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There are still a lot of plums in our fridge, and I continued to bake with them this week. I made a plum pie, but I messed up the crust. It still tasted good, though.

The recipe had me macerate the plums in sugar, then drain the liquid and make it into syrup.

And then I also made plum upside-down cake, which I adore. 

And I also made tomato sauce from our garden tomatoes and mint leaves. 

I'm in charge of service projects in my ward. When they gave me the calling last year, they told me we would oversee two projects a year (in addition to our ongoing task of delivering birthday cards and gum). But earlier this year, they had us alternate every other month to do service as one of our Monday evening activities. And honestly, it is a lot more fulfilling that way. We alternate with the temple and family history committee, and I personally would rather do service activities than family history activities, so I'm glad they have us get more involved.

This month, for our activity we assembled about two hundred hygiene kits for homeless/needy youth in Davis County, which we also did last year. When I organized it last year, part of the reason (besides the back-to-school theme) was to help queer people, since I know they often get kicked out of their homes. Of course, this activity benefits all youth, and I'm happy to do so. But I was glad to do this activity the same day that the new [pick your word: disappointing, indefensible, disheartening] trans policies came out.

I went to the church early to set up, and I am perpetually amazed at the poor design of our old church building. When you go into the gym, you can't turn the lights on. There are some light switches, but they only turn on a few lights that leave the room very dim. To actually get the lights on in the gym, you have to go onto the stage, into a classroom, and into a cupboard. Which is bad enough on weeknights, but it's worse if you want to turn the lights on in the gym on Sunday and there's a class going on. You literally have to interrupt a class to turn the lights on in another room. I often think that whoever designed the building should never be allowed to build again, but then I remember they're probably dead. And it's a good thing they're dead! 

The cupboard

And the light switches

Recently, my mom set up a bird feeder. I was surprised to look out the window this week and see a deer lapping up birdseed with its tongue! These deer live in our neighborhood, so they are very common and annoying. But sometimes I have to think about how amazing it is that these megafauna are common enough to be pests!

Yesterday I introduced a friend to North Canyon, and he seemed properly impressed. 

Unfortunately, on the way down, I twisted my ankle, so we had to walk the last two miles down instead of running. I hope it heals fast so I don't miss the fall running season. And as we were coming down, we ran into my BYU boss and his wife and eight-year-old son. The eight-year-old was very happy to show us a stump stabber wasp.

I don't really have much else to say, so here are this week's dreams.

an old high school has a toilet halfway up the wall

a hovering, furry insect with black and white stripes and more than twenty tentacles

Grandma grabs Nathan by the legs and drags him on the carpet

Mark watches "The Music Man" in the kitchen while cooking

Mark sees his favorite singer at a conference, and he is surprised because he thinks the conference is too conservative for her

Sue covers up pictures of her family members with cardboard

Mark leads people on a walk to a nearby culdesac

A woman named Kaitlyn Maitland stays at Mark's house, even though he only knew her from ninth-grade Spanish class twenty years ago (No, I don't actually know anyone with this name)

Mark looks in the Christmas room at a used video game store

Mark goes to the home of a shark breeder and holds a container of shark spawn

an oak tree grows large, white blossoms on places where it is distressed, which can be harvested and planted

Mark hangs out in the unoccupied house of his late grandparents

Mark wears a wetsuit while a family watches their dad clip their dogs' nails and a daughter sings "Running with the Wolves"

Mark runs up the sidewalk in a bicycle helmet because yellowjackets won't leave him alone

a Latter-day Saint Sunday School teacher discusses a word that refers to gay people in a lesson

Mark almost gets adopted into a recovering hoarding family, but he won't shake the mom's hand

Mark watches the "Super Mario Bros. Wonder" movie, which has sad clouds becoming happy clouds

Hugh brings firecracker tortilla chips to his party

Mrs. Riley comes into Mrs. Gregg's classroom, presumably to ask her to turn her music down

Mark has a swimsuit painted on his body

Mark and his family browse the music in a Utah-themed store

Mark runs on a sidewalk near a church where a 5k was once held

August 18, 2004

 Today marks twenty years since I wrote this in my journal as a terrified fifteen-year-old:

"For a while I've wondered if I was gay."

I talked about this journal entry in my coming-out post and in my anniversary post. At fifteen, I thought it was horrible and tragic for me to be gay. So I thought I would reflect on some of the context of the world in 2004 that would lead me to think it was such a terrible thing.

At Church

Of course, I received many anti-gay messages at church. It wasn't until 2005 that I heard of a distinction between gay and same-gender attraction. It was in the 2000s that I first heard the concept that "being gay is not a sin but acting on it is." I have, shall we say, significant reservations with that concept now, but I didn't even get that message growing up. And what I have read tends to back up my memories of my lived experience: it was only really in the 2000s that they began to make these kinds of distinctions.

As I have read old general conference talks, I have seen how obsessed certain Church leaders were with criticizing and condemning queer people. (Some have died, some have pulled back on the topic, and one is still just as obsessed.) No wonder I got the message that I was inherently bad!

Since that time, BYU students began the USGA group (which started while I was there), the Church lost the battle against same-sex marriage, and Deseret Book has started publishing books about the gay Latter-day Saint experience. So why should I believe that where they are right now is where they should be, since so much has changed in my lifetime, and even in my adult lifetime?

In Society

But church wasn't the only place. Society in general was less accepting. Same-sex marriage was being debated and was not legal in most places. Family members who are now fierce allies spoke of gay people with a certain level of revulsion. The first gay person I knew was a jerk, and the first trans person I knew was really weird.

