5 Reasons I Like Easter Better Than Christmas

Halloween will always be my favorite holiday, hands down. Always has been, always will be. There's just something about free candy, dressing up and scaring the living crap out of people that makes me happy. Plus I love fall colors and sweater weather.

And, as anyone who knows me will attest, I HATE Christmas. Maybe it's from working in retail too long, maybe I'm just a humbug since I've hated it since I was a little kid, but I cannot stand that holiday. The music, the religious bullshit, the incessant commercials, the music, the crowds, the fact that it lasts for months and months, the music, the family drama, the horrible weather, I hate it all. And did I mention I hate the music? Aside from the music I think the thing that bothers me the most is the "me first, I'm more important that everyone else" attitude that people seem to have at Christmas time. Even people who would normally be nice and pleasant to be around, turn into egomaniacal jackasses while standing in line to buy Christmas presents for their precious little bundles of joy.  

So why is Easter better? You'd think it would be at least somewhat similar, being an important Christian holiday based almost entirely on pagan traditions. But for some reason Easter has never bothered me, in fact it's my second favorite holiday. And here's why...

1- The candy. Yeah sure, Christmas has it's own candy, but it's just regular candy in different packaging, or maybe colors or shapes. Easter brings the most wonderful things on the planet, Cadbury eggs. The creme filled ones and the little candy coated chocolate ones, I love them both. I wait all year for them. And yes I know they have a Christmas version of the little ones, but it isn't the same. 

2- The lack of music. At Christmas time the god-awful, mind-numbing, someone-please-stab-me-in-the-brain-and-make-it-stop music infiltrates every corner of my existence. I've never heard any Easter music. In fact the only song that comes to mind when I think of Easter is Peter Cottontail. I'm sure the Christians have some particular hymns they sing, but I don't have to hear them eight-and-a-half hours a day (510 minutes, just in case you were wondering) for three months.

3- The colors. Red and green look awful together. Sure, people keep trying to modernize and class up Christmas with other colors, but red and green will always be the Christmas colors. Easter brings a lovely palette of pastels, girly but pretty.

4- The lack of religious bullshit. The basis of both holidays is, supposedly, based on Jesus. Being born, and then becoming a zombie as I understand it. But at Christmas everyone and their dog turns into an uber-Christian. Even people who haven't been to church in decades, who don't claim to be religious at any other time of the year, start spouting Fox News "War On Christmas" bullshit. And that's to say nothing for the regular uber-Christians. At Easter I will see an occasional Facebook post about "the true meaning of Easter" or the chocolate crosses next to the chocolate bunnies on the aisle in the grocery story, but that's about it. No one lectures me on how I am a bad person for not believing  exactly the same thing they do.

5- The weather. I really hate to be cold, I would rather be way too hot than a little chilly. Easter is usually in the height of spring (the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, and no, I didn't have to Google that). Where as Christmas is right after the winter solstice, cold and dark. I prefer pretty flowers and baby animals to snow and sub-zero temps.

Gushy-Girly Crap

They say opposites attract. (And don't ask who they are, they just fucking are, okay?) Now I can't imagine being attracted to someone who is completely opposite me, a conservative Christian who listens to country music and wants a buttload of kids. In fact I think that would end rather badly, if for some reason it were to ever start.

Luckily I am with a guy who is none of those things  Les and I are actually pretty similar, we're both nerds, but in different ways. He's into computers and news and tea, and I'm into books and science and coffee. We're both into politics to differing degrees, but our personal politics line up pretty well. We both like the same types of foods and have broadened each others' horizons since being together. But there is one pretty big way that we are completely opposite.

Les is really romantic, like traditional, roses and chocolates, gushy type romantic. He's really heartfelt and looks in my eyes and tells me he loves me. He gives me long, romantic, poetic greeting cards for special occasions and talks about his feelings. You, know gushy-girly crap.

