More thoughts on modesty

There seems to be an ongoing discussion among some of my friends about what modesty means and how it should be taught. Many of my friends say that teaching modesty (or "the way it is taught") is wrong, and their reasons are very persuasive but feel very wrong.

I realized today that Anda is going to be taught about modesty by someone other than me in the next few years as she joins Young Womens. And I realized that I'd rather her be taught the traditional way, not the "new-and-improved" way some of my friends are proposing.

Why?

The new way doesn't appropriately or accurately deal with the true, biological nature of men. It, in essence, says  that men should be women and see the world the way women do. This is neither fair nor realistic. While I agree that boys should be taught that they are responsible for their own actions and for learning to see women as people, not just bodies, it is important for women to understand that men notice bodies, too, even on women they like as people.

The other thing I want Anda to understand is that her clothes choices are her chance to inform every person she meets how she wants to be treated. While it's a lovely idea that we should be able to dress however we like, our clothes are really a text that informs people how we wish to be perceived. If we treat ourselves as bodies only, people will treat us as bodies only. If we treat ourselves as people, we will be treated as people. And how do we inform others of how we wish to be treated? By what we wear. And all the theories and lovely ideas about how stupid that is are totally disconnected from reality, no matter how appealing they are.

If we want to be treated with respect and dignity, we have to dress with respect and dignity. Period.

I'm Okay with Elder Oaks' Talk.

I have a lot of friends who are having emotional/spiritual crises of varying intensities because of Elder Oaks' talk about the Priesthood in Conference. I think it's because he said that the Lord said the Priesthood is only for men, and it won't help to petition the brethren because they don't even possess the keys to change that, no matter how much you beg.

The problem many of my friends are having stems from the fact that they decided they were right and essentially gave the church an ultimatum. Giving women the Priesthood--now--was non-negotiable because it makes a lot of sense to them.

I feel sad for my friends. They're all suffering right now, trying to reconcile their personal beliefs that conflict--because as of Saturday night, they no longer had the freedom to say, "Apostles speak for Jesus Christ and direct the Church according to His commands" and "God wants women to have the Priesthood." (And my friends were, surprisingly, uninclined to question the second statement. Instead, they were all struggling with how to reconcile the first to the second). Why? Because they've all thought through it thoroughly and truly believe that their understanding of both women and the priesthood leave no space for women not to have the priesthood. They've really considered this deeply, and it makes no sense to them to do it any other way. It's just not fair.

So why did Elder Oaks' talk give me not one whit of distress?  Because I believe that women should not have the priesthood.

And I can tell you nearly a dozen reasons I think that's a good idea.

The thought process that led to those nearly a dozen reasons was like this (in a series of questions that I prayed about--over many years):
1. Is God real? Yes.
2. Does he care about  me? More than I do.
3. If God is real and wants us to know about him, would He have more than one right church out there, all teaching different things? No.
4. So if there is one right church, someone must be in charge or there is chaos with all people believing what they will. So who is in charge? A prophet.
5. If it is truly God's church (and Jesus is in charge of it), would He leave the prophet to figure things out himself? No. That would be silly.
6. So is it reasonable to accept that God created the structure of His church to be led by a prophet and apostles, and that they are in active contact with Jesus to direct the Church according to His will? Yes.
7. Are people, including prophets and apostles, fallible? Yes. But would God ever allow them to lead the entire church astray on important matters (like who holds the Priesthood of God)?  No. So we can assume that if a matter is important, God and His prophets have conversed about it.
8. Is it possible for me to comprehend or see all that God can comprehend or see? No.
9. So if God and I are at odds on some point of doctrine or practice, who is most likely to have made the mistake? ME. He can see and know more than I possibly can, and he care more for me and the people I love than I possibly can even comprehend. So I should probably trust Him, and if I don't understand, try to see it from His perspective (as impossible as that task actually is) instead of insisting He see it from mine (because He already does, thank you, and that doesn't mean He's going to do it my way).
10. Who do I have stewardship over (and therefore the right to receive revelation for)? Well, not the prophet or apostles, that's for sure. But they do have stewardship over me. And I do over me, too, and also over my children while they are young. Probably not anyone else. Maybe my spouse. Maybe. Not assuredly, though. So therefore the right questions to ask God would mostly likely be about me--my beliefs, my behaviors, my attitudes--and not about what the whole Church should be doing, or even what God should be doing.

So, once I had answered those questions (which didn't happen in one night--it was a journey), I was fairly confident that if the prophet or apostles gave us direction, it would be wiser for me to pray for understanding--of the instructions, of the doctrines, and of what I should do--than to sit around asking the Lord to change his mind.

In other words, I asked, "So you don't think women should have the priesthood. I can accept that. Can you help me understand why?" instead of "Please give me the priesthood--I think I can serve best that way." (That's a silly statement anyway--we can all serve to our capacity without the Priesthood. Nobody is required to have keys and ordinations to see suffering around us and try to ease it).

