Thursday, October 09, 2008
Once again, Cheese Sauce proves that his followers are the dumbest
I was reading the news today, and as usual it was all fucking bad. The economy is crumbling thanks to years and years of getting unapologetically sodomized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who despite their friendly, folksy names sound like a couple of serious motherfucking bastards. I was just going to click over to the BBC to read about the collapse of the credit markets in Europe to add a little international flavor to my general feeling of dread and impending doom when I noticed a catchy title in a sidebar ad:
Wait...Time magazine's business writers have decided to blame GOD for the imminent Greater Depression about to swallow the entire civilized world? I can understand why people still solvent enough to enjoy luxuries like print magazines read The Economist these days instead of Time, because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's not like God took a break from being omnipotent to moonlight as an unscrupulous broker at Countrywide. Rolling my eyes, I went to the article expecting to continue audibly scoffing at my laptop.
Instead of continuing to think about the author's stupidity, however, I was instead filled with annoyance and anger not at the author, but at those goddamned irritating evangelical Christians! Apparently, this bullshit is all their fault thanks to something called the "Prosperity gospel" that a bunch of them subscribe to. This is the notion that if you open your wallet to Christ so that your megachurch can buy a new IMAX screen for in-service laser shows praising Cheese-Sauce Crasst, you'll be rewarded by getting approved for a mortgage that you can't afford and will assuredly default on should the economy take a downturn–kind of like the precipitous faceplant it's doing now!
Granted, this policy isn't explicitly stated by most evangelical ministers. However, an expert interviewed for the article explained that this is spelled out in facile Jesus-flavored suggestions that even the most slow-witted Pentecostal Joe Sixpack can understand:
Granted, this policy isn't explicitly stated by most evangelical ministers. However, an expert interviewed for the article explained that this is spelled out in facile Jesus-flavored suggestions that even the most slow-witted Pentecostal Joe Sixpack can understand:
"The pastor's not gonna say, 'Go down to Wachovia and get a loan,' but I have heard, 'Even if you have a poor credit rating, God can still bless you — if you put some faith out there [that is, make a big donation to the church], you'll get that house or that car or that apartment.'"
The Catholic church was practicing the medieval equivalent of this back in the day, except instead of the faithful donating their cash for corrupt ministers to buy Mercedes to snort meth and bang underage boys in, the faithful donated their farthings for corrupt clergymen to maintain lavish residences for their mistresses and instead of being promised home ownership, they were promised a guaranteed spot in heaven. Eventually, even the feudal peasants (the Joe Sixpacks of their time) of the Middle Ages caught on that this was a bullshit scam, and hence Protestants exist at all. I'm just relieved that this time around the Catholics have nothing to do with all hell breaking loose. Luckily, we learned our lesson about the dangers of selling indulgences six centuries ago. Too bad these holy rolling heretics aren't up on their history, because if they had been maybe they wouldn't have tried to better their own financial situations via this Prosperity gospel bullshit and caused the global credit markets to fucking fail.
I am obviously a Christian being that I count myself among the O.G. Jesus worshipers. Since the most holy and apostolic JP Dos was running things over at the Holy See, I was encouraged that we'd finally gotten past doing globally destructive bullshit like starting centuries-long holy wars and torturing Jews, intellectuals, and anyone else who did things slightly differently. Unfortunately, it seems these evangelicals have picked up where we Catholics left off in the global shitshow department. All these evangelicals love to talk about how awesome the apocalypse is going to be, and how great it's going to be when Jesus returns. I wouldn't get too excited if I were them, because frankly, if I were Jesus, I'd be getting so sick of my followers perpetrating worldwide catastrophic disaster in my name that if I had to get off my ass and leave heaven because of it, I'd just wipe the troublesome losers off the map like John McCain wants to do with our nation's bad mortgages. So quit doing anything in Jesus's name except praying, because I don't want to get Armageddoned along with economically fucked thanks to the investment strategies of the fundamentalist devout.
Labels: assholes, capitalism, Catholicism, crazies, Dear God, ranting, retard rage, scathing indictments
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: U.S. Army Spc. Jeremy Hall
DOB: 1985???
Occupation: patriotic atheist
Hometown: ???
Current residence: Fort Riley, Kansas
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: According to an article on CNN.com, Jeremy Hall was raised Baptist, but then he took up with some atheists and decided that was more his speed, so he rejected Josh Christ as his Lord and Savior. Converting to atheism or any other spiritual belief is 100% cool with the Constitution, and one might think that the dudes in the army (where Jeremy Hall is employed) would be okay with Spc. Hall exercising his constitutional rights. However, this is the military still boasting George W. Bush as its commander-in-chief and that apparently means onward, Christian soldiers. He was passed up for promotions because his inability to pray with the troops meant he wouldn't make a good leader. He was so harassed by his fellow men in uniform that the Army had to assign him a full-time bodyguard for his own safety. Therefore, Jeremy decided to do what any freedom-loving, red-blooded American would do: he's suing the tits off the Army, the Department of Defense, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
I applaud Jeremy for taking a stand, because from personal experience, I know that nobody should have to put up with harassment or intimidation at work. I also can only imagine it must be especially difficult in Jeremy's line of work. Apparently on his last tour in Iraq, his Humvee was attacked and he was nearly killed, and the first thing his fellow soldier said to him was, "Do you believe in Jesus now?" On other occasions his life was threatened, which sounds to me like behavior JC would surely condone. I know that Jesus, who all but said, "Hey, dudes, crucify me if you're so fucking intent upon doing so," preached humility and turning the other cheek, and forgave his Jupiter-worshiping Roman executioners, was totally the type who would make an exception from his generally pacifist teachings to kick some God-rejecting faggot's ass. Those Army evangelicals are certainly the embodiment of Christian love and compassion.
I find that attitude especially obnoxious, as I am a Christian myself. In fact, I'm Catholic, and we've since learned our lesson about getting too much Jesus in our military affairs. About a thousand years ago, Pope Urban II got this hare-brained notion that we should reclaim the Holy Land in Jesus's name, and so began the Crusades. Those worked so well that not only did we not take back Jerusalem, we ensured that the entire world thought we were a bunch of marauding, rapacious assholes. Not content with learning our lesson about militarily-imposed zealotry from the damn Crusades, another brilliant series of (probably insanely corrupt, affair-having, wealth-hoarding) popes decided to throw a party called the Inquisition, except by "party" I mean "witch hunt terrorizing Jews, Protestants, scientists, and anyone else with a brain having different ideas from the Catholics." That worked out well; thanks to the Inquisition, my religious faith can now be associated with things like the Iron Maiden, the rack, and stake-burnings. In fact, my own church didn't realize until John Paul II's hot ass decided to apologize to the entire world for the Crusades and the Inquistion. And the conquest of the Americas. And persecuting Galileo. And the church's involvement in the slave trade. And the Vatican's complicity in the Holocaust (basically, Pope Pius XII sitting around jerking off while the Nazis deported the Jews of Rome under his nose). My faith has at least finally realized how violently forcing our religious beliefs down other people's throats is sinful and contrary to the message of Christ, though it took us over a millenium to man up and say sorry. I guess that means sometime around the year 3500 the evangelicals will catch on that running their own Crusades (otherwise known as the Iraq War) is wrong, and so is hating on their brothers in arms who have exercised the religious freedom we are supposedly fighting the war to defend.
