Contemplation on a Return to Church

I think I'm going to go to church tomorrow. That is, attend Sunday sacrament services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (you know, the Mormons).

This may come as a shock to those of you who know me and who are familiar with my views about the LDS Church. I haven't gone to church in a long time because I just don't believe in it anymore. I don't think that the Mormons generally and proactively spread evil from the pulpit (excluding the few months when the Church mobilized its members during religious services in support of Proposition 8 in California). The last time I went, I think I was mostly pissed off that whatever the speakers had been droning on about was (from my East-Coast-liberal-secular perspective) logically unsound, ideologically driven B.S. Actually, come to think of it, I can't even really remember the last time that I went to church. It might have been sometime in college; I know I've never gone since graduation. So it's been at least four to five years.

Intellectual disagreements aside, one of the biggest reasons why I haven't gone to church is because, since the passage of Proposition 8, I had made a vow to never again step foot inside another LDS building. There's no real logic behind this principle, I suppose. I don't give the Church money automatically by entering the chapel. I guess if crowds and crowds of people were watching, the sight of me entering the chapel might constitute a tacit endorsement of the Church's policies and practices. But given that the chapel of the my local congregation (the Mormons call it a "ward") is set back some distance from a quiet, residential street on a hill at the edge of town, there's really no chance of that happening. What motivated the vow, then, was probably mostly anger: I imagined that it would most affect and be a statement to my own family, especially on my mom's side, of whom about half are practicing Mormons. Should they choose to host their celebrations (especially weddings) in a Church building, I would simply decline to attend: they won't have to celebrate my potential union, and I won't celebrate theirs.

All I can say is that anger ebbs and flows.

But why, really, go to church tomorrow? There are a few plausible reasons:

1. I'm bored, and my mom has the car anyway.
2. I'm interested to see what the Church is teaching these days, not so much in the sacrament meetings which are mostly reduced to catering to the lowest common denominator, but in the adult Sunday School and priesthood quorum classes.
3. I have many family friends whom I enjoy seeing and whom I haven't seen in a while (and whom, to be honest, I might not get to see for much longer given their age). It's a part of my background, and I still feel at home in that environment.
4. I secretly like the idea of making people uncomfortable and awkward knowing that a gay man is mingling with them in their place of comfort.
5. Some part of me thinks that it could be a small act of covert activism. By now, most members of my old congregation probably know that I'm gay and no longer active in the Church (my mom has thankfully spared me the pain and anguish of having to personally execute this information process). Maybe there are a few (or even just one or two) kids who are questioning their sexuality, and their families have warned them about this dangerous alternative lifestyle and pointed to certain other examples of the wayward path from the congregation. Maybe I will have played some part in these cautionary tales, and the kid(s) will see me tomorrow in the flesh as a functional, self-reliant, and openly gay man who is comfortable walking around Mormon-folk and, more importantly, living my life in a way that seems fulfilling and happy. And maybe they'll derive some hope from that sight.

I realize that these are all completely selfish and even self-important reasons. But, hey, these people are all going to church with the hope of gaining eternal salvation as gods in their own right, so who's being more selfish and self-important?

In any case, I've ironed my button-down shirt and slacks (there are oddly colored stains in the crotch area of my pants from various lunch-related spills at work; I hope my blazer will cover them). Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and decide it's not worth the mental effort and the social charades to play nice for three (three!) hours.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Greetings from California!

Gosh, it's been a while since I've written. And no wonder: between the Divas concert in June, finishing work, and moving out of our place in Cambridge, it's a miracle we'restill standing. Rather than sit around on my ass in Wellesley, however, I decided that I would take the month of July to come out to California instead and see family before I recommit myself to another 5-year stint on the East Coast.

I arrived on Thursday night and was immediately reminded why I love this part of the country: evenings in the summer, after the sun goes down, are at most 65 degrees and crisp. I walked out in a polo shirt and shorts and actually had to put on my fleece vest to stay warm. I had, of course, just come from Boston which had been consistently hot and humid for the three previous days. It was a welcomed break.

My chief concern while I'm in California is that I will get restless while I'm at home. I know myself enough to know that if I sit around too much with family I'll get frustrated because of the independence and flexibility to which I've become accustomed in Boston. To counteract this risk, I spent parts of Friday and Saturday in San Francisco and Berkeley, respectively, exploring and catching up with friends. Here is a photo of me lounging on Memorial Glade across from Butler Library while reading The Time Traveler's Wife.

