If there were one aspect of myself that I would change if I could (apart from my apparent aversion to going to sleep), it would be the stubborn streak that won’t let me easily drop something. I debated with myself all day as to whether to comment on the website where my apparent shortcomings were openly trashed. I just did reply; I couldn’t let it slide. What I didn’t do was slam back with the same disdain. (At least I don’t think I did, but it’s pretty clear I’m not always great at taking that temperature.)

Two good things and one jokey glib thing came out of this little cyber-row. First, I was woken up a bit to how much the country and the world is becoming increasingly polarized and moving in a direction in which I am not happy. My core values are threatened as the louder voices of the religious right, etc. shout down my beliefs and label them immoral or worse. It is incumbent upon me and all others who share our views to fight back, speak up and organize. So, the first good thing is awakening that activism in me. My first baby step was an email to Eileen McNamara of the Boston Globe thanking her for speaking up and writing about things like Archbishop O’Malley’s contempt.

The second good thing is that one of posters did defend me a bit, and he sent me a personal email without accusations and name-calling, and I returned the favor. So, while it is easy to rail against the crowd, it’s always good to remember the individual voices. By and large, I don’t agree with the guy, and I’m mildly confused and amused by what I think are presumptious assumptions about me in his reply, but, hey, what are you going to do? I hope that one thing I’m able to maintain overall in life, though, is some ability to talk with people with different experiences and points of view and keep myself open to learning. Obviously, if you have ever read anything here, I can suck at that, but every now and again, it really works for me.

The last treasure, and, yes, this is the salvo over the bow. Thank GOD, or whatever yanks your crank spiritually, for the total bullshit negativity heaped upon me. Every now and then I long for the comfort and for what I think is the easy answer and delusional balm of a church watching your back. Why not turn off your own senses and sense of responsibility and just let the Pope or whoever decide for you? Fuck freewill when you have rules to follow and groups to hate. Like many who have suffered through personal challenges and losses, I have thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could pray or know that someone I loved hadn’t died in vain? But, at my deepest core, I believe that organized religion is a purely human construct, mumbo jumbo no different than Zeus worship or medicine men, necessary to comfort ourselves, but without a base. That’s my belief, although by and large folks I care about have something more divine going on for them. A few even regularly go to church. I respect their choices even as I don’t understand them.

SOOOOOOOO, thank god those good folks reminded me that I want no part AT ALL of their world. I’ll party with the sinners til judgment day, while they shake their heads in dismay. And, I will do my best to not be an absolute shit to my fellow humans for the time I have, but I ain’t taking any shit either.

Today is kind of a weird day for me in my corner of the web. I read and responded to an individual’s web log with a link here in regard to the foot washing tradition on Easter Thursday. In turn, he returned the favor and quoted me and responded to me. Hey, turnabout is fair play.

However, I’ve been taken aback by the increase in the readership here and the personal comments about me that accompany his post. (I’m not linking back to him again for this entry, because I really can’t see the discourse progressing beyond tit for tat.)

So, I entitled this entry “having my cake…” because I truly enjoy the freedom of writing here and of expressing myself on stage. It’s a pretty cool thing when something I say or write resonates with someone else and makes them laugh. And, I truly want to have my cake and eat it too.

The comeuppance, of course, is putting yourself out in public means you will also engender negative emotions. When things go well, and you get mostly positive feedback, you forget that there are people out there who don’t share your values. If you write from your heart and your truth, it’s inevitable that at best someone will disagree and at worst they will hate you.

The beauty of it all is the complete ironic construct of my own actions (commenting on the church I left without regret many, many, many years ago) coming back on me. Yeah, the ultimate comeuppance, judging yourself and then being judged.

People I don’t know have guessed in self-congratulatory furvor my apparent age, politics, intellectual capacity and the state of my soul from reading this weblog. {Is it necessary to point out they have guessed these things incorrectly?} They have dubbed me a “barbarian” and then debated if that was fair or whether simply “misguided” would be more compassionate. My gender and apparent feminism was taken out for a flogging. And, words that I thought were pretty clearly a joke have demonstrated my moral turpitude.

