Will you ever just get around to toothpaste?

Me, my mom, and Lil' D's namesake
on Christening Day 1980

Yes. Yes. I will.

But in the meantime I wanted to share a really good talk from a guy some of you readers probably know. He went to University of Virginia and is now the youngest Very Reverend that has ever been in the history of the Episcopal church (I think) and he lives right here in the Ham.

I've been struggling with a tough decision about whether or not to baptize Lil' D. Now for those of you not from Birmingham - saying you are undecided about baptism in Alabama is probably akin to saying you can't decide whether or not to travel with your baby in a carseat. Are you crazy? Subversive? Both?

But like I said before I can't really call myself a Christian so it's definitely been a thought process.

I finally came down on the side of Yes! Baptism! Simply for the fact that I enjoyed my time in church as a child. Singing in the choir, Sunday School, Christmas crafts, Weds. night dinners - I loved it all. And before my brain took over, lots of the Bible provided some very real comfort to me growing up. So I decided that Lil' D should have that experience too. Then she can decide on her own when she grows up whether or not she wants to go to church or believe whatever.

So I was digging around the Episcopal diocese of Birmingham and found some really good talks coming out of Advent (unfortunately not my family's church, but that is another story). One of which is this one from The Very Reverend Pearson (who also happened to be friends with JTS's little sisters). I feel Rev. Pearson gave me my box to check (which I lamented not having a month ago).

The talk is about people who have left the church for being too dogmatic and are either sad or mad. I definitely fall into the sad camp (although I did not have a fundamentalist background). I remember the specific day I no longer believed in any of it. I was walking back to my mom's hotel room in NYC after searching out a Duane Reade for medicine. I was living there at the time and earlier that day we had gone to see Gypsy. My mom has MS and she had a very uncomfortable attack during the play. She had tried to pretend she wasn't hurting. But MS waits for no woman and by the time it was over she was in considerable pain. I was angry and upset, stomping up 7th avenue, pushing through the hordes of theater tourists, thinking about it all. And all of a sudden a light bulb went off. It just seemed like stories. Made up stories to make people feel better. And I was done. Andrew mentions NYC in this talk so it must be the city where religion goes to die. (But I promise this talk is positive!)

But I found this talk interesting and comforting to someone who, while not burned by the church, isn't an active member anymore. Actually I found all his talks really interesting. He is one smart dude.

It's called Having A Heart for Those Burned By The Church.

One more because you really can't beat the
late 70's/early 80's in the eyewear department.

How Daisy Spends Her Days, These Days

Ole Daisy here hasn't had a job in over a month. While she does enjoy waking up every morning with a completely blank slate, she has found that the old saying is true:
idle hands are the devil's whatever... and the devil's whatever has forced Daisy into indulging in her lesser natures, mainly Hypochondria and Astrological Forecasts.

First I start off at my computer to put together my resume. Then I realize that I have some sort of symptom somewhere: numbness, excess cold, does this spot on my arm feel hotter than the rest?, was this mole always this color?, is that my lymph node swollen?, there is a pain in my abdomen....Anyhoo, thanks to Al Gore, bearer of all bad news, I then get on the available interwebs to do some quality symptom research. I discover at least ten conditions I could have, most of them fatal, some only permanently damaging to the central nervous system. The realization that my time on this earth might well be drawing nigh sends me into a righteous blind panic, and since I'm not a religious person with a savior to save me, I do what comes naturally next: astrology.

I start off with astrologyzone.com- a rather bland sight that gives very overarching yet terrifying details about how this month will suck. My panic not assuaged I then head to the Chinese astrology at iVillage where the man who writes the column is prone to saying, "This will not be a good day for you." Finally, when my fretting has reached a spiraling apex of misery and self-recrimination I get mad at the asshole who writes for iVillage and the d-bag that pens astrologyzone. How dare they tell ME how my day is going to suck. "This is bullshit!" I scream at my computer. At this point in my morning I go outside and smoke a cigarette, which is probably the one thing that I do that will guarantee me an illness, and which ironically is the one thing that always calms me down.

What did unemployed hypochondriacs with an anxiety disorder do before the Internet?

I guess they went and got a job.

Or! they stalked the aisles of their local library or Barnes and Noble darting furtive glances between "Health" and "New Age" while trying to look casual, holding a magazine that normal girls read like Cosmo.

Daisy, of course, has never sunk to Option 2 before. Not even when her Internet was out for a week and she discovered a lump on her neck that looked suspiciously like cancer masquerading as a bug bite. Certainly not then. No way.