feeling...horribly trapped (in my present situation). not a good way to start out the new year. then again, there are a whole 360-some odd days to feel better:> ah, I am, the eternal optimist. but damnit some days I don't want to be!

p.s. up until a month ago I turned my nose up at all the twilight stuff. then I got curious. Now, I'm a complete sucker for it. um, no pun intended. *shrugs* it caters to my juvenile tendencies=) you should try it, it might cater to yours too:>

desire...is a funny thing. it knows nothing of its object, only that it wants it. it knows nothing of concepts, abstract thinking, or morals. it only wants what it wants. desire is a funny thing.

wandering around the house with a box of kleenex...i've reached that phase where there are mounds of wadded up tissues everywhere...naturally i've ventured over to xanga...i promise not to sneeze (if i do i have disinfectant handy, don't you worry your pretty little heads about it)....according to the nifty article on cnn i have every symptom of swine flu. ...which just so happen to be the very same symptoms for the regular flu. should i be worried? if i'm like this in 3 weeks i'm raising my own terror alert from like a green to an orange...or oh! purple - purple is prettier. so far i'm okay, only being docked a week's pay because i'm a bit too petri-dishy to be at work and smile sweetly at the general public.

agh...i need to think of something creative to do...or it's back to bed and a wrinkly old copy of The Rainmaker. bah!

p.s. zac efron? what a little hottie...in a new-john-stamos-y kind of way, right? ...Oooh if i was 14 again, how i would Swoon.

feeling a bit paranoid tonight...bought tickets on stubhub(totally overpaid, i'm an idiot) for the first time to a metallica concert going on tomorrow night & i just....have this image in my head of walking up to the gate & them telling me they're fake, the barcode is off by one number or the name on the tickets is "metalica" with one L or well, some shit like that - bah! i can't shake it! i foresee some tossing and turning tonight when i try to go to sleep. 

23 hrs, 35 minutes, and counting - im about to find out.

if not, i will definitely be drinking the night away:>

  

PART 1  PUBLICATION INFORMATION:

ah, xanga's something of a relationship isn't it? if you haven't been with it in a while, things get a bit dodgy...ya, i said dodgy...imagine those of you who are on here more regularly are nodding/giving me a big, "duh." ...don't know how people saunter over to xanga (as if it's a saloon or something*) and slam out witty posts, like, daily...

*might wanna grab a beer before sitting down for this one

anyway, haven't perused the place lately so i'm kind of stiff, not sure what all is titillating the locals - i'm a little Tinman, if you will. there are plenty of things digging away in my brain (picture a band of pygmies...er, or, hi-ho-ing dwarves maybe) that i'd love to blog about (like my newfound environmentalist streak - go figure - or the general welfare of this country ooor what i thought of Watchmen after watching it for the first time the other day - pssst - didn't think much of it *shrugs*) but i rented Religulous a few weeks ago & i suppose that's been lumbering about (more like a heavy cyclopse this time) the most in my head since then.

PART 2  BACKSTORY: i was raised by  two now-naturalized-immigrants from india, both of whom are children of ultra-conservative pentecostal ministers. i went to an assemblies of God church (with an all-indian congregation - which was like, Pentecost on ethnocentric steroids) since...i popped out, basically. where have i been since then? i've been next to my little friends in the church pews telling them wearing nailpolish is wrong and to pull their scarves back over their heads before we all got in trouble...i've been a bible-thumping debater in public highschool classrooms. i've been to an evangelical university where i delved into the theological meat of it all; where the professors were spot-on when they lectured and the students got high while they partied. heck, later on, i even hosted some the parties where - surprise! - the lot of us were drunk and high as f*ck. i've walked away from every expectation placed on me, by anybody, to be a "good christian daughter or woman".  i've walked right on down the road from molded naivete, past God, and to the place where logic lives; where nationalism lives; where economy and good will lives. yet, Yet...i can't help but get that eerie sensation that...now that i've arrived in this place - at uncensored, (mostly) untouched free will - that i do have the choice to believe in this God, if i so please.

Oh, boy. is the decision so much harder now. i've always had questions...but now they aren't placated by songs or pat answers or discussions by a room full of nominal christians. now they are like veins that course down to the heart of things - a heart which just might be ugly...but like so many others, i'm not sure yet...

 

PART 3  FRONT PAGE STORY: Maher Makes Scandal With Dubious Documentary! An Impression...

i like that he introduced himself (if he needed introduction at all) by including his own background and speaking with his family first...it gives you a sense of context...although, what event or events made him so particularly (dis)passionate about religion remains a mystery...

you can also appreciate the visible restraint he showed by not "sermonizing" towards the more feeble minded people he chose to interview. he might not have wanted to hear a word any of them were saying but he did grin and bear the process many times over with adherents to a broad range of modern belief systems (the cannabis guy was my favorite), albeit within the narrow framework of the camera...

that is to say, the film was much more of a painted picture than clear glass - the strokes were precise. He highlighted laymen who aren't always aware of the intricacies of their respective ideologies (though they probably should) as well as those who have taken traditionally normative texts & manipulated them for personal gain (i.e. 'Miami Jesus' - WTF?). He pointed to several instances of seeming fallacy within those texts. He featured all that is outrageous, shameful, and inhumane about religion. It was a painful experience, to be frank, but it was not an unwelcome one...

throughout the ride, i found myself chagrined but utterly amazed that everything he was saying - well, implying, everything i've felt for a long time now. on the scale of left-to-right, i'm only an inch over to Bill's left (ideologically, not politically). However (you knew that was coming, huh)...

i had to get off at the stop before his conclusion...it is a place to which i will not go. but let me backtrack a little - both his hypothesis and full-scale theory are the same: Religion is ignorance weaponized into detrimental form. his destination is Doubt. throughout the film, he aimed to make each participant say, that when it came down to it, they could not know any Truth with certainty. the magic words were, "I don't know." this is understandable. none of us Know. but is Doubt the cap on all human life and wisdom? Ah, but not even Bill can live there. that is too much pessimism for any man. he gives himself away when he speaks. the eggs in his basket lie in democracy; in men bettering themselves through higher reason; in functional and applicable knowledge. Bill Maher is (not the only one) asking for the proof within the tangible; for a self-improving society within the perameters of the physical, scientifically defined world. okay, still makes sense.

things get dodgy (strike 3 for me) during the last five minutes when laughably dramatic gregorian-type choir music comes on as he walks towards the camera like Emperor Palpatine & makes what can only be thought of as an alter-call: for unbelievers to rise up and...END (wait for it, waaait for it - )Religion! give power back to the people before dissenting faiths bring on some sort of holocaust.

Now that's funny. why? because it circumvents the reality of human nature. i present to you, two scenarios:

In the first, take away human history, drop a brand new batch of humans on another planet - and they will find SOMETHING, a rock? a sun? invisible electrical particles?, to worship. Eventually, the newbies may kill one another off over their rock-sun-whatever spiritual factions. Or they may not. Maybe their rocks or suns or particles will even save them.

In the second, erase Religion altogether (*Maher cheers*) and we get - Us. All of us, on a planet living together by the laws of our nations & governing bodies. We reason, we work, we play...We dream of a nobler Us. Except, we Err. We are selfish and greedy because we are wired to survive. Except, we are rapidly running out of resources and have to make War to ensure our posterity. hi-hello Secular Armageddon. Oops.

Well then. What do we do? i don't know about you, but i'd like to think, that like every other freedom we are naturally entitled to (even that is a belief, isn't it?), we should have the choice to believe that the collective limitations of human existence is not the only Reality before us. OR, Not.