random observations from yesterday.

Yesterday I met an EKG technician named Confidence. He was from somewhere in Africa. He came into the room very carefully, and so I didn't have a lot of confidence in him at first but when he began doing his job, he did it rapidly and with great oodles of confidence. I really like it when people fit their names.

One year, I worked with a boy named YourMajesty. He'd been given that name because his parents wanted him to get beaten up in middle school (I'm being facetious; they named him that because they clearly felt the current Queen of England was the wrong choice). Magic (his alternate identity since exactly 99.9% of teachers refused to call him "YourMajesty") was very sweet, deeply dependable, and did not have one single royal entitlement about him. And that's nice. Because that name choice could have gone a couple of different ways. Which is why I'm glad he was like Edgar the Peaceful, King of England, and not King Henry the VIII, that crazy "off with her head!" King of England.

(YourMajesty was Jamaican, which is not even close to England and so I really have no idea why I'm using England as a reference at all.) (I hope YourMajesty-Magic doesn't get beaten up in middle school for having the nickname Magic. I hope he learns to do some really cool magic tricks that will wow all the budding gangstas in the school so much they leave him the hell alone, or that he'll change his name again. Maybe leaving out the vowels and making it Mgc, something mysterious. He was a sweet, smart boy. Sweet, smart boys should become president of the United States, not get jumped all the time by hormonal punks.)

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After meeting Confidence, I got on an elevator with an elegant couple in their late 60's-mid 70's. They'd been holding hands and talking quietly while waiting for the elevator, and they were extremely debonair: the man was wearing black khakis and a well-pressed light blue polo shirt, he had slicked back white hair, and I almost asked him what cologne he was wearing so I could get some for me, it was THAT good. The lady sounded just like Paula Deen, and she had one of Paula Deen's cute, silvery hairdos. She was wearing a black pencil skirt and a crisp white button down. She didn't have any gaudy jewelry on (for some reason, older ladies in my area dig big ass necklaces and earrings, the bigger the better). She just had on her wedding ring and a simple silver watch.

And then I noticed she was wearing sparkly black flip flops, which I think I've seen at Target. That was a happy surprise. And I immediately decided that's how I'll dress when in my late 60's: understated, but with a plucky punch at the end.

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Later, I was driving home with M and I saw Santa Claus walking down the street. M was in the back singing to Bob Marley's "Don't Worry" (she sings babble until she gets to the part where he goes "Don't worry...'bout a ting...'cause every little ting....gonna be all right" and then pipes up at the end with her backup: ".....be all right!"). And I saw him: Santa's hair was all crazy, and his beard was in bad need of a trim. He was wearing red pyjama pants, and a white t-shirt with stained armpits. He was bent over and really laboring to make it up the hill. 

I really wanted to pull over and offer Santa a ride; he's clearly being overworked, even while on vacation. But I think Santa may have been holding a bottle of liquor in the small brown bag he was carrying, and I didn't want to ruin everything for M (or me). 

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a little bit of chi, with a side of karmic justice (and Welsh tea cake).

I was raised Presbyterian by a lapsed  Methodist and a half-Catholic. It's probably part of the reason I can't do mainstream Christianity. The other part of the reason is that, exactly 9 times out of 10, I have personally witnessed people who are (loudly) Christian doing the following: lying, stealing, coveting their neighbors' asses (among other things), saying all types of things in vain, and working hardily on the Sabbath. Which is all fine by me, because I do these things too, occasionally without complaint. The problem I have with (loud) Christians is they try to say they don't do these things, or they admit to doing them but then throw in that cop out "But I'm still going to heaven, because I've been saved." As if Jesus was a Kroger coupon.

At the same time, I also have an extreme lack of appreciation for militant atheists. Because I think they actually do have a religion, but crazily refuse to recognize it. Which is why they're militant in the first place. People with nothing to prove or disprove, and no bones to pick, are generally very calm and nice, no shouting at all, unless they're gambling on horse races.

Have you ever run across a militant atheist and attempted to have a logical discussion with them about anything, including the weather? They make militant pro-life activists who bomb Planned Parenthood clinics look relatively tolerant. I'd like to think whoever is the patron saint of all the nice, calm atheists would be very frown-y about that.

So. I don't buy into mainstream Christianity and you won't ever see Christopher Hitchens on one of my Dream Dinner Guest lists (you will, however find Gerard Butler twice). 

