Who's Wearing the Trousers?

Drinking lunch

2012-01-19T15:14:00.003-06:00

Another example of me waking up screaming from my own awesomity is I've already lost control of this paragraph. Bother.

Back in retail, with the 30-minute meal-break (as if!), I've not been finishing the conventional PB&J brown-bag - then leaving work ready to eat my own hand! Great start to a stoopit end-of-day, right? The alternative has been, like, scary genius, which is the most-bestest kind.

GLASS JAR with METAL LID (plastic is tired)
palmful of RAW OAT FLAKES
wad of NUT BUTTER
spoon of COCOA (non-dutched)
spoon of CREAMED COCONUT
as much BANANA which can be accommodated
top-off of WHOLE MILK

That's the full cast: the oats need to be soaked in the milk overnight, but besides that I think the rest can safely be abandoned to whim: blackberries, cherries, raisins, apple butter, Christmas candy.... Experiments with proportions results in variations of color and consistency that attracts the attention of coworkers - but no-one dares to get close to it. I've given the day's components several times and there still haven't been any volunteers to run off with it. (Yes, I have to work with fridge-raiders.)

And in ten minutes, I've downed the entire jar and am satisfied. Wow, it really is the little things.

Have I made this point before? Does that matter?

2012-01-08T16:24:00.005-06:00

My mother is old plenny-nough to be my grandmother, so plug in generation of your choice:

"Certainly, girls were having babies at thirteen in 'the good old days (when times were bad)', but that was different. People old enough to do adult work were considered adults, and being on Facebook all day actually isn't the same thing as running a working farm. Now get off the phone, do your chores and schoolwork, and go to bed - like I done told you."

!

At the opposite extreme of Extreme Parenting, I was trying to fabricate a human skull out of calico cotton in R&D preparation for making the heads for my art dolls when Ma came in from somewhere mas come from when you've specifically been disinvited. My mother knew better than to ask what I was doing, as the last time it happened I chose not to accept her look of "God, I submit to your will and praise you for being able to make all things new, but seriously - other mothers only have to deal with strippers: was it necessary that I get the mad scientist? Why can't I have a normal gay son like everyone else?"

A hymn for those who would rather stay in bed

2011-12-29T19:11:00.004-06:00

Life is holy
Life is simple
Simply by the presence of
The ever-present and living
GOD
Let it be done according to his word
Let it be done
According to his word

Fancy White Trash

2011-12-27T16:32:00.004-06:00

Since I'm daily subjected to peer pressure to saddle up on pinterest.com, why not get some bidness on the side? Keep your eyes - and most importantly, your wallet - open!

This radical self-acceptance-thing you're doing? Stop

2011-12-06T19:18:00.002-06:00

So I was rehired at the shop. Fourth time - yes, thank you for asking. I noticed that you haven't had fresh drivel in ever so long, and just wanted to show up and say I still don't. That's not really true, but apparently my purpose for the last few months is to stand as silent witness to people getting in the way of their own happiness.

You really don't want to know (but we're completely surrounded, by the way).

The mystery...apparently is some kind of mystery

2011-09-12T15:17:00.004-05:00

Being one of those people who are able to understand multiple viewpoints on the same topic (which actually translates as "wishy-washy," "Devil's advocate," and my favorite - "rail-fence Christian"), naturally I have a range of Facebook friends whom I try never intend to introduce to each other. Recently, and spiking at the state-legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, I've had the opportunity to experience others' responses and ponder on ideas and solutions which would be more-condusive to everyone else shutting up and letting me have more screen-time to tell you what's really interesting. I mean, you'd think....

Imagine people in two distinct and opposing groups: the group which remembers marriage is really a promise/agreement motivated by intentionally giving one's love and committment to another as testament to the love and committment God has given freely, and those who think of it as open access to somebody's CD collection, foundation-garment contents, and dental plan.

COMPARE/CONTRAST: marriage is a lifelong testament to an eternal and unvarying God, or marriage is,

well, from the beautifully-frank perspective of a man who has Asperger's:

"[I want to get married so I won't have to cook for myself or masturbate anymore."

When components of these two populations run into each other on my Facebook page entirely by accident and with no prompting from me, invariably the facebookiness itself prevents meaningful exchange of ideas. I don't know if you've ever been subjected to a four-hour texting session (I have an extra one to give you if you've not had the experience), you know chopped sentences produce chopped conversations with chopped meaning.

But wait - I got me a blog!

Many advocates for redefinition of marriage have genuine feelings, desires/motives, and thought-out reasoning. Of those, a portion would describe themselves as deeply religious and committed Christians. When we choose to share facts and feelings, however, everyone is as likely as anyone to garble the two together.

I think this is an important observation. Feel free to do so as well. When told through argument that God wants children to be in a home with a mother and a father, a home godded by a God who considers divorce anathema and fornication and adultery not in the game-plan, what about single-parenthood happening anyway? Essentially, I can only speak for myself - extending the kind offer for you to agree with everything, but still I only speak for myself - I just think we need to be open to considering marriage as not so much a civic/legal idea. The government can not establish a marriage, can not justifiably define it, and can not by any stretch of warm and fuzzy imagination fix it. I've sat in on a televised...conversation...where it was actually said "I wan't to marry so I may then legally access my lover's insurance." But we do live in a world where that sort of thing has to be thought about. We also live in a world where some people consider marriage a Mystery and Sign of Something Really Huge and other's can only wonder "what the fuck was I thinking?" Unfortunately, Christians find themselves in both camps. Possibly, sex-deviants can show up on both sides of the issue as well, but until we use the same definition, we may as well just start hitting each other.

That's why you have me, Dear Reader: a good use for railfence-Christianity is that it's visible evidence that bridging the sacred and profane is possible and a duty - or rather, that the invisible/undeniable world of the One True God exists in tandem with chatshows, comment-boxes, op-ed pages, people who believe Tarot wasn't first just a plain-jane card game (a future post!), White-flight, unreasonable landlords, idiot drivers, American hitchhikers in Europe or Asia finding themselves (completely lost), "spiritual-but-not-religious", members of the "I Love Loosely" fanclub, Big Pharma, Big Farm, addicts, the feeble-minded, pure scum, and yeah, me and you. What is the Church for, if not all these? What is the Church for, if not for people who have no free-kicking idea what's going on? What is the Church for, if not to show the way to The Way itself?

But it's still not about the insurance. Go in peace and practice the real safe sex: get married in the Church and stay faithful until death do you part.

Right to be wrong

2011-08-27T12:40:00.004-05:00

Trick questions--just so you know:

"What are my rights?"

"What determines if these rights apply to me and/or to a larger group I may or may not be part of?"

"How are these rights guaranteed?"

"Are there circumstances where my access to these rights may be changed?"

From good ol' Wikipedia (the article on the United States Declaration of Independence, specifically), comes this-here quote which I think all American English-speakers have heard at least once today: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." I have long-believed only because that sentence was written down after some discussion that it has any validity. Look out the window and tell me it's all good, yo, if you disagree--I love comments!

Recently after receiving a comment offering more information on what "we" deserve--as everyone is entitled to no-fault divorces--and I remembered a conversation I had on a beach with a Southern Baptist youth-minister I was so very much in luv with. Needless to say, he's neatly avoided crossing my path for, like, decades. He made the fascinating blanket statement that (brace yourself!)

There are no such things as "fundamental rights"

I thought the boldface and italics would also be helpful in you noticing the point. You're welcome. "I have a right to sit down after coming home from work in peace and quiet--do something to shut those kids up." Notice that this fails to obviate the need (pardon, I meant to say RIGHT) for children to be with their father, with whom The Office is such an abstraction it isn't even nameable as Abstraction. I could go on, but I'm already satisfied I've made my point. Any assertion of individual right inevitably and invariably bulldozes over everything else.

Early on in my career as Lavender Menace-wannabe Attack-Fag, I played the "What If" with my first you-know-what. The premise: "If I were Supreme Benevolent Dictator, my first edict would be"--and of course, I would command total committment towards all children under the age of ten having 5-7 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables every day. I mean, duh, I am such a giver. He didn't even look at me while he countered with "even if they didn't want to eat them, I suppose" and followed that with "I would make it so that everyone would check to see if there were any toilet paper before they sat down. This may have been indicative of some past difficulty, some Personal Obstacle to Growth, which needed to be exorcised--but only after the requisite trout-boning which is the firm bedrock of all good and healthy relationships between two men who are beginning to realize they really-rilly dislike each other. But I digress!

And to top that, I've lost my own point. I'm frightened; in this time of great darkness, will you hold my hand?

MEANWHILE, people blather on about what they have rights to without bothering to understand that "with great power comes great responsibility". If marriage is really about medical and dental insurance, I'm certainly for it. And again, in the great land of no-fault divorce, why would it matter? One more opportunity for no-reason marriage just isn't relevant. Marry your lap-dog. Marry everyone in your Bunco group. And by all means marry the man who will make all of your weakly-boundaried, poorly-constructed dreams come true before he runs off with some skank who is (no-kidding) a real-live street magician. HOWEVER, if marriage is really about "I've got your back in this crazy bar-room brawl that's Planet Earth" or "together, we can make something way-awesomer than if we worked alone", or even "God loves you so much, that anything short of me totally committing to you for the rest of my life and with all that I have would be an insult unworthy of your attention"--could you finish this paragraph by yourself? I'll owe you one.

In a brave effort towards summing-up, I say that there are plenny-nuff rights that are not being realized (lack of clean water, which is stupid and gross; gross inequality in access to education between sexes, classes, whatever; the ability to make a living for oneself without needing to pay allegiance to some complete stranger's bottom line; the ability of Blacks in America to go to First Baptists and vote Republican...), because you're taking up too much time and effort organizing the kiss-in at Waffle House. And no, I won't expect you to come see me in the ER after I kicked that man-skank in the face because he was making a move on you and was trying to blow me off with "oh, it's just sex, after all"--instead of the other kind.

"Why should God Bless America - if you won't?"

2011-08-18T14:20:00.006-05:00

[I to-ot-ta-al-ly stole this from page 79 of the 19 May issue of Newsweek. Admittedly, the 19 May 1941 issue. Hmn. At an estate sale where some classic and real awesome stuff needed to be discarded to make way for some stylish and trendy awesome stuff, I stumbled across a pile of "worthless" magazines and just laughed and laughed when this page fell out--but then I read it, so had a moment of silent reflection. Enjoy...I guess.]

Why should God Bless America - if you won't?

Singing is easy. But it never won a battle. What you and I do today is determining whether or not we will be free men tomorrow. All the wishful thinking in the world can't change that fact.

Without knowing it, countless Americans are serving the foreign enemies of this country. Every time you or I raise a hand or speak a word to turn class against class, every time we fan a hatred, slow down production, waste a penny of materials or time--every time we do any of these we are firing a shot into the heart of America.

The hour has come when every moment counts - for your country or against it.

And let those who think they can "get theirs" by insisting on their rights even when that interferes with the greater rights of the nation - let them remember this - duped by foreign agents whether they know it or not, they are softening this country for conquest - they are selling their birthright of freedom for the most miserable mess of pottage and pottery anyone can imagine. Ask the belligerent workmen, politicians, managers of France who demanded their "rights" above their country's rights. Their reward is serfdom, hopeless despair, and starvation.

God helps those who help themselves. Let's work for America - when and ONLYwhen the nation which gives us liberty is safe, then will be time to think of ourselves.

*

THE WARNER & SWASEY COMPANY
TURRET LATHES * CLEVELAND

Get in it or get out

2011-08-08T13:07:00.005-05:00

Although certainly hiding behind my usual habit of flurries of posts followed by long stretches of the lights being on but nobody home would not be unreasonable, I've really had some shakeups this month, culminating in...really no idea. I'm sleeping at a different house without at the same time being able to say I even have one right now. I've taken on the saying "But I Have No-One to Blame but Myself" as a radical quality-assurance guarantee.

They're absolutely correct: freedom isn't free, but neither is the power-source you use to blog from your parents' basement. Not that I was ever in the basement, or that there was one....

Resiliency of youth, and other convenient exaggerations

2011-07-06T16:17:00.004-05:00

Those of you who are familiar with Alabama news may have noticed a former resident arrested in another state for a history of child rape over a period of almost a decade (exact facts are such a bother, sorry). I knew the man but (of course) not very well--isn't that always how it is? The news announcement on the internet version of the local newspaper has received the attention of several comments already, mostly arguments about why the criminal acts took place in a certain city and the actor was from another--but the trial was in an entirely different county--facts still not being the most important, I think a few "so there, Stupid"s between commenters had some screen-time....

ONE commenter, which at the time of my reading constituted a whopping 4% of responders, mentioned the child. "We have to keep the victim foremost in our thoughts." Or something like that.

Sorry, I was snarking at some idiot because his screen name is ridiculous--what did you say?

The crime involves my parish family, actually. The article identified the rapist as an employee of my church, which naturally frees people to bring up "those Catholics." Happily, even the Catholics got a turn bringing up "bringing up those Catholics." NEVER MIND THAT A CRIME HAS BEEN PERPERTRATED WHICH HAS A MAYHEM-FACTOR OF GOOGOLPLEX, EVEN AFTER WE START TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. Never mind the kid, he'll be fine.

Like, whatever.

Based on acutal (and breathtakingly-stoopit) events

2011-07-05T13:36:00.003-05:00

I went to Charleston. Had an undiluted good time. Came home. Tapped my statistically-insignificant Muscogee heritage and spent the 235th anniversary of my country's independence (significantly, and tragically, not from itself) explaining in a loud coprolalic voice that I done said I'm going to be in it to win it, but this-here just ain't going to work. And neither did my day-long presentation! Meh.

!

I finished a book last night about Catholic Men's Theology/Spirituality which I had purchased from the Daughters of St. Paul on King Street. Combined with my experience of Love Wins, by Rob Bell, and the comment on my last post, I'm now fairly certain that my rebellious misspent youth really was a complete waste of time. In case you're contemplating a wackofrenic life-change, consider if it's primarily in response to stringy-headed slack-jawed botches of adulthood, put a cold rag on your forehead after doing some stress-eating, then lie down until the feeling passes. It's going to be fine--risking your mental and physical health is not worth informing an unreceptive audience.

God told me to tell you time's a-wasting.

Another tip or indicator that a self-assessment is overdue: if the phrase "I think Lesbian Separatism is the only answer to Hypocritichristianity" has even entered your mind YOU ARE IN PANIC MODE. Now would be better used buying a pair of Unfortunate Trousers, as opposed to, say, reaffirming your misanthropy with a glut of Fellatio with a side of Steamed Bunny.

Or in other words, if you can't believe in someone else's god--especially when they can't/don't seem to either--you're so free to go find your own. You're on your own regardless. I think God digs that whole truth thing, anyway--breathe and live deeply!

Messy portions of clarification

2011-06-27T09:40:00.006-05:00

What sort of Christianity is it, when confronted why "bad things happen to good people," has to think about it first, or better yet, stammer out an aphorism and change the subject as quickly as possible--preferably into an attack on the questioner?

Imagine God could keep all the children cancer-free, the water clean and clear, the countries in peace, the marriages and families being covenants more than contracts, and all the other yummy things we all aspire to without usually doing anything about it. Then imagine you personally screwing something up anyway immediately afterwards. Done? Now multiply that by a googleplex, because it's going to happen every nanosecond.

God fixes it, we then have room to make another mess. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Isn't that nice?

So instead of cursing God because there was that unpleasant bit you had to go through after you assumed it would happen to someone else--very inconsiderate of it, you know--okay, I don't know what you should do. Maybe anything else would be sufficient. But may we refrain from telling the rape survivor that sex should be reserved for marriage? Is providing an angry father-God to an abused child the only possible option? Would obeying "Thou Shalt Not Kill" in all aspects (applied against abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, armed conflict, parking-lot conflict, bar-room brawls, forced-family-fun holiday tables, the checkout line, and your tiny heart and mind) be doable?

I said I was a non-patriot a few posts ago, and I should clarify that one: not that I would ever go Jehovah's Witness, but as a Christian anarchist I'm reluctant to align myself with any government which on...occasion...acts in willful opposition to what God says. I don't need help in disobeying God. Thanks, but not really.

And why are the pot-holders, Socialists, and atheists feeding the homeless at Five Points South? Yes, yes, I know it's to distribute those zines about worker's rights, but is there another reason?

As I've included the word "messy" in the title of this post, I'm okay with rambling. I'm also okay that I've already forgotten the next point I was going to make. I'm okay, you're okay.

My God can beat up your god, but won't because he's all about luv

2011-06-25T10:47:00.005-05:00

I've come to the understanding (and yes, I did just finish Love Wins by Rob Bell) that my entire problem with "getting saved" was never that I don't think I'm man enough for God.

Your god isn't man enough for me.

Your god must have gone to my high school (which explains everything, really):

he can't abide messes and dirt on his cross--and would you stop it with the clinginess and man-up for once

he only likes people who go to First Baptists, although there's been some discussion about some First Baptists being more-firsty than others

he only likes "traditional" people who at the same time bank everything on a secondary-source document translated in the middle of the Second Millennium into a language that's younger than many buildings--and, however illogically, he in the form of a primary-source redeemer preached from because if it ain't King James, it ain't Bible--and through which he's endorsed some incredibly-stoopit ideas and practices

he apparently approves plowshares being reworked as swords and is pro-life only so that he can have people killed if they grow up to be non-believers or break one of any number of laws that are not consistent or consistently-applied (but he is the author of every last damn one of them because we alone do his will)

he hates Jews because they killed him (as opposed to the, oh I don't know, Japanese--crucifixion-by-correspondence hadn't been invented yet)

he is supposed to be the father of every living thing, but only likes Whites and we know this because we saw a movie about Jesus and when he was little, he had the prettiest blue eyes and soft blond curls; et cetera, ad nauseam, blah-la-la, kum by yah....