I, on the other hand, refer to that kind of thing as "gushy-girly crap." I don't really do romance, in fact it makes me distinctly uncomfortable. I tell him I love him, but when I do it, it only takes three words. If I buy him candy it's probably because it was on sale. When I buy greeting cards they have to be funny, and preferably dirty. I do talk about my feelings if something is wrong. But my theory is that if he doesn't know I love him by now, based on the last six-and-a-half-years, that's his problem.  

I'm thinking this romantic side of Les's is either the result of being raised in a house with three women in it, or it's genetic. I also think my dislike of traditional romance is from either genetics or being raised with no women around. What made me think about all of this today was this post about the third anniversary of Les's brother and sister-in-law. (If you click the link, beware, annoying music will start to play, I apologize for that.) What a cute romantic story right? I suppose, if you're into that kind of thing. But it works for them, so good for them. However, if Les had done that on our anniversary, I would have been uncomfortable and told him that his vagina was showing.

I figure there must be a little bit of a romantic in me or I wouldn't have gotten married. But I didn't do the whole traditional wedding thing. We got married in a courthouse with the bare minimum of people in attendance. Part of the reason for this was financial, but I think a bigger part was me being uncomfortable standing in front of a whole bunch of people and talking about lovey-dovey stuff. I don't have a problem with public displays of affection, I'm okay holding hands and kissing in front of other people. But I'm uncomfortable talking about it with Les under normal circumstances, why would I want to do it in front of everyone I know?

Les has come to understand me a little better over the years I think, and has toned down his girly side. He's never gone all out for our anniversary like his brother did. In fact he forgot our second anniversary. And since then he has started a tradition of buying me candy corn, which is great. And I'm bringing him around on the cards. He doesn't quite get it but he's coming closer. Last year his sister had a baby on my birthday, in the morning, and named her Lucy, so Les got me a card, in the afternoon, with Lucy from the peanuts on it. I'm counting that as progress.

Home Sweet Home

My last post was about the major stresses of house hunting. Well, that's all over, we found a place, the very first place we inquired about in fact. There were some people ahead of us in responding to the ad but eventually all of them either fell through or didn't like the house, so we got it. And we love it.

This house, in Mt. Morris, New York, is the right in the middle of where our jobs are, and the rent is the right price. Plus the house is almost perfect, if it had a porch it would be my dream house. It's "out in the country" according to the New Yorkers, it's not even close to rural by my standards, but I guess I'm just not used to being in the 3rd most populous state (7th in population density, BTW) yet.

This house was built in the 1800s and was a schoolhouse at one point, so it's full of character. It sits on three acres, full of birds and critters and deer, so the dogs love it. It's so quaint, it even has a swing on one of the trees in the front yard.

Living in Vernal and being married to someone who has a career in newspapers has taught me that I should never  buy a house again. (Not that I wanted to the first place, but thats not the point.) But we are still looking to be in this house longer than we were in our previous places.

I am rather looking forward to decorating this place, more than I have any of the other places we've lived. I'm considering that a good sign. So let me take you on a virtual tour of this house and tell you about my crazy decorating ideas. We'll start upstairs.

The bathroom thankfully already has green walls (actually greener than they look in these photos, I was using Les's camera very late at night on no sleep) because I will be sticking with my froggy theme. I've always liked frogs for the bathroom, it just seems to fit. And I've already got the stuff for it. More than I need in fact since we have no need for a shower curtain here. In other news I LOVE the shower here, I can stretch my arms all the way out. At our last place you had to step out of the shower as you opened the door or you didn't fit inside anymore. There is also enough hot water for me to wash everything, hair included, it's been a long time since I've had that.

Of all my decorating ideas I am most excited about the office. We got a really cool, very old, desk free from Les's office when they reorganized. It's really awesome old wood and it looks great with the bright blue walls. We're decorating this room with horribly gaudy, completely over the top gold frames with funny/nerdy sayings and pictures in them. Think nerdy t-shirts and bumper stickers. We're having the most fun with this one 'cause we're both big giant nerds.

