catching up

I am pleased to report that, save for the occasional and very tame, singular cough here and there, the evil funk is finally gone from my body. I'm no longer blowing my nose like it's my job, which, despite being easy work, isn't all that pleasant nor satisfying.

Okay, enough talk about gross bodily fluids. Let's get caught up on some other happenings, shall we?

On Friday, I met up with the ever-delightful Helon the Felon and we went to see Hot Fuzz. Dear God, I loved this movie. Never was the term "bolognese" used so successfully for comedic effect, if you ask moi. Go see it. You won't be disappointed. If you are disappointed... Pbbbbbbbblt! Jog on!

Saturday was pretty much a washout. My preliminary plans to go to Fire Island for the day were scrapped so I took advantage of the free time to get caught up on personal shit. And by getting caught up with personal shit, I mean "watching episodes of The Daily Show while eating Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch right out of the box." I was very successful in this venture, FYI.

I had planned to do household chores, some writing and other responsible tasks but well, I'm a lazy procrastinator. By the time I got a spark of motivation, the fuse box in my apartment building decided to up and die leaving the entire building without power for about four hours.

Most people would wish that they were not home to witness such an inconvenience. Me? I was glad I was aware of the power outage so that I could promptly clean out my fridge once the power was restored. Yes, I know if you keep the door closed, the cold will stay inside the unit for several hours but I'm an overly fussy freak, particularly about dairy products, and I promptly tossed out every product in my possession that originated in cow's udder. Because, ew.

But then, it got me to thinking about all the times I possibly lost power when I wasn't home and I unknowingly ate cheese or yogurt that wasn't consistently refrigerated. I'm not going to lie to you... I gagged a little bit at the mere thought because, well, I'm a lunatic who clearly has nothing better to worry about.

When not dry heaving over perceived exposure to improperly refrigerated dairy, I managed to pass the time reading by flash- and candlelight and watching clips of The Colbert Report on my brand new cell phone.

I wanted to treat myself to one of them there fancy Treo jobs but after careful consideration (translation: having to buy groceries with change found in my couch), I decided to scale back my plans and go for a more affordable model.

Despite the money saved, this phone I ended up with is no slouch, I must say. I can record movies on it, take decent pictures, watch video clips, check my email, use Instant Messenger and access the web. It's all fancy and highfalutin and shit. It's also quite complicated looking. Whenever I use it, I feel like I'm about to uplink with a satellite feed from CTU or whatever.

And, finally, I wrapped up the weekend in NJ attending my niece's christening yesterday. The baby smelled like clove cigarettes after the ceremony because she was anointed with chrism oil. Those of us who enjoy the occasional clove passed the baby around and inhaled the aroma emanating from her oily head. I also amused myself by crafting the wispy strands of her hair into a fauxhawk. Screw hair gel! Holy oil makes for a very effective and durable spiking agent. Pass it on.

Note: American Idol finishes up this week so I promise I'll be spending less time over on my other blog and more time here. And if for some reason I don't make good on this promise, I at least vow to feel very, very guilty about it. Isn't that nice of me?

Now if you'll excuse me, The Jesus and Mary Chain is now on David Letterman and I need to go squeal like a teenage girl.

he will 'rize' again

The Lovely Jess and I tackle religion and offer some suggested improvements...

Jess: Check out this search term: "i need some hooping material for sermons"

Yours Truly: What's hooping?

Jess: I have no idea.

YT: I automatically assumed it was for a Baptist sermon in the Deep South. I have no idea why.

Jess: I was thinking hula hoop.

YT: I was thinking it was a form of religious dance. Like stepping or krumping in the name of Jesus.

Jess: I want Jews for Jesus to krump instead of handing out literature.

YT: "I krump for Jesus. Do you?"

Jess: "Jesus krumped while carrying a cross on his back."

YT: "My boss is a Jewish krumper."

Jess: "Jesus krumped for your sins."

YT: "Jesus krumped on water."

YT: "And on the third day He rose again from the dead. He krumped into Heaven..."

