Tentative Love-Letter to a Relationship Now Concluded

I met Ben in January 2021. He’s the first person with whom I ever fell in love. We broke up about a month ago (August 2022). Since then, my feelings have consisted of a lot of sadness, loneliness, anger, frustration, and intense jealousy, even though none of these are rational or constructive. This blog post

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And, Suddenly, My Life Made a Lot More Sense

I need to be my actual self from now on. I’ve gotten whatever it was I was going to get from not doing that. When I was living in Oklahoma, I was so depressed I was worried I was just going to not wake up one day. That was the main factor that drove my

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A Eulogy for My Membership in the Mormon Church

The LDS church is no longer part of my life. It seems like a good time to compile the good parts and put that chapter to bed. I’ve been mostly Mormon for my whole life up until semi-recently (2020), where by “mostly Mormon”, I mean… I dunno. I usually (not always) went to church, only

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The Specific Ways that Recovering from an Adult Tonsillectomy Is Miserable

I wrote this on Day 9 after the surgery. Pre-surgery, I was trying to find info on what the experience was like. Everyone said it was miserable, but couldn’t explain anything beyond that. So, yeah. Read this, and then you’ll know. The first couple of nights, there was phlegm or something in the back of

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The Beard at Max Power

This is how far it got. It looks like a professional head shot because it is (I needed one for the school website). Was taken in March I’m not sure there’s much else to say about it. It got trimmed several times before March, but I guess that’d be about a year of growing to

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Revisiting Places Where I Used to Live: Twin Falls

Driving up to Boise to see the Modest Mouse concert in September gave me keen opportunity to drive through Twin Falls, a place where I used to live. Hence the post title. I also drove through Rupert, where I lived for like a week before moving to Twin (as the locals call it). In Rupert,

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Living in Norman, Okla.: A Review

About a year ago, I had a random Mormon guy I’d never met before ask me via email about what it was like living in Norman, as he was considering a job at OU. With a few edits, this was my response. Let it serve as a warning to you all. OU OU is what I’d call a

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The Beard at Six Months

When I interviewed at Utah State back in October, it seemed like things had gone pretty well, and I was kind of confident I’d get a job offer. So I figured I could be done interviewing and, relatedly, done having to shave. This launched me on a magical journey in which I continued to not shave (or

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The Most Dangerous Thing I’ve Ever Done

Am heading back to Kauai for New Year’s this year. Was thinking about going on another ultralight flight like I did in ’08. This is the guy I took the lesson from: (source: http://beatofhawaii.com/crash-on-kauai-how-safe-are-ultralights/) And then the company he worked for back when I took the lesson is also now out of business because the owner

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Map for My Post-Dissertation Road Trip

Although it’s also sort of a during-dissertation road trip. Not pictured is the flying from San Diego to Pittsburgh and back. Long may it remain unpictured! Presumed worst parts (in chronological order): Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois OK to the Rockies I-80 across Wyo (time permitting, maybe I’ll drive the Colorado route instead) North Texas bkd