We picked the biggest, and fortunately, most normal colored room for our bedroom. We're decorating this room with our own photos. And we're going to find a phrase to base them around and put it on that slanted part of the ceiling.

And then there's the guest room. At least for now it's a guest room, we may change that later. It was obviously a little girl's room at one point. And yes, it really is that purple. We have a couple of decorating ideas for this room, but it depends on what we decide to do with it. If we continue with our previous trend with guest rooms, it will be hideous art from the '70s centered around these two pieces of green and gold string art we picked up at a yard sale in Vernal. It should match the purple fantastically.

This is the first place we've ever lived with stairs. The animals are having fun with them and we've decided to decorate the stairway with our family photos. A big part of both of our lives is writing, and we really want to incorporate words into each room. We have a few ideas for the bedrooms, but nothing solid yet. But for the stairway we're going with a very famous quote my a great man, Homer Simpson, "Remember as far as anyone knows, we're a nice normal family." It will go on the slanted part of the ceiling, right in front of you as you descend the stairs.

Then there is the downstairs. It's split pretty evenly, half kitchen, half living room. We've decided to decorate the living room with photos we've taken based around the phrase "Not all who wander are lost." We have traveled around enough and taken enough photos along the way, it should be fun. I think the hardest part is going to be deciding on which photos to use. I'm hoping to get that phrase up on the wall somewhere too. The first photo is taken from the perspective of the front door (that we don't really use because of the wind). The second is from the perspective of the corner in the first shot, the folding doors are the pantry in the kitchen. The stairs are on the left.

Last but not least, the kitchen. The photo is taken taken from the pantry. The temporary house we just moved out of was only slightly larger than this kitchen. Those folding doors hold the washer and dryer with a lovely little shelf for soap and what not.

I've decided to decorate this room with a coffee theme. I considered sticking with my farm animals kitchen theme, but it wasn't really going anywhere. I also considered wine, the colors appealed to me, but while Les has become quite the connoisseur, I don't drink wine. And we both love coffee.

Then there are the extras, aside from the swing, the house came with a shed. I didn't decorate it. It makes me look way more patriotic that I really am. I do like the old street signs and the giant Pepsi cap on the side though. We also have the cutest doghouse ever, a picnic table, a firepit and several little gardens (that will probably die because I don't do bugs or dirt and Les kills every plant he's ever come in contact with, Chia pet included).

Movers and Shakers

We have moved once again! Shocking, I know, but it's true. We knew when we moved from Washington that we would be living in our tiny little vacation cottage just for the winter. So for the first time this move wasn't pulled completely out of thin air. Since we've been together, Les and I have moved five times.

Upstairs Lady's cat, taken from the doorway of our basement apartment.

The first time was from an awful basement apartment to a small house, both in Price. We weren't really expecting to move, but we got fed up with the slumlord ladlord being trying to sell the house out from underneath us and generally being ridiculous.

We only lived in that small house for four-and-a-half-months. We had intended to stay longer but Les was offered a job in Vernal and we felt it was important to his career to take it. So we packed up and bought a horrible little house that we kinda hated. But more than we hated our house, we hated Vernal. It was a town rigidly divided between hardcore TBM locals and "oil-field trash." Neither of whom were very friendly or open groups, both pretty hostile to outsiders. We simply didn't have the right last name or wear the right underpants to be happy in Vernal.

On top of that Les's job was heinous. He was working the jobs of three people and only getting paid for one. He was working at least 75 hours a week, usually more and went nearly a year and a half without sleeping on Monday nights. When he was hired it was with the title of editor, but his boss wanted him to use the title of associate editor for a two or three months to ease the community into the change. 15 months later he was still being referred to as associate editor and we found out his boss was bringing in a new guy to be the editor, without talking to Les at all. So we decided it wasn't worth staying in a place we hated just so he could be treated like crap. So he started applying for jobs all over the western United States.

