When I Was a Young Warthog
Today, Dominic and I went to the San Antonio Zoo.
It was a relatively nice way to spend a blue sky morning, even if I didn't see any cheetahs, and even if Dominic did spend the whole time saying, "Man, I need a Nikon D-70. Man." And other variations on that note.
We know about the Nikon D-70 from frequently reading this site, which boasts beautiful pictures with sharp resolutions of, more often than not, an extraordinarily tall and beautiful married couple with a cute baby, and they all live in Utah, a state of which I am simultaneously very afraid and curious about because the Mormons live there, but also because there are mountains and snow, and I have never really been around either enough--the mountains and snow, I mean, not the Mormons.
My fear of Mormons does not come from reading this site, which, by the way, gives the whole internet plenty of reason to puzzle over Mormonism and the conundrum of conformity, duty, family, and self identity that, indeed, most organized religions seem to require; my fear, instead, was spawned from reading a book called Shot in the Heart when I was, like, eleven because I was perusing through my parents' bookshelves again, no doubt filling in the cracks of my lackluster elementary school history and social studies education with plenty of quasi-informative autobiographies of crazy people from the 60's and 70's, like Mommie Dearest and Haywire and Helter Skelter. Anyway, I don't really remember everything about this book, Shot in the Heart, except it was about a graphic and horrible family murder spurred by religious fanaticism, and it painted a very dark and highly gothic horror movie-ish portrait of the Mormon faith in general. The book was creepy, and it made me think, at a very young age, of the power of group-thought and the often sordid, if earnest, ways that people use to control other people. And of course this doesn't just pertain to Mormonism or those crazy Baptists who convinced my friend, Sarah, our sophomore year of college, to come sobbing to me in my dorm room because she was so afraid my eternal soul was going to be eternally condemned to an eternity in hell. This pertains to all sorts of facets of everyday life, like politics and fashion and even, yes, personal morals.
Anyway, my hat is off to Dooce, because she writes so honestly about these sorts of things, and they come from her own experience and heartbreak so that we're always getting a firsthand account, and she filters them so cleverly through her wit and sarcasm until, not only can we can swallow that medicine, but we are begging for more of it because it's, like, Luden's Cough Drops good, and seriously, Luden's Cough Drops are like candy.
And also, now I have to somehow figure out a way to sell my plasma and buy my boyfriend a Nikon D-70 for Christmas because he's been so seduced by the beautiful pictures of the beautiful couple with the beautiful baby on her beautiful site. Thanks a lot, woman.
It was a relatively nice way to spend a blue sky morning, even if I didn't see any cheetahs, and even if Dominic did spend the whole time saying, "Man, I need a Nikon D-70. Man." And other variations on that note.
We know about the Nikon D-70 from frequently reading this site, which boasts beautiful pictures with sharp resolutions of, more often than not, an extraordinarily tall and beautiful married couple with a cute baby, and they all live in Utah, a state of which I am simultaneously very afraid and curious about because the Mormons live there, but also because there are mountains and snow, and I have never really been around either enough--the mountains and snow, I mean, not the Mormons.
My fear of Mormons does not come from reading this site, which, by the way, gives the whole internet plenty of reason to puzzle over Mormonism and the conundrum of conformity, duty, family, and self identity that, indeed, most organized religions seem to require; my fear, instead, was spawned from reading a book called Shot in the Heart when I was, like, eleven because I was perusing through my parents' bookshelves again, no doubt filling in the cracks of my lackluster elementary school history and social studies education with plenty of quasi-informative autobiographies of crazy people from the 60's and 70's, like Mommie Dearest and Haywire and Helter Skelter. Anyway, I don't really remember everything about this book, Shot in the Heart, except it was about a graphic and horrible family murder spurred by religious fanaticism, and it painted a very dark and highly gothic horror movie-ish portrait of the Mormon faith in general. The book was creepy, and it made me think, at a very young age, of the power of group-thought and the often sordid, if earnest, ways that people use to control other people. And of course this doesn't just pertain to Mormonism or those crazy Baptists who convinced my friend, Sarah, our sophomore year of college, to come sobbing to me in my dorm room because she was so afraid my eternal soul was going to be eternally condemned to an eternity in hell. This pertains to all sorts of facets of everyday life, like politics and fashion and even, yes, personal morals.
Anyway, my hat is off to Dooce, because she writes so honestly about these sorts of things, and they come from her own experience and heartbreak so that we're always getting a firsthand account, and she filters them so cleverly through her wit and sarcasm until, not only can we can swallow that medicine, but we are begging for more of it because it's, like, Luden's Cough Drops good, and seriously, Luden's Cough Drops are like candy.
And also, now I have to somehow figure out a way to sell my plasma and buy my boyfriend a Nikon D-70 for Christmas because he's been so seduced by the beautiful pictures of the beautiful couple with the beautiful baby on her beautiful site. Thanks a lot, woman.
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