I have to give props to Jeremy Hall for being a true patriot and demanding that the Army recognize his right to choose atheism as a spiritual belief. I also give props to his buddy Michael Weinstein, a retired Air Force officer and director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who joined the suit with him and is using it as an excuse to make awesome statements to the press. After pointing out that he has received complaints about religious persecution from over 8,000 service members, Michael made a bunch of sharp statements criticizing the "Pentacostalgon" needing to get the message that our brave soldiers need have only one religion on the battlefield: patriotism. And whether the person in our military is a fundamentalist Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or an atheist, they are making a sacrifice for our country and deserve better than threats from one another over religious freedom. I hope Jeremy Hall owns the Pentacostalgon's ass.
Labels: Catholicism, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dear God, defiance, hot dudes, legal drama, United States of Asskickery
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Daily Douchebag: gravity
Name: gravity
DOB: the beginning of time, although I guess we didn't really all get it until Sir Isaac Newton dropped Principia in 1687
Occupation: ruining my statuary
Hometown: I don't think gravity actually has a hometown
Current residence: wreaking havoc in my apartment
Douchebaggery: Yesterday was one of the roughest days I've had in quite some time and the last thing I need are other bullshit things happening to make me feel worse. However, nonetheless dumb stupid dumb gravity decided to take the opportunity to kick me while I'm down. I've always hated gravity. Granted, I like the fact that gravity exists and makes life on earth possible, but otherwise it can lick my twat. Back in college, my advisor made me take physics as she was grooming me for the illustrious career in biomedical research I have today and this somehow might be useful. Too bad not only has physics proved entirely useless to me as a grad student, but even then I questioned its value. I took physics my senior year, and Smith's class was not only calculus-based bullshit at 9 a.m., but it was one of those classes where they don't just say something like "Newton's second law is F=ma, now here's some problems to do." They instead give you the problems first and expect you to deduce Newton's laws yourself. Needless to say, I considered my alternate morning routine of waking up, watching last night's SportsCenter while fucking my boyfriend, then kissing him goodbye, taking bong hits, and watching "Beverly Hills, 90210" reruns instead of class was a much better use of my time than doing a bunch of roundabout math to accomplish what Sir Isaac Newton did years before. My regular class-skipping turned out really badly when I ended up taking one test that involved three-dimensional vector calculus and I had no fucking clue how to do that. It was literally the only time I've ever stared down at a test and had no idea whatsoever how to even give the appearance of comprehending the material. That physics class represents the only D I've ever gotten in my academic career, and I don't regret it one bit, because I think I got way more benefit from having morning sex and watching Bev Niner than learning math that I'm never, EVER going to have to do as a microbiologist.
Anyway, I thought my days of even thinking about gravity were long past until this morning. After a few hours of fitful drunk sleep, I woke up and went to go to the bathroom. I felt something sharp in my foot. "Ouch! FUCK!" Then I looked down to see that I stepped on a piece of broken glass, and there were similar pieces of glass everywhere. It wasn't the glass you would normally expect to see either (ie: from a Heineken bottle); it was ceramic. "What the...?" I said, then my eyes traveled to a dreadful sight: the dismembered, headless torso of St. Francis of Assisi. The little shelf St. Francis was sitting on above a doorframe came loose, and thus at some point it all crashed to the floor. Much like almost all of the super Catholic shit that makes an integral part of my apartment's decor, my statue of St. Francis belonged to my grandmother, and he is a saint that I feel particularly close to. For one thing, he is the patron saint of animals, and I liked the idea of St. Francis sitting around keeping an eye on Caese and Chingy! while I'm not home. For another, if you ask my Protestant aunts, we Catholics are big on the idol-worshipping. While technically I don't WORSHIP St. Francis so much as ask him to intercede with Josh Christ on my behalf, nonetheless having one of my household gods smashed by evil gravity is not a great way to start the day. I picked up all the bigger pieces (including the one I pulled out of my foot) in the vain hope that I might be able to piece St. Francis back together like Humpty Dumpty, but I still can't find his head.
So thanks a lot, gravity, for shattering a graven image of a totally undeserving Catholic saint. If gravity had a soul, I think we know where it would be: in HELL!
Labels: Catholicism, Daily Douchebag, doggity style, fuck math, science
Thursday, May 22, 2008
My confession
I haven't received the sacrament of reconciliation in sixteen years. The grade school I went to forced us to confess prior to Christmas and Easter. Even the few non-Catholics had to go in and talk to the priest even if they couldn't write off their misdeeds with a few Hail Marys. Unfortunately, I hadn't really done any major sinning at that point so it was kind of an exercise in futility. I figured that merciful Christ would not damn me to the fires of Hell for fighting with my little brother or whatever small-time child's play sinning I repented. In high school, we had the option of going to either study hall or confession during Advent and Lent, and I only exercised the confession option once during my freshman year. After that I got on my unfortunate radical feminist jag, and rejected Catholicism for being too patriarchal. Well, and because there's no better way to perpetrate some rebellious teen angst than declaring oneself an atheist carpet muncher at your Jesuit high school. Anyway, the last time I went to confession was when I was thirteen my first semester of high school. I don't remember the sins I sought absolution for. After that, I opted for study hall and I have ever since.
Fast-forward to the present day, and I could assuredly benefit from some quality time with a priest in a confessional. I have done a hell of a lot of sinning since the last time I got my "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned" on. You could rephrase this to say that I've done a hell of a lot of premarital, extramarital, same sex, and/or group fucking since I was thirteen. The problem with me confessing these sins is that I'm not particularly sorry about most of them. Here and there, I regret times I've used sex to hurt people, or when I've handled sex so cavalierly and insensitively with someone that it fucked up my relationship with that person. However, I don't regret the fact that I stuck my face in a girl's crotch at fifteen and jumped on a dick at sixteen and have been doing that with gusto ever since.
