I think that, having scored a small but significant personal triumph at
April Conference, I’ve seen my
surrender to temptation at October Conference as such a setback, that in its wake, I seem to have given up altogether on managing my glances and thoughts. The last week or so has been a rough one. The week+ of woe:
FRIDAYFriday was date night, which started with dinner at a favorite local Thai place. Good vibes between us, no reason for me to be focusing on anyone in the world but my lovely wife, and yet, wouldn't you know it, just as the host started us toward our table, my eyes locked onto a large table of about a dozen college students on a group date, and I quickly moved to “chivalrously” offer my wife the chair that was nearest them, so that her back would be toward them and I’d be able to look at the girls during lulls in our conversation. Which I did. Afterwards, we watched
a movie that we really enjoyed, and I forgot all about the bubbly coeds.
SATURDAYEarly in the morning, I went on a long bike ride with a buddy. We were passed heading up a hill by a gal whose killer kalves I couldn’t resist capturing, both in action and at rest once we all reached the top. (See below.) That evening, I downloaded the shots from my phonecam while listening to
Elder Bednar’s latest address.
MONDAYI heard an ad for
a Halloween block party in downtown’s “Pierpont Entertainment District,” which is essentially Pierpont Ave., roped off. Upon hearing that the party will feature a contest for the “hottest” Halloween outfit, I wondered briefly thought about how I could get down there inconspicuously, after spending Halloween eve with my kids. Gads.
TUESDAYDespite needing to prepare for an important presentation the next morning at work, I spent at least 20 minutes in the evening reading a non-explicit yet
fairly descriptive article about how actors in relationships deal with sex scenes.
WEDNESDAYI learned that two of my company’s 275 employees are also exotic dancers at local clubs, and am fighting the urge to find out who they are – just out of curiosity, just…to know.
My boss also told me a story about when, as a fourth grader, he was nabbed for shoplifting (marbles) and promised the judge he’d never again do anything to dishonor his family’s name. (It’s a great story, which I’ve subsequently used for both home teaching and FHE.) I thought about my family’s name – my grandfather was known across a large portion of the state for being uncompromisingly honest. I’ve wondered at times whether I’ll someday facing the question from my great-great-great grandfather, a somewhat prominent figure in Church history, “What have you done with my name?” As I discussed this notion with my boss, we also considered whether the Lord might ask this same question of us, in that we “take” his name upon us – a concept that jives with my interpretation (perhaps my only original Gospel thought) of the
third commandment having more to do with the breaking of covenants than with profanity.
THURSDAYMy Church calling puts me in regular, close proximity to several women. It’s not infrequent that, when the proceedings at hand grow a little stale, I find myself gazing, with two in particular being focal points.
The first you might consider a “prototypical” Nordic beauty of sorts, a striking, blonde cross among
Helena Bonham Carter,
Florence Henderson,
Isabella Rossellini and
Deborah Harry (closest to Carter & Harry) just after their respective primes. She’s several years my senior, her age beginning to show on her face. Perhaps a poor man’s
Vendela Kirsebom. But not tall (maybe 5’5”), not particularly fit (a bit soft, in fact), and, for that matter, not poor – drives a Benz, which, coupled with a bit of haughtiness that one senses to be a remnant of high school promqueendom, has for some reason made me feel “less bad” when I’ve fantasized about her, fantasies in which (who knows why?) she’s always wearing a navy blue lace bra and panty set, with her soft curves swelling around the various straps.
But more recently, she’s been supplanted in my occasional crosshairs by a lovely brunette – about 5’10”, slender, narrow hips but with a full C cup, and often smiling a full-toothed, sincere, almost naïve smile. She got married just a few months ago (to a recent RM eleven years her junior - ?!), and I’ve wondered what her transition to carnal knowledge has been like, whether she enjoys it or fears it, whether he enraptures her body, what those breasts feel like in her hands. In my mind, when she goes to “that place” in my mind, she wears a black, floor-length, spaghetti-strapped silk slip. On Thursday, we had an activity that required us to climb several flights of stairs – short, open flights with bar railing. She was several paces ahead of me and wearing an ankle-length denim skirt with high slits up the sides, and, yes, I caught a couple of glimpses of Gs on the outside of her left thigh. I guess that’s what passes for a thrill in this town, with most of the guilt, all of the the condemnation, but none of the fun.
FRIDAYI heard a catchy Lady GaGa tune on the radio on the way home, and later
watched the video. Then I knowingly tuned into
another of her videos, getting most of the way through before deciding that I needed to turn it off, thinking, "Man, the raciest stuff we had back in the day was
Madonna and '
Girls on Film.' How are these kids going to survive?"
SATURDAYWith
BYU being blistered by TCU on national TV in the background, my neighbor mentioned to me that our stake president had said at the recent stake Priesthood session, “Brethren, be good to your wives, because they’ll have the chance to choose someone else.” While I can’t recall its origin (although there’s some funky stuff along those lines in
Doctrines of Salvation), this doctrine’s not new to me, but hearing it again actually gave me some relief that I’m not going to drag a good woman down. Ahhhh.
SUNDAYWe had Sunday dinner with my wife’s sister and her husband, as well as my wife’s brother and a potential girlfriend to whom he wanted to introduce all of us. Cool girl, good student, clearly very smart beneath the floofy SoCal cadence. She’d just competed in the
Miss Utah USA pageant the eve before. Not a face that grabbed my attention, but I struggled (which means that I actually made an effort) throughout the evening to keep my eyes off of her Wow! body. She may have caught me looking chestward at one point – but what did she expect, with the low tank under the open blouse? And any oogling elsewhere was strictly in admiration of the fine
fleur de lis embroidery on the back pockets of her jeans. I actually think she could make a good match for my bro in law, but dang, she’d be a distraction at Christmas. She'd received some free six-month gym memberships in the pageant, and wanted to give them to both my wife and my sister in law, but my wife wasn't interested. "But honey, that would be perfect for after the baby..." I began to reason, and then shut up. This was about the low point of the week.
At 3:30 that morning, I awoke abruptly to a dream that
my wife’s bike was being stolen. I spent the next 30-45 minutes with the big LAPD Special Issue
Maglite in one hand, the minivan fob on the other (thumb poised atop the panic button), walking around the house and the yard, looking for unwelcome visitors. A few days earlier, I’d unwisely watched the trailer of a new
Halloween fright flick that was the target of an e-petition I’d received, so my spook factor was running high. The crunching of leaves added to the ambiance, and I damn near scared myself to death when I inadvertently kicked a Tonka truck down the steps in the backyard.
I woke up the next morning feeling that I needed to do a better job of protecting my family, starting with the armor of righteousness and spiritual protection in our home, at which I’m failing outright by any reasonable Latter-Day Standard.