Anyway, I now have lots of reasons not to need the priesthood, and some new insights into the fact that we've devalued women's assignments but that doesn't mean the Lord has.

I do not believe women need or should have the priesthood. Maybe some time I'll write down why.

Did I just read that?

From Slate.com: "The cases were consolidated and argued Tuesday morning by Solicitor General Don Verrilli and Paul Clement, who argued the ACA cases before the court almost two years ago, on a spring day in 2012, when it was not—as it was Tuesday—snowing."

 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2014/03/sebelius_v_hobby_lobby_supreme_court_hears_oral_arguments_in_the_contraception.html?google_editors_picks=true

Because snow has so much to do with contraception, government mandates, and legal cases....

Did I just read that?

"You can only enter from outside."  http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/us/texas-immigrants-stash-house/

Yes, because if you are inside and going through the door, we call that exiting.

How to Embed a Google+ Pages Photo Album into a Google Sites Website

Just spent 2 hours trying to figure this out, so I'm going to write down what worked to hopefully spare any of you the frustration I just went through.

What I wanted to do: Put up a photo album in Tim's Google+ Mister Tim page and then embed the album on his www.mistertimdotcom.com website. Seems simple enough. I'm even using all Google tools, so it should be possible, right? Google SHOULD give you a link or a snippet of code in Google + like they do in Picasa, right?

Not so much. It is possible, but it requires a very convoluted workaround, especially since I was trying to use a Google+ Page instead of a straightforward Google+ account.

Here's what worked:

1. First, log in to Google+ and use the left dropdown navigation bar to go to your Pages. In our case, I logged in to Tim's Timothy Jones Google+ account and then navigated to his pages screen, which has three options on it. I chose "Manage this Page" under "Mister Tim".

2. Use the left dropdown navigation to choose "Photos". Now click on "More" in the top navigation bar and select "Albums", or upload photos and create a new album. Either way, once the album is created, go to the albums page again (Photos>More>Albums) and choose the album you want to embed. Click on the dropdown arrow (white button) on the far right of the screen, and choose "Sharing Options" and make sure that the option under "Visible to" is "Public". Click "Save".

3. Now, on the left dropdown navigation menu, choose Settings.

4. Scroll down to Third Party Tools. Copy your page's username and set up a password for it.

5. Now go to this site: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1

6. Log in using your Google+ Page username that you just copied and the password you just created.

7.  If you aren't on the "Home" tab, click there. If your album shows up under "Recent Albums", choose it. If not, click on "View All" next to Recent Albums and select your album there.

8. In the right sidebar, double check that your album is set to "public on the web". If it isn't, choose edit. If it is, then click on "Link to this Album," also in the right sidebar.

9. Select "Embed Slideshow". A popup box will appear. Select the options you want and then copy the html code from the box. (You can select "Embed album" but you get fewer formatting options.)

10. Log in to your website and use the tools there to insert the html code into the right page. Save the page, and the slideshow should be fully functional. Here is our result: http://www.mistertimdotcom.com/lyric-art-book.

On putting your house in order

A year ago I complained--rather heavily--about the misinterpretation of the scripture that says to put your house in order.

Today was Ward Conference again, and the bishop asked us to think back on the year and how we put our houses in order. He asked if we had more gospel-centered artwork around our houses now.

I consciously turned my brain to what he was actually asking (not about art, but about if we pondered the scripture he felt inspired to make our ward theme, and what we did about it).  

I was quite relieved to discover that, after pondering the verse quite a lot last spring, I did work throughout the year to put our house in order.

And you know what? I have never, in my life, had a messier house.

How is that, you wonder, when I worked to put it in order?  Well, each day, each  minute, I tried very hard to choose the most important things to do, and do those first. I tried to focus on what the Spirit was telling me to do, what my children and husband needed, what the people around me needed, on using and developing my talents and helping my children do the same, on helping people to find light and joy in the lives they are in, whether chosen or not.  Of course, I wasn't perfect at choosing. But it seemed to me that the right order in life is to put God's work first, and focus on doing what He would do at any particular moment.

And that left me far, far too busy to clean the floors. Most days. Some days there was time left for that. Some days there was both time and energy for that. Sometimes even the best possible choice was to work on the house, and I got some important things done in that area. But I have fibro, and my energy is very limited, and, in making the best possible choices I could, the floor suffered more often than not.

I find that kind of ironic, that we were told to put our houses in order, told to ponder the scripture, and then everyone somehow expected the measure of success in that to be the emptiness of the floor and if you cluttered your walls with more pictures of Jesus or the temple. By that measure, I failed. Big time. Although my walls did get cluttered with more art--even some of it pictures of Jesus, but most of it drawn by my children (sometimes right on the wall). But I feel like I succeeded at putting my house in order and surviving what was arguably one of the hardest years of my life.

