We had arranged to meet Oscar and Carley in Ballard today to treat them to lunch. So we headed downtown to catch the bus to Ballard.

While waiting for the bus, we saw a woman handing out Jack Chick tracts....without irony. This was the first time I had seen somebody who thought the tracts were a Good Message actually passing them out. She handed me and John two, and my thought was, "Wow, FREE Chick tracts! These go for a buck each at Comic-con." Ours were particularly nutty as one of them was all about The Beast and the end of days, and the other a standard Chick tract about a guy who rejects god and goes pitching over the edge of a cliff into a lake of fire and brimstone. Halfway through, I said to John, "Let's make a bet. Does he say Jesus's name, get saved, and die OR does he reject Jesus, die, and get chucked into the lake of brimstone?" These pamphlets can go either way, but usually if you are in a Chick tract, you are doomed ANYWAY. Even the folks that accept Jesus usually die within a few days of accepting him. Except Suzy, the most annoying child on the planet, who always is there to lecture other little kids about Mohammed or evolution or the Evil Pope. (Jack Chick hates Catholics. And Jews. And Mormons. And Hindus. And Muslims. And...well, everybody.)

On our way into Ballard, we saw the SECOND motorcycle accident since we've been here. Or the immediate aftermath, since there were emergency workers on the scene holding the guy down, probably so he wouldn't move and injure his spine. I've kinda got that image burned in my brain: the overturned motorcycle (shiny red), the emergency workers kneeling, the guy lying there. This guy wasn't seeming to move at all, like the guy from the first accident we saw, but they were holding him down, so I'm assuming the non-moving (hopefully) was because he'd already been warned what could happen.

We got into Ballard a little bit early, although it turned out that Oscar and Carley had some truck issues, so it didn't matter too much. After eating, John bid us farewell--he had to go work on animations--and I helped Oscar, Carley, and Robert with the packing of Carley's place. We mostly got everything in the car or on the truck, and then they headed north and I headed back to downtown to catch a bus home.

Last night, when I went to bed, I didn't feel one hundred percent. Indeed, I felt a little off. Headachy, with the sort of headache that feels like tiny prickles inside your skull. And then I had a flareup of my shoulder issue. My left arm and my shoulder just ached and ached and ached all night. Even though I know what causes this, it still drives my hypochondriac self crazy, because A) left arm and shoulder aches are the classic "everybody knows" symptom for heart attacks and B) occasionally my left arm would tingle and feel slightly numb, and I would worry that I was having a stroke like Scraps over at the Making Light forums. (BTW, if anybody has any spare change, there's a guy--Scraps--without medical insurance in the hospital, and they've set up a paypal account for him. Others have done stuff like donate old iPods so he can listen to his music in the hospital and Elisa made earring presents for his care staff. But money would be useful for him and his wife, as he is uninsured.)

Anyway, the hypochondria chewed along all until I fell asleep at long last. And here are some of the dream crops from my night of fitful sleep.

+ In my dream, this guy I'd know since childhood (although only in the dream, not in real life) showed up suddenly on my doorstep. We hung for a few days and then he proposed to me by asking me to share his newly remodelled home with him for the rest of his life. His selling point in the dream was the amazing dishwasher he'd got put in. He showed the owner's manual to me, which I remember was printed on glossy paper with vector illustrations. Apparently dream self was very swayed by this, but not so swayed that she said yes. Instead, I (dream me) went looking for John.

+ I went to MIT, only in MIT stood for Magical Institute of Technology, and your classes were held in different centuries, and you had to get special hall passes to get from class to class. I got assigned the 8th century for most of the morning, and let me tell you what a non-picnic that was. Meanwhile my best dream friends were hanging out in the 18th century. I am so going to use this for a story somehow.

The post takes the provinces of China and replaces their names with countries of the world that have the same population. The largest province has the population of Germany, for example.

And that reminded me that when we went to visit James and Weng-Chen, I asked her about her hometown. And she said, deprecatingly, that we would never have heard of it. (I think she said it was Changchun, but I could be wrong.) But then James added drily that even though that was true, her hometown, this place we would never have heard of, was in fact, a city of several million people. And my brain kinda stumbled and fell over that concept. Because the way I've been raised, as a US citizen, is to see the US as the centre of the universe. I mean, I expect that people visiting the US will have heard of New York and San Francisco and LA and Chicago and Boston and possibly Miami, Dallas, and Seattle. But San Francisco (the largest city I've lived in) has a population of only 900,000 at usual times and after the dotcom collapses, it even dipped down to somewhere in the 700K range. (San Jose, for example, is bigger.) Granted the greater Bay Area has the 47th largest metro area in the world (another fact gleaned from the pages of Strange Maps) but can you imagine a city in the US that had several million people (suburbs not included) and people not knowing about it? I suddenly realised the magnitude of my US-centric worldview, that I would expect people to know about San Francisco, but I wouldn't know about a city into whose corners you could easily tuck San Francisco.

