Essays Is Technology Really All That Bad? As of the date you are reading this, there are over 19,000 articles on major websites across the internet that start with the line, “Today we are more connected than ever, but people feel more disconnected than at any other time.”
Essays So Online Dating Wasn't Just For Weirdos? “She met him through the internet,” I heard a woman whisper in the tone of scandal. This was 1999 and I was fifteen. The woman was a family friend, and she was gossiping about a mutual acquaintance who recently found love.
Essays The Titanic Problem My father issued the decision in the tone of a president contemplating war. My mother nodded slightly as he spoke, her lips pursed, her hands resting dignified on her lap.
Essays Did You Hear Steve Martin Is Mormon? It started right after the first Father of the Bride movie came out, a film that, if turned into a lightbulb, would most definitely be called “Hue White.”
Essays "Space Jesus" There I stood; swayed, really. I was eight years old, in an ascending line curving up a long ramp into a domed rotunda. My parents insisted we stop by and say hello to the eleven-foot statue up top.
Essays War & Peace: Smith's & VISA Things were fine. Birds nested in trees and the sun glistened off of The Great Salt Lake. The valley was peaceful. Almost too peaceful. And then one day a sign was hung.
Essays Kennecott Copper Mine When I was seven, I thought my family was living at the base of several volcanoes. I was a worrier and used a lot of my anxious energy in the early 90s imagining what we would do if the entire Salt Lake Valley suddenly filled with lava.
Essays Lagoon: Disneyland, But Damper My friend Hannah and I started a tradition some time ago of getting season passes every year and we both think the other would be devastated if we stopped doing this so neither of us has backed out.
Ridiculous REAMS. Eventually I moved away from my parents' home. I grew up and changed. My parents changed. You changed. Everyone changed. Except for REAMS. REAMS stayed exactly the same.
Essays Pioneer Day: The World's Greatest Holiday I hereby submit for your consideration that Utah’s Pioneer Day is the greatest of all holidays. It’s better than Christmas. It’s better than any birthday. It’s a reason to live.
Essays No, It's Not Some Fever Dream; Saturday's Warrior Really Happened. I wondered how hard it would be to find it, and whether I would have to also locate a VCR if ever I wanted to watch it again. I was in luck.
Essays Utah's Great Songwriters The last time I was part of a Mormon congregation’s choir was in 2007. It was a young adult ward and the choir was led by an iconically sarcastic chorister, who is now in the Tabernacle Choir.