More Fun With Obscure Old Things, Virtual Road Trip, and Winter Funk Comes Early

January 9, 2013Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

At least I can keep my sunburst plate (the top one) and save $8 as opposed to getting the new plate which I think is rather busy for a license plate.

Usually I don’t get to the really despondent depths of the Winter Funk until the butt-end of February, when my birthday rolls around, bringing with it the ominous and expensive task of going to the BMV to pay for yet another registration sticker for yet another year.. This year that task is doubly odious because I have to renew my driver’s license as well as my car registration, so I can’t just do it online. Joy and rapture. A new pic of me- four years older, that is guaranteed to be bad enough that it should either appear in “Busted” magazine, or have “Correctional Institute Inmate” underneath it. As far as “Busted” magazine, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine to gawk at the mug shots, laugh at the bizarre names (there is actually a guy in one of them whose name is “Sequin”) and examine them to see if anyone I know is in there. At least as far as I know I’m not going to get stuck with the fugly new license plate. I don’t care for that design, and it really doesn’t go very well with my Hello Kitty license plate frames.

This goes better with the old sunburst plate anyway.

Anyway, I am trying to head off the despair and gloom at the pass. I am making it a point to go to at least one Bible study class (at church, among other live humans) a week, which I’ve not been doing since last October and it shows. I am not the best Christian example in the world by a long shot, but I have an even harder go of things when I neglect Bible study with other people. Yes, I read and study on my own, but the only observations I see are my own and too much navel-gazing is not a good thing. Even though I crave solitude like a junkie craves a fix, I still need to hear the opinions and observations of others- particularly from those with different viewpoints than mine- from time to time.

More importantly, I have to remember that there is life beyond the mundane, and I have been very neglectful of the spiritual as of late.

I couldn’t be terribly interesting to watch.

Anyway, I have found some more fascinating ephemera from the early-to-mid 20th century that piqued my interest:

Toilet water cures baldness. Who’d have thought?

Men generally are less vain than women. Though comfortable, I can’t bring myself to wear Velcro tennis shoes in public. However, some men have a rather twisted sense of vanity and of utility:

What they’re not telling you is the recliner on the boat is nicer than the one in the house.

I have also discovered that the redneck love of bacon is not a recent discovery. Even in the late 19th century a national love affair with pork products was obvious.

The United States of Pork!

To quote the French: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

At least back in the day – before Oklahoma was a state, obviously, you got the cool little diagram with all the piggies on it to take home.

While I’m in the road tripping mood, it’s interesting to see how people other than Midwesterners look at the US. I know foreigners probably view the great vast flatness of the Midwest with trepidation (we’re not dangerous, usually, just boring.) There are flush toilets in the South now- even in West Virginia, although West Virginia is technically not part of the South. The reason why West Virginia is West Virginia is that they decided to stay in the Union instead of becoming part of the Confederacy along with the rest of Virginia. Southern Ohio isn’t part of the South either, but try telling them that. Especially that guy in Greene County who has the barn with the huge rebel flag on the roof that’s glaringly visible from I-71 northbound. Never mind that he’s 35 miles north of the Ohio River (and therefore the Mason-Dixon Line.) I guess if the South rises again it might have to redefine its geographical boundaries.

A West Virginia view on what’s what and who’s who in the US. Or maybe a Nebraskan’s?

I still think it would be interesting to take an English speaking foreigner (and yes, I am thinking of Karl Pilkington and the Idiot Abroad series) into the depths of fly-over country. Use Central Ohio as the epicenter, and the only rule for the itinerary being that the destination has to be within 500 miles of the I-70 I-71 split in the middle of Columbus. I could have a lot of fun with that. Visit the Midwest, New England and a good portion of the South that nobody ever bothers to see. I mean, since when has anyone said much about tourism in Cincinnati (which actually is a very cool historical destination) or Detroit, which you can skip entirely, unless you’re into armed robbery and gang rape, with the exception of the Henry Ford Museum (which is technically in Dearborn) and even then, leave your valuables in Columbus. The Ford Museum is worth the drive and even worth the risk to one’s person in getting there. Otherwise I would pretty much give the entire state of Michigan a pass.

This is the Reagan Limo. I took this pic the last time I was at the Ford Museum- back in 2007.

Of course I have not (yet) made it to what might well be the holy grail of museums- the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. I’ve never been to Philadelphia. I can only hope it’s not as bad as Detroit. I simply have to get a.) enough scratch to make the trip, and b.) I have to plan the logistics so that I can stay overnight somewhere because it’s a 12 hour drive each way.

Nothing says cool like old preserved medical anomalies.

Asperger’s Is Not an Excuse, Actions Still Have Consequences, and Humanity is Still Totally Depraved

December 17, 2012Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I am glad that some thinking people are starting to understand that keeping people from protecting themselves and their families does nothing to change the fact that killers will kill. Even in the light of the past couple weeks’ worth of senseless shootings- and I freely admit that the existence of evil is something I don’t comprehend- I still believe that the Framers of the Constitution had the right idea when they included:

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. “

The Second Amendment has been expounded upon by far greater minds than mine, however, there are two points being made here. Some more left-leaning interpretations of the Second Amendment take the first part about a well regulated militia and assume that meant that the Framers were talking about the armed forces, National Guard and law enforcement but not about private individuals. What they are leaving out is a knowledge of 18th century history. In the 18th century there was really no full-time armed forces, but individuals who would volunteer in time of war (a concept similar to a very rudimentary National Guard) and individuals had to keep their own weaponry in order to be able to be available when the need arose.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Most Americans have no concept of what it would be like to have to defend one’s life and property if a scenario such as the one proposed in the film “Red Dawn” would arise, where there would be war in streets and neighborhoods rather than an abstract concept of soldiers and armies fighting over obscure hills and fields in far-distant lands. However, many Americans have experienced armed robbery, assault and other crimes of violence that could have been prevented if the victim had been able to defend him/herself. The Framers had a solution to that: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” The Framers not only believed so heartily in a strong national defense that it is one of only two responsibilities of the Federal government spelled out in the Constitution, but they also added it to the Bill of Rights- along with the proviso that individuals also have the right to defend their person and property. In this statement the right to self defense is underscored as a natural right rather than a privilege granted (or withheld) by the whim of the state.

I don’t have any problem at all with responsible gun ownership. The law-abiding person who owns a gun and has had appropriate background checks and safety training is not generally the person you have to worry about- unless you are trying to perpetrate crime. On the other hand, the unarmed are all potential victims. All one has to do to be a victim is to be in the wrong place at the right time.