Makes me really, really glad that the Lord doesn't judge by the living room floor or the state of the kids' bathroom toilet, but that "the Lord looketh on the heart."

Did I just read that?

From an article on KSL.com: "Walter died of congestive heart familiar while on vacation with his wife of 57 years."

Read more at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=711&sid=29081467#F53Cefw1sLfzhSiE.99

Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is that a witch's animal partner is called a familiar. So witches got him?

"The Funky Introvert" is done and here

Tim's CD is done. We have physical copies here, at the house, ready to listen to. Thank you everyone who adopted tracks (your copies are coming to you soon as I can get them there).

Thank you everyone who has listened.

And thank you SO SO much to everyone who has shared the news and encouraged their friends to listen.

Please do listen. You can listen on Spotify (http://open.spotify.com/album/7ekcDt0iVTtcxI2Np3mNaa), although those are the singles versions. The album was designed to be listened to as a whole, in order, and if you get a physical copy (or a digital download of the "album version"), the best experience is there as some of the easter eggs in the album blend one song into another, and the tracks ebb and flow nicely as a whole. One of the most significant parts of the whole album is the easter egg verse in "Monument" (it's not hard to find, but it takes a little technological know-how to decode it).

You can find the whole version on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-funky-introvert/id822228885 or cheaper on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Funky-Introvert-Mister-Tim/dp/B00IHFWC3I/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1393151251&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Funky+Introvert+Mister+Tim. It's also on Tim's store, although the whole-album download as the "album version" is still coming. http://mistertimdotcom.com/store/  Scroll down to get a physical CD copy.


I know this is not the kind of music you hear every day. But it's cool. It tackles some challenging topics, and is musically challenging in some ways (all vocal, some vocal-but-instrumental stuff going on--including a whole song, looping, art music, variety of styles, some of it poetry set to music with all the challenge that poetry brings along with all the challenge that music brings.). It's really good music, though, even if you need a copy of the lyrics in hand in order to really get the full impact of it (you can get a low-res copy of the lyrics book here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B86ydLtT5M65LUc2WlYwalVtR0E; I can send you a link to the high-res copy if you want it, but it's a hefty download, or else a whole lot of one-page-at-a-time downloading, but it's super pretty. Tim did a great job on the design).

This is NOT moosebutter. If you are expecting moosebutter, you will not get this. If you love moosebutter and want more, you probably won't even like this. It is NOT moosebutter. The Funky Introvert is not funny. It's not silly. It's not comedy--not even a little.

The Funky Introvert is 21st century art songs. Like good art, the songs have broad and deep meanings, which can be completely personal--there is no one right way to hear these songs. For example, the song "Tango" is about addiction, or living with the fallout of having been abused as a child, or about bad habits, or about mental illness, or about unrepented sins, or about nightmares or anxieties that won't leave you alone, or about the "muse" that won't leave artists alone and compels them to work or about any number of other demons that interfere with our lives.  "The Fire that Consumes Your Eyes" is about depression, or about being afraid to fall in love, or about mental illness and clinging to those we care about who are suffering, or about the creative process, or about being in love.  So many things you can hear. So many things Tim was saying. So many things you can learn or ponder or see. Even the songs that tell a story do it the way poetry does--so that each person hears a different story. When the kids and I first heard "A Question, A Tiger," one of us thought it was the story of thieves, one of lovers, one of spies. "Outdated" was, at different times, the story of war, and a commentary and warning about the reality of being famous, and the story of Icarus.  "Stick Around" was an invitation to stay and hear something awesome in the music and ponder it, but it was also Las Vegas speaking to us, trying to entice people to come and stay.

Tim is awesomely okay with people "owning" these songs and hearing from them what they need to hear. He had specific ideas of what he was talking about when he wrote the songs, but he recognizes the nature of art. If the whole album is Daedalus talking to Icarus, or an exploration of Altars and what is stopping us from making this world into heaven, or the story of one man's journey through life (as more than one person has commented), or an unfinished tale, or a collection of loosely related (or unrelated) songs, or some kind of biography--it's all up to you. What you hear is. It's all in there, layer upon layer like a poppy that is just starting to unfurl its petals.

But no, the songs are not nonsense, although Tim has been accused of pulling words out of a hat and stringing them together however they appeared. The songs are jam-packed with meaning.

Even so, I'm still not sure what a "ballerina shotgun" is, or why we should "trust in the dude, we conclude he has got one." And, while it's super fun to say, "whining, whinnying, guppying, minnowing," I have no idea what that actually means. And that's part of the fun of it. Sometimes the words are, it seems, acting as sounds that make music together instead of as words that make meaning together. But sometimes I think something is aurally pleasing only, and then suddenly it snaps into place and I understand what Tim was saying. But he won't tell you how to listen. It's for you.

