The Real World

Every week, I have a video call with my boss, and she has her two-year-old son say hi to me. This week she told me that he will often point to her laptop and say "Mark," and she has to tell him I'm not there right then. She told me she thinks he's mesmerized by seeing me on the screen, like I live in the laptop or something. 

Part of me finds it startling when people notice or remember me, especially a toddler. But I'm more intrigued that he thinks I live in a laptop. What an interesting concept! I imagine it being like the pictures in Harry Potter newspapers, where they don't stay there all the time. What would it be like if I lived in the internet? Could I go anywhere in the world, be in any movies, meet any celebrities, literally immerse myself into the study of any topic? What a fascinating idea!

In fact, I kind of feel like I live in my laptop(s). Every day, I sit at my desk to do my state job for five hours, and then I switch to my personal laptop to do my BYU-ish job for three hours. On top of that, I sometimes have to work on Faith Matters projects as well. And then of course I blog every Sunday. And occasionally I have reviews to write for The Impulsive Buy. (Sadly, there haven't been any new Valentine's or Easter products to review this year.)

Actually, maybe living in a laptop isn't so great. There is so much beauty and wonder in the actual world!

For Presidents' Day, my parents and I went on a drive up to the Bear River Bird Refuge near Brigham City. It was my third time there. We didn't see a ton of birds this time, but we still saw some. Even without the birds, it's a lovely drive, being near all that water. It's distressing to see all the phragmites, an invasive plant that sucks up water. I think it would be fun to ride my bike there sometime, but it would probably be extremely buggy. 

This is the only picture I took, because it's awkward to take pictures from a moving vehicle, and my window was covered in rain

And I love moving my body; I love cardio. I went swimming three times this week, running once (only two miles), and biking once. Biking is significant, because I don't use my bike very often; the last time I did was the Labor Day triathlon. I don't like shifting gears, in part because I never remember which lever goes up and which goes down. Last year I labeled the levers, so it's easier to shift. Yesterday, as I was heading up steep Eagleridge Drive, I shifted into a low gear, and I thought, "You know, I think I could keep going uphill at this gear." So I decided to bike to the top of the Summerwood neighborhood in Bountiful, which is one of my default winter runs, but I had never biked there before. And I made it! Parts of it were really hard, but I still made it. I climbed 983 feet in less than three miles. I know people bike more impressive routes all the time, but I was pleased with myself for doing it for the first time after not even using my bike for five months. 

There are various things that annoy me about biking, but I think there are three main ones:

1. Inconsistent temperature. I'm too hot going up, but too cold going down.
2. Less of a workout. I'm not exerting myself when I'm going downhill, whereas with running, I'm working the whole time. If I'm going to devote an hour or two to exercising, I'd rather get more out of it.
3. Safety. It scares me to go fast downhill, and a bike crash would be more devastating than a run crash. (And the fact that "run crash" sounds bizarre shows that it's also less likely to happen.)

Oh, and while we're talking about virtual versus real worlds: most of you know that I have been using Microsoft Image Creator to make AI images based on various dreams I have had, and I have put some of them on Facebook. But here are some additional ones that I haven't posted before. I could tell you the stories of the dreams, but I think it's more entertaining to let the pictures speak for themselves: 

...yeah, AI still has a lot of bugs

One of my recurring dreams is that I'm in a play and I can't remember the script

And this one is not based on my own dream, but on one of my all-time favorite YouTube videos. The video is not remotely related to cats, but AI still added one, which is a bonus!

Palimpsests 2: The BYU visit

Last week I talked about palimpsests in my life, and this week the palimpsests continued. The BYU Slavery Project hosted a conference called Truth and Reconciliation, and the Utah Historical Society encouraged employees to attend. So I headed down to Provo Friday.

It was a little strange to me that I have a BYU-adjacent job, and yet I was at BYU for my state job. And actually, my BYU boss was there, so I sat by him, and I also talked to a colleague from my time at the Church History Department. This conference was held in the Wilkinson Center's Varsity Theater, where I attended church in 2013 and 2014.