This being said, I can go back to the fundamental argument that guns don’t kill people any more than spoons make people fat. The conscious decision to aim a firearm and pull the trigger is what kills. It’s easy to go around screaming “gun control,” until one realizes that the decision of a killer is the root of the lethal mechanism. It is possible to kill with bare hands, with knives, with poison, with motor vehicles, with a baseball bat. The possibilities of potential lethal weapons are only limited by a potential killer’s imagination and desperation. Banning firearms just means killers will find weapons other than guns to kill people with. There are still murders in the UK and in every other country where strict gun control has been enacted. The murderous impulse does not lie in an armament of steel, but in the convoluted and dark malice dwelling in a killer’s heart.

Dark malice that can lead to murder can surface in any human being alive today if circumstances and opportunity press that individual hard enough. Evil is that pervasive in this world. I don’t subscribe to all of Calvinism (my soteriological leanings are more congruent with Molinism) but I agree with 100% of one of the petals of Calvin’s TULIP- the Total Depravity of man.

Human beings, if left to their own devices, are 100% self serving. I’ve heard every excuse out there for why people kill- video games, bad childhoods, being deprived, being over-indulged, crappy schools, being bullied, being introverted, being mocked, et cetera and so on. I think a better question, given the total depravity of man, is what keeps everyone from becoming a killer? Or are we all killers, and the severity of our behavior is simply a matter of degree? If so, then what is the mechanism of our restraint? Does it have to do with the wiring of the frontal lobe of the brain, or is it a matter of the will, or a combination of both? I believe it is entirely possible that the only thing that restrains most from indulging their darker urges is simply the grace and mercy of God.

Even though I believe that there is a God and that He is highly involved in the lives of humanity, I also believe that He expects people to respond to Him. I believe He has expectations for his creation (and maybe this is my repressed Catholic guilt coming out.) After all, when one reads Scripture we learn that most of humanity’s problems arise from thinking our ways are better than God’s ways.

We don’t have the liberty to simply say, “the Devil made me do it,” if for any other reason than at the end of the day, God holds us accountable for what we do or don’t do. Psychology would say that humans do what they do to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, but there is a deeper aspect- the aspect of “you own who you are and what you have become.”

Things in life can and do suck, but it’s every person’s responsibility to choose how to react to things that suck. The question is, do we turn to God and His will or do we let evil win?

I find it disturbing that society is all too willing to absolve people from individual accountability and blame their abherrent behavior on everything from being bullied as children to being on the autistic spectrum. As someone who experienced both gratuitous and fierce childhood bullying and is a high-functioning autistic,* (apparently that’s what the medical community is calling Asperger’s Syndrome these days) I am here to tell you that both of those theories may have some credence, but at the end of the day, the decision to move beyond a painful past and to learn to work the wiring is not only possible, but it is also a moral obligation. Maybe I say this out of a sense of noblesse oblige that I was taught- that those who are given more are held to a higher standard. I can say that the convoluted and sometimes vexing wiring of Asperger’s or “high functioning autism” or whatever is the current terminology used to categorize the introverted, weird and/or eccentric is not a license to allow the depravity within to overcome. Video games are no excuse. Technology in general is no excuse. The laxity of discipline and the pervasive faux feel good PC philosophy being taught in the schools (while dreadful, false, and a contributor to the delinquency factor) is not an excuse either. There is a God, and He has standards and rules, even when it seems like society does not.

I don’t discount the influence of mental illness, and how society so conveniently “mainstreams” the mentally ill, denying that some people do have an inability to control their rage and that some people should be isolated from the greater community for a time to receive mental health treatment. I do understand what it is to be depressed and near suicidal, but I also understand that there is help available for individuals and families when mental illness becomes overwhelming. I’m no poster child for mental health, and insanity is downright pervasive in my family tree. If there is anything that society (as opposed to the individual) can do to help prevent violence it is to identify mental illness and provide ways for those at risk to get help.

I wish this were a joke, but it’s not. I have ancestors who were crazier than shithouse rats.

I may never know for what purpose God decided to plop my sorry carcass on this earth, but I’m pretty sure that no matter how beat up on I was or how bizarre my wiring, He didn’t intend for me to load up an assault rifle and shoot up a classroom of unarmed, defenseless kids.

I’m pretty sure God never intended me to be a pole dancer, either. I’m doing good to walk a straight line without tripping over my own feet.

There I go again with that whole morality thing again, and no, I am not talking about the mundane concepts of morality- refraining from fornication, eschewing the use of swear words, and those sorts of trite formalities, but a deeper morality.

One that says, “There is a God, and He has rules.”

Stop Misanglody, Jezebel’s First Road Trip, and Lilo’s Butt Funk

December 12, 2012Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s there were a lot of Americans who weren’t terribly fond of the Irish.

Misanglody (N): 1.)The condition of loathing all things white, Anglo-Saxon and/or Protestant. 2.) A rather pervasive and pernicious form of racism prevalent in the United States, generally ignored when directed against traditional white conservatives. 3.) Cracka-hating.

Granted, a lot of the fear generated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries regarding immigration to the U.S. had more to do with religion than country of origin. Many people in this country were afraid of Catholics (because of their belief in the primacy of the pope and the fact that the Mass was said in Latin rather than in English) and were afraid the Catholics would take over. This sounds sort of crazy today but before Vatican II, Catholics referred to other Christians (i.e. Protestants and Orthodox) as “heathens.” Today Catholics have a more beneficent term for Protestants and Orthodox: “separated brethren.”

That’s a little nicer, but as someone who was raised in Catholicism, I will tell you that the Catholics still teach that their goal on this earth is to convert others (including Protestants and Orthodox) to Catholicism. If you’re a Protestant or Orthodox, according to Catholics, you might be Christian, but you don’t have the Faith in its completeness. Catholic theology is an interesting study- and as a confessional Lutheran I am not too far removed from it, but I don’t subscribe to it 100% either. I got lost on the pope thing as well I got lost on the prayers to dead people thing. To each his or her own, and I know a lot of Catholics that live good Christian lives, but I can’t consider myself to be a Catholic because I don’t subscribe to Catholicism 100%. That’s one of the Catholic Rules, that you agree 100% with their rules. Which makes me a Protestant by definition. Just sayin’.

This was some of the same stuff Martin Luther had problems with 500 years ago. I’m not saying all Catholics are party to the corruption, or that Protestants are scandal-free, but it’s still there. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Today most Americans aren’t particularly wicky about either Irish people (though I know a few people who aren’t really fond of Bono) or Catholics, which is a good thing. I don’t have a problem with Catholics other than I don’t entirely agree with them, and as far as Irish people go I can’t say much, because a good number of my ancestors are English and Scots- just different parts of the same island.

Anyway, the point is that racism (as well as the myth that freedom of religion means freedom from religion) in this country should be a thing of the past. It’s not, and it shouldn’t be, acceptable to use the “n” word or other racially derisive terms in public discourse. But it seems to be perfectly OK to lampoon the “Cracka Nation” with impunity, and when white people say anything about it they get responses such as,

“White people don’t understand racism,” or worse, “You can’t be racist against whites.” Really?