[I think my fixation with bulleted points is so the pressure's off about me remembering those bothersome grammar rules without betraying my Bachelors which I don't really believe I earned anyway.]

I can't say I know who God is, quite the opposite: I have no free-kicking idea. But I'm just fine with saying I don't know what authority you speak with when you announce you can. "Is Jesus Christian?" is not an offront, it's an opportunity for a reflection on the gigantimacious difference between "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven" and "my will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."

I don't know that I'm done, but I'm a little tired now, so I'm going to take a break and smack you around more later--don't go anywhere....

At some point I turned 40...

2011-06-21T15:35:00.003-05:00

But enough about me.

As if.

Our Parish is having Vacation Bible School this week, which is the only explanation I have for adopting the sleep-pattern of Vacation Standard Time. Sunday, I awoke at 4am with the realization that I really could invade Youtube armed with my own television series after all (just wait--you will bark), stayed up until one Monday morning from a truly-odd-but-not-enough barbering session with a thrift-store Ken doll I'm going to OOAK-ify, awoke again at 6am Monday to proclaim the Gospel before working a shift putting your tax dollars to work, went to bed barely-before midnight learning about polymer clay, and cranked it up again at the late hour of 7 this morning. Stoopit? Oh, yeth.

So, yeah, I need to ask what the term would be for an internet variety show [soap-opera/sit-com/sci-fi drama/reality] peopled with altered 12-inch fashion dolls. Any idea?

A gay-marriage everyone can cry tears of joy over

2011-05-29T15:46:00.004-05:00

This is good--pay attention.

As a Christian, a Catholic, a sex-deviant, a product of the 70's, and a child of divorce, I totally get the necessity of stable culture of marriage and pro-family values. But. I say, if two guys or girls want to hook up and do the following IN STRICT ORDER:

establish friendship

deepen their feelings for each other gradually

decide to commit themselves to each other

court

save the marital act for their actual maritality

marry with full consent and understanding AND

stay together faithfully in convenant as evidence of the love of an eternal God

why should you care? Busy yourself with doing the same, dude. Marriage is a gigantoricious question mark in this country now--but gay people weren't the ones that started asking the question. MTV wasn't even the one that started it. Think hard, now. Concentrate.

I tell people I avoid R-rated movies as a matter of Christian principle

2011-05-29T15:09:00.003-05:00

Translation: --are you serious?

Now, heavy use of "strong language" is sloppy I'm-making-three-cents-a-word writing; "graphic nudity" implies poor plot-management; "drug use" is, like, whatever--move on; and "...partying, all involving teens," while not prominent in R-rated movies, can be problematic.

So, to the point: I was wandering around The Real Critical Press which is Amazon, and convinced myself that viewing Hump Day would not be the worst thing I could do before turning 40. Some guy had written an impassioned comment how he had been hurt by how the film made him feel marginalized and ridiculous, which considering this effect can oftentimes be achieved for free is something to think about. But this woman was like, "I think it's more a commentary on Male Institutionalized Heterotardedness more than an opportunity to abuse gay people."

I hired myself as tie-breaker. Frankly, I thought the entire point of the movie was a comment on how professional-coolness is a full-time job that precludes actual results, but what do I know? Had I made the film, I would have put half the total-hedonism in the Dionysus scene, discarded the rest, made better choices of placement with The Profanity (basically the same word used like free duct tape and Avon's Skin-So-Soft on the dialog), and wait for my Oscar, or GLAMA-thing, or whatever.

Seriously, Marginalized and Ridiculous Guy: two professing heterosexuals chest-thumping their way into making an "art" film, then spending the rest of the plot backing out while facing forward while wearing a neutral expression so as to not betray their squareness is not the same as "Gay Is Okay." I think you'll find that's what unlimited access to high-speed Internet is for. THE ENTIRE POINT was to illustrate how whims affect real people: do you remember the wife? Do you remember Cool Hand Idiot admitting he had never finished an art project? And if you thought the hotel scene was awkward--you and everyone else. It's all good.

Yes, it would be nice if the world were just one giant book of Gender Sudoku.

I need you to join me in basking in the crushing profundity of "Gender Sudoku." I should be paid for this.

MEANWHILE, what we got was men who are completely against "gay rights," but want a servant class of women to entertain them (of course, letting the man "finish them off"); what we got was the classic NIMBY-response of "I'm tolerant homosexuals--unless you're my kid"; what we got was people too busy being "open-minded" they can't think; what we got was....

I'm sorry. People are messy, inconsistent, and rather stupid. In that, we're all alike. So now, let's stop expecting more from other people than we expect from ourselves, or even a completely-separate standard of behavior. Two straight guys are going to be reluctant to have sex with each other, especially (and I hope!) when one is already married. Hump Day wasn't billed as a comedy, but duh. Don't take it personally, because I promise they weren't thinking about you.

Turning forty is, like, so yesterday

2011-05-29T14:43:00.003-05:00

Like, whatEVar! Immaturity is still my beauty secret, so I suppose--barring Mayan right-on-ness--I still have a shot at being Most-Awesomeulogized Eccentric Centenarian of the Next Five Minutes (I think Andy Warhol was being too generous, optimistic, and considerate).

I made plans to compose at home, store the posts, and paste them on at work. Or not. You wanted to read a series of posts concerning my "Junkyard Playhouse--Assemble!" but at this stage, I've already come to the conclusion of the experiment, and documenting it all now isn't that appetizing. I know, I've totally let you down--but, if you bookmark this blog, I'm going to make sure you'll be amazed.

What do you mean, when? What is this horrible noise?

THE CLIFF'S NOTES VERSION: all you need

sledgehammer

bag of sand

abandoned co-cola bottles (translation for Northeners: this is not brand-specific, and a co-cola is to be measured by the size of its bottle, not the color of its carbonated water--this is the New Millenium, and I need you to catch up)

backpack or dufflebag

two children's ball-bats

filler for the bats (optional)

retired tires of an amount that can be stuffed in a mid-size sedan without necessarily considering safety (hello, that's what taking the back roads are for)

Kylie Minogue

Certainly, these items may be mixed and matched at will, save for the sledgehammer and whichever disposable disco artist you choose. The neighborhood hardware store, the thrift store, your next church social, your half-uncle's double-first-cousin's tire shop, and the corner in my bedroom where the Monster under the Bed vacations are the only places you need to look. I imagine you could spend less than I did, but why are we needing to discuss it--are you waiting for a hand-written invitation?

Cynthia Rogers, pray for us

2011-05-16T16:03:00.002-05:00

Protestants up around in here sometimes say "___ preached their own funeral," usually in connection with someone who had lived about as well--or even as heroically--as possible, leaving the living with a sense of loss, but with some degree of satisfaction and gratefulness. Something like a deeper version of "it was good while it lasted" or a comfortable/comforting "there isn't need to say anything else."

One is free to assume the whole thing takes on an entirely different meaning for, say, some monsterphrenic skank.

I've been to several (oddly-wonderful) Catholic funerals now, although most of the time, as member of the "default choir," I didn't know the person's name, twice even the sex, of the deceased. I've also been to some awkward ones as a result of awkward life situations--I have actually heard said "let's just dress him and drop him already." Eeeeeeew.

Cynthia Rogers' funeral today would not be one of those. I dare say it could have counted as a Sunday Mass. It was that good.

As you know (because I keep mentioning it), this calendar year has been a time for reflection and self-inventory for me, gearing up for the big 4-0. It's been the worst and best five months and I wouldn't take anything for it. --This is not a suicide note, I'm fine-- But today I had to ask myself...well, I was just thinking, that's all.

Your thoughts?

All saints, pray for us!

The third way

2011-05-15T14:53:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I wake up screaming because of how awesome I am at figuring things out, for example how to make a sufficiently-heavy Indian Club out of a Whifflebat without having to gouge a bigger hole out of the end of the grip. Other times, I've just realized (again) that my default what-if reverie where I had prostituted my way through a certain Southern Baptist institute of higher learning is a hideous joke compared to the reality of every last woman and child who have been sold into slavery. This week's, uh, focus of intent has been reading about sex-trafficking. I was impressed to read that Italy has legalized street prostitution--no, really! And a brililliant answer to juvenile idleness is to have them huddled in a shivering mass of brassieres and panties during the wintertime. We really should look more to Europe for all aspects of public policy and general chic-ness. Or shriekness.

!

I did the Food Not Bombs thing this afternoon after introducing myself all over again. I tried not to look as clueless this time--are you really proud of me? It was all for you!

Now down-here in Alabama, we've been enjoying four seasons a month. I promise I thought it was hot this morning, and so because I packed inappropriately for today's excursion, I'm standing in the middle of a truly-fascinating conversation with my teeth chattering. I let it pass for intelligent participation, and am rewarded with the conversants facing each other without actually needing to look at me. There was a young Black Tibetan Buddhist and a White anarchist of indeterminate age who creates montage-recordings of politically conservatives. And I realize that it all makes sense and is crucial to the existance and identity of this-here country.

I believe we live in a world of conflict-that-perpetuates-conflict because conflict is to be avoided at all costs. I know I'd be a much-better and more-comprehensible prose-writer if conflict wasn't a conceptual hole for me. How you are doing it wrong, though, is that to have "peace," all dissenters must be eliminated. "We all have to agree with me" stops being a fun absurdity when the policy is actually carried-out. So here I am on the sidewalk with two threats to America, feeling a tee-niny bit revolutionary myself, and I decide that, no, I will not need to be mindful of consistent verb-tense usage on this post, and it really does take all of us uppity people to keep the country from moving forward. Off the cliff.

I'm going to come out--I know, honestly I don't get how there's anything left either!--as a non-Capitalist and non-patriot. I used to wrestle with how to incorporate my somewhat-conservative beliefs with Conservatism, among other "great and completely-clear truths," and thanks be to the Internet, now I don't have to. There really has been a Plan C the whole time.

DISTRIBUTISM and CHRISTIAN ANARCHY. The terms have been up there on the blog description for a few days now already, so I suppose a dramatic gasp of revelation is too much to ask for. And the really-dumb thing is I had attributed this with YET ANOTHER FINE GEN-X PRODUCT OF TOMORROW'S INGENUITY TODAY (you know, before the Millenials lay claim to it), and the philosophy has only been around for, like, oh I don't know, a whole century-or-so. No big deal. The Internet also is happy to provide arguments against these new/old ideas, and all I can say is that Capitalists, Socialists, and Distributists; Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, all have to stand on the sidewalk in the strange cold and share all of the ideas if anyone is going to learn anything. The first person to be proved embarrasingly-incorrect does not ever provide for all the others to be comfortably correct. Reality is not that easy, and I'm a little confused about how we've managed to forget that.

Dialing-back the whining!

2011-05-14T10:28:00.003-05:00

I've realized that opportunity-based blogging has essentially subjected you to time-elapsed tweeting. You have an idea of what's going on in my head, but only at the moment I'm actually communicating, which comes after exasperation and desperation has driven me to a public terminal. This could be bad.

Apple has produced a word-processing program that easily imports to Windows applications, so I'm going to start blogging off-site then paste-posting. It may come in great-big chunks, but you'll have less bother trying to sort through and prioritize a paradoxical mess of whimsy and gloom--while discovering I'm really not a broken record after all! I'm so free-kicking happy for you!

Today was supposed to be the true beginning of the Junkyard Playhouse posts, but I discovered two pages later I was only half-way through the backstory, neatly obviating the whole point of being a good host. I'm going to chop it up a little finer and serve it later; until then, make yourselves at home!

A get-poor-quick scheme if I ever done heard of one

2011-05-07T10:52:00.003-05:00

So there's a such thing as tornado safaris. The world has gone mad.

My response is the only logical and possible one: work the hustle by inviting you to come with me on an exciting journey to

--The World of I-65 Roadkill--

"Hey, y'all a bunch of English people? Oh, well it'll get hotter than this, yes ma'am!

"We got us here a crunched-up armadillo, but if you didn't get a good look, there'll be more. Now remember, sometimes the critters'll be kind-of intact and on their back, so if they get baked just right, you can set you a beer bottle between their paws, or feet--whatever they are. Hey, look somebody done got one set up over here--I'm going to take the next overpass and drive back around so y'all can all get your picture taken with it. Be careful when you line up, 'cause people round here drive real fast. I hear up in, uh, some northern state, they ain't even got a speed limit, but I ain't been up there. They don't know what sweet tea is.

"You neither? Well, back on the bus, y'all, and let's get some!"

When the sky is darkest, the stars are brightest

2011-04-29T12:51:00.002-05:00

"Screw this--I wanna live."

It was looking bad for our heros and sheros. The advancing horde of deranged genetically-altered freaks were about to burst through the last door our team would ever see. Losing allies already, grief had turned into a hole-y rage of determination--for some. Others didn't know as much how they'd spend the last moments of their lives after all. Backs against the wall.

"Screw this--I wanna live."

It turns out the reason to live had been there the entire time, but it took a nothing-left-to-lose moment for it to be revealed. Out comes the pocket laser-cannon and the knowledge how to use it. "Look dude, you're a man: men fuck shit up--do your job and kill these morons!"

"Screw this--I wanna live."

Today, I have more information to see that even with no power and still shivering from the last cold bath, hardship doesn't kill. I think there's now over 200 Alabamians (under vastly-different circumstances) who'd agree that it's the actual F5 tornado, not the threat or the promise of one. We've already lost our high school to the next town, the oldest bank has failed, and now we can add that a ridiculously-large chunk of the citizenry are depending on a global corporation to provide the morning coffee and sausage biscuit. Losing the school won't matter so much today because it wouldn't have even opened, but the kids think this-here's a waste of opportunity: "Mommy, my game console won't wake up!" What are we going to do?

"Screw this--I wanna live."

I have no idea how to grill. How and when to use a double-treble crochet--certainly; practical use of fire--what, is that possible? (What a country!) Over 200 Alabamians could protest that it really just isn't important that Citizen-X, who had stockpiled family-packs of pork chops, is facing throwing it all away. If I had known how to grill, I may have thought to drag it all out, cook it, and just give it away--to rescue-workers, the guys who dealt with the trees, even the people who were stuck in their house with nothing to do but gaze into the Void. It's all gone regardless. "Irregardless," as some of us say down here....

"Screw this--I wanna live."

I learned how to light my sister's gas stove with a candle. I didn't even squeal in surprise when the blue bloom opened. We scraped up the least-sad leftovers and I boldly put all I was going to eat in the same saucepan. "That's some odd soup." Powerful-odd, but hardship doesn't kill.

"Screw this--I wanna live."

Mama's fought tears off-and-on because--well, she doesn't know why. She's not scared of the dark, but that it is dark. She grew up using a community wash-hole and a wood-stove, but she's crazy-mad in love with this thing called electricity--who just up-and-left without saying good-bye or nothin'. What are we going to do? I'm puttering about with some candles after a few hours of completely emptying my dresser and chest-of-drawers, taking out what I know (and have always known) I have no need or even hope of wearing, putting it all in a nice box for donation, and the rest back in only one piece of furniture. I think about what we could do. What would Jesus do? What would Jane Austen do?

"Screw this--I wanna live."

I do what Martha Stewart would do. I have a group of jam jars with stubbies in them, and all the jars are about to be too tall to accomodate a flame. I also have an irrelevant collection of river stones. I blow out a candle--this frightens Ma--but quickly light a taller stub for the moment, take the extinguishied one out and partially fill its jar with stones. Stub goes back in, more stones, the candle is higher. Now the whole thing can be used. Am I the smartest bunny ev-AR? I'm halfway done when I decide that deliberate combinations of color could be more-encouraging: I start over. I'm admiring my own freak-fabulous. BECAUSE I AM, DANG-IT.

"Screw this--I wanna live."

I have family members and food-storage units in serious trouble. Our community's resources are nationalized, we can't take care of our own business, we've lost the ability to roll with it, and the kids are losing their minds out of boredom. The Nobel Prize-Laureate and Teleprompter Messiah is at a scene of utter destruction and belabors the most-bleeding obvious by announcing "There's been a tragedy, but I photocopied some money. I'll be a-okay, and don't forget to vote!" (Not that I'd really know or would want to find out how it really happened.) I light five or six quite-handsome candles for my mother's comfort, a memorial and tribute for those who'll not know when the power will finally come back on. And I greet the darkness. It's always been here, you know. There are no street-lights when I take out the garbage, but the stars done-got HUGE. I look up. At other times, I wouldn't have even got out of bed. I look up. I look up and think a genuinely undiluted positive and non-ironic think for probably the first time in four decades.

"Screw this--I wanna live!"

Standards of Excellence in Irrelevance

2011-04-26T13:48:00.007-05:00

Doo-Dad had read my blog for about two-three hours one morning, and asked me Easter what the blister-ball closure to the "I only allow the schedule..." post was all about. Wow, where to begin?

!

I'm beginning to be able to say aloud I'm surrounded by institutionalized failure--and then begin to be/do something else. I may not make sense to you, but you don't make sense to me either, so does it really matter? Won't the result be the same?

Am I depressed? I really don't know, although that in and of itself could make me sad. I've spent most of my life reacting to other people's do-whatever-I-wants without taking time to do my own thing. The entire--the entire--How I Spent the Nineties was the direct result of fleeing from from the very thing I had a chance to defeat. Weird.

I've been thinking this morning about how my mother used to worry about my choices of clothing because "people say things to me about how strange you are." (The same people who are practicioners of a religion--Christianity? Shirley, you're joking!--which doesn't allow bell-bottoms or Mexican wedding shirts, but provides for a deacon greeting a visiting youth group from South Carolina with an incredulous "what's that nigger doing here?") I thought I didn't stand a chance at a normal life anyway, so why not run off to the sexual circus? How am I disappointing you by doing the very thing you expected me to do? LOOK, IDIOT, YOU JUST WON AGAIN.

!

