This New Step of Covid

When The Great Covid began earlier this year I was one of those people who was constantly telling you that actually we really had a lot to learn from this experience and "in a way" it was totally valuable and shouldn't we be kind of grateful that we had to slow down?

Then some months passed and suddenly I found myself screaming in my mind and becoming willing to kill for movie theater popcorn.

Ok, not totally. I still feel those early things about sunshine and rainbows. But the working from home all day every day business has started to wear on me in a way I had not previously anticipated.

When we started all of this, Sky was in regular classes at school and since The Whole World got canceled starting March, he was suddenly sent home, just like I was. So we'd both work from the house every day together, occasionally yelling to each other from neighboring rooms "WHY ARE YOU SO FREAKING LOUD."

Duncan would wander between us, sometimes happy for the company but usually looking more annoyed that we were disrupting his all-day nap, which, to be fair, would be an important part of my schedule as well if I had no bills, someone fed me every meal, and I got to poop outside without shame YES I THINK THAT SOUNDS LIBERATING DON'T @ ME.

So, things were fine and well. I felt like I was sequestered with my family, checking the news and worrying, but at least having someone to worry with.

10 Tips For How To Respond to Someone Who Is Coming Out

Coming out of the closet never ends for a gay person. You have to do it all the time. Constantly. For the rest of your life.

Every time you make new friends. Get a new job. Talk to people at a party.

I start every morning looking into the mirror and screaming "YOU ARE A FABULOUS HOMO."

And it's never not a little stressful.

But it does get easier, which is good. It's good that it gets easier because coming out to people at the beginning is phenomenally intimidating. I don't know if I could find the right words to really explain what that kind of fear feels like. They should make a new word to describe that feeling. Judy Garland should include that word in her lecture when she visits people as a ghost to tell them they're gay (that's how we find out).

Since I have now come out to roughly, let's see, multiply by 60, carry the one, take the square root, ELEVENTY million people, I know everything and I'm ready to mansplain it all to you so please read the below in as condescending a voice as you can muster.

(Note, I am aware that not everyone is the same and that some of the ideas below may work better for some people than others, and I welcome any of you with insight to chime in in the comments. I offer these only as general thoughts that have occurred to me over the years.)

It's A Classic!

When I was in high school I read nearly zero books and I've been feeling guilty about this for mumble mumble cough years. So guilty that if I knew where my diploma was I would probably send it back with an apology note and some homemade pumpkin bread because Cathie didn't raise me in the wild.

My ability to fake preparedness has been both one of my greatest assets and one of my biggest hindrances. What this meant was that when Mrs. Voorhees was like "what did The Scarlet Letter teach you about humanity" I could be all like "in a way, isn't the fact that the literary letter was scarlet so symbolic of every inadequacy felt by man in a literal sense?" and Mrs. Voorhees would be all like "A! PLUS!" but then when I got into the real world and someone was like "name one character from The Scarlet Letter or you'll die" I just had to die.

So it's not good that I didn't read books.

There were some exceptions to this. I read To Kill A Mockingbird, and have since reread it a number of times because I believe that if I love it enough, Atticus Finch will have to appear in my life and grant me three wishes. The nearly-perfect Atticus Finch. Not the racist one. And if you don't know what I'm talking about DO NOT FREAKING READ GO SET A WATCHMAN.

You have been warned.

Hard Conversations

For the last couple of years I've been silently obsessing over something about which I have been unable to come to a conclusion.

I don't love conflict. I'm usually a peacemaker. I'm not bad at dealing with conflict, but I don't like what it does to me. If I have a dispute with someone over something that really matters to me, it is usually difficult for me to get it out of my mind until that dispute is resolved.

What this means is that I tend to keep frustrations to myself in order to avoid rocking the boat.

Good thing I didn't decide to go into a career where people sometimes have disagreements!

Oh wait.

When it comes to representing other people's interests, I buck up and deal with the contention, even if it does have a negative effect on me.

I hadn't realized how damaging this flaw can be until a few years ago. By the time I was leaving Palau, my relationship with Daniel had completely soured. There were a lot of reasons for that, some of which I've talked about here before. But as I unpacked that complicated year over the next many months, I came to realize that a big reason things became so unnecessarily toxic was because I had clammed up and completely avoided being real with Daniel.

How Do You Overcome Anxiety?