I beg to differ, and hence, I bring to light the phenomenon of misanglody.

The popular culture is full of examples of the bumbling, inept WASP male and/or the ditzy WalMart queen WASP female. Even in advertising, take notice how often the fall guy is a white guy. To someone who only sees American culture from what they watch on TV, they might leave with the misconception that all white guys are Larry the Cable Guy (no offense to Larry the Cable Guy, but not all white men cut the sleeves off their shirts) and all white women are just like Honey Boo Boo’s mother.

I have body hair issues but even I don’t have five o’clock shadow like that. Nor do I have three chins.

I do admit there are aspects of white culture that deserve the derision they get. One is British cuisine. Haggis and kidney pie do NOT sound appetizing in any remote fashion. My ancestors may be Scots, but I can’t bring myself to eat mutton in any form. The dogs eat mutton because that’s what’s in their dog food, but dogs lick their own butts and eat cat shit any time they get the opportunity to do so. Just because the dogs eat something doesn’t mean it’s edible for humans. I really don’t get the idea behind eating kidneys either. I do eat sushi, (on the rare occasion I can afford good sushi) which might not make too much sense, but I just can’t get beyond the gross factor on haggis or kidneys. Head cheese is another one I can’t get. The fun fact about head cheese is that it is not cheese at all.

Do you eat the stomach “casing” too? Ewwwwwww!

So called “white supremacists” deserve the derision they get as well. Hitler is not a role model. Obama is not white, but he also is not a role model for the same reason. Both Hitler and Obama are racists, just against different groups. Anyone who goes around spouting hate against other races and nationalities- as opposed to pointing out faulty ideology or bad public policy- deserves to be called out for it. I don’t believe white people are any better than anyone else, but I don’t believe we’re any worse either, unless you are taking into account that most of us can’t dance.

I couldn’t dance even when I could drink.

On another note, Miss Jezebel went on her first road trip yesterday. I decided since I had to take Lilo to the vet yesterday to get meds for her re-occuring butt funk (seborrhagic dermatitis) that I would take Jezebel as well because she’s had a slight but lingering bit of the eye crusties and some sneezing. So Miss Jezebel rode up to the vet’s tucked into my hoodie. At least I have a closer estimate on her age (12-14 weeks) and have verified her gender. Jezebel is definitely a girl. She didn’t seem to mind the road trip at all, and was most compliant even getting eye ointment (most cats loathe this) and taking liquid Amoxicillin. Usually I really hate giving cats either eye drops or liquids by mouth, because they normally hate it and it’s a good way to get scratched and/or bitten. She has gotten through two doses of each without much fuss. Let’s hope it’s that easy for the rest of the 10 days.

So far, I can even give her meds without resorting to welding gloves again.

Lilo is the easiest creature on the planet to medicate. She will even take Keflex without protest (getting it down Clara was an adventure, and yes, it does taste nasty) as long as it’s included in a bite of cottage cheese. The combo of Keflex and Prednisone will clear up her butt funk, but I feel for her. She does great with oral meds but isn’t so cool with the bath part of the treatment. Baths were not suggested for Jezebel, which is quite fine with me.

Most of the time Lilo is mellow. Except when her butt itches.

Misplaced and Out of Time, Airing Out the Christmas Baggage

December 5, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

This is TV Christmas. Christmas in my home has NEVER looked like this.

It just struck me this morning. I was thinking about the one part of the secular Christmas stuff-you-have-to-do nightmare that was actually something to look forward to- going to my Grandma’s. Grandma had lots of cheap and kitschy old decorations from the 1950’s and 1960’s, including the aluminum foil looking tree and the really fruity looking elves, and the hollow plastic Frosty with the lightbulb stuck up his ass. She had a good number of decorations she had made herself too, which I thought were far more aesthetically pleasing than light-bulb-up-the-ass Frosty, but there was room for everything. Her display was rather eclectic. I enjoyed helping Grandma put up that corny kitsch, (and the pretty stuff she made) which was all carefully labelled, stored and you knew exactly where everything was supposed to go. Grandma enjoyed Christmas and all the decorating, cooking and baking that went with it. Her candy and pies and cookies were 100% homemade, and 100% legendary.

Jerry probably grew up with Christmas more like this.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Christmas story and I love the way that God came to us as a human and that Jesus lived here on earth with us in a flesh and blood human body. I love the season of Advent and observing Advent and Christmas as part of the church year. It’s the materialism and the formalities and the stuff that people think you have to do that really gets on my nerves. The world could do a lot more with more quiet contemplation on what Christmas really is about rather than running around spending money they don’t have buying crap for other people that they really don’t need. Just my two cents’ worth on that. When the “celebrations” turn into being too expensive, too awkward and just plain another whole big stress, it’s time to re-examine the whole hoo-hah and maybe just drop out of a few things.

The real Christmas story (not Santa Claus or the kid with the BB gun) features a miraculous birth. It was about God becoming man and coming to earth to save humanity. I don’t care how much money someone has, you can’t top that gift. Materialists, you might as well go ahead and admit defeat now.

As far as secular holiday celebrations go, I can cook. The only thing I don’t do that Grandma always did is I don’t make my own pie crust. It’s too easy and less expensive to buy the rolled sheets of pie crust than it is to try to deal with just the right ratio of Crisco-to-flour. I have the delightfully tacky pink Christmas tree with blissfully tacky kitschy ornaments including a buzzard, (Jerry will not allow a live tree in the house, because Mr. Let’s-Get-Wasted-and-Start-a-Fire-With-Gasoline-in-the-Fireplace deems them to be “fire hazards”) and (less one Wiseman, because of someone’s bad decision to use gasoline in the fireplace) the Nativity set Grandma got for me the year before she died.

But it’s hard for me to get into the Christmas biz these days. The traffic pisses me off. The crowds in everyplace from Target to the Speedway station piss me off even more. I don’t have the money to buy gifts for people the way I would like to. I don’t have the time to do the crafts and cooking which made Christmastime fun like what Grandma used to do. Jerry goes off on his I’m-so-depressed holiday funk that lasts from December until the end of February, and it just plain drives me batshit. And to top it all off the past few years, I’ve been spending Christmas at my oldest sister’s, and that leaves me feeling more like the turd in the punchbowl than anything. I might have to break with that latter day tradition and do anything that does not require me to be around my sister’s boorish father-in-law as he’s swilling Chardonnay and catatonically staring at the football game. Perhaps I will take the camera and go to the west end of Marion and take some tacky Christmas pics. That is always fun.

My condolences to the unfortunate ’72 Super Beetle that’s flying high in this rather grotesque display.