There is, one thing, that I feel very, very bad about. I regret it deeply, and I feel that it is the greatest sin I've ever committed. I've alluded to it in the past, and tried to make light of it, but it is something that haunts me every day of my life. I need to confess it, but I'm still too much of a coward to hear what a priest might tell me. I think I'm afraid of being forgiven for it, because I don't know if I can ever let it go. Certainly a couple trips around the rosary will be insufficient penance. Since I'm too cowardly to seek the sacrament of reconciliation, I figure maybe I should confess this to the rest of the world. If I can give this up to the internets, maybe I'll be able to give this up to a man of the cloth and save my immortal soul from eternal damnation. Therefore, without further ado or pitiful showcases of my Catholic guilt, I'll just get on with the confessing.
In January 2004, after a Christmas vacation spent catching up with my stable of honeys in the P-N-Dub, I returned to New York. I noticed that my New Year's hangover never really quite went away in the sense that I began to experience nausea that became almost constant. At first, I attributed this to a stomach bug, since I am religious about taking my birth control pills on time and have been since the age of 16. When my monthly visitor did not arrive, however, I started to get a really bad feeling about the malady causing this. One night, my friend Miss Corbutt was hanging out at my apartment, and after a few drinks I finally articulated my secret fears to her.
"Dude, I think I might be pregnant."
"WHAT?!" she said.
"Well, I missed my period, and I'm throwing up all the time. I bought a pregnancy test, but I'm afraid to take it."
"It's going to be okay. Take the test first thing in the morning. I'll be here with you. In the meantime, have another beer."
So we drank and then went to bed, and then the next morning I braced myself. I knew I was pregnant. I didn't have to take the test to know it. Something was different with my body, and I could feel it. But even though I knew, I said a prayer that the test would prove this was all in my head. So I pissed on it and tried to hope that my instincts were wrong.
My instincts weren't wrong. I was indeed knocked up. I sat there, not knowing what to do. Miss Corbutt didn't ask what I was planning to do, or give me any advice. She just rubbed my back and told me everything was going to be okay. I told her that I just needed to think. She left me alone to do so.
I didn't really need to think. I knew what I had to do. The situation pretty much dictated what had to happen. I was in my first year of graduate school. I had classes and lab rotations. I didn't have time to become a single mother. I'd have to drop out of Columbia and probably move back to Puyallup. I'd become the unremarkable, economically and intellectually static woman I'd been working my whole life not to be. Add to it that on account of my brazen sluttiness, there were THREE candidates for Baby Daddy. I'm pretty sure I know which one it was, since Bachelor #1 had a serious case of whiskey dick, Bachelor #2 wore a condom and came down with prophylactic-induced erectile dysfunction, and Bachelor #3 gave me at least four cream pies. While I'd bet on Bachelor #3, I didn't really like the idea of involving him (especially since he was living with another woman) only to have the baby's paternity disproven upon its appearance. It would be pretty easy to tell whose kid it was once it came out, since Bachelor #1 was Arab, Bachelor #2 was white, and Bachelor #3 was black. It would be just my luck to have Bachelor #3 coaching me through delivery only to pop out a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby. The only thing that could make that worse is Maury Povich popping in to declare, "Bachelor #3, you are NOT the father." Needless to say, I didn't feel I had any choice about what to do. I just couldn't bring myself to put the wheels in motion.
I called LL Cool Jew, who lived in Washington, DC at the time. She is steady and manages to combine practical here's-what-we-do actions with lots of compassion. Sometimes you need someone to tell you what to do and make the arrangements for you. I had done the same for her with regard to a bad breakup the year before, so I figured she would be able to do the same for me. I figured correctly.
"Hey, gurrrrrlllll," said LL Cool Jew.
"Dude, I'm pregnant," I said.
LL Cool Jew was quiet for a moment as she assumed a situation-appropriate sobriety. "Are you sure?"
"Tottlez, dude. I just took a test. What do I do?"
"Can you come down to DC in the next couple weekends?"
"Can I bring Caesar?" I asked.
"Duh."
"Yeah, sure."
"Let me call you right back," she said, getting off the phone. Five minutes later she called back.
"So, rent a car for weekend after next," she said. "I made an appointment for you."
"Great. I can't wait to see your and Wmania's new apartment," I said. I didn't know what else to say.
That was it. That was how I decided to have an abortion. I asked my friend to do it for me and acted like it was an excuse to check out LL Cool Jew and Wmania's new digs.
For the next week and a half, my morning sickness grew steadily worse. In fact, I'm not sure why it's even called "morning sickness" since I was afflicted with it at all hours of the day. I got in the habit of carrying a bottle of Pepto-Bismol with me everywhere I went. Some of my classmates at Columbia eventually began to inquire about my health. I told them I had a lingering case of stomach flu. One of my classmates eventually suggested that I see a doctor, since it wasn't right for such an ailment to persist, as we got into an elevator following another riveting Cell Membranes and Organelles class. "It's actually not a stomach flu," I said. "I'm pregnant."
There was a collective gasp from the elevator full of first-year grad students. I guess this is the kind of information you're supposed to hide and be ashamed of, but I have an almost compulsive need to be honest about myself. If I have no skeletons in my closet, nobody can ever hold anything over my head. Besides, I am an absolutely terrible liar. So I just came out with the truth. Then I felt sorry for shocking everyone else, so I comforted them. "Don't worry, I'm getting it taken care of next weekend." Everybody was still shocked, so I just tried to act as nonchalant and emotionally uninvolved as possible, like I'd just informed everyone I was going to the dermatologist to get a mole lasered off.
The time came, and I rented a car and loaded Caesar into it (this was pre-Chingy!), and drove to our nation's capital. LL Cool Jew, Wmania, and I drank wine and watched trash TV and made jokes about getting up early to be at the abortion clinic.
The next morning Wmania drove me to the clinic for my appointment at 8. It was in a suburban part of Maryland, in an unmarked, unassuming office building. "There's no sign," I observed. "Yeah, probably to keep the bombers away," said Wmania.
"That's comforting," I said. The waiting room was largely empty when I checked in.
"I'm here for an appointment to terminate my pregnancy," I said quietly, in the same tone of voice I'd use at a library or a funeral. I figured this was a somber occasion.
"Medical or surgical abortion?" said the receptionist loudly. My somber occasion was just another day at the office for her.
"Uhhh...what's the RU486 one? Medical, I guess," I said. The receptionist handed me some forms to fill out and said mechanically, "The purple form explains everything."
The purple form basically told me how the whole schtick was going to go down. They'd confirm my pregnancy, give me a shot of methotrexate in the ass to terminate my pregnancy, and after a week, I'd shove some misepristone pills in my cooch to induce a miscarriage of my dead fetus.