Oh, to be Mr. Pants.

The other day I told you about my anxiety attack in the middle of the night last week that came about because of a story we did this month on Strangerville. What I didn't tell you is that these are a semi-regular occurrence for me and have been for some time.

I have no idea when I started getting them. Bob and Cathie tell me I was a very nervous child. I didn't notice because I was too busy hoarding candy with my best friend Mandy Williams when we were six years old because Bob told me one night when I wouldn't eat my dinner that there were people in the world who didn't have food and "would be happy to have that" and so I became obsessed with preparing for famine and this seemed like the best way.

Survivor Party

I host a Survivor party every week where I invite some known Survivor fans over to my house to watch the most recent episode and then spend the next two hours gossiping about it like we personally know every single person in the show. Wednesday nights during Survivor season are easily my favorite.

They also put me on a schedule of weekly party-host anxiety spells. I have this issue that probably stems from some kind of insecurity that I don't have the time to see a therapist about right now because TV. The issue is that I feel a LOT of pressure to make my house the hippest place in town. When I invite people over, I do so under the cloud of overly-dramatic daydreams in which I imagine those people leaving my home DAYS LATER, with tears of joy in their eyes, saying things like "I never thought I would walk again." Or some other nonsensical but inspirational thing. Then they leave a super good review on Yelp and nominate my hair for employee of the month at Shakee's.

So every single week I try to win the hearts of the Survivor-Party attendees through the universal language: FOOD. And every single week, I fail. I don't know what my problem is. But I can't seem to put out treats that people will actually enjoy.

How to Move On

I could use the collective wisdom of the Strangers today. Because I am turning into a crazy person. And I don't want to turn into a crazy person BECAUSE WHAT IF PAUL SIMON?!

As I may have embarrassingly announced a few days ago, I might have been brutally kicked to the curb last week. Ok. It actually wasn't all that dramatic. The conversation was more like this:

Heartless: I don't want to date anymore.

Eli: BUT WHY?!

Heartless: Because I don't have feelings for you.

Eli: GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON YOU ARE DUMPING ME!?

Heartless: Because I don't have feelings for you.

Whelp, TIME TO MOVE AGAIN!

I woke up this morning at 5:00. Started singing at the top of my lungs. Dance-walked to the shower. Sang at the top of my lungs there, too. The usual morning routine.

What's that? What was I singing? NEVER YOU MIND what I was singing. It doesn't matter for the story.

Ugh. Fine. I can tell you won't be able to focus on anything else until I tell you. It was "Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got! I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the bl--"

No. You know what. I'm going back to my initial position. It doesn't matter. Guys. I still know where I came from.

Kurt was screaming for the insanity to stop by about 5:15.

"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, SHUT UP!"

Twice Up the Barrel Asian Tour

As the time in Palau winds down more and more, I'm finding that things are just sort of falling into place. There's still much to do. Every time I remember that I somehow need to find a place to live in Salt Lake City so I can immediately move upon arriving in the United States of America, I can hear the sounds of a ticking clock in the back of my head. But all in all, things seem to be going relatively smoothly on the move-to-the-other-side-of-the-world front.

I wonder if it hasn't seemed that bad because compared to last year when I was trying to move to Palau it just hasn't been that complicated. Moving to Palau was a perturbable nightmare. You know that feeling you get when you are rushed out of the house because you're late and for the rest of the day you have this nagging sense that you forgot to turn something off?

THAT.

Youth Conference

This coming Saturday is the dreaded "Youth Conference" with the church kids that we've been planning for a few months. And when I say "planning for a few months," I mean "knowing that it's coming and finally meeting to talk about it for the very first time last Friday." And by "dreaded" I mean "I'm considering entering into the witness protection program to get out of this situation because I dread it so much."

Ok, an attitude adjustment could go a long way. I know this guys. Why do you always choose times like this to lecture me about my attitude and how slutty my outfits are?

Anyway, for those unfamiliar with the forty volume set of Mormon lingo dictionaries, Youth Conference is a gigantic outing of some sort that takes place with Mormon kids, ages 14-17, every summer within their local congregations. They usually happen over the course of two or three days and include excessive amounts of games and hormones. They're basically exactly like every rumor you've ever heard about fanatical Christian Bible camps in the south except way less condemnation of Harry Potter and more Jello.