Then this morning- I had a very sad longing, a sort of a dark epiphany. I realized the reason why the holiday cheer was getting on my nerves more than usual. As a kid, the best part of Christmas was the afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa would have dinner ready, and it was an elaborate spread. Everything from turkey to homemade cream pie and homemade candy, egg nog, scalloped potatoes, you name it, it was there. They had presents and goodies but that wasn’t the allure. There was something about the whole atmosphere in their house. It wasn’t high faluting like the house in the picture. It was modest, it was clean, it was perfect in an unpretentious way, and it was home. Truth be told, my grandmother’s house seemed more like home to me than my own home. Grandma was safe. There were no heated arguments over money or the lack thereof at her house, or being treated to Mom and Dad constantly picking at each other about this or that petty issue. My sisters were not allowed to beat on me with impunity as they normally could do at home, and most of the time when I was at Grandma’s they were somewhere else which was even better.

Grandma never decorated with whitey tighties, but now I am seeing some real motivation to decorate and innovate!

Now there’s a stranger living in Grandma’s house. Grandma died back in 2009, though in all fairness she and Grandpa had both started declining not long after Steve-o was born. Grandpa died in 2006 aged 91, after only three days in the hospital, and ten years after he had his bicuspid valve replaced (which was the first time since WWII that he’d been in a hospital for any reason.) Grandma unfortunately died a more sad and lingering death from pancreatic cancer, heart failure and liver failure at age 93, a little more than three years after Grandpa died. It was hard seeing her lose her sight from macular degeneration so for the last ten years of her life she wasn’t able to do the sewing and crochet and other crafts she loved. I guess that’s why I hope and pray that my time comes quickly when the time comes, but you get what you get.

No, I am not going out and buying tampons to do this, (I am still delighted that I’ve been able to skip that aisle at the store for over three years now) but I never thought a feminine hygiene item could be made so festive!

Grandma’s house is still there but it’s not the same. I’m sure the lady that rents it from Dad is alright. Dad generally tries not to rent to serial killers and nut jobs, although his last renter’s family were pretty crazy after he died and they left the place a disaster area. I’ve not met her but she does have a lovely Pitbull that Dad says is a very sweet dog. I think what bothers me even more than knowing that there’s a stranger living in Grandma’s house is that I’m not able to be anywhere near as involved in my own grandchild’s life as my Grandma was in mine. I seldom get to see Sophia, and even when I can, I am beholden to her mother’s schedule and whims. To make that even worse, I live an hour’s drive away. I can’t live in the safe house across the field. Her mother doesn’t want her to be in my house, because she doesn’t trust Jerry, and Jerry smokes in the house. If I want to see my granddaughter I have to either go to her mother’s house or take her to my parents’ house. I cherish any time I can spend with her, but I don’t see where I am going to be able to have much influence in her life. It saddens me.

But, as far as doing what I want to do with secular holiday celebrations, I think this is the best suggestion of all.

Life is a Gift (a Gag Gift?) and Other Greeting Card Sentiments

November 26, 2012Tonya Lanthron 4 Comments

Just a little perspective- for that poor sucker I saw jogging down Morse Rd. in the freezing rain the other day.

I am not in any way, shape or form an optimist by nature. At best I am pragmatic and can adjust, adapt and overcome, but I hate to admit I am not generally one of those “carpe diem” (seize the day) types. If one is shaped by early life experience, i.e. having the hell beat out of you just about every day, then, at least in my experience, you tend toward a wee bit of trepidation in simply facing the day.

I know that Christian faith is necessarily optimistic, which is one of the reasons I really struggle with faith. I admit that there have been many times in my life when the only thing keeping me from the option of self-annihilation has been the Catholic teaching about mortal sin. I was raised old-school Catholic, even though I can’t in conscience call myself Catholic. My particular way of understanding Christianity is best described as confessional Lutheran, which is fairly close. I don’t want to end up spending eternity being tortured forever and ever being chewed up in Beezelbub’s flaming maw because I died with a mortal sin on my soul. According to Catholic tradition, suicide is a mortal sin because if you kill yourself you don’t have the opportunity to confess your sin and be forgiven for it, so you burn in hell. As miserable and painful as life can be at times- and my life has had plenty of misery and pain- I still believe that no matter how bad it gets (even though Obama was “re-elected” by sole virtue of voter fraud and I’m still pissed about that) automatic and eternal consignment to the fires of hell is definitely a downgrade.

Obama’s bad, and dangerous on many levels, but even he’s not the end of the world.

I need to believe that there will be a day when things are made right- not just in this country, not just on a few small levels, but made completely right. Yeah, perhaps in this, color me optimistic, or perhaps just a perfectionist. I want to be around to see it. No, I can’t explain faith in rational terms, other than to accept Pascal’s Wager. I would rather live with the knowledge that God IS, than to pretend He is not, and have to face the consequences of conscience-less living at some point. I know my agnostic friends have trouble with the notion that God is in charge. I’m weaker than that. I have to acknowledge that God is in charge, which is (paradoxically) liberating. I have problems when I start thinking I’m in charge.

Even knowing that God is in charge doesn’t guarantee me a sunny outlook. It’s a challenge for me to wake up in the morning and see life as a gift. Sometimes I do view life that way, but more often than not I see it as a burden or even a sick joke. Sometimes sarcasm is the only way I can get through the day, and that’s not a very good thing either. I wish I could take the Lord’s advice in Matthew 6:25 and not worry about stuff- but I do. Worse than that I let stupidity and ineptitude piss me off which (while pointing those things out can be funny) doesn’t do much for my mental state either. Anger and worry are not a very good combo.

There may be some hope for me yet:

The Meow Game, Communicating With Others, and True Believers

August 23, 2012Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

The Meow Game from Super Troopers

I have no idea where people get the idea that it’s in any way beneficial to get lippy with cops. I know some cops like to play mind games with people to see how they’re going to respond, which positively terrifies and paralyzes me.

I have a difficult enough time under normal circumstances carrying on a conversation face to face without freaking people out. I don’t get the nuances of eye contact (generally I avoid eye contact lest I be accused of staring,) and I also have real problems with sending the right body language. Non-verbals for me are a learned skill from years of observation and interaction and do not come naturally. I have to consciously think about and orchestrate all my non-verbal signals constantly when I deal with people face to face in order to communicate effectively. For most people eye contact and physical gestures come naturally, almost subliminally, without thinking about it. For me, if left to my own devices, I would simply observe others with a bit of a catatonic stare until or unless I have something to say. Electronic communication is so much easier for me because I can simply concentrate on what I would like to convey rather than worry about whether or not I’m staring into space or standing at a weird angle.

I may not be responding, but I do hear you- with some reservations. If I want to, and if I’m not focusing on whatever song’s stuck in my head, that is.

