Ian

When someone dies, people don't know what to say to the survivors who loved them. I understand that, and I try always to look at the heart behind the words, and accept the intention regardless of how it was worded.

When my father died, most people were as kind and lovely as you would expect, but, surprisingly, a few people contacted me to comfort THEM. And it made me angry. They tried to get me to say that he didn't suffer. But he did. They demanded that I say that he was in a better place, and that I felt peace, and any number of things, so that they would be freed of any momentary discomfort they felt around talking to someone whose remaining parent had died.

There hasn't been any of that with Ian's death. People who knew him have either genuinely missed a friend, wished they had made peace with him, or extended sincere love to me because they know that my heart aches.

So what I'm about to say isn't about anyone saying the wrong thing to me. Nobody has. It is just an explanation.

Ian was refused a heart transplant because he had dedicated his life to helping bullied kids at the expense of holding down a steady job with a steady income. People used to talk about the alleged "Death panels" that "would" exist "if" the US healthcare system changed. All of these conversations were happening in the news while I and my family were trying to convince a very real, very existing "Death panel" to put my brother's name on a heart transplant list that would save his life. Because we would do whatever it took to come up with the money for anti-rejection drugs after the transplant.

I have, in the past, been involved in political activism, but for the past few years I haven't talked or written a lot about political issues, because they have not been theoretical for me. Honestly, I have not been up to having a sanitized conversation about whether or not people who had little money should be allowed to die.

Ian was not the only person who was failed by not being put on the heart transplant list. His work also died. Those bullied kids no longer had a teacher, no longer had this person who took an interest and provided them a safe place where they didn't feel like they needed to be cool and fit in.

There is a big difference between an adult who "conforms" starting an after-hours club for kids and trying to reach them, and someone who has been there--and is still there--showing them that they have worth.

So when bullying has made the news, or another school shooting has happened because a bullied kid snapped, I've stood back and watched as people argue about how to "reach these kids." But the truth is that no well-intentioned government program is going to fix the problem, because as a society, we fundamentally DO NOT CARE about these kids.

What I mean by that is that the panel that ultimately decided whether Ian would live or die looked at the fiscal value of his work. His eligibility for a heart was based on whether his life's work would generate the income to BUY this heart. The VALUE of his work was monetary. This is the true opinion of our society--the one that emerges when you strip away the rhetoric. The work my brother was doing was not valuable. Redeeming these kids was not valuable, because it did not generate a profit. He had made a choice to pursue a line of work that would not earn enough to buy a heart, and so he could not reasonably expect to receive one.

When we talk about the worth or value of a painting, these words mean monetary value. But, realistically, we have created a society in which money is inextricably linked to those words.

If school programs are axed, the first question that is asked is "Will this program improve my child's ability to earn funds?" The programs the most at risk are the ones who give "probably not" for an answer.  You cannot create a society that consistently shows kids that value lies solely in net worth and then expect them to believe otherwise because you say some words.

I understand and can kind of accept that things need to be paid for. You can't just be lazy and expect for the world to take care of you. But the problem is that there is no actual link between the effort involved in a day's work, and the funds received as a result.

I have a very brainy desk job. I work very hard. The person who cleans the building in which I work also works hard. I probably use my brain more, but he definitely uses his brawn more. He could not do my job. I could not do his. Do I deserve a heart more?
So, yes, I hear that if you receive something you should pay for it. It would not be fair for you to take my book because you deserve it, and leave me with nothing. But...

Since Ian's death, I've thought about the fact that he was an organ DONOR. We would be horrified by the thought of a person registering as an "organ seller" at death--about a system in which my family, for example, would have received funds for the corneas that he gave away. Or the family whose loved one had donated a heart that could potentially have been given to him would have received funds for it. Something inside us reacts so negatively to treating a heart or a cornea the same way that we would a book.

But they were not free to the recipient. Money exchanged hands, but we have couched it in terms that make us OK with it. We can simultaneously pass judgment on the person who expects to RECEIVE an organ free of charge, while condemning someone who expects to receive funds for parting with it.

