Monday, May 28, 2007

Spiritual Sucker Punch

As I’ve said previously, I have a lot of issues with religion in general, and mine in particular. Having been raised CATH-O-LIC, suffering issues is pretty much par for the course.

Nonetheless, I like to go to church, even though I do not go to communion, or say that I believe in "one holy Catholic and apostolic church" and often have a sinking feeling I am the only asshole actually really listening to the readings and gospel. Even if I consider them Judeo Christian mythology, I think the sentiments communicated are worth hearing.


I thought some of my issues had maybe to do with the parish. It was the parish I have gone to most of my life. I decided to leave, which was hard to do. Then I had to decide what to do next. I went to another one of the local parish churches with one of my friends on Palm Sunday, but had not been since. I did not feel right going for Easter, to a new place, and then felt backpedaling on my decision to change parishes.

Yesterday, I woke up, at a freakishly early hour for a Sunday, especially since I had my latest night in ages the night before, and got up, and scrubbed and dressed and went to church at the new parish. I had not consciously recalled it was Pentecost. In retrospect I feel it was a convergence of serendipity that I decided to get up and go to mass yesterday. I like the new to me church. It seems friendlier. I was really surprised by my feelings yesterday during the prayers of petition. Essentially, Prayers of Petition are when a reader, or sometimes the Deacon, or, like yesterday, the Priest, reads off stuff to pray for, and the people respond "Lord, hear our prayer" or a reasonable facsimile. So, its a lot of stuff about prayers for the community, and the world, and pray for our soldiers blah, blah, blah, every week. I am sure in every religious service, regardless of the denomination, prayers are offered for the military.

During petitions yesterday, the priest said, "Let us all pause to pray and reflect, and give thanks to those who are, and have served, in the military." "Lord, hear our prayer." "Let us especially pray for those in our parish who have given their lives for us." Ok, that is when many people, including me, stopped breathing. Then, the priest read the full name of every parishioner who has died in Iraq. Not many names, but also far too many. Every syllable was like a punch in the stomach. I could not breathe. I felt winded. I started to cry, soundless, unstoppable tears. All war is horrible, and dirty, and mean, and disgusting, and a lot of actual human annihilation takes place. It ain’t pretty, or neat, or cut and dried, ever. This war has done so much damage to us all. I just pray some workable way to extricate ourselves from this current debacle will come to light.

LORD, PLEASE, HEAR OUR PRAYER.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Today Sucks

Mostly, I love my Mom and Dad, and they died about three years ago, and that sucks, but I am a grown up, and shit happens and in the scheme of things, when it comes to the death of a loved one, the fact your parents will die is a pretty safe bet in life. Sometimes I remember things about them that infuriated me about them. Sometimes I remember things that I loved about them. When I catch myself making a gesture, or using an expression I picked up from them, I smile.

For the past few days I have been mad at my Mom. It did not occur to me until very late last night that I was just trying to convince myself that I did not miss her and Mother’s Day is no big deal. I am full of shit. I miss my Mom sometimes, so palpably and so terribly that I need to catch my breath. I have been exhausted today. Today I had planned to get up early, and go to church for 7AM mass, and then go to the cemetery. Well, I was up early, but it took me until almost 10 o’clock to actually manage to take a shower and dress myself, and go outside. At the cemetery I was aware that there were a lot of other people there in a similar state.

My Mom died the day after we buried my Dad. I was surprised my Dad died as soon as he did, and more surprised that my Mom survived so long. Dorky and insane as it sounds I believe that she decided it was finally ok to die after she buried my Dad. I, and several close people in my life, am absolutely convinced that my Dad "hung around," for lack of a better way to say it, and waited for her. We all believed we felt him there. After my Mom died, a lot of us believed our parents "stopped by" to visit us and check on us for awhile. Many of us had the exact same dream about my parents, laughing and smiling and happy and dancing. Until all this happened, I was sure people who "believed" such crap were at worst nut cases and at best deeply grieving people who had profound and vivid memories of loved ones. It is one of the sweetest things I believe about my parents, that even when they died, they stuck together.

I was upset and overwhelmed when my Dad died, due in large part to the fact that I had no idea how I was going to take care of my Mom without him to help me. I was terrified I would forget how to work the oxygen tank, or that I might actually kill one of my sisters without him to tell me to get over myself and them to get the fuck out of my way. When my Mom died, we decided to do things a little differently than when my Dad died because church freaking killed us, to watch the coffin go down the funeral home stairs and up and down the church stairs was vile. Church mass did nothing to comfort anyone. So, when my Mom died we had calling hours for people to come visit with her. Another thing, by the way, I thought was pretty fucked up until my parents died, now I get it.

After her wake, my Mom was cremated and we had a memorial service. It was nice. Lots of my Mom’s friends were able to come. I was so upset because I had not been able to write out something to say about my Mom. I had so much I wanted to say, and I could not organize my thoughts or breathe or think. I had made a list of things I wanted to talk about. I still have the list. I do not remember what I said at all. I remember crying, and feeling like I was going to pass out, and looking up at the people there, and noticing they looked like they thought I was going to pass out too. I have no idea what I said. My friends and my sister tell me it made sense and I was very well-spoken, but I think they are just being nice. And, really, what kind of asshole would tell you if you fucked up your Mother's eulogy? But I feel very guilty about it. My Mommy was very special and very smart, and all kinds of other wonderful things, and I just feel awful that I still cannot figure out how to communicate all that to anybody.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Mission Critical

I have a personal problem. I’m a picky bitch. No, that is not the problem, not for me anyway. See; I’m what I call a put up or shut up kinda person. I know what I like, I know what I want, and I do not generally settle for anything other than what I want.