So my interactions with law enforcement (fortunately for me they have been precious few,) are usually limited to staring at the ground or off to the side and saying “yes, sir, Officer” at the appropriate times. I’ve only gotten out of a speeding ticket once, and that was because I was working as a driver and the cop knew my boss. Knock on Formica or whatever that plastic looking stuff is, but the last time I got busted for any kind of traffic violation I was nine months pregnant (my son was born on the same day they would have wanted me to appear in court) and was pulled over for running a yellow light. Of course the cop could obviously tell I was preggers- I looked like a battleship- but all I could do was keep from giving him the stink-eye, sign the damned ticket and keep on going. I don’t do tears on demand. Even when crying is the correct response, I usually can’t. I break down after the crisis has passed, and sometimes it takes years for the tears to find their way out.

This strategy- even if I would dare to try it- is not open to me.

I don’t think that crying is the correct response when you get busted anyway, but it works for some women.

I just didn’t have the physical energy or the emotional strength to explain to this primadouche just-out-of-the-academy-looking-for-someone-to-bust cop that going through a yellow light is legal. The cop didn’t need to know I wasn’t supposed to be driving at all, (I had pre-eclampsia, had been in and out of the hospital for sky-high blood pressure, and was supposed to be on strict bed rest) but I had to go out because my POS ex was too lazy to go to the grocery store, or to help unload the car, or really do much of anything else besides suck up valuable oxygen and whine (yeah, I sure know how to pick ’em, but Jerry is a nominal upgrade to some degree- at least Jerry showers regularly and he hasn’t morphed into Jabba the Hut.) I sent the bastards their check for $125- because knowing the good-ol-boy system in the town I’m from, you might as well just pay it, because who is the judge ~~going to~~ getting paid to believe? (This was before the days of surveillance cameras everywhere, so I had no way of documenting for posterity that the light was yellow and all that.) It would have been my luck- even had I not been in the hospital that day- that the cop would actually have shown up in court and I’d had to pay the ticket and court costs too. Sometimes local government sucks just as much as government in higher places.

I can go on with this subject too, but suffice to say I don’t have the gold, so I don’t make the rules. Too bad.

I am a really paranoid driver, partially because of that incident. I’d like to drive like I did when I was a young punk out on the back roads, where your worst fear would be running off the road into a drainage ditch, where your nominally decomposed corpse might be found in a few weeks, but those days are over. The cops have GPS and helicopters now. Besides, a Yaris isn’t exactly a rally car.

Unless you’re in Thailand.

That is whacked, but I guess with enough suspension mods and such, you could make a Yaris into a rally car. But mine is more geared for basic transportation, and as a forum for my mobile political commentary. Since I have to drive, and I’m pretty slow, some people just might get an education just from reading the back of my car.

German does sound scary, but remember, English is a derivative of German.

I enjoy language and its nuances, probably more so than most because I don’t do well with the non-verbal and emotional sides of communication. Interacting with dogs has helped me immensely because in order to communicate with them I have to cue in on their non-verbals, which are easier to read because theirs are far more exaggerated than humans’. I learn a lot from them. Subtlety is not their nature.

Sheena is as subtle as a freight train.

This morning I was thinking about all the personalities in history who were true believers- in all the wrong things. I can’t help but to observe that it really doesn’t matter if your heart is in the right place, if your head is up your ass. A good example of this phenomenon are the crazy people who think that if they die in the process of killing “infidels” that they go to heaven and collect 70 virgins. Faith is not something that comes easy to me, but I would find it hard to believe that God intends for people to completely check their brains at the door. Why would God have actually bothered to give us brains if He didn’t intend for us to use them? And then there’s Dennis Kucinich, for whom logic cannot offer a suitable explanation. There’s plenty of shithouse-rat-crazy people out there who will believe any sort of clap trap if the right talking head is blathering away (Obama supporters who still don’t get that he’s anti-American, the Heaven’s Gate followers, white supremacists, and so on.)

I wonder if the Visitors have picked him up yet.

I think I get it why so many analytical/rational types are secular humanists. They get the logic that good is better than evil, but they can’t prove or disprove the existence of a Creator or Higher Power. The only problem with secular humanism is that it degrades into utilitarianism very quickly. There is no room in a utilitarian economy for the aesthetic- for beauty, or art, or emotion. Even though I’m a rational type, even I need something beyond the get up, go to work, go to bed routine that most of us are beholden to. To deny there is a sphere beyond our understanding is to indulge in the ultimate human hubris- to claim we are the be-all, end-all of the universe- when our best secular explanation for creation involves an ex nihilo big bang from the depths of nowhere. I’m not a creationist in the 6 days, Adam and Eve made from real mud, wandering naked in the Garden with all the wild animals sense. It would have been cool, but I don’t think creation happened that way. I don’t take the Garden account of Genesis as being literal (I do believe it to be a beautiful allegory) but I think it does tell us much about the Whom involved, if not so much the How or the Why.

Naked with all the little critters of nature. Just imagine all the mosquitoes and fleas in places where insects are totally unauthorized.

I would rather acknowledge and embrace the mystery. I would rather take Pascal’s Wager and assume that God IS, than to have to live in a world having decided that He is not. While I cannot prove His existence, I cannot disprove it either, and I’d rather err on the side of embracing the mystery.

Belief in and of itself is neutral, but I think that God gave us brains to inform our beliefs, so that we are neither beholden to blind emotionalism or locked into pragmatic utilitarianism.

I do find it a bit ironic that the same people who will defy thousands of years of moral teaching vehemently despise those who still think there is value in that moral teaching, and are enraged when traditionalists speak out.

I’m OK with admitting there are black and whites, and I will gladly share my take on morality should anyone ask. I know people disagree with me, and vehemently on some issues. That is their prerogative. There are some people who don’t believe morality is relevant any more and nothing I say- or that I can back up with scientific fact- is going to change their opinions. If you want to have a relationship with a Ford Escort, or dress like a furry, or pretty much whatever, as long as you aren’t killing people, you’re not charging me for it, and you leave me alone, knock yourself out. Just don’t expect me to announce to the world how wonderful your life choices are.

Fire and Brimstone, Faith for the Cynical, and Unpopular Moral Absolutes

August 9, 2012Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Crucifixion was not this pretty.

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life researching theology. I am wired in such a way that it’s difficult to take anything on faith. The way that I’m wired, I generally default to Murphy’s Law. The sad part of that is I’m right way too much of the time when I take my own default and assume the worst.