I thought I had an excellent chance at a job opportunity which turns out I wasn't even considered worthy of an interview for. Is this a disaster? Am I afraid? Is there hope I will survive?

Is there hope for the possibility that me not getting exactly what I want is really the best-est, most-awesomulous example of avoiding utter mayhem? Can it be okay that everything will be okay? As far as my experience, failure may be institutionalized; I've been hospitalized, but I've never been truly institutionalized--that should mean something. Resisting four decades of fantasy-world irrelevance for a chance at upgrading to real-live mediocrity is looking wise right now. Super-duper!

I'm in another city right now between home and work. Warrior is in the dark, so I had to come to the next library to wait for word if Birmingham is about to call it a day. I could be home. Last I saw, everyone was staring through semi-darkness at the wall on the other side of the room waiting for things (and me specifically) to settle back down into manageable level of ineffectiveness. Hey, I've found myself doing the same thing even when the city's at full power, Opportunity has risen and shines on everyone, and the sky is a shade of blue known as Possibility. I could, like the normal people I belong to, be staring at a wall which no-longer even exists, not brave enough to get up and go see. Fear of finding nothing? Still? After four decades? How boring.

That be so tired.

Ignore the US$160 swan-egg post: I should have said it this way

2011-04-26T13:46:00.005-05:00

From: "j@comcast.net" To: "shaner, david" Sent: Thu, April 21, 2011 9:03:57 PMSubject: Hey. I hope you are doing well.

Really? I have no idea what that even means, or if any response would be relevant. At any rate, my response: the weekend was an utter waste, and it's sad and disturbing that it was "a good experience" for all of you regardless; imagine what could have happened to all of our lives had it been done properly?

Two days notice of a topic effectively eliminating some participants of an already very-small retreat is a demonstration of incompetence and disregard. And I was not impressed when you took the opportunity to remind me I knew what the retreat would be about. Are you serious: if I had done the sensible thing and withdrew my involvement, what would keep any of the other complete strangers from doing the same thing--thereby making the presence of, say, any number less than ten retreatants an inconvenience (I understand the schedule was altered especially for us in the sense that the sisters could have had a "normal" retreat.) My perception of the statement that the retreat was only open to members of Courage Atlanta is that no-one was willing to back it up with action, therefore obviating the purpose of making the statement.

It doesn't really matter that I most likely will never see any of them again--the structure of the retreat required a higher level of familiarity that just was not possible, and it was foolish and dangerous to go gaily-forward. Did you know all of them? Even by just a first name? I resent the expenditure of money and time to have the golden opportunity to be read to (badly) from a complex text without analysis or discussion, and then stare at my navel while praying the Void doesn't swallow me while in the same room of several other men I didn't know doing THE EXACT SAME INEFFECTIVENESS--do you not normally get to putz-about for FREE? I envy your life, but why are you in recovery for it?

I went to the Spring Parish Workday (which was the original plan) and got a significantly deeper sense of community and accomplishment from being trusted to play with a floor-buffer (even if it plainly were just a sight to amuse the other Knights of Columbus) and learning how to Navy-swab the kitchen. And had I chosen to have a "bad" emotional reaction to that process, I was with the "responsible" party and would have been dealt with promptly. I don't know the priest's name who did the retreat, and I wouldn't have been able to seek his guidance through processing what he had helped expose. The convenient thing is, I already knew I wouldn't have wanted to.

I am furious. I'm also furious that I believe my anger is irrelevant and will be dismissed as coming from an attention-whore with his mouth stuffed with sour grapes. "And you should never speak with your mouth full!"

I'm sorry you didn't sleep at all Friday because you were waiting for me to come over, apparently with the intention of getting into bed with you. I see that was an occasion of sin, and the fact that I intended the exact opposite effect, the entire time, with other men as witness, and with you needing to "confess" with a whisper makes me feel remorse. While at the same time wonder and marvel at the irony of you just not getting it. This is exactly the behavior that creates problems, not solve (or, happily, even prevent) them.

Work to put yourself out a job. Doing so, maybe eventually there won't be a need for Courage anymore at all.

ZOMG~ lk, r u c-rus?

2011-04-22T14:54:00.005-05:00

I was wandering around Amazon and found a review that terrified and appalled me.

Pure Disco is a series of (surprise!) canonical disco. I can imagine that the reviewer that insisted it never be purchased by anyone/ever was some stringy-headed 'tweener who thinks all the sex and the cool stuff was cooked up by her generation. Sorry, but not really: it was Generation X that invented everything. EVERYTHING.

Everything! Even this-here Web. Oh, yeah, and of course disco: we did that too.

So (why not?) she must have had an out-of-body experience while typing--dreadful thing to happen, and I would know--because she stated for anyone to read that the A*Teens' version to be much better. At this time, please refer to title of this post.

Okay, you done? I blame you for this mess. Have a day.

US$160 I'll never see again, but at least I know what a swan egg tastes like

2011-04-13T11:37:00.004-05:00

I had the opportunity to go on retreat with some out-of-state Catholic sex-deviants at a local convent/retreat house. I looked forward to the weekend, or rather, what I thought it should have been. And now I'm back home, early, and short US$160 I had budgeted for an autoharp. Maybe next year....

"Hello, my name is David S., and I'm a sex-deviant."

"Hello, David S."

"I came to The Life as a reaction to feelings of inadequacy, isolation, and confusion as to how I could possibly combine my individual self into the larger concept of Man--and it make sense. I chose to approach relating to other people mainly as a consumer: 'if I can communicate with you sexually, that's better than not being able to communicate at all.' I was born into and live in a larger culture where it's typical to compartmentalize cause from effect and fact from feeling, and was brought there by someone who just was not interested in my existence--unless it improved or enabled his ability to do what he wanted to do freely. I really was an inconvenient mistake, but never had the opportunity to be anything else. I still can't conceive being someone whom I never knew existed.

"I came to this meeting with the idea that I'd be 'with my homos,' but see now more than ever that, say, ten gay guys are going to have a dozen individual reasons for being so. I am a touchy-feely sort of creature (possibly because I'm not always sure anything is truly real and I need to do the occasional reality check), and apparently this is such a violation of human nature that in order for me to make the check I frequently have to violate human nature. Does that make sense to you? EXACTLY.

"So now that we can agree on that, I'd just like to explain that when I touched your hand, it was because I now realize that's enough. I am ashamed to live in a world where prostitution is illegal and at the same time compulsory; I'm not interested in being in your, I just want to be near you. I'm not interested in being in you, I just want to be near you.

"I understand I make you uncomfortable. I understand I'm crossing your boundary. I understand that you just do not get it, and would prefer to refer to the script, even though you can't comprehend it could be improved with some judicious changes. I understand I must wait for you to figure it out, but don't know if I'm patient enough. I think it's profoundly bothersome that you're more comfortable purring in a close whisper you waited all night for me to come to your room--what prevented you from coming to mine, or better yet, throwing an arm around my shoulders in a gesture of genuine fellowship--right here in front of everyone?

"So I'm going back home, and right now. We all came in on different airplanes, but now we're in the same boat; I want off this cruise. Stay if you want to and enjoy the buffet, but I want to see what's on dry land."

"Thank you, David S.!"

This week's fortune-cookie psychology

2011-04-12T13:39:00.002-05:00

"If you defend your right to be offensive, I am free to defend my right to be offended by the same behavior."

Back to everyone else's reality...

2011-03-21T13:46:00.007-05:00

Still reading, I've drifted into traditional means of food preparation (I'm one of those who read cookbooks as narratives, not how-tos), and found Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, which led me to Sandor Katz' The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved. This book introduced me to Food Not Bombs, an organization which even Alabamians may enjoy as a day of pleasant company. What a country.

Based on Katz' description of the group, which didn't seem to have pathologically-polite Southerners as a binding element, I had no idea what to expect when I showed up at one of the demonstations/public gestures. Communists? Pot-heads? Wiccans? Radical faeries? Shivers. The obvious thing to do was to put on my Isaiah 40:13 t-shirt, pull my Holy Face medal to the outside, and dig around for a FOOD NOT BOMBS pin I had randomly acquired during college, now a miraculous artifact. That way, I'd be shielded from spellcraft and toting street-cred of my very own.

How sad is that?

It's just not that difficult, kids: people are wasting good food and other people could be using it. Food Not Bombs in "more progressive" cities provide food for participants in anti-war/anti-globalization protests after collecting edibles that aren't considered good enough for sale. You know, if you can't make a buck off of it, who needs it? Conveniently, while we in the Bible Belt are discovering the joys of shoes and running water (thanks be to the tragically-hip, the bringers of all good things), The Big Salty 'Ham does have a quantity of homeless people and places where they come to congregate.

And they are fed by random acts of Christian charity, usually by people who are really-rilly-not Christian. Here's the situation: admittedly, where I live homelessness is an abstract issue (my city has only recently discovered the shoe-and-water thing, and we are just tickled and pleased as punch--thanks be to Hollywood for showing us the way forward), so seriously, pardon rural/semi-rural Alabama for not taking to the streets of TBSH; I'm still not getting why we leave the heavy-lifting of Christian charity to the Communists, pot-heads, Wiccans, and radical faeries.

Protties have a saying that goes "we send missionaries over mission fields to go to the mission fields." This is an issue that's more complicated than I want to deal with right now, so please discuss amongst yourselves. I hear there's this thing called television, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Stay of execution

2011-03-17T11:03:00.003-05:00

The Manslaughter Project has been canceled due to lack of interest. Does the world really need more Teen Angst, and would I?

I TOTALLY MADE THIS ONE UP: *Better to live and be known than exist and be famous.*

VERILY, I MADE THIS ONE UP: *Less fellatio, more fellowship.* A few weekends ago, God told me--and I know it was God because afterwards I sulked a little from the direct challenge--that I would greatly prefer to live by "more fellatio, less fellowship" because I'm under the insane notion that's a more-effective way to get by in life. Give up on trying to take your place at the table as an equal: you know you're never going to be accepted, so just keep playing the Role instead of the You--you know they'll accept that, and we can all get back to watching the television in peace and quiet.

Well, now that the dust is beginning to settle, where would like to sit?

2011-03-12T12:43:00.002-06:00

This has been such a great week for self-reflection and the development of personal relationships. Eek.

As I subject you to this fabulously-abominalizationitizing train-wreck, please pray that I place my own messiness, inconsistency, general ambivalence--and let's face it, that strange ADHD-variant that leaves me grabby for your attention--where it belongs: at the foot of the Cross, but well out of the way to allow more people to come closer to the Risen One. We are all sinners, yes; that I'm a specialist with clear patterns of self-sabotaging behavior, fairly obvious; that y'all have your own need to be understood and loved in spite of yourself which may be separate from mine, I'll think about it.

Philosphical puzzle of the minute: is it really that important (in order to prevent people from repeated falls in a moral hole), to ask "What do you think you're doing?" Why not "Where did you think you were going?" Even better: "How did you convince yourself, 'this time, it'll be different'?"

I only allow for the schedule to include my saying this one more time

2011-03-07T10:47:00.003-06:00

I have grown WEARY from hearing my continued and unmet physical cravings equated with sexual intercourse, presented logically and with distaste. Thank you for reinforcing the behavior you can't deal with. Thank you, Real Man, for closing yourself off; this makes it easier for me to pass you and fall into the arms of Satan. It makes for a warm, snug bed.

My father never laid a hand on me. Think about that one real-hard. I have never seen him even partially-undressed and I have never watched him shave. Seriously, how am I to know that this I am is of Man? DO YOU, OR CAN YOU, UNDERSTAND: I come from a Woman's house, know the ways of Woman you wouldn't dare think of--and couldn't. I have been accidently exposed to mysteries which I may never be able to approach properly as Mystery again, and this leaves me in dread that I have been marked in your eyes.

How. Am. I. To. Know. That. What. I. Am. Is. Of. Man.

Thank you for assuming you know what I need. I bow to your superior wisdom and acknowledge I am unlike you, and never will be. And so, yes, fuck every single damned one of you! FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKED-UP FUCKING FUCK.

Y'all have a great, result-oriented day. Love-you-mean-it-bye-bye!

A place at the table

2011-03-05T10:23:00.003-06:00

[This copied from an e-mail I sent out to my Men's Group just now. I had stayed home for several months, and this week considering doing it again a little more permanent-lier. Something to think about?]

The most-binding condition I put on myself for returning to Group was that
I would not say anything. Anything. Notice that isn't actually what
happened. Where I am in "finding myself" is that I, who never had the
opportunity to be the son-of-a-man, never got to be the boy-among-men
either.

Frankly, I've never come to group as your brother. I was scheduled to
speak at last year's "Lenten Kick-Off" Ultreya, and I would have said in
front of everyone that y'all are NOT my group-brothers; all together you
are my group-father. My Cursillo was a dreadful horror until Saturday
afternoon when I finally realized that being trapped in a roomful of
(assumably) straight men was the point: if I really needed to blunder my
way through adulthood with a knitting-needle aimed at my eye, fine, but
there's always the possibility that immersion/adaptation behavior would be
as/more effective.

Hence, from now on, let's sit at the table, y'all meet as kings as you
should, and I will listen. I will learn the history and the tales of our
people, the skills of the hunt, and the steps of the Ghost Dance that will
lead us to final victory. *As far as the drums, body-paint, and
hallucinogens go--I don't require those, so don't feel obligated to knock
yourselves out.*

"Lenten Kick-Off Ultreya." Brr.

I have bad news, and still more bad news

2011-03-04T10:08:00.004-06:00

I've spent the better part of an hour attempting to paste a .pages document onto a Windows-format thingorumother (I'm a deliberate stranger to computers, you know), and instead of doing the sensible thing--going back home, reformatting the document for export from Mac to Windows, bringing it back and being done properly, I've turned my bad of tricks inside out trying to avoid all that. Never mind I'd be done by now otherwise. I'd be done.

Maybe later.

Maybe now, there's another yummy Teen Angst-y bit coming after I vanquish this computer. Yes, Possums, I know that's a shooting-thrill for all of you. I'll be glad when it's over--and so will you!

Freak-genius fathering!

2011-03-01T09:44:00.004-06:00

After church this weekend, we were all milling about in the Parish Hall stalking the wild donut. Because of my new grazing habits, I busied myself wishing one of the little ones a rock-solid 8th birthday. They grow up so fast, you know, I said to his father, soon he'll be asking for a car.

"Yeah, in two years."

"Meaning he'll have to wait until he's eighteen for his first car?" This wasn't unreasonable.

Or maybe it was: "No, when he's ten, we're going to get him a piece-o'-junk car, and he'll have the next six years or so to fix it up just like he wants it. It's what my daddy did with me." I briefly reconsidered the whole Doo-Dad thing--but only briefly.

Bookshelf 2011

2011-02-21T13:46:00.003-06:00

It's been interesting reading these this year; y'all are commanded to agree. Come back, and I'll tell you what to read next.

The Miracles of Exodus: a scientist's discovery of the extraordinary natural causes of the Biblical stories--CJ Humphries

The Vegetarian Myth: food, justice, and sustainability--Lierre Keith

The Genius in All of Us: why everything you've been told about genetics, talent, and intelligence is wrong--David Shenk

The Masculine Journey: understanding the six stages of manhood--Robert Hicks & John Trent

You can pick your dad-substitute, you can pick your nose...

2011-02-18T11:17:00.003-06:00

..But proceed carefully: your dad-substitue may actively dare you to pick his nose just to watch your reaction. And do it in front of other people, too.

I have come to the wonderfully-ironic understanding that generally everything that makes me uncomfortable around men is concentrated in a portable economy pack, conveniently parked beside me in the choir at church. He doesn't know this yet, but in my head I call him "Doo-Dad," and yes, I used to hate him profoundly. But let's face it, prim and proper got me nowhere--I need to be roughed up and offended on a regular basis, dust myself off, and be okay dangit.

I've realized that there's a certain safety level I think I require in a relationship with a man (of any sort/level), and when I'm surprised and disappointed and actually say "I'm having a hard time grasping the reality that you did that", it's rooted in my need to control and use others for my own purpose--without acknowledging that people are messy and inconsistent. Just like me.

That Horrid Thing-Creature Which Has Itself Become the Anitidote to the Malady is, seriously, a regular guy who already has children and so realizes that "no" can and will be a beautiful thing to hear. Joyce, if you're reading this, I thought I'd best leave your husband be. I was afraid with his background and no kids of his own, he'd get sucked into some crumby enmeshment because I had taken him hostage emotionally: he'd end up hurt real-bad because he was afraid I'd be hurt sort-of.

Doo-Dad? His response would be (only if the situation required it, of course) "You're getting better at this--that was almost not a complete waste of my time. Roll down the window if you don't like me smoking--and hey, didn't I tell you to get a real job? By me a damn patch and then we'll talk. Pfeh." He'd next start talking about calving disasters, that would somehow make me think to tell him a joke, then ask him to retell most of it to the Barbershop chorus later ("look, surely I can do the punch line all by myself, I just need you to set it up--you know I don't think in a straight line)", I'd snuggle close without at the same time dying of smoke inhalation, and just be.

I hear you go with what works.

I promise this was much funnier in my head

2011-02-08T10:03:00.003-06:00

This has been an adventurous week, and now I have the concept for that reality show that will make me a household name (for approximately -4 seconds):

TODAY I AM A MAN.

*Buckle your seat belt, it's time for take-off--Watch in utter disbelief while David practically begs a Blount County cattle farmer to take him to the Cullman Stockyards!

*Don't be too "matchy-matchy"--Laugh along while David tries to put together a suitable outfit while explaining the different types of drag! Watch out, David, in your haste to avoid your favorite strappy Come-and-Get-Its, you just put on Crocs!

*Cheer David on as he tries to "butch" his way through the Gauntlet of Dude--will it be Brokeback Mountain or Brokeface WTF-You-Think-You-Doing-Here?

*Learn new words--when the assistant grabs the baby goat by one of the handles, he's actually using a "horn"!