In short, with a few brief lines in this virtual plane, a few people who I likely will never meet have reconfirmed my own faith and made me happy that I am not in their church. There is currently a viciousness to fundamental beliefs that I cannot reconcile with any of my own reading and studying of history, philosophy, religion and the words of the New Testament.

Even though I don’t believe in God as a monotheistic construct and I likely will never be able to find comfort in organized religion, I do see and appreciate the beauty and power of the stories in the Bible. I worked with the parish priest to formally lay my mother to rest in a Catholic ceremony and read aloud Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18, and I was cool with providing her that sacrament as part of a faith that I believe was there, even though she struggled with the actions of the formal church here on earth and the weakness of the men who run it for as long as I can remember. Helping to participate in the mass helped focus me through my grieving, but at heart I am a secular humanist and I don’t have the faith for which the zealots seem inordinately proud of themselves.

At the end of the day, I count myself in good company historically and currently for not going along with these goodly, judgmental folks. Inside me I carry some of my mother’s anger at the closed-off narrowness of their lives that presumes so much about mine without knowing me.

A friend from comedy, DJ Hazard, best responded to what I think is the arrogant presumption of these strangers’ praying for me, “Unsolicited prayers are the same as The Kids In The Hall ‘crushing your head’.”

I dedicate this post to Ellen Goodman, Eileen McNamara, homosexuals who just want to find love and live in peace, anyone who looked for compassion and found only judgment and, most especially, any woman who has found herself making a difficult choice and then had to listen to people condemn her without having the first idea of what was in her head or heart.

I was feeling pretty whiny today, especially about missing M. I hadn’t really thought of this weekend as a holiday weekend, until I tried to do stuff today and was reminded of this burg being a Catholic stronghold. Many things were closed. However, the nearest liquor store was opened, so I guess the “Blue laws” are a thing of the past.

I kept running into large and very loud immigrant families together for the holidays and generally being in my way. For a split racist second, I was full of thoughts of “get out of my way, learn to speak English, act like a native…” Pretty indicative of my mood, really. But, then, I went out for a bit of a walk and remembered why I live in the city and usually don’t hate diversity. I got some good Indian takeout for dinner and a steaming chai to go from the local, non-chain cafe. A little aloo nan and I’m back to my usual xenophilic self. (OK, I don’t embrace all strangers, just the ones as sweet and cute as M., of which I pretty much have only met one. I say “pretty much” so if any interested parties read this post they maintain a little buddhist-type humility.)

Meanwhile, here’s a greeting that only one potential reader will understand:

You may be spending the laziest weekend ever when you try to decide the best time to masturbate and what outfit to wear afterward and then you kind of half-ass the whole thing, because it’s too much effort.

Yup, I couldn’t get it up to try to get it up, as it were.

Completely unrelated (I mean completely, as in 180 degrees), since it’s Easter, I was thinking about ham, and that had me thinking about my mom. One of my favorite classic Pat stories, from Pat the later years, takes place after her house fire. After much of her house apart from the frame was completely destroyed, she had nothing. Literally, the smokey clothes on her back were what was left of her worldly possessions.

So all of us around in my family had various shopping expeditions to re-outfit Pat with the basics. For me the classic trip was a visit to Walmart’s, where I tried to convince her to live a little and buy two six packs of undies. She thought one was more than enough, whilst I believe you can never, ever have more than enough underwear. I chose not to argue with my mother about the cotton brief aspect, because I know that I could not survive in a world with six pairs of cotton briefs. I mean even if you ain’t doing anything slutty, every now and again you might want to look the part.

I digress, however. The best shopping story of all was my aunt’s (Pat’s little sister). My mom called her to say that she had to go to the drugstore and get essentials. My aunt probably envisioned essentials like aspirin or chapstick or maybe drugs, whatever mundane and usual purchase one gets at the local pharmacy. So, they head off to the nearby CVS for survivalist Pat’s essentials.