That might have been the reason why I was terrified of everything when I was a kid. A good deal of my unrelenting fear was justified. I did get my ass kicked a lot. But I also had a certain knack for imagining the worst in a situation, like when Dad’s weirdo friends thought that I enjoyed swinging upside down while being grabbed by the ankles. All I could imagine, other than sheer terror, was the ass pilot letting go and my sorry carcass flying clean through the picture window. I don’t like too many people grabbing at me to begin with, but add the elements of my poor balance, centrifugal force, height, and a moderately shady character, and I am good and truly freaked. Perhaps it is a good thing that I have to be on the verge of death before I can puke. Then again, if I would have spewed a good one (after eating Spaghetti-os or something else colorful, like lime sherbet) perhaps Dad would have prohibited his buddies from repeating this torture.

Come on down to the Baptist Tent Revival! Music! Fun! However, no dancing, and no liquor will be served.

In Christian traditions the Pentecostals and Baptists get a bad rap for fire and brimstone sermons, but the Pentecostals and Baptists have nothing on the old-school Catholics. Pentecostals and Baptists could “get saved” and then they’d have a “get out of hell free” pass. In traditional old-school Catholicism, you don’t just “get saved.” God is keeping score, and hellfire awaits the person who Dies In Sin. The only way to clear your slate is to go to Confession and then do whatever Penance the priest assigns you. It was always better to get a laid back priest who would give you easy Penance. Father Furey was everyone’s favorite because he was pretty easy on the small stuff and he had a sense of humor. The other ones could be downright scary and mean about it and you’d be saying Hail Marys and Our Fathers for days.

Yes, you are headed straight to Hell for setting your Mom’s tape deck to the “Like a bat out of helllll!” portion of the Meatloaf tape. And for flipping the bird at the bug eating kid at school, and for calling your sister an “asshole.” You get to be bunkies with Beezelbub unless you say 400 Hail Marys, 1000 Our Fathers, and clean the toilet with your toothbrush every day for a month without being asked to do it.

It was usually my luck to end up with whichever priest hated kids the most.

The worst thing about Confession is that it would only be a matter of minutes before sin would rear its ugly head again. Almost everything I did or thought could be considered a sin, so it was a vicious cycle. Sin-confess, sin-confess, etc. and so on.

Mom was really good at dragging us kids to Confession at least once a month if not more often. I understand her logic- because if a Catholic Dies In Sin, you at the very least get time in Purgatory, and at the very worst, if you have a Mortal Sin on your scorecard, you go Straight to Hell. And you don’t have to actually do the Mortal Sin- you just have to want to.

I can admit I never had this problem. I always had plenty of sins on my plate.

Sins were everywhere when I was a kid. Using swear words- even the word “fart”= sin. Taking the last fish stick on the plate= sin, unless you were sure no one else wanted it. Giving my sister’s Barbies buzzcuts= definite sin. Hanging out in the farmer’s field behind the houses across the street (even though the farmer had a 12 gauge and dogs and he and his dogs would chase kids if he saw them) was also a sin.

So by the time I was about five I was terrified of sin, and even more terrified of Mortal Sins even though at age five I had no idea what “adultery,” “fornication” and “apostasy” truly meant. I did know if anyone was going to die with Mortal Sins, it would be me, even if it’s not even really clear to me at that point what they are, and I would probably be on the toilet, which means I’m partially naked, and being naked is a sin too. I had some pretty scary logic as a child.

Believe me, Catholic kids were taught a lot more about hell than one might think, at least back in the day. At least on the rare occasion Mom would let us go with Grandma to the Baptist Sunday School (it amazed me she ever did, because at that time Protestants were considered “heathens,”) we sang “Jesus Loves Me” and made crafts with popsicle sticks. I always wondered why Jesus loved us at the Baptist church, but at the Catholic church he lived in the little gold box on the altar -when He wasn’t out making rounds with His scorecard, marking down our sins.

I’m surprised that I ended up having any kind of faith at all, but that is where the grace of God comes in.

The apostle Paul, (who strikes me as a fellow rational thinker) in his letter to the Philippians, puts it as “working out your own salvation with fear and trembling…for it is God Who is at work in you.” (Philippians 2:12-13) God, not me. God, not inept leaders. God, Who isn’t primarily occupied with keeping score, or for sending people to hell for having naughty fantasies about Steve Perry in spandex, or for having the bad fortune of being on the toilet and partially naked at the hour of death. The challenge is to slow down and listen to God’s voice- not my own, and not the talking heads. It’s not as easy as one might think.

Yes, he did have one hell of a voice!

It’s comforting for me to understand I’m not in charge, and neither is Mr. Murphy, no matter how much Murphy’s Law seems to prove itself out.

I do believe in the perseverance of the saints, though maybe not in a strictly Calvinist sense, (I’m not a Calvinist but I do agree with certain elements of Calvinism) because it’s God doing the transforming, or the saving, if you will. It’s not about me trying to be good- because I’m not. If I had to explain my theological position it would be that of Molinism. God knows, but I don’t, if you take it to its Cliff’s Notes version. It’s OK that there are some things I’m just not going to understand.

Even though I believe that salvation is by the grace of God and is not contingent upon how much penance I attempt to do, there are still absolutes. The rules are there for a reason- mostly to act as boundaries to keep us from doing more damage to ourselves and others than we would were we left unfettered.

Anarchy always fails. While it might sound good to have freedom from rules, when society breaks down it’s not a good thing. Simply take a look around and see what all the drugs and violence and thievery have led to. Free love bought society broken families, rampant VD and AIDS. The decline of traditional social mores and the prevailing moral free-for-all where there are no absolutes has turned society into a freak show, that I can’t necessarily say is a good thing.

Cosmic Crap Shoot, Happenstance Cathedrals, Everywhere and Nowhere

July 20, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

If Asthma cigs are so great, why deny the kiddies? Or do they just have to suffer from the paroxysms like the brats they are?

The more that I study the evolution of science, I am amazed regarding how much we don’t know, and how much of what we thought we knew that has been proven wrong. Personally I would like to see if any of those three-pack-a-day Camel smokers from 1950-whatever are still alive, or if they all ended up dying from emphysema like Aunt Sam. Aunt Sam (short for Samantha, no, she was not a former dude, even though her voice was so trashed and raspy she sounded like one) died back in the late ’70’s- thankfully she didn’t take anyone out with her. She went out presumably the way she wanted to go: gagging on an unfiltered Pall Mall as she lifted up her oxygen mask to take another hit.

Sure, Sam, you keep on smoking these mo-fos and you’ll live forever!

Then again, not so much. Aunt Sam was only 59 when she died. She looked about 318.

Medical science has evolved quite a bit in the last century, but it’s too bad that a good deal of that crucial knowledge came too late for some people. Jerry’s Dad still believes that kerosene is a hemorrhoid cure, and he’s also under the assumption that women have prostates. I can only hope that he doesn’t think you have to buy boxes of Tampax to go swimming and horseback riding.

I could only safely wear white after the hysterectomy- nice try guys!