Pop culture even reduced gay people to jokes and stereotypes. For example, I grew up watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and recently I've been rewatching it. (We gays love our campy witches.) In one episode, Sabrina has to make two people fall in love, and she asks Harvey, "Do you know if that guy's dating anyone?" To which Harvey responds, slightly disgusted, "Yeah, I think he's dating that guy." Cue laugh track. Even The Simpsons, that hallmark of 1990s subversiveness, treated gay people as a joke. It was a throwaway gag that Smithers liked "It's Raining Men."

And I think about my school experiences. I had the same teacher for fourth and sixth grade, and he was gay, but we didn't know that. (He did portray the Sugar Plum Fairy at the school Christmas assembly in sixth grade, however.) In seventh grade, some of my classmates told me they saw him on the news talking about being gay (because that was newsworthy back then). We were all kind of disgusted, sadly. I didn't know anyone at school who was out until high school, and even then there were only two or three. There was a set of twins in my graduating class, and one of them was out. When I was standing in line at graduation, I heard some guys around me talking about those twins. One of the guys had asked the closeted twin if he was gay, and he said, "No, but I support my brother." But it turns out both twins were actually gay. One of the twins did not feel ready to come out at that time, even though he was supportive of his out brother! After graduation, someone from my graduating class said, "There were two gay guys in our grade." And of course, in reality, there were more than that—including the guy who made that claim! (And everyone knew it—he showed up on everyone's gaydar.) 

Anyway, I don't really have anything profound to say about this, I just wanted to mark the anniversary. There was never anything wrong with me. There was only something wrong with the people who said there was something wrong with me.

August topically

Since 2012, I have had to make an obligatory post explaining how I used to hate August but I don't anymore. So here are some of the Augusty things I had going on this week.

Produce

There is so much abundance from the garden in August. We have a bumper crop of plums this year, so I made plum crisp

and plum cobbler. And there's still a lot of plums in the fridge for more baking.

We also had a yellow squash that I needed to use, so I used it to make pancakes, inspired by zucchini bread.

Outdoors

I suppose it made more sense for me to hate August when I lived a sedentary, indoorsy lifestyle. And August doesn't have the wildflowers of April–June or the leaves of September–October. But it's still nice to spend time outside. This week I finally got to see the burn scars next to the radio towers above Ensign Peak. But I didn't have time to get close to them. (That trail has little shade, so it's not great in August.)

On Wednesday, as I headed up to run on the Wild Rose Trail, I saw some kids on the sidewalk. On my way back, I saw their artistic representation of "Your Mom" made with plant matter.

I got some other good runs in this week, even if I had to take my headlamp so I could go once it cooled down.

Speaking of running, I had a physical this week, since it's been five years, and I'm in good health, as expected (though I haven't heard the results of the blood test yet). It's a good thing I'm healthy, since my only major allergies are to medicine.

Summerween

I have reviewed two new Halloween candies this month, and it's typical for me to do so this early. If I don't, someone will beat me to the punch. Halloween haters will say it's too early for Halloween, and I agree. For one thing, if we have Halloween stuff early, it will be less special when it's actually the designated time.

I've seen news reports this year saying that Halloween stuff is going on sale earlier than ever, and they're calling it Summerween, perhaps inspired by an episode of Gravity Falls. (How else are you going to have a Halloween episode in a series that takes place in the summer? That episode shows Summerween in June, however.) I actually don't really mind holiday stuff for sale early (regardless of the holiday), but I don't like people putting it up at their homes early.

But the thing is, since I structure my life around holidays, I'm always eager for the next one. And since we don't have a major one after the July holidays, it means I'm always thinking about Halloween in late summer, ever since I was a kid. For example:

• When I was ten, I decorated my bedroom with Halloween decorations on July 5. (That was before I canonized Pioneer Day.) I think I also put up my Fourth of July decorations in April.
• When I was nine, a Cub Scout badge said you could make holiday decorations, so I made Halloween decorations. This was in July or August, when I had a broken leg. 
• When I was six, I set up a lending library of my Halloween picture books in August. I made play money with monsters instead of presidents, but I lent it to my friend and his mom threw it away. And I wasn't going to count a Berenstain Bears book as a Halloween book, because it didn't mention the holiday, but he said it was because of the pumpkin on the cover.
  
• When I was five, my mom bought a set of battery-powered Christmas lights in August. (The lights required two D-cells for ten lights. Christmas light technology has come a long way.) The packaging had pictures of Christmas decorations and a jack-o'-lantern, so I cut them off the packaging and kept them. I guess it was my equivalent of baseball cards or Pokemon cards.

Sorry, that was a tangent!

I guess it's time to close with this week's dreams. 

The woman at the ice cream shop gets orders wrong because she says taffy instead of toffee

Mark wants to get a dog-print swimsuit to make announcements at the 2028 summer games

Elder Melville gives a Book of Mormon to a homeless woman and bookmarks Alma 34

Jen says she doesn't like the Impossible Whopper because she likes chili burgers

Mark parks his car near the lake, where there is an inch of water in the parking lot

a boat stops in water where people dump trash, and children are swimming, with the girls wearing dresses

Sue goes on a far-right tantrum, so Mark throws a penny at her

Mark keeps getting interrupted when he's trying to make a casserole

Jenny tells Callie to eat leftovers instead of cooking

Mark performs an impromptu skit with some women, and one of them has a bee on her dress

a woman brings Mark some short running shorts from an adjoining store

Mark moves to New York City for work for a year

Mark goes to the Mormon History Association conference, and he suspects he will be asked to offer a dedicatory prayer

a milky, pink substance collects on bodies of water and makes everything bright and happy

Reid calls out to Mark in a church building and asks him personal questions

Mark drives home and sees a neighborhood has their Halloween decorations up in August

on Black Friday, a church building hosts a Peeps market