Category: LA Angst

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Before You Can Snap Your Fingers Twice

I’ll be taking a short break, friends. Don’t forget, LA Angst is on the 20th. Sign up to be a reader of just drop by. Don’t tell LA Bloggers Live!, but Angst is my favorite. I mean, I love Bloggers Live! almost as much, but with a gun to my head, I’d have to pick Angst. It’s just that great. LA Angst has been canceled for this month. I’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.

You might find me over at RealMental.org. I’ll be putting up a few posts. The other writers over there make a visit worthwhile, though. They are pretty amazing. And maybe I’ll post at Schmutzie’s, if I can think of anything remotely engaging to say. I’m getting gaggy at the downer theme that’s been happening with all my writing, so we’ll have to wait and see if I can manage to think of anything else. And I’ll probably be Twittering. See? It’s like I’m not really gone at all.

In the meantime, know that I think you’re ACES and I love you like GANGBUSTERS. xo
p.s. have you listed your blog on BloggerNetwork yet?

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Distant Angst, Catherine Connors

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Catherine Connors
AGE: 18
STORY: I was freshly moved away from home, and dating an ‘older’ boy – twenty – who I had met in a theater group. He had just decided to passionately re-embrace his Catholic roots. He didn’t think that I was virtuous-slash-pious enough, and I (still a virgin, though well-closeted as such) was struggling with how to be a grown-up and how to follow my heart and still be “good enough” for this guy, all at once. I was working out my story, what to say to him, and then lost my own thread when it came to making statements about sexuality and sacrifice. I had no idea what I was talking about.

It embarrasses me – deeply – to read this again. But I’m proud to say this: I never slept with this guy, and not because of some misguided idea of pious sacrifice. I’d moved on and forgotten him by that summer.

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TEXT:

I will give you this.

I open myself to you. I tell you exactly what I feel, knowing that in all likelihood you will still just walk away, just so that you will know, and so that I, finally, will have sacrificed my pride for the sake of honesty. And even though you stand there with a knife with which to pierce my heart, I am not afraid, and venture to say that it would be a valuable wound, because it would not be borne of lies or manipulation. It would be a valuable wound.

I love you. I’m not sure why, simply I love you and am glad that I have experienced you. You haven’t tutored me, you haven’t guided me – you did bring some things to light, you triggered long forgotten musings, ideas. You showed me things. I don’t perceive you as stronger than me – I see you as older, more learned, mature. I don’t see you as a mentor, teacher. You are no better than I am.

I love you, and what I want is for us to try.

I know that on my own I can sacrifice sex, turn my back on temptation. Very easy to do. I ask for God’s forgiveness for my past transgressions and I go forward and sin no more. But it becomes twice as valuable if it is not only for myself and God, but also a sacrifice for someone important to me. It is very easy to embrace celibacy when you have no-one to spurn it with – not so easy when you are with someone.

I wonder how many people there are out there who will not have, or give up, sex before marriage.

Come to a live reading in Los Angeles @ L.A. Angst, in Brooklyn @ Cringe or in Seattle @ Salon of Shame! Want to send in your angst? Email me.

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Two Things

1) L.A. Bloggers Live! is on the 22nd. Sign up to read!

2) Tuesday afternoon I’ll be starting a new series which is really an extension of LA Angst. First, let me say this: there is no replacement for coming to a live show of Cringe, Salon of Shame or Angst. Being there in person is really just so awesome and fun and therapeutic that it’s hard to describe to someone else exactly what it’s like. So, if you live near Brooklyn, Seattle or Los Angeles, I urge to to make a live reading. That being said, I have so many friends and fellow-bloggers that will never be able to make an awesome live reading that want to share their angst. In order to accommodate them, tomorrow I’ll be posting the first installment where everyone online can enjoy it. If you want to share yours (You don’t have to be a blogger! This is for everyone with angst in their past.), scan in your journal entry along with a photo of you at the age you wrote it and send them to me. If there are parts that are illegible, feel free to include what it says in the email. Also – keep your eyes open for Sarah’s Cringe book coming out in March 2008!

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Zee Catching-up, As They Say

>Last night was so hilarious. SO funny. I can’t even express it except to say my cheeks still hurt from laughing and I can’t wait for next time.

>Heather linked to this video of the tiny Mormon folk singing at school about NOT LYING (BIG SMILE) and man, I just about died from remembering how many times I sang that song as a kid. Those kids probably had to get temple recommends to be in the commercial. Oh, wait. Maybe not because here is Alfonso Ribeiro, who I believe is not a tiny Mormon folk, TELLING THE TRUTH about breaking a window in another 80s Mormon commercial. (HE’S SMILING!) I must assume they will let you be in the Mormon commercials as long as you can smile very large and for long periods of filming time.