19 tracks. Two are different songs over the same background music, which is neat to hear. One is purely "instrumental." Two ("Heartbreaks" and "I Have Become") are the ones produced in Vegas thanks to the kickstarter a couple of years ago.  Several are older and have been performed many times. Several are new, written in the studio during the recording process. Lots of super cool easter eggs (for example, there is a snippet of an unreleased verse to the first song, "Beatnik," hidden in another song in the background parts; also that significant verse of "Monument" I mentioned that's easy to find but harder to hear). Well worth listening on a good sound system, and again with a computer than can help you decode them.

I like to listen to this album loud. It sounds good loud. It sounds good soft, too, but it feels good loud.

Let me know if you want a copy, and I can arrange that. I'm really thrilled with how this project came out, and now I want other people to hear it. Even if I have to give it away free. The music is good, it has merit, and I think you're gonna like it. Have a listen?

Tim's album is now available

You can find it on Spotify, Amazon.com, iTunes... https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-funky-introvert/id822228885

Go have a listen. Review or rate it if you can. (or both!)

I so much love this music and am very excited to share it.

How to Fix Stuff

People have started asking me to help fix their things, too. (LOTS of people). I keep insisting I don't know how to fix things, but they beg to differ. Often. So here are my secrets (and then you can fix your own things!):

1. Have no other options (ie no budget for another washer and dryer) so either it's you or nothing. Start searching craiglist's free board for a free one that works, just in case it comes up (because then you don't have to fix it).
2. Figure it's already broken so you can't make it worse.
3. Google it. If you have the problem, someone else did, too, and someone who knows more than you told someone else how to fix it.
4. YouTube search it. Usually the make and model of whatever's broken and the words "how to" (and more terms if you've discovered them in your Google search). Watch people fix it.
5. Try to fix it. Fail. Repeat six or eight times, making sure you get hurt on the fifth or seventh time (usually). Pray for help after the third and eighth times. Or more often.
6. Take a break and repeat steps 3 and 4. Several times if necessary with whatever new words or ideas you've learned.
7. Call someone you know who knows more than you and see if they have any ideas.
8. Repeat steps 3 and 4 again. Several times if necessary.
9. Pray about it.
10. Try again and get the darn thing fixed. Or else throw it away and pray for a new one (you've been watching Craigslist just in case, right?). Or, if necessary, get someone else to help. (See if you can trade favors somehow because, you know, you're doing this because you didn't have the budget to get help in the first place).

Honestly, the secret is pray--google--try, over and over until you figure it out or you know you can't fix it.

The other secret is call your Dad and get his help. Dads can fix anything.

Did I just read that?

From facebook:

Ehem.  Bocelli is blind. So it obviously cannot be an argument that all people should see. Maybe that all people should not abort, but not one that all people should see. Or hear. Or...whatever.

Fibro theories--some more

I've been reading a book about Zombies . The end of chapter one tells about an experiment someone did on mice. When mice are lacking food, they go into a state of slowed-down animation (not fully suspended animation, but definitely a metabolically slower state) called torpor. Scientists discovered that the starving, torpor-induced mice were overloaded with 5' AMP (adenosine monophosphate). So, being scientists, they injected the 5' AMP into normal, healthy, food-secure mice and, lo and behold, the mice had an overreaction to the AMP and instantly dropped into a severe torpor.

So, reading about that and how AMP messes with thermoregulation, and I remembered reading about AMP before.

AMP is what happens when a molecule of ATP (adenosine triphosphate--the cell's energy molecule) uses up two of the phosphates in a sort of double-energy reaction. In normal cellular energy use and production, ATP and ADP cycle to each other, back and forth, rarely needing to use two phosphates and turn into AMP. When ATP does get turned into AMP instead of ADP, there is an enzyme called adenylate kinase that takes an ATP and an AMP and combines them to form two ADP molecules, which are then easily used to form two ATP molecules. There is not direct way to recycle AMP into ATP, though, and the body usually considers an excess of AMP a waste product.

Apparently it is well-documented scientifically that the energy production systems, on a cellular level, are broken in people with fibro. And they're broken in a way that leads to an excess of AMP (you see where I'm going, right?).

Current theory (of the vein that pushes the idea that ribose is good for fibro--like here http://corvalen.douglaslabs.com/D-Ribose%20Abstracts/Ribose%20in%20Fibromyalgia%200505%20Revised.pdf) says that the AMP is considered a waste product and broken down and thrown away by the cell, leaving the cell with no building blocks to make more ADP and therefore more ATP, and that is why people with fibro lack energy.

But I have a different idea, based on the mouse studies. I have no idea what the difference between AMP and 5'AMP is.  It's really hard to look up online (oddly--most everything else is easy to find online). As far as I can tell, they are the same.