I'm a fairly geographically aware US citizen, thanks to my dad tossing me the globe every morning and telling to find places like South Georgia Island. (And he was evil. He didn't add the Island part. Just said, "Find South Georgia.") But Weng-Chen was right--I hadn't heard of her hometown 'til she mentioned it.

It actually made me think of a scene in Justine Larbalestier's new book, How To Ditch Your Fairy, where one of the characters has transferred to a school in New Avalon. I can't remember where he came from before, but he has the usual amounts of culture shock, and eventually he blows up at our main character, pointing out that she thinks New Avalon is all that and a bag of chips, but she doesn't know any of the people he references, and they're all really famous outside of New Avalon. (Justine, for those who are unaware, comes from Australia and spends half her year in Sydney and the other half in New York. I expect she wrote that scene from her own experiences.)

When I lived in Canada, they were all completely aware of the things I knew, culturally speaking, but most of the time, I had to be seriously educated on the aspects of Canadian fame and culture that many of them took for granted. (Except Gordon Korman. I already was a Gordon Korman fan before living in Canada.)

It still boggles my mind slightly to think about this vasty place that has its own culture and celebrities and whatnot, and I'm totally ignorant of it, even though it is, compared to every place I have ever lived, a mammoth. You can probably get through fifteen Chinese metro areas before San Francisco even pops up. And I'm unware of any other than Shanghai and Taipei and Beijing. My knowledge is full of gaps.
John: (a minute ago) Get off my floor. That's my valuable animation tool.

Anybody staring in our windows would likely find themselves puzzled at John and Lis's Sunday morning activities. They would see John sit down on the floor half a dozen times or so, and stand up, then sit down, then stand up, and sit back down. First he puts his hands back, then he bends one knee, then the other. Another time, he tries leaping to his feet all at once.

Me: That's not how they showed us how to stand up in stripper class.

(At Danielle's behest, I took a pole-dancing class, which, btw, is an exhausting and muscular workout. One of the things they showed us was how to get off the floor gracefully. This is a skill which I have not to this day utilized.)

John points out the obvious, which is that little people with over-sized heads in full armour are not likely to be standing up like pole-dancers stand up.

John shooes me off the empty spot of the floor and proceeds to practise sitting and standing and sitting and standing. Eventually he is satisfied and heads over to the computer to put this knowledge into practise.

I'm starting to crack on this. I want out of the atheist closet in a fierce way. I'm pretty much out already, mind you. I always introduce myself to new people as a non-believer. Almost all my friends know. My siblings know. Some of my extended family knows, and the rest I don't really keep up with. It's on my facebook account, my website, my live-journal...

And that's the problem. The thing is....my parents. I swear I've told them THREE times (once right out, twice in conversations dedicated to other things) and they still act as if I'm 18 and just not going to church because I want to sleep in. My grandparents don't know, and that one I'm kinda iffy on because they are old and not in the best of health these days. But my parents (while also not in the best of health, but it's mostly lifestyle choices--if you play WoW all day, you will be overweight and depressed, I know this) are young enough that the news probably won't make them keel over.

My mother called me up the other day to remind me that conference was on. She calls me up to remind me that the conference talks are now transcribed and on the LDS website. My mother, my neighbour that is my parents age and best friend, a few of my older relatives, all forward me emails that are antithetical to what I believe.

I would like to be stronger about stating my views, but this generally leads to arguments where my dad gets huffy and upset. (And because I'm not there, his huffy and upsetness has to be dealt with by Mum. If you ever wonder where I got that nasty passive-aggressive streak I've been trying to ditch, look no further than my father, who is the picture of entitlement. If you wonder where I got my non-confrontational, too flexible spine, look no further than my mother, who is the picture of appeasement. The combination of PA and appeasing, btw, is particularly not-fun and potentially relationship-breaking, but I'm doing much much better, thanks. Actually that's what this post is about. I'm tired of letting the issue slide, and I want to confront them on it, but I still...and this is tricky...want my parents to not hate me.)

