Outside Over There

Maybe it's because everything else in my life is going so well. I am loved, I have enough money, I pursue my artistic and intellectual interests, I am safe and warm and productive... is that why I am having a spiritual crisis?

I am not a religious person, although I think that if I had been raised in a religious household I probably would be. I winced at "I'm-right-and-you're-wrong" attitudes that seemed pervasive in the Christian community where I grew up (we're talking ten Christian churches in a town of 1000 people). Part of me enjoyed being different than my peers: most of them attended youth groups, vacation Bible school, etc. on a regular basis. I also am a healthy skeptic, not only of religion but also of science, art, pop culture, psychology, philosophy...the list goes on. Maybe it's just rampant insecurity that makes me question everything, the inability to believe that anything I perceive is true. Part of me desperately wants God to exist, primarily to validate my own existence. There is always a niggling doubt, though, the same doubt that creeps up on me when I am boundlessly happy: shouldn't there be something wrong here? Isn't this too perfect? Don't you think you might be deluding yourself about the source of this happiness?

In any case, I catch myself praying sometimes. This is a typical inner dialogue:

"You're praying to me."

"Am not."

"Well, I heard you, for the record."

"Of course you did, you're me."

"Am I?"

"Yes!"

"You've proved that I exist then."

"I didn't know you had a sense of humor."

"Just trying to appeal to your sensibilities, my dear."

"You have time to make jokes? Don't you have other people's prayers to answer?"

"I'm with everyone, always."

And then I stop listening. I don't want to hear this. It's not the voice of God, it's the other half of my brain play-acting with me, feeding me propaganda it has filed away over the years. The answers come so quickly because they're imbedded in my subconscious. Right?

When Tal and I were together and things were going well, I thought seriously about converting to Judaism. He didn't want me to, but his family would have appreciated it on some level (though doubtless there would have been snide comments [Note that I just made a snide comment]). Judaism seemed like a good fit: I've never felt closely aligned with Jesus Christ (although I also don't have faith that the Messiah is coming, either). I looked around for Reform temples that were accepting of interfaith couples, and found one, but Tal would not attend with me. I probably should have attended on my own, although now the point is moot.

Lately I have again felt drawn to participate in religion somehow. I don't really know how, to be honest. I've only been to church three times, twice with my Catholic college roommate. It was nice. Her mother is a cantor and has a beautiful voice. The congregation was friendly, although I wasn't allowed to take Communion. Not that I wanted to, but it annoyed me that I was forbidden. Catholicism has a lot of rules, so it's not for me. Also, the saints are confusing and highly suspect. The third time I went to church was last Christmas, when I attended a candle ceremony at my grandparents' church. My grandmother is a retired Unity minister and gave part of the service. I really like the philosphy behind the Unity church: "[belief] in our common unity with all life and in the community of all human kind empowered by love." I also like that they begin services and prayer with "Father Mother God." It's a little bit New-Agey. Would I be one of those celebraties who joins a cult the minute they get some cash? Urgh.

Anyway, it's been an emotional week. I bought a Nativity set, a miniature one that has the Holy Family, the Wise Men, a shepherd and an angel, and Various and Sundry Farm Animals. It's tiny, but I really like it (especially because it only cost $2.49). I don't have a creche or anything. I feel like an imposter having it in my house. Part of me is always saying, "You don't believe in God!" But if I don't, why do I struggle so much with issues of spirituality? Why am I attracted again and again to monothetistic religious services? Why have I worn a ring on my finger since I was 17 that has the word "FAITH" when that is what I have the least?

Okay, today I was a bad girl and didn't go to work because I was sick. Of going to work. And seriously, seriously, was having anxiety about my car's funny noises and wanted to take it in. Royce and I dropped off the car this morning, and then went to the courthouse to get a copy of the paper that Paul filled out incorrectly and is holding up Royce's divorce. FINALLY! I can see light at the end of this tunnel. Divorce would have been final in MAY if it weren't for this damn piece of paper. I have been bugging Royce about it just about every day since July or August, but Paul is nigh impossible to get ahold of. I can't WAIT until Royce is officially not married again. I imagine Courtney feels similarly, especially as she is starting (continuing?) a family with Dave. It's funny to think that Royce and I have been dating longer than he and Courtney were dating, engaged, and married. Courtney and Dave have been together even longer than we have! R & C's marriage is so ancient history and yet is still lingering because of the anal retentive court system (OH NO PAUL FORGOT TO PUT A ZIP CODE). Argh. Frustrating. But almost over, yay. Nice present to celebrate the beginning of a new year, as it probably will be FINAL final in January.