So what if the excess AMP is not actually being broken down in people with fibro, but is instead inducing a state of torpor? Torpor includes a reluctance to move, a lower metabolism, and a lower body temperature, all of which are hallmarks of fibro. What if the enzymes that usually "babysit" the ATP cycle are broken, so they don't regulate the ratio of AMP:ATP like they're supposed to. That would mess up (if my research is right and I understood the chemistry right) all kinds of metabolic processes, including the insulin and lipid production/ break down processes (which are also known to be broken in people with fibro).

Because an excess of AMP in the muscles usually happens in time of stress or in times of heavy exercise, the body of someone with fibro would constantly be giving itself messages to rest and recover, and to stop muscle movement (like holding the arms out) way way way before it would be normal because the muscles would be getting the message that they were tired and hurting from too much exercise right off the bat. That would explain why Tim's muscles and mine feel the same when we hold our arms outstretched too long, but too long for him is several minutes, where too long for me is several seconds.

The ration of AMP:ATP also is related to what runners call the anaerobic threshold--the line where your body stops using energy effectively and your blood and muscles get bogged down with lactate, causing a lactate lethargy--that heavy feeling that you can't move your legs, and achy muscles. Science has apparently also proven that people with fibro reach the anaerobic threshold much faster than average healthy people do--like in response to regular life movement rather than exercise (which may be why so many of us have 2 "good hours" in the morning where we can get stuff done, and then we just feel like we don't want to move anymore...just like an athlete that hit that threshold).

Interestingly, the diabetes drug metformin can actually treat this AMP imbalance if it's caused by a breakdown of the enzyme 5' AMP-activated protein kinase (or AMPK), but there is some question if doing so can cause Alzheimers because having too much AMPK is connected with the development of Alzheimer's.  This might simply be a case of correlation and not causation. (People with Alzheimers have too much AMPK, but maybe that's because of the Alzheimer's and not the other way around).  I'm curious if anyone has tried to use metformin for Fibro?

There are other enzymes that could be the broken ones, of course, like adenylate kinase.

I am really curious if there is a messenger or regulatory enzyme that could be attached to many (most? all?) of the systems that are broken in fibro. Of if it could be something else? (For example, low ATP levels in cells make cell membranes unstable--could fibro patients be shedding cells at an abnormal rate? Fragile on a cellular level? Is the ATP issue causing the body to suck up phosphorus from the blood, which causes some of the symptoms of fibro and is scientifically correlated with chronic fatigue?).

Interestingly, the mouse study with AMP indicated that AMP is a key component of thermoregulation (namely, it can disable thermoregulation in mice). The link between thermoregulation breakdown and fibro is well established, but the cause has remained unclear (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23887348 theorized it had to do with brown fat, for example, and a recent study found a connection between nerves, blood vessels, and thermoregulation in fibro http://www.examiner.com/article/new-study-indicates-a-cause-for-fibromyalgia-pain-to-be-found-the-skin).

So why does ribose help? Taking ribose increases the body's supply of adenosine, which allows it to make more ATP than it otherwise would. This increase in ATP once again balances the ratio of AMP:ATP. Apparently having this ratio right (not just having enough ATP) is the key to cells functioning properly and taking them out of the anaerobic threshold (allowing the body to process the lactic acid normally, removing the lactate lethargy) and also informing the cells that the muscles are no longer in a post-exercise recovery state all the time. It would also cancel the torpor and the metabolic issues associated with it, since they are regulated by an overabundance of AMP.   As one set of doctors suggested, it "reduces the metabolic strain" on the muscles.

Hmmm. All that from reading a book on Zombies.

I need to take some biochem classes so I can dig deeper.

Food allergies

For a year or so now I've wondered about the whole "Modern Life causes food allergies" claim that is being tossed around. I've heard it's because we eat too much processed food, because we don't play in the mud enough, because we go to doctors for all our problems so our immune systems are too weak. While the proponents of these ideas make strong arguments sometimes, the arguments don't seem to answer all the questions or clarify all the data exactly right.

Today it dawned on me:

Our grandparents didn't know anyone with food allergies because those people died the first time they had a bad reaction to food, which is usually in childhood. Modern medicine allows us to save the life of people with food allergies, so you meet them now. And they live to bear children, which would allow them to produce more people who potentially have food allergies.

People also didn't go to the doctor as often back then, for sure. And they died of that, too.

If you eliminate all the people with food allergies from the population by killing them off (or allowing them to die naturally, from their allergies), then of course you had fewer food allergies showing up in the population.

Also, people's diets were far more restricted--there was less choice by far. That means people were statistically less likely to be exposed to all the food allergens, giving them less chance to discover they had a food allergy.