YT: Right? That's part of the Apostle's Creed?

Jess: Yes

Jess: Jesus and Judas had a krump off after the Last Supper.

YT: Yes. And Jesus lost apparently.

YT: Judas was the dopest krumper in all of Galilee.

Jess: Judas krumped off the chain.

YT: Is "dopest" still in use?

Jess: I don't think so.

YT: Or did I just sound like Katie Couric when she tries to sound all hip?

Jess: Kinda

YT: Crap. Oh, but let's face it... I'm not far off from Katie Couric.

Jess: You're less orange.

YT: And nowhere near as perky.

YT: Nor are my gums as huge and unsettling as hers.

Jess: Indeed

Jess: Man, religion would be so much more fun if everyone was krumping.

A very good point, don't you think? Pope Benedict, if you're reading this -- and I know you are -- The Lovely Jess and I respectfully suggest that should Vatican III ever convene, you all consider krumping as one of the changes applied to the Mass. Perhaps this exciting new element will help restore depleted congregations to pre-scandal numbers. Think about it.

'code' blew

The early reviews are in and, apparently, the critics at the Cannes Film Festival are pooh-poohing The Da Vinci Code. To that I say... HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Um, not because I'm an obedient Catholic or anything. I never read the damn book and even if I did, well, works of fiction don't offend me.

My jubilation today is courtesy of one thing and one thing only: I loathe Tom Hanks.

God, schadenfreude is fun.

a not-so-good friday

Despite its serious religious significance, Holy Week was a bit of a hoot back when I was in Catholic school. Well, the beginning of the week was at least. Like every other holiday, Easter came early at school. Construction paper crucifixes and papier mache bunnies were made, Easter eggs hidden and found, paper baskets woven and copious amounts of candy consumed despite the Lenten season and its intolerance of such indulgences.

We were dismissed early on Holy Thursday and given Good Friday off so that we could prepare ourselves for the biggest of big holy days -- Easter Sunday.

Everyone else at school looked forward to the long holiday weekend. I didn't care for the extra days off so much myself. See, every year, my mother gathered up her four girls and shuttled us off to church. Yes, while my friends were out playing and basking in the sunshine, my butt was in a hard wooden pew in a darkened church.

Holy Thursday services weren't all that bad though. They were really long but I kind of dug the whole oil and incense thing and all the Latin and the reenactment of the Last Supper. Watching the pastor of the church washing the feet of select members of the congregation -- my father included -- always struck me.

Of course, part of my curiosity was about the temperature of the water being poured on those people's bare feet and wondering if those people all remembered to clip their toenails before Mass. I also pondered if the priests discussed the state of their parishioners' feet at social gatherings.

"It looked like old So-and-So's feet haven't touched water since last Holy Thursday! Hardy har har!"

But then again, maybe there's a certain amount of confidentiality surrounding foot washing similar to the seal of Confession. Like, no matter how manky the feet or how atrocious the sin, the priest has to keep mum. Any religious scholars care to weigh in?

It was the Good Friday services that I really dreaded. Every year, I woke up with a sick feeling in my stomach hoping that my mother wouldn't make me go to church. It wasn't even because the Mass ate up a good chunk of my day or because of the REALLY long Gospel that we had to stand all the way through. My discomfort stemmed from one thing and one thing only -- the Veneration of the Cross.

In the latter part of the Mass, the priest stands in the front of the church with a big crucifix and invites the congregation to come forward to kiss or touch the cross. While I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday, I can remember exactly what the priest said during this part of the service:

"This is the wood of the cross on which was hung the savior of the world."

And then the congregation sang in response: "Come let us worship!"

Except me.

See, that's when my freak-out really kicked into high gear. I sooooooooooooo did not want to go and worship. My palms got all sweaty and my legs felt leaden and stiff. Kissing the cross was the last thing I wanted to do. I often considered touching it but I never saw anyone else do that and I didn't know how long I was supposed to touch it or where exactly. So kissed the cross, I did... and every year I walked back to my pew with a flaming red face and slightly skeeved out that I had just put my mouth on something where many others had been. It was even more embarrassing when some of the boys in my class were the altar servers. They'd smirk at me while I trudged forward in line waiting to pucker up. I wanted to flip them off in the worst way but even I'm not that irreverent.