*David can learn how to buy a cow by rapidly calculating in his head a great wad o' stats he barely comprehends--can you? Fun AND educational!

*"Think safety" as he learns the subtle difference between being gored by a Brahman bull or a Black Angus--can you remember three simple rules? Sure you can!

WAIT, KIDS, THERE'S MORE!

*Thrill (have I used that word already?) at his daring escape, only to find himself in the Farm of Abandoned Vehicles! It's true, you really can't have too much useless junk lying around when it's your land anyway!

*Experience the joy of triumph as he correctly identifies a tool called a"level" without first needing a description, skipping gaily forward in its pursuit!

*Cheer after he's denied the adventure of digging a hole for a fence post--but insists on carrying the concrete! Attaboy, David, good job!

NEXT EPISODE: The Stupor Bowl

The weirdest!

2011-01-20T15:10:00.003-06:00

I finished reading The Vegetarian Myth a week or so ago, and, uh. It's by an animist radical lesbian feminist (eek) I can't retrieve the name of right now, but I'm already thinking this is one of the most pivotal books I've ever read. I don't agree with her stance or frame of reference on the argument, but the argument itself--I'm grateful for having the experience of reading it.

So basically I've gone off as much grain and potatoes as possible, and while I still can't even pretend I'm a meatatarian, you would not believe, Possums, the difference. You wouldn't. So I won't bother you with that (I'm too good to you, I know).

I still have spotty Internet access, but I'm effervescent and minty fresh. Thanks for asking!

Where he lands, nobody knows!

2011-01-14T15:07:00.002-06:00

I apologize for the long absence. Please remain calm. Most of you may know that my Internet access is unreliable, making proper blogging approximately impossible; the past month-and-a-half has been so tulmultuous that now I'm finally in front of a computer (for mere minutes), and I can't even begin to give you a two-sentence synopsis.

You should already know I don't do those anyway.

Half a year ago, I fired the community out-patient mental health clinic after 14 years, 6 therapists, 3 hospitalizations, 3 psychiatrists, and a partridge in a pear tree. Catholic Family Services was kind enough to at least TRY to work with me since about August (think "knife to a gun fight"), and rather a lot of internal changes have been happening. For those of you who are inclined to prayer, I ask to be remembered. But again, please remain calm. I hope you're well, and I'll be back as soon as I can.

May God continue to bless the work of our hands!

I'm really struggling, and how are you?

2010-12-02T12:34:00.003-06:00

This is the first week of Advent. In my area, Christmas music has already been on air for a month already--before (if you can stand thinking about it) Hallowe'en, and I think the sight of decorations and holiday mercandise in the shops are almost to be expected. I once worked for a company that began receiving Christmas stock in APRIL. But it is not the Christmas season. We are given this time of Advent to wait with hope that we will be able to receive whatever is given to us with hope and joy. If we are to believe that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ and Messiah of the whole world for all time, is the real reason for the season, we have to accept that God wanted to invade human reality literally then in the Christmas miracle--and still expects to do the same thing will all of us, his children. If we accept that God is real, is a constancy, and active in his creation (and in creating), we have to accept that God will never be finished with us until he is finished with absolutely everything.

With that said, I'm in a bit of trouble at this time.

Currently, I'm struggling with the decision to tackle another degree online, with the very-real probability that I will have to start all over again. I can't afford it. I'm struggling with the old problem of "what am I doing here, and what's my motivation again?" because of the state of the economy combined with a long series of poor choices that have put me in a corner I don't see a way out of. It's almost as if I have nowhere else to go, but regardless, I can't stay where I am. I've started a new story that begins with "What is objective reality, is there a such thing--and how are we even going to describe it so we can understand what we discover?" and ends with "Does gender exist independent of sex?" I think I've already taken off in an ineffective direction, and while the story is amazingly entertaining, I have to keep in mind what my objective was in the beginning and whom this story is really for. What else? I've had two major relationships implode this Autumn, started one that fizzled due to bad stewardship, realized again that I have a tiny little life--I (you know me) could go on forever.

My challenge to myself for this Advent season, as of one hour ago, is to understand and accept that God continues to invade human reality, and if his presence/interference makes a mess, is inconvenient, and is in direct opposition to human will--too bad. My life in particular is making me uncomfortable right now, but I have to understand that discomfort, while an indication that something is wrong, usually doesn't allow for running and hiding.

You're going to love this: It was necessary one day to point out to someone (else) that when you meet with consistent behavior from other people who are otherwise not connected to each other, resulting in the consistent failure of forming and maintaining relationships--let's face it: the common denominator is not all the other people. We as individuals have to be brave enough to say, "It's not you, it's me."

I have to be responsible and accountable enough to see where I am in error, accept the consequences of failure, and seek wisdom and the grace to understand what I can do to make my life more consistent with what God needs me to do.

That, and about $1,000,000,000 every two weeks should do it. Happy Advent 2010.

Chewing someone out while they're trying to chew? Preposterous!

2010-11-01T14:36:00.003-05:00

If you think about it, it's not necessary for a medical doctor to have had cancer in order to effectively treat it; therefore, I'm about to tell you how to deal with your children:

When your young son or daughter is medicated for ADHD and as a side-effect has lost interest in eating, nothing stirs the appetite quite like berating the child for not eating a complete slice of cold pizza that was topped with processed meat and no vegetables, then send the child to bed while promising the pizza will show up again for breakfast. Yummy for the tummy! Not. Similarly, why should the child eat on cue when you've been giving it snack cakes all day to shut it up?

Yes, Possums, this is tragically a real-life situation that played out when I was a guest in some man-clown's house, and I could only snurl my lip at the father behind his back while it was happening. I have now brought it to your attention. Learn, and become wise!

HOW I WOULD HAVE HANDLED IT (this is the good part):
"Baby, I know you don't really want to eat now, but you've been losing weight and the doctor is concerned. I'm concerned too. I want you to be stronger than I was when I was your age, and not only does that involve eating properly, but also eating enough. Right now, we're going to forget about the pizza, and eat this jar of baby food--not at all because you're a baby (I know I just called you that), but because you can eat one of these without having to think too much about chewing or your mouth drying up or anything. You just eat it, you're done. I think you're a big kid now, and starting tomorrow I'm going to teach you how to make some simple things for yourself when you want it. Cooking can bring more joy to this than taking away your toys. No more yelling and angry-talk, and I promise that when you start looking at me in that way you just did, I will promptly stop what I'm doing, and I will quit killing your soul."

Do I think I can do that? Yes. Do I think I can do this now? Yes. Would I rather temper justice with mercy while it's still possible, and while it's still only my business, or would I rather the State intervene when the baby starts a criminal record? Uh, yes. Word.

CNU, junior year

2010-10-20T13:50:00.005-05:00

I may have completed my collection of Make It Yourself and Stitch by Stitch, just in time to have no money left to buy anything else. Wasn't that so your college experience? Not that they were that expensive, but this week's mania involves trying school again and a New Future Ex-Wife, and my stream of income, frankly, has no need for ADHD.

I'm going to try the Interpreter Training Program (ASL) at Troy University online, Possums. I will be attempting to earn a second Bachelors, and these are the reasons not to panic:

cheaper than grad school
suddenly decided that the reason why I haven't done grad school yet is not because I can't, but that I don't really want to
in Alabama
(maybe) able to pay for it with money I'm currently making
still falls in prior skill-set
previous experience with the language
I've hit a wall in my current vocational choice
any other good reasons you can think up (think happy, dangit)

I'm going to be Hit Girl when I grow up

2010-09-25T12:31:00.002-05:00

So of course that will never actually happen. And yes, this week's mania features a homicidal tweener.

I've been reading Amazon reviews, the real critical press, to determine if watching Kick-Ass thrice and reading the comic book once was really a bad idea (it was). Most people who have a problem with the movie are quick to holler that the movie isn't satire (or even good or good for you), but I think it is. It's a satire about us, the viewing audience. It's easy for me generally to avoid entertainment violence as I'm the last person to ever know about, much less watch, anything; I realize a sizable portion of movie-goers subsist on it. The...novelty...of the movie isn't the violence, the language, the drug use, or the breasteses, but that it took an eleven-year-old armed to the retainer to get the audience to notice any of the previous. Had Hit Girl been 21 instead of 11--I really believe that every other offensive thing about Kick-Ass, needing to be organized chonologically or alphabetically due to sheer volume, would have completely flown under the radar of the average American.

I remember when certain Mall*Wart customers got plumb-distorted when Brokeback Mountain came out on video, offering to boycott the store, but am I the only one who caught the irony of the store having...what was that movie? The Devil's Rejects? Random example, and maybe inexact, but am I the only one? Certainly, BM is anti-family and anti-marriage (I haven't seen it, but I know everything there is to know about it)--I get that. I don't get how or why Mall*Wart shoppers, or anyone, or even I, pick and choose what to get all-boycotty about.

MEANWHILE, I think that had Hit Girl been an adult, no-one would have commented on the morality of the movie, but the age of the actress isn't even the point. I can only speak for myself, but will speak for the entire country--oh, why not: everyone in the known universe--when I say that we consume entirely too much unhealthy content and then wonder why we don't feel well. I hope that Miss Moretz has as much success as she wants in her career, whatever it is. I think she's a good actor, considering what she had to work with, so it's likely she'll be around for a long time. But what, besides the sequel, could she do for an encore? What's left?

CNU, sophomore year

2010-09-11T16:11:00.004-05:00

I've nearly been crushed under the fantasticality of the old craft books I've found--and it's really only the third day, so I have nowhere to go but dead. Those of you who have both or either series may be thinking that the fashions are dated, and therefore the books are useless; I'm sorry that I can rock more styles of clothing than you can; besides, the techniques are the same: setting a pocket alongside a seamline is the same no matter what time it is.

[I thought I'd use three semicolons and a colon in the same sentence just to see what you would do.]

Two things to notice: the Seventies didn't put much emphasis on foundation garments, and everyone was weirdly skinny. "Manly" men's patterns were written for a 43-inch chest at the most, and without even trying (and with a 34 waist) I'm a 44. Was TaB Cola responsible? Has the use of hormones in today's meat industry really changed the shape of Americans? People of the blogosphere, we need answers!

!

Remind me to tell you which one's I still need, and remind me to get a functioning camera (don't ask) so I can post pictures. I heard you don't believe me when I say I make stuff...

Craft Ninja University

2010-09-10T11:29:00.002-05:00

I know better than to go near certain stores. Tuesday Morning, for example, ruins my life on a regular basis--where is the justice when you can't drive by a store without it actually reaching out and dragging you in by the wallet? I have ruined several perfectly-good US$50 bills--forever--evil store, evil!

And then, Possums, the bane of my existance, any thrift store. It was a mixed-emotion day when I realized there would be a real one opening near my home of Chicken Scratch, Alabama, but an entirely-happy day when they refused my application (they made me go in, and then made me fill one out). I mean, really, just because you can be totally awesomed by something that currently goes for 60 cents, doesn't mean you can or even should expose yourself to being awesomed every day: the math is just against you on that one.

So I was bodily forced into the local thrift store yesterday. I found most of an Eighties-era needlecraft library (probably one of those sets that came in installments from the mail--I can just imagine unpacking the last one and being totally destroyed because you know your steady supply of crafty-crack just got sent to prison) for 99 cents each and a sliver of another one from the Seventies. I was so excited, it took at least six forevers for me to finally fall asleep last night/this morning. Not one to be denied anything, I dropped by a used/rare book and ephemera shop and found about ten more of the Seventies set. I told the man, "This is exactly what I was looking for," and he looked at me as if to say, "Is that not the main reason why I'm/you're here?" He was dead-on correct: I was there because I got hooked, needed a fix, and knew where to go get it. Hey, at least it was late-morning and in a respectable neighborhood.

[I need you to know right now that the drug metaphor is just a metaphor. Sure, the effect it has on me is the same, literal or figurative, but I don't take more (or more-often pills) that aren't prescribed by a doctor.]

These two libraries (Make It Yourself and Stitch by Stitch) have all manner of needlecraft "courses" and projects, like a textbook and the lab manual in more-sensible and -portable packaging. I am your neighbor, and if you have any of them, I'm interested in buying them. Oh, bother, they're still in my car, and I didn't write down what I needed. Don't go anywhere: I'll be right back.

More clash of the Blogs!

2010-09-08T15:53:00.003-05:00

Marilyn Mach vos Savant, who has been gifted by God with enough intelligence and reason to prove God really doesn't exist, once offered the following scenario: persons A and B are discussing/arguing, and A is showing extreme tolerance to B by patiently listening while B is spouting pure unadulterated nonsense; what A usually never realizes is that B may (or certainly may not, but whatever) be displaying the same virtue at the same time. I face-planted into this concept a few weeks ago when I met a man on the blogosphere who wasn't listening to or having any of my very-sensible argument that the Roman Catholic Church (which he conveniently and irritatingly abbreviated to RCC several times) was and is the Church: the original and best. He seemed to believe that Protties either were right in the first place or were themselves in the first place.

Really?

Now, I'm not bitter, but this is non-thinking. His claim that studying the Church Fathers doesn't support this makes me think he believes that Chritianity--okay, I'm bitter. You try talking to him, then!

!

One of the more-obvious drawbacks of growing up without a father is that I have no idea about the proper use of aftershave. I tried to post earlier today that I had on impulse bought some aftershave for the first time last night, and put it on this morning while preparing for work. Considering that in my immediate area, people took to breathing through their mouths and looking at me as if I really were the special-est, I thought it prudent to wash it off. Too much of a good thing is too much, apparently. Thanks, Daddy, one more way you've ruined my life!

Clash of the Blogs

2010-09-08T11:41:00.002-05:00

I composed a rather-quite-good post, and I think Blogger tanked before I published it. Bother.

Some friendly (or not) advice

2010-07-31T12:35:00.005-05:00

The next time you decide to refer to someone as a 'nigger,' first try to imagine what this creation of the Most High God would like to call you. Think hard. Concentrate.

Grr! This week's mania is awesomeulous!

2010-07-29T12:03:00.003-05:00

I made the mistake of buying The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow and the New Moon Expansion this week. It's sad: I've now taken the veil and fully embraced the cult of this game. The original game (Mafia) comes from Soviet-era Russia, and should have been at least a vague warning. Oh, well.

Wikipedia describes, towards the end of the article, the Mafia game with a mathematical equation: how cool is that? It is, I said so! Tragic thing is, I don't have nearly-enough real/non-imaginary friends to play it. Bother.

For those about to die

2010-07-21T13:43:00.004-05:00

Don't do it.

I may have Asperger's. That would not explain everything, but it would explain quite a bit. It would explain enough. If you think life is too confusing, frustrating, unpleasant, unfair--you are spot-on correct. (I just got out of the confessional, so I'm not going to lie to you.) Life can be deadly. But I've learned most of my own frustrating unpleasantness stems from my own spooky graspy needy will to do stuff that hasn't been planned very well and/or has no known positive outcome; the solution to that is not to pull the plug on yourself--myself...whatever.

It's not that life is too short, it's that you're dead for so long.

Right now, stop what you're doing (you need to anyway) and even if you're not religious, just ask yourself: am I merely reacting to something outside of me that's happened, or is the quality--the very nature--of my life really that bad? There are at least 5 people all over the world that are being beaten to death by their governments right now; 500 people will be executed for crimes they didn't commit. Right now there are at least 5000 little girls forced into "love-making" with 50 men in a row. If you are one of these populations (or in a comparable situation), I'm praying for you right now. Everyone else: it's time to put your big-girl panties on and deal with it. Life isn't that bad. Life isn't that bad. Life is not that bad. It has a tendency, like Alabama weather, to do odd things and change rapidly; and there's no way, as long as you make informed and positive decisions, that life is going to be the same for ever and forever.

I am the very person who needs to tell you this.

After that whole nursing assistant misadventure, honestly, I wanted to open my arm with that knife I was so proud of finally being able to have--therefore proving I'm non-knife-wielding for a reason. But today, it's as if I never took the class: I'm still doing the job I've had for the past year, I haven't (to my knowledge) lost friends or support systems, the sun rose, and I still have the same amount of teeth. By next year, I will have forgotten the names of all my classmates and the instructor. By five years, I could very-well forget exactly how to get to the school. It's over, and it's over. It is over.

And I say to you, "This too will pass." I am holding you accountable for surviving, and if you don't, I'm going to make empty threats I won't follow through with.

!

I've run out of time on this terminal, so I'll go into detail about the Asperger bit later. You will be alive to read it.

I've been going on a little adventure...

2010-06-19T12:32:00.005-05:00

I don't know how many of you hang on to every bit of news about Alabama, but there has been a small amount of mayhem relating to the field I'm currently employed in--museums and libraries. I'd been planning on getting my Masters in Library Science for about two years, but for several reasons beyond merely wondering if I would still have a job in the future, decided against it, mourned the loss--and ended up going to a community college to get a Short Certificate in Nursing Assistance. I'm now in the clinical phase of school, having finished the classwork (I have a high 'A', which may be destroyed this next week). After that, it's off to the certification phase, the job-hunt, and a new era of full-time employment and insurance.

Yes, I presume a lot.

My whole career (that which it is) has been spent by one-on-one contact and selling a service, be it the literal selling of a book or fabric--

...

You know what, this has all been fascinating, but I'm here to tell you that that whole idea was a majorly-implosive flop. It's been who knows how long since I started this post (today is 03 July 10), but now that I actually have the opportunity to finish it, it's because I failed the course. Turns out I wasn't put on this planet to wipe feces out of a demented woman's vaginal canal. Something about her screaming and me not knowing whether I was killing her slowly--not to mention that my partner decided it was a great time to leave and go alphabetize the towels, as well as my instructor's attention was drawn towards another bit of mayhem happening in the same room. Eek.

So I'm again happy to be working for the public library system of this county. Have a day.