Within a month he had accepted a position in Yuma, Arizona. We made plans to take a trip to Yuma to find a house. But before we left on that trip, Les got another job offer, this time in Chelan, Washington. It was a better job than the one in Yuma, editor instead of reporter, and paid more. So we changed our scouting trip to Yuma to a scouting trip to Chelan. We liked it, it was so much better than Vernal. By this time Les had officially been out of the Mormon church for nearly two years and was overdue to live outside of the beehive state. We packed up our car and a U-Haul truck and drove from Ogden to Ardenvoir in a single day with the help of Les's awkwardly silent father and new sister-in-law.

We planned to stay in Washington for several years. Les liked his job, I loved my job, we both loved the community. The only problems we really had was a landlord who was a little too full of himself. But he was in another state so it wasn't that big of a deal. But after about two years the company started having problems. Little things like bills not getting paid on time and services getting cut off. Add to that a hiring freeze and a pay freeze which meant once again Les was doing two jobs and only getting paid for one for more than a year. The company cut off medical benefits with only a few hours of warning, forcing a lapse in coverage for everyone but the owners, who knew it was coming. Les decided it wasn't worth going down with the ship.

We talked about it and decided that if he didn't find a new job soon, he may very well be out of one. Having come to that conclusion, he started looking for jobs anywhere. And I mean anywhere, he applied for several jobs that would have kept us in Washington state, one that would be a commute, but would probably even allow us to stay in the house we were in. But also in at least 15 other states, probably more. Several of them went nowhere because of proximity. But the one that worked out was in western New York state. So, yet again we packed up and went. But I already wrote about that.

Our new house in Mt. Morris

Finding a place to live from 2,800 miles away is no easy task. So we wound up with a lakeside vacation cottage for the winter. We knew it was only until the spring. Now we have a house in Mt. Morris and, while we pulled the entire move off in just two days, it was the most planned one we've ever done. And with any luck we'll be here for quite a while. We keep saying that we're staying put and then taking off at the drop of a hat, the goal is not to do that this time. I don't mind it, I grew up spontaneously moving all over the country, but Les's parents still live in the same house they bought the year he was born (one of the many things about his family I simply can't wrap my head around). So I think it's harder for him.

The Landlord's Game

House hunting is the biggest emotional roller coaster I have ever had in my life. Sure finding a job sucks, and dating is kind of hard, but I have never in my life been so up and down, excited as all get out one minute then completely depressed the next, as when trying to find a new place to live.

And we even have it easy this time. We're here. The last two times we've moved it's been from a different state. We rented the house we're in now from nearly 3,000 miles away, sight unseen. Before that we moved from Hell on earth Vernal to Washington. We found a house listed online, drove to Washington one weekend, took a short tour, signed the papers and moved in two weeks later.

Both times, and even before that when we moved to Vernal, finding a place was instrumental to huge life changes. If we didn't find a place to live we weren't moving and weren't taking new jobs. We would stay where we were. Now that isn't an option. We have to move. And nothing else is changing, our jobs will be the same, there are no giant life changes coming with this one.

Since we moved to New York in September we've been living in a fully-furnished lakeside vacation cottage. It's tiny but nice, but we knew when we moved in it would be temporary. Come June the amount we pay per month will rent this place for a weekend. We are grateful to have found it, but we are really looking forward to using our own dishes again, sleeping on our own bed again, sitting on our own couch again.

You never know what you're going to find when house hunting. This beautiful house is in Canaseraga and wasn't even the brightest one on the block. There was also a yellow one, a teal one and a baby-blue one. I couldn't not take a photo.

We have this nice two month window, from the first of April until the end of May, to move out of here. That is actually causing problems for my mental state. We find a place that would work but isn't perfect and torture ourselves trying to decide if we just go for it or wait to see if something better comes available.

