Got Jana a 70s era turntable and a pair of cabinet speakers for her birthday. Very retro-hip. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited over a gift. For our date, after eating delicious vegan meaty substances at Orange County’s new Native Foods, then went to the Salvation Army to scrounge […]

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I have this annoying habit of trying to straddle multiple worlds. I’d like to be a graduate student but have this job thing that I can’t seem to shake. My dad’s from Kansas and my mom’s from Nagasaki and, as a result, when I’m on one side of the Pacific, I get restless […]

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There’s something comforting about familiar freeways. Sure, I’m driving down the 55, and I can all but see the carbon monoxide in the air and my field of view is saturated to the peripheries with oil-slicked concrete and windowless bunker-like warehouses, but the traffic is moving, I am at home, and I am happy.
When […]

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I’ve been hanging out with a group of liberal Mormon intellectuals lately. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “But John, aren’t ‘Liberal Mormon’ and ‘Mormon Intellectual’ kind of oxymoronic?” (When I mention their existence, people sometimes express doubt and incredulity.) For the first time in a long while, I feel some sense […]

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