The Hole in my Front Yard

I told you a little while ago that my concrete steps leading up to the house look like Chernobyl. They have been crumbling apart for years. They are as old as the Titanic. I can still smell the paint.

So I called a concrete contractor who showed up and was like "I can fix those for you and it only costs twelve million dollars and half your virtue" and I was like "MY VIRTUE IS PROBABLY PRICELESS."

Speaking of virtue, Meg recently taught me a new phrase:

I’m putting this on Meg’s tombstone. https://t.co/Y9bqqZ1qmC

— Eli McCann (@EliMcCann) April 16, 2019

The point is, stuff be going on at Meg's Twitter and I don't always know how to feel about it.

Voicemail Surprise

It was 2007 and my roommate, Quinn, had a birthday coming up so I decided that I should throw him a little birthday party. I was going to make a cake and everything.

I found a time that would work, put together a guest list, and then started calling people to let them know. I was responsible. I was organized. I was just a damn good friend.

Quinn had recently started dating Pam. The two were high school sweethearts that had spent a couple of years apart because of a Mormon mission, but now they were getting back together. I think I had met Pam once by this point. I'm not totally sure. I may not have met her quite yet. This detail is foggy.

The point is, I absolutely did not know Pam well and she hardly knew me at all.

Pam was on the invite list, but since I didn't really know her, I had to find a sneaky way to get her number. This was before Facebook was nearly as ubiquitous as it has since become so I'm not sure trying to find and contact her there even seemed like an option to me. In fact, although I had set up a Facebook account in 2005, I don't think I actually started using it until about 2008.

So I stole Quinn's phone while he was in the shower and pulled Pam's number from it. This was pre-smartphones so his phone wasn't password protected. It just struck me as so odd that we used to be able to flip open any person's phone and access its content without ever being asked for a password.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

I came home and found that my rhubarb plant, which I'm convinced could survive a nuclear blast on Venus during Coachella, has basically filled my backyard. So I chopped up a bunch of it and boiled it in some carrot juice (#juicing #newyearnewme), sugar, and cinnamon for many moons and now I think it's jam? I don't know. It's still a little soupy, but the internet says it will thicken as it cools. I think. It's delicious, and that's what matters.

The point is, Skylar just informed me that he's going to write on my tombstone "I didn't really follow a recipe" because I say the phrase so often and because he thinks it perfectly sums up my life. I can't tell if that's sweet or insulting. But also, it's adorable that he thinks he's going to outlive me.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

We always just take the nicest pictures together. 

The Restaurant By Our House

There's this restaurant we like to go to near our house because the food is fine and it's always empty and this face wasn't meant for crowds.

I don't know when that happened, exactly, by the way. The crowd thing. One minute I was 22 and all like THIS LOOKS FUN

and then the next thing I knew I was 34 and refusing to go inside sandwich shops if there was even one person waiting in a line.

You guys. I would rather starve than wait for one minute in any line anywhere on this planet.

Movie Scenes You Skip

As you know, I've been working on this four-part series on very uncomfortable Mormon films for Strangerville. Today we're releasing part three, which includes a review of some films about dating. Because I've been watching a shocking amount of really obscure content from eras now gone, Youtube has decided I'm a kind of person I'm truly not. It's been recommending all sorts of things I never knew, or wanted to know, exists.

I have gone to some very dark places in recent weeks.

The other night I came across a BYU propaganda film from 1969.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

We're babysitting Mr. Ollie Pants this week because Matt is in "Miss'ippi." What this means is I've got a very judgmental dog following me around all day every day looking up at me like he's disappointed and I know this makes me sound a little crazy but I've been cleaning more than usual because of it.

IT HAS HUMAN EYES, YOU GUYS.

See below in this week's Pictures & Distractions:

Game of Thrones

Skylar: Do you want to watch Game of Thrones with me?

Eli: I'd rather be eaten by warlocks.

Skylar: Joke's on you because there aren't warlocks in the show.

Eli: Well what does Game of Thrones have?

Skylar: Zombies.

Eli: That has to be a lie.

Skylar: Well, technically they aren't zombies, they're whi--

Eli: Stop. I know the fact that I've now given you upwards of 10 seconds of my time for this conversation probably makes you think I care, but I truly don't.