It was hard while lying in such glorious sunshine not to think about the what-if's of my graduate school choice. I could play tennis 365 days of the year here! But, alas, the choice is made, and I know that Columbia is the right place for me to start my career as an historian.

But still. Look at that vast expanse of green grass.

OK. Enough of that before I go crazy.

On Sunday afternoon, my mother and I drove down to Salinas, California. Salinas, as the more literary among you may remember, is the birthplace of John Steinbeck. Nowadays, it's a little strip-mall-cum-farm-town in the Central Valley that, frankly, I would never visit if were not for my family.

My brother, his wife, and his father-in-law live with two young children in a small, gated development in Salinas. The condo is a 2-level, 3-bedroom unit with a detached garage and small, enclosed patio. Even in the short 36 hours that I've been here, I'm reminded of the vast differences between his and my life. The obvious one are the children: while I love kids, I don't imagine for a second that I could somehow shoulder the responsibility of providing for two of my own in one year's time (I'm exactly one year and three weeks younger than my brother). Instead, I'll be gallivanting around one of the most expensive cities in the world, reading day and night, eating cheap ethnic food, waiting for student-rush tickets on Broadway, and stopping in on world-class museums on their once-monthly free days. By comparison, my life seems carefree and, well, almost selfish. What's funny to me is that, when we were growing up, my brother was always the one who broke the rules, while I was the one who followed them to a T. And now, he's the faithful husband, father, and small-businessowner with a mortgage while I live in sin with another man in Manhattan.

All this is to say that one can never tell: people change; priorities change. If history were any indication, I should be the one with the kids and the wife and the mortgage.

Thankfully, for everyone's sake, I'm not.

Last Business Trip to New York

Acela Express 2159, departing Boston at 9:15 for Washington, D.C.: I'm on what is almost certainly my last business trip. We've just passed Providence. I've got the Glee version of "Like a Prayer" blasting through my headphones (to block out the shouted conversation of the businesswoman-in-jean-shorts across the aisle).

End of an era.

I'm heading down to our New York for a two-day training that GSMCF is putting on for those of us who are heading off to grad school this fall. The vast majority of the attendees will be going to business school (the usual suspects of HBS, Kellogg, Wharton, Haas, Tuck, etc.). Two of us (I think) are doing non-business related grad degrees. I'm the only one off to a doctoral program and the only one in the humanities / social sciences.

The training seems to me to be a very smart idea in both directions: for us, we'll get time to reflect on our careers at the firm, learn about how to position our consulting experience, dig into our leadership and communication styles, etc. The firm gets one last chance to make sure that we take off on a high note and with happy thoughts about GSMCF in our heads. I'm not sure what my chances are of ending up back in consulting or at GSMCF specifically; hopefully, if I play my cards right and do well in grad school, not very good. But these are the types of things that the firm does for us that make me think that, if I were to end up back in consulting, it wouldn't be such a bad life after all.

Given that I'm on my last business trip, I suppose some reflections on business travel might be appropriate:

• Buy pull-on shoes to speed through airport security. I have two pairs of pull-on loafers, one in black and one in brown, for maximum flexibility.

• Keep a separate travel toiletry bag. Rather than having to rifle through your toiletries at home to assemble a travel kit for every trip, stock a quart-sized plastic bag (the kind approved for airport security) with travel-sized toothpaste, deodorant, hair product, etc. so that you can grab-and-go in the morning.

• Never fly from Boston to New York. It just doesn't make any sense to me to take a flight that lands in an airport that is a $50 cab ride from downtown when you can -- in roughly the same amount of time -- have a leisurely ride on the train into the heart of the city. You get ample leg room, all the electricity you can use, and pretty views of Connecticut. It's not even close.

• Never check bags. This goes without saying.

• Invest in wrinkle-free shirts and pants. I don't know how I would have looked presentable for the past 4 years without wrinkle-free business clothes. You can virtually stuff them into your carry-on for the flight, hang them up when you get to the hotel, and -- voila! -- the next morning it looks like you've just taken them out of your closet at home (you can hang them up in the bathroom while you take a steamy shower for a quick refresh). Now we just need Brooks Brothers to start making its extra slim fit shirts in non-iron fabric.