But here is the thing: I can acknowledge all of these things. I am aware of them. When Ian was alive, sometimes I became angry about them. Sometimes I tried to do things to convince others, or to change the system.

But not now.

Ian may have died because of a broken societal morality, but that is not what his death is about.

It's about Ian. It's about a brother that I love so much that I cannot put that statement in the past tense.

If there is ever a time when things are not about the bigger picture, or society, or someone else's bullied children, it is when you die.

I was often angry when Ian was alive, and I often fought to try to make things better. Maybe someday I will care about other people, and say something like, "I don't want anyone else to lose their brother to a broken system the way I have."

But today I do not. Maybe that makes me a bad person.

All of what I have written above was things I know, logically, to be true. But there is no fire behind them. No anger, resentment, or animosity. I don't want revenge, vindication, or even justice.

All that there is room in my heart for is Ian. Saving someone else's kid won't bring him back. Changing the laws or society won't give me a sense of accomplishment, because today I do not care. A "better world" would be a better world for other people, without Ian's dreams or company or very bad puns. And today, that is not worth fighting for.

Yom Kippur and Me

Once or twice a year, on High Holy Days, I take a break from my usual silly self and get all religious on my Facebook page. Here is that post.

Rosh Hashanah is often known as the "Jewish New Year," although it's kinda sorta not technically. It is a day (or two) of celebrating endings and beginnings.

Ten days later is Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, which you could most easily associate with Judgment Day. The period of time between these two is commonly known as the Days of Awe, in which there is a tradition of serious introspection and repentance--in other words, of getting yourself ready for Judgment Day.

All religions and faiths have rituals and holy days of one sort or another, and for every ritual and every faith there are people who say that you have the date wrong, or the ritual wrong, or that the thing should be scrapped entirely. Others say that improper observance of exactly the right rituals is practically a capital offense. I find that whenever you have two diametrically opposed views, the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle, and this is no exception.

Rituals have their place. They help to focus our minds, and instill remembrance, which are good things. They only become bad when we place the importance of the ritual above that of human beings, or the technical details of observance above what is happening in our own hearts. In other words, they are made for us, and not we for them.

In short, I think that observing the holy days is HUGELY important. But at the end of the day, I don't actually think that God gives a flying leap whether or not you eat pork or dip apples in honey, because he's too busy being concerned about whether or not you love your neighbor. All rituals have a point.

If I were to choose the one thing that people of all faiths need right now, it would be their own Days of Awe. All of us, including atheists, have an outwardly-focused faith. If you were to ask a random Christian in the US what their biggest religious issues were, I'd guess there's a greater than 50% chance that you'd hear about gay marriage or abortion--and this statement would undoubtably come from someone who was neither gay nor considering an abortion. Ask a Muslim in Saudi Arabia, and you might hear something about lack of conservative dress or the consumption of alcohol, from someone who was dressed conservatively and never drank.

The point is that all over the world, religious people are obsessed with what everyone else is doing, and the majority of their religious energy is focused on stopping them.

Yom Kippur is a yearly reminder that WE are judged. When we stand before God, His questions to us will be about our own hearts and our own actions, and I guarantee He won't be saying that we weren't hateful enough toward sinners, or didn't do enough to make sure those around us were repentant. He will want to know if we loved enough. If we gave enough away. If we were more concerned about whether or not someone had abused their welfare payments than we were about whether or not they had enough to eat.

Here's the kicker: He's going to ask me the same things.

Look at the huge irony of this post. I've just said that what all of you intolerant jerks need is more time of self-reflection and to focus on getting your own house in order.

This is my own greatest fault and, yes, sin.

Last year, I did an experiment with myself. I decided that for one week, I would focus ONLY on myself. I would listen to sermons and think only "how can I be doing better" and never, ever, "Yeah, you tell them, that's exactly what they need to hear." I would read scriptures and think only of how they applied to me. I would remember that the sentence "I hate intolerant jackasses" is ironic, and try to feel only love for those with opposing viewpoints--after all, don't I fault them for the same thing?