I realize I wasn't supposed to be thinking of such things because, what was it that my mother said again? Oh right... Jesus died on that cross and his suffering was far greater than mine and I should be ashamed of myself for even being embarrassed and I should go say a good Act of Contrition for being so silly on such a solemn day.

My younger sister loathed the cross-kissing practice as much as I did. She too felt awkward and self-conscious and experienced similar smirks from her altar-serving classmates.

One year, she was the first of the McDimples in line to venerate the cross. In her haste to do a quick buss and bolt, she somehow made a really loud smooching noise with her lips. If she was in a cartoon panel, the dialogue bubble would have read: SMMMAAAAAAAAACK!

It was unreal! A wave of snickering and stifled laughter rolled backwards on the procession line starting with my older sister, then the second oldest, my two cousins and then finally, me. We were trying to be discreet but not doing a very good job of it. However, it did make me forgot about my cross-kissing panic. But, in my attempt to simultaneously kiss and conceal my swelling laughter, I banged my tooth on Jesus' foot, at which point I yelped, "OW!" and then realizing how loud it was, I gasped and then cupped my hand over my mouth, turned around and then proceeded to giggle all the way back to my seat.

A spectacle was made.

And my mother witnessed the whole thing. The ride home from church was NOT fun, let me tell you. But, she had the last laugh because as I recall, my basket was really light on the Cadbury Mini Eggs and pastel candy corn that year.

Have a Happy Easter and Passover! And try not to chip any teeth.

reading is fundamental

I consider myself an intelligent individual. I got very good grades in school. I'm enjoying a successful career in my chosen field. I don't embarrass myself when playing along with Jeopardy. In fact, I surprise myself with some of the things I get right when I watch that show. I blurted out something about photosynthesis once and nearly died of shock at both the speed and accuracy of my response.

Sometimes I even run whole categories! Granted, they're usually about TV and movies but sometimes Daily Doubles are hidden in there and one good wager can really create a comfortable lead for the rest of the game. It don't matter if the subject is The War of 1812 or The War of the Roses (starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, directed by their Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile co-star, Danny Devito), a right answer is a right answer. Or rather, question, in this scenario.

Of course, I usually fuck it all up in Final Jeopardy because the category is often about canals, treaties, ancient Rome and crap like that. Seriously, once I earned my six required Intro to Western Civ credits in college, my mind developed a scorching case of the after-Taco-Bell trots and expelled most of that info right quick. I'm not proud of it but it's just the way it is.

But even though I can't speak at length about the Battle of the Bulge or the rise and fall of various empires, I'm still quite smart in other disciplines. However, in recent months, I've noticed a decline in both common sense and memory retention. Ask me a question about something that happened more than five minutes ago and you will smell the wood burning as I try to piece together a coherent response. My natural expression has gone from blasé and indifferent to pained and puzzled.

I fear this doesn't bode well for me in old age. I will be that old lady wearing my underwear outside my clothes asking everyone if they've seen my cat. And the thing is, I won't even have a cat because, even in the late stages of senility, I know I still won't like them! But other people won't know that and they'll all be on a wild goose chase looking for a tabby that doesn't even exist! And then they'll get all pissed off and jaded and it will totally sour them on being Good Samaritans ever again. That's really sad and I don't want to be responsible!

Maybe I'll come up with my own version of a DNR. Like, I don't want the plug pulled when I'm really sick and on the verge of dying. No, no. Instead, I want to be bumped off when I start getting flighty and acting totally out of character, even if the rest of me is in good health. Friends, the day I willingly eat butterscotch or ribbon candy is the day I need to die. Got that? Say, does a blog entry count as a valid living will?