That's all I can think of for now. Is it any surprise that Up in the Air has become one of my favorite movies?

Whitman's Disastrous Fall

The latest PPIC polls released today show that Meg Whitman's campaign has taken a delightful tumble since March, cutting her lead over Steve Poizner in the California gubernatorial race from 50 points to 9 points. All this despite spending $68 million of her own money trying to spin away the fact that for 28 years she never once voted in an election in the state that she now hopes to lead. I'm glad the Republicans in California are finally recognizing what a major loser Meg Whitman is. All you needed to do to predict this inevitable drop was to listen to her ducking questions -- quite incompetently, I might add -- about her voting record at last fall's state Republican Party convention. Have you ever seen or heard a more frighteningly inarticulate and cowardly candidate for public office (besides Sarah Palin)?

Marriage Equality in Portugal

I went to the oral surgeon this morning for a connective tissue graft, and was at my desk by 10:30. I'm not sure if that was a good idea or not. We'll see.

You may have heard by now from all of the major news outlets (I'll link to the BBC's article) that gay marriage will soon be legal in Portugal, as President Anibal Cavaco Silva has indicated that he will not veto the marriage equality that passed with the support of the ruling Socialist Party. A couple of things that I think are worthy of note:

• Portugal in their national legislature has managed to assemble veto-proof majorities in favor of progressive social legislation. In the mean time, the House of Representatives can barely scrape together the 5 votes needed to provide health insurance as a basic right for all Americans.

• As part of his explanation for his decision, President Silva noted that ratifying the marriage equality bill would allow the legislature to get back to dealing with the most pressing issues of the day, namely that of managing the struggling economy. This point is the one that I wish someone would make more forcefully in the U.S.: of all the things we have to worry about these days, why spend your time worrying about who is marrying whom and what their genders are? Even if we weren't in a recession, why would you donate thousands of dollars to an anti-gay marriage initiative (as some of my family friends in the SF Bay area did in 2008 for Prop. 8) when you could feed literally thousands of people with the same amount of money if it went to the local food bank instead? I just don't get it.

In any case, as with each jurisdiction that signs onto marriage equality, the inevitability of gay marriage comes into clearer relief. I'm not foolish enough to believe that one day gay marriage will be legal everywhere, but I am optimistic that one day gay marriage will be legal in enough places that GLBT people around the world won't have to make the difficult decision of choosing between where they want to live and the rights and protections they'll have for their families. One day, we'll all look back and wonder what the fuss was about.

In fact, on this point, I got to thinking about all of the opponents of marriage equality like Matthew Holland and Orson Scott Card and Maggie Gallagher (all current or former members of the National Organization for Marriage): would they have supported interracial marriage, or would they have decried Loving v. Virginia when it was handed down through "judicial activism" in 1967? Of course, given the wide acceptance of race as a protected class now, I'm sure that they would all hail the issue as a vastly different one such that they would have been on the frontlines protesting anti-miscegenation laws from the get-go. But I'm not so sure, especially if, like Prop. 8, the Mormon Church had taken a strong position against interracial marriage.

Let me be clear: I'm not suggesting that these people are racist. What I am suggesting is that they follow too willingly and blindly the dictates of an organized religion. And when that organized religion prizes obedience and is also led by people whose worldviews about how society should be organized were shaped generations ago, you get the dangerous result of otherwise reasonable, fairly smart, and young people going along with social policy ideas that should have died out at the end of the Victorian Age. Call it the timelessness of morality if you want, but I think that's how crazy ideas get passed down.

Anyway, good for Portugal, especially since the Pope was just there peddling his bat-shit-craziness. Sucks not to have any credibility as a religious leader, doesn't it, Benedict?

And on a final note, it looks like Glee will be covering Bad Romance! (Everyone who is surprised by this should leave. Now.) You can listen to the full version of the song here (thanks, Morgan!).

The Secret in Their Eyes

We just came back from seeing El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) at the Kendall Square theater, and it was such a spectacular movie that I had to blog about it right when I got home. El Secreto de Sus Ojos was the Argentinian submission for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; I haven't seen the others, but from what I can tell there's a very good reason it took home the Oscar. Actually, I'm still a little speechless -- it's really the perfect thriller with just the right touch of romance and humor. "Sperm Bank, loan department."

