No, seriously. Somebody Get Me a Shovel and a Plastic Bag.

I believe in intelligent design.  That is until I take a good look at the other malformed inhabitants of our third rock.  Then I start to wonder if perhaps our great creator wasn’t dropped on His or Her omnipotent head (multiple times) as a Godly baby. Sometimes I find myself lying awake at night wondering if the atheists are right, and life on this planet is a totally random biological accident with no greater purpose involved.  Perhaps we are just a collection of bullshit cells and atoms that happened to mold together into the just-so configuration to create something resembling consciousness.

I mean, it’s the only reasonable explanation for the existence of the Kardashians.

As a writer, I’m observant by nature.  This is not the gift one would think it would be.  I spend my days mired in a tangle of hard questions, like: Why does hate still exist?  Why do we still kill and torture each other and the animals?  Why did that woman think it was a good idea to color her hair the same gaudy red-gold color as the circa 1987 jacket she’s wearing today, and why did nobody mention to her that you can spot her and her hideous jacket from outer space?

(Perhaps it was a bad idea trying to write in a public coffee shop.  I’m finding the people around me quite distracting.  But I digress…)

When it comes to the collective “D’uh!” uttered by the society we’ve created for ourselves, one only needs to turn on the evening news to hear its resonating echo.  Not only can you witness international simpletons in action, but—if you’re very lucky—you catch a glimpse of some numb-nuts in the next county who did something epic such as thinking it was a good idea to trade two children for a pair of exotic pet birds.

Stories such as this are proof-positive in my opinion that we have finally reached “Old Mother Hubbard Status” when it comes to children.  There are people out there who have so many, they don’t know what to do.  Also, we’ve clearly saturated the market.  I remember a time when a healthy American child would fetch the price of a shiny new car.  Now all you get are birds.

If I’ve got my conversion-rates right, our cat Fanny has already dropped off the feathered equivalent of a kindergarten class at the back door.

(Forward all objections and hate mail about what I just said to Em_Static@gmail.com)

Hey, if you liked this, you should really stop by In Through The Out Door and read more about Bitch and Moan Mondays. I almost forgot about it, but since I'm always complaining anyway....

Bigger Than Jesus

WARNING: If you're not one to have a sense of humor about religion, Jesus, Easter or Catholicism, you probably want to read something else. Might I suggest some nice, inoffensive pug pics instead. Everyone likes pugs, right? Anyway, consider yourself warned.

I was raised Catholic. I mean, if you consider being enrolled into Catholic School when I was too young to know better, then forced to go to church every Sunday, Holiday (Religious as well as Secular), and special event like-it-or-not for the entirety of my young life being "raised Catholic." That is, until I was deemed old enough to decide for myself. Guess what I decided. I decided to sleep in on Sundays.

It's Lent right now, and I've made a few snarky comments about giving up holidays, or how the decision to eat a cheeseburger or not on Fridays isn't really the same as being publicly whipped, humiliated, then crucified and left for dead. What can I say? I'm funny. Sometimes that funny comes at the expense of others...

...Or the core religious and spiritual beliefs of others.



I don't do Lent. I just never saw the point. Like I said, refraining from trash tv for 40 nights, or abstaining from whole milk lattes seems a bit of a slap in the face of the story of Easter. Frankly, if I was Jesus I'd be up in Heaven this time of year like "Pshhht! Are they serious? Sooo not the same thing!"

Then there's cases such as the couple I encountered in the gas station store Wednesday evening. Drunk as skunks, high as heck, buying more booze and cursing enough to make an off-shore man blush, they were both sporting the mark of having gone to church on Ash Wednesday. Um... Can we say hypocrisy?

Yeah, we probably can't.

But then I started thinking about Lent not as an empty religious tradition, but as an exercise in building character. A chance to break bad habits as well as form a few new good ones.

I have this terrible habit of getting all gung-ho about something and then dumping it within the week. (Remember how I was gonna take up baking?) This blog tends to be one of those things. I'll blog like crazy for a week or two and then.... *crickets*

So, even though I'm late by a few days, I promise to blog every day for the remainder of the next 40.

Jesus just went all "Pshhht! My peeps totally wrote The Bible. Top that!"

Well, I accept your challenge, Jesus.

This house has a lightening rod, right?

...