Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

I took a religion course in college back in the day. Hell I needed an elective, and it was on the deeper meanings of religion and society (or something like that). I truly believe I was born Wiccan, and there are lots of reasons for that. The main one being that nothing about the methodist faith I was reared in starting at age 10 made any damn sense. The minister of our small town church probably hated me because not only did I not fit in, I didn’t hide myself in a closet and make believe that Jesus was the answer to all my problems. No, instead I engaged him in philosophical and religous debate, much, I am sure to his utter horror. I probably am still remembered in my home town high school (yes it was a very small town) for the paper I wrote for persuasive writing that upheld reincarnation. And the truth is, in the research I did, there was just too much documented evidence that couldn’t be explained to NOT believe it. Science that fit my core beliefs.

Of course, this neglects the tiny amount of time when an evangelistic high school group came to our church sometime around the same time (gee I never thought about it but I wonder if they came because my minister was so afraid for my soul… what a guy!). For a short of amount of time, I found myself carried away in the whole ecstatic charismatic (that used to be such an awesome word) thing when I found Jesus and sang gospel songs and thought the whole Christian rock scene was just soooo cool. Shudder. I think it lasted about a month. Then all those really hip kids who looked kind of glassy eyed most of the time disappear and their spell wore off.

Anyway, the religion class really helped me understand the need for the average human’s brain to have religion. It is inherent in our nature to look everywhere but ourselves to blame. What better mechanism than an all knowing, all forgiving god This way people can do anything without thinking about it (murder, rape, pillage, cheat, steal, lie) and somewhere in the back of their head they know that they can be “forgiven”. It also put so much into perspective for me regarding the way most Christians treat the earth and other people. It’s an attitude of superiority and not needing to worry about this life. This is where we are supposed to suffer to gain that great reward in heaven. Basically those two things give the sheep of the world (and there are a lot of em) the permission they need to do whatever they want with no conscience at all.

This brings me to Mark Morford’s latest. Just one more aspect of our wonderful society’s plunge toward the abyss of complete anhilation. I love my kids, and I love life, but I have to admit, that in the war between Gaia, and the rash that has become a pain in her ass (humans), I’m rooting for Gaia. We are supposedly the most intelligent creatures on earth (yeah ok) yet we act more stupidly then most animal species. Even ants don’t foul their nests, but we heap garbage up at a rate so fast that it will exceed our capacity to hold it - they have even considered plans to shoot it into space, and goddess knows we’re already dumping the most toxic of it underground or in the ocean. It’s that same attitude that keeps us from treating our bodies any better. They are disposable. One use only - and that one just as a temporary shell.

While I believe in the whole shell idea (I like the term “skinsuit” better - which I shamelessly stole from Debra Addington ) I still regard the body as sacred as a vessel for the soul. That said, I still find it consoling to dive into some chocolate. I am admittedly a chocoholic and have been for a very long time. But I have weaned myself from smoking, drinking, and even caffeine ( I very rarely imbibe in the last two) and feel that given the choices it is a minor vice, and one that I will continue to work on as I get older. But I am aware that gross obesity is an issue. It horrifies me to see the millions of TV generation kids who sit in front of video games until their eyes get blurry and their butts flatten. Luckily mine aren’t like that for the most part. Their own particular vice is computers (inherited I think), but I still find that they have time and actually prefer active things like skateboarding, and imagination like the tremendous constructions my 8 year old does with Connectx. The TV was rarely on this summer. I certainly don’t turn it on much except perhaps in the evening for some cool down time before bed (drains my brain - makes me sleepy). Guess that is the biggest sign to me of it being the opiate of the masses. And here I could start into another tirade… but I’ll leave that for another day.

Ok, so I live in Denver, and most of the country thinks Denver is this really really cold place in the winter (including me when I moved here). But the truth is, it is one of the sunniest cities in North America, and it actually warms up most of the time even in the winter. So while you may wake up and it’s somewhere in the 20s, most of the time you can go out into the midday with not much more than a jacket cuz it’s somewhere in the 40s. The last couple days - it’s been, well colder than it’s been in a long freakin time. I found the little weather pixie (on the right) - and she’s reading -6 degrees farenheit!!! That is without the windchill. I’m really glad I don’t have to go out today. Making sure the kids are bundled up for the walks to school. Good grief! It’s so cold in my house that I actually just put gloves on with the ends cut out so I could type (and a long sleeve shirt AND a hoody AND a big heavy sweater AND a blanket in my lap). Typing is interesting with gloves on, even with the tips cut off. And I have the furnace on. Just too cold for me thank you very much! I like my pixie tho - she is pretty neat.

I’ve done a lot of work on my blog in the last few days. I have a friend who says that on her computer they type shows way too small. I’m a little concerned about that. If I would have had time yesterday I would have gone to the computer lab at school and pulled it up to see what it looked like there. Looks fine on my computer, but if most people can’t read it that will not do me much good. I mean what’s the point of having a blog if no one can read it!

I think I pretty much finished my Christmas shopping last night. I’m out of money and that pretty much signals the end. I just have a last present to get for a friend of mine. And I need to start writing Christmas cards. I had them out, and now I can’t find them. Wanted to do that in the times when I don’t have a call. I like to multi task while I’m working (I work from home on the computer/phone) so that I don’t get bored between calls. I work at a company called alpine access. They hire all the people who answer phones for 1800Flowers, Vermont Teddy Bear, GE Finance, NTI (IRS forms - they get busy this time of year) and about a million other programs… Anyway - no I don’t take calls for orders (thank god). I actually do help desk support for the agents who do answer the phones. It can be either boring (someone has a really easy problem) or really tough, like an agent with windows ME (god knows Bill really screwed the masses with that stupid bloat of coding) who can’t open IE and went into MSConfig and “did some things” and her antivirus didn’t work and yadayadayada.

So I try to do other things around the calls. Sometimes I study, sometimes I work on my website or blog, and sometimes I do other things. Today it would be nice to do holiday cards, but I guess I have to find them first.

My best friend wrote about me in her blog yesterday and it was really sweet. I felt kind of strange that she sees me as so nice. I feel the same about her, but it still felt weird since I don’t see myself as very nice.

Will write more later. There is a nice juicy post by Mark Morford I’ll probably comment on.