Instead of reading any kind of half-formed opinion on my part, let me refer you to David Denby's review in the New Yorker.

More than the movie itself, though, it was just the perfect date night after a roller coaster week at work. We strolled to the theater after a dinner of chicken and orzo and an outstanding gazpacho. I've really come to love having the Kendall Square Cinema so closeby for the last 2 years: in addition to El Secreto, I've seen some truly excellent and thought-provoking movies there including Food Inc., Babel, An Education, and The Cove. Pedro did some research into theaters around Morningside Heights, and unfortunately I don't think we're going to have the same kind of luck in terms of a right-down-the-street, first-run art house/indie/foreign films theater near the new apartment.

There are some perks to living in the Republic of Cambridge.

Housing

Pedro and I got our housing assignment from Columbia yesterday! We were assigned to 434 West 120th Street, #2H. Our rent is $1,445 a month (a little under $100 less than what we're paying now for a 1-bedroom in Cambridge), utilities not included. The single move-in date offered is August 13.

I guess we're moving to Morningside Heights!

We are a one-bedroom on the second floor of what looks to be a ten-story building named the Poinciana. I love buildings with proper names -- think the Dakota at 72nd and Central Park West -- that almost seem like they don't need to have an address or cross street when you talk about them in conversation because everyone knows exactly where they are. I'm already getting a mental image of us getting into a cab and telling the driver: "Please take us to the Poinciana." But who am I kidding? We won't be taking cabs in New York on a grad student budget!

Here is a Google Maps satellite image of the building and its environs, with our unit highlighted by the red circle:


Although the building sits at the intersection of W120th and Amsterdam (which, I understand, is a major truck route), our unit is actually set further in and has a view of the "courtyard," which means that we won't get much sun light but that we (hopefully) also won't get much of the truck traffic noise either. The building looks like it's about a 3-minute walk from Fayerweather Hall where the history department is housed, and is around the corner from a number of useful stores like a pharmacy, pizza shop, stationer, and cafe. It's also a block away from Morningside Park, which, when I was living in Morningside Heights in summer of 2003 and working for the Parks Department, I was always told was a dodgy place. Yelp reviewers agree that the park continues to be a questionable hangout after dark, but that during the day it is quite nice. Alas, upon browsing the Parks department website, it's clear that there are no tennis courts. The closest subway station appears to be at W116th and Broadway, where the 1 makes a stop. We'll get to see plenty of Columbia's campus because we'll have to cut through the campus for the most efficient path to the subway.

The Google Maps street-view of the building's front shows what appears to be a doorman/security guard in front. We'll have to make friends with him; I hope he likes chocolate-covered macaroons.


Last but not least, the apartment itself:


We were lucky to have gotten floorplan, although Columbia's housing office didn't send any pictures. The place is probably just a smidgen smaller than our current apartment; the bedroom is narrower but longer. The living room is just about the same size, with a nice nook to the left of the closet that would make for a nice home office for Pedro. The lack of storage is going pose a real challenge (where will we put our giant stockpot or the food processor or the KitchenAid mixer?), as is the kitchenette. I'm not sure why there is a random wall separating the kitchen from the living room, which kind of limits the space and mobility that we'll have in the kitchen. When I was first planning to move to Cambridge in 2006, I had spoken with one of my favorite professors at Amherst (who happens to live in this rambling New England farmhouse with a kitchen the size of a New York deli) about my disappointment in the apartment's rather squalid kitchen. I can still remember her response: "There is a special pride that comes of preparing a good meal in a small kitchen." It looks like I'm going to have a lot of that special pride next year.

We're pretty much locked into this apartment, because Columbia doesn't guarantee housing again if you turn down their initial offer. Now that we have a moving date in mind, we can start to plan the rest of the summer around landing in New York on August 13. I have to give Columbia credit for being as accommodating as they were with our demands (on our application, Pedro and I listed "one-bedroom" as the only option we were willing to work with) and for making the process relatively simple and painless. Although the housing assignment lacked transparency, I can understand that, when one office is in charge of doling out 7,000+ units of housing, you don't really want a back-and-forth with every single tenant.

It's becoming more and more real with each passing day that we're moving to New York and that I'm starting grad school this fall. Getting the housing assignment is one more step in that direction. Hooray!