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One of the Unintended Consequences…

…of having a teacher as a romantic partner is that you get to experience each and every illness that the little germ-infected monsters bring with them into the classroom.

Yep, I’m down with the creeping crud again.

But at least the timing was advantageous. By sheer coincidence, I had an appointment scheduled with my new Primary Care Physician tomorrow morning. It was originally intended to just be a meet-and-greet sort of thing to establish medical care here in Denver, but since I’m going to be there anyway maybe he’ll have some magic bullet to knock this crap out of me.

Yeah, right.

My doctor in Phoenix has been great about authorizing refills for my various meds as they run out, but it’s been nine months since my last blood workup, and I really do need get back into a regular care routine—not to mention getting a referral to a local Otolaryngologist.  I’m way overdue for that exam.

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Of Gods and Monsters

I haven’t always been an Atheist. In fact, I’m not even sure that’s a completely accurate description of my beliefs at all. But if it means that I no longer believe that some omniscient intelligence created and maintains the Universe, then yes, I am an Atheist.

Do I believe there is something beyond the three-dimensional confines of of our reality? Yes, only because the Universe is proving itself far larger, stranger, and more bizarre than we puny humans ever have a hope of completely understanding.

I was raised in a mainstream Protestant household and we did the typically American thing of attending church on Christmas and Easter. When I entered my teens, my Mom got it into her head that I needed to be confirmed in the faith, and sent me to the requisite church classes to accomplish that. (Where, I might add, I ended up serially falling in love with two different straight boys who I went to high school with.) Much to my Dad’s chagrin (who was not a member of the faith), I got caught up in the pomp and circumstance and I started attending church on a regular basis.

That ended after I came out. I decided that I had no room in my life for a church that had no room in its life for me. Prompted by an acute episode of deja vu upon first seeing the double sunset in Star Wars in 1977,  I started researching other beliefs (including reincarnation), and turned an increasingly critical eye toward Christianity. I came to the inescapable conclusion that all organized belief systems were full of crap, and set out to find my own spiritual path, culminating in ascribing to a whole lot of new age nonsense.

But while undergoing my cancer treatments in 2003, something changed. The themes of life and death took on a new urgency, becoming a regular part of my nighttime ruminations, and I came to the conclusion that there are only two possible outcomes at death: we either blink out completely, our consciousness and the energy that powers us dissipating back into the ether—or that aspect of us that makes each of us individuals moves on to something else. Exactly what that else might be was unknowable—and therefore, in the overall scheme of things, ultimately irrelevant to our life here and now. If there was something more beyond this life, like the Universe itself, it was probably stranger and more bizarre than we could ever comprehend. Neither possibility  frightened me, and I came to be at peace with whatever came my way.

During those many sleepless nights (caused by pain from the radiation treatments, not from fear of dying), the only possibility I could reject out of hand was the Christian heaven/hell scenario that I had been raised on and the attendant bullshit the church said you had to believe in order to attain that promised salvation.

If, when the time comes, and I’m proven wrong and find myself writhing in a lake of molten sulfur (how exactly a non-corporeal entity would feel pain without a physical body is one of a myriad of Christian logic-busters), then I’m willing to accept that fate because I will undoubtedly be there with souls who I have loved during my time on Earth. I mean seriously, would you want to spend eternity in heaven if it were populated with sanctimonious douchebags like Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and other so-called “people of God” who are consumed with hate and doing their level best to make life on Earth a living hell for entire populations?

I think not.

Over the last five years or so, the last vestiges of my new age beliefs have also sloughed off, discarded along with my once-upon-a-time Christianity. It’s all bullshit. We have no way of knowing what lies beyond this life, and while I would desperately like to believe that at some point I will be reunited with long-dead loved ones in some new body and existence, there’s nothing to indicate that this belief is any less fantasy than believing in angels sitting on clouds playing harps. Because of that, I am much more aware of letting those I love know now how much I treasure them and how glad I am to have them in my life.

And with that, I leave you with this, a scenario about as likely as any other…

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Teh St00pid, it BURNS!

“This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country – the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America’s preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.” ~ Delusional Presidential Hopeful Douchenozzle Rick Santorum

To which I respond:

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Shorter Version

A shorter version of the GOP platform:

  • On Women: All your uterus are belong to us.
  • On Social Security: All of your pensions are belong to us and will be handed to Mitt Romney in tax cuts.
  • On Medicare: Phase out, first we will take it from the under 50s and once its gone for them it will be easy to cut it for seniors.
  • On Health Care: We have a health care plan – you die.
  • On Foreign Policy: Bomb, Bomb Iran
  • On the Economy: Its tax cuts all the way down but only for the 1%
  • On the Environment: Drill baby, drill.
  • On Social Issues: Hate baby, hate.

Did I miss anything?

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Lesson Learned

The roads were clear and no snow was predicted, so I drove to work yesterday; the first time in nearly a week.

What a mistake that was.

While I was sitting there on the I-25 at a complete stop, and not one, but two trains sped past, I realized how much I’d grown to once again enjoy taking public transit to work. (Sixteen years in San Francisco being forced to deal with the MUNI on a daily basis made moving back to Phoenix and having to drive an absolute joy.) Yeah, yeah—I have to get up a half hour earlier and end up getting home a half hour later than if I would if I drove, but it’s worth it—even on the days it doesn’t snow. There’s no stress, no dealing with bullshit like traffic stopping on the freeway for no reason whatsoever, and there’s the added perk of  occasionally snapping off photos of attractive strangers.

And also by taking the train and walking from the station to work, I get to see things like this—something I probably would’ve missed had I driven today:

So yeah…unless I absolutely have to take the car to work (like on those rare days I need to journey south to the Colorado Springs office), I’ll be on the bus/train from now on.

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Fill in the Blank

Unattended children will be ____________.

Once again Ben and I were in a restaurant, and a pack of feral children were running wild. The parents—as usual—were completely oblivious. I can now easily understand how children go missing. With such insouciant parents, children in public places are low hanging fruit for predators.

If I had behaved the way I’ve seen children behaving in restaurants (and a multitude of other public places) I would’ve been immediately removed to the car and probably wouldn’t be able to sit for a week after arriving home. My (and Ben’s) parents (as did most families once upon a time) had a zero-tolerance policy in regards to behaving in public, and it was a good thing. But somewhere along the line parents gave up being authority figures and became more concerned with being friends with their offspring.

Becoming friends with your parents is something that may or may not happen after you’re an adult; prior to that it shouldn’t even be part of the parenting equation.

 

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France Declares Scientology a Scam

Well duh!

From Joe.My.God. (I especially like Joe’s final comment. Emphasis mine.)

Now if we could only get this kind of ruling here.

A French court has slapped a fraud sentence on the Church of Scientology, saying it targets vulnerable people for commercial gain. The ruling is a major setback for Scientologists in France, and it marks the first time here that the Church of Scientology has been convicted of organized fraud. The development puts its famous recruitment methods under a spotlight. Scientologists vehemently reject the conviction, saying that they are the victims of anti-cult organizations trying to destroy them. “Respect my religion,” chanted several dozen Scientologists, braving sub-zero temperatures in the front of a courthouse in Paris.

But really, France. How different are alien spaceships and soul volcanoes from water-walking zombies and talking shrubberies?

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