I Should Complain More Often

Today one of my good friends at work told me she read my essays last night. She really liked them, and told me I'm very brave. We talked for quite a while about the essays and how even though she's not gay, as a 30-year-old single woman, she relates to a lot of the things I talk about, like the fear of never having something that at least part of you really wants. I was flattered and happy to know that she cared enough to read it.

AND "Take It Easy" by the Fugees premiered tonight on an NYC radio show. The file I just downloaded is taped off the show so it's not a high-quality recording, but it's very tingly to hear Lauryn, Clef, and Pras all on the same song, and even more to hear L flowing over a strong hip-hop beat, after a few years of hearing her mostly singing on unplugged-style acoustic tracks. And she sounds happy, which is cool because she's seemed kind of grumpy and stand-offish for a couple years now.

And now I can go to bed with a smile on my face. After I figure out a lesson plan for tomorrow morning.

Update

By popular demand, meaning Th. has requested it, here is an update on "Out":

As far as I know, no one else at the library has read my essays. Which is, to be honest, frustrating. Because it means one of two things:
1. People are reading the essays but they feel too awkward or even (Heaven forbid) nonplussed to say anything to me.
2. No one has read the essays. Meaning that, even though everyone says they think it's cool that I've published something, they don't care enough to actually read it.

I'd really like someone to say something. Even if it's "Master Fob, I think you're a weirdo and a perv." At least that would mean they care. Sigh.

Actually, there are two people at the library who I suspect have read my essays. They are regular Dialogue readers and are good friends with the editor. He (the editor) commented to me several weeks ago that he was talking with them about the upcoming issue and my name came up. I'm not sure exactly what he told them about my essays, but I would hope their curiousity would be piqued enough to at least take a look. The thing is, neither of them is the type to be all that affected by something like this. Their reaction would probably be something like, "Oh, he's gay. Well, so are three dozen other friends of mine." But then, they haven't said anything so I don't know.

On a brighter note, I got an email this morning from Ty Mansfield, the author of In Quiet Desperation, which is a book that came out last year telling the story of his struggle with same-gender attraction (which is the Mormon/conservative Christian terminology for homosexuality). After reading his book last December, I emailed him to tell him I respected him for writing the book and using his real name, and I mentioned that I had an essay that would be coming out in Dialogue. We corresponded back and forth a few times, and I decided he was a top-rate fellow. Anyway, he emailed me this morning to tell me he read my essays and he likes them. I am flattered.

Confessions of a Fanboy

I fell in love with Lauryn Hill in 1996 when I was a high school senior and I heard her cover (with the Fugees) of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." Her voice was beautiful, the beat was solid, and the song had this sense of weight to it--some meaning that, whether or not I completely understood it or related to it and whether or not Lauryn or her co-Fugees had anything to do with the lyrics, made the song stick in my head and made me feel all tingly inside. Not long after that, the rapper Nas released "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" with L-Boogie singing the hook, and I was hooked.

I didn't buy the Fugees' album because it had explicit lyrics and I was even more opposed to listening to swearing in music then than I am now and I'd never heard of edited albums, but my freshman year in college I bought Wyclef Jean's The Carnival, which featured Lauryn on several songs. It's a fantastic album throughout, but for some reason when Lauryn's deep, earthy voice shows up toward the end of "Guantanamera," those tingles come back. Whether she's singing or rapping, her voice manages to exude this sense of power and wisdom that I really dig.

I was serving as a Mormon missionary when Lauryn's solo album dropped (and was apparently pretty darn successful in the States, winning several Grammys), and technically missionaries don't listen to popular music, but a fellow missionary who was even more in love with Lauryn than I was bought the CD and I snuck a listen or two. I didn't buy it when I got home because that same fellow missionary ended up being my roommate so I could listen to his, and soon after that I started dating Foxy J, who had her own copy of Miseducation. I won't say the prospect of adding the album to my collection through marriage was the only reason I proposed to Foxy, but I do remember feeling a whole new kind of tingles when I put in a tape of love songs she had made for me and the first one was L-Boogie's cover of Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You."

Having been in Spain and unaware of popular culture for a couple years, I was entirely unaware that Lauryn had disappeared from the spotlight until she made her comeback (sort of) with 2002's MTV Unplugged 2.0. I bought the Unplugged album as soon as I heard of it and was introduced to a new Lauryn Hill. A lot of fans of her earlier work complain that the Unplugged Lauryn, devoid of hip-hop beats and backup vocals or band, is monotonous and annoying. Her voice is scratchy, worn from a previous performance. She's not a great guitar player. And, worst of all, she seems to have gone crazy between '98 and '02. Her lyrics are more obscure than ever, preaching in complex metaphors about religious and social repression. A lot of fans were disappointed.