Those beautiful boys--those Christian boys

2010-05-08T13:23:00.006-05:00

So as some of you know, I drank the Kool-Ade (Kool-Aid?) and saddled-up on Facebook. I now have met and/or reconnected with seemingly everybody.

Except certain key ones. Bitter, much?

There have been several friends--and quite a few I never had any previous association with (save we did simultaneous time in the same high school and/or college) who have been glad to see me and glad that I haven't managed to off myself. We're glad to see how we've grown up, literally and figuratively--and now that overprocessed hair is so-two-decades-ago, we all look healthier. I'm healthier. I'm healthier. I'M HEALTHIER!

How remarkably unconvincing was that, Possums?

There are some of those BCBs I've known who ain't buying it, and they keep refusing my friend requests. How can I blame them? Being stalked, troubled at the jobsite, hated-on, and generally-mayhemulated isn't really condusive to lasting friendship. I've typed that out because it's a lesson I've only recently learned. There is one man who took the olive branch, but probably only because I hadn't tried to cudgel him with it first, back in the day. It's sad. And that there's a question whether or not I can accept that I'm not going to be accepted is sad too.

If you meet a certain church musician in Jacksonville, Florida, tell him I said hello.

On a happier note, that man I ran into at college sent me a letter through FB apologizing for not trying harder to be the friend I needed at the time. I wrote back saying that apologies weren't necessary because we (but certainly mostly me) were both young and emotionally-inexperienced. I don't think I'll be invited over for chips'n'dip, but who knows?

What would have helped obviate the Nineties would be if certain key people had established boundaries and challenged me to honor them, as opposed to showing my increasingly-hysterical letters to the other kids in the youth group without me knowing it until a decade later. Let's try this: when presented with some sort of, uh, thing, if you can stand the possibility at all...

A possible (but not necessarily verbatum) dialog:

I really-rilly need you to love me because I luves you.
Well, homosexuality isn't really my thing, but I can be your friend. I'll be happy to be your friend, but you must understand what that does and doesn't mean. I will help you, and we'll figure this out together.
You have amazing calves--may I touch them?
No.
Hmn.
If you admire my calves, it may be because I play driveway basketball at my friend's house. I have an idea--come with the next time I go, and I'll introduce you. [This establishes an increased and less-claustrophobic circle of friends.]
I don't like basketball.
Are you saying that because you really don't, or because you have Sport Anxiety? [I frequently refer to this as "Same-Sex-Attracted-Onset Sports Injury."]
I'm terrible at sports.
Really? And I'm not? You have to learn sometimes, and besides that, all the crocheting you do--while I appreciate the ___ you made, and you see I'm wearing it now--does nothing for your calves. We'll just go and play for a little while; I don't think playing basketball in a driveway needs to be life-threatening, and maybe if you try it with me, you won't think it is either.
I appreciate and respect you for wanting to be my friend.
Thank you!
Can we cuddle for a few minutes before it's time to leave?
Probably not. I'm not in the habit of cuddling with friends.
I don't think cuddling needs to be life-threatening, and maybe if you try it with me, you won't think it is either.
I myself think that we both know that's atypical behavior, even for best-brofriends.
I concede. Hey, I got a Leatherman Surge last week for half-off! Because the company reformatted the packaging! And the store wanted to get rid of the old ones! But who really thinks a knife (if properly cleaned and oiled) could get old! Let me show you what all it does! And maybe you can tell me if I'm correct!

Feel free to adapt according to your personal needs.

I've been thinking, which is generally dangerous, that the guy who passed my correspondence around had two choices: either be heroic and befriend the freak (therefore bringing me back to civilization), or be popular and do what all the other kids would do. In other words, ask himself "What would Jesus do?" as opposed to "What would these stringy-headed no-neck monsters do?" Oh, well, I think we know what happened: two decades and four-balillion grams of medication later, I'm trying to make nice and ask for forgiveness after realizing that I really had done some terrible things in the name of "But I luves you," and he--who has almost ten times the friends on Facebook already--denies my friend request. Maybe now isn't a good time...

A terribly-terrible thought

2010-04-25T16:00:00.003-05:00

Those still "in the life" who insist they knew they were gay from an early age (I being one of those people once) are making a mistake--unless I've misunderstood again, and we're due for another vocabulary lesson. When I was in Kindergarten, I really needed to be a Charlie's Angel when I grew up and I liked playing in my mother's jewelry box when she wasn't looking. Do those personality traits make and/or signify me as gay? Wanting to be powerful and glamorous (and let's not forget being capable of buying Bob Mackie fashion on a private investigator's salary)...I could be wrong and/or oversimplifying, and this is just an example, but I don't think there's a direct path from that to blowing two men away at the same time. To say "I've known I was gay since Kindergarten" is using NAMBLA logic. Eew.

Wait, I have a knife...

2010-04-24T10:08:00.004-05:00

How sad is this--yesterday was the first time in my whole life I've ever said that I had a knife. I've finally (I suppose) joined the rest of man-manity. Secretly, I hope I have. Before Knife--heretofore referred to as B.K.--I was always literally afraid I'd cut myself accidently on purpose. A.K., I'm thinking of what else I could possibly do next.

And I've just thought of something...

Back from the brink of craft-insanity

2010-04-13T14:42:00.002-05:00

So while had to take a break from the quilt (quilting isn't as fun on my treadle, and I don't feel like dragging out the electric again, so I work on it at the guild I'm a member of once a week). I decided the world needs an evening bag crocheted from a VHS cassette tape. Yes. As if it weren't bad enough, the original plan was to make a cowboy hat, but admittedly even I can be too glamorous.

Dude, I'm serious.

Cassette tape is comparable to metallic yarn, and I suppose you could use it interchangeably--and of course, anything made of shopping-bag yarn has that little extra something when made with it. The only downside so far is that the "yarn" has no give at all, so if you make a mistake, you may break the film getting it unlooped. I've thought of a second downside: it squeaks horribly when it runs over the fingers you use to keep the tension. Oh dear, a third: it can be any color you want, as long as it's black.

Back to happy thoughts, music cassettes can be used for finer work, and who doesn't have a surfeit of cassettes of both sizes? For the handbag, I sacrificed (and I burn with shame to admit this, which only makes it more thrilling) my copy of Sinbad and the Somethingorother starring Lou Ferrigno--yikes--that I got at the dollar store, like, a bilillion years ago. It was worth significantly less than every penny anyway. Next to go is going to be Madonna's Like a Prayer. After that, I'll kill something by the Backstreet Boys. No, wait second: I haven't anything by the BBs because even I have more discriminatory powers than that. I've never even had real/literal BBs. That may be my main problem, but don't e-mail me any: I think that's against the law...

I think I'm turning Japanese

2010-03-27T12:36:00.003-05:00

Or at least the quilt I'm making is: it's a Turning Twenty with Japanese prints. I will be 39 in May, and so to commemorate my crashlanding on this planet, I'll be making a TT while turning 40. I've already put the individual blocks together, and of course I don't have any pictures to prove it. My camera has been acting wonky lately, very sad.

I'm still not dead.

I'm not dead

2010-03-09T14:29:00.004-06:00

I promise. I've just been busy making and doing stuff. The whole forty fedora thing isn't working out very well, neither the Rosary a day, but I attend to those projects as best I can.

I've actually started a book.

Why, yes, another attempt at anticipating a hit television show disguised as an attempt to make money, disguised as an attempt to achieve some sort of Life Legacy. This time, however--and y'all will love this--I'm starting with the beginning, middling with the middle, and ending with the ending, instead of 700 pages of pure scream-of-consciousness gibberish (while I try and pursue any and all possible plotlines and assorted good ideas)--but as they come--instead of how they make sense. For example, The Serenity Prayer went in a radically-different direction because I felt obligated to put it on this blog but at the same time tell the story linearly while also removing all the (I'm sorry) pornographic bits. THIS WAS INITIALLY WRITTEN WHILE I WAS STILL IN THE CULT. Nothing like an intergalactic booty-call....

This terminal is acting wonky, so I'm going to post this before the computer turns itself inside-out again. I'm not dead.

I'm really not going to enjoy this, am I?

2010-02-13T12:27:00.003-06:00

I don't play D&D anymore.

I had been wrestling for a while (read: the entire time) as to whether it's appropriate for a mentally-ill Catholic Christian who likes to hide inside his own head to play the game, and recently, I've had to come down on the side of, "Uh, no." On the way to my last game, I asked God for a sign, preferably a big "D&D" in the sky with a contrail through it. I got the contrail part, as well as every point that opponents of the game make reiterated for me. I've made an effort to counter Jack Chick on some of his thoughts on this blog, but I have nothing to say contrarywise about this topic.

I've tried to make this post, and have struggled with it for the past hour. According to my unrealistic expectations of myself, this was supposed to be a brilliant The End of the D&D discussion, but I'm so sad, nothing coherent is coming out, so I delete and backspace and note that my sentence structure is entirely too repetitive. Maybe I'm in withdrawal. I probably am. I really liked playing the game, but while some of the arguments against it are really quite ludicrous (I mean, seriously, dude), that doesn't make them all stoopit. Pfah.

Josephine, pray for us!

2010-01-28T12:29:00.003-06:00

The first time I met her, she was already staring at me with a plastic rosary in her hand. I suppose things could have gone either way from that point, but instead of the usual mayhem, she gave me the rosary. She said I needed it. It was a mission rosary she made by hand out of blue beads with a few white and a white crucifix, the one I like (and has been discontinued by the company) that has a comparatively-burly Jesus on it. I had made my first appearance at a Mass at St. Henry's, on a Thursday noon, and afterwards, this very small woman gave me a rosary and apologized that the nylon cord was stained from use. She suggested I clean it by putting it in a weak bleach solution, but I never did.

She ended up giving me many things: a rock and a dried wildflower she picked up at Medjugorje, as well as some coins and her train pass; a gigantic ball of yarn; little religious books and pamphlets, including a Lives of the Saints that was in good condition, but dated way before Vatican II so I've wanted to be very careful with it; an image of the Holy Family; holy cards; a bottle of holy water, holding water from Lourdes and Fatima; and a ceramic figurine of a First Nations woman with her arms broken off. Not too sure the point of that last item.

I sometimes would take her to lunch and home after Sunday Mass, and I wouldn't get home until four or five in the afternoon because we would sit in her apartment and she would tell me about last century's apparitions and various prophecies and memories from her life and travels and sometimes it all got mixed up because as a convert I didn't know the context--how all of it fit together yet. Her presentation was somewhat random. Just like this is. I took her to the dollar store and explained in great detail--in even greater detail than customary for me--the merits of a certain blister pack of kitchen utility knives. "The blade doesn't go into the handle far at all, so would come out." Multiply that by five minutes, and there you are. And she taught me the before-meals prayer, and made sure when I was with her that I prayed it.

She knew how I spent the Nineties, and she was my friend anyway. I drew her pictures of men with little boys looking over the man's shoulder so many times it turned into a cry for help.

She said I would become a priest, a very awkward moment for several reasons.

She was born in the year of Fatima, so younger than my mother's mother. But not by much. She wasn't my godmother because I knew I needed someone I could get a lot of mileage out of, but I'm glad for her participation in my life. I wish I had participated in hers more.

Get holy or die trying State Tour

2010-01-26T15:31:00.005-06:00

This week, actually starting with Saturday, will be the Week of the Little Friend, as it seems I'm spending every free moment with my (get ready) little friend.

Saturday was my regular attempt at Poker Night with the guys (it's D&D, I know, but I'm confident it's just as fun--if not more so).
Sunday after Mass, we made a pilgrimage to Hanceville's Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. I have pictures, but neglected to bring my camera to work so I could post them, and besides, said camera was being a tard-monkey. Or maybe it was just underfed by the batteries I charged for about forty minutes. Out of a possible six hours.
Sunday afternoon after the Shrine, we went to the Ave Maria Grotto, hosted by Cullman's St. Bernard Abbey. Actually we hit the gift shop and didn't take in the delightful insanity of the Grotto because of the rain. He will say I bought half the store, but that is a falsehood and a plot to deceive.
Most likely tonight we will both attend the Birmingham area Ultreya.
And Thursday we have our regular Cursillo reunion group.

What would be nice, but entirely unmanageable, would be to have Episodes of Religious Experience evenly and frequently distributed throughout one's life to counterbalance or even offset the inevitable mayhem and subsequent rainbow of cursewords that inadvertently spew from the lower part of my face. Wouldn't that be nice?

Ah, yes, straight dating. It has come to my attention that this one isn't going to work out either. Something about unrealistic expectations resulting in us not having had our Christmas date yet and it's already a month later. It's not my fault. It's not.

And back to this weekend, Braek was almost officially killed off. What would have been better would be that I had been told to bring a 10th-level character to the next session. Instead, the getalong gang faced ever-increasing danger with no hope of escape, and then were told by DM that the game was over and we were all dead. I suppose DM thinks we've all embraced the learning curve well enough to start playing higher-level critters, but being utterly destroyed, even if recycled, was a little jarring. At least no-one at the table found out I was playing an illegally-leveled (and therefore overpowered) character.

I didn't get the job, but dang--I got a bicycle

2010-01-21T15:17:00.002-06:00

And my thighs have gone on strike. Why was this not difficult when I was a youth? Don't answer that. And, no I didn't get the job, which I may have neglected to mention, but I did the best that I could by the interview, so I can't complain.

I mean, I can complain, but.... Maybe my monster-blood is fading. That would be good.

!

So, like, my neice was run over by a car on a Boston crosswalk, but didn't break anything. Ususally when I tell this story live, I mention that she totaled the car because her mutant power activated for the first time (she didn't break anything)--but I don't think this is true.

!

I don't want to keep ignoring this blog, but I really can't think of--oh, wait, I sang at a funeral Mass yesterday, one prayed at Blessed Sacrament in the West End neighborhood. Am I allowed an omg? That church makes theDiocese of Birmingham's St. Paul Cathedral look, in my opinion--the gold standard--like a little house on the prairie. So the choir has hatched a plan to win the lottery and transplant the entire church to our parish. Hey, talk is that we need a new building, and West End seriously is underusing it. I should have taken my camera, but I thought it would be rude--it being a funeral and all--although other people took pictures, so there you are.

I made another hat, but it isn't a fedora. That's three hats in a fortnight, but I've made exactly zero pictures. I need to get on the ball, don't I? You have other things you need to do besides nag me, don't you?

Already?!?!

2010-01-16T12:32:00.003-06:00

I have made a whopping two hats in one week, and already want to quit because I caught myself thinking that I needed more yarn--NO-ONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE EVER NEEDS MORE YARN. Ever, I say. My theory, and I think I've shared this with you before, is that the exact amount of yarn in the world is fixed, much like water and methane gas: it is forbidden by God that yarn be created or destroyed. My proof? I'm still dealing with yarn I received as a new hooker, cast-offs from the more experienced girls I met on the street and who knew I was needing the practice. I knew I had made it into the club when I donated about, oh I don't know, fifteen (twenty?) pounds of the stuff to the Catholic Center of Concern in Gadsden. My thought at the time was that I'd never see it again. I like to delude myself.

So the first hat--photo coming, uh, sometime--was almost a top-hat because on a whim I threw two cables in the design, and the cables in real life were much wider than in the pattern book. I may also add that it's rather pimpnotic, and when I wore it to a Cursillo Reunion meeting I braced myself for whatever comment my friends (keeping in mind that you only hurt the ones you love) might make. They said nothing. Which was significantly worse.

The second hat, the one I ripped apart 4,578,340 times as mentioned in a previous post, still isn't quite satisfactory, but I could consider it finished. It's khaki-colored with a camo top and band, and the band is trimmed in safety orange--which may explain why I haven't made a picture of it yet. Pay it no mind!

Would you mind if I broadened the definition of 'fedora' to include 'all hat styles'? How agreeable would it be to renegotiate the other three Fs as well? Splendid.

Zero-sum balance

2010-01-11T12:21:00.003-06:00

Except for the fact that everything that happened to me yesterday took place in a free (for now) country, on a Sunday after a Catholic Mass where I was able to worship the Risen One openly and without fear, yesterday was quite bad. Let's not do yesterday again, shall we?

Bulleted points:

I did get the bicycle, after going to the store three different times in less than four hours. Something about a $35,000-or-so Waterford crystal National Championship trophy on display, and the pressing need to have everyone in North Alabama photographed with it. Pfah. Pfah, I say! Photograph my fist!
I also got a gently-used television (WHERE IS MY F-COCKIN' GRATITUDE?), but instead of picking it up at work (as was the original plan) I ended up going to an area normally only accessible from my house telephone as a long-distance dialing area, dragging my driver along by the neck--one who has seemingly a shorter attention-span and less tolerance for mayhem than I do.
Said-driver found out about an infidelity.
Ripped apart and restarted the same fedora three times.
Above-mentioned infidel has been having the same out-of-body experience for the past forty years, but it's somehow all my fault. Since I'm only 38, I don't see the connection.
Sat through--now I'm just whining--an incomprehensible movie on the old television because I didn't know the new one wasn't a floor model, and we have nothing to park it on.

Life is difficult, isn't it? Moderately-clean water, good-n-plenty nutritious food, a faith community where everyone says "howdydo" without flinching, a faith I don't really have to understand, most-all of my teeth, a college education, somewhat-gainful employment, a girlfriend, a brofriend, a neighborhood dog that likes me best, an absurdly-comprehensive 4e D&D library, occasionally-functioning mental capacity, as many hyphens as I want, this blog, and you to read it.

Yeah, I'll be quiet now.

I totally stole this, which defeats the purpose

2010-01-08T15:29:00.002-06:00

Really, I should have made some sort of hyperlink-thingie, but I don't know how. Pity me, go ahead.

If You Can Find a Better Deal, Take It!
by Ann Coulter
01/06/2010

Someone mentioned Christianity on television recently and liberals reacted with their usual howls of rage and blinking incomprehension.