Skylar: Just come watch it with me while I file the divorce papers. I'll even let you ask me which one is Dumbledore.

Eli: You can't divorce me because we aren't married yet and I've passed my prime so I can't find anyone else.

A Text Gone Wrong

Hola--Before we get to today's story, please enjoy Part 2 of our series on cringeworthy classic Mormon movies. This week we look at films about family. Isn't it about . . . time.

 

*****

Like anyone who is paying attention, school shootings stress me out and make me sad. There's nothing funny about them. The fact that we have to worry about them and that they regularly happen is insane.

But.

You guys.

My friend Nancy texted me the other day about a thing she accidentally did and I canNOT stop laughing.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Too busy to write

But here you go anyway

Pics and Distractions

Album cover. Simon and Barkunkel.

The Mormon Coffee Rumor

Meg is mad at me about coffee. I didn't actually do anything wrong, but homegirl is taking all of her anger out on me anyway.

It started a couple of weeks ago when she tweeted.

How verified is this coffee rumor?

— The Meg (@MegMorleyWalter) March 29, 2019

Skylar "I don't even use Twitter and that's why I never like your tweets don't take it personally" Westerdahl immediately showed it to me and asked whether I knew what Meg was talking about.

Quick side note, yesterday morning I somehow ended up in a very confusing journey through Skylar's twitter. I got deeeeeep. And eventually found the moment he became gay.

Went to #MagicMike. NOT A MOVIE ABOUT WIZARDS.

— Skylar West (@SWesterdahl) July 13, 2012

Mormon Films, Part I: Gender Roles

For a little while I've been wanting to do a series on the cringiest and most memorable Mormon films from my childhood. There were a whole bunch of these that I grew up watching over and over at church functions.

These films hold a weird special place in my heart. There's a certain special horror and nostalgia I feel watching them as an adult. Nostaliga, because they remind me of being a kid in the early 90s when times were simple, but horror because most of these films have not aged well.

This week for Strangerville we released the first of what will be a four-part series reviewing and analyzing these religious movies. Today's offering includes some films that explore gender roles and the treatment of women in the 70s and 80s.

Please enjoy.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Next week Meg and I are doing another event for this whole Provo bachelor business (I know. Don't even start with me.). It's this "women tell all" or something where we ask the teenagers who the man teenager didn't choose to date for the rest of the semester why they're mad. The point is, I really need like 1,000 Strangers to come to this thing because the last event was filled with BYU students who were legitimate fans of the show and I'm pretty sure they booed me and I'm not sure I can handle that kind of adversity again.

The event is free. Register at this link. And please come. It's next Thursday.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Half Ironmans are a Mistake

The St. George half Ironman is somehow only one month away, which means that you people are about to commit your annual felony of failing to stop me from doing this stupid thing.

The only reason I can think of for why I sign up for this every year is that I'm a creature of habit with debilitating FOMO so I refuse to give up on something that causes me a massive amount of pain on an annual basis. So I sign up for the half Ironman and keep watching Fuller House and repeatedly befriend people who use essential oils.

I convince myself in the midst of a post-Christmas sugar coma every December 26 that doing that May race in the harsh desert climate for the better part of a full Saturday is an exceptionally good idea that will give me not insignificant opportunities for humble bragging for months to come.

Then January hits and I'm like "OH HEY-O NO" because getting into a swimming pool is voluntary self-waterboarding and no one should do it. But I always seem to forget that. For real. I forget that no one has ever enjoyed swimming in any kind of liquid since the beginning of life in the universe.

I took science in high school. I know our history. First we were water snakes. Then we turned into dinosaur alligators. Then we climbed out of the water to be swamp people. Then there were tons of wars and diseases. And now we follow Chloe Kardashian on Instagram so she can be a billionaire.

The point is, we spent millions of years in a lake trying to figure out how to evolve so we wouldn't have to be in a lake anymore. It's basically a hate crime against our lizard ancestors when we disrespect them by voluntarily spending our time in swimming pools when we could instead be wearing cashmere and sipping wine in a penthouse.

#genealogy