The Dry State of Utah
Lately, it's been really dry here in Utah. My eyes have been stinging and my contacts have become impossible to wear. So now I keep thinking that my blue-eyed coworkers suddenly have a greenish tint in their eyes... until I realize that I'm looking at the world through an anti-glare coating on my glasses.
And yes, the joke about Utah being a dry state in reference to alcohol still applies. I've heard that there are only 6 bars in the entire county, and I don't think I've ever even seen a sign for one. Not that I'm a big bar-hopper, but yeesh is that a scary statistic. At least there are now two Starbucks in the county. I'm praying (to any non-Mormon god with reception in Utah County) that another coffee house, Starbucks or not, will come to life closer to where I live.
There are things I really like about living in Utah, but I'm having a harder time with the whole area right now for some reason. Maybe it's the early darkness instead of the glorious sunshine that I grow accustomed to during every season but winter. Maybe it's the Christmas season preparing me for the arrival of three spirits to make me appreciate everything I have. Maybe it's just good old Seasonal Affective Disorder. Blah.
Things that have been pissing me off:
- Unattentive, rude, careless and/or bad drivers. Lack of turn signals, excessively dangerous cutting off, not using headlights during a gray daytime snowstorm (25% of cars, by my estimation), going when it's not their turn at intersections, slowing down to 40 mph on the freeway a mile before the exit, etc. IDIOTS!
- People who don't acknowledge me, let alone say thank you, when I hold open a door for them.
- A high level of religion-related conversations in the workplace. It's not that I feel harassed because I'm not Mormon (though I can think of one specific instance that made my blood boil). It just seems to me that many of the conversations I overhear (or am directly involved in) would not happen at work in other areas of the country. Then again, people's personal lives here overlap with the church so much that it's probably impossible to have that separation of church and state for which our forefathers fought so dearly.
- LDS/Mormon everything everywhere I go.
- And finally, so that I stop bitching about everything else: our house. It's just not what we envisioned it would be after almost two years of living there. It's better than it was a year ago, though, so at least I know that we're making progress.