I discovered that I can't do it. I can't make it a single day. I might be able to make it a few hours if I avoided all human contact and distracted myself by playing cards or something. But I can't do it.

Yes, the world needs Days of Awe, but far more importantly, *I* need Days of Awe. Yom Kippur is a yearly reminder that *I* am judged. *I* have to stand in front of God and answer for MY heart and MY actions. You'd think that of the 52 weeks in a year, I'd be able to work on my own house for just one, but it turns out that I just might be the most intolerant jackass of them all.

So here's to another year of utter and complete Days of Awe failure. But, you know, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe when I stand before God, the best thing I can have in my heart is an awareness and acceptance of my own frailty.

Mike's Definition of "Frenzy"

Last night, I had the following conversation with Mike:

Me: What would you like for dinner?

Mike (who had clearly noticed the stir-fry vegetables in the fridge): I don't care. Just not stir-fry.

Me: Oh, don't you like stir-fry?

Mike: You just appear to be in the midst of some kind of stir-frying frenzy.

Me: Mike, in the entire five and a half years that we have been together, I have made stir-fry ONCE.

Mike: Yeah, but it was just last week.

So, about this whole "fat" thing.

Being fat is, in some ways, like being black used to be. I like the fact that racial tolerance has reached the place that a black man can be a comedian without being "that black comedian." Don't get me wrong--I think that most comics are funny because they speak from experience, and being a black person in the world is part of some people's experience. However, it seems like 15 years ago, a black comic's routine HAD to center around being black, whereas now I think you can expect anything when the comedian you're watching happens to be black. If he talks about his experiences as a person of color, fine, but it's not obligatory.

In the same way, I would really like to see the day when a fat comedian can go onstage and not mention his or her weight. Self-deprecation, even weight-related self-deprecation is all fine and good, but at some point we become the Richard Pryors of the fat world, hamming it up to the thin, white audience. And while I don't think there's anything wrong (and, in fact, I think it's quite positive) when a fat comedian has a pro-fat subtext to what they're saying, I, personally, I would rather choose not to be defined by my body size.

But I do suppose that at some point I have to go "on the record" about the whole thing, and may as well do so now as at any other time.

I will never deny that being fat is unhealthier than being thin. Science backs this up, and I'm a big fan of science. However, I do not agree with the demonization of fat people, and find in almost all cases where the "unhealthy" aspects of being fat are referenced, it is as thinly-disguised excuse to justify bigotry and discrimination.

Many years ago, Scientific American published some research about homosexuality, and had several scientists offer reviews and comments. One of the scientists said, basically, that one had to be careful with studies into the "whys" of homosexuality, because the root question could be interpreted as, "Can they help it," which is loaded in and of itself, and he felt a corresponding responsibility in how the answer might be used.

In the same way, some people think that the question of "Can fat people help it?" should have the simple response of, "Why does it matter?" and I can certainly appreciate that.

However, unlike homosexuality, I'd say it's pretty safe to classify the general state of being overweight as being negative. Given the choice, I would prefer to be thin. I generally describe moving around easily, wearing stylish clothing, and walking upstairs without panting as "positive" experiences. The question is how to effectively go from a large size to a small one, when over 95% of people who try the only universally-approved weight-loss method--diet and exercise--regain all of the weight and then some within 5 years.

I used to work as a genetic researcher. What we were studying at the time was the genetics of dependency, and our lab, specifically, was in the Alcoholism branch of study. The tests themselves could be tedious and boring, but the work, on the whole, was fascinating to me.

There are two strains of mice (C-57s and DBAs) that approach AND process alcohol differently. Given the choice of pure ethanol and water to drink, one type will drink the ethanol exclusively until they die of dehydration. The other strain will avoid ethanol at similar cost to life.