I'm still in love with her. I'm not crazy about her guitar-playing skills, and her voice, though still beautiful, manages to miss notes enough even to bother me (I don't think I'm tone-deaf, but I'm definitely tone-ignorant), but I love her words. Maybe it's that Ms. Hill's disillusionment with religious and social structures coincides more or less with mine. Maybe it's that I'm just as crazy as she is. Maybe I refuse to allow my goddess to fall from her pedestal. But when I listen to "I Get Out," even after hearing the song well over two or three hundred times, those tingles still creep up right around the first time she sings in the chorus, "Father free me from this bondage / Knowing my condition / Is the reason I must change." As you know if you've read my essay "Getting Out," the song is sort of my personal anthem. You're probably tired of hearing about it.

But I don't get tired. When Lauryn started doing concerts again last year, I spent hours downloading and listening to fuzzy, echo-y recordings of her singing the same songs I already own. When her first studio release in years, "The Passion," came out on one of the many soundtracks to Mel Gibson's religious blockbuster, I downloaded it and listened over and over even though it's not that great a song. When I read that she had reunited with fellow Fugees Wyclef and Pras for the first time in eight years for a surprise appearance at Dave Chappelle's Block Party, I couldn't stop thinking about the possibilities of a new Fugees album for days (okay, months. Okay, I still think about it all the time). Every time I hear a vague rumor about a supposed release date for Ms. Hill's long-awaited follow-up studio album, my heart starts beating faster. A few weeks ago John Legend released a remix of "So High" with Lauryn singing and rapping on it--it's better than "The Passion" but still not L's best--and I secretly listen to the song several times a day (usually when Foxy's not home, so as not to annoy her).

And I just spent nearly an hour writing this post (including the time looking for the perfect picture; I'm still not satisfied with the one I found).

Yes, I am obsessive. Yes, it's probably unhealthy. No, I don't want to change.

Out

My first real (paid) publication, a pair of essays called "Getting Out" and "Staying In" in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought , is out. The issue came out last week, actually, but just today the library has gotten its copy and put it on the shelf. This being significant because not many people I know actually buy Dialogue so if they read it it'll be at the library and because I work at the library. And because the essays are about being a gay man who has chosen to marry a woman, which will be news to everyone I work with (not that I've chosen to marry a woman; the other part).

I'm excited just to see my name in print and anxious to see how my coworkers respond. It has been mentioned in library-wide meeting minutes that I have essays published in this issue of Dialogue, so it's only a matter of time before someone reads it. One coworker, actually, who happens to also be in my writing group, has already read the article and she said she liked the essays. But then, she's in my writing group so she'd already read some pretty crazy things I'd written. I anticipate that most people will react well--I work with intelligent, mature people--but nevertheless I'm anxious.

I'll let you know if anyone throws a rock through my window.

Homemade

I am currently having an afternoon snack composed of homemade yogurt, homemade raspberry jam, and homemade granola. As much as I dislike traditional gender roles--and I don't think my marriage conforms to too many of them--I do enjoy Foxy J's wicked kitchen skills.

Unfunny

I had the painful realization this morning in the shower that my blog is not very funny. Looking back through my posts, I see that several are sort of funny, but there's not much (if any) fall-off-your-seat funny. There seem to be more (failed) attempts at deep thought-provoking philosophizing than truly funny posts.

This realization would not bother me so much if I were not a funny person. But, dammit, I'm funny. If you were talking to me in person right now you'd be laughing. (I say that as if anyone besides my wife, my brother, and my two friends read this blog.)

And then, as I'm writing this, I wonder if I'm fooling myself. Maybe I'm not funny.

...

And there goes my identity.

[I am aware, by the way, that trying to be funny while bemoaning one's unfunniness is not funny. Sigh.]

Godless?

After reading a couple rather heavy (subject matter, not actual weight) nonfiction books, I decided to read something light and fun. Enter Godless by Pete Hautman, which is definitely light and fun, but manages to be heavy at the same time, as far as subject matter relating to pertinent issues of my life goes.

Godless is about Jay Bock, a teenager who founds a religion called The Church of the Ten-legged God. The Chutengodians or CTG for short. They worship a water tower. Makes sense, right? I mean, water is the source of all life. The way Jay sees it, all religion is BS so you might as well pick some random object and worship it. Some of his friends who join, though, take the church more seriously. So do the local police and religious folk, including Jay's dad.

It's a delightful read, with fascinating characters and cool stylistic elements, like excerpts from the Chutengodian bible at the beginning of each chapter. And it raises a lot of good questions.

I was particularly struck by a scene in which Jay talks with his father about religion:

My father sighed and sat back and said, "You think you're an atheist, then?"
"I'm not sure what I am."
He looked at me for a long time then. I think it was the longest time he has ever looked at me without saying anything. Finally, he spoke.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Jason."
"Why?"
"Because it means you've got a long, lonely road ahead of you."
"It's my road."
"You're right about that."

Now, I'm definitely not atheist. At the moment I'm sort of in the process of figuring out what I am, but I'd say I'm something more along the lines of a Christian agnostic. Nevertheless, it's lonely to believe (or not believe) something different from what the people you love believe (or don't believe).

I don't say it to whine. It's my road. I chose it.

Jay's father is a wise man.