not a happy post

Really, it's not. Lest I cause you any undue panic, though, S-Boogie is all right.

There is nothing worse than seeing your child choking with the blind cord around her neck. Foxy and I had a horrible scare this afternoon while we were trying to do our taxes online. Thankfully Foxy saw what was happening before it was too late, but there were a couple seconds of panic followed by a lot of crying. S-Boogie has a couple red lines on her neck where the cord was. It's interesting how in the moment all you can think of is what to do--in this case all it took was getting our fingers between the cord and her neck, then untangling it--but then you spend the next hours going over and over what could have happened. I still feel a little shaky.

I keep going back to that image of S-Boogie standing on the bed in front of the window, and that brings me back to another image. One day while Foxy and I were engaged--on the day we were going to take our announcement pictures, in fact--I went to my park attendant job in Provo. I started cleaning the bathroom, then noticed a boy standing oddly under a tree. He was hunched over and swaying back and forth. As I approached him I realized there was a jumprope around his neck, going up to a tree branch. "Hey," I said, "you shouldn't play like that." Then I saw that his feet weren't touching the ground. I ran to the nearest house, where I asked to use the phone. I couldn't bring myself to tell the 911 operator what was obvious--that he was dead--so instead I sputtered out something about a boy choking with a jumprope around his neck. The firemen and police (I don't remember an ambulance but surely there was an ambulance too) arrived shortly and I watched as they assessed the situation. They put up tarps around the boy but I noticed quite a while later that I could still see his feet hanging under the tarp. The whole time I waited there and as they interviewed me for the police report, I had this eerie feeling of having witnessed something horrible and not really feeling anything because I had no connection to it. Later when I picked Foxy J up at school and started to tell her about it is when I cried.

The pictures we took that evening were no good; we returned to take more later that week.

S-Boogie recovered from the whole thing this afternoon much quicker than Foxy or I did. Within minutes she was giggling and dancing and kissing. She reminded me matter-of-factly as I put her down for a nap that "Mommy crying," which was apparently the worst part of it all for her. It would be nice to be a toddler.

Pointless

On Wednesday my students are going to be learning about meeting reader expectations--structuring their papers so that one thing logically leads to the next, so as to not confuse readers. Editorgirl, who, as per Lunkwill's advice, I love unconditionally and not because of her wonderfulness, and whose name I simply cannot uncapitalize at the beginning of a sentence, passed on a wonderful idea that she used when teaching a similar concept to her English 115 students. The idea is that you do something completely random--she played a movie clip, I believe--and then go on with your lesson without explaining. You finish your lesson, say goodbye, and let your students wonder for two days if you are insane or if you were just trying to kill time. Then, the next class period, you ask them why they think you did that random thing. They talk about it, express confusion, and that's when you reveal that you were making a point: if you throw something in your paper without explaining it or tying it into something, you're confusing your reader.

So today I stopped in the middle of my lesson, played "The Last Trumpet" by Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker, then continued with the lesson. While the song played I stapled some papers to hand back. I couldn't look at the students' faces. I fought the urge to giggle, could hardly hold the stapler still. Here's the problem: I am a being of order. Logic holds my world together. Random acts of insanity simply are not me. And now I suspect my students think I'm weird. Weirder even than they usually think I am. And it drives me crazy to let them go on thinking that until Wednesday. And what about the students who don't come on Wednesday? They will go to their graves thinking that I'm some disordered guy who randomly plays new age political rap songs in the middle of class for no good reason. They will point at me on Judgment Day and hold me responsible for their lives spiraling into chaos.

And I will point to editorgirl.

To Anyone Who Received Long Emails From Me Last Week

I would just like you to know that I wrote said long emails as a guilty pleasure, at the expense of the 41 student papers that needed to be graded. I don't regret these guilty pleasures, though, because:

a. Obviously, I value electronic sociality more than I value returning student papers in a timely fashion.
b. Even with my inefficiency all week, I was hugely efficient yesterday and managed to finish grading the papers and return them today, only a week after they were turned in. And I even had time to hang out with a couple of wonderful new friends last night.