In two weeks we've contacted dozens of people, through Craigslist, newspaper ads, from driving around looking at signs on lawns, and have found roughly 5 that will take our dogs. This is incredibly nerve-wracking, and makes it even more tempting to take a great house even if it is probably too far away. It makes it so I get incredibly excited every time the phone rings with a local number, even though it's usually just someone calling to say they don't take pets.

We're on several lists, which is always depressing to hear. If there are people ahead of us who don't have pets, they are more likely to get a place than we are. But then we get an email two weeks later letting us know that all the people ahead of us have fallen through and are we interested? And I'm ecstatic again, this place is close and nice, but it's more expensive than the great house that is far away.

I feel like I'm going insane.

So, Apparently God Is An Insecure, Vindicticve Asshole

Natural disasters are just that, natural. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and tornadoes happen because of plate tectonics or atmospheric conditions, not because god is pissed.

SENDAI, Japan (March 12, 2011) An SH-60B helicopter assigned to the Chargers of Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron (HS) 14 from Naval Air Facility Atsugi flies over the city of Sendai to deliver more than 1,500 pounds of food to survivors of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami. The citizens of Ebina City, Japan, donated the food, and HS-14 is supporting earthquake and tsunami relief operations in Japan as directed. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavy/5523450134/

I get disgusted when I hear religious people spouting off that some horrible natural disaster that costs human life is all the result of sin. Just in recent memory I've heard sinners (often the gays, but sometimes sinners in general) are the cause of earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Japan, New Zealand and China; tsunamis in Sri Lanka and Japan; Hurricanes in North and Central America and countless other natural disasters.

This bullshit abounds after every natural disaster from all corners, the televangelists, the cable news sociopaths, even Facebook has this inaccurate pile of crap floating around.

"Sept 11th (NewYork) Jan 11th (Haiti) and March 11th (Japan)........Luke 21:10-11 Then Jesus said to his disciples : "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes', famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. 'Jesus says for behold I come quickly,' So ask yourself r u ready? Sad to say, many won't repost this message"

Assuming that all of these things occurred on the 11th day of a month (they didn't), they all occurred in different months and in different years, with no noticeable pattern, what does that have to do with the passage quoted? Luke isn't the 11th book of the Bible, it's the third in the New Testament. It isn't the 11th chapter of Luke, it's the 21st. The only correlation is that the 11th verse references bad things. Grasping at straws much?

There are two things that piss me off so much about hearing this every time something bad happens. The first one is he basic principle of it. God is pissed off at one group of people, and instead of punishing those people, he kills innocents? Does he just have bad aim? Is he that petty? Every one of his attempts to "send a message" fails and the world hasn't ended yet. I thought god was supposed to love all of his children, why does he keep trying to kill them off?

The second is the insensitivity of it all. At the time these asinine statements come out, there are usually thousands of people dead and more homeless and without the basic necessities of life. Instead of worrying about ways to connect the people you hate with horrible disasters, you "love thy neighbor" which I'm told is a lesson from Jesus, and have some compassion and decency.

Little Stinky-Pants

I don't hate all kids. But I generally don't like children all that much and I particularly dislike babies. And just because I'm not a fan of small people who are constantly leak from every orifice doesn't make me a bad person. I understand that I am different from most other women, especially those my age. So I am willing to make mommies happy by saying things like,

"Yes, your baby is beautiful, gorgeous, radiant even. It's gender is completely obvious. It bears no resemblance to neither alien nor monkey. And, yes, it's a genius too, that cooing sound and it's fascination with bright colors are a sure sign it will be doing calculus by the end of the week."

I know mothers see their offspring through rose colored glasses, I know "it's different when it's your own." And I'm willing to fib to you to keep up this illusion. But there is a line. One I will not cross, and if you cross it, all bets are off. That line is shit.

