At one point in my life I thought of myself as deep and brooding, enigmatic and complex. The older I get the more I realize that those are just fancy adjectives for depressed and needy, confused and moody.

I am, as most people are, pretty much the same as everybody else. Average. While I may have moments or even extended streaks of creativity and genius, those around me have those things to offer as well. Often in spades.

Many people are better looking, smarter, harder-working and socially with it. It is a rare person indeed who truly stands out as much as they spend their twenties believing they do.

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In lieu of actual content I now have a bunch of shit for sale.

Go buy something and help me recoup just a little of that long-lost tithing money. It goes without saying that all money earned will be spent on beer brewing supplies and ingredients.

That means if you buy a shirt or something I'll have more beer to give away, people so pry open those wallets.

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Things I learned on my weekend road trip to Phoenix, Arizona:

106 MPH is faster than you should drive regardless of speed limit.

There's something to be said for 70 degrees in January even if you end up spending most of your time at an ice rink.

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Overheard in line at Chucky Cheese.

Who? JD? Oh. My. God. Brittney, you are NOT taking Justin to that dance.

I'm not sure exactly how to describe the Utah accent except to say, imagine the way normal people talk and drop all the consonants from the middle and end of every word. Plus there are really only two lazy vowels. "Ah", as in "Dahn't even tahk tuh mah." And its bastard, in-bred, polygamous cousin "Uh", as in, "Whuh - uhvuh". Note the missing consonants.

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In keeping with the recent theme of the site, I give you the following passages from the Wikipedia entry on the Guinness Floating Widget. This sort of thing is exactly why I love both beer and Wikipedia.

...with consequent greater creaminess of the subsequent head.

The surging mixture gradually settles to produce a very creamy head.

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I guess it's beer week here at Fiddley.com. You all know by know that this week I bought a bunch of food-grade plastic goods and brewed my first batch. My next steps will be bottling and giving away all my homemade bread-in-a-bottle.

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After freezing my ass off in the garage, trying unsuccessfully for more than an hour to boil 3 gallons of water on a 700 watt hotplate, and after ensuring the kids were in bed so they wouldn't accidentally see grain boiling in a pot, Donna took pity on me and allowed my evil alchemy into the kitchen. Cooking in a kitchen like I was a full-fledged member of the household is real fancy-like, indeed.

"You're never going to get that done out there like that. Just bring it inside and finish it. Next time though, DON'T DO IT IN THE WINTER!"

Gawd bless her gingham heart though, Donna tried so hard to act normal about the whole thing. Of course, It helps that the beer brewing process smells like fresh-baked bread and not like coffee. Coffee, I'm told, smells like cat pee and body odor. Who knew?

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The great homebrew experiment has begun.

Yesterday, while Donna and the girls were at church, I took another trip to my local homebrew shop. This time, instead of information, I was after gear. Buckets, funnels, tubes, hydrometers and other mad scientist stuff like that.

230 dollars later, I was on my way home. In the trunk was everything I needed to brew and bottle 5 gallons of amber ale. I felt like a regular moonshiner. Also in hand was a new book of scripture, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, by Charlie Papazian or as it says right on the cover, The Homebrewer's Bible.

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This is, without a doubt, unequivocally, the reason I blog. An email like this is the sort of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning and keeps me from smothering myself with a jolly green temple apron.

I have to admit, I do feel naughty when I read all your secrets, 'cause you cant read any of mine...

Who has two thumbs and likes making readers feel naughty? THIS guy!

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"So, do you think you could beat 45 seconds?"

"That's a secret between me and my vibrator. Now, go to sleep."

"Yeah, like I'm going to be able to sleep now."

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"I'm not sure if that was exactly 45 seconds or not, but I know the digital clock projected on the ceiling only changed time once."

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Sometime in the summer of 2003, Donna and I decided our marriage was irreparable. We had been separated for a few months and I had been attending regular therapy sessions. We both wanted to make it work but it seemed that we were simply too far apart and that there was too much pain between us to ever reconcile.

We brought the kids together at my mother's house, where I had been living during most of our separation, one evening.

