The Fourth Wall

This week Foxy and I signed a lease to rent a home in Orem, close to Scera Park. Not an apartment, mind you, but an actual house, and for three hundred dollars cheaper than we're paying for our apartment in Davis. The plan is to rent for a year while we save up for a down payment, then buy something, ideally within the same elementary school boundaries, next summer. We're both excited to have four walls of our own--living in three-walled sitcom sets gets old after a while.

Fob Bible Release Party Recap

Thanks to those of you who stopped by the party. To those of you who didn't make it, you can still relive the fun here. The highlights of the party were live readings of a few excerpts from the Fob Bible, which I'll happily repost for you here.

FoxyJ reading "Capitulation: Forbidden Squirming" by A. Arwen Taylor:



Me reading an excerpt from "The Changing of the God" by B.G. Christensen:



Eric reading "Them Bones Them Bones Gonna -- Walk Around (a bar song)" by Theric Jepson:



Lady Steed reading "Philistina" by Danny Nelson:



Me reading "Wings" by Sarah E. Jenkins (sorry, Sarah, I'm not a great poetry reader):



And finally, Eric reading the illustration captions as if they all go together in a long, nonsensical story:



Now that we've whetted your appetite, buy the book!

Ere you left your computer this evening...

Did you think to stop by the Foblog after 6PM PDT to check in on our Fob Bible Release Party and say hi? (Click the link Foblog link to sign up for an email reminder.)

Also, don't forget to pre-order your copy of the Fob Bible!

Proof of My Inability to Learn From My Mistakes

Summer 2000, Spain



September 2007, Hawaii



May 2009, California

A Tiny Little Victory

The California High Court has ruled to uphold Proposition 8 (bad), but also to legally recognize the same-sex marriages that were performed before the ban (good). This decision comes as no surprise after the hearings and legal commentary thereafter, and of course I would rather the entire thing had been overturned, but it's a huge relief to me to know that the people I know (as well as the ones I don't) who were married last year don't have to fear losing their marriages. It's a small step forward, and there's simply no denying that come 2010 or 2012, California will take that final big leap toward equality. And it's also nice to know that by then it will be in the company of several other states.

Now if only Obama would make good on his promises to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA, the nation as a whole could make those same little steps forward...

Fob Bible Goodness

The Fob Bible will be released on June 1st and is now available to pre-order. Whether you order because you want to see Old Testament stories as envisioned by literary geniuses, because you don't want to feel guilty next month when I ask you what you think of it, or because you want to donate money to the LDS Humanitarian Fund, rest assured that you're making the world a better place for you, me, and poor kids in Africa.

To celebrate, we'll be throwing a release party this Friday, May 29th, at 6pm PDT. Can't make it to the Fobcave in Davis, CA? No problem. Pop into the Foblog sometime Friday evening, see what's going on via liveblogging, say hi via comment, and pour yourself a glass of sparkling cider to celebrate with us.

Cheers!

A QUOTIDIAN BOOK OF SCRIPTURE
CONTAINING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
THE JUICIEST PORTIONS OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT

—sans, for obvious reasons, Judges 19—

translated through means of memory and nightmare
out of the pre-translated tongues (being mainly English):
and with the former translations ignored,

or—in special cases—
dictated but not read,

by His Fobbiness’s
special command, in perpetuity,

worlds with very definite (and sometimes good-looking) ends,
albeit of a feminist bent in places,
with far too many references to behemoths and leviathans,
and thus, being indebted to the grace of your most gracious progenitrix,
published in the year of the FOB seven
(using the Jepsonian calendar for its ease of dates).

Fully Authorized Fob Version

The Haunting of Old McDonald

Remember how in Big you know the fortune-telling robot machine is possessed by Satan because it works even when it's unplugged?

A couple years ago we got a toy tractor for our kids at a thrift store. There are buttons on the steering wheel that are intended to make animal noises and play music when you press them, but by the time we bought the toy, the sounds had been reduced to a drunken mutter. Happy to have less sound produced by our children's toys, we never looked into replacing the batteries or anything.