In the morning, a few professors spoke on different racial aspects in Utah history, which was most relevant to my state job. Brian Cannon talked about Native American slavery and indentured servitude. The Utes used to capture Goshute and Paiute children, then sell them to the Spanish as slaves. When Mormon settlers arrived, the Utes would attempt to sell the children to the Saints. The Mormons were reluctant to buy them, but the slave traders would threaten to torture or kill the children, so the pioneers would buy the children to save their lives. This is morally defensible, but there were still aspects of settlement that exacerbated the situation.

Amy Tanner Thiriot wrote a book called Slavery in Zion, and she spoke about the experiences of Black pioneers. (Her presentation was most relevant to an article I just finished editing for a future issue of Utah Historical Quarterly.) Her presentation elicited gasps and shocked chuckles when she showed a nineteenth-century image with Black people in Utah, which was later modified to make the Black people white. (Here they are as seen in her book, Slavery in Zion, which I have a copy of but haven't read yet.)

And W. Paul Reeve gave a presentation about the conflicting racial ideas of Orson Pratt and Brigham Young. While Brigham Young allowed for slavery in Utah and taught that Black people descended from Cain (an idea I know I was taught as a kid in the 1990s), Orson Pratt stood up for truth and said there was no evidence that Black people descended from Cain. 

In the afternoon, the presentations were more recent and contemporary, many of them dealing with race at BYU. Some of the presentations were more devotional in nature. Which is fine—this was a presentation put on BYU, and in many ways for BYU. But it was just a little strange to hear those messages when I was there on behalf of my secular job, not my BYU job or my former Church job. 

One Black woman presenter used to work at BYU, but she left last August, and she bluntly said they were not on good terms, and she had a negative reaction simply being on campus. I appreciated her honesty, even though she didn't explain why she left.

(By all accounts, BYU is undergoing a period of retrenchment. Last summer, my former boss at BYU from a decade ago sent me an email telling me she was retiring and inviting me to apply to her position. I responded that that job "sounds like it would be perfect if I were straight. But, alas, I am gay, and I don't think BYU would be the safest or most affirming place for me right now." She replied, "I completely understand. BYU is in retrenchment mode, and I'm not sad to be leaving. It's quite uncomfortable for many of us!" That's why I'm glad that right now I get to work for BYU without being a BYU employee.)

One of the final presenters was a Black woman who said she once felt that God told her he was preparing someone to teach the truth. She later learned that at that same time, Paul Reeve was praying whether to study accounting or history, and he felt inspired to study history. So she views him as the person God was preparing. (Indeed, his book Let's Talk about Race and Priesthood from Deseret Book is excellent.)

It was a great conference, and I'm pleased with the challenging honesty of the presenters on BYU campus.

I got to just walk around campus for a little bit. A lot has changed, and yet it feels so familiar, since I was there every day between 2010 and 2014. The last time I visited BYU campus was in March 2022, when I was going through some stuff and had a cloud of uneasiness hanging over me. But I'm in a much better headspace now, so I waxed nostalgic about the happy and positive experiences I had as a BYU student. (I even saw a couple of former professors [geology and grammar], but I thought it would be weird to stop them and talk to them, when I'm sure they wouldn't remember more than a decade later. And, of course, I'm an introvert anyway.)

***

The conference was the more serious, meaningful portion of the week, but of course I'm all about frivolity, so here are the less serious parts of the week.

On Monday, my ward had an activity to help the Bountiful Food Pantry assemble "pantry packs" for school kids. We had a good turnout and got a lot done. But I can't help but feel sad that the food for the kids is mostly processed, sugary foods.

Mardi Gras isn't one of my canonized holidays, but I nevertheless decided to go to Parsons' Bakery to buy a king cake, a traditional Mardi Gras dessert in the South. My parents asked me to explain what Mardi Gras was, and they were surprised it had religious connections instead of just being a "pagan" (their word) holiday.

