"Turn It Off"

Confession time: I've been meaning to post about this for a while and I keep saving the draft for later, it is time to just get it published. I think I've become obsessed with the Book of Mormon Musical (no, really?!?!?) Maybe it is because I'm only just catching up with campy tunes from musicals and I happen to like them--I don't know. I like almost all of the songs, but this one in particular always makes me crack up the most; however by the time the song ends I'm usually in tears---can anyone explain that?

TURN IT OFF

I wish YouTube still had the boot-legged copy of the play to show the actual song with the actors, it is much more visual than what's available now, but at least there's something to show.

I can't speak for anyone else, this is just my personal experience but as an active Mormon I think I was constantly self-pressured to shelve things up. If I had questions on faith, doubts, fears and anything that was not edifying I was pretty much under the impression that I needed to "turn it off" in other words, don't think about it and it doesn't exist. Funny thing is that I don't remember ever reading it in any official talk or manual about this, it may be more cultural than anything, yet in retrospect it affected so much of my life. I think my tears might originate from the sadness that I allowed this coping mechanism to become my way of life, any one who can explain, you know "free-advising, I'm not a shrink but play one on the internet" types out there?

Sometimes when talking to other members the concept of "if it isn't useful for your salvation it isn't important" would come up and be held as the general consensus; but then again there are plenty of things in life that are important enough to question but the rule of thumb is again, if it doesn't lead you to be good, do good and possibly even show how good you are then turn off the thoughts. I haven't made a point to sit and think about the number of items that I may have turned off during my active Mormon life and at this point maybe it isn't even worth it, but for two or three--or probably many more very obvious things--turning it off made a huge impact in my life...

Who knows maybe I'm still turning a lot of things off...don't we all?

Latin Dancing-- Not your mother's Salsa dance!

 I love to dance. I think it may have been one of my first OGT (Obviously Gay Traits) ever since I was a young kid, maybe 7 or 8 I remember loving to dance. It didn't matter what kind of music it was, it was just so freeing. One of the things I really liked growing up were the LDS Youth and Young Adult dances and I would hardly sit down at all. I read somewhere the saying "Dance like no one is watching" and that probably described me to a T.

I used to go dancing with a huge group of young adults, and we'd be found at one or other Young Adult dance or a dance club. Oddly enough I found it even more liberating that at the dance club you didn't have to have a partner, everyone danced as a group or by themselves and it was never a big deal, unlike church dances. Of course this all ended when we all got married and went our separate ways, but if there was a party or a wedding, I would jump to the chance to dance, didn't everyone? :-)

Fast-forward to coming out and being invited to a gay club. To say that I was intimidated is an understatement, but soon my nerves were calmed as dancing with my guy friends (as in a group) was not a big deal--I'd done it before. As fun as clubs are, I really don't consider myself to be club-hopper, but I do like to dance the night away whenever I go.

One of my latest frontiers crossed was Latin dancing-homo style. I wasn't sure how it worked because I had only danced Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia and heck even the Mexican Regional music with a woman and wasn't quite sure how it would work guy-guy. So a few of weeks ago we went to a gay Latin night and at first it was the couples (M-F) dancing but as soon as the place got crowded I started seeing--M/F, M/M, F/F couples dancing together which was way fun, non-judgmental and very nice!! I had a blast, I have to admit that because I only had led the dancing before it was weird to figure out who was leading dancing with the babe, but all in all it was a lot of fun! So now we'll have to learn to do the turning steps before we try to go again... YAY for making yet another  one of my favorite hobbies even MORE FUN!!