To Anyone Who Didn't Receive a Long Email From Me Last Week:
I'm sure I love you anyway.

Three Cheers for Tolkien Boy

1. Hurray for Tolkien Boy for being a novelist. The novel he's working on now promises to be even better than his first. Well, it doesn't literally say, "I promise to be better than the first novel," because that would be ridiculous, but I think it looks like it'll be positively delightful, whereas the first was only affirmatively delightful.

2. Hurrah for Tolkien Boy for being a funny, funny man.

3. Huzzah for Tolkien Boy for being a successful babysitter. He kindly watched S-Boogie last night while Foxy J and I went out for dessert. Well, technically, he watched The Simpsons last night while Foxy J and I went out for dessert and S-Boogie slept peacefully in her room, but the important thing is that S-Boogie is alive and well and apparently unscarred from her first Tolkien Boy babysitting experience. We'll have to take advantage of Tolkers' kindness more often, perhaps next time while S-Boog is awake and can enjoy his company.

Daddy Fob vs. S-Boogie's Self Image

This picture doesn't have much to do with what I'm going to talk about; I just like it. S-Boog got into the living room closet today and accesorized herself.

Today I was reading in my students' textbook, in the section on image analysis, about cultural readings of advertisements. The text uses the example of a couple studies that have been done on the portrayal of women in advertising, ranging from a 1924 Hoover ad that encourages husbands to buy their wives a vacuum for Christmas to a more recent AT&T Corporate Calling Card ad that shows a businesswomen doing Important Things on the phone. The textbook suggests that I bring ads with women in them to class so that I can have my male students pose like the women are posing and see if they look ridiculous. I'll pass, but it is a good point--despite all the advances women have made over the last century, they still are often valued more for their sexual appeal than for any other quality.

This makes me worry about S-Boogie. I tell her rather frequently that she looks pretty, to the point where now after I put her hair in pigtails she'll run to Foxy J and say, "I look pretty." I do this because: it is a matter of fact that S-Boogie is a beautiful toddler; I see her frequently; I therefore notice frequently that she is a beautiful toddler; when I notice my first impulse is to tell her. On the one hand, I think this might be a good thing because I seem to have read somewhere once that girls' perception of themselves is highly influenced by their fathers, and I would like S-Boogie to grow up knowing that she is a beautiful person, even if twenty years from now she's overweight or plagued by horrible acne or hunchbacked. On the other hand, I fear this is a bad thing because I read somewhere once that girls' perception of themselves is highly influenced by their fathers, and I don't want S-Boogie to grow up believing that her worth is dependent upon her appearance, especially when twenty years from now she is overweight or plagued by horrible acne or hunchbacked.

My hope is that I'll balance out the negative impact of telling her how pretty she is by telling her with equal frequency how smart she is. I do this because: it is a matter of fact that S-Boogie is one of the most intelligent two-and-a-half-year-olds ever; I see her frequently; I therefore notice frequently that she is an intelligent toddler; when I notice my first impulse is to tell her. I think this is a good thing. I'm sure I'll regret it, though, ten years from now when my emphasis on her intelligence produces enough anxiety to cause her to not come home for three days when she gets a B on her report card.

Sigh. I'm not sure I like having the future of a human being to mold like putty in my hands.

Guys

This post has been stewing in my head for more than a week now, so let's see if it comes out more than half-baked.

It all started when I was asked to read Guys Write For Guys Read for work. I was asked to review it for nomination in Utah's Beehive Awards because I read young adult literature and because I am one of the few guys who work at the library. My first thought was that I'm not exactly the best judge of what Guys will think of any particular book, because I am not a Normal Guy. But then I realized that that was the old Master Fob speaking, not the new-and-improved Master Fob.

See, I've spent much of my life intimidated by men. The use of the present perfect "I've spent" there could indicate that I am referring to the recent past, or it could also indicate that the action or state I'm referring to still holds true. Which it does, to some extent, but not as much as it used to. At some point during the last year or two, I've learned that I have no reason to be intimidated by men.