An emerging trend in my mental decay is poor reading comprehension. Now I've never been good about reading instructions. I give things a whirl first and then back up as needed to repair the damage (if applicable). Haste doesn't always make waste, you know. A good portion of the time, I get things right off the bat. And when I don't, I usually just need to loosen a few screws with an Allen wrench to get me back on track.

Not this week.

It began innocently enough. I received an email from a friend inviting me to join some sort of online network. It had a nice wee note that said, "This will be a good way for us to stay in touch!" I thought the message was a bit out of character for my friend but I appreciated the sentiment and began the process of signing up.

I blew through the Terms of Service like I always do. It's a compulsion of mine to click "Next," "OK" and "Submit" without reading anything. For all I know, my vital organs are being auctioned off on the black market as we speak because I didn't deselect a check box somewhere. Well, if so, the joke's on them because I have a heart murmur, asthma, astigmatism and I'm pretty sure my liver's been irreparably damaged, particularly in recent months.

But as I was saying, I raced through the sign-up process barely even skimming the accompanying text. And then I got to a page that had a Gmail logo on it. Oooh, I have Gmail! I assumed I could complete the registration process with my existing Gmail account. I thought I embarked on a wonderful shortcut.

Yeah, not so much.

Because I failed to read the fine print, I unknowingly imported all of my Gmail contacts into this service and it proceeded to send out "This will be a good way for us to stay in touch!" invites to everyone in my address book.* That's over 200 addresses!! For those of you who don't use Gmail, it automatically stashes addresses in your contacts even if you've exchanged just one email with someone. In other words, I inadvertently spammed friends, family, my web hosting company, The Bank of New York, eBay, Target customer service and even worse... a couple of girls I'm blowing off. Can you imagine their reactions when reading, "This will be a good way for us to stay in touch!" after months of not hearing from moi?! Dumb, dumb, dumb.
* My apologies to those of you who received one of these emails.

So several days passed pretty much free of fucktard behavior on my part. I thought I was on a roll but true to form, the streak ended as quickly as it began. While I was out and about yesterday, I saw an ad for a new online community with local directories, classifieds, personals and various other tools. It randomly popped into my head this morning so I visited the site and began the registration process.

I submitted my email address, gender, age and zip code. Normal. And then I worked my way down the page and hit a wee snag. What's this? When was the last time I went to synagogue? Wow, that's a specific house of worship. Imagine the befuddled look on my face and the smell of the burning wood as I tried to make sense of it. I then assumed the site was trying to be inclusive in its wording so synagogue was interchangeable with mosque, church, temple, what have you. Just the same, I selected "Never" from the dropdown.

I scrolled down a little further. Do I keep kosher? Huh? No. Well... I guess I do but it's not by design. I mean, I don't ever eat meat and dairy together but that's because I don't ever eat meat period. With anything. It's safe to say that the cheese almost always stands alone on my plate. Unless there's some pasta or some sort of soy-based product to go with it. What a strange question.

It wasn't until I got to the Religious Affiliation: Secular / Reform / Conservative/ Modern orthodox / Orthodox / Hassidic / Reconstructionist / Unaffiliated dropdown menu that I realized that perhaps this site wasn't geared towards an Irish-Catholic girl like myself.

My face turned red. I blushed even in the privacy and solitude of my office. Sweet Jesus, how did I miss that? In my defense, there wasn't a big ol' Star of David staring right at me and nothing was in Hebrew nor was there klezmer music blaring from my speakers. I didn't get confirmation that my shikse ass was in the wrong place until I found the About Us page. How embarrassing! Even worse, I saw no direct means of deleting my account so I had to email them and explain my stupid mistake. I started out with, "Hi, I hope you see the funny side of this..."

I am such a schmuck.

on thanksgiving and why i think peppermint patty is a big ol' bitch

I'm heading out to New Jersey tomorrow to spend the holiday with my family. I love Thanksgiving... even though I don't eat turkey or most things that cluck, oink or moo. However, my mother makes enough veggie side dishes to keep me good and bloated the entire weekend. [Note to self: Wear pants with an elastic waistband.]