A good number of astronomers, physicists and other scientists who have achieved notoriety or academic acclaim (because they could understand the math that I just am not wired to get) are atheist or agnostic in their belief systems. Even Carl Sagan, who had so much insight on astronomy, was a self-described agnostic. Cosmology (not to be confused with cosmetology or cosplay) is the science of the origin and the evolution of the universe. I would have to attribute the origin of the universe to something other than random chance. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever “random chance” is involved in my life it’s never a good thing, and is almost always indistinguishable from Murphy’s Law.

Perhaps to maintain my mental stability I have to trust that there is a higher power or a supreme being, because I could never get the math, but even I get enough math to understand that the odds of coming up with the universe, life, and Steve Perry in spandex are pretty much so astronomically high as to be statistically impossible. I find it hard to believe that a cosmic crap shoot is all there is, even if the placement and timing of the universe and life could be proven to be random. Tell me, Who is throwing the dice? Perhaps it is my own human limitation to assume that if something is created, that it necessarily had to have a creator behind it in some way.

I don’t necessarily take the Garden allegory literally, (and I don’t believe the Genesis account was meant to be taken at face value,) but it would have been cool to wander about naked in a garden all day with wild animals. Just sayin’.

I don’t necessarily take the Flood story at face value either.

Blaise Pascal (and I’ve outlived him by four years so far) was a mathematician and also somewhat of a theologian. He put forth the notion (Pascal’s Wager) that even if you can’t prove that God exists that the odds that He does are strong enough that it’s worth your while to live as though He does.

The only problem with living like there is a God is that it’s impossible to do so aside from His grace.

This being said, I am definitely not the greatest example of piety and selflessness out there. Mother Teresa, I ain’t.

I tend to connect more with things spiritual in happenstance cathedrals- places that seem unlikely and that are often temporary. If it’s quiet, if it’s secluded, and if there’s a sort of chaotic beauty, those are the kinds of places where I feel closest to God.

I loved places like this abandoned railroad bridge. It was destroyed in the early 1990’s for its scrap iron.

I’d have to say there is some kind of solace in the chaos of entropy, and in the patterns to be found in the disorder, as strange as that sounds. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to one of those convergence points that seems like everywhere and nowhere at the same time. There are simply some places where time isn’t what it is everywhere else, and I find those places to be amazingly spiritual and amazingly renewing. I don’t have an explanation for them just as I have no way to effectively convey how I know God not only exists but is present in and through everything. That’s just about how metaphysical I can get, and then I simply have to say I don’t know.

More Sins of Omission, Explaining One’s Offspring to Others, and More Awesome Tunes

July 16, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Old-time Catholicism is a bit masochistic, but you gotta love the artwork. I have nothing against Catholics- some of the best Christians I know adhere to Catholicism, and I’m not going to argue the small points- other than to say that by definition I cannot be considered a Catholic because I don’t agree 100% with the Catholic Church. Agreeing with Church teachings 100% is part of the deal. I’ve read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and I agree with a good deal of it- but I do disagree with some key points of what the Catholic Church teaches, and I don’t agree 100% with their theology- especially what I consider to be the bizarre extra-biblical stuff like purgatory and indulgences and praying to saints. It would be dishonest for me to claim to be Catholic when I don’t agree with everything the Church believes and teaches. So those who claim to be Catholic but embrace some very un-Catholic and very un-Christian thought processes are effectively lying their pants off. You either take the whole hog or not at all- that’s the way that Catholicism works.

Joe Biden: claims to be Catholic, but if my grandfather were still alive I think the descriptive would change to “Crazy as a Shithouse Rat.” Though in the end he- and we- are accountable to God alone.

As a confessional Lutheran I don’t fall terribly far away from the core beliefs of Catholicism, and theologically I am well within the sphere of orthodox (small “o”) Christianity. I’m not into weird stuff like God being a space alien (who knows, He might be, but I doubt it) and I don’t believe that I’m part of some elite nerd tribe whose destiny is to be spirited up to heaven in a space ship with Marshall Applewhite and company. I’m definitely more conservative both socially and theologically than most of the people who go to my church, which does give me pause at times, and does cause me some cognitive dissonance, but there’s an important point to be made with that unease. If I were to seek out a very literal, fundamentalist church (at one point I almost became a Southern Baptist) I wouldn’t hear any viewpoints remarkably different from my own. (I do differ with the SB’s on the subject of infant baptism, which is an important point of dissent- but otherwise I can pretty much get right on the bandwagon.) I need to be challenged to see viewpoints that are different than mine, and I need to be challenged to be compassionate to those who are coming from a different perspective. As a confessional Lutheran I have considerable freedom to ask theological questions and to hold differing opinions on non-essential issues without being considered heretical or completely outside the box of Christian orthodoxy.

I think we can agree: This dude was one crazy mo-fo.

I don’t like to argue theology with anyone. I will gladly explain what I believe and more importantly in Whom I believe- and why, but I’m not going to pound anyone in the head. It doesn’t work. Some of my closest friends are atheists and agnostics, who likely view my faith as something archaic and quaint- but they still talk to me and there’s still a relationship there. Jesus was all about building relationships with unlikely people in unlikely ways, so if it worked for Him, why not? I learned long ago that the number one way to dissuade people from faith and a relationship with God is to act like Dana Carvey as the Church Lady.

Could it be….SATAN?????

I may differ even with some of my more orthodox cohorts in that I believe Satan is real and that there are real evil forces at work in this world. But most of the ills of this world can be attributed to human beings doing what we do best- screwing up. The sin of the Garden was not so much, “The devil made me do it,” as “I screwed up and did the opposite of what I was told.” Is this not the underlying theme of human history? I know it’s the definitely the story of my life. I am an example, and a good amount of the time I am an example of What Not to Do.

A sin of omission is knowing what you’re supposed to do, but not doing it for whatever reason. I know I should refrain from laughing at Jerry when he can’t find the beer in the fridge because it’s behind the milk, but I laugh anyway. Technically that’s a sin of commission because I did laugh, though. Sins of omission are more like knowing I should iron Jerry’s shirts, but not doing it because I hate ironing, and because I know it’s something his lazy ass can do for himself. He should be happy I’m washing them and hanging them up for him, but if I were really good I would be doing the ironing thing too. That’s the omission thing, sort of, anyway. I should be a missionary in Africa giving out food and water to pitiful orphans, but my selfish ass is too satisfied with sleeping in the A/C and not having dysentery. There’s always something I should be doing but for whatever reason I’m not. Take it right on back to the old Catholic guilt trips perhaps, but there’s a grain of truth there. I know full well I do things I shouldn’t and neglect to do things I should. Which segues quite well into my hit-or-miss parenting.

This won’t be the last time he will be cajoled into sporting his daughter’s clothes- heh-heh!