So you either died from the food allergy right away or never found out you had one. There may have been just as many food allergy families back then--they just didn't know it or didn't survive to have children with more food allergies.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

It was Tim's turn to speak on Sunday. Funny thing, since two weeks before, after church he turned to me and said, "Have we spoken in this ward since we moved back?"  Nope. I guess God or the Bishop heard him say that.

Anyway, it was an awesome talk, especially considering he left all his notes and everything at the studio the night before and didn't have time to go back to Erie to get them before he had to speak.

The topic, predictably, was gratitude. It is that week after all.

I found Tim's talk profound. I hadn't ever thought about gratitude on the grand scale, or even that there might be a grand scale to consider.

So here are some of Tim's thoughts (from the notes he retrieved today) on thanksgiving that I've been pondering this week and would like to share.

"Gratitude and thanksgiving are more than gladness or happiness. All the lepers were glad; they were all happy about the miraculous change. Yet only one felt the need to return and express thanks. A sincere expression of thanks is an act of humility.

"True gratitude is related to a shift in universal perspective. The natural man orients the universe on self. Around me the galaxies revolve, and I only deserve consideration. Honest thanksgiving is a re-orienting of the soul to align with things as they really are. We are dependent...The grateful heart acknowledges reliance on others and is not diminished by this knowledge."

"By design we depend on others: Friends, family, and the goodness of God to merely survive; depend on the atonement of our Savior for ultimate but also daily spiritual salvation...What is worship but fervent and soul-deep thanks to the Father?"

"Our willingness or refusal to express gratitude might be the soul's barometer, a measure of how I am aligned in relation to the Universe."

"True thanksgiving leads the faithful to a life of obedience and service and action."

"As our ability to comprehend spiritual things increases, we become aware of the true magnitude of what our heavenly parents have done for us: the great plan of happiness, the condescension of the Lamb, the Father's work and glory, the whole of creation and the intimacy of the still small voice--all for us."

He also talked about how who we are--our worth and value and personality and character--should not be defined by what we have or our circumstances, whether impoverished or wealthy.

Anyway, it was a lot of new ideas for me, and I've enjoyed pondering them for the last couple of days.

Adopt a Song

Early reviews of the album are coming in fantastic. I am so so anxious to get it out and available to people, but we can't get this CD mastered without some help, thanks to all the car repairs last month.

So, instead of doing a Kickstarter to get Tim's CD mastered, we're asking anyone who wants to help to adopt a song. $30 masters one song, and there are 19 songs. If you adopt one of the songs, the song gets mastered, and you get:
         An advanced copy of the song emailed to you as soon as it is done being mastered
         Both physical and digital copies of the album as soon as they are done
         Recognition in the liner notes for the song

If you want to adopt a song, you can do it here: http://mistertimdotcom.com/store/

There are 18 songs to adopt (possibly 19--we have one additional track that is ready to be mastered, but we're not sure if it's going on this CD or the next--it's marked with an asterisk below). That means if you love a particular song that you, personally, want to adopt, you could email Tim tonight to be sure you get the song you want most (tim@vocalitysingers.com).  Some of the songs are new ones that almost nobody outside my household has ever heard before, so if you want to have the first listen of a new song, adopt it. You'll get the first copy that goes out.

The track list for the full album:

Beatnik
Bang on the Door
Clearer Skies
Momma
Monument
The Fire That Consumes
I Have Become
There Must Be Something More
Fly
Intermission
A Full Set of Heartbreaks
Fine Fine Line
Outdated
Fire Can
A Question Like a Tiger
Tango
Are You Satisfied*
Bubbles
Stick Around

Did I just read that?

Google usually does pretty well at transcribing voicemail for me.

Today, it totally scrambled one--a pretty mundane voicemail, too, and easy to understand when I listened to it.. Transcription fail, with hilarious results:

"Hi. This is *******. I was listening back for the info box. I'm going to be helping a bowel. I have to the park it okay. I can swing by. Ami wayback. I just wanted to get your. I just real quick. Because, I hate you briefly in tired and box. I've talked to Mr. Simpson the other day. Pink you know I don't have anything important here and then I do have a that's I did and it was your address. Hello. If you can gimme a call back and just tell me. I just. I remember it on, told her across the street from 12. Hopefully you'll just find and I'm a if you can by. I don't know, okay. Give me your address are just give me a Irene, Thank you so much. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. "

Well, I hate you briefly, too. Have fun helping a bowel. Oh, and here's your Irene.

Did I just read that?

"Keep all your social media set to privacy and really only accept friends with people you know for sure and not someone who could be misinterpreting themselves," Hasty said.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=27646892#iGBer5IlGBK0qtdu.99

"Oh, I'm sorry officers. I misinterpreted myself. I didn't understand what I was saying."

Positive Attitude

Today I finally made it to church. Benji was his usual hyperactive self times ten, so I didn't hear any of the meeting except two or three times I heard, "My topic is 'The Light of Christ and Having a Positive Attitude.'"