Fortunately, my mother now lets me sleep late on Thanksgiving morning. She used to wake up the family and make us go to church, you see. This was always a bone of contention because all I wanted to do was lounge around in my PJs and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. But she won the battle (like I had a chance!) and off we went to church.

Truthfully, it was a nice service. During the Mass, each family received a small loaf of bread to be shared at the dinner table that evening. After the bread was distributed, the priest asked the congregation to hold it up so he could bless it. This took one family by surprise because when they sheepishly lifted up their loaf, there was already a big bite out of it. My younger sister pointed it out and we giggled until we got The Church Death Stare from the mother.

In other news, ABC will be running A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on Thursday night. You know, out of all the Peanuts holiday specials I've seen, this is probably my least favorite. [Full disclosure: I've not seen the more recent Easter, Valentine's Day and New Year's specials.]

The reason I don't like this particular installment falls solely on the shoulders of one Ms. Peppermint Patty. She's a tiresome figure in this outing. Actually, she's dreadful in all of her appearances but this one is particularly cloying. And yes, I have seen Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!) where she typifies the ugly American. But I maintain that her galling lack of etiquette on Thanksgiving, of all days, completely trumps her appalling behavior abroad. In fact, while I'm normally loathe to use this term, I'd go so far as to say that Peppermint Patty is a cunt.

Yeah, I said it.

Some background: Charlie Brown and Sally were all set to go to dinner at their grandmother's house. Then Peppermint Patty called and invited herself over for dinner. He tried telling her they wouldn't be home but she wasn't hearing it so being the sensitive and well-mannered young man that he is, Charlie Brown decided to host his own impromptu Thanksgiving dinner. He recruited Snoopy, Woodstock and Linus and together they assembled a feast of toast, pretzels, popcorn and jelly beans.

While the menu was rather unorthodox, you have to applaud their responsible and forward-thinking approach: There was no use of an oven without parental supervision nor was there risk of a salmonella outbreak caused by a bunch of rookies trying to cook poultry. Um, not sure how I feel about a dog and a bird preparing food but under the circumstances, I'll let it slide.

So Peppermint Patty arrived rocking her usual look -- shorts, a green-striped polo and Birkenstocks. The bitch could have at least dressed up a little. Oh and if her behavior thus far wasn't appalling enough, she had Marcie and Franklin in tow and not one of those assholes thought to bring the host a gift! And then when dinner was served, Peppermint Patty had the audacity to criticize the food and the table setting!! God, could she be any more callous and inappropriate? I want to punch her in that round, freckled face of hers.

Um, okay, I'm ending this now before I have aneurysm.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!

at a loss

Before today, I've had my heart broken precisely one time. That experience crushed me and took me several years to recover. What was so devastating about that experience was that I lost hope. I felt abandoned. My faith in something I completely believed in was all but destroyed. Today, I feel the same way. I never thought Kerry was a shoo-in but I tried to remain positive without kidding myself. The reelection of Bush is a bitter pill to swallow but the defeat of gay marriage in many states has just completely demoralized me.

As I explained to my homo-fearing mother, allowing for gay marriage doesn't mean two dudes in wedding dresses are coming to a church near you. For those of you who can't wrap your brain around the concept of same sex pairings, put aside your disgust, your misunderstanding and your "I just don't get its" and think about the joy, the happiness, the pain, the fear, the thrill, the exuberance, the worry, the loss, the desperation, the adulation and every other feeling, good and bad, that you've experienced via the love of your life. Now let yourself contemplate just for a second that we feel the exact same things.

I don't necessarily think that anyone who voted for Bush or against gay marriage is a card-carrying homophobe. I do feel, however, that this vote helps validate the religious fervor and intolerance already directed towards us. As it is, some people think they're justified and right in being grossed out by us. I was raised Catholic and the last time I checked, there wasn't a Commandment, Beatitude or parable that said, "Blessed are they who shudder in disgust and hurl thine most scathing insults at a man who lies down with another man for those exhibiting utter disdain for thine homosexual neighbor shall inherit the earth and win favor with God." Yes, the Bible does pooh pooh the notion of same sex lovin' but it also gives equal time to the "ungodliness" associated with eating shellfish. In other words, as you take that grain of salt when devouring your shrimp cocktail, kindly extend the same latitude to us homos.