After our court adventures, we stopped in to see if my car was done (it wasn't), had lunch, stopped to see if car was done (it wasn't), went to the bookstore, stopped to see if car was done (it wasn't), went home and fiddled around for an hour, went back to see if car was done (it wasn't). At that point, Royce had to get back to Sacramento (rush hour + rain = bad traffic), so he dropped me off and I sat in Pep Boys for another two and a half hours waiting for them to finish working on my car. There were four of us Waiting Together, and the other three of them got all friendly, so I had some temporary Pep Boys friends to while away the hours.

Character One I at first took for a harmless socially-inept pudgy geekboy, but it turned out he was a loud obnoxious socially-inept pudgy geekboy. His pickup line, "So, what's your car in for?" when he really just wanted to tell everyone what HIS car was in for. He talked loudly on his cell phone and drove a '95 Saturn that was leaking power steering fluid. Character Two was an older mustachioed gentleman who looked remarkably like my hunchbacked, lazy-eyed microbiology professor, though this man was neither hunchbacked nor lazy-eyed. He had a dirty Lhasa Apso named Benji with him and drove a '74 Dodge van with a bad starter. Character Three was a tall, sharply-dressed man with a shaved head who was doing a lot of boring pharmaceutical sales work on his laptop. His Oldsmobile Intrigue (company car) was getting new wiper blades and an oil change. He also managed to work in the fact that his real car was a BMW. At first Character Three was sitting between me and Character One, but then moved to the other side of me to use the small magazine table to hold his computer. When he did this, Character One literally sniffed his own armpits! It was an amazing moment of extreme self-absorbsion. Anyway, we were all very chatty and there was plenty of commiseration, though Character Three and I were mostly on the fringe (he because he was working, me because I am Unfriendly). I was pretty cranky by the end of my wait, but I guess the service manager took a liking to me, because he didn't charge me anything for parts or service. Astounding.

I'm glad to be home. I miss my boy.

Good food moment: While we were in the grocery store on Saturday, we decided to make pho for dinner. We got various ingredients, but somehow forgot to get a lime...but lo and behold, when I unpacked the grocery bags, there was a lime! O magical appearing fruit! O sentient shopping basket! O benevolent kitchen gods! O stop it with the apostrophes! O kay. Our version of pho was extremely easy and tasted like the real thing.

The hot stuff:

Boiled two pieces of chicken (totalling one breast) in a mixture of
Low-salt organic chicken broth** and
Organic vegetable broth**

until the chicken was cooked through. Took chicken out and sliced it. In the meantime took the broth off the heat and added a bunch of dry beanthread noodles***. Waited 20 minutes or until noodles were softened. Added sliced chicken and served in bowls with piles of cold stuff (see below).

[**Wrong kind of broth for pho, but tasted good anyway.]
[*** Wrong kind of noodles for pho, but tasted good anyway.]

The cold stuff:

Bean sprouts
Cilantro
Lime wedges
Srirachi sauce

Stuff we did not have but would have been good:

Sliced green chiles
Plum sauce
Fish sauce
Ginger

It sounds too simple, I know, but it's velly velly goot.

'Tis the season to spend money.

The Score

I had several goals for this weekend. One, to look at apartments. I went through the newspaper and circled all the apartments that fit our criteria. Amazingly, there were too many. This was unprecedented and overwhelming. Needless to say, we did not look at any of them. 0/1. Two, to get my car fixed. This, as usual, I procrastinated and procrastinated until about 11:00 last night, at which point I freaked out and decided that I needed to take Monday off in order to get this done. 0/2. Three, to find Christmas presents for my dad and Michael, as we decided to get them the same thing. Apparently everybody else is getting their dads and brothers this present, too, because the nice old man at Radio Shack said they have sold out of them NINE TIMES and do not expect to get any more in stock. 0/3. Four, to get presents for Lotus and Gma Bird, which we did. 1/4. Five, go grocery shopping. 2/5. Six, get an automatic-cleaning litter box. The only one I could find in a store cost $200. 2/6. Not a very good record, I'm afraid.

However, we did accomplish some things I didn't intend, including buying ourselves a lot of toys, namely a couple of little robots named Coco and Moshi that are supposedly friends and walk around and talk to each other and follow simple commands. We also got ourselves a National Geographic planetarium toy that projects stars onto the walls and ceilings. It's mediocre as far as projection quality is concerned, but it makes a nice nightlight. And the 20th anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit, in celebration of the anniversary of our first date, which is quickly approaching (just after Christmas). Our first date, of course, involved playing Trivial Pursuit. I won. Twice. (Note: I am suspicious that he let me win at least one of those times.) I won this weekend, too, but GODDAMN, the new edition is harder! Also, they changed the question categories around again, and now there are WAY WAY too many questions about comics and cartoonists. I appreciate that they gave me back the Literature category (now called WW or "Written Word") instead of grouping it with the movie trivia in "Art & Culture" like Genus IV did, but please, I do not care about who drew the Fantastic Four or whatever. At least not every other question. My comics-question threshhold is ONCE PER GAME. TAKE NOTE PARKER BROTHERS. Ooh, and I got xmas lights for my apartment (string of chili peppers, string of purple/pink/clear faceted bulbs) and office (string of purple "pearl" bulbs), which are making me feel extremely cheery. Note to self: stop buying toys; you don't have any money.