This Valentine's Day was the tenth anniversary of when my mom broke her leg while carrying a pizza downstairs, so of course we had our traditional pizza dinner. But then I spent the rest of the evening working on the next issue of Wayfare, which is almost done. It was a boring Valentine's Day. But aren't they all? I have had more boring Valentine's Days than nonboring ones, and of those that were fun, the fun parts were unrelated to the holiday. I think I have to go back to elementary school for a February 14 that was fun because of Valentine's Day.

I'm glad to move on to St. Patrick's Day, which is a better holiday in almost every way: better weather, better colors, better festivals, better music, better savory food. I would say Valentine's Day has better candy, but then I remembered the See's St. Patrick's Day potato. (The one thing that's worse is the drinking. I have a great deal of schadenfreude for drunk people.)

Eating a green candy cane while decorating my St. Patrick's Day tree

Yesterday my dad was doing yardwork, and our neighbors' friendly cat had a grand time following him around, rubbing against his legs. My dad was trimming tree branches, and as he would drag the branches along the ground, the cat would chase and play with them. Eventually Reggie came and was watching out the sliding glass door, so my dad opened the door to the sunroom. The neighbor cat came in and looked at Reggie, but then he lost interest.

Reggie stood up on his hind legs to see where the cat went, but I didn't get the picture in time

Isn't he the greatest?

Palimpsests

In recent years, I have been introduced to the concept of palimpsest. In its most literal sense, a palimpsest is a writing material that has been erased, then written over again. This was popular in ancient history, when writing materials were hard to come by. (I imagine it being like when you shake the Etch A Sketch to start over, but you can still see some of the old drawing.)

But palimpsest can be used in more metaphorical ways to describe things that have multiple layers. Lately I've been thinking a lot about palimpsests in my life.

My job situation is a palimpsest. My state boss is named Holly, and my other boss is named Reid. Reid is both my new boss and my old boss, since he first hired me ten years ago this month. Reid was one of my references for my state job, and when I started at the state last March, Holly told me that Reid said I was a serious runner. Then just this week, Holly told me that Reid said I wouldn't accept any treat. I was surprised Holly would remember that a year later—but also, if they were talking about my running and eating habits, what other nonwork things are they saying about me? (Of course, I had to clarify to Holly that I only eat holiday-themed treats.)

(Speaking of holiday-themed treats, recently my parents found an old gingerbread mix that someone had gifted them years ago, and they wanted to use it up. It's not gingerbread season, but I made it seasonal by making heart-shaped cookies and cinnamon candy frosting. The gingerbread was OK, but the frosting was amazing! I didn't plan it this way, but I suppose the cookies are a palimpsest of sorts—Christmas cookies with a Valentine's setting.)

In my profession, we use a lot of palimpsests. Historians use both primary and secondary sources, but sometimes a source can be both. For example: if I were writing about the pioneers and used a book from 1930, that would be a secondary source, because it came later, compiled of different sources. But if I were writing about the ways people remembered and talked about pioneers in the twentieth century, then that 1930 book would be a primary source.

Reid loves to publish a particular kind of palimpsest known as a documentary history. This is when you reprint a historical document with analytical materials, such as introductions and footnotes. I have worked on several documentary histories with Reid already, and that's what I'm doing for him now. It has been interesting to do this kind of work again. It's familiar, but now I have almost a decade of extra experience and education.

I also bought my own copy of a palimpsest, the newly published and annotated memoir of D. Michael Quinn. Signature Books hosted a panel for this book. Quinn was a gay Mormon historian, and since I am a gay Mormon historian, I thought I should go, especially since I had a friend on the panel. I talked to several people there whom I had met before: some people I talked to at the Peoples of Utah Revisited symposium last summer; my predecessor at my state job, whom I met in California; my friend on the panel, whom I met at a dinner last summer; and a professional who sat by me on a tour bus back in 2015.