The waiting room started to fill up, and I waited and waited. Because the demand for the clinic's services apparently greatly exceeded its capacity to supply, they showed movies to help pass the time waiting. You might think that they'd show cheerful, lighthearted fare to lift the undoubtedly gloomy spirits of your average abortion clinic waiting room denizen, but you would be wrong. That morning they were showing Narc, an extremely violent movie about police corruption, drug dealing, torture, and murder. After a particularly lovely scene in which a dude blows his head off while taking a bong hit out of a loaded shotgun, Wmania said, "What the FUCK are we watching? Whoever put this movie in for this crowd was obviously smoking CRACK COCAINE." Whenever someone does something Wmania disapproves of, she always attributes it to the recent use of "crack cocaine."
Finally, they called me in. They wouldn't let Wmania come with me. I paid and made a lame joke about how, since I got airmiles for purchases made using my credit card, I should have abortions more often. The woman taking my payment did not laugh. Instead, she told me that I'd have to return afterward for a follow-up, and wanted to book the appointment then.
"How is February 14th?" she asked.
"Fine," I said. "It's going to be the most romantic Valentine's Day ever," I added. The woman again did not laugh. She sent me to a room for an ultrasound and then I had to piss in a cup for a pregnancy test. It took me an hour to produce a goddamn drop of urine. I attributed my urinary dysfunction to my constant vomiting. Finally, after I managed to piss, I was ushered into the gynecologist's examination room.
The doctor performed a pelvic exam on me. I remembered that she had the knobbiest knuckles I'd ever felt in my vagina. She brusquely advised me that I'd signed a form which legally obligated me to follow through with the abortion once I'd received my methotrexate, because otherwise I'd give birth to a deformed monster. I advised her that I was aware of that, and dropped a little science about methotrexate blocking proliferation of rapidly dividing cells by inhibiting dihydrofolate reductase. I told her she'd have to give me the methotrexate as an injection rather than a syrup, because I couldn't even keep water down. She told me to roll over and gave me a shot in the ass. Then she gave me a little packet of pills and told me to shove them up my vagina before bed in a week. She also gave me a prescription for Vicodin.
"Will I need this? Isn't this just going to be like a heavy period?" I asked.
"You might have some cramping," she said. "Just fill the prescription." Then, her clinical manner subsided and she squeezed my hand and shot me a kind, sympathetic expression. Even though her knuckles felt like ping pong balls, it was very comforting. "Make this as painless as possible for yourself," she said. "And avoid folic acid, it interferes with the methotrexate. But you already know that."
I left and Wmania escorted me out. I threw up in the parking lot. Wmania was very alarmed. "Holy shit, Razzy, pregnancy is like a disease to you!" When we got back to their apartment, I pointed out that the brochure the clinic gave me listed their phone number as 1-800-ABORTION. "Dude, I can't believe you fixed me up with this place by calling 1-800-ABORTION!" I said to LL Cool Jew.
"I did NOT call 1-800-ABORTION! They were the first clinic listed in the phone book, and it was a (202) number!"
"Whatever, you probably finished ordering new lenses from 1-800-CONTACTS and then figured you'd do the same for me by dialing 1-800-ABORTION," I teased her.
LL Cool Jew got rather indignant. "I SWEAR I did NOT dial 1-800-ABORTION!" I would have persisted in ragging on her, but I had to go throw up again.
After treating my nausea with a little medical marijuana, LL Cool Jew and Wmania took me out to lunch at Lauriol Plaza, which is the only place in Washington, DC I like at all. I'm a sucker for delicious fajitas. We ordered margaritas, and after a hilarious moment when Wmania decided to ask the non-English-speaking bus boy if they contained folic acid, resumed acting like my abortion was a great excuse for a weekend visit.
The next weekend, LL Cool Jew drove up to New York to keep me company for the actual fetus-purging part of the abortion. I was not in good shape. Despite my pregnancy being halted in its tracks by the methotrexate, I was still suffering from almost crippling nausea. I kept waking up in the night to vomit. In spite of my best efforts to joke about the situation ("Dude! Welcome to the party of the century!"), LL Cool Jew was extremely worried about me. She made sure the Vicodin was ready, she bought maxi-pads for me (trust that I am normally a tampon girl, but these are a no-no during an induced miscarriage), and she walked Caesar for me (a troublesome task given her penchant for five-inch stilettos and Caesar's tendency to pull hard on his leash). Finally, right before bed, I shoved the pills up my vadge, took a Vicodin, and went to bed.
Several hours later, I woke up feeling like my uterus was being rototilled. I tried to be stoic, but the pain was so severe that I started crying. I went into the bathroom so I wouldn't wake up LL Cool Jew. I sat on the toilet, where I realized that I was literally hemorrhaging. I was a fucking mess. Then I had to get off the toilet so that I could throw up into it. During this time, I bled on the floor. I started crying harder when I flushed because I realized that I had not only expelled my child into a toilet, I had puked on top of it and then unceremoniously sent it into the NYC sewer system. At this point, there was a quiet knock on the bathroom door. I'm not sure if my whimpering or my retching woke LL Cool Jew, but she was up and wanting to know if I was okay.
I tried to convince her that I was just fine and would be out in a minute, but failed. LL Cool Jew let herself in to find me wiping blood and chunks of fetus off the bathroom floor between dry heaves and sobs.
"Oh my fucking God, Razzy," she said. "You are NOT okay."
I was a complete mess. LL Cool Jew gave me another couple Vicodin and helped me back to bed. I think I managed to clean up most of the floor before her entrance, so there wasn't much for her to finish. I couldn't keep those Vicodin down. I spent the rest of the night writhing in pain. I felt like someone was wringing out my reproductive organs. LL Cool Jew stayed up with me, stroking my hair and feeling bad about not being able to help me more. Finally, I managed to fight back the urge to vomit long enough to let more pain meds kick in, and fell asleep for a couple hours.
The next day LL Cool Jew and I stayed in bed all day watching Lord of the Rings and eating pizza. I felt a little better. My friend KatieScarlett came over to visit. I was so exhausted and finally able to eat that I fell asleep early while KatieScarlett and LL Cool Jew got to know each other. They ended up dating for almost a year after that. Nothing kindles lesbian love like a mutual friend's abortion.
I figured that LL Cool Jew and KatieScarlett's relationship demonstrated that something good could come out of what was otherwise a horrible and traumatic experience. I resolved to finish off the whole abortion experience on a positive note, so when I went back to DC for my Valentine's Day follow-up confirming my now-empty uterus, LL Cool Jew and I decided that it would be really, really fun to go to Medieval Times for some post-abortion clinic faux jousting.