There are a lot of things that I prefer. I am quite ding dang opinionated about what I want, and why I want it. I buy the local skim milk in the recycled paper cartons for lots of reasons. I only like skim milk, and screw you if you think it is disgusting blue water you uncultured fucks. It supports the local economy as well as actual people and cows I have met. It is good for the environment. The containers are better than plastic because they block light and therefor retain the nutritional benefits of the milk. I think Han Solo is way hotter than Luke Skywalker and will forever harbor a grudge against anyone who disagrees. I like paper AND plastic, and I do not feel this is in contradiction to my concerns about the environment, and will gladly tell any tree hugging hippie mother fucker to suck it if they try to convince me to give up this habit. As a rule I would rather stay home and watch reruns of shows I like than go on a date just because somebody asked me. I love the following programs. Law and Order in all its incarnations. The West Wing. X-Files. My new obsession Angel. By the way, I am so bummed, I watched some stuff I recorded in the thick of tax season, and Wesley dies in the end! Oh, my poor broken heart. Rest in peace Wesley, you genius studmuffin British prude. Any James Bond movie. Any Discovery channel documentary, especially about elephants, I love elephants. Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana are good guitar players and I will listen to their music until I die. Most of the alleged music that is coming out these days is over engineered, appeal to the lowest common dominator, more representative of marketing aptitude than musical talent, unmitigated crap.

Speaking of crap, as it were, I also like only one kind of toilet paper. It is the Kirkland brand embossed bath tissue sold at Costco warehouse stores. This is where my personal problem comes in. You see, I have three rolls left, and am no longer able to finagle a free business customer membership, and as much as I love the toilet paper, I refuse to pay for warehouse club membership just so I can have it. So I am picky and cheap. Or, as I prefer, discerning and prudent. Now I do have some options, I could suck up to any one of a number of friends to take me to Costco as their guest so I can procure the object of my desire. However, since I have thus far maintained I have no bodily functions, the potential ridicule is too much for me to bear. I could just go buy some other kind. But that is heresy. I cannot abandon my blessed favorite. I looked all my life for the toilet tissue of my dreams. It is of a texture that is comfortable. It does not scratch my delicate lady parts, nor does it disintegrate into useless lint half way through the job at hand. Further, it is excellent for many uses such as the blending of eye liner, the only make up I regularly wear, and the blotting of my allergy eye drops before I apply the liner. I use it to clean up Mon Petite Amour and Girly Kitty when they themselves have a potty problem. It is excellent for wiping off the sink after I get too happy with the splashing of water on my face. Not to mention being an excellent stand in for tissues when I am all stuffy and sick and run out of tissues in the middle of the night and do not want to go out in the DARK, ALONE, to go to the 24 hour store to get more tissues. I am at a loss, I do not know what to do, except seriously cut back my fluid intake, until I am able to find a solution to this problem.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Perspective

The world is a very different place in a lot of ways from when I was growing up. Some things are still the same too. For families like mine there are more resources to deal with the overwhelming problems. It is, to a certain extent, socially acceptable to ask for help now. And, there is a lot more help to get. It seems to me, particularly with the advent of the Internet as a daily presence in many people’s lives all over the world that our world has gotten simultaneously smaller and bigger. We able to learn how similar we are to people who are radically different. Sometimes a stranger on the Internet can provide better advice, greater comfort, or a more effective kick in the ass than people who have known and loved you all your life.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Silence is Acquiescence

I am really terrified of how things are going in the world, and feel very helpless and at a loss as to what I can possibly do to make a difference. Please pray for our country, and our world. Please do whatever else you can to make the world a better place, we need all the help we can get, both tangible and intangible.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Tax Amnesty

Well, I managed to survive tax season just fine. I wish I worked on comission. I would have loved to have 10% of all those refunds. I have also had a nice nap, and done some laundry, and all kinds of other great stuff. I logged into my e-mail for this blog today. Thank you to those who wrote to check on me. I am just dandy, I had to take a break from blogging to work like a dog for a few months. Tax season is tough, but it is great the rest of the year to have all the free time to go to the beach, and sleep late, and work on my money pit house, also, I really need to get a new man. They have some uses, I recall.

I upgraded, or updated, or whatever the hell, my blog. Now I have to figure out how to get it looking aesthetically how I desire. I feel like writing again, so it is what it is. I made the old posts live again, and hope to crank out something new pretty frequently for the time being.

I am looking forward to the resolution of some legal issues so I can blab about them on the internets, also I have had a lot going on in my life, and will try to assemble some cogent and cohesive stories about it all.

Meanwhile, I have found a new object of lust on the television. Why did no one tell me about this show Angel before? I have been watching it on TNT while I get ready for work. This stuff is perverse, and funny, and twisted, I like it, and I do not know why. Also, I love nerds and hotties, both of which this show has quite a bit of, I am a happy little couch potato today.

Happy Spring!