"Girls, this is hard to explain but Mommy and I have decided it would be the best thing for our family if we divorced. Of course, I will always be your Daddy and Mommy will always be your Mommy. Nothing can change that, we love you too much for that to change."

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I recently made an offer to a local college student to do some temporary work as an intern on a project my firm is working on. The position pays a ridiculous amount of money compared to any job I ever had in college, part-time or otherwise. Had the project gone well, we likely could have kept him busy enough to literally pay for the rest of his college education.

Here was his reply.

Thank you for the information. I'm going to turn you down though as full time is a little too much for me right now (I'm doing part-time work and full-time school), and I have moral qualms about developing software for a casino. I appreciate you sending me the information - if you have opportunities in the future that involve fewer hours and aren't involved with casinos, I'd be very interested to hear them - feel free to email me again in the future.
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After much fasting and prayer, I've made a move that commits me to at least two more years of marriage.

I renewed my Family Plan contract with Cingular Wireless. What Cingular has joined together let no God put asunder.

Also, you should all be aware, we live in a world where two more tweens now have their own phones.

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Donna and I had a long talk on the phone today. This is not the best way to work out differences but sometimes you make time when you can.

Things started out not so well. I let her know some of my frustrations and she let me know what I could do with them. I shouted. She shouted.

Eventually though, something happened. She began to realize, maybe because I began to make more clear, that my feelings are real and legitimate. She admitted that some of her triggers are irrational but that she had worked hard to become aware of that. She also began to realize, I think, that morality may actually exist outside of religion. And that sometimes it doesn't exist at all inside of it.

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Donna and I have scads of baggage. Over the years we have both done plenty to hurt each other. We are both controlling and manipulative. Apart, I know we each could have healthy and happy relationships. Together, I fear, we just have too much history.

There isn't a day that something or another doesn't trigger something in one of us. Whether it is a comment about church, a news story about a political issue, a beer ad, or a love affair on tv. Whatever it is, its always something. There seems to be no getting around it with us.

These triggers set off a range of reactions for us. For me, I tend to try to avoid reacting so I end up shutting down completely. I get silent. I avoid touch. I disengage to avoid the pain and reality conflict brings. Denial and repression is easier. Besides, when I get hurt or angry, I get ugly. Really ugly.

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This is absolutely, positively the last post about Joe Edwards.

You may remember that I received a cryptic note from someone named "T" about Joe a week or so ago. I wrote T a few notes but never heard back. Well, I finally received this response in return. To be fair, I've decided (and received permission from T) to post it in its entirety with no commentary from me.

T provided her real name and some other information and I have every reason to believe she is genuine.

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My good friend, one-time roommate, accomplished composer, singer, and songwriter, Paul Luscher, has a new album available on iTunes. The album features two of my favorite songs, All These Years and Feelfine.

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In reply to yesterday's post, this comment was posted.

How would you like it if someone assumed you were a pedophile because they merely saw you talking to some kid you didn't know at a restaurant or playground? What if you googled your name and the second entry were some exmo blog with a tangential entry about a trip to NYC and a reference to you in an unsavory light?

think about it.

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This came via the contact form a few days ago.

Who wrote the article, "Why Can't I Quit You Joe Edwards?"

I would like to inform the author of this article as to why they are completely incorrect in their summation.

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"What are you doing?"

"Looking for something to make myself for dinner."

"Is there something wrong with the dinner I made?"

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For some reason, Mormon wards change their meeting schedule every year. I'm speculating that this is because interest in attending tends to wane towards the end of the year and mixing things up might give the membership a renewed interest. My idea would be to stop making church so fucking boring and useless but I'm just practical that way, I guess.

It may also be that church leadership tends to make wards barely large enough to function, with barely enough members for each calling or assignment. This makes for some creative scheduling when it comes to building usage. Despite the fact that I can see no fewer than a hundred crossless steeples by standing on the roof of my house, each building still often has as many as six or seven congregations assigned to it. As a result, one or two wards inevitably get stuck with a less-than-desirable block for meetings.

So I think another reason they may mix the schedules up each year to keep people from bitching so damn much about having to go to church before the apostate neighbors are even up mowing their lawns or so late that the older members get lost in the dark driving the block-and-a-half from the Eagle Gate Apartments.

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