And, what, you might ask, did Pat buy at CVS after losing everything to fire — A new lipstick and a canned ham.

That has to be some kind of definition of style.

I failed to post this in time, but here’s a link to next year’s Easter baking project.

Actually, the recipe is so wonderful, I can’t help but post it.

Make the night before Easter:
Resurrection Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup pecans
3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vinegar
pinch salt
wooden spoon
tape
wax paper
1 Bible

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300.
2. Put the pecans in a baggie. Have the kids beat the pecans with the
wooden spoon. While they are doing that, Mom reads John 19:1-3.
Explain to kids how Jesus was beaten by the Roman soldiers.
3. Have kids smell the vinegar in the bottle. Read John 19:28-30. Put
the vinegar in a mixing bowl. Explain how Jesus was given sour vinegar
to drink, while hanging on the cross.
4. Add egg whites to vinegar. Explain that the eggs represent “life”, and
that Jesus gave his life. Read John 10:10-11.
5. Put a small pinch of salt in each child’s hand and let her/him taste it
with their finger. Have them sprinkle it into the bowl with the egg
whites and vinegar. Read Luke 23:27 and explain that the salt is like
the “salty tears” that were shed by Jesus’ followers, and the sadness
they felt for their sins.
6. Talk to the children about the strange combination in the bowl. Talk
about how could all this “unusual” stuff make a sweet cookie. Jesus
took something bitter and made it something wonderful.
7. Beat the combination on high for 12-15 minutes. As the mixture turns
bright white. Explain to the children that the white represents the
purity in God’s eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.
Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3.
8. Fold in the nuts. Drop by teaspoon onto a wax paper covered cookie
sheet. Talk about how the mounds look like the rocky tomb where Jesus
was laid. Read Matthew 27:57-60.
9. Put the cookie sheet into the oven, close the door, and turn OFF the
oven.
10. Give the kids tape and let them “Seal” the oven. Put 2 strips across
the oven door to seal it. Explain how Jesus’ tomb was sealed. Read
Matthew 27:65-66.
11. GO TO BED! This may feel hard for the children to leave their cookies
unattended and not finished over night. Explain the despair that Jesus’
followers felt leaving Jesus in the sealed tomb that first night. Read
John 16:20 and 22. This really drove the point home for my children.
They went to bed the night before Easter REALLY thinking about what
Jesus had done for us.
12. Get up Easter morning before your children. Remove the tape and open
the oven.
13. When your children awaken have them get a cookie from the sheet.
Notice how the cookies have a cracked surface. Talk about how Jesus’
followers were shocked to go to his tomb and find it open.
14. Have each child take a bite of his/her cookie. They will be very
surprised to find that their cookies are HOLLOW. Explain how Jesus’
followers were amazed that when they found the tomb open, that it also
was EMPTY! Jesus HAS risen! Read Matthew 28:1-9.
15. Pray. Thank God for sending his Son. Thank Jesus for dying on the
cross for our sins. Thank Him for raising again. Thank Him. Thank
Him. Thank Him.

I haven’t decided whether my favorite part is kids beating nuts with a spoon, reminiscent of the Roman guards, or tasting the salt of Jesus’ tears. Waking up to a special treat of an empty tomb is also pretty swell.

I’m up too late, and it’s Easter Eve.

Haven’t spotted the Messiah, yet. Or any candy-bearing rodents.

In honor of Jesus dying for our sins (and I guess being dead for today only), I perused this this guy’s weblog. It helped reaffirm my religious conviction. Culturally, there are many things about me that are peculiar to the time and place of growing up in a large Boston Irish Catholic family. But, as God is my witness, I am not of or about the Catholic church. At the end of the day I am no more Catholic than, I don’t know, Senator Lieberman, maybe? Of course, my lack of belief in God probably doesn’t help with the religiousity.