After the clinic, LL Cool Jew and I went to pick up Wmania from her boyfriend's apartment. She said she would meet us outside, because her then-boyfriend probably didn't want us traipsing around in his den of WASPiness and messing up his golf tee collection (and I'm not kidding...this d-bag from Connecticut actually collected tees from all the expensive golf courses he'd played at). When we arrived, Wmania and said boyfriend were clearly having some sort of fight, as they were standing aggressively opposed and gesturing wildly. LL Cool Jew and I pulled up, blasting "Night Train" by GNR, and I leaned out the window with a Parliament Light hanging out of my mouth and shouted, "Happy Valentine's Day, lovebirds! I just got done at the abortion clinic and I'm ready to drink some mead and watch some fucking jousting, so get your ass in my rental car, bitch!"
Wmania's lame boyfriend just stared at us, clearly offended into silence. He muttered a goodbye to Wmania, adjusted the collar of his polo shirt, and shuffled off to dust his golf tees or whatever. Wmania, LL Cool Jew, and I proceeded to have a great time drinking overpriced Bud Light and shouting about whatever fake knight our seating arrangements required us to support. On our way out, we took a picture in some fancy photo booth that put a picture of us in front a background that said "Bad Attitude." As is my custom, I exposed my right breast for the photo, and only realized upon exiting that there was a large screen outside the booth displaying the picture of my naked tit for everyone in the mall to see.
"Dude, we have to get out of here before we, like, get arrested for indecent exposure or something," Wmania cautioned.
We left and proceeded to spend a lot more time drinking and carousing and forgetting the entire reason for my trip to our nation's capital. However, any distraction from this event in my life is temporary. Not a day has passed since then that I haven't thought about it. It does not escape my notice that if I had made a different choice, I would have a four-year-old today. I have dreams about what my child would have looked like. I can't forgive myself for doing this, but I can't punish myself for it either. I regret it constantly, but in spite of that, I would do the same thing if I found out I was pregnant today.
Well over half of my friends have gone through the same thing. Often they call me when they have to, because everyone knows that I have had the same experience (since my favorite means of coping is to pretend it doesn't bother me and make irreverent jokes about it). It is heartbreaking for all of them. One of my friends undergoing a "medical" abortion called me during the week between the methotrexate and the misepristone, crying and saying over and over, "My baby is dying! I can feel it dying!" Another friend called after her abortion ended and said, "I feel like a terrible woman. I feel like Medea." After assuring her that references to infanticidal witches of Greek mythology will get her nowhere in terms of coping, I still felt like a shit because I still couldn't offer her any tips as to how to get this out of your system. If there is a way to move past this, I haven't discovered it. I still think about it all the time. I'm in therapy because of it. Even if I use the impersonal nomenclature (ie: "terminating a pregnancy") that makes an abortion sound like a simple medical procedure, I can't escape the part of me that thinks I killed my child. I can try to justify it by saying that I killed my bastard to save my own life, but this is not a simple thing to think about or put to rest.
The sad thing is that so many women have gone through this, and nobody talks about how complex the experience is. When people talk about abortion, the discussions tend to be political (either "abortion is murder" or "keep your laws off my body") and don't even come close to addressing what it's like to actually have an abortion. I'm sure women exist who think abortion is very casual and can have one without thinking about it at all, but everyone I know, obviously including myself, has not emerged from the clinic unscathed, undamaged, and without a significant measure of grief and remorse. While every woman I know, also including myself, believes she made the right decision, it is not easy living with it. And writing this all down and putting it on display for the internets and the world doesn't mitigate this burden, but at least it's not something I've got festering away secretly inside me anymore. I don't know if I'll ever find absolution or peace, but now that I've confessed, at least I can hope I'm on the right track. Besides, now you all know, and as GI Joe cartoons used to advise me, that's half the battle.
Labels: Catholicism, destroy all children, for serious people, LL Cool Jew, Miss Corbutt, Razzification, Wmania
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Sister Julie McGuire
Name: Sister Julie McGuire, CSC
DOB: probably sometime during the Great Depression
Occupation: poll guardian, Roman Catholic nun
Hometown: ??
Current residence: St. Mary's Convent, South Bend, Indiana
Douchebaggery: Yesterday I received an urgent Gchat message from Motherbucker, who does some trash for the Hillary campaign and thus is on top of all things election-related:
DOB: probably sometime during the Great Depression
Occupation: poll guardian, Roman Catholic nun
Hometown: ??
Current residence: St. Mary's Convent, South Bend, Indiana
Douchebaggery: Yesterday I received an urgent Gchat message from Motherbucker, who does some trash for the Hillary campaign and thus is on top of all things election-related:
Motherbucker: dudeI quickly read the article and realized that this so-called "bride of Christ" Sister Julie McGuire, who was running a voting spot, wasn't letting her fellow sisters vote for the hotness known as Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the Indiana primary because they didn't have valid identification. The ladies did not have the required government-issued ID because they were too old to schlep over to the DMV. Indiana has notoriously strict identification requirements for voters, and thus Sister Julie McGuire denied her convent roomies their right to holler at a straight talking player. I was obviously enraged.
Razzy: sup?
Motherbucker: they're suppressing the mccain vote in indiana
Motherbucker: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRN59j2QQCVZYwfdLSokUeN1K9hQD90GBCNO0
Motherbucker: you need to stand up for your sisters
Razzy: DUDEI applaud these nuns for saying "fuck you" to what is essentially a poll tax. It's bad enough these poor ladies have sworn off sex and worldly possessions and offered themselves in marriage to Christ. While I'm down with my Lord and Savior JC, I get the feeling that being one of his many celibate wives isn't the most rewarding matrimonial union. You're poor, you never get laid, your deadbeat husband never does anything to help around the house (well, except for that whole dying-for-our-sins thing), you have to wear stupid clothes, and you spend all your time working as a school librarian, choral leader, organist, and/or office assistant. John McCain really needs to speak up for his constituents in Indiana, because these ladies deserve to hobble their osteoporitic old bones into their polling station and actually vote for him. Besides, he needs to keep his divinely-connected supporters happy. Just ask Barack Obama what happens when religious crazies don't get their way. Count the old sisters' votes!
Razzy: BULLSHIT
Motherbucker: DO SOMETHING!
Razzy: DAILY DOUCHEBAG: SISTER JULIE MCGUIRE!
Motherbucker: lol
Motherbucker: YAY!
Razzy: truly
Razzy: this is bullshit
Razzy: so what if mccain has the nomination locked down
Razzy: count every vote!