It was discovered that ethanol consumption reduces core body temperature. There were two subsequent hypotheses: either the body loses its ability to thermoregulate, or the body's temperature set-point is lowered as a result of drinking. Tests were done, and it was discovered that the two strains of mice mentioned earlier differed in this physiological effect--one of them lost the ability to thermoregulate and the other still thermoregulated, but the alcohol caused them to have a lowered core body temperature set-point.

We were researching which genes were responsible for this alcohol/temperature link.

The lab was run by a really great physiologist whose area of expertise was thermoregulation. He is one of those people who remains an inspiration to me. In our discussions, he mentioned that the majority of the human body's thermoregulation is achieved through behavioural changes--that our bodies maintain a very precise temperature, usually of 98.6 F, by telling us to put on coats, or turn on fans, etc.

What does this have to do with weight and obesity? If you mesh all of the above together, you end up with two main facts: 1. the physical human body can and will induce behavioural changes in order to get what it wants, and 2. some substances, when consumed, are processed differently by different members of the same species.

I am a decent scientist, and I would never say that mouse-related ethanol research could be directly applied to weight loss research in humans. What I AM saying is that it suggests avenues of research. These aveneus have to do with the interplay between the metabolism of consumed substances, genetics, hunger signals, and physiological influences on food-related behaviours.

The problem is that when it comes to weight loss, we did some informal research years ago and discovered that our stored fat comes from the food we eat, and saw this as the end of the story. We concluded that the human body is little more than a combustion engine, and if you want to lose weight, you reduce the fuel and increase the output. At the same time, we decided that failure to do so is a moral failing. As such, no further research was deemed necessary.

However, is entirely possible that telling someone to lose weight is like telling them to lower their core body temperature. After all, 98.6 is just the average--some people have a higher set point, and some people lower. What would happen if we decided that having a core body temperature of 98.6 was morally wrong, and that everyone should lower theirs to 98.0?

We as a society can tell you to stop wearing a coat when it is chilly, and you may even be able to get yourself to do this for a short period of time. But is this a realistic proposition for long-term change? When you are fighting your body's natural set point, it can and will make you miserable until you comply with its demands. Odds are very high that eventually you will give in and grab a coat.

Realistically, if we wanted someone to permanently alter their thermoregulatory set-point, it would make far more sense to research the point-setting mechanism and alter it to the appropriate level instead.

It's much easier to talk about thermoregulation in these terms, because we do not have decades of emotionally-charged conversations about temperature control affecting our judgment. This is one of the reasons I think that a certain amount of fat-prejudice needs to be eliminated before we can expect real breakthroughs.

Some very lovely endocrinologists are finally researching the physiology behind a person's body weight, and learning things about ghrelin and leptin, and the processing of sugars (specifically HFCS) and fats. Unsurprisingly, early results indicate that people who weigh more react to food consumption physiologically differently from those who are thinner.

Amazingly, though, these scientists receive quite a bit of flak from people who insist on continuing to treat the body as a simple combustion engine, and further insist that the root problem is moral failure. It seems simple to people who have never been seriously overweight--after all, if they diet for a week, they take off that extra five pounds, so why doesn't everyone do this? Clearly the only explanation is that the obese are gluttonous and lazy.

Imagine, if you will, that we are all men living in a brothel. We noticed, at some point, that the (female) prostitutes were always getting pregnant, which was clearly a bad thing. We did a bit of research and discovered that prostitutes get pregnant because men have sex with them. Therefore, having sex with a prostitute is a moral failing and must stop. End of research, end of topic.

However, 1/2 of the male population is subsisting on a diet of viagra and aphrodisiacs.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Fine. I will accept that, to a certain extent, calories in vs. calories out is the basis for how much someone weighs, with the actual numbers depending on that person's metabolism. However, as long as we view weight gain as a moral failing and therefore unworthy of further research, we are not going to see real solutions. Behavioural modification is just plain not realistic if there are underlying physiological triggers, end of story. As long as we react to tales of people taking weight-loss aids or having bariatric surgery as if they've just suggested continuing to having sex with prostitutes but using a condom, I'm afraid that our society is just going to continue getting fatter.