As far as Steve-o goes I am delighted that he is remarkably normal in many ways. He is gainfully employed, only has a couple of weeks until he graduates from college (YAY!) and is very close to Independence from the Parental Units, which in my mind is the ultimate goal of parenting to begin with. As far as I’m concerned, I did not give birth and work myself into the ground to end up with a thirty five year old acne-ridden, obese couch jockey stinking up the basement with greasy Taco Bell wrappers whilst clogging up his brain cells with assorted online interactive video games 24/7 on my dime. I do wish Steve-o would have listened to Mother a little more intently in regard to abstinence, chastity and so forth, but hindsight is 20/20. I love my granddaughter and wouldn’t trade her for anything, but it would have been better if they would have waited a bit. However, life is such that you wish in one hand, or shit in the other, and we all know which one fills up first.

The two most common elements in the universe are: Shit and Stupidity. Figure out how to convert either into energy, and screw foreign oil.

Today’s playlist is just as awesome as Friday’s:

“Urban Angel” from Neal Schon’s I On You

“Double Vision” – Foreigner

“Evil Woman”- ELO

“After the Fall” – Journey from Greatest Hits Live

“Somebody to Love”- Queen

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”-Nirvana

Examples of What Not to Do, Inner City Wildlife, and The Bright Side of Life

April 25, 2012Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I am never going to be one of those people who runs around spouting sunshine out of my nether aperture. It just isn’t going to happen unless someone waves a magic wand and I’m suddenly permanently hairless in all the right places, that I’m about 5’9″ with perfect proportions, that I’m independently wealthy and can do what I want, Reagan is alive and well and back in the White House, and that I’m suddenly free from all of my various and sundry health afflictions.

I am a perfectionist, but I’m also a realist. I know that nothing in the above list is ever going to happen to me in this lifetime. I’m cool with that, but not because I like it. I’m cool with that because I’m thankful that the sources of my discontent are so trivial. Of course I am troubled by many other broader issues, but most of them are things for which I’ve done what I could and/or have very little power to change.

There are things that will not change for the better – current popular music, the rate at which my eyebrows go from finely sculptured to Sasquatch-like uni-brow, the frequency and duration of Jerry’s whining episodes, etc.- no matter how much I wish they would. The challenge in life is navigating around the Murphy’s Law outcomes and working within the parameters you get. I may not have gotten the best box of chocolates, but I didn’t get the worst one either. More importantly, as the esteemed philosopher Mick Jagger once noted, “You can’t always get what you want/ you can try sometimes/ you just might find/ you get what you need.” Sometimes I really have to wonder about that, especially when what I get arrives packaged appearing as anything but a gift- but those who have everything handed to them without any blood, sweat or tears often have very little appreciation for what they have.

I guess I was supposed to get the box of chocolates with a lot of icky tasting maple and pecan ones in it- the one with the cellophane partially missing and the corners all bashed in, that’s marked down on clearance once the holiday’s over. Even though someone else got the primo one with all the good dark chocolate and mint creams in it, I still got more than what I deserved. Some people just get an empty box, or show up after all the clearance boxes have been sold.

It’s only human to take a look around and observe (and feel a little jealous toward) the beautiful people. Knowing that the beautiful people aren’t always so lovely- in and out of each other’s beds and/or in and out of rehab and such- is a sort of cold comfort.

A good friend of mine (who I need to call and have a nice long chat with- yes dammit-) once said that money can’t buy happiness but it does buy the misery you like the best. I have to wonder how much damage I would end up doing if I had the resources to do exactly what I wanted all the time. I know I would end up telling a good number of people to f-off and die – and I probably should do that with a few people in my life- but I’d go overboard. I’d end up alienating everyone who ever had the audacity to piss me off, and that’s just about every human I’ve ever come in contact with.

If I weren’t forced to leave my ivory tower and interact with the unpredictable world I’d never be treated to such spectacles as the Canada goose who likes to hang out in front of the door at work. Right here in the middle of Little Mogadishu! (Just like Blackhawk Down but with fewer helicopters.)

Of course if the coyotes can ~~survive~~ thrive here (the beautiful Central Ohio area is known for its urban coyotes) so can the geese. From what I see in the article the coyotes are actually eating some of the goose eggs, which most people should consider to be a good thing. Canada geese are pretty, but they do crap a LOT, and when there are too many of them they can get aggressive too.

Obstacles and adversity and unavoidable unpleasantries force us to deal with the things we’d rather not. I don’t enjoy waiting and I don’t enjoy crowds, but I’ve met interesting people and had enlightening conversations I would never have had if I had done everything online or on demand. I could see myself- if I had virtually limitless wealth and therefore power- becoming like Howard Hughes- isolated and trapped in a hell of my own design. I think everyone has to be forced into doing certain things they find distasteful in order to really enjoy the important things. I appreciate being able to watch Ren and Stimpy episodes every once in awhile, but I think I’d get bored with them if that’s all I did 24/7.

By the grace of God I’ve managed to steer clear of the criminal justice system for the most part. I say by the grace of God because I know how evil I have the potential to be. I believe that anyone can become a killer in the heat of passion, or fall for the wrong scheme, or be in the wrong place at the right time.

Full body tats are never a good idea- especially when you’re on your way to jail.

I don’t think Cadillac was looking for that kind of endorsement (his neck tat is a Cadillac crest) from a guy who ended up shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend. I can’t say how he ended up this way but it sort of breaks my heart that someone born in 1988 (I was in college in 1988…) could have already screwed up his life so bad. I know there’s hope but prison isn’t a nice place, and he’s likely going to be there for awhile.

I am thankful for a number of things, just a sampling are listed here:

I’m thankful…

That I’m not in prison. That would definitely suck. Especially because I’m straight and can’t fight.

For my beautiful dogs and cats. Even though Fanny is really pissed about wearing her collar, bell and tag, she’ll get over it. I’ll get a pic of that as soon as she will let me get close enough with the camera again.

For remotely understanding friends and family who have no idea what it’s like to live the way I’m wired- but who put up with my eccentricity anyway.

For going on almost three years of freedom from my 18 year long nightmare with pelvic pain. One thing I will stress about that- I don’t want to see any woman suffer through what I did for all those years. There is help available if you persist and speak up. (Here’s where I am another example of What Not to Do.)

For indoor plumbing. For those who have experienced the unique olfactory joy (not to mention the company of the various insect and arachnid life that take up residence in the outdoor shitter) of an outhouse or outdoor latrine, you get where I’m coming from. Two weeks of traipsing back and forth from the tent to the latrine in the middle of the night with naught but a flashlight and a roll of TP at Girl Scout Camp were more than enough to convince me that I prefer performing my excretory functions inside, on a flush toilet, with the light on. Camping means (at the very least) “where’s the RV” to me- and in a perfect world, at least a two star hotel.

For not having to own, be seen in, or pay for the gasoline for this:

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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