Youth conferences often take the form of some kind of camp-out and I have very fond memories of them as a teenager. Never did I realize how much effort and thought has to go into the planning of one of these things until this year.

Book Writing Update

I may have mentioned at some point here that I'm not exactly "in the know" on what the kids are calling "technology." Pretty much every medium of social media scares and confuses me. And what's worse, I have not attempted in the slightest to keep up on electronic devices.

Currently I own an ipod, which I bought in 2007 and have not upgraded since. I have never put a single thing onto that ipod. My sister Krishelle takes it from me every six months or so and returns it with an updated collection of tunes. She tried to make me part of the process the first few times because of something about "if you teach a man to fish" but as it turns out I'm like an inanimate object, and you can't teach an inanimate object to fish.

The phone I had in the U.S. before I came to Palau is what the kids are calling a "smart" phone. But this was only because that same sister stole my very basic and incredibly unreliable phone and replaced it with her old phone after she upgraded to something that I was pretty sure mankind would not develop before the great and terrible day of the Lord's Second Coming.

Graduation Nuggets of Wisdom

Graduation is happening across Palau right now. I got an invitation to a graduation for this coming Sunday, which I'm excited to go to because when they call the names I like to wait until the people sitting next to me cheer and then I stand up and cheer with them and yell things like "I knew you would pull through in the end, Tyler!" and then I watch the family wonder for the rest of ceremony how I know their kid and why I would think he was close to not pulling through.

Some of the church kids are graduating this week and we've been having various celebrations for them, which has gotten me thinking about my own graduations over the last ten years or so and how exciting and intimidating it is to move on to the next thing. And I decided that on Stranger today I would share with you some of the things I've learned since my own high school graduation, eleven years ago. Would love to hear some of your nuggets of wisdom, too: 

Words of Wisdom to the Children from a Sarcastic and Cranky 29-Year-Old Man

You can stick to a job or area of study and find ways to be successful or you can bounce around from menial task to menial task, dissatisfied with the pace of promotion. Either way, you’ll still be doing the same thing in 10 years.

People who lie to you are not your friends. Unless they are lying to you in order to play an amazing practical joke, in which case, they are your best friends.

Trust

The other day I was running home from work: my ongoing attempt to combat adult onset diabetes. In my first four or five months in Palau I gained 25 pounds. And not the good kind of 25 pounds, whatever that is. I did the math and found out that if I kept gaining weight at that speed indefinitely, I would weigh over 1,000 pounds by the time I turned 40.

I was in pretty good shape last October. And then BAM. Rice. Fried foods. Ice cream. Laziness. ALL at the same time. For five months.

I tried to stop but every day the couch and ice cream were so friendly to me and were always like, "Eli, come hang out with us! We understand you!" And, well, I can't just say no to hospitality.

I knew things were bad by January because my pants were no longer buttoning up and I had to start letting my shirt hang over them so others couldn't see that they were open throughout the work day. But then one day I happened upon a scale and I weighed myself. And it was scary.

Guys, I know. I live on a tropical island in perpetual summer. I should have the body of an island god by now. Don't you think I know that? DON'T YOU THINK I EXPECTED THAT TO HAPPEN WITHOUT EFFORT WHEN I MOVED TO THE EQUATOR?!

Cure for Anxiety?

I'm sitting in my office right now, full all the way to the top with anxiety.

Eleventy million things to get done at work before the Twice Up the Barrel tour to the U.S., which starts in about two days. Also an infinite amount of other things to get figured out before then as well.

I thought people moved to tropical islands to never feel stress or anxiety ever ever again? What the crap guys?

Sometimes I wish I could slip back into the care-free days of childhood. Just for a little while. Then I remember that when I was a child I had to go visit Betty down the street. She was 197 years old, give or take. She sat on her front porch in her wheel chair and forced the neighborhood kids who were sent to visit to sing songs to her for 2 or 3 hours at a time. THEN, as a "reward" for doing so, she would remove her prosthetic leg and show us the stump.

Every single time this happened I was unable to eat for the next 12 hours.

The End of the World

In case you hadn't heard yet, the world is ending on May 21st (this coming Saturday). See http://www.wecanknow.com/. These people mean business. When I tried to order a bumper sticker from them this afternoon, I was told that it's too late because "with our Lord's Return such a short time away, we are no longer offering free printed materials since there is not enough time remaining for us to effectively produce and distribute them." (And by the way, I would like to take this time to formally award wecanknow.com the "Tellin-it-like-it-is" award. Congratulations. May you join the short list of mind-speakers proudly).

