Now who is my homeboy?

It is the weirdest thing in the world for me to finally admit that I am not Catholic.

I finally let myself realize that you can't call yourself Catholic if you don't believe in well..

any of it.

It is in these moments that I see just how strongly tradition can scare you into never changing. The thought of not baptizing a child still freaks me out.

I feel like I have opened one eye in surprise that I'm not in hell yet. And I don't even believe in hell.

But the more and more that I learn and think about religion, and society, and history, the more I am assured that most of what I used to believe will end up in some text book one day, just like those crazy Greek gods that everyone knows don't exist.

I wouldn't quite say that I am agnostic. I would like to look for a religion, but that makes me look like a frantic housewife trying to find a parking spot in time to get to the big half-off sale. If I don't follow anyone's rules, am I going to miss out? And on what?

I think that I would have come to this decision later in life, but a few things have kind of fast forwarded it for me.

One is the conservative Christian affliction going on in politics. It makes me madder beyond belief to see beliefs governing a mass body. Especially when the majority doesn't believe in it. And I really feel like there is a major

ends justify the means crisis going on right now. It's okay to take over, God says it's the right thing to do.

Mr. President. Please explain how your God says it's okay to kill over 10,000 Iraqi civilians.

Did he day that it was okay to spend all that wonderful money on the war instead of on the old men and women who can't afford medicine? On the kids who have no future?


Did he say that we needed 300 million that you cut from the federal program that gave subsidies to families who could not heat their homes to make bombs instead?

Did Jesus say that it was okay to incarcerate over 700 people at Guantanamo Bay?

I know! Maybe you could pray for those 43.6 million people who didn't have health insurance in 2002.

Fucker.

And this new pope, he has already pushed me over the edge. The former protector of the orthodoxy, He has already condemned Spain, who has been trying to push out from under the Church's iron governmental influence since FRANCO.

When religion and politics mix, I tend to see the major flaw in politics, and the ridiculousness of religion.

And I look at my beliefs, and I realize that I can't believe in a religion that has elections. And committees. And a guard. No.

NO.

So here I sit. Looking at my old religion books from middle school. Remembering what it felt like to believe. I am already doing something that I shouldn't. I am making myself hate religion in order to not feel guilty about rejecting it.

Uncertainly certain might just be a better way.

Education on the fork in the road

I am a long way from having kids, but that still does not keep me from thinking.

I walk through school and see so many girls in the short short skirts. And the girl with 18 piercings, not because she likes them. Because others don't.

And of course, I can't forget the boys that only want to get high and drunk and into those short short skirts.

And I see all of their parents at school. And I think

Oh my God.

I am a fairly good girl. Yes, I can be way too serious and uptight. Yes, I have done some things, am doing some things, and will continue to do things that would make my mother flip out if she knew. But in the end, I have a pretty good head on my shoulders. I love myself to some degree, I have respect for everything, and I mostly make the right choices.

The thing that freaks me out is that I am probably going to have a child exactly like me. Strong willed and crazy. That can go many different ways.

I do resent a lot of things about my mother. I don't want to end up exactly like her, but I do want the same things for my children.

I don't want them to distrust me. I don't want them to ruin their lives. And most of all, I want them to be happy and satisfied with a good head on their shoulders.

You may be thinking. Grace, you are nuts. That is 20 years down the road.

Yep. And the things that I do now are going to influence how I act when I know that my child is doing them.

I already see myself with some of the same dysfunctions that my mother has. The apple does not fall very fall from the tree at all.

That is, unless the apple has a mind of its own.

Rich, Mean, and Tall

If there is one major thing that I will take with me from being with the Mad Scientist,

It's that stereotypes are shit.

Sitting on a cliff, shrouded by bamboo, I talked some things out with the boy. And I am still thinking about that talk. And he is entirely correct.

A lot of people never get anywhere in life because they let the stereotypes that they have been born into make predictions a reality.

Just because my dad doesn't seem to exist does not mean that I am going to be dysfunctional. Just because my mother yells does not mean that I will always be defensive.

I know that I have let stereotypes rule me. I know that they have ruled you too. I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm mean, I'm worthless, I'm irresponsible.

Don't do that.

Vegetarians aren't all pale pot smoking hippies. Republicans aren't all rich snobby assholes.

Granted, it is a natural human instinct to categorize. But why spend our lives trying to break down walls, only to entrap ourselves in steel nets?

I really do think that I am crazy about this boy. And when he brings up ideas that are so simple, yet so profound, I cannot help but to sit and daydream in awe.

Not all mad scientists are crazy.

The day I dropped my lunch box

I'll admit it, I have lost a lot of my fervor for blogging.

It used to be my razorblade lullaby every evening. The only way to release the monster inside of me. I would lure it out with metaphors and sharp sentence structures, and capture it with a title.

I have felt so lost so recently. I felt like an hourglass that was filled to the brim with sand. There was no space to tell the time.

The evening of my first major blogging mistake, I felt like I had tarnished the only pure thing in my existence.

So I ran away. The mad scientist woke me up before the sun did, and we left. I let go of life for a few days. I sent the mad scientist back to the house, and I spent a few minutes with the big teardrop of an ocean.

I'll admit it, for a few seconds, I almost tried to join it. Not in a depressed way. But in a moment of desperation to become united with the whole of something. Even if it wouldn't even notice.

But I sent my thoughts in instead. And sitting here now, so stressed about life that I feel the need to explode in a flurry of salt water snowflakes, I think that I forgot to remember.

I made a print yesterday. And I realized that even though this poor lost in a lunch box and I were on the rocks

the emotion was still bleeding out somewhere.

Some people are meant to express. You can take away everything in their lives, and you will find in scratched into their skin. Writing, art, love, pain.

You can take the expression of love, but you can't take the love out of expression.

And I am still stressed. And I still want to cry. And I still in some ways hate every pore of my being.

But at least I know that I didn't fully give up. I just cut a vein somewhere else.

And sometimes variety is the only thing to get us through our days.