In honour of my trip to Salt Lake, and the fact that I have talked about the Mormons in my last two posts, I have dubbed this week, "Mormon Week."

Growing up in a small rural community in Canada, I never knew what Mormons were. In fact, I hadn't really heard about Mormons or LDS or anything like that until well after I had grown up and was out of high school.

There was a single family of Mormons in my home town. They had like thirty kids and they all lived on a farm. I remember asking one of the Mormon girls out to a bush party that we were going to have. This was going to be a bunch of kids getting drunk in the middle of some field and then likely splitting into pairs to make out with each other. She simply responded, "I can't go, I'm Mormon." I thought the solution was simple, "Can't you just get a prescription or see a doctor?" Apparently, being Mormon, is not like being anemic; lesson learned.

“Apparently, being Mormon, is not like being anemic”

Now, I'm not going to sit here and dog on the Mormons; believe me, I could. Generally speaking, they're good people. I don't really like their religion, nor do I like the fact that they are second in the race for overrunning the country right next to illegal Mexicans, but they (the Mormons), are mostly decent folk. What I will say about the Mormons is that they don't take themselves too seriously, even though they are very serious about being Mormon.

I think that a lot of Christians could learn a lot from the Mormons. Not the parts about Joseph Smith, or their extra books in the Bible, but about how to commit to what they believe. When was the last time you saw a regular Christian put on a suit and a helmet and ride around on a bicycle with a buddy? Only never. How cool is that? Ok, bad example. I guess I had to dog on them a little.

Stay tuned for more of Moose Jockey on location in Salt Lake for Mormon Week.

English in Salt Lake City is not the same as English everywhere else in the world. For example, if you ask someone, "So, are you native to Salt Lake?" What you are really saying is, "You're Mormon huh?"

“You're Mormon huh?”

If you are visiting Salt Lake, be sure to leave the name of your hotel out of conversations. We are staying at a Marriott. People say, "Oh, you're saying at the Marriott!" Which really means, "Oh, is this your first trip to the temple?"

I had a Mormon flip me off today. It was really terrific.

We toured around Salt Lake a lot today. This morning, after breakfast, we all packed into Kristine's truck and drove south on Highway 154 to the Salt Lake Municipal 2 airport. To us, at least, the road is called Highway 154. That's because that is what it says in the Road Atlas. To the locals here it is called Bangerter Way or Drive or something like that. I still don't know how to pronounce it.

There are four of us here, and despite our two bedroom, apartment-style hotel suit, we cannot escape our forced intimacy brought on by being strangers in an even stranger land (that's Utah for the record). All four of us are friends, yet some moments are unmistakably awkward and tense.

I had a Mormon flip me off today. It was really terrific.

You learn a lot about your friends and yourself when you're put in a situation like this. Some of the things you learn are secrets to which you may not have been privy before. It can really shock you. I realized something about myself over the last two days. I am a totally different person when I am not at home. I don't like it.

I have always considered someone to be two-faced when he or she says one thing to your face, but then waits for you to turn and then drives a knife into your back until the hilt meets the skin (you know who you are you self-righteous peckerhead). I learned today that this is not the only kind of deception that can be considered two-faced.

Nobody specifically told me that I have been being weaselly shit, but today, in a moment when everybody was silent, I had one of those brief seconds of soul nausea. It was one of those times that come every so often in the day that I just look at myself and just hate what I am. Obviously, this is a particularly difficult topic for me to discuss, as it is me talking about how I have a split personality. No I am not talking about having DID or anything; but rather, about how everything, right down to my pattern of speech, changes depending on my environment; I'm a chameleon.

Unlike the chameleon, I have a the ability to change my environment, and I do. I don't mean to, but it continually happens. Someone will allude to something crude. I not only mimic the flavour, but I amplify it. It is unreal. The whole atmosphere diverges in a dynamic of deviance. Someone swears. I swear more. Someone says something hurtful, I say something malicious. Someone hates, I loathe.

It is an unreal. The whole atmosphere diverges in a dynamic of deviance.

The worst part of this character flaw saw realization today when I became sick in the soul. 'My wife wouldn't know me if she heard me say that; she wouldn't like me,' I thought. 'I don't even like me right now.'
As I am sitting here listening to Matchbox Twenty, I can think of only one thing I want more than money, stability, happiness and love: one mind. How appropriate is it that I just read this bit of wisdom: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." It serves to make me feel worse and better, but mostly worse.
Not one of those things listed above have been evident in my speech or actions. I am a quarrelsome, grinch who is impatient and only kind when it serves me best. Possibly, the damming thing is unfaithfulness.

As a member of Generation-X, I have come to hate the phrase, "Be true to yourself." It's horribly cliché, and in my opinion, it's just flat out queer. It's up there with, "Have a Coke and a smile!" Although, I like the Coke one a little bit more. The reason that I bring up the being true to yourself thing is that it is the exact opposite thing of what I have been doing. The person that I have been the most unfaithful to is me. This guy that I am is not me. He is not me.