I read through the article he mocks, and I remember the feeling my mother always had of exclusion from her church. I think Jesus would wash the feet of both men and women and would have given shit to the pompous windbags who stress the symbolism of the apostles and mirroring their gender. It is interesting the collection of judgments that are implied in the articles and discussions on the website I linked. I wonder how close God would see the modern Catholics as being to the Pharisees.

So, by the last couple of paragraphs, I have firmly entrenched myself in a path to hell, whee, so onto the mundane and materialistic. Here’s a tip for modern living, never acquiesce to a customer service agent for a credit card company. I have a Discover card that I use like American Express; I use it and pay it off every month. Pretty much it was the card of choice for my vacation in March, so I easily racked up some debt over a grand, no big deal, I can pay it (else I wouldn’t have gone on vacation). A minimum payment was due last week of $10, and oops I spaced and didn’t pay it, and they turned off my card. So today, online, I paid the whole balance, and I shot them a phone call seeing whether I’d be able to go buy a new Easter outfit today.

I point out my excellent history with them, the fact I regularly pay my entire balance, the reality that I just paid, the absurdity that I owed $10 but just paid $1,000 + (to her I didn’t mention the absurd part), and ask if my privileges to charge can please be turned back on today before the payment can actually clear. NO NO NO, she tells me. The payment must clear or I must increase my credit limit, she tells me. Wait, I am not even near my limit, I point out, she corrects and actually says, “it’s the same difference,” the payment must clear. Again pointing out my history, I ask if there is anyone who can grant exceptions, anything that can be done. No, no one. Nonchalantly without affect or attitude, I ask to speak to a supervisor anyway, since I want to ask about something else.

About a minute of hold time, she’s back on the line. Voila, my card has been cleared, I am ready to go.

They actually make a completely unrisky bit of cash from people like me who like to clear their debt, but more than occassionally space out on payments. Why wouldn’t the supervisor say “YES.”

Finally, from spiritual to material to corporeal, here is my tip for better living through diet. You gotta try the new line of Cheerios. Words cannot describe the excitement I feel in anticipation of a bowl of this magical treat. Orgasms pail in their wonderment of next to contemplating how did Cheerios do it. It’s fruit in the bowl dessicated through science and reinvigorated with milk.

That is the resurrection and the light, real blueberries, bananas, strawberries and rasperries. A fitting breakfast for Easter.

We interviewed a woman today who explained the year or so gap in her resume not about unemployment and downsizing, as I expected, but because she was working on her own business as an “image consultant.”

She looked OK, with a beige jacket over dark pants and blouse, in a very separates kind of way. And, she was larger sized, so I think the polyester blendedness is possibly difficult (or expensive) to avoid. And she had some kind of pearl type of necklace that offset the beige and dark nicely.

All in all, though, not sure about image. More importantly I spent the interview wondering what she was thinking about the zipper-decorated pants I was sporting. I haven’t had zipper-y pants since my anarchist fantasy days in London, using my Yankee dollars in Portabello Market and King’s Road.

I’m a loser baby!

Left work early in order to try out for Jeopardy. And, I failed.

(There were about 72 other people in the room and only about 10 got called on to the next round. And, on the other side of the room was a tall man with a ponytail and a low voice who I know I know from somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out where. It was distracting.)

Apart from the possibility I just got stuff plain old wrong (but I didn’t feel like I did), I essentially choked. I could feel myself waffling. I wrote down the ones that were either on the tip of my tongue but remained out of my grasp or where I waffled stupidly. (The format is 50 straight questions on a videotape like in the show — blue screen with the category above and the question in a form of an answer. There’s eight seconds between each question. Rumor has it (because they won’t tell you when you take the test) you have to get 35+ correct to go to the mock game round.)

Who wrote Madame Bovary? My gut, my first instinct the word that came off the top of my head — Flaubert. But, I thought no, it’s not Flaubert, he wrote that thing about the chick and the bird, think, French author, French author. It’s too obvious, Flaubert wrote everything, Hugo? No. Dumas? the other Dumas? NO, NO. I wrote in fucking Balzac. I actually have read Madame Bovary within this decade. It’s author – Flaubert. That is when my confidence started to slide.

