Further bull from My Holiness: new religion

for Jason

I realize one of my previous posts may have seemed a bit anti-religion. Maybe it’s important to clarify: I’m not anti-religion. I’m anti-human-beings-as-interpreters-of-messages-no-one-else-can-hear-but-which-give-them-the-idea-that-what-they-think-is-right-should-be-what-everyone-does.

Hmm. No, there are still a couple of… well… okay.

I don’t like “con’s” without corollary “pro’s,” though. It’s far too easy to bitch and moan without suggesting a solution, an alternative or at least a palliative. So after years of research (and that part’s true), I’ve put together what I consider the most universally workable, humane, loving messages from every major religion and laboriously conflated them into a modest proposal for an entirely new creed:

The Church of Don’t Be an Asshole.

“Mrs. E is not at home, madame.”

The magic hour of my everyday life is round about eight p.m. By this time, the humans are fed, the non-humans are parking themselves for the night, the husband is wrangling the child into or out of the bathtub. Generally, no one is vomiting, defecating in an inappropriate location, screaming or falling down the stairs. I am trying to let the adrenalin of the day dissipate – a daunting task for this anxiety junkie. I may even be doing something creative; if not, at least my mind is free to vegetate in whatever stew of TiVoed pap I want that night.  I want. The pronoun is crucial.

Several nights ago, just as the warm haze of eight o’clock was settling in, I thought I heard our mild-mannered doorbell ring. Seconds later, someone banged on my door. Let me make this perfectly clear: someone opened the glass door and pounded on the wooden front door of my home with all of their strength. Hammered. The way you would if, say, you were trying to let your neighbor know her house was on fire or if you were being attacked by dogs or if you had been horribly injured and desperately needed help. The kind of sound, like a phone ringing at three in the morning, that sends people (at least, ones like me) into full alert.

Bathing beauty

“Pretty” is such an insipid word. “Beautiful” – overworked, meaningless. And “cute” is faint, faint praise indeed for the fine joyous sight of my little love naked and perfect in the water.

Today, as often happens, I was attempting to take a bath and she was hovering over the water, giggling, dropping shampoo-bottle depth charges into Mommy’s excitingly large bathtub and making enormous splashy windmills. As also often happens, once I’d washed my hair I let her get in to play for a while. The tub is so big and we are so small that she can circle me, dipping and bobbing like a baby otter. She is astonishingly comfortable in the water, free and weightless and elemental, and all at once I remembered feeling that way, too, and so tomorrow we will join the pool down the street.

Because all good otters know that time on dry land, especially in the summer, is time wasted. Fortunately, my cub has just reminded me.

The Ten Commandments of the Costume Shop

Reaching back into the distant past… lately I’ve been thinking about everything Kathy the Shop Supervisor of the Gods taught me. About good work, craftsmanship, precision, problem-solving, planning ahead; it’s an impressive list, and anything I failed to absorb is solely my fault, not hers.

“Am I a mean person?”

Stop laughing.

It’s a question posed by the inimitable Texasgurl on her blog today. If you read the first paragraph of the post, it becomes abundantly clear that she is not mean at all. Anyone who not only worries about their nastiness potential but actively tries to be a decent human being? Um, no. Not mean.

So why is she even worried? I quote:

Life lessons: dumb things to do for love

And by love, I mean “love.” As in: adulation, affection, allegiance, amity, amorousness, amour, appreciation, ardency, ardor, attachment, cherishing, crash, crush, delight, devotedness, devotion, emotion, enchantment, enjoyment, fervor, fidelity, flame, fondness, friendship, hankering, idolatry, inclination, infatuation, involvement, like, liking, lust, mad for, mash, partiality, pash, passion, piety, rapture, regard, relish, respect, sentiment, taste, tenderness, the hots, weakness, worship, yearning, zeal. (thank you, Roget)

Anything, in short, but actual love: the kind based on passion, respect and trust.

O what a beautiful moooooornin’!

The in-laws kept the Muffin last night; the spouse and I went to a lovely dinner at a restaurant approximately three times the age of our server – The Barn Door. I remember going there with my parents; the salad dressing selection hasn’t changed and neither has the decor. Those may be the exact same mummified hams dangling from the dining room ceiling that I worried about as a child: were they real? Were they securely attached? Were they ever going to be eaten or had those pigs died for nothing?

Anyway, a relaxed evening with my favorite person, a good night’s sleep, and stuff I’m not allowed to post about make for a very good morning indeed.

(edited to add) In answer to a rather surprised query from one of my 2.5 faithful readers, The Barn Door was my idea. Hunk o’cow is not my normal fare, it’s true, but every few years I have a craving and for some reason, Friday night was one of those times. Still, I could only manage half of a “lady’s filet” – that’s a filet mignon in non-Frenchie talk.

Easy/Hard #1

Just stuff I’m thinking about…

EASY: DYING UNEXPECTEDLY. At any time, anywhere, in more ways than you can ever imagine. A car runs a red light, you slip in the tub and crack your skull, a twenty-year-old aneurism in your brain gives way, you leave the curling iron plugged into a faulty outlet; then there are fires, floods, tornadoes, lightning, earthquakes, poisonous snakes, allergic reactions, falling construction debris, and none of this even begins to take into account the rich tapestry of ways another person could kill you. And then there’s the Spanish Inquisition.

HARD: KEEPING MORTALITY IN MIND. When that asshole in the Hummer cuts you off without even looking and you want so badly to follow him to wherever he’s going and smash his headlights, or vent your spleen, or at least get in front of him and slow waaaayyyy down. When neither one of you has a condom and your brain is soaked with hormones and THC. When you just have to finish that conversation on your phone while turning left against traffic. When you’re in too much of a hurry to get your keys out before you leave the store. There are so many potentially fatal events over which we have no control, and even when we do, it’s so easy to let of the rudder…

Life lessons: how to get along with Everyone Else

(Explanatory note: every human being in my world falls into one of three categories: the List, the Extremely Short List, and Everyone Else. To be fair, the difference between members of the L and members of the ExSL is based mainly on hypothetical situations, such as dying to save them or covering up a horrific crime they have committed… you get the picture.)

Anyway, back to getting along with Everyone Else. Believe it or not, this is something I actually do fairly well, at least for short periods of time or under duress. My personal set of spiritual beliefs includes some kind of point system in which I am awarded credit for all the times I didn’t blurt out an unsolicited opinion. If this says more about my sour attitude than it does about spirituality – screw you, buddy. Get your own mythology.

So my fail-safe method for dealing with the vast majority of the people I encounter every day is very simple:

LIE.

Life lessons: how to get it on with a new partner (het chick specific)

If you’re one of those admirable people who feels that love should come before sex, this lesson is not for you. If, however, you’re a starry-eyed serial monogamist setting off down the merry path of wild oats and no regrets, this is for you.