Now THIS commercial still freaks me out. I remember bawling when it came on because my life was never going to be as perfectly awesome as the little girl who kept morphing into an older version of herself. My heart strings – they were pulled. Now when I watch, I can’t get over the fact that the mom, who has just birthed a baby girl, is hallucinating in the hospital and they are LETTING HER GO HOME WITH HER BABY! Perhaps they should check her for a little postpartum depression? If your newborn is morphing into a pre-teen and arabesque-ing down the hallway on your way out, you may have an issue or two.

And this commercial is a perfect representation of how every young adult in the L.D.S. religion talks over lunch. Always.

I don’t remember now who sent me this link (SORRY! I LOVE YOU!) but it explains why polygamy exists according to the 13-year-old male mind. Things misrepresented – the young gentleman would never be alone – Always! Always! with his companion and his name tag was WAAAAY too small. Mormon Missionaries are proud, dangit! And they have the name tags to prove it.

And please don’t live your entire life and miss the Johnny Lingo temple visitor’s center film. You can view the 3 segments here, here and here. Watch for the part where the loving father says, ‘Mahana, you ugly! What are you hiding up there for? Today is the day of bargaining. Come down and be ready to greet your husband to be!‘ so he can trade her to the highest bidder. Still, to this day, I don’t understand why they play it there. Like, it’s a really great representation of how Mormons live? Not. But, it is funny. Just ask Joe. He’s had to sit through both the original version and the new version. (Yes. It was so awesome, they made it again.)

>I’m done scanning. (YAY!)

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Let Me Tell You

Let me tell you a little story: The last post I did? I actually posted it a week ago but it was somehow set to PRIVATE and I didn’t know it and then I realized it and then I marked it PUBLIC and now you can see it. Cool story, huh? There is no moral or arc. You’ll just have to get over it and accept it for what it is, whatever that is.

Let me tell you a big secret: I’ve gained 15 pounds in the past 2 years. Add that to the 20 pounds I gained when my thyroid started going out 4 years ago and the gazillion pounds I gained on medications for 6 years and you’re talking about a-LOT-o weight. And now I look like this. I look at that person and can’t believe it’s me. I don’t feel like that on the inside but I sure do feel like that when I get on the treadmill. I can’t exercise more than about 20 minutes without getting so sleepy, achy and wiped out that I don’t move for the next 12 hours. The doctor said that within 7-8 weeks on the higher thyroid dose I will start to feel an improvement and be able to workout longer. ‘What a relief’ said my knees. She also said my appetite should improve once my body starts functioning again like a real person and that I would actually GET HUNGRY and then WANT TO EAT and that in so doing I would LOSE WEIGHT because I would have energy to MOVE MY BODY. She also told me that I will have a harder time because I used to have eating disorders. And also not to get pregnant for the next two years. (SADFACE)

Let me tell you a little something about time management: I have three large boxes with approximately 447 photos to scan and crop and resize and put on disks for my entire family before the reunion later this month. I have had these images since last July and have not cracked them open or done a little scanning each day to cut down on the overall effort. After the reunion is Blogher and I’m supposed to have some really funny and entertaining things to say. Who thinks I can do it?

Let me tell you a very short sentence about moving boxes: STILL THERE.

Let me tell you about my kids: They stayed here for 9 days. Now they are at their dad’s for 10. And then they’ll be back for 5 and then at his for etc. etc. and on through August. You ask, Do they like it? Are they sad they have to do 50/50 time? And I answer you with the only measuring sticks I have available –

  • Alex said she hopes we stay in this house until she graduates in 2 years and also that she likes being able to be here whenever she wants. I think my curfew for her is 30 minutes later than her dad’s. Is that bribery? I wasn’t aware of it before hand so I must vote no. But it doesn’t hurt.
  • Ty trusts me to get him to his daily practices and games on time and prepared with the necessary sport accessories. His face no longer looks strained or worried an hour before we leave. He called this house his Home at least 3 times in phone conversations that I overheard.
  • Tony’s room is as messy over here as at his dad’s. He does not put clothes in the hamper or away in his drawers. He also makes snacks at midnight and doesn’t clean up after himself. I’m taking all these things as signs that he is as comfortable here as there.


Let me tell you a tiny nerd anecdote: Tony’s friend came over and asked if we had the Pink Floyd movie, The Wall. I told him he could check the shelves. He asked where it might be and I told him they were in alphabetical order. He breathed out, ‘Coooool!’

Let me tell you a post script: LA Angst is coming up on July 11th! Reader spaces are filling up quick this time if I believe the 17 people that told me they want to read. Get off the fence, duckies! I only have room for seven six more of you.