Who wrote “Private Lives?” This one I got write, Noel Coward, but I went home unsure and had to look it up.

Whose only novel was The Picture of Dorian Gray? Easy I think, I know this one, I love that story. But nothing goes on the page, No-Thing. Blank. THINK. My thought process goes something like this, yeah, picture, and it’s not a usual novelist, maybe it’s a poet. Hmm, Pope, yeah Pope. When I got home, I realized why I pulled that wrong answer out of my ass. It has something to do with the weird place in my brain that I store High School English and poetry. We read Browning’s “Last Duchess.” We read Pope’s “Rape of the Lock.” They have become one with some kind of picture of a woman on the wall. Which all has nothing to do with Oscar Wilde, who I have adored, and who wrote Dorian Gray. I even tried to stay at the hotel in Paris a couple of years ago where Oscar used to live and write some of the time.

Where is Flanders? Instantly, I wrote down Belgium. But, no, wait a minute I thought 10 seconds later (after the next question had started), maybe it’s the Netherlands. Yeah, the Netherlands, that’s the ticket. I crossed out Belgium, wrote in the Netherlands. D’OH! The answer is, of course, Belgium. Fucking Benelux countries.

Israel PM slain in 1995? Yitzhak Rabin–OK, I got that one right. But, for an uncomfortable squirming period I was running the names of Jewish leaders through my head. I’m surprised I didn’t write in Golda Meir.

Author of Twice Told Tales and Mosses from the Old Manse? — I took a stab at it, because the category was something like 18th century American Lit. I threw down Hawthorne. Turns out that one was right.

There was something about not being just aliens and the Alien Act and another act passed in July 1798. I couldn’t figure that one out; I wrote unalienable rights, because I’m, like, stupid. I think the correct answer may or may not have been The Act of Sedition, which I have heard of and did happen in 1798.

This next ball of doubt and confusion embarasses me completely. You see for the past year I have kept company with a gentleman friend who hails from this part of the world. The question was what predominantly Muslim country is the island of Bali part of ?… ARGHHH, Southeast Asia, I know this, I know this, argh, think, what would M. say? What is it? He knows, I know, I’ve seen maps, I’ve seen South Pacific. Fuck. I throw down Malaysia, knowing with absolute certainty that is WRONG, but neighbors whatever country, whose name escapes me, it is. Sure enough, Indonesia is the answer, and it is indeed next door to Malaysia.

Those are the ones I wrote on my hand, because they were plaguing me and I had to know the right answer. Most everything else felt pretty right and cool, but we’ve justed established, what the fuck do I know?

I also know I absolutely got wrong: What planet did the comet Shoemaker Levy-9 hit? I wrote Mars; the correct answer is Jupiter.

I probably got wrong the thing about measurement that might have been “joule,” like I wrote, or “erg” or something else entirely. Don’t know.

I’m positive I got Bizet’s last opera, Carmen, right, I’m pretty sure about “fiber optics” and “polar bear market.” I thought I aced with “Frank Zappa,” as the last person alphabetically in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; he’s not in it, and ZZ Top is the last. There was a poker question, where the answer was probably stud or hold’em (I can’t remember what they described). I floundered in my head for a poker term and came up lamely with “draw.” And, there was something in a Childbirth category about what shoots out of something, I don’t know what the fuck that was, I don’t think there’s any shooting anything. Turns out I’m dumb AND I don’t know where babies come from.

Well, that’s that. The good news is I called M. right after. He’s willing to go out with a dumb girl.

I also was out of work on one of the first real Spring-feeling days, so I walked around Copley and did a little shopping. All in all, not bad for a failure.

I didn’t buy a $500 black leather jacket at Neiman’s or a $10 shiny silver leather skirt at Lord & Taylor’s (but I might have to go back). I only ended up with clearance from the Gap. I think proving I am not just dumb but boring.

Playing hookey in the sun, almost makes being a Jeopardy loser worthwhile.

Almost.