you to go hear Ira’s live old-fashioned "radio show” at GW University, you might think that Ira is wonderfully hip for bringing old radio back to the youths of today. You would be wrong and horribly embarrassed.

But I have repented of my ways. Now I listen to This American Life when I brush my teeth, walk to work, fold laundry, and watch Project Runway. In fact, I carry a boom box on my shoulder, blasting the program everywhere I go. Now I know that Ira is a MAN, a wonderful man who should be president of everything, but I digress.

Dan Savage is a regular contributor to This American Life, and after listening to one of his stories, I went out and bought his book, The Commitment. I’ve never read such a personal memoir. When reading it, you wonder if you should feel guilty for prying into his personal thoughts.

Dan talks about the feelings of his boyfriend, their son, and extended family when it comes to marriage. Dan’s mother wants them to get married. His boyfriend isn’t sure. Their six-year-old wants them to “pinky promise, to seriously and forever promise,” that they will always love each other and stay together.

With my brother’s impending marriage, the subject has graced my mind. More honestly, the subject of marriage has been more of a throbbing headache beginning when I was born, climaxing the month after my mission, and only recently beginning to subside.

It was the next in a long line of accomplishments I had planned for myself.

I find myself in a strange limbo, unable to "move forward," into a phase I've always wanted, but isn't available to me, and one I'm not always sure is right for me. On the one hand, there is a legitimacy and protection afforded to married couples, a sense of possession, of permanence. On the other hand, being unable to get married keeps me from obsessing about a false endgame, and keeps me focused on quietly building a relationship without fanfare. Dan Savage:

“Before gay marriage became an option, no one expected a same-sex couple to put on a floor show for our families and friends about how much we really, truly loved each other. Straight couples that want their relationships to be taken seriously have always had to jump through the marital hoop, but not gay couples. We couldn’t cut to the front of the take-my-relationship-seriously line by getting married two days or two months or two years after we met. Unlike heterosexuals, we had to do the hard work of building a life together in order to be taken seriously, something we did without any legal entanglements or incentives.”

Of necessity, convention was discarded when I decided to live fully and unabashedly. But just because I discarded the default roadmap doesn't imply my destination has changed. Whether or not I will ever be allowed to get married, I will have tenderness, beauty, inspiration, love and growth in a relationship I commit my heart to. Married or not, relationships are difficult. But building them is the most brilliant thing we may create. I love this sentiment by Dan Savage:

“My relationship with Terry has always been our own creation, the product of a love some people believe isn’t even supposed to exist. With state and church against us, there’s a kind of dignity in loving each other anyway.”

This I Believe: Running Away from Gunfire

“There are large groups of white folk getting killed all at one time. Eight or nine of them get shot at work all together. But whenever somebody goes on a rampage you don’t really hear news about ten or eleven black people getting killed altogether.

Cause we run… If I’m with you and you start running, well dammit, I’m gonna start running. That’s just how it goes. Once we stop running I’ll find out what it was, we was runnin’ about…

Meanwhile, white people walk right to the trouble. ‘What the heck is going on?’ [BANG]”
- Cedric the Entertainer



I first saw this clip a few months after moving from Utah (1.4 violent crimes per 1,000 people) to Washington, D.C. (14.46 violent crimes per 1,000 people) At the time I was living in the BYU dorms where 1) we were required to carry around rape whistles & mace, 2) students weren’t allowed outside the compound before sunrise, dusk, or on particularly overcast days and 3) we were each assigned a bathroom buddy so we didn’t have to walk the halls alone at night.

Now I live in Shaw, where I can hear gunshots outside my apartment window.

[BANG] [BANG] [BANG] [BANG] [BANG] [BANG]

It’s the week before the 4th of July, and I figure kids are setting off fireworks. So, I stick my head out my window into the alley way behind my apartment to catch a glimpse, and I see two kids bolting frantically away from the sound. I duck my head back in, and the doubt and panic sets in.


OMG! What if that was really a bunch of gunshots!?!?
Should I call the police!?!

I run out to my living room to tell my roommates who haven’t heard a thing.

Roommates: Are you sure it wasn’t fireworks?
Doesn’t your experience with handguns always include a big screen, surround sound and popcorn?
Maybe we should walk back there and check, before we call the police?

Me: No! No! No! That’s what we’re programmed to do. That’s an instinct we need to start ignoring!

But it is difficult. Even I’m feeling the urge strongly. The genetic disposition I have to run into the middle of gunfire was most likely inherited from my father’s family (of Scandinavian descent), a point my Asian mother reiterates every time she calls me “twinkie" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside).

After fifteen minutes of discussing the many ways in which young professional ex-suburbanites get killed, I tell my roommates I have to venture out anyway. Young Apollo is going to be walking from the metro to the apartment, and I don’t want him walking alone. Never mind that I’ll be walking alone to meet him. No, I can put myself in danger, but HE is not allowed to (a moronic hypocrisy Young Apollo continues to point out).

I tip toe outside and make my way to the metro, careful to take cover behind every available tree. I cross the street to avoid the alleyway behind my apartment, but as I pass, I see a police officer with a flashlight searching the ground. I wave to him and walk over (because it’s obviously safe to walk back towards the origin of gunfire if the PoPo have arrived). I ask if he’s looking for fireworks (trying not to give up on my obviously false hopes and inevitably revealing my incredible naïveté). He says he’s actually looking for bullet encasings because they got FIVE calls about six gunshots.

[GULP] Whoa! About that...

And I proceed to give him my description of the suspects: young, tall, slim, gray jacket, blue t-shirt, kinda blurry? Nope, didn’t see a gun... Very helpful I’m sure. He takes my report and contact info and tells me they haven’t found any bodies or damage, but that if they do, he’ll get in touch with me.

Oh, and sir, please stay out of the alley way.

Gemini: Round and Round

All of your sins will come back to haunt you - especially those involving boomerangs, tetherballs, and vengeful homing pigeons.

Pioneer Craft Hour: Stand Tall Mrs. Capitol

My mother and sister came to Washington. We devoured vegan muffins (some people call them cupcakes, but those people are out of their minds). We walked the Capitol, and we spied on museum butterflies.