Razzy: dude i have all sorts of pictures of nuns with guns and taking bong hits that will be fun
Motherbucker: lol
Motherbucker: that's awesome
Motherbucker: i just think it's hilarious
Motherbucker: that these bitches were like
Motherbucker: "NO. i'm not getting an id. i'm 107."
Motherbucker: go fuck yourself
Razzy: seriously
Razzy: GFY, i'm a bride of christ
Labels: Catholicism, Daily Douchebag, John McCain, oh the horror, politics
Friday, May 02, 2008
Praying for expulsion from the 700 Club
I don't recall ever signing up for bulletins from the Christian Broadcasting Network, but nonetheless, I received this piece of choice correspondence in my Gmail inbox the other day:
If I did sign up to be considered among the CBN's "partners," I must have been really, really, REALLY drunk. Usually the 700 Club doesn't jive with my Roman popery very well (they don't like the idolatry of the Virgin and saints, our seven sacraments, our pervasive guilt, or our consequent alcoholism and/or sluttery), so I can't imagine I'd reach out to them asking for occasional solicitations. I don't even listen to my own church leader, the infinitely creepy Pope Benedixteen, so I can't imagine I would feel a need to hit up Pat Robertson. I wonder if my Aunt Jesus is behind this. Now that we're not speaking, it wouldn't surprise me if she resorted to signing me up for e-mail from the Reverend Pat Robertson as a roundabout way of reiterating that the ultimate destination of my immortal soul is HELL!
In spite of not being able to solve the mystery of how I wound up on this mailing list, I shrugged and figured I could always use an extra prayer or two. Why not let the fundamentalists' self-proclaimed hotline to Jesus work for me a little? So I clicked on the "Sexual Problems" link, since I figure that's where I can use the most help. Granted, my only "sexual problems" are desiring to have more sexual partners and not getting out of lab enough to find them, but I wouldn't complain if Jesus sent a few more hot lays my way. I mean, I have great tits, and I just got my hair highlighted, and I wear V-neck shirts with push-up bras, but a little extra divine assistance can't hurt in terms of racking up more conquests. Besides, I could do a good deed for society by chastising the more literal Bible crowd for hating on other people's sex lives and orientations. Jesus could help them out by alleviating their judgmental prudishness! So I sent this request, since it is, after all, "a privilege" to pray for me:
I would like you to pray for all the Christians in the world who can't accept that gays, lesbians, bisexuals (especially switch-hitting sluts like myself), and transgendered persons are part of God's great plan and creation, and that God loves them dearly. I pray that these homophobic bigots don't burn in hell, but rather receive Christ's infinite mercy.Also, in terms of sexual problems, the main one I have is not getting enough ("enough" would be classified as doubling up on the nightly). Please ask JC to send more honeys my way. He knows lots of prostitutes. It should be a piece of cake for him.
That ought to do it. Any day now, Fred Phelps will get out of the "God Hates Fags" business, gays will have equal civil rights as straights, and I'll be getting laid like a fucking porn star. Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Amen!
Labels: Aunt Jesus, Catholicism, correspondence, Dear God, sluts
Monday, April 07, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Alfred Hrdlicka
DOB: February 27, 1928
Occupation: sacrilegious painter
Hometown: Vienna, Austria
Current residence: Vienna, Austria
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: Alfred is a geriatric painter beloved by Austrians. I guess they love him as much as Mozart, tortes, waltzing, and sausage, which are the only Viennese experts I can think of offhand. Those and the cinnamon-flavored General Foods International Coffee, which I think is called Cafe Vienna, but I'm not sure that counts. Anyway, to celebrate the 80th birthday of their national artfaggoty hero, the Roman Catholic Cathedral Museum of Vienna threw an exhibition of Alfred's most famous works. What they didn't count on was the prudish freaking out that the Catholics would do concerning a painting called Leonardo's Abendmahl ("Leonardo's Last Supper") depicted JC and his boys in the midst of a big gay orgy.
The Austrian press has now apparently dubbed this painting (which was composed in 1984) to be the modern-day equivalent of the Danish cartoons mocking Muhammed. I guess they haven't been to an art show lately, because almost everything I ever see at these kind of parties is blasphemous work. I don't see what the big deal is painting Jesus irreverently, and I'm Catholic. It doesn't really bother me much to see Jesus depicted as a big homo or having a weiner or anything like that. When I was in college, that asshole Giuliani pitched a fit over some painting at a show in Brooklyn that depicted the Virgin Mary as surrounded by heaps of cow shit. I didn't get what was so awful about that, either. After all, bitch DID pop out our Lord and Savior in a fucking barn! If there's one thing I learned from years of Doing the Puyallup, it's that barns are often full of cow shit. The artist was probably just trying to be realistic. Even if not, making fun of Jesus and the whole Christ narrative has been a worldwide pasttime since 33 A.D. Get over it!
With respect to his literal artfaggotry, Hrdlicka just acknowledged that in Leonardo's original painting, there were no women depicted...hence an apostolic gay orgy ensued. I guess he didn't read The Da Vinci Code (which boosts Hrdlicka up several logs in the hotness department) concerning the identity of the red-headed twink next to Jesus in the original painting. Maybe Hrdlicka isn't familiar with the symbolism employed by members of the Illuminati or whatever.
In any event, I applaud Hrdlicka for coming up with a hotter take on the Last Supper than the usual somber affair that this is generally depicted as. I can say that the sacrament of holy communion would be a lot more interesting if it had been based on a more orgiastic account of Jesus breaking bread with his disciples. At least it would pique my interest a little more than it does now (currently my attitude when the priest says "Do this in memory of me" is one of relief, since consecration of the eucharist means that mass is almost over). Way to spice up Catholicism, Alfred Hrdlicka!
Labels: artfaggotry, Catholicism, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dear God
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Christ is risen like a honey first thing in the morning
Happy Jesus Resurrection Day, everyone! My Easter wasn't as great as last year's, in which I missed church because I was brutally, paralyzingly hung over from LL Cool Jew's epic wedding, then I ate a Easter dinner of pepperoni pizza, beer, and pussy. This Easter was a little more traditional. I went to Mass, ate some bacon and eggs, and then watched some basketball and drank beers with some grad school peeps, including my go-to Catholic pals SisterChristian and G-Cat. SisterChristian is much better at being Catholic than I am, since I'm a total CEO (Christmas-Easter only). She even went to the Easter Vigil the night before, something I avoid like the plague on account of it being longer than an extended edition Lord of the Rings movie, and way less exciting on account of its lacking epic battles, the horse-lords of the Riddermark, or Gimli son of Gloin. There's usually an hour and a half of random baptisms alone during the Easter Vigil, but SisterChristian isn't deterred in her quest to have a good church attendance record.