At present, it's really hard for me to feel that I am entitled to say that I find something offensive. I do find it offensive when my views aren't considered at all, when they are just slid over. Or when as during my last trip to Utah, instructions are dispatched to me to keep my mouth shut on a bunch of subjects. My brother told me that Mum called him up with a list of things I wasn't supposed to talk to my father about. (Paul also went on to say, "Screw the list." Because he is awesome.) I actually don't know if Mum told Dad he couldn't talk about those same things. I doubt it personally, but it doesn't make sense to give the instructions to only one of the parties involved. And anyway, he and Jerry (my libertarian BIL) immediately started discussing our "socialist" healthcare system causing me to gyrate mentally, and I had to go run off and play with the kids because at least there would be no politics there. Because if I entered the fray, it wouldn't be seen as them bringing it up, but ME brining it up, because my POV is the one that's different from the rest of the family's. (Well, most of the rest of the family. One thing I love about my sibs is that they aren't monolithically in step with the church or local culture on everything.)

One thing I find particularly offensive is the marriage thing. It gets brought up almost every phone call with Mum, and I know it's a mom thing, and not solely a religious thing, but I wish she'd lay it to rest. She's made some inadvertantly very offensive remarks to me about the guys I've been with. She was kinda lukewarm on Adam, although she'd've loved him if he married me, and she loved Lee, and she likes John but more cautiously than she liked Lee because this is after all the THIRD guy I've lived with OMG. And she actually said to me that it was getting about to the point (the three year mark) where I get bored and go find a new boyfriend. And in my head a little voice said, "Nuh-uh, no, you didn't." I hope I remember how I felt when my kids get to that age, because seriously this making me feel like I'm constantly missing the goalposts. I'm not Lis, I'm Unmarried Lis. And I'm going to be missing the goalposts for the rest of my life because of what I believe. Even if I got married and had kids, which I would like, I'd be raising atheist kids. I would be a working mom. Partly for reasons of sanity, partly for reasons of finances, partly for my own self-respect. I am never going to be my sister (who I love dearly but who is also the template for the perfect Mormon child) and so even after one goal has been met (marriage) my mom is just going to shift the goals.

Another reason to find a job: Money to pay for the therapy that will undoubtedly need to occur in a few months when I finally snap. (Better to not snap, I know.) I think I'm going to remind them from now on that they are bringing up politics first, not me, and that I have different points of view. And when the church stuff comes up, I'm going to have to gently but firmly say, "Mom, Dad, thanks for the concern, but I'm following a different path, and I don't believe in half of what the LDS church teaches." And I'm going to have remind them over and over 'til it sinks in. They can never get used to the idea if I don't expose them to it and make it clear.

Also, I need to call my mom more, because all she ever hears about are the few-and-far-between adventures. She finds out from my sister that I drank (the infamous "Canadian friends" episode) and so she thinks I drink all the time. If she was exposed to the mundanities of my life, she wouldn't be so quick to assume the worst. Maybe she'd even start realising that barring some few fundamental things, my life as an adult isn't THAT much different than my life as a young adult, when she last saw me on a regular basis.

Long story short: A leader of the Mormon exhorts Mormon youth to organise online and help defeat Proposition 8. The words "God will bless you if you do your part" were used. At what point is the line crossed?

But then they didn't lose their tax exempt status over organising wards and particularly members of the Relief Society to go defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.

Yeah, that's right. My childhood church voted AGAINST the Equal Rights Amendment. For the longest time as a kid, I thought there must be some loopholes they were objecting to, or perhaps the language seemed to give minorities more rights. But I was wrong. The ERA was about three sentences long and said this:


Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

See. If we'd had that amendments, we'd've been able to use it to back up stuff like the Lily Ledbetter Equality in Pay Act. (Which John McCain couldn't bother to vote on. Skipped the vote.)

But I digress. Point being, my childhood church is getting people to band together with the express purpose of preventing other people who love each other dearly and would like to support each other from getting married and enjoying the EXACT SAME legal benefits as other married couples. Since no law under the United States can compel the LDS church to allow gay marriage INSIDE the church, this is knuckle-headed bigotry pure and simple. Mormons themselves aren't being asked to change their beliefs. Nothing will substantially change for the average married Mormon couple. Their marriages and families aren't being threatened, but they're willing to take away those same rights from couples who in California.

David Bednar, who happened to be president of my college and who is now one of the Quorum of the Twelve, said: "If tolerance is the premise, it should go both ways," Bednar said. "There could be sanctions against us for teaching our doctrine."

Um. No. There's no sanctions for teaching your doctrine. Nobody's going to stop you from teaching your doctrine. But when you tie your doctrine to legal policy and exhort members to vote a particular way, I believe you run the risk of losing tax exemption. Which is fine. Some churches choose to do that. You can too. But nobody is going to stop you from teaching whatever it is you believe. You don't get to play the persecution card while you ACTIVELY PERSECUTE other people who have nothing to do with you.

Hat-tip to Blurbomat.

In other news, here's the Think Before You Speak campaign. The gist is that using "that's so gay" is pretty stupid. It would be nice to see that bit of lingo cock its toes up and become a relic of the past.