I did not hear a single talk. I was chasing Benji around the building. So I just want to clearly state that this is not a criticism of anything anyone said. I didn't hear anything anyone said, so how could I criticize it?

But, since that was the topic for the meeting, I thought about it some while I followed the boys and watched them throw ice from a pile they found on the lawn at the church.

I realized I have some hangups about the "having a positive attitude" part.

1. I don't see how having a positive attitude is related in any way, shape, or form to the light of Christ. So I'm guessing the bishopric speaking assignment was actually about something other than what I interpreted those words to mean. (So this isn't to say the bishopric gave a bad speaking assignment, either--just to say that particular phrase has meanings to me that bother me).

2. Speaking only about adults and children (teens might be different), my experience is that people don't need to be taught about having a positive attitude. Generally speaking, being positive is a self-rewarding behavior. It is its own reward, and most people seek to be positive and happy because it's inherently better. Most people have a generally positive attitude most of the time. And the people who do not have a generally positive attitude usually need help, not a lecture, because they are suffering from some disorder or other challenge--ADHD with a negative outlook, depression, and intensely difficult stretch of living they have to suffer through. None of those people is helped by being told, "Well, just change your attitude." People become negative when there is something wrong in their lives, and it seems like it would behoove us to find out what's wrong and help rather than lecturing people on their attitude. So this is a non-issue, or its a major issue that is best addressed in a more healthy, realistic, psychologically sound way. Or maybe this is a real issue and I've just been blessed to be surrounded by generally positive people in my life.

3. The scriptures never advise anyone to "have a positive attitude." Prophets have advised the people to not despair. There are scriptures about cheerfully doing all things in our power. And they push hope heavily. But it's not hope in general--it's hope in Christ.  Clearly, God wants us to choose happiness--and I recognize it is a choice. So I don't know why I get hung up on the phrase "Positive attitude."  Maybe it goes back to the business philosophy that says that if you're  a failure, it's your own fault for not believing hard enough because if you just have a positive mental attitude, you can do anything. And that's just a bunch of baloney. I think there is more to the "cheerfully going about" thing than just having a positive attitude.

4. To me, teaching "have a positive attitude" is teaching the gospel of me. The philosophy attached to that, in my mind, is that you can just try harder and things will magically work out. And, if you happen to be unhappy or miserable, it's your own fault for not being more positive, regardless of the circumstances.

I have a real issue with that last one.

Because what happens when you get to that point in life where you hit the wall? Where you've done everything you really truly can do, worked hard, had faith to the breaking point, and you really cannot go on? That point when your heart is truly broken? That point when your enemies are rallying against you, your friends are sure you're doing it all wrong, you need help and neither God nor man will step in and save you, and you are completely powerless to save yourself despite all you've done?  What about when you're hanging on by your fingernails, and the best possible outcome is terrifying or miserable, and everything else isn't worth living for, and when you cry out for help, the people around you cannot hear, or, worse, they mock you and criticize and tell you it's too bad you got yourself into trouble?

Surely I'm not the only person in this whole wide world who has been to that spot and tasted that despair, fear, sorrow, and exhaustion that comes from trials that just don't go away.

And I can tell you that, when you hit the bottom, having a more positive attitude just doesn't cut it. There really are times when you have literally--physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically--done everything you can possibly do. And you cannot find the willpower or the energy to just be positive so that everything will work out. And where you know, deep inside, that smiling at that dragon isn't going to stop him from eating you.

But the other thing I know is that God never leaves us alone, even when he refuses to rescue us, and when we get to that hopeless spot where you have truly done all you can do (and therefore cannot even dredge up even a mite of positive attitude, which is a lie and won't fix things anyway), that's what Jesus came for.  And you don't have to be sad, and you don't have to despair, and you don't have to hang on by your fingernails and you don't have to cry any more. You don't have to live in that dark place, and you don't even have to stay there, despite the trials not going away.

The thing is, you can go forward, cheerfully and with patience doing the will of the Lord, waiting on His time. But it's not because you tried harder to have a positive attitude. It's a gift from God that comes from choosing faith (the active kind, not just stating that you know God is there), from praying for patience, from having hope in Christ, and from turning to the atonement to heal your broken heart and help you through. It's not because YOU can do any more, but because God can. And will.

The answer is not a positive attitude. The answer is Jesus.

So what's it about?

That's the question I failed to answer.

I know, I know--I keep writing about Tim's album. It's kind of a big deal for us here--lots of work and sacrifice has gone into this project, and I really like how it's turned out. And I'm anxious to share it, but I want people to go in prepared for what they're going to hear. So far, when we've tried to share Tim's music with people, it doesn't go well because people's expectations for what they're going to hear don't jive with what they experience. So we get comments like, "I can't dance to this." Or "You really can't sing along to this." (We hear that one a lot).  I think those are the reactions we hear because I say, "This is really cool," and the person I'm talking to (rightly) translates that to "Oh, it must be the same kind of music I think is really cool," and then they're disappointed. Because often it's not that, whatever "that" is.