EDIT: I didn't go into too much detail on the research that has already been done on the endocrinology of weight gain. If you're interested, I recommend you do it yourself. In short, preliminary results indicate that obese people are leptin resistant and have abnormal ghrelin levels. These are hormones known to affect hunger and energy storage. Most endocrinologists liken these problems to those of diabetes. Really, look it up.

Why I am not a Catholic

I thought about titling this "My problem with Catholicism." The problem is that I both do and do not have a problem with Catholicism, and the Catholic Church, and there are very many individual Catholics with whom I have no problem whatsoever even on religious grounds. But I've felt the need to discuss this lately, because it seems to me that the reasons I have for not being Catholic myself are the same reasons that the church has found itself in a disgraceful light in the recent past.

Firstly, here is the thing about Christians in general: we all have levels of understanding. When it comes to intelligence, or the understanding of the natural world, there are people who are mentally challenged, and there are people who are geniuses; there are people who see everything from an artistic viewpoint and are artistically brilliant, and people who are scientific and are brilliant scientists. There are as many approaches to understanding of the natural world as there are shades of color.

When it comes to the spiritual world, I think it is the same. Some people have a very simple faith. There isn't a direct correlation between simplicity of faith and intellect, but it may be easier to understand if you think of it in those terms. A mentally challenged person who loves God may not sit down with you and argue the finer points of the prophecies of Revelations. That person may only understand that he loves his parents and his friends and Jesus, and that faith is valid and valuable and in no way inferior to the faith of a genius and scholar. That childlike faith may be the highest faith there is, and is often what the rest of us should be aspiring to.

So when it comes to individual Catholics, I believe that their faith is different from mine, and that it is fitting to their understanding.

When it comes to priests and monks and nuns, I do not believe that God requires us to give up human relationships for Him, but if your understanding and your heart leads you to make that sacrifice, then I believe that God sees your heart, and accepts, values, and rewards your actions. I believe there are priests and nuns out there who have the kind of faith and live the kinds of lives that put mine to shame, and for that reason I feel that it would be wrong and self-righteous for me to make the unqualified statement, "I have a problem with your priesthood," or in some way to feel that I am more enlightened than they are.

Secondly, here is the thing about Christian churches in general: I don't think there is a church on the planet with which I would find myself in complete agreement 100% of the time. That is not a bad thing at all. It means that the people who wrote the founding documents were not blindly following me, and I am not blindly following them. We have both thought things over for ourselves and come to different conclusions. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I don't fully support Catholicism from a doctrinal standpoint, because I probably don't FULLY support anyone.

But doctrinally, there are some things that I just don't think matter. The Grace Brethren church, as far as I can tell, decided to split from the rest of Protestantism because they thought that when you are baptized in water, you're supposed to be dunked under three times--once in the name of the Father, once in the name of the Son, and once in the name of the Holy Spirit, as opposed to only once in the names of all three. I really, really, really don't think God gives a rip about how many times you go under. I think he's concerned that you approach Him with a pure heart and want to do what you have to in order to demonstrate your commitment to Him. You could be dipped five times in Jello for all I care, and as long as you're sincere about it, I think He's fine with it, too.

Similarly, I don't think God gives a hoot about whether or not you eat bacon, worship on Saturday or Sunday, dance, or any number of other things that various churches get worked up about. I have gone to churches that frown on many of these things, but I didn't feel that my doctrinal dissent was enough to bar attendance.

But my doctrinal differences with Catholicism are actually on things that matter enough for me to not feel comfortable joining, because they have to do with my relationship with God itself.

Firstly, and perhaps least importantly, there's a big mess of stuff in Catholicism that was incorporated from random pagan religions and had nothing to do with Judaism/Christianity in the first place. Ages and ages ago (and much of this was down to Constantine), people wandered around, encountered people of other faiths, and did a lot of, "Oh, you worship this statue of Baal being held by his mother, Ashtaroth? Fine, you can still pray to them, but we're going to call them Mary and Jesus now," and that kind of thing. I don't really approve, and would rather have my faith and doctrine based solely on the Bible and the testimony of Jesus.

