Interview Pass it On by The Jason Show!

(like a me-me, but different!)

Have I mentioned The Jason Show before?

I should have. I found his blog via Bossy a few months ago, right around the whole Prop 8 debacle and very soon after I found my friend Chris' Gay Mormon Teen Torment letters in my garage.

Jason is an easy-to-lurv ex-Mormon with a touching personal story that has always particularly spoken to me given our matchy-matchy upbringings in the bosom of Vatican City, Mormonville, USA. As far as I know, we never met, but we COULD have...

Today I'm participating in Mr. Show's Interview Pass Along...skip to the end if you don't want to hear about me, but DO want to be interviewed your own sassy self!

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you ask them five (different) questions.

1. How old do you wish you were and why?

Huh. Sometimes I think I'd like to be 25 again and go whisper some truths into my own ear. But I think I'm talking about time travel... What was the question? Anyway, if I WERE 25 again, I'm sure Mistakes Made would be Mistakes Remade. I'm pretty happy being 38 as is, because the sweet things in my life far outweigh the problems I could have corrected with my fabulous hindsight.

2. If you found yourself, entirely by accident, on a nudist beach, would you go native?

Sure. I would and I have, but maybe not if all the other nudists were my co-workers or my parents.

3. You're 15 (or whatever) and the world's about to end. Is dying a virgin really the thing that concerns you most?

Whaa-aaaa-at? I'm so confused. WHEN I was 15, my preoccupation with virginity wasn't all that powerful (17, yes, maybe...probably). If I was a virgin and my own 38-year-old-self simultaneously, I might wish I'd made a few more lascivious choices. But wait...the world is about to end? I'd want to hold on tightly to the people I love and comfort them. I think at any age that would have outweighed getting it on.

4. Why do you find yourself coming back for more and more of The Jason Show?

Because Jason is so endearing, of course.

5. Why did you leave Mormonism?

Because...oh, 5000 things. Because Mormons kept telling me things that didn't jive with my own experiences and observations. Because I never REALLY felt any burning bosom or still small voice, just my own brain sometimes appreciating their small truths, and more often not. Brown skin is a curse from God? Men get Priesthood, Women get Motherhood? Casseroles and jell-o taste good? Celestial Marriage? Relief Society? Popcorn popping on the Apricot Tree? The planet Kolob??!? But mainly, I probably left when and how I did because I was supposed to BELIEVE, not just coast along pretending. My father was a Bishop and my entire family was UBER Mormon. Up at 5 AM reading the D&C before breakfast every day, my whole life. Scripture games at the dinner table. Kneeling-down family prayers at least twice daily. We were supposed to REALLY FEEL it. Tesimony x 1000. So when I wasn't feeling it, I couldn't just let that be my answer. I tried. But it felt less and less true. The more I dug, the more it stank. A lot contributed to my realization that I didn't believe in Mormonism or (eventually) religion in general, but once my blinders came off, Mormonism in particular seemed like a farce. Ahem.

So...wanna be interviewed? Wanna submit interview questions for others? Comment me!