I woke up this morning and had a panicked thought. Of all the panicked thoughts I’ve had, I’ve never had this one. It was that I don’t have a thing to wear. I guess I could wear my Ramones shirt if I had to, but it still smells like beer, smoke, and country music. Pretty foul. (more…)

The other general conference threads are devoted to parsing words and bickering over details. The Banner is the perfect place for a general conference thread where people argue over big picture issues without having to read through 30 or 40 comments per hour to communicate.

So here it is: The Banner of Heaven’s General Conference thread. Say whatever you like. I’ll go first: (more…)

Never leave the house in the morning without checking your blog. Otherwise you may end up standing in the middle of a deserted church parking lot, after driving for an hour, feeling like a chump. (more…)

Last Friday, we found out that my husband Eric got laid off from his job at the toilet paper factory. I had told my co-bloggers and agonized about broaching the issue here. It’s a lot harder than posting short stories or movie reviews, but Septimus keeps pushing us to be more honest and candid. (more…)

A package arrived at my house Monday just after I got home from work. I was excited when the doorbell rang and I saw the UPS guy, because getting packages in the mail is one of my favorite things. But it wasn’t for me. (more…)

President Bush’s nomination of White House crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is another affront to American values. I could abide Roberts’ nomination to replace Renquest, because it maintained a status quo. If approved, Harriet Miers is very likely to tilt the court’s balance in a direction that could reverse much of the Constitutional progress that we’ve made in the past half-century. (more…)

I should have been prepared for it, but I wasn’t. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. (more…)

It has been brought to our attention that the opening scene from tonight’s episode of Desparate Housewives, in which Bree Van De Camp walks through a cemetery with her mother-in-law to find that the body of her husband is missing, contains a prominent gravestone with the name SEPTIMUS engraved upon it. Before the rumors begin to fly, we’d like to state that the placement of this tombstone appears to be a prank of some kind. Septimus is alive and well.

Don’t ask. I don’t even want to talk about it.

[This post has been deleted.]

Mormons have a game they like to play. You might know the rules, so feel free to play along. It goes like this:

“Did you know there are twenty BYU alumni active in the NFL?”
“Name them.”
“Ty Detmer, Atlanta Falcons; Doug Jolley, New York Jets; Reno Mahe, the Eagles; Ryan Denney, defensive end for the Buffalo Bills—“
“You’re forgetting Jim McMahon.”
“Idiot, he’s not Mormon, he just played for BYU. And he’s not active.” (more…)

I apologize to my co-bloggers and Banner readers for my post from earlier today. Issues surrounding gender inequality are always hot topics for me. Combine that with intimacy issues and some of the things that are going on with my marriage, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Adult group exercise is segregated: Men play basketball, and women do aerobics. There are many exceptions, but generally it is true. Mormon men play basketball at Mormon chapels, but according to the First Presidency’s recent decision, Mormon women cannot do aerobics at Mormon chapels. (more…)

Since my last awkward encounter with my boyfriend Brian, I’ve decided to be a little more wary and on the lookout for more accidental “shelvings.” So far, so good — he has behaved himself nicely (a little too nicely, in my opinion), and we’re really getting along. He’s a great guy.

However, as our relationship continues along I find myself getting increasingly frustrated and torn, because Brian is so ideologically different. Naturally, I come to air these grievances on the blog rather than talk to Brian like an adult. (more…)

kristen j’s birthday is today (according to her). She’s the better half of the dynamic duo that makes New Cool Thang. She’s a libra, and we don’t know how old she is (but we’re listening if she wants to tell…)

Feel free to use this thread to lavish her with praise for always being smart, funny, and insightful in her comments here and elsewhere.

Happy Birthday, kristen j!

A reader recently sent an email to the Banner. And my cobloggers decided I would be the best one to answer it. Here is the question posed to us by Aaron Shafovaloff.

What do you think of the chart on MormonInfo.org?

I like to tell myself I don’t like to argue, but I don’t think it’s true. I got into two arguments this weekend and I think it’s true what they say about contention: it’s of the devil. Arguing with a Sister Missionary probably doesn’t score you any points with the Almighty. (more…)

We are pleased to present Mike Van Wagenen, Matt Bowman, and Alan Morrell as the first participants in our newest regular feature, “13 Questions.” This feature will allow us to “interview” the brightest stars in the Mormon, nighttime sky. (more…)

I was really nervous to go to church this second time because I knew she’d probably be there. And she was. And I got in a fight with her, like I thought I might, but I had a plan for it. I’m good at plans. (more…)

Folks, I wish we could just put all this speculation to the side, at least for now, because we want to share our thoughts and our ideas with you without being constantly assaulted. It’s exhausting, really, to have to prove and re-prove your existence!

I will tell you this, though — Brian thinks I’m real. So much so, that I think he may have asked me to marry him. (more…)

For those of you who liked my first short story, but didn’t like my second short story, I’m hoping you’ll give me one more chance. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about his one:

It fell and it fell and everything got wet. (more…)

In a comment Rusty says I do not exist. And many others marvel and wonder simalarly. (more…)

Is there a calling that, if it were extended to you, you would know was not inspired? (more…)

I’m a Bible School graduate. It’s the one thing in my life that I’ve done consistently, and believe me, the chicks are always impressed when I whip out the minor prophets without pausing for breath. BAM, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah. It works every time. (more…)

For those of you who are convinced we aren’t real people, or have your doubts, we invite you to comment away with the others here. Please, please, please go there to tell us we don’t exist, because we are sick and tired of hearing about it. (more…)

I spoke to my daughter on the phone yesterday. It was the first time in a long, long time. (more…)

Remember the Nauvoo Expositer. Well now there’s the Nine Moons Expositer. (more…)

A few months ago the Banner folks asked me to write a guest post. I was flattered and agreed to do so (nobody’s ever asked me before!), and then promptly got busy with other stuff. But here I finally am. (more…)

“I AM NOT JENN!”
-Steve Evans

I guess I have some explaining to do. (more…)

Like most of us here, I’ve been outed several times over by now, both in a mostly humorous thread at Nine Moons and in a more serious one at Times and Seasons. Let me just say here that when we started this project, there was a timetable we were following, and planned to out ourselves at the end, along with an explanation of what on earth we were trying to accomplish. Since that’s no longer an option, I’ll add my explanation/apology to Steve/Jenn’s now. (more…)

My name is David King Landrith. I pretend to be Miranda Park Jones, and she is not real.

Unlike my co-bloggers, I offer no general apology. (more…)

I recognize that I harmed this community and I want to take responsibility for that and apologize to it collectively. It’s a resilient place that I’m sure can withstand the harm that I’ve caused and heal itself and move on, but it’s resiliency isn’t in any way an excuse for what I’ve done, which has been a huge error in judgment on my part and was wrong. (more…)

To quote Amulek, “I am a man of no small reputation—among all those who know me” (punctuation modified). As I am relatively unknown, I now offer my full name, for you to speak good or evil of as you see fit: Christian Young Cardall. (more…)

I’m Naomi Frandsen, and I created the character of Greg Fox. I want to apologize for being stupid enough not to see the stupid parts of what we did, for being insensitive enough not to understand how people would really feel when they found out what was going on, and for being presumptuous enough to think that an explanation is the same thing as an apology. I think I am starting to see that one of the things that continues to cause the most hurt and anger is the fact that we didn’t see from the beginning and we’ve continued not to see that what we did was wrong. (more…)