But then a couple months ago, after the tractor had been left out in the rain one too many times, it started making animal noises and music loud and clear, except not when you press the buttons--just whenever it feels like it. At first we found this amusing, but this morning at five o'clock when outside my bedroom window I heard

OLD MCDONALD HAD A FARM, E-I-E-I-O,

louder than should be legal and over and over and over again, I was not so amused. After the ninth or tenth time and a good half hour of not being able to sleep, I stumbled out onto the patio with a screwdriver, took out the batteries, and then stumbled back into bed.

And without the batteries it didn't sing anymore, which I suppose means it's not possessed by Satan. But still, that wasn't very comforting at five o'clock this morning.

The Curious Narration of Benjamin Button

How is it possible that the 80-year-old version of Brad Pitt narrates the story?

It's Fun to Stay at the EQCO! (You can hang out with all the boys)

Last week a friend in the elders quorum presidency of FoxyJ's ward asked me if I'd like to come on the elders quorum campout this weekend. I hesitated because I wasn't sure if I'd feel awkward while they had their planned scripture study and testimony meeting, but I figured what the hey, these people are the only real live friends I have in Davis and they're fun guys. And despite the fact that this was only my third time in ten years, I really love camping. So I went and I had a lot of fun. We ate pulled beef sandwiches, s'mores, and pancakes ; stayed up until 2:30 talking about the relative virtues of socialism and capitalism, gay marriage, and fifth-dimensional vectors (or matrices or axes or something like that--I admit at that point I was out of my depth); and had a crazy scavenger hunt/water balloon fight this morning.

The discussion of gay marriage was surprisingly not awkward or uncomfortable. This was nice because a significant contributor to my discomfort during the first few months in Davis was that my only real-life social outlet was FoxyJ's ward and at the time they were all (or most) involved in the Prop 8 campaign, which led me to keep my distance rather than risk heated arguments with people I barely knew. I remember in particular noticing a Yes on 8 sign in the window of a member of the ward and assuming he was just another of those people who support the proposition because his prophet told him to, but hasn't given it any thought of his own. As I learned in our discussion last night, though, this guy had indeed read up on the issue, had a very keen sense of both sides of the argument, and was very aware of the flaws in the arguments popularly made by people on his side. Above all, I got from him a strong sense of empathy for everyone involved and an awareness that situations like this just plain suck. Ultimately I disagree with his position on Prop 8 (anyone who's been reading this blog for a while knows that), but I have a much greater respect for him as a person and I was glad for the chance to get to know him and the other guys as human beings rather than as the faceless pile of Mormons I tend to make of those I don't know well. I feel sad that we're leaving Davis now that I've begun to make more friends.

And as it turned out, there wasn't a whole lot of scripture study or testimony bearing--just enough to remind me that I've no desire to attend church, much as I like my friends who do.

Time Heals All Wounds and Scrubs All Unpleasant Memories

Yesterday as I got ready to leave for a campout.

FoxyJ: This will be one of the few times we've spent a night apart since we got married.

This afternoon after I got home.

FoxyJ: Oh. Duh. Remember how we were separated for three months a couple years ago?

That I Might Look Down Upon My Less Educated Readers

I am now the proud owner of a bachelor's degree, two master's degrees, and a traffic school certificate of completion.

(Did you know that a red arrow means you should stop and wait for the light to turn green? Now I do.)

Lessons Learned on FoxyJ's Birthday

1. When your body is not used to eating meat, having a beef and lamb gyro for lunch and then a pizza covered in every kind of pig part for dinner is not a good idea.

2. Costco's meat lovers' pizza has enough meat on it to produce the equivalent of a Hummer in greenhouse gases.

3. Even though you're buying two pizzas and there are three different kinds to choose from, it's okay to just get two of the one you know you like.