Luckily, she's not so devout that she gets annoyed when I make wisecracks about the liturgical proceedings. In fact, she giggles at them. She told me that when G-Cat and I started snickering about the hymn lyrics from "Victimae Paschali Laude" (specifically, "angelicos testes") she had to determinedly look away to avoid laughing uncontrollably through the renewal of baptismal vows. She's perfected the skill of averting her gaze at religious events, because she spent some of her childhood in the Philippines, where they actually crucify people to celebrate Holy Week. I think she's glad to be able to look away to avoid laughing about her church buddies' sacrilegious commentary rather than seeing the horrifying sight of some extremely pious volunteer getting nailed to a cross. When G-Cat started making jokes about how the priest sprinkled us with holy water with what appeared to be a bunch of arugula and I stage-whispered "IT BURNS!" upon getting splashed, she couldn't hold back any longer. Mass was a rollicking good time.
I need to make irreverent jokes during church to keep it fresh and fun. Every year it's pretty much the same story: Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb while it's still dark to spray JC's body with spices or something, the tomb's empty, and the VIP apostles stand around scratching their heads being amazed. I wish the Catholics would mix it up once in awhile with something besides John 20: 1-9. For example, this interpretation of Christ's resurrection:
Anyway, happy Easter! Alle-fucking-lulia! Christ is risen! WOOOO HOOOO!
Labels: Catholicism, Dear God, SisterChristian
Friday, March 21, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Jesus Christ
Name: Jesus of Nazareth
DOB: per the Jesuits at my high school, sometime in the spring of 4 B.C. I know it should be December 25th, 0 A.D., but apparently someone fucked up over in the world's Christian calendar department. And December 25 was the day of some existing Roman pagan festival, so it was just convenient to change that to Christmas.
Occupation: the Christ AKA Lamb of God, Son of God, Son of Man, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Good Shepherd, King of Kings, Paschal Lamb, Suffering Servant, the Messiah for us Christians anyway, King of the Jews (per himself and some snarky Romans with gallows humor), carpenter, professional resurrectee
Hometown: Nazareth via a stable in Bethlehem, Israel
Current residence: heaven, apparently on his ass at the right hand of the Father
Douchebaggery: I have half a pepperoni pizza in the fridge that really badly wants to be my breakfast. I mean I went to get my morning Sugar-Free Red Bull and I could almost hear that delicious pizza calling me to eat it. Unfortunately, Jesus had to go and get his dumb ass crucified, thus making today Good Friday and making it so that I can't eat breakfast at all!
I realize that I'm a pretty lousy Catholic otherwise, what with all the harlotry and the birth control pill-taking and the abortion-having and the carpet-munching. In fact, the Pope just revised the Seven Deadly Sins to be more modern, which means I'm doubly screwed. In addition to regularly violating a whole shitload of the old ones (particularly pride, lust, wrath, sloth, and gluttony), I now violate most of the new ones as well (failure to recycle, human rights violations aka making my uterus as inhospitable to babies as possible and evicting any that take up residence there, genetic manipulation of mice, HeLa and 293T cells, and E. coli, and drug use--I mean, ALCOHOL use). Since according to the Vatican's standards I've already got a first class ticket to eternal damnation, I try to be pious where I can in hopes that my efforts will get me to a nicer part of hell. I'd way rather be in the orgy part of hell than the part where all those soul-eating Bosch demons live.
Since I've failed miserably at my Lenten vow (no cigarettes) and I've sucked at the no-meat-on-Fridays thing (a couple weeks ago I forgot and ate a huge plate of pork mofongo before I remembered that it was a Lenten Friday and thus forbade consumption of chicharron de cerdo), I figure that I can at least try to behave on Good Friday. According to the Catholic church, this means at minimum not eating meat, and ideally not eating at all. According to the Razzian Order of Catholics (membership: 1, namely me), this means not eating until 3 p.m., which is supposedly when JC gave his final shout out to God and croaked. After that, I figure there's no sense in starving for the next couple days waiting for him to rise from the dead in fulfillment of the scriptures, so bring on the fish tacos.
Of course I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as he was eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light From Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in being with the Father, etc. I actually do believe in the whole Christian narrative, and if I'm getting a Get-Out-of-Hell Free Card, it'll be because of Jesus dying for my myriad sins. Besides, I can't hate a deity capable of turning water into wine with such an obvious fondness for hanging out with and getting his toes massaged by wanton sluts, whores, and adulteresses. However, I don't understand why Jesus had to go through all this crucifixion hullabaloo. Wouldn't it have been easier to just spend his golden years effing the shit out of Mary Magdalene and the other hookers hanging around him and antagonizing the Jewish elders, feasting on his unlimited loaves-and-fishes buffet, die peacefully as Judea's most renowned carpenter-turned-traveling evangelist, and then rise again? That would make things a lot easier for everyone, especially Jesus, while still managing to fulfill all those prophecies about his Messianic resurrection. It's not like Jesus HAD to do anything involving getting nailed to a cross by Pontius Pilate's legionnaires after a rough sesh with the cat o' nine tails and a laborious parade through the streets of Jerusalem. He's Jesus! He's GOD! He can do whatever the fuck he wants. But NO, he's got to do things the hard way, and now so do all of those of us who get our Roman popery on. Three p.m. cannot come fast enough. I'm starving.
Anyway, happy Jesus Death Day, everyone! I hope you're better at piety than me, because I think I may have just earned damnation by douchebagging my Lord and Savior. Oh well. So goes my sinful life.
Labels: Catholicism, Daily Douchebag, Dear God, gluttony, Razzification
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Rug burned
Last night I checked my mail and received one of the weirdest pieces of junk mail I've ever gotten. I was about to throw away the envelope covered with what I assumed were interest rates and temporary favorable terms for some credit card that would be my utter fiscal destruction, until I looked a little closer.
The front read:
The letter inside explained more:
They may look like reject extras from a vintage Breck shampoo ad, but they put great stock in the prayer rug method of wealth acquisition. And speaking of the prayer rug, I finally found it. Apparently over at St. Matthew's, a piece of paper constitutes a "rug."
Unfortunately, no matter how long I stared, I couldn't make Jesus open his eyes. I attribute this to either the fact that my prayer rug is broken, or my complete inability to solve Magic Eye puzzles. It has to be that, because there's no way Jesus wouldn't open his eyes for me. If he could, he'd probably be winking at me. You know JC picked up some game hanging with all those hookers back in the day.