When I had my first lesbian experience, my girlfriend (THE EX) and I -- thanks to our respective Irish-Catholic and Southern Baptist upbringings -- had managed to convince ourselves that we weren't gay. We were just "two people in love" as we were fond of saying. But deep down I knew I wasn't an impulsive person when it came to such matters. When that relationship ended, I was left to explore just how and why I had "abandoned" my heterosexuality. I knew it wasn't just a one-off deal for me. When the relationship was in full swing, I never felt so alive and comfortable in my life. But the desolation and despair that followed was like nothing I had ever known.

She broke up with me through a letter. I still lived at home at the time so I holed myself up in my room and read her words explaining how scared she was of our relationship and begging me to understand why she found herself a nice, safe boy. In essence, she said our relationship was "wrong." Because this came from the person I valued and trusted most, I believed briefly that she was right and that maybe we did do something wrong and sinful. I was at a loss. None of my friends knew about the relationship and I couldn't very well tell my family so for the first time in my life, I fully opened myself up to prayer.

By nature, I'm not really very spiritual. I'm culturally Catholic but most definitely not spiritually. I don't talk about my faith very often because it's so intensely personal and complex. But I will today. Or least I'll try. It's REALLY hard for me to discuss this, especially in this format, because I don't want to seem like a flaky kook. And more importantly, I don't want to trivialize or gratuitously capitalize on a really defining moment in my life.

Praying wasn't a foreign concept to me. Like the good Catholic school product that I was, I could rattle off the Our Father and Hail Mary like clockwork. I never prayed with meaning or purpose though. My heart was never in it. In this instance, I just lowered all of my defenses and opened myself up. The moment I questioned if I was a sinner and that perhaps the devastating heartache I felt was punishment for my sins, I had the most beautiful, serene feeling wash over me. It replaced the despair and loneliness that consumed me. Up until then, I was cold and shaking and felt isolated and alone. But within seconds -- if that -- came the warmth. I felt like I was enveloped in a warm embrace. A visual I associate with this moment is being cradled in a large set of hands very similar to the ones I'd seen on prayer cards growing up.

This comfort came instantly. I didn't have to plead with God asking him to forgive me. It didn't feel like God was finally relenting and saying, "Oh, okay. I'll spare you the eternal damnation this time, you selfish hedonist, you." On the contrary, comfort was given to me generously. I didn't have to make offerings or vows that I wouldn't love another woman again. The comfort came anyway.

At that point in my life, I was agnostic. I didn't know if I believed in God but I kind of had my George Bailey moment and reached out to the possibility in my hour of need. And I do believe in God now. And I don't believe he thinks I'm a sinner.

If I encounter a person trying to make the religious argument against homosexuality, I always comfort myself in the memory of my beautiful, little moment. But it still breaks my heart when the source of my comfort is weaponized and used against me by people who just.don't.get.it.

damn

It's now Week 4 of the Daily News Scratch n' Match sweepstakes... and I still haven't won shit. I've even resorted to praying to help me win but alas, I have nothing to show for my newfound spirituality.

I don't have much luck when it comes to contests like this. I entered countless raffles in grammar school where top prize was a bike, a VCR, a computer, etc. And I never won. However, if the teachers put names in a hat to decide who was going to do a reading in front of a church full of people at the Confirmation ceremony, my name was miraculously selected. I also "won" the honor of doing a reading at my graduation right on the heels of my Confirmation performance.

Furthermore, in fifth grade, I was appointed to be the official welcome wagon when the parish got a new pastor. I had to sit through a REALLY long Mass attended by bishops and stuff and then go up and shake the priest's hand and say, "Welcome!"