Your baby's shit, is shit. It will never be cute, it will never be adorable, it will never be amazing to anyone but you. Even that baby won't want to hear about it once it knows what you're talking about. And it stinks, you may say that you don't notice, or that it smells good to you, but you're wrong. It's shit, it stinks. PLEASE, please stop talking about it!

This photo is proof I don't eat babies (like I have been accused of in the past). She was two years old in this picture, she handed me the book and climbed in my lap without any prompting and we read the whole thing together. Her mother, in a state of complete shock I'm sure, grabbed my camera to document it.

Religiosity

Lately I have been thinking a lot about religion. I think the reason for that is my attempt to learn more about Les's family. A few weeks ago I made the mistake of questioning one of their family traditions, I was honestly trying to understand. The responses to my questions and the subsequent conversations led to me just completely giving up on trying to communicate with them in the least. Les has been explaining the dynamics of his family to me and I have spent quite a bit of time reading up on Mormonism and ex-Mormonism.

This has lead me to compare how I grew up  with how he grew up. And made me realize how much my perceptions have changed, since being with Les, about religion in general and about religious people. 

I grew up in a completely nonreligious household. As a child I was completely unaware of the idea of god. My father, while he has no formal education, has always had a very keen interest in science. We would occasionally go to church as a way to pass time, or with friends, but it was never presented as fact. As a child in that situation, I always assumed it was something like story-time for grownups. It seemed very similar to the story-time hours I spent at the library. 

When I was around 10 I began attending a Mormon church with a friend, I now realize it was because that was the only way her parents would allow us to be friends. My friend was the oldest child of seven at the time and attending church with her and her family was somewhat of an ordeal. There were always children running everywhere and more often than not the two of us would wander the halls rather than attend the three-hour-long meetings. Her parents were always talking about me being baptized but I brushed them off. They always wanted my dad and brother to come with us to church, but I always made up an excuse because church was my time to have fun with my friend. 

I sort of knew my friend's family was weird, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. For example, I thought it was odd that they had a special bag hanging from the ceiling in their laundry room for their dirty underwear. My friend told me the underwear was too special to be mixed in with the other clothes and was never supposed to touch the ground. I assumed she was joking and didn't realize she wasn't until several years later. I finally stopped hanging out with that friend when her parents gave me a poster to hang in my room that listed a bunch of rules I was supposed to follow. It had things like not wearing clothes or listening to music that would "offend the lord." I never got a satisfactory answer to my question of why these things were offensive to the lord. When my friend's parents continued to ask if I had put the poster up in my room and if I had made the commitment to follow the rules, I decided they were too weird to hang around any longer.

My entire experience with the Mormon church, the only church I had any long term exposure to, was more like a childhood friendship gone bad, as childhood friendships tend to do. It wasn't until I was older that I realized the role Mormonism had in my relationship with my friend. When I first realized it a few years later, I only saw it as the reason the friendship ended. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized we never would have been friends at all if I hadn't gone to church with her. Her parents set out to convert me and my family, there was no other reason we were friends, no real relationship. 

My only other experience with religion came in middle school. I became extremely interested in mythology. Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, Norse and any others I could get my hands on. I spent hours at the library studying different myths and legends and ancient cultures. I decided at this point I wanted to be an archaeologist or anthropologist when I grew up (I actually started college as an anthropology major). By this time I had become more aware of Christianity but didn't fully understand the impact it had. I remember sitting at the library reading about the time-spans different deities were worshiped in Greece and having the realization that the old myths and legends were once serious religions, the same way Christianity was a serious religion in the modern day. That set me on a track of thinking of religion the same way I thought of the mythology I had been studying. But I never really studied Christianity because I found polytheism much more interesting.

Being a teenager in Utah and not a Mormon is an interesting experience. Especially when you look like I do. I am white, with long blonde hair and tend to be rather shy. Mormons assumed I was Mormon, nonMormons assumed I was Mormon, it sucked. So I started wearing a cross. I didn't mean anything to me, but it was an instant way of setting myself apart. I actually started telling people I was Catholic, I had never heard the terms atheist or agnostic and since I was wearing the cross and religion always seemed to be a topic of conversation, it was just easier. I played that role on and off all through high school.