I notice palimpsests in other aspects of my life as well. For example, recently I listened to all my "liked" songs on Spotify from the last ten years. There are songs I remember on the radio from 2007 ("Rehab" and "Young Folks") that I added to my collection in the mid-2010s. So those songs make me think about the era when I first heard them, but also about the time I added them to my "liked" songs. I like to think about layers of songs all the time. 

And I think of my whole life as a palimpsest. I think I am a very different person than I was when I was a teenager and even in my early twenties. I mean, hopefully this is true of everyone, but I think it's especially true in my case. Teenage Mark wouldn't have recognized this gay historical professional who minored in geology and regularly runs eleven miles (like I did yesterday). But there are still things that have always been the same: my quiet shyness, my adoration of holidays, and my diligence in academic matters.

January, February

When I was seven years old, my family saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the drive-in theater. I remember almost nothing about this movie, except for one brief scene:

"I'm free, I'm free! Dang it."

That's how I feel when January turns to February. I'm so excited for January to end, but February isn't much better. It's still cold, it still gets dark fairly early, there's still snow, and there's not a lot going on. I think my favorite part of February is all the pink and red flavors of the month.

Of my nine canonized holidays, Valentine's Day is my least favorite. The holiday peaks in elementary school. In recent years, I think there has been more of a trend to emphasize other kinds of love (platonic, familial, etc.), which I 100 percent support, but I don't think the transition is complete yet. I don't have a significant other, but even if I did, I don't think it would make much of a difference in how I saw the holiday. I mean, hopefully I would have the SO year-round. 

I made this hokey image for my blog background for the Valentine's season back in 2012

What do you do for Valentine's Day if you don't have a class party? You can go to a dance or watch rom-coms, but neither of those is my thing. (Though I did appreciate the year there was a That Girl marathon.) Decorating sugar cookies can be fun, but I don't like to have that many extra cookies on hand. (I would rather try lots of different things, rather than have a lot of one thing.)

And my Valentine's Day playlist is my shortest of all my holiday playlists. Some people might think of just having love songs, but we have love songs all year, so what's special about them? I don't like playing my Valentine's playlist that much, because I will get sick of the songs too soon. The most famous/iconic Valentine's Day song is "My Funny Valentine," which most people don't know, and it's literally about loving someone even though they're ugly.

And don't get me started on Groundhog Day again. I don't mind that it exists, but I do mind that it seems to get more attention than Arbor Day, Mardi Gras, and Pioneer Day, all of which are much better holidays.

Anyway, all this is a long introduction to say that it wasn't a very interesting week. 

My goal for the year is to get rid of something every day, because it occurred to me last year that our house is often cluttered because we don't have good places to put things. I got rid of good things this week. I took some old, slow laptops to Best Buy to recycle. Back in second or third grade, I asked for a filing cabinet for Christmas, so my parents gave me a used pseudo–filing cabinet. It's just been taking up space in my closet, so I got rid of it yesterday, as well as getting rid of some of the things in it. I could have gotten rid of more, but baby steps, right?

I went to the swim team twice this week, and the more I learn about swimming, the more I realize how bad I am at swimming. But I have to start somewhere. Recently one of the coaches gave me some feedback on breaststroke, which made me realize I was doing it wrong, and I felt like I had to start all over. But I went to the pool on Friday (without the team) and practiced, and I feel like I've made some progress.

And I ran eight miles yesterday without my knee hurting, so hopefully I'll soon be back to running eleven miles before trail season resumes.

Also, I don't get why people say that cats are uncaring and unloving. Maybe some are, but I wouldn't say they are in general. Reggie frequently meows at me and my parents so we will sit on my bed so we can pet him and cuddle with him. This week, he was meowing outside my room. Then he followed me downstairs and went by the couch and meowed. Then he followed me back upstairs and meowed by my room because he was desperate for affection. He loves us! And Jimmy was the same way. And I had to type this paragraph with an eighteen-pound cat resting on my arm.

Have a good week during this bland month!