Which is going to sound so weird in a second because I do, in fact, really dig Jesus. And Buddha. And I don't think I should have to choose between those two people at all. I hate competitions like that. In fact, I sense those two crazy spiritual goofballs may have even hung out at some point, probably while enjoying green tea and myrrh cakes. 

But I get crazier: because I think you can totally combine religious beliefs and not even go to hell (because, quite frankly, I think hell is actually already here on earth, in the United States of America: it's called 24 Hour Super Wal*Mart, and it's at its scariest on Saturdays, at 2 AM, anywhere in the American South.) When people ask (and they sometimes do) what my religion is, I say, "Buddhistian." And if I could find a way to stick some Hinduism, Judaism, Islamism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and my great-grandma's recipe for Welsh tea cakes-ism in that word, I'd do that too.

And I don't even care if anyone wants to tell me that makes me naive, flaky, and immoral. Because listen: I've got a whole long list of past behaviors and current daydreams involving certain celebrity men with foreign accents who appear twice on my Dream Dinner Guest list that make me far more naive, flaky, and immoral than going around complaining about atheism while cherry picking my core spiritual beliefs ever can. You don't have to tell me I'm the Universe's favorite little headache; I've been painfully aware of that since I was 10. So if combining religions and spiritual beliefs tops the list of Most Flaky Immoral Behavior Ever, then my chi is doing just fine in terms of karmic justice.

I have no idea what I meant by that last line. I just know I like to insert the words "chi" and "karmic justice" into religious discussions as much as humanly possible.

subversive anonymous behaviors (online).

I hate anonymity on the internet. I understand the need for it; I've run into more than a few socio-psychopaths over the last 15 years I've hung out on this thing. Once upon a time, crazy people used to hide in their basements, making voodoo dolls or mixing poison to coat the Halloween candy with. They'd hear little kids' feet scampering across their lawns and they'd run outside wielding their hammers and axes screaming quotes from Revelations or whatever. All psycho and frothy; everyone knew to stay away. 


Then, the internet was invented. And all the crazy people left their basements, ran to the store, bought themselves a computer, and went right back to their darkened lairs to download Netscape Navigator. And here we are, a decade and a half later, and the internets are just rife with riff raff. Some are pretty open about their psycho frothiness--you can see it right through your computer screen. For example, true story: I was once stalked online by Jesus Christ's personal right hand psychopath who really needed to connect with another human being. He did this by sending me passages from the Bible about bloody lambs screaming while being dismembered and let me know I might be next if I didn't start agreeing with him that God, the Holiest of all Holies, can only be a MAN. With a long white beard. And X and Y chromosomes.


But I also think the internet provides opportunities for normal, nice people to behave like the sociopaths they usually are only during fits of road rage. In other words, I think anonymity encourages socially subversive behaviors. I think it lets normally very nice people write and say the most horrendous things to other normally very nice people. Which is why I think you should at least know the real first name of who you are dealing with online, and at least have a small, fuzzy picture so you can see what they look like. They can wear a fake mustache and dark sunglasses in their fuzzy pictures if it makes them feel better. 


You are you with your own life experiences and opinions that influence what you say and do online, and I am I with my own life experiences and opinions that influence what I say and do online. But I've provided my real name and a real picture; which I think is my way of pleading: please, I am a human being with real feelings. I am perfectly okay with your deep need to reach out and communicate your obsession with spilled lambs' blood and vengeful deities. All I ask is that you please remember I am someone's mommy, wife, daughter, sister, and friend. I spend a lot of time crying over pictures and stories of children affected by the Haitian earthquake tragedy and animals dying in the wake of the Gulf Oil spill. I like rainbows and sunshine, and soft kittens and butterflies. Okay? I'm not here to ruin your world; I'd just like to make mine a little better.


I wrote all of that to say: in the past, I've been really (I mean really) open about myself, like giving my first and last names. But on this blog? I've decided I can't. In addition, I'm a teacher. And teachers are paranoid technophobes these days if you haven't heard. Also, I'm married to a former CIA agent. (Actually, he's a brutal contract negotiator. But his level of state secret shadiness vs. my level state secret shadiness gives him the appearance of possibly being a former CIA agent and so after ten years of knowing him, I still can't rule it out.)


But mostly due to all the subversiveness I've been noticing on the internet lately. And on the account I have an extreme queasiness around lamb blood.