caffeine is a bad thing. i said i'd quit. i proceeded to quit for a whole month and a half. and now i've backslided incredibly and i'm drinking mountain dew at a damnable rate. blergh on me. i've bought three bottles in four days. bad!! ok. i'm going to requit asap because i'm all fluttery and out of control. i think this is because i went totally off of it but i'm drinking the same quantities i used to when i was used to it. i think i just decided i needed it because i had no energy at work, but this is a Poor Solution.

anyhow, the upswing of this is that i was laughing way too much at debi's recounting of mormon tradition and whatnot today. bad me. i'm trying to leave out value judgments and say that i'm fine with whatever religion anyone is, but the stuff they believe in... i just *laughed*. blergh.

there are three levels of heaven and if you don't make it to the best of the three then you're neuter in the after life. if you do make it to the top level of heaven that you have a chance to become a god of your own world! *shakes her head* plus the whole en masse after death baptisms, the ninety five year old prophet of god... i keep thinking "g. gordon liddy" and that's not right... ah yes. gordon b. hinckley. right. he speaks for god. right. god says no more than one piercing in your ear if you're female and none at all if you're male. that's right--decreed by *god*! *rolls eyes* (tangent: i always mess up the mormon associated names. like the time i thought that joseph cambell was a prophet instead of joseph smith.... oops.)

the other thing about it is how incredibly sexist the whole thing is. females are just valueless it seems. there's this whole wonderful bit about how only males can be the hand of the priest or something like that... and all those odd rules for temple.... and marriage that seals you to your spouse even *after death*. that scares me.

debs was telling me about this one weekend where all the upper level church people get together and broadcast a weekend long sermon on morality, basically. there's apparently a part of this weekend where all the men have to go and attend another two hour lecture after all the other lecturing is over with and women are forbidden to know what passes in this meeting! *huge indrawn breath!* blergh on that.

oh, and here's a wonderfully stupid concept: you aren't supposed to date someone until you marry them. excuse me?? what do you do--guess?? and combine this with the soul binding even after death thing and you have.... insanity, that's what. i gather they do these group date things and whatnot, but i presume that kissing must be strictly a wait until marriage thing. hmm. any wonder every one of my coworkers has mentioned leaving the state?

oh, and apparently utah is zion. *SNERK!* right. because it's so damned wonderful over here. although there's also apparently some quasi divergent sect of mormonism that thinks that this is the first zion and it's destined to be corrupted forcing them to move to the second zion which will be in missouri or something. *smirk* so i'm listening to all this and laughing uproariously and feeling badly since i can't even *try* to look at this as a valid possibility of truth.

oh, so this is equally awful of me, but at this point i'm thinking it would be really cool if... ok, so say all religions and theistic models are based off of many faces of one god or supreme being. so there's one god, and no religion is actually completely correct, but this one being fairly well respects them all as trying to reach him. so what does he do? he does exactly what these people seem to be begging for. he evaluates every person in terms of his religion.

sounds good, right? i would find this to be such a wonderful and delicious irony. those who are most condemning end up having to compete against their own standards while those who were open minded have little difficulty in being judged, and haven't got insane standards to meet. (because there's no way you can get into heaven if you have a tattoo, premarital sex, wear pants above the knee, smoke, drink.... yeah. i just want all the mormons to have to live up to their own strictures and leave everyone else alone.) yeah, i'm sure there's a catch in this all somewhere... i'll find it in a few days, i'm sure. of course if god were really unmerciful he could just judge us all by some other religion's standards. who wants to see if they can measure up to buddhism? i'll take standards from islam and be doomed. who wants judaism? fasted lately? i bet we're all keeping kosher, no problem. oh, and atheism and agnosticism. not sure where that's fit in, but i think maybe just reincarnation would be appropriate. which i think i'd prefer over any theoretical heaven or hell. (no, i'm not sure if i really believe in either, though i'm pretty sure i'm i don't believe in hell.) i like earth. it's nice here. *shrug*

oh! and i just *have* to comment on this... the mormons claim to be the chosen tribe of israel. uh huh. so they're basically just asserting they're god's chosen. which means what?? like i think there's some religion out there saying to its members, "well, we're not *actually* god's chosen, those'd be that other religion over there. no, god doesn't really like us, truth be told. yeah, well it seems our religion *isn't* the right one. yeah, we're just sort of the theological cosmic losers, really."

anyhow, this was all brought up when debs and i started attempting to plan something to do the last weekend i'll be here. debs suggested visiting temple square in slc. apparently it's very pretty and whatnot, and they show wonderful pro-lds videos. i'll pass, thanks.

debi wants to know what i'd be interested in doing with her. it's not about doing things. i think maybe i should suggest that we just find a nice park somewhere and bring a picnic lunch and relax on sunday. (after all, nothing is open anyhow. *rolls eyes*) (tangent: i've been typing that a lot lately, and i actually roll my eyes as i'm doing it, and i think it actually aches slightly, so i don't know why i haven't stopped yet.)

so in any case i've decided that if it's at all possible i want to get out of working sunday. really i don't want to work the day before leaving. plus i just accepted extra hours on thursday because they scheduled jamie to work in the middle of a course she's taking so she asked me to cover for her. blergh, linda in personnel can't read english, i swear it. in any case, this will mean thursday should be my last day and i'll hopefully be getting paychecks forwarded to me at school in a few weeks. which i guess i then get to forward to my father and ask him to make a deposit. less than convenient. hm.

well, in any case jamie can't make friday for lunch, but so i'm thinking i should go and see amanda nonetheless. i'll be working with jamie again on thursday anyhow... hmm. and maybe amanda would want to drag along that customer service guy she seems so friendly with. what the heck is his name? i feel badly for this. blergh. cory? i think so.

well, in any case, i should have taken amanda's number, and i didn't... and jamie and i were going to ask at the desk and we forgot... so basically this all is going to fall flat and it's my fault for being a nitwit. eh, i must just not care enough. or my brain really is a sieve.

well, in any case, it's late and it's boiling in here, but so i'm not going to be able to sleep, but i may as well pretend. g'night.
posted by Unknown at 2:48 AM