On a Fox News panel discussing Tiger Woods, Brit Hume said, perfectly accurately: "The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Hume's words, being 100 percent factually correct, sent liberals into a tizzy of sputtering rage, once again illustrating liberals' copious ignorance of Christianity. (Also illustrating the words of the Bible: "How is it you do not understand me when I speak? It is because you cannot bear to listen to my words." John 8:43.) In The Washington Post, Tom Shales demanded that Hume apologize, saying he had "dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet." Is Buddhism about forgiveness? Because, if so, Buddhists had better start demanding corrections from every book, magazine article and blog posting ever written on the subject, which claims Buddhists don't believe in God, but try to become their own gods.

I can't imagine that anyone thinks Tiger's problem was that he didn't sufficiently think of himself as a god, especially after that final putt in the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year.

In light of Shales' warning Hume about "what people are saying" about him, I hope Hume's a Christian, but that's not apparent from his inarguable description of Christianity. Of course, given the reaction to his remarks, apparently one has to be a regular New Testament scholar to have so much as a passing familiarity with the basic concept of Christianity. On MSNBC, David Shuster invoked the "separation of church and television" (a phrase that also doesn't appear in the Constitution), bitterly complaining that Hume had brought up Christianity "out-of-the-blue" on "a political talk show." Why on earth would Hume mention religion while discussing a public figure who had fallen from grace and was in need of redemption and forgiveness? Boy, talk about coming out of left field! What religion -- what topic -- induces this sort of babbling idiocy? (If liberals really want to keep people from hearing about God, they should give Him his own show on MSNBC.) Most perplexing was columnist Dan Savage's indignant accusation that Hume was claiming that Christianity "offers the best deal -- it gives you the get-out-of-adultery-free card that other religions just can't."

In fact, that's exactly what Christianity does. It's the best deal in the universe. (I know it seems strange that a self-described atheist and "radical sex advice columnist f*****" like Savage would miss the central point of Christianity, but there it is.) God sent his only son to get the crap beaten out of him, die for our sins and rise from the dead. If you believe that, you're in. Your sins are washed away from you -- sins even worse than adultery! -- because of the cross. "He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross." Colossians 2:14. Surely you remember the cross, liberals -- the symbol banned by ACLU lawsuits from public property throughout the land?

Christianity is simultaneously the easiest religion in the world and the hardest religion in the world. In the no-frills, economy-class version, you don't need a church, a teacher, candles, incense, special food or clothing; you don't need to pass a test or prove yourself in any way. All you'll need is a Bible (in order to grasp the amazing deal you're getting) and probably a water baptism, though even that's disputed. You can be washing the dishes or walking your dog or just sitting there minding your business hating Susan Sarandon and accept that God sent his only son to die for your sins and rise from the dead ... and you're in! "Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9. If you do that, every rotten, sinful thing you've ever done is gone from you. You're every bit as much a Christian as the Pope or Billy Graham.

No fine print, no "your mileage may vary," no blackout dates. God ought to do a TV spot: "I'm God Almighty, and if you can find a better deal than the one I'm offering, take it."

The Gospel makes this point approximately 1,000 times. Here are a few examples at random:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:8.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23.

In a boiling rage, liberals constantly accuse Christians of being "judgmental." No, we're relieved. Christianity is also the hardest religion in the world because, if you believe Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, you have no choice but to give your life entirely over to Him. No more sexual promiscuity, no lying, no cheating, no stealing, no killing inconvenient old people or unborn babies -- no doing what all the other kids do. And no more caring what the world thinks of you -- because, as Jesus warned in a prophecy constantly fulfilled by liberals: The world will hate you. With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don't deserve it. It's the best deal in the universe.

I have neglected you, Dear Reader

2010-01-08T15:08:00.003-06:00

I'm sorry, and now I'll apologize...

Let's see, catching up...

Went to my little friend's aunt's farmhouse this past weekend and crashed a Baptist worship service. Whoop.
Ingratiated the entire room to my half-orc bard/cleric when I hit them over the head with his new powers. Sadly, I cheated: the party was sixth-level, and entirely by accident, Braek was already up to eighth.
Went out on a date and came down with a faaaaabulous case of food poisoning. At least I made it home before the real mayhem started, but not before my abdomen distended. The highlight of the evening (as opposed to the lowlight obviously) was getting to hold her purse while she shopped for undergarments: I'll be taking her for granted any minute now.
May be getting a bicycle.
Made a fedora.

On that last note, I'm playing with the idea of "Forty Fedoras in Fourteen Fortnights," in which I, uh, make forty hats in twenty-eight weeks. I thought that was obvious. Maybe fifteen fortnights, but that's still a lot of stitching, and you know I have no attention span whatsoev--

What?

Maybe fifteen fedoras in fifteen fortnights. Yeah, I'll try that. That way, I can put out every 14th and 28th of the month--surely I can remember that deadline. This will encourage me to take pictures, and at the same time (while I'm at it), commit to the "100-straight push-ups" goal I've set for myself since, let's see, ever. Just what you need, me modeling strange hats without a shirt on. Eek.

Don't hate the playa, hate the cell phone

2009-12-12T12:34:00.002-06:00

Or not, as I now have one of those no-contract pay-as-you-go thingies. It's on, now!

Everything I learned about writing, I learned from Amazon

2009-11-29T15:19:00.004-06:00

Has anyone noticed the reviews for books on Amazon? Very illustrative about what people expect from fiction, and pointing out common technical mistakes authors make, most of which I'm in complete denial about. Very illustrative. Also, very weird. Particularly the "one star" reviews, which are usually delightfully displeased with the book in question, in the case of my research, usually a classic novel we were asked to read in school, or I think should have. I had plans on actually copy/pasting a particularly-poorly conceived review about Flowers for Algernon, but decided you wouldn't believe it.

My education has allowed me to understand that I have made great errors in my own fiction, that among other mistakes, while I may have interesting characters, they run the risk of being one-dimensional--and therefore uninteresting! Cutesy word-play doesn't always satisfy the reader--I'm not saying that cute gets you nowhere, as we all know cute covers many venal sins and missteps (and especially bad table-waiting), but I admit I'm getting too old to rely on cute. Maybe I'll move onto snark. Am I there yet? How about now?

MEANWHILE, I've learned that stringy-headed freshmen in high school are not the most-objective reviewers (and neither am I, apparently). Not that I'm fixated or bitter--well, maybe bitter--the one-stars for Flowers for Algernon read exceptionally-close in style to parts of the book, and I don't know if these are somehow aping the book, or are people really that barking-mad stupid? A CLASSIC, ABOUT A CLASSIC: "Theis book was'nt very intresting for me or for you." Heavily leaning into bitter now...

"LET MY PEOPLE GO!"

2009-11-17T14:53:00.004-06:00

So last night was my first Exodus meeting.

It was as awkward as you would think, but keep in mind it still wasn't nearly as awkward as my 20th-reunion free-event.

Some bizarre lining-up of the planets produced all of us being there for the first time, so not only did we have to contend with a new experience, we all had to nervously sniff around each other--sorry, sniffing around wouldn't have been appropriate, sorry. But I'm going to go through with it. This is an important part of my finally growing up into the man God wants me to be, and I will go through with it no matter how much the collective social anxiety of the group tends to climb. Word.

I don't really remember Friday

2009-11-10T12:49:00.003-06:00

08 November 2009

Friday is irrelevant, anyway.

First thing Saturday morning, I took off for the Birmingham '09 Love Won Out Conference. Awesome it was. I don't know how anyone could have not been awesomated by it, even the protesters, of whom I knew quite a few.

See, in case you don't know, Love Won Out is a Protestant thingie for those overcoming same-sex attraction. Speakers, information booths, a bookstore, Q&A, such. And did I mention that it was awesomulous, because if I forgot, here it is. Sure, we had nib-nob protesters with signs that said "Gay by God, Not by Choice," and the place was almost lousy with cops (an unfortunate word choice): but it was a loving, understanding, but nevertheless determined event. We heard real-live people telling about their real lives, heard talks on a wide range of subjects, and we had a good mix of people in attendance, although I think some of the younger participants--the Emo-kids in particular, and the ones with snakebite piercings, but I could be misinterpreting--were there against their 'druthers. I spent way too much money on books, and bought two necklaces I seriously didn't need, but supported in a very small way the AIDS-widows of Africa. But get this Possums: I was blessed by Anne Heche's mother. Okay it was a mass-blessing done by a Protestant laywoman, but who cares? Pay it no mind!

I've hooked up with the local Exodus-almost group and had my interview this morning. The group is applying to be affiliated with Exodus, International and is Protestant. It will be yet another weekly activity I don't have time for.

I am still so tired, I am exhausted, but the weekend wasn't over! I went to Mass today [this was originally written on Sunday, today is Tuesday] with my little friend, unloaded my entire Magic: the Gathering card library on him, and after church went with him to his grandmother's house--you remember, the one with the 300 chickens. He and his brother or some combination of personages thought it would be swell to go fishing, so we saddled-up the paddle boat and the canoe and had at it. I don't have much experience with a fishing pole, particularly a nice rod-and-reel--what's the point if you don't really like to eat fish--so I suppose it was convincing that when I finally had enough of not being the center of attention, I asked to give fishing a try and sent the lure up into a tree. Don't ask.

So we got to get out of the water...

I didn't mention that his aunt, who is a good country cook, only understands feeding her friends and relations as an activity that must be overdone, so even though I was full as a tick from lunch, even after paddling the boat up and down a largish lake at a racing speed (apparently, twin boys need to be competitive in everything, which is something I wouldn't know or understand) and already had had a dessert, I was subjected to a giganticular pile of ice cream on top of three brownies while we watched Opie wear the same shirt three episodes in a row: somewhere in the sequence were middle-class White 'tweeners dancing self-consciously to unconvincing music. I don't think I'll eat again this week. What is it, mid-November? Could I get by until Thanksgiving?

Such a lovely weekend, which began entirely too early and also ended much too early. I had bitten my lip somewhen Saturday, and I bruised the wound when I kissed my little friend goodbye, on the shoulder, so I'm still feeling it. >^.^<

I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to be so pleased with that: let me adopt a flat, robotic affect instead. [:] Much-more manly.

Oh, fcock it. >^.^<

Oh, I didn't mention our kitchen at home nearly going up in flames Saturday night, whoops...

More to come...

2009-11-09T14:52:00.003-06:00

Okay, listen, the Birmingham '09 Love Won Out Conference, and one of the last ones that will be thrown by Focus on the Family, was a throw-down. It rockulated. I promise that I will post long and hard about this entire weekend, which very-generally was over-the-top fabulous. I can't exaggerate the significance of this past weekend's events. I had typed out a summation to retype onto the blog, but ninny-me left the hard copy at home. I am just now realizing that I could have put it on my new flashdrive--well, live and learn.

I've recently had the pleasure of doing both.

I am very disappointed in the flat and colorless blob that is the world

2009-10-31T12:44:00.004-05:00

Even though I no-longer recognize Hallowe'en as a real holiday, it struck me today that I really-rilly need a general-purpose superhero costume--hey, heroes can't very well go naked (even in this sin-sick country), and something affect-melting and/or aura-scrambling makes grocery shopping more pleasant. Yes, I live in a very-small city, so? I have a tanktop I made over a decade ago from brass fishing-line swivels, but--and I amaze myself by typing this--I want something even more excruciatingly-fabulous. How sad is that, Possums?

So as it turns out, the Internet still is the go-to place for gay porn, but an amorphous nothingness when it comes to learning how to construct one's own superhero costume. I mean, sure one can find instructions for a really-unflattering cardboard cuirass or a robot suit or the ever-dependable gangter suit (yawn), but I want something that inspires confidence in a random aggregate sampling of Americans.

I did see several interpretations of Dog: the Bounty Hunter which gave me the shivers. Granted, Dog is a real-live superhero (even though I'm the one with the blog), but brr.

!

I may have alluded to the random act of violence that is breaking into a library before (that's all anyone else seems to want to talk about around here at any rate), but this bears repeating: put down the drugs and give Jesus a hug. Also, when faced with a door that has been blocked off with plywood and police tape--generally, it means that the door is not to be used. So stop trying: there's a perfectly-good and functioning door right next to it. Not that that means anything either: we had a patron try the staff door once (before that was the one to use by default)--I will insert here that there were several signs indicating that it wasn't actually the door to use, and it was locked. She informed us, when she managed to fight her way in the real door that had the "open" sign on it, that our door didn't work. I was and still am not a little bit stunned. Hukt on fonix, kid, hukt on fonix.

Do I know you?

2009-10-30T15:03:00.004-05:00

Ah, Facebook, that great networking website that reminds me daily that I really don't know that many people--I'm basically just an attention whore. Sad, but true. AND GET THIS: most of my FB friends are old fellow inmates of the local public school system, the vast majority of whom I had not one class or, for that matter, conversation with. Not one, Possums. AND THEN, TO TOP MYSELF: I friendsearched my own name one day, which seemed healthier than googling my ex for the againth-time, and "made friends" with men and women who may be my relatives but dang if I know.

But then again, who really minds? Besides, free flair almost every day! And I can find out which Muppet I am!

I've been trying to reapproach posting some fiction again--not the dreaded Teen Angst (of which I'm happily fresh-out), but some more of the Island Life stories and the Serenity Prayer bits. I just need about eleventy-four straight hours on the computer, which never happens anymore. It's so sad. And I'm considering scrapping the aXlavalXa storyline and reabsorbing the characters into the Gath-Shemen Island arc--will this anger and confuse you terribly? It probably will, and I'm already sorry.

!

I'm not at all suggesting that vandals be more thorough in their mayhem, but a few days ago, the library--yes, my library--was burgled. As if! And the really inscrutable thing is that the only object that seems to be absconded with was the cash register, which was carefully extricated from the web of power cords under the counter. Oh, and was entirely empty and open. What a profoundly-weird world. In case you don't know, I think it is general policy that library registers--and for that matter, every register in AMERICA--are emptied at night. Yeah.

Speed-reading creatures of the night

2009-10-22T12:34:00.003-05:00

My doctor and I did a little experiment with my medication, and while I was in bed for almost three days this week (yes, it was that bad of an idea), I managed to wolf down almost the entire Southern Vampire series. Am I the only one who wonders if vampires are taking over American culture? Is that bad? No idea. I just ask that because working in a library, and realizing that I know very little about literature written after WWII (and so wanting to catch up with the world so to speak), I've needed to do some rack-shopping--and every third book seems to be significantly toothsome. Actually, my calculations yielded a slightly-less frequency than that, having a ratio of roughly 1:3.6738. But "every third" is even more absurd, and four out of the five voices in my head said "GO FOR IT!" And so it goes...

I must admit, now that I put the series in my "favorite books" list, if you haven't read them yet and you're something of a stick in the mud, you may want to stay with __Twilight__, assuming the inside of Stephenie Myers' head is easier for you to live in.

(Okay, a tangent: as usual, I'm at the library on one of the public terminals, and I just want to say that computerizing everything from paying bills to dating was not that good of an idea, becuase people have major attitudes about everyone else's supposed retardatedulousness. For instance, the guy that likes to come in and look at half-naked Russian models is hufflefuffing about the woman who is sitting next to me, who admittedly is loud and doesn't really know what's she's doing--but of course, she's doing important business that must be completed today, and these terminals are timed. What fun.)

So basically, I spent the remaining time I had left to follow the tangent, and the really profound social commentary I was going to hit you over the head with may have to wait until later. Bother. Oh, I'm going on another retreat this weekend, so we'll visit when we can: y'all come!

Due to the economy, a picture is now worth 467.58 words

2009-10-08T14:39:00.009-05:00

I was about to be very happy to show you some more pictures, but this may take longer than I had previously believed possible. I think this computer, which is one of the public-access terminals at work, really-no-likee my thumb drive.

So now I can sob hysterically about my horrible interview yesterday, yeehaw. I was up for another promotion, but there's no danger of me getting it now. I don't know. Lots of vague rambly answers to questions I hadn't prepared for--if I did manage to answer the question at all. Very odd. Daddy's monster blood is going to have to do more than just circulate if I have any chance at getting it.

Well, after bouncing around four computers to get the pictures to come up, it's now time to clock in.

Okay, three days later, I'm back. Let's try this again: oops, David forgot to click on the agreebox about the Terms of Use. Dreadfully sorry. To make it worse, I didn't load them in a logical order, but here goes:

This is the opening shot for that weekend I had at the convent last month, and it satisfies my compulsion to take pictures of the sky. The weather was not particularly cooperative, but hey, we were inside for most of it.

This was going to be my CatholicMatch profile image--you know, the second time around. I think you can imagine why I didn't use it, but feel free to tell me I'm wrong. I'm waiting.

Got all the way back to that pilgrimage I took to Our Lady of the Snows National Shrine in Illinois two years ago. Or was it at the convent last month? It's all under the same sky anyway.

This definitely was taken from the Illinois pilgrimage, and has been posted on this blog before--the difference now is that I figured out how to rotate it properly (knowledge I sorely lacked until, oh, this Thursday, many Thursdays later).

Now THIS is the flip-out Picture of the Day. Yes, it's a Pieta, sideways and in reverse: Jesus is holding Joseph as he's dying. Taken at St. Josephs in St Louis...wherever that arch-thing is...it's been so long, I forgot where I took this, and I'm now anticipating hate mail because I'm getting it all mixed up, plus almost placed the arch in Kansas City. Eek. Back to the photo, it was one of the last things we saw in the church, and I had to remind myself I had a camera, I was so stunned. In real life, it's so...very. The convent retreat, being essentially a 12-Step program packed into a weekend, I suppose was supposed to be confidential. I normally don't recognize such conditions as applying to me, but I took this shot of feet (mine on the bottom in black) belonging to my new Courage friends from Atlanta. "How beautiful are the feet of them."