When I saw this, I thought, maybe I should stop studying for the bar. I mean, I don't have that much to lose because they've given me a date that's close enough that I don't forfeit much if I alter my week plans in vein. Had they listed May 21st of next year as the date, it would be a trickier decision. On the one hand, if I stopped everything boring that I was doing and the world did in fact end when predicted, then I would have made out pretty well in that situation. Of course if I wasted the year and nothing happened after all, I would be pretty upset with someone.

But Saturday? I could blow some pretty miserable things off this week, because there's no sense in memorizing a bunch of stuff about criminal punishments if God is going to swoop down and take care of it all with his own form of due process just four days from now. If he doesn't show up, I can make up four days pretty quickly.

Other things you may want to consider blowing off this week:

1. Brushing your teeth
2. Exercise
3. Eating sushi just so your friends think you're cultured (it doesn't really have that effect anymore anyway).
4. Planning your summer family reunion (especially if you're ordering t-shirts (see wecanknow.com message above)).
5. Yard work (it may all get burned up on Saturday anyway)
6. Anything at your job that has a deadline post-May 21st (you're probably pretty safe to hold off for now)
7. Don't start Crime & Punishment. In my experience it will take more than six years to finish it (I did read 3 pages recently, in case you wanted an update on my progress. But it's going back on hold until after May 21st).
8. Calling any customer service line to get a problem resolved (especially if it's Dell or T-Mobile, in which case you may be on the phone until the judgment day no matter when it comes anyway).
9. Buying anything from Costco. You won't get through it in time and it will take you an hour to find what you're looking for.
10. Dieting. I mean, you probably don't want gluttony to be listed among your final acts, but there's really no point in starving yourself for the next four days if there will be no need to have a beach body this summer.

I only wish I had heard about this before my long run last Saturday where I actually attempted to drink out of a river because (surprise, surprise) I somehow forgot, again, that my body needs fluid when I exercise in the blazing sun for two hours at a time. Fortunately I stopped myself from river-drinking after noticing a dead animal half-way in the water just four feet up-stream (it was a May miracle).

Anything else anyone would like to hold off on until we're sure that there will be a next week?

On the bright side, if the world does end, at least that means that "Glee" won't return for a third season.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Insomnia

I've had sleeping problems for several years. Surprisingly law school has seemed to make it worse. Fortunately I have found that if I block out every bit of light, sound, and memories, and choose a night when I'm already really tired and don't have anything going on the next day, I can get myself to fall asleep sometime near the witching hour. Unfortunately, those stars rarely seem to align. Thank heavens for sleeping medicine. I think.

I recently started trying new things to deal with my Insomnia, which has been great for my "get to the end of 'Crime and Punishment' by 2025" goal. In fact, three nights ago I pulled the book out at 2:00AM and read four whole pages. I'm now a little over half-way done. Who knew when I picked up that little piece of heaven five years ago that I would ever make it this far. (By the way, for those of you who were wondering, I'm on the part where Raskolnikolinolifof is talking to Raskolnofitofikofinonof about his friend Sonya Rolinoloninof and her friend Rockstockitockitof and their relation to Rimolinolitof; it's getting pretty juicy).

Back to the drugs: I've gotten my hands on several kinds of medications, herbs, and various other therapeutic witch-doctor remedies that my drug-loving-family-members and hippie-save-the-planet friends could convince me to take and the only thing that seems to have an affect on me is Ambien. Oh blessed Ambien. Last month I took one and woke up the next morning only to find I had inadvertently done my taxes (good think I'm not a huge audit risk as I only made 12 cents last year). Last week after taking an Ambien, I ate half a bag of ginger-snap pees while doing Yoga stretches and telling my roommates that their faces were fuzzy. While that experience wasn't quite as productive as filing my taxes was, it did make for a few good stories (which is what my family lives for).

Mostly I'm writing this post as an desperate plea for help. Is there anyone out there who has overcome Insomnia through means other than drugs that can share their wisdom with me? I would prefer to never take a sleeping pill again but I've got to get my sleep as I'm starting to really age (I look well over 21 now).

~It Just Gets Stranger