I also had to crown the statue of the Virgin Mary at a well-attended church gathering on another occasion. Years later, I heard the song that goes, "Oh Mary We Crown Thee with Blossoms Today" and I believe I actually experienced a bout of panic. May Crownings are stressful! What if the wreath fell off Mary's head? What if I missed my cue and crowned her too early or too late? I was never good with the timing thing. In the third grade Christmas pageant, I forgot to stop rocking around the Christmas tree and continued circling it long after everyone else sat down. It was tres embarrassing.

I HATED doing these things. There were plenty of attention-starved and outgoing kids who would have jumped at the chance but instead, me -- the quiet, super self-conscious one -- was thrust in the spotlight and forced to perform. It was especially painful at the Confirmation because our public school peers -- the enemy -- were receiving the sacrament with us. They infiltrated our small, tight-knit group and scared the shit out of us quite frankly. We had a few smart-ass boys in my class and even they were speechless in the presence of the more wordly publics.

At the time, I was an awkward, pale and shy skinny little kid. The public school girls seemed so glamorous and mature to me. They wore makeup and gave their phone numbers to boys. I never concerned myself with such things before but suddenly, I was painfully aware of our differences. I dreaded getting up in front of them. I was certain they'd ridicule me. During the rehearsal, I read my assigned bit and was immediately chastised by the principal for not speaking loud enough. About 10 other students (both public and parochial) read yet she only picked on those of us who attended her school. Truthfully, she didn't expect much of the public school kids. In fact, we were always warned to take our valuables home on Mondays and Tuesdays when those kids attended catechism after we left for the day. Nice, right?

In addition to criticizing my volume, the nun took exception to the way I said the word "because." I guess I said it more like "becuz." She cut me off and yelled, "Miss McDimple! The proper pronunciation is 'bee-caawwwwwwse.' Now speak up and speak properly! You know better than that!" I just wanted to get up there, blurt out my bit and sit back down. Instead, she embarrassed me in front of all those kids and made me repeat myself about a billion times. At the risk of eternal damnation, I wanted to kill that fucking nun right then and there.

The worst was that the teachers actually tried to spin these gigs of forced public speaking as the most valuable prize of all. If by valuable they were referring to the small fortune I'd later have to fork over to a shrink and the makers of Paxil, then well, yes, I suppose they were right. I still would have happily "settled" for the Commodore 64.

since i'm up now anyway...

The phone rang this morning at 6:45am. It wasn't until the third ring that I realized I wasn't dreaming and someone was actually calling me before my alarm went off (a mortal sin if there ever was one). When I finally came to, I heard my mother's voice leaving a message. Was someone ill? Did someone die? Why was she calling me at this ungodly hour of the morning?!?!

Because my apartment is a REALLY REALLY REALLY small studio, I have a loft bed -- okay, adult bunk bed -- to save space. Because I'm six feet off the ground, nothing, including the phone, is within arm's reach. As I climbed down the ladder and made my way over to the answering machine, all sorts of horrible scenarios played out in my mind. I thought I'd be attending a wake before the week was out. With a quivering hand I reached for the playback button and out came the soft, Scottish-tinged voice:

Uh, yes hello. It's Mum. Just calling to remind you that today is a holy day of obligation. Okay, bye bye now. BEEP!

What the hell?! That bit of news couldn't wait until later? I guess in a way it's good because I can now formulate a white lie about going to Mass instead of her ambushing me (oh yes, I HAVE been ambushed). I disagree with my parents about many things but I've learned to choose my battles. If believing I go to Mass keeps the mother happy, so be it. I'm saving up the heartache for when I finally reveal that her daughter's a big ol' rug muncher. Well, perhaps I'll be a bit more tactful than that...

I don't even remember what holy day it is. Okay, it's May so it must have something to do with Mary, correct? The Assumption? I racked my feeble, sleep-addled brain in the minutes following that message trying to figure out what month, nevermind what religious observance, it is. I hate starting the day off all guilty and confused. I can get myself into that state very well on my own, thank you.