Here, Possums, is the Rosary I made from my grandmother's necklace. Yes, it's out of focus. Gotta clock in--bye-bye!

Taking myself down a peg--is that exercise?

2009-10-06T16:04:00.002-05:00

It seems, Possums, that I am not the craft ninja I once thought I was. Granted, felting is not an exact science, but I expected much better from yesternight's outing at the local laundromat. It was almost like a date, too: my best friend came over to sit with me and maybe play some board games, but not only were the sweaters already in the dryer by the time he arrived, I ran out of cash by buying us dinner, so I couldn't put them through another cycle. At any rate, there was wool lint all in the machine, and I thought that I was on the brink of having to buy the washer.

So we motored. At least we were full.

If anyone has experience with felting sweaters, please comment on this post or e-mail me--any advice is appreciated. The one sweater my mother ended up wanting (post-procedure of course) did felt beautifully, but the other three not so much. No, they weren't made of superwash wool, and two of them explicitly said "dry clean only." No wait, one said "hand wash gently"--does that make a difference? I suppose I'll have to run them through a machine again, but will I be beaten with sticks if I do it in a public laundromat? That I don't really need, you dig?

Okay, so I finally got around to watching Titanic

2009-10-05T13:44:00.004-05:00

...Or at least the last thirty-forty minutes, and I must say, it was rather unpleasant way to spend the final minutes of the day. My mother thought it would be a good idea to continue watching it to appreciate the technological aspect of it--the miniatures/whatchacallits, the CG, and the general disaster movie of watching hundreds of people fake-die in several literally-splashy ways; I however, while idiotically wanting to know how the movie ended, sat in my chair with a knot in my gut, thinking of an old acquaintance. For whatever reason he was obsessed with Leonardo diCaprio and sat through the movie in the cinema eight times.

When it was all over, I expressed my pleasure at not being subjected to it anymore and went to bed, but it took what seemed like an hour to fall asleep, as I was having a very pensive, very elegant freak-out. We are all going to die. We are all going to die in ways that are not guaranteed to be pleasant. We are all going to die, even sometimes after surviving horror and mayhem.

Why do people do the things they do? It's not because they are aware that our time on earth is finite. You know, I was fine this morning, but I'm starting to flip-out again, and as I'm about to clock in--not good.

Don't waste today, or for that matter, the rest of your life. God doesn't want you to; and it's not really even that life is short--it's that your dead for so long.

Scribble says "hello!"

2009-10-04T14:58:00.002-05:00

I forgot, for some reason, to mention that Braek now has a familiar, a crow, which provides a +4 to Perception checks when looking for objects in an area something I always try after the mayhem of the encounter resolves itself, and as a bonus, can speak any language of my choice (but I think it's the same language all the time: I can't decide one game that Scribble speaks ___, then next game ___) to any- and everyone.

I love this game. Too bad I'm terrible at it.

Feed me, da-ang it!

2009-10-03T12:33:00.003-05:00

Are you lonesome tonight? My lack of participation on this blog and on Facebook have had people worried, but pay it no mind! I is back.

Every other weekend, if I'm not preoccupied, I have the great pleasure of playing Dungeons & Dragons. Sadly, I have been preoccupied several times this summer and was lagging behind in experience points, which is the basic currency for gaining levels in the game. Our Dungeon Master graciously (like, dude, really graciously) let us all rework our characters and start at fourth level, which is the king of do-overs. After deciding to put all of my D&D books on a shelf instead of keeping them in a carryall, and looking at all of them (about ten if not more: I don't really want to think about it), I was glad for the opportunity to actually use most of them this time. So now Braek, the half-orc bard, has a dragonmark and has multiclassed as a cleric, and has a smarter collection of spells, and has, and has, and has. I also planned the changes of the next six levels, so if he lives that long, Braek will be the Biotch of the World. Word!

Do you find it excessively-bothersome that I use "I" a lot as the beginning of sentences? Grr.

!

Sweaters can be recycled! Yeah, yeah, most people frog-stitch them (rip-it, rip-it) and use the yarn for something else, but I went to the thriftstore last night and snagged a wool and a mostly-wool sweater which will be willfully put in the washer, felted, and then frankensteined into hats. Get out! I'm feeling very drunk with power right now, but can't entirely claim genius; it's not cheating if I admit I got the idea from a book...but I got the idea from a book. Now that I'm trying the shaved-scalp look for a bit, and the temperature is slowly dropping outside (note the ironic coincidence), I will have even more furniture for my head, yippie-hurrah.

!

Let's see, what else? I think I should try to throw out some more fiction, and will try to do that if I can actually get on a computer for more than 384 seconds. Had I started with the story first, I may have msfr nryyrt udr go yimr--whoa, Dwarven! That's what I get for not looking at what I'm doing...

...Had I started with the story today, maybe I would have made better use of time, but I had to check my e-mail. I'm beginning to hate e-mail. Da-ang it, I've run out of time on this terminal. Y'all fight the good fight, okay?

I'd hate to say he told me so, but...

2009-09-11T14:54:00.003-05:00

A little while ago, I checked out a book from another library discussing self-sufficiency and growing one's own food in an economic and environmental crisis; so of course in it, I found an "independent thinker's factsheet "about 9.11 someone had volunteered to put in the book. I would have shared it with you, as it did raise some interesting questions that have yet to be answered these last eight years, but as much as I am an attention whore and want more readers of this site, I'm not interested in that much attention. We all have our limits, and I don't look my best while interrogated under extreme lighting anyway.

But since that day the flier fell out of the book, I've had the teensiest voice (much-less-louder than the other voices in my head) that has wondered how one could make a cell-phone call from an airborne airplane, why there wasn't a scramble of fighter pilots, why certain things weren't (and others were) known about the events of that horrible day.

I remember with diluted fondness how I found out about it. I worked for an independent bookseller, rumored to be my dream job, and the proprietor greeted me with the always-helpful "you never know what the Hell's going on, do you?" Obviously, I didn't have the radio on that day, and I think my mother didn't have the television on that morning either, because when I called home--no, maybe by then she did have the TV on.

I wasn't around when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and when Challenger exploded in 1989-or-so, I had opted to stay in the room doing a lab experiment while my classmates were in the library. Likewise, when the mayhem in Waco, Texas, us, resolved, I was the last person in my Modern Poetry class at Samford University to learn that even the children had been killed. So no, Mr. Shaffer, I don't ever know what the Hell's going on, but I hope you have a great and result-oriented day! Oh, well, so much for me.

2009-08-26T11:45:00.002-05:00

This week, I took one of my grandmother's necklaces and made it into a rosary. It's a little bit awesome. I had previously bought a 99-cent necklace at the thrift store near work for the same purpose, and I think I'm going to start making heirloom-like rosaries for other people. We can always hope it makes me a million dollars, can't we?

This reminds me of one of the great ironies of our day: Muslims may freely build mosques in America, but Christians must distribute even the smaller articles of the faith in secret while in, say, every predominantly-Muslim country on this planet. Hmn.

You could have heard a pin drop

2009-08-20T13:05:00.003-05:00

[Please excuse any formatting or orthographical errors: I copied this directly from an e-mail and probably missed something in my great haste to share with you these most-excellent facts of life.]

JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.Rusk responded "does that include those who are buried here? DeGaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop.

When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush. He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return..' You could have heard a pin drop.

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?' A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?' You could have heard a pin drop.

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?' Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, 'Maybe it's because the Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.' You could have heard a pin drop.

AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE....Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. "Then you should know enough to have your passport ready. "The American said, 'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it." "Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France !" The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to." You could have heard a pin drop.

Knits and gnats

2009-08-10T13:37:00.002-05:00

I wonder why gnats have invaded the house. It's very disturbing; and although I have learned a new kryptonite for gnats (which is to put a dryer sheet in your shirt pocket or in your collar or wherever), dang if I know what I did with the box I bought for that purpose.

Yesterday, I attempted to make discernable progress on that baby blanket I showed you a picture of, the one Mephibosheth called "the blood-red baby blanket." Happily, it isn't blood-red, and happily I have made discernable progress, frogging the whole thing (ribbit/rip-it) and this time garter stitching it. I had started it, two very long years ago, as a knit project, then frogged it about a quarter of the way through and crochet-seed-stitched it, then took the psychiatric spa-treatment twice, and it just got buried in the fleet of UFOs in my room. Saturday, I found it again, and Sunday, I began anew. And happily, I've made so much progress, I have even expanded the design to include (as of this morning) three stripes of entirely-new colors.

During the bulk of my time spent in mighty industry yesterday, I subjected myself to what seemded to be three hours of watching TV documentaries on human parasites. Eek. Normally, I am not one of those crafters who can work in front of the television--I remember once attempting to watch what should have been a relatively-straightforward 3:10 to Yuma while cutting fabric, and being completely incapable of understanding any of it--but it seems that experiencing second-hand that it is possible to pull at least a two-foot section of tapeworm out of one's own digestive tract doesn't actually require plot analysis. Whoop. It is also possible to have parasites swim about in one or both of your eyes, which is baldly-terrifying. That and watching a surgeon pull a parasite out of someone's brain.

Things not to do on summer vacation, or at any other time:

Urinate under water.
Eat improperly-prepared fish.
Handle Kitty-boo's little box without washing your hands.
Eat dirt.
Eat undercooked pork.
Eat undercooked pork.
Eat undercooked pork.

Did I mention

Eat undercooked pork.

Because if I didn't...

If I'm not mistaken...here I am

2009-08-04T16:26:00.002-05:00

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT PAGE THIS IS, IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I'VE DONE THIS

[For those of you just tuning in, I used to be more vigilant about this project, which is an apologetic spar with Chick Publications, and anti-Catholic press.]

At the feet of Jesus, Mr. John is aghast and incredulous that the Catholic Church is entirely, horrifically wrong. A victim of a traffic accident, he received Last Rites at the hospital--the impetus for the tract. Mr. Chick makes the assertion that a priest cannot forgive sins. Mr. Chick is entirely correct, but horrifically misinformed. Of course a priest can't forgive sins: he himself is a sinful creation of God, not God himself. We as Catholics believe what the Bible teaches, that Jesus at the end of his earthly and incarnated ministry gave the apostles--delegated, really--the ability to do certain things, and that among those things (like the Sacraments) is the ability (as a deputy of sorts) to forgive sins that are confessed. Mr. Chick is entirely correct to say, and I quote with emphasis intact, "NO MAN has the power to forgive sins." But only Jesus Christ, praised be he, can erase all evil thoughts, words, and deeds. It's just that Jesus chose the apostles, then the apostles chose others, to do his work. Similarly, a mere man's authority can't marry two people: only God, through the Sacrament, can effect such a covenant. This is why a Justice of the Peace or a ship's captain has civil authority, but not sacramental authority, to perform ceremonies.

BEGINNING OF TANGENT: Being a priest is not a priviledge, it is a responsibility. Sadly, there are priests who are not aware of this distinction. I will admit that. A good and true priest may be called a prince of the Church, but he's more like a faithful and competent servant. This is why we as Catholics are to love our priests--not at all because they deserve or warrant devotion, but because priests almost literally carry their parishoners through life. In my experience, I have only sat under one parish priest, and I've given him the work of three people. END OF TANGENT.

So Mr. Chick (and quite a few other Protestants) is convinced that we Catholics are deceived. That is in itself a deception, to the extent that individual Christians can be misled by other unscrupulous Christians, but not by the Church. The Catholic faith is not a false religion: if it were, I shudder to think where schizmatic churches stand. God does want us to know that our sins can be forgiven and that we can be assured of Heaven: God wants that almost exactly as much as he wants us to love and serve him and him only. God uses priests as his instruments, even if they're blunted instruments, to ensure this process.

The world: now much smaller!

2009-08-03T10:48:00.003-05:00

You will never guess, so I'll just have to say that I ran into the Fall of the House of ___ at that great equalizer, Wal*Mart, this past Saturday. Major-hard Orange Beach Massacre! flashback, but with kyutto children this time, so it wasn't so bad. It was as if we had never parted: the pre-born, now a pre-schooler, seemed to be continuing a conversation I wasn't aware I had been participating in, and we exchanged numbers as if we had merely forgotten to put them in our phones the last time we talked. And the great irony is that they now have been visiting my mother's church, so it turns out that, yes, the world really is getting smaller and smaller.

What am I doing here?

2009-07-29T12:51:00.003-05:00

Oddly enough, I made no mention that this past weekend was my 20th high school reunion. There was an event Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. The Sunday activity was for free. You do the math.

So here I am at the park on a Sunday afternoon getting exactly what I paid for: it was exactly as awkward as I thought it would be, floating from one group to the next, not really belonging to any of them. As it turned out, the previous evening's event was the one I should have gone to, taking into consideration the combination of personalities and memories there. Instead, I had a conversation with some boy-clown who turned out to be a lawyer when he grew up, and I asked him if he remembered that he once asked me during gym class, "do you have AIDS yet?" He also had a penchant for yanking down my shorts on the basketball court, but I didn't mentioned that.

He didn't remember.

In case you are a tortured high-school student, or a young person in any forced social interaction, please keep in mind that your tormentors will most likely not remember the things they do to you, probably well before the fifth reunion, much more the 20th. You may have noticed that people are cruel; they also have a generous portion of irresponsible and stupid. DO NOT KILL YOURSELF: no-one will understand. This itself sounds cruel, irresponsible, and stupid (and I myself admit that it does), but I also want you to hear that as being entirely true and said while backed by personal experience. Almost 89.375839% of my school years were spent on the wrong end of a jab or joke, and I'm here to tell you, seriously, don't worry. Be happy. And forget. I mean, not self-medicating-forget, but you-don't-need-it-forget. Forget.

Forget! It may even be easy.

Not only are people messy and inconsistent (last year's lesson, if you recall), but they are also cruel, irresponsible, and stupid. They just are, and this includes you and me both.

The thing is, that boy-clown-now-turned-lawyer and I have an outside chance, yet nevertheless a chance, of becoming friends--you know, like Facebook-friends: light, with a good head, and no bitter aftertaste. There is no reason we need to be all up in each other's Kool-aid, but an occaisional polite "how is your daughter, by the way?" wouldn't be asking too much, even from me. I'm at the park, wondering why I'm there, and it wasn't until the drive home a brave two hours later that I realized that revenge may be a dish best served cold, but there's the risk that no-one will still be hungry, so everyone has already left the table. I know you don't want to look messy, inconsistent, cruel, irresponsible, stupid, and silly, don't you?

More yummy whining!

2009-07-23T15:52:00.002-05:00

I've been dating a Kenyan woman (...in Alabama) for the past six months, and should state that in the past tense, as I really want out. That does sound terrible, doesn't it? But when you have the exact same shallow conversation repeatedly and your work schedules refuse to match-up if you are finally able to see the other person so that you can have the aforementioned shallow conversation, what do you do?

What do you do?

So of course, the computer gives me more time just as I sign out

2009-07-20T14:33:00.002-05:00

I think I've posted this one before.

...I'm looking to take a "Y," an "M," and an "A," just for the irony. Actually, I don't know how to reorient photos, period, much less on this program.

The Shrine is very close to St. Louis, Missouri, and we visited St. Joseph's, this go-george-ious church after hitting the Arch. Or maybe before. No idea. But it was the same day--I've got that nailed down. What you see here is a reverse Pieta, with Jesus holding Joseph. Whoa. Never seen that before, never since.

And I shaved my head mere minutes before embarking on the pilgrimage--it's an odd whim I have sometimes, like trichotilomania, but even more disturbed because it has nary a speck of street cred.

Why, yes, I do have a thumb drive

2009-07-20T14:16:00.004-05:00

Yes, I am completely aware that everyone else has one of these thingies on a lanyard or a keychain, but you know how I am...still thinking that golf pants are fun and care-free (and will go with almost-dang-anything) and therefore stuck in Endless Throw to the Seventies. PAY IT NO MIND! What follows are (duh) some pictures. My grasp of the obvious is, like, obvious.

I went on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Illinois, you may remember, and first thing, getting off the bus at the shrine, my first double-bow. Whoop. One thing you will not remember is that I have a fixation on taking photographs of the sky and large-ish bodies of water: if some object happens to appear featured, go.

On another trip to Illinois (same year, different part), I 'graphed more of the aforementioned Recurring Image Possibly a Cry for Help.

I'm running out of time on this terminal, and I want to make absolute sure I leave with the thumb drive, so I will promise to post more (hooray for you) and bid you "good day."

Chicken fighting

2009-07-01T15:18:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, my parish had one of our biennial (biannual? biennial) pool parties, and I must say that getting in the pool with a literal score of little boys demands great aerobic and anaerobic strength. Maybe you knew this: I didn't.

Here's the mayhem: another example of me not having a normal upbringing is that I had no idea that little boys just love-luv to be thrown in pools. Had such a thing been suggested to me in my own youth, not only would I have turned a whiter shade of pale, I would have insisted on staying home, and probably had a mild panic-attack just to be certain I never be invited to such a massacre again. NOT SO, THESE CHILDREN OF TOMORROW. At church, I'm most likely to be in the choirloft, so while I'm known by face, and maybe name, I'm mostly known by voice; similarly, seeing most of the good people of the parish from the back-and-top of the head isn't the best method of networking. But trust and abandon ensued as I was enlisted to throw relative-stranger's children--some of the parents I had never seen before, backwards or frontwards--into the deep end of the pool. At least we were already in the water (one just sort of hyperboosts them into the air and let them land in a relatively-open part of the pool as gracelessly as possible). The boys even got the joke when I suggested to each of them in turn that I be thrown next...just to be fair. But fairness isn't always the companion of trust and abandon, and I shudder even now upon the notion of crashlanding in water.