The reason I say "least importantly" is that I think the most important thing is where your heart is. There are people who will argue that we shouldn't celebrate Christmas because a) Jesus wasn't born anywhere remotely near December 25, and b) the original holiday on or about December 25 was a pagan one, and it was one of these pagan rites that Catholicism incorporated, yadda yadda yadda. I don't care. I don't think God cares. That all happened a long time ago. If we all take a day out of the year--any day at all--to dedicate to celebrating Jesus' birth, and we do so by giving one another gifts, then as long as we are doing it out of a pure heart, I think it's good in the sight of God.

On the other hand, this nonsense of praying to Mary and saints is RIGHT OUT, but I think it's God's business to smack people upside the head for that sort of thing if He wants to.

So to some degree, a lot of the things that were incorporated into the Catholic church might bug me, but they might not necessarily prevent me from becoming a member.

So what does?

It's the entire subject of leadership.

Prior to the time of Jesus, the only way to approach God was via a priest, who entered His presence in an area of the temple called the Holy of Holies. This area was accessible only to priests, and was separated from the areas available to the people by a VERY thick (as in inches thick) curtain. Blood sacrifices to cleanse the priest made this entrance possible.

When Jesus was crucified, this veil of division was torn from the top down. The tearing of the curtain from the top down signified the removal of the separation between us and God by Jesus' death--His sacrifice was the ultimate sacrifice that cleansed us ALL enough to enter the presence of God. Always. Everywhere. He walks among us, and we walk in His presence.

The whole point now is that our faith has changed from one in which we had to rely on someone else. We have direct access, which is both a blessing and a responsibility.

We are REQUIRED to develop our own relationship with God. We are required to think for ourselves, and to take our instruction from Him. Yes, we still have pastors and rabbis and teachers, and these are good things. I don't have the time to study Hebrew and ancient texts and research and study what the finer points of this or that law are. That's why we pay our pastors and rabbis and teachers, just as we pay our math teachers to go off and do THEIR research. They do this study, and they present their findings to us, and help us to learn, but we are not to treat them as infallible. We are to weigh everything they say against what we know to be true--a certain amount of study and prayer is still vital on our part, and we need to know enough for ourselves to recognize when one of these teachers tells us something wrong.

So the whole concept of a pope with papal infallibility is fundamentally flawed. There is nothing wrong with having a heirarchy of teachers, just as at a school we have teachers and department heads and deans. And maybe those department heads and deans can make decisions about what those below them should teach, but we recognize that they are sometimes wrong and sometimes make mistakes. A pope is a human being, and none of us, under any circumstances, should ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever turn the responsibility for our souls over to another mere human being, or allow that person to stand between us and God. That curtain was torn, and it was torn by God Himself. ANY spiritual leader is only a teacher, and we should always weigh what a teacher says with what we know to be true.

Secondly, there is a whole mess of Scripture that tells us about how religious leaders and teachers are supposed to be appointed, and I'll tell you right now that I'm not eligible, because I don't measure up. Religious leaders are held to a higher standard than the rest of us.

God forgives, and we are supposed to forgive as well. Sure, no human being is perfect, but there's a whole list of stuff that makes you ineligible to be a leader or teacher. A lot of these things have to do with sexual sins. To put it bluntly, if you visit a prostitute, for example, you're no longer eligible to be a deacon in a church. Period. It doesn't mean God hasn't forgiven you, or that I haven't, it's just part of the eligibility criteria, like a conviction for embezzlement making you ineligible to work in a bank even if you've served your time and been rehabilitated. Far from saying that priests aren't allowed to marry, Paul actually suggests that they do so--to paraphrase, he says that if you're getting some at home, you're not going to be tempted to go get some where you shouldn't.