I even played it at the beginning of college, but soon realized Carbon County was different. I wasn't always assumed to be a Mormon even when I wasn't wearing the cross. And when I said I was Catholic, people were actually interested, they didn't immediately shut down the conversation. So I started really thinking about belief. I also started reading books and the internet and discovered that I had always been an atheist, I just never put it into words before.


Part of the reason I was doing so much reading was my boyfriend. When we started going out, he was an inactive Mormon (I never saw myself dating a Mormon, but I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, I spent most of my childhood in Jackson County, Missouri and Northern Utah and now I'm living 30 minutes from Palmyra, New York, did I really stand a chance of avoiding Mormon influence in my life?). But he was becoming more and more jaded with the church he was raised in. We would sit up late into the night and talk about how drastically it was going to affect his family to find out he was dating me, and then later to find out he was leaving the church. This was an emotionally draining, several-year-long experience. In that time Les did leave the Mormon church, going so far as to have his name removed from the records. And as I found out more about his childhood, I found out more and more about Christianity and Mormonism.


The more studying I did and the more I talked to current and former believers, the more I realized I never really understood religion, in fact I never understood belief, I still don't think I do. In all of the studying I had done it literally never occurred to me that religious people took their beliefs seriously. That may sound a little odd but it is the only way I can think to describe it.


Obviously I knew there were religious nutjobs out there who protest everything and think the earth is only 6,000 years old, but I always assumed those were just the crazies. It wasn't until I met and sort of got to know Les's family that I realized the regular, everyday people out there think the stuff from the Bible or the Book of Mormon is real. I sort of understand spiritualism to a certain extent, the idea that there is something out there bigger than you that you don't quite comprehend. But the idea of a magical man living in the sky who created you and loves you but only if you follow certain rules, who is interested in the intimate details of the lives every person on earth, I never truly understood that people actually thought that was real. It goes back to that idea of church as story-time, I enjoyed story-time at the library as a child, but I never thought the stories were real, they were just stories.

So there it is, my entire history with religion. In a way I'm glad I've married into such an uber-Mormon family, it has opened my eyes to the way people around me see the world.

Thoughts on Being "Back East" From a Western Girl

Having been in western New York for a few months now I thought I would share a few observations. I have lived in the east before, as a child. But really I'm a western girl at heart. I was born in California, practically raised in Utah, most of my family and friends are in Utah or Washington and I do love the weather in the desert better than anywhere else I've ever been.

All in all I think this move has been good for us. Les has a much better job and my job is almost as good as the one I had in Washington. Putting some distance between us and our families has been interesting. It doesn't seem to have any effect on my relationship with my family except that my dad is much more excited to come see us here than he was in Vernal or Price. And why shouldn't he be Niagara Falls (something he's always wanted to see) is way cooler than Starvation Reservoir or Scofield. It is straining our relationships with Les's family more. My attempt to relate to them based on actual thoughts and feelings through email has done nothing but cause problems. I think especially his parents much preferred the relationship where we came to the house and all conversation revolved around the church, the happy past where everyone was Mormon or the weather. In the big picture I think it has been good for Les to have some distance from his family. he's sometimes had a hard time in the past separating himself from them and I think some physical distance will help him figure out who he really is and not who he is expected to be, which is a very big part of most exmormons' lives.

But that isn't what this post is really about (but can you tell it's been on my mind a lot lately?). There are some major differences that I've noticed, some good some bad, some just different.