It was fun, though, wasn't it? Yes. And I learned a new game (the titular "chicken fighting"), which involves two boys perched on the shoulders of a man (there being two men, of course), and the boys pushing and shoving in an effort to knock the other one off. This is a more-strenuous undertaking than you would imagine: meaning I still have a friction burn on my neck from the seams of swimtrunks (remember: almost every boy in the pool just had to have their turn) being ground into my inexperienced flesh. Another inefficient method of networking is to be bodily forced into another adult's personal space while being covered in screaming little boys slamming into each other.

But is was fun, though, wasn't it? Yes.

An army of 300, but chickens

2009-06-23T15:32:00.004-05:00

This past weekend, I went to my little friend's grandmother's house, where I had the pleasure of meeting three hundred chickens. And that was just the chickens. Ducks, rabbits, cats, dogs, and a white peacock in a pen. Craaazy. But totally fascinating.

I'm having the dubious pleasure of overhearing a phone conversation (at the library) of an, I don't know, Facebook stalker I thought I had gotten rid of. He's talking to some third person about the sex scandal in the Catholic Church. That and how the Obamas are good strong Muslims. Eek. This guy is Episcopalian, but he may as well be some sort of pagan--imagine some person who never listens to what they're saying as they're saying it, but expects everyone else to be on-point and correct, and you will have an idea of who's sitting at the next table.

On a more-pleasanter topic, I started at the other library yesterday, and I wasn't immediately fired, so I suppose I'll be fine.

It must be obvious that I'm multitasking eavesdropping and typing, because he's coming over here. Let's pray.

A PSA

2009-06-16T15:42:00.004-05:00

A few evenings ago, I finished a skully made out of recycled necktie silk. I now have a much better understanding of why normal people don't feel the need to do things like that: no, the hat turned out fine enough, I just lost a tiny bit of my mind in the process, as silk is generally disobedient and needs near-constant discipline, I had never worked with silk before, and I had never sewn curves before.

And I've been thinking of all the people of the world who are completely ignorant of the compulsion to make things. Remember: ignorance is bliss. What a peaceful, if bland, life these people drift through! This is probably a treatable disorder, but dang if I know what the treatment is. I think I'll name the affliction CRADHD: craft-related attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Let's all educate ourselves about this terrible condition, and become aware of the warning signs:

UFO (unfinished objects) debris scattered all over the room because the pilot designs projects much faster than can ever hope to be executed.
Hoarding of supplies, even when there is no hope of even using them.
Oddly-paced stretches of inactivity marked by increased television-watching or reading or Websurfing (a vague attempt at quitting cold) punctuated by almost-manic bursts of crafting accompanied by sleep-loss. Will be explained away as "inspiration" or "brainstorming."

Wow, this could really be a real condition, because even though I've run out of time on this terminal, I can think of two more symptoms--and for that matter, another hat idea and two layouts for quilt tops.

My mother, [and] the car

2009-06-13T13:33:00.002-05:00

I did a very-bad thing yesterday. I put a fabulous dent in my mother's car. This is the car that she doesn't really consider hers, as it was a donation (that's really not the best word) from her brother, to the extent that if something happens to her, he gets it back. But I think she seriously would be ashamed for him to see it now. No-one was injured, and the other vehicle was hardly affected, but she almost teared-up when we were in the parking lot (and yes, I hit a parked car--I know) and she was beginning to grasp that her worst fear concerning her mode of transportation came to reality. Again, no-one was injured, save my mother--who has never owned a new car and never will unless some great miracle occurs.

Why I am exposing this my shame is that I had the delightful experience, tacked on as if it were a garnish, of contending with this other customer of the same grocer's who insisted that the owner of the car I assaulted be paged and summoned to the lot. I mean, she was really getting into it: she explained that she had had US$15,000-worth of damage done to her car once by a hit-and-run driver, resulting in her losing her insurance. My extensive experience in retail and contentious customers prevented me from mentioning two things, and not just because she was aware of them: I clearly had done way-most of the damage to myself, and not only did I not drive away, I stood just outside the doors for at least twenty minutes...waiting for my victim to emerge so that I could do it again, apparently. Her parting word to the both of us, as we made our confrontation and settlement and she regaled the both of us with the complete story (just in case I hadn't understood the first time) which ultimately was nothing as he had no grievance, was "God bless you, and I hope you can work it out." Yeah, whatever. What a weird woman. My complaint was not that she did her duty as a citizen, or even that she took some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder-revenge on me, but because she didn't want me to run off--which I didn't. I think that's what's so bothersome about it. I don't really know: something about it just rubbed me the same way as I rubbed my mother's car against the SUV.

Bother.

Crochet-y old man: 1; sister and the known universe: 0

2009-06-09T11:16:00.003-05:00

I totally snagged a 1925 Singer treadle sewing machine complete with table last night for, get this, US$10. The downloaded instruction manual was $4.20. Who's the man? I think you know.

Running joke

2009-06-04T09:24:00.002-05:00

31 May 09

"I really need a cigarette, an eight-inch-long one at least."

"Do you always want a cigarette after running?"

"Don't you think I deserve one?" [Bearshirt] didn't think [Nice Try] would be interested in the answer, so he didn't share. The faith-healer had come out as a smoker before coming out as a marathon runner, and even the other smokers thought that was ridiculous. Looking at the man wash off in the ocean, [Bearshirt] thought that it added up about as much as anything else could: a faith-healer who smoked, a smoker who ran marathons, a distance runner who went skyclad as often as possible, and a nudist who used to have his own church. Whatever. "Did you say something?"

"I was just saying that I'm glad you invited me to run with you--and I hope I'm not holding you back." As it turned out, they had both been on the same anti-depressant (which by the way was delicious and sorely missed), and [Nice Try] had bragged that he had managed to get down to a maintenance, then no-dose, by way of intense aerobic exercise. [Bearshirt] added that to the list then decided "why not?" To make it fair, [Nice Try] ran in the surf while he took to the dry sand. They couldn't run all the way around the island, as the Tanning Bed cliff was in the way, but one of the attempts yielded the knowledge that there was another smaller island aways-off on the opposite side, and an expedition was planned so that the women could have a place to live in peace. [Nice Try] and [Rah-Rah-Rass] promised to swim the distance first, to see if it were as promising as wishful thinking had allowed it to be. "Are you looking forward to braving the depths? When is it?"

"In a few days. [Rah-Rah-Rass] wants [Samekh], [Spike], and the guys to make bamboo spears so that we can defend ourselves, although I don't think that's necessary. Am I looking forward to it? Yeah, I guess I can pretend it's a biathlon. And I'll get to see [Rah-Rah-Rass] half-naked and slick as a porpoise. I asked him to wear those white shorts and go commando."

"Crackers and milk, you didn't."

"Actually, you would be correct. It would be interesting, though." What was also interesting, if also terrifying, was that [Nice Try] had been patting his lips with his fingers as if really smoking. "I hear that he's giving someone else the white-short treatment."

"What?"

"Oh, did I say that with my out-of-body voice, or as part of an interior monolog?"

"What?"

"Hey, are you sure you don't smoke?"

"What?"

"You're beginning to sound something like an autistic version of [37 Hours]: do you happen to know any other four-letter words?"

"See, this is why gay people have no credibility."

"What?"

"So," [Bearshirt] began, changing tangents to something hoped as being result-oriented and more truthful, "did you ever win a race?" [Nice Try] gently explained that the object of a marathon was to finish, not necessarily place. Placing was impossible, essentially. "Because you smoke."

"Uhm, no, dearest, because there can't be a fifty-way tie for first-place--just imagine how awkward crossing the finish line would be. And as few as I've done..."

"How many would that have been?"

"Oh, I averaged about two a year, and ran for, oh, I don't know, seven/eight years. Alabama has a three-in-three deal, did you know? No? Well, y'all have a race every month for three consecutive months. I got a medal for that, but again, as a finisher. And I got a way-cool shirt. I'm just in it for the shirts, really."

"I can imagine."

"I could really use a cigarette." He cat-stretched, and [Bearshirt] had to admit to himself that he was admiring the man's body. Oh, well. And, yay, now he had been caught: "you're going to need a ciagarette soon, too, the way you're staring at me."

"I wasn't looking at--"

"Oh, don't lie. Besides, I knew you in the past life, remember?"

Waterbabies

2009-05-26T10:20:00.002-05:00

PAGES JUST AFTER THE CENTERFOLD

I did remember to bring the Chick tract to the library today, and if I remember, the last post concerned the centerfold. The next facing pages have a brief discussion on baptism, what it's for, and what it does. As a Catholic, I was taught that baptism cleanses one from Original Sin, the sin on our souls merely because we are all children of Adam and Eve and are inheritors of, well, nothing. We as a species have abdicated our place in Heaven due to rebellion, and must become reconciled back to God to be in his family.

So here we go...Those of you who don't know the story of Lydia in the Bible probably could care less where her story is, so as I've gone blank (The Acts of the Apostles?) as to where it is, I'm going to cover myself by not referencing it. I do hate it when I do that. MEANWHILE, we are told that her entire household is baptized after her conversion, which presumably includes children, and (why not?) infants. Are we told the ages of the people in her house? No. Are we told that everyone made an informed decision? No. What I was told as a Catholic was that parents would do well to have their children baptized, if nothing else as a contingency plan. And seriously, would you ask your child if she wanted to be inoculated (a topic for another post, sadly), go to school, or hold back on the cake?

Hello? No.

So Catholics (and some Protestants) baptize their infants as soon as possible. I don't know what page number I'm on in this tract, which is awe-fully awfully unprepared of me, but the second page after the centerfold has Jesus recommending that Mr. John "should have believed [his] word [the Bible] instead of [the] catechism." My only real argument against that page is that Mr. Chick has John eek out, "(Gasp!) They lied about that too!" Forgetting that the catechism in not in competition with the Bible for just a moment, isn't "lied" a strong word for this situation? We as Catholics trust the Church because it, as the Bride of Christ, does not, nor can't be deceived. While most people aren't too sticky with truth (as in, among other things, the first Christians were all Catholic), it fails to obviate that God is still Truth, everything of God is about the Truth, and the Truth doesn't change depending on what one feel's like when one wakes up in the morning.

It is certainly possible, and indeed very likely, that there are people in this world who deceive themselves and others for the sheer joy of deception, and that in all religions (even Satanism) there are imperfect practicioners who fail to live by the tenets of their faith. This alone, incompetence on behalf of the practicioner, does not mean that the faith itself is wrong. Certainly, there are religions that are wrong in and of themselves, but to argue amongst ourselves as to who is more Christian--Catholic or Protestant--is dangerous among believers. None of us really know what we're doing--if so, why is the world the way it is? We can only trust in something greater than ourselves, which is the motivation behind religion, I suppose, even the "lack" of religion.

ARGH, I've run out of time on this terminal, and can't have an extension. Don't form an opinion on this post yet, I'm not done...

Running 'round, killin' stuff

2009-05-24T16:11:00.004-05:00

By the time I'm able to get to a computer, I usually forget what we did the game-session before, but Braek isn't dead yet. Actually, I don't think he was wounded at all during the last adventure (which we didn't finish, so I have now jinxed myself). We're dibbling around in a Ravenloft-style dimension, and I'm just thrilled with anticipation of having to fight my first 57,834,792 unDead, but all at the same time. Brutal.

One thing I've learned, instead of actually how to play D&D--I still have no clue--is that those people who are the reason why mothers tell their children they can't play shouldn't be played with. That wasn't just amazingly-clear, so I'll restate: those who make the game into some sort of...well, you know the let's-go-out-in-the-woods-behind-the-house-and-kill-my-sister stereotype, as well as the very-famous Devil-worshipper type--and while of course both of these populations generally shouldn't be the butt of some snarky joke, what I'm trying desperately to say is that DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS IS FUN, FUN, FUN. I can't possibly see how an evil player-character would get anywhere in this game, since you really need to cooperate, excercise your team-player skills and yes, occasionally take one for the team. This is a social game. I understand that there are people who ruin the game for "nice kids," exactly as there are people who ruin anything for anyone. I put "kids" in quotation marks because I'm playing with a bunch of old-heads--the youngest of us is in college at the typical age, but the rest are old enough to be telling their own (if hypothetical) children to stay away from the game. Not that they would.

It's fun, I promise, just use your sound judgement. If you don't like your immediate game environment, start another group of your own. It's only the Devil's game if you set out a chair for him and ask him to bring the chips.

You've gotta love a man in uniform

2009-05-24T16:02:00.002-05:00

Today was my first attempt at being in the Knights of Columbus honor guard while we had a Memorial Day Observence ceremony. I am now at the Public Library, after the event, literally fogging up the place as I am now stewing in my own juices--but at least I'm wearing part of a tux. Welcome to Alabama in summertime. Is it Summer? It probably is. Today at least. Don't ask.

So I lock my keys in the car, because I've put them in the other pants I had been wearing before changing into the tuxedo. So they were at least in one of my pockets... But thanks be to said Man in Uniform, I was able to get into the car--which has seen much more in the way of self-propelled break-ins.

As is now usual, I only have a few minutes left on this terminal, but I wanted to salute all the veterans and remember those who have paid the ultimate price for something that is never free.

Occupational hazard

2009-05-21T15:48:00.002-05:00

You know, the most-prominent drawback to working in a library is the ease and convenience of self-medicating with free books and audio-visual materials.

Do you remember a few months ago when I had a list of books I was currently reading? THAT WAS A FALSEHOOD AND A PLOT TO DECEIVE. I check out so many books from work, I have no hope of reading even a third of them. I think I have 25 items currently checked out. Exactly who needs to try to read 25 books in three weeks--and I'm not referring to Frog and Toad Are Friends, although I did get that one once last month. Of course, the benefit is the same as the harm: try getting 25 books at once in a conventional bookstore--ooh, don't say that out loud! And this way, I do have a smattering of knowledge about chair caning, drying food, and other topics reluctant to reveal why they are important in my life. I was once described by a small-town librarian that I was an omnivorous reader, but I think I've spent the past year just sticking my head in the refrigerator and moving things around. Oh, well.

Strong words from a weak man

2009-05-18T15:01:00.003-05:00

Recently, I have been playing around on Facebook, mostly to reconnect with fellow classmates from so long ago--America didn't even have Presidents then--in order to convincingly skip my twentieth reunion. Anyway, I've also been subjected to roughly the same amount of interpersonal mayhem I would encounter on any social networking site, I suppose. I found myself yesterday defending the Church (which I was only too happy to do, as it's my duty) against some man-clown that went to see the film Angels and Demons, and went on to describe it as how the Church is/was persectuing the Illuminatie (sic). I reminded him that I am Catholic, and too flippantly informed him that my opinion happened to be that if the Church is/was indeed persecuting anyone, -thing, or organization, it was probably warranted.

This didn't go over as well as I had planned. One would think I hadn't planned at all, which in fact was the case. This man, who mentioned today how cute I looked in my khaki slacks (eek) proceeded to default, and throw in how the Church institutionalized mistreatment of Blacks.

Let's back up, shall we? "Persecute" is an extremely strong word to use in a conversation about another person's place of worship, and I'm not convinced that this man's definition--which essentially was that "one wanting to destroy someone, -thing, or organization"--was appropriate for the conversation. If and only if the Church is/was responsible for the eradication of anyone--called for the death of anyone (even those abortion provider people)--I will attempt to apologize for my Church. But as that's an over-the-top task, can we not see that the attempt, as well as the claim, is invalid? We sang a song in church yesterday that had as the refrain "God is love/and all who live in love/live in God." God is a God of love and life, and wanting the death of anyone is completely unrelated to both. Popular revisionist history claims that hundreds of Wiccans were burned in the early days of our country. That's a random thought that illustrates my point. Making the assumption that Wicca is the real "gimme that old-time religion"--and it isn't; assuming that...

[I have only a few minutes left before the public-access timer goes off to finish this thought, and I've gone blank. Hooray. Maybe you're secretly pleased.]

Bother. I hate that I had to give up the Internet at home, but I was sacramentally starving to death because I couldn't stop using the Yahoo! Image Search injudiciously. Default-action bulleted points, in attempt to think out what I would like said as quickly and incompetently as possible:

Notre Dame was wrong to invite President Barack Obama to deliver the Graduation Commencement speech. It was wrong-er to award him an honorary degree. Not that I was overjoyed to walk at my own graduation, but I would have boycotted the ceremony and if I had been arrested--bonus points.
Something I've mentioned on this blog before is that if God is love, what does God have to do with random casual (not to mention bizarre) sex of any permutation of sexes?
We live in a society where it's almost applauded for young people to say that they're unpatriotic and Socialist, and would rather live somewhere else--without daring even to try to say which country they'd rather be in. In that case, no-one should graduate.

[I asked for a time extension, and I've already burned it up. I'm sorry. Maybe I can tell you a nice story next time--will that make me feel better?]

Wow, that last post was awful, wasn't it?

2009-05-08T15:48:00.005-05:00

I was under a time-constraint, and I apologize: sub-standard product is exactly what this blog is about, but I shouldn't have been so overt with it.

I'm free! I just donated probably 48,902,730,234 pounds of yarn which I will never get around to using to the church yard sale. In case you're considering becoming a happy hooker, be warned that everyone will unload their crap/whasis yarn on you--just to help you establish a stash. THIS IS A COMPLETE FALSEHOOD AND ACT OF PURE-D SELFISHNESS. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. In fact, I saw a bag of yarn at the sale that came from Kmart (and we know how long it's been since they had craft supplies) that cost the donator a whopping 15 cents per skein. Can you believe that, church? FIFTEEN CENTS. I would be outraged at inflation, but I can't figure out how to make the "cent" sign on this keyboard--I can't even make an ellipsis anymore (...) the short-cut way--and can only berserkerate about one thing at a time, thanks be to buproprion.

And the crazy thing about that yarn was that it was made up of everything but cotton: merino wool, rayon, polyester, viscose, pasta.... The world has gone mad.

Speaking of which, isn't it interesting how President Barack Hussein Obama is running the country. That wasn't a question. Aww, too bad, my time on the library computer is almost up--I'll have to sign off.