So that's the thing: the entire understanding that the Catholic church has regarding leaders--what their role is, how they should be appointed, how they should be regarded by the congregation--it's all counter to scripture. If you found out that a church leader was molesting anyone, that leadership is stripped, period. That is IN THE BIBLE. There is no question of a cover-up.

And when they appointed this last pope and he said, "Oh, yeah, I was in the Hitler youth, but you have to understand, I was young, and it was impossible to say no," uh, NO. I am sorry. Is it understandable to be in the Hitler Youth during that time? Yes. Was it impossible to say no? No. Other people did. Some of those people died.

Would *I* have said no? Who knows? Probably not; I'm a bit crap. However, I wasn't running for pope. The whole point is that LEADERS ARE HELD TO A HIGHER STANDARD. For me to be the best thing you've got going, a lot of very good people would have to die first.

The standards for and role of teachers, and the fundamental nature of direct access to God say something very big about faith and the church. I can join a church that feels strongly about triple-dunking everyone or banning the Macarena. I don't feel that I can join a church that says that I have to blindly accept what the Pope or any other human being says about anything without talking to God about it.

God never said that our leaders would be perfect, or that their moral codes would be bug-free. He did say that if they taught something wrong, that they'd be punished dearly for it, which implies that it can happen.

If you tell people they're supposed to accept what their leaders say as coming from the mouth of God, then suddenly you run into trouble when they turn out to be flawed. You cover things up.

When you don't hold your leaders to a higher standard, and when your highest leader is someone who justifies his past mistakes by saying, "Well, you had to understand...the circumstances...they were difficult...." instead of acknowledging that these mistakes make him ineligible for leadership, then you can't really be surprised when you find out that this same approach is taken toward the cover-ups of the past.

What I am hoping is that these scandals cause the Catholic leadership to revisit the concept of leadership itself, and adopt the Biblical principles that were there to avoid all of this in the first place. Until then, you'll find me over here in Messianic Jew-land doing the Macarena.

Sad Day

One of our ferrets died this morning, which makes me really sad. His name was Aristotle. One of the things that is so sad about it is that the vet we took him to on Friday really screwed it up, and I'll just never know if he would have made it if she hadn't.

My boyfriend is significantly more tender-hearted than he lets on to most people. He cried a little, and then said, "Do you still want to move that rose bush? I was thinking we could move it and bury him under it."

So we did.

Sunday Lunch with Mike

So...since there is little else to do on a rainy day, we went out to lunch. Here are some excerpts of our conversations:

SCENE: In the car, on the way to the restaurant.

Me: Oh, Mike, have you registered to vote yet? If you haven't, you won't be able to vote in the upcoming election.

Mike: So?

Me: Fine. If the BNP takes over Witham, you're the one who's gonna have to hide me in a closet.

Mike: At least the Nazis can put on a decent parade.
(NB: Mike was not well-impressed with last year's Witham Carnival Parade)

Me: You are going straight to hell.

SCENE: At the restaurant

Me: You know, if we ever won the lottery, I'd totally have some pet chipmunks living in the aviary/glasshouse.

Mike: You mean "Chipmonastery."

SCENE: Duran Duran's "Save a Prayer" plays in the background

Mike and I exchange a look.

Me: You know...I've never actually listened to these lyrics before.

Mike: Me either.

Me: I wonder if anyone's ever actually used that line before.

Mike (giving me his best sexy look): Hey, baby, some people call it a one night stand, but we can call it paradise.

Me: How's that working for you?

Mike [sighing wistfully]: They just don't write lyrics like that anymore....

Me: I wonder why not.

Mike: Because boys just aren't pretty enough nowadays for lines like that.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG AGAIN

It's been a few years in this garden, now, and it is finally starting to look like an actual garden. There are tulips everywhere at the moment. The flowering cherry is starting to fade, the apple trees are starting to bloom, and the lilacs, viburnum and wisteria are looking like they will be ready to go when those are finished.

I am...happy. There are seedlings in my greenhouse, and there is love in my brick house. And I am thankful.