It may have something to do with the elders quorum I've been in. I realized recently that this is the first elders quorum I've ever been in where I've felt comfortable. Part of that comes from being in a position--as a counselor in the EQ presidency--where I was forced to interact with the other men in the quorum and find out that they are not as big and scary as I might have thought. Part of it comes from getting to know the EQ president, who is very open about his self-doubt and fears, which are not too different from my own. And part of it comes from choosing to teach lessons on uncomfortable topics like emotional intimacy and sexual addiction, then seeing the other men in the quorum open up and really talk.

It also may have something to do with the therapy group I was in early last year, composed of fifteen straight guys and me. I told them about my same-sex attraction in the second or third meeting of the group, and they seemed to respect me not in spite of it but because of it; and eventually, I think, regardless of it. As the group progressed and we grew closer, the other guys actually looked to me as some sort of leader, the guy who had all the answers. I didn't, but it was nice to see how highly they thought of me.

It may have something to do with the amazing male friends I have. Like Th., who on more than one occasion has broken his rule about emotional exhibitionism in order to make me not feel like a dork for dumping my emotions on him. Or Freelancer, who recognizes that random, unprovoked kisses from his daughter are "the sweetest gift ever." Or Svoid (I can still count him as a friend even though he's my brother), who flies to Milwaukee to bring his girlfriend flowers, then quotes Dostoevsky when he blogs about it. Or Edgy, who is not ashamed of his strange addictions. Or Tolkien Boy, that manliest of men, who admits that even he is intimidated by the "healthy tans and visible abdominals" of the men in the BYU gym showers (I might add, by the way, that I am the man who is most frequently in those showers when he is--I'd be intimidated too, if I had to shower next to me).

Last year I had the opportunity to get to know a guy who I found particularly intimidating. He'd always seemed so sure of himself, so strong, so stereotypically male. I'd always felt inferior and incompetent around him. Once I got to know him, though, I realized that he worked so hard to exude confidence precisely because that's the one thing he lacks. It had never occurred to me that he cared one bit what people thought of him, but as it turns out he's one of the most insecure people I know. But then, the fact that I need to see others' insecurities in order to feel comfortable around them speaks tons about my own insecurity.

My point in all this rambling is that I'm learning that, when it comes to guys, it's not me and them. It's us. I may not be your stereotypical man, but who is? I don't know what makes men men--perhaps it's nothing more than that Y chromosome (and, you know, the other obvious things that go with it)--but whatever it is, I'm not scared of it anymore.

Zero-gravity bunnies, on the other hand, terrify me.

Master Fob: He Sure Is... Different

I just got an email from a random guy who came across "Getting Out" and "Staying In" and wanted to tell me that, as a gay Mormon in a mixed-orientation marriage, he identified with my story. (He explained that I was the second Master Fob he had emailed in search of the author of the essays. Who'd have known Master Fob was such a common name?)

At any rate, he mentioned that he'd found my essays on a blog which advertised them as proof that gay men should not marry heterosexually. So I hopped on Blogsearch and I'm pretty sure I found the right place. As it turns out, the author of this blog lives on Oahu, which, in case you don't know, is where I grew up. Not that that has anything to do with anything; I just found it curious. To be honest, I'm flattered to be mentioned by a stranger, even if he's using my words to come to a different conclusion than I intended. Perhaps I should be bothered by the fact that he's putting me up basically as a cautionary tale of what not to do, but I'm not. People are free to read my story and come to whatever conclusion they want to.

If nothing else, at least Blog Guy posting a link to my article led to Random Guy realizing that he is not alone in the world. Random Guy compared reading my essays to the experience of early Mormons who found the LDS Church and were gratified to learn something they already believed, "that the truth had to be different than all things at that time proffered." If I achieve nothing else in this life, I'll be happy to know that one person thinks I am different than all things at this time proffered.