First, population density. Until I moved to Price when I was 17 I was a city girl, through and through. I am to some degree, see the post from last March about that, but small towns have grown on me. While there are small towns out here, they are all so close together and so close to a big city that the "small town feel" like in Price, Entiat, Chelan and even Wenatchee is gone. The small towns around here are more like slightly isolated suburbs. There is also very little open space or public land, a pretty big change from Utah, where the federal government is the largest landholder.  This means there are more things to see, but less of it is accessible. It's sorta putting a kink in my photography.

There are a ton of things to see around here. We are only a few hours away from New York City, Philidelphia, Pittsburg, Boston, D.C. and a ton of other historical and cultural centers of America. On one hand it feels older, like there is more history here. On the other hand the history I enjoyed so much in the Southwest is actually older and I love the mystery surrounding it.

Then there's the coffee. Living in Washington I was in the heart of coffee lover land, you would think I would have found the best coffee in the world in the birthplace of Starbuck's. But that isn't the case. I have found it here, in western New York. To be fair it comes from Canada and I could have gotten in it in B.C. but it would have been a few hours drive. It is Tim Horton's, I am officially addicted and I love it! It puts Starbuck's to shame, the coffee is MUCH better and it's about 1/4 of the price.

But the best thing is that even people's attitudes are different. The biggest example of this I can think of is the reaction I get to telling people I am childfree. Not one single person has said to me that I will change my mind, no one has asked if I hate all children, no one has even asked why. IT IS WONDERFUL! The closest I've been to being bingoed is when a friend and coworker said after meeting Les, "I really hope the two of you change your mind about having kids. You guys remind me of me and my husband and your kids would be the biggest smart-asses in the world, kinda like my kids." I took that as a compliment. In Utah I stopped telling people that I didn't want kids because I was constantly harassed and either told I was a bad person,wrong or both. I met people in Washington who respected my choice and even a few who shared it, but even there about half the people I told reacted like the people in Utah did.It is so nice to share something about myself and not be treated like some kind of freak. So maybe putting some distance between us and Utah will lead to both me and Les leading more authentic lives.

Eastman House, Rochester, NY

Today we explored one of the coolest things about living this close to Rochester, The George Eastman House. It is divided into two section, part of it is George Eastman's mansion he built in the early twentieth century and was his home until he died in 1932. Since the forties, it's been a museum and in 1989, the addition opened. The house has been restored to almost it's exact state during Eastman's life (he took thousands of photos in his home, which have been a benefit to restoration). The newer portion is the exhibition area.

We took a guided tour of the house and saw four exhibits in the newer portion. One called "Looking at Trees" did not impress us, the photos were only okay and the print quality left a lot to be desired.

But we really enjoyed "Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock ’n’ Roll Photographs Selected by Graham Nash" which featured more than 100 photos from the Experience Music Project in Seattle's Space Needle. We regret not seeing the Experience Music Project while we lived in Washington and we're glad we were able to see this small portion of it. The photos were selected by Graham Nash, so there were a lot of the folk rock stars of the late sixties and the seventies. A few more recent artists were included, there were a lot of great photos, but Nash's bias is quite apparent (there were definitely way too many photos of Bob Dylan).

We liked the permanent exhibit of the history of the camera. We learned a lot about the evolution of the camera and it was interesting to see the different models and types of cameras.

The final exhibit was "A Fire in My Belly," a short film that was previously housed at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. It was "removed after protests from a religious group that found some of the content offensive" and several museums around the country are protesting its censorship by showing it. It will be here until the end of January. We found it odd and neither of us understood it but couldn't figure out what there was to censor. We tend to agree with those who protested the film's removal.

There are several gardens at Eastman House — 12.5 acres worth. Because of the bitter cold, we didn't even see the gardens' snow-covered forms. They open fully in May. In February, the house will have hundreds of tulip blooms (part of some Dutch festival). So we have reason to go back.

On a side-note, we saw the first Washington plate that wasn't ours since we were in Montana. It probably had something to do with the EMP exhibit and it was gone when we left. But it could have been a tourist just as well. We have seen a few Utah plates, but that is hardly surprising.