You would never pick up a Andrea Bocelli album and say, "Well, I can't dance to that."  Of course you can't, but you go in not expecting to. Or, likewise, you wouldn't pick up a dubstep album and say, "But there's not really a singable melody here." That's not what dubstep is for.

Setting appropriate expectations for Tim's music, so you can evaluate it on its own merits for what it is (instead of what it isn't), is particularly tricky because if I say, "It's classical music," you expect a different instrumentation and might be offended by the fact that Tim used pop and rock sounds and styles to write art songs. And if I say, "pop" or "rock," you would be expecting different content, different song structure.

Anyway, I've written about what the music is about musically (combining modern, contemporary sounds, instruments, musical idiom with classical vocal song structure and aims). But I haven't talked about what the album is about thematically.

Like any good poetry collection, "The Funky Introvert" is full of layers and has many meanings and layers of meanings. And Tim is usually fairly tight-lipped about what he intended when he wrote the songs. He says if he tells you what it means to him, you might not be able to find your own meanings in the songs. He wants to express things, but he also wants to leave it open to you to own the songs and have them speak to your heart what you need to hear. And he wants you to discover the meanings--and he trusts you can. (Obviously it's not wide open, but he keeps from listing out the meanings on purpose).

But I like a little direction going into a poem or collection of poetry. I like a framework to hang meaning on. So I'm telling you what it is about, to me. Obviously you can find your own meanings once you hear it. To me, "The Funky Introvert" is a collection of art songs about all the voices and experiences in life that compete to give meaning to life. There are songs about discovering that intellectualism is actually quite shallow, and songs about how consumerism actually makes you feel like you're locked out of life instead of giving it deep, satisfying meaning.  There are songs that delve into love, heroism, money, secrets, tradition...all the things that claim they are the way to have a valuable, meaningful life. The centerpiece of the album's meaning, to me, is track 4, "Monument". Everyone in life is seeking to make their lives a monument to something, to find satisfaction and solid meaning.

And, like in real life, the answer is there but it is hidden--not because we don't want you to have it, but because in life, the wrong answers are louder, more prominent, easier to access.

And, like in real life, you go through a bunch of ideas--including the one that has the secret right answer in it--before you even get to the question the songs are answering. At some point, everyone stops and says, "There must be something more to this...." And that question song is in the middle of the album, after you've committed to and tried many things and found they aren't the answer. The album starts with someone stepping back and noticing that the intellectual "nonconformity" that is actually alternate-conformity is really quite shallow and just a different face on the same old story everyone is telling. It ends with what I see as Las Vegas (and, by extension, the idea that money is the key) promoting its approach to life.

And, if you find the secret...the hidden verse (hidden in plain sight, but like a still, small voice instead of a big flashy show number) that is the key to everything--you'll see the album is about the journey a man takes in trying to become a Son of God, and everything that tries to stop him from getting there. It is about the experience of being a man in this world, about making this world into something important and making yourself into something valuable against all odds. It's about monuments and about altars and where you choose to sacrifice yourself (since we all sacrifice ourselves to one god or another--it's inevitable that the sacrifice is made; the altar upon which its made is the choice you have, not whether you participate) and what kind of monument you hope to become, and all the things that try to entice you into their camps.

And because all the songs are also poems, you can find all kinds of wonderful, specific meaning in them beyond this.

We're trying to work out how much more it would cost to include all the lyrics in the liner notes because these songs really beg to be listened to with the lyrics available because, like other poetry, the words beg to be analyzed, re-read, digested rather than just heard.

So, what's it about? You'll have to listen and find out, I guess. But now you know what it's about to me.

First attempts at drawing cartoons

I am trying my hand at cartoon characters to see if I can illustrate my own little books. It won't be fancy, but my goal is for the pictures to be better than the Bob Books (whose illustrations are rather awful). So I've done a lot of online tutorials in using the drawing program of my choice, and some on cartooning. And I've spent a lot of time saying, "Nope. It looks terrible" and putting it away, coming back the next day and saying, "Well, maybe if I just fiddle with this line using the skills I just learned...."

I illustrated 35 books in level 0 and the first 5 books in level 1 using public domain clip art. But I'm at a point where I need to start telling stories. I did a lot of editing pictures on the first 40 books and learned a lot about how people put things together. Now I'm just trying to learn how to make pictures from scratch.

So here's my first attempt at a person:

I can see things I can fix (like the lines being not the same weight, and the clothes being a little boxy still, and his hand being on backwards--oops!), but I'm encouraged. I might just learn this new skill after all!