One of December's RAoJ prompts: A crassly commercial list of the Christmas presents I'd buy for my friends and family if I had an unlimited amount of money.

For my mother and father, a beach house in some tropical part of the world and extended vacation-time. There would be a catamaran for my dad and a shy stray dog that he would feed grilled camarones until it became his fast friend. And there would be a couple of old lady geologists down the road who would amuse my mother with unusual rocks and homemade tortillas. Also a courtyard with a guava tree and some scuba gear.

For my sister, a Round-the-World trip, with open-ended tickets.

For Royce, I'd pay off his various creditors, which isn't very romantic, and then I'd take him back to Florence, which is. Also maybe buy him some chess lessons with you-know-who.

For Toni, A Glossary of Feminist Theory, A Handbook of Literary Feminism, and Feminism and the Politics of Reading. Also a slinky red dress and a few plane tickets to visit me. And a Victorian cottage with a wee garden.

For Josh, The Complete Oxford English Dictionary and a small nonprofit press because I think he has things to say.

For Angelee, a law school education.

For Lotus, a goddamn refridgerator.

For Grandma Jan, a Rothko colorfield painting.

For Sarah and Christina, a culinary tour of Japan.

[Ed. Note: I seem to give out a lot of trips. Perhaps that's because I want to take one.]

Seven Deadly Thanksgivings

Four-day weekends should be the norm. Seriously. I could get a week's work done in three days if I knew that I'd have four days off. This weekend was blissful. Want to know what I did? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. That's right, nothing. I took off my shoes on Wednesday night and did not put them on again until Sunday. Heaven.

THE GLUTTONY

Royce was an ambitious shopper, and bought a breast from a 32-pound turkey, so we had about 10 pounds of turkey breast to deal with. We had planned to barbeque the turkey, but we were both a little unsure about how it would turn out, so I roasted one half while Royce barbequed the other, just to be safe. The BBQ one was supposed to marinate for eight hours, but we only did it for about 45 minutes before plopping it on Michael and Linnea's itty-bitty grill (they were Thanksgivinging elsewhere). In the meantime we made really bad pecan pie (do NOT use that recipe), corn bread sourdough stuffing (sans fennel), mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, and green beans with lemon. And gravy from a jar! Woo! Plus we eschewed making cheddar biscuits in favor of cornbread (leftover from stuffing). So fan-classy-tastic. Har. Really, it was excellent. Linnea left us some of her delicious cherry-cranberry sauce. Royce's turkey was like the best ever. I believe that BBQ Thanksgiving might become a tradition. We had SO MUCH TURKEY left over, though. We ate several Thanksgivings, plus a few turkey sandwiches. Linnea even made turkey ramen! By Sunday evening Royce and I were both like Nooooo... mooooore.... tuuuurkey, so we went out and got burritos. When I left there was still an enormous amount of turkey in their fridge, though.

THE PRIDE

Our Thanksgiving was the best! Yay us. It's weird how doing something like cooking Thanksgiving together can make you feel all mushy-wushy-I'm-gonna-love-you-forever. As if we don't always feel like that.

THE SLOTH

I slept at least 10 hours every night this weekend. Plus naps. Plus laying on the couch for hours watching Buffy reruns. I'm not a regular Buffy-watcher, so I don't know all the storylines, and thank goodness for Tivo's dates and summaries, or I'd never figure out what was going on. Did Buffy go to hell before or after Angel lost his soul? Did Willow become a lesbian before or after Buffy found out that her sister wasn't her sister? Blah blah blah. I'm kind of hooked now, though. I've always disliked Sarah Michelle Gellar, but she's growing on me. Actually, she's not. I'm concerned that she is getting too thin; the difference in her weight between early episodes and recent episodes is noticeable. How is a skinny little girl like that supposed to beat up the undead? PUT SOME MEAT ON HER BONES. SOME TURKEY MAYBE.

THE ENVY

Though I would like to be super-skinny and asskicking.

THE WRATH

But what kind of message does that send teenage girls!?!?

THE GREED

I should have taken some of that turkey home with me. I miss it. I will have to send it a greeting card. Dear Turkey, I miss you and think of you often. Dear Turkey, you are the one for me. Dear Turkey, BEST FRIENDS 4-EVAH! NEVER CHANGE! Dear Turkey, I wanna lick you all over. Dear Turkey, I think of you first thing in the morning and last thing at night.***

[*** Real Hallmark Card. Inside message: The rest of the day I spend thinking about us. Me and the turkey sandwich. How we sit together at lunch. How I nibble on its neck. How it protests coyly.]

THE LUST

AND NOW I'M GOING TO EAT YOU!!!!