Anyway, since I still had my doubts about the efficacy of the prayer rug. I decided to do a little experiment. Although St. Matt's prides itself on its 57-year history, my faith is considerably older. In fact, my religion has approximately 1950 years on St. Matthew's Churches. Since I've been praying the Catholic way my whole life and have yet to be on my knees in a church full of material blessings, I figure this can serve as a negative control for religious devotion that breeds copious overnight wealth. Being Catholic hasn't gotten me a lot besides the ability to metabolize unholy amounts of alcohol and solid blow job techniques. Let's see if St. Matt's can do better. Time for the power of the prayer rug versus the power of the Holy See!
First, I said a full decade of Hail Marys using my trusty rosary. I would have said the whole rosary, but I was watching TV and I can't remember the damn Apostle's Creed. I suppose I could have looked it up, but let's face it: ten Hail Marys might as well be fifty plus some extra Our Fathers and Glory Bes. And nothing happened, anyway. For example, a slutty team of lipstick lesbian models and professional football players didn't show up with a check for a million dollars after rocking the beads off my rosary with the devout piety of my prayer.
Next, I decided to do this prayer rug meditation routine. I elected to kneel on it, which is a position that comes naturally for me. In fact, I decided to get really comfortable to ensure maximal transduction of energy between my prayer rug, St. Matt's church, and God. I figured that my assuming what is a relaxed and secure position for myself could only help my energy beam reach as far as Oklahoma. And heaven.
Unfortunately, after holding this pose for a few minutes, the only blessing I felt I had received was that my Heineken was still cold. I asked God to pretty much hook me up with lots of money, ice, and a fleet of whips to show-stop around town in, and wrapped it up. I got up to stretch, and was just about to dig my Bible from its burial site beneath books about seamen, infectious disease, serial killers, and classic mythology to put the prayer rug in. Upon my vacating the prayer rug, a new tenant moved promptly in:
Either Caesar has some blessings to request from upper management, or a major souce of variability has been introduced into my impeccably designed scientific experiment. The letter didn't say anything about whether or not it was okay for one's big, goofy dog to get in on the praying action. It's probably not. After all, "God sees."
Since Caesar decided to meddle with my comparative study of Catholic praying versus St. Matthew's Churches praying, it was basically irretrievably fucked, so I tossed aside the prayer rug and went back to beer drinking and TV-watching. I totally don't have a stamp to mail back the prayer rug or the money to sow a seed at St. Matthew's, but oh well. Hopefully God will find it in his heart to forgive me and hit me with a blast of holy blessing power (ie: a check with lots of zeroes).
Besides, I don't feel all THAT bad about not seeing the prayer rug method through to its completion and reaping the benefits. I'm not sure that 46 grand would have appeared out of thin air even if I had bothered to tuck my prayer rug into my New Testament. I decided to crack open the secret prophecy that I wasn't supposed to look at until the prayer rug was safely on its way back to Tulsa. In spite of the fact that lengthwise it was a damn novel, there were precious few predictions about my future in it. Basically, the only one I could see was "As you remain faithful in your seed sowing into my kingdom, surely you shall be blessed." In other words, I'll be blessed in a to-be-determined way after I hook St. Matt's up with some cold, hard cash. Obviously, that prophecy is WAY off.
I think I'll just stick to munching rugs rather than praying on them. That's more fun, anyway.
The front read:
YOUR HOME FIRST!Loans? Like there's a check inside? Like some church has decided to randomly loan me money? That seems legitimate. I was intrigued. I flipped over the envelope and read the back:
Sunday--January 2008
This very old church loans this to you, to bless someone connected with this home. Then, it must go to another family that desires God's blessings. See letter inside...
Dear Jesus,Hmmm...what is this "Saint Matthew's Churches" of Tulsa, Oklahoma? And why have they singled me out for the benefit of their prayer? I like the sound of this imminent financial blessing I'm about to receive. Plus, the liberal use of boldfacing certainly implies excitement. I better open this letter so that I get "the desires of my heart."
We pray that you will bless someone in this home spiritually, physically, & financially. And please dear Lord, bless the one who's hands open this letter. Make good changes in this one's life and give them the desires of their heart. We pray over and bless this letter in your Holy Name. Amen.
The letter inside explained more:
LET THIS BE THE BEST YEAR OF YOUR LIFE THROUGH FAITH AND PRAYER.GOD IS READY TO HELP YOU REACH YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS.
Dear...Someone Connected with This Address,Okay, I'll do that. If God is suddenly in the loan sharking-by-mail business, I'm curious to know more about his deal brokers at St. Matt's. And I am Someone Connected with This Address, in that I live here. I'll read on.
READ WHAT GOD IS DOING HERE AT SAINT MATTHEW'S CHURCH.
People just like you are writing to this 57-year-old church, telling us of all types of blessings since this church started praying with them. They are receiving divine help in the form of answered prayer. Some are seeing loved ones saved, and many of them are receiving spiritual, physical, and financial blessings of all types (III John 2, Philippians 4:19)--better jobs, raises in salaries, being able to buy and sell homes, buying new cars, and so on. Actually, these dear people are receiving so many blessings that it is impossible to mention them all in a letter. Read the enclosed brochure on how a Sister used the same type of Bible faith prayer rug that we are sending to you with this letter, and how she was blessed with $46,000.00! Now, we must talk to you about something we see, in the Holy Spirit, concerning you and your family's needs.FORTY SIX GRAND?! From God? Holy shit. Talk to me, St. Matt's.
GOD'S HOLY BLESSING POWER IS IN THE ENCLOSED ANOINTED PRAYER RUG OF FAITH WE ARE LOANING YOU TO USE!!!Jeez, this sounds really urgent...and confusing. Where is this rug they mentioned? And how does it work? I'm a little skeptical, since God hasn't seen fit to bless them with knowledge of how to properly place a comma. I also don't like the fact that I was just returning to my tenement for a relaxing evening with my good friend, Television, and now I'm all of a sudden on a TV-free, rigid 24 hour agenda involving God and some kind of special carpet. This better be worth it. I mean, I want something very wonderful to come to me, but the prospect of my harnessing "God's holy blessing power" with this fabled prayer rug is raising some red flags over in the Razzy Bullshit Detection Department.
WE MUST GIVE YOU THIS OPPORTUNITY FIRST...THEN IT MUST GO TO THE HOME OF ANOTHER DEAR FRIEND WHO NEEDS A BLESSING...You, or someone connected with this address, and another dear family are about to be blessed through this unusual, Bible Faith, Church, Prayer Rug, which we are placing in your care for these next 24 important hours. Because of any needs you are facing, we want you to use this Church Prayer Rug first, then we must pass it on to another dear friend of ours who also needs a blessing. As we pray for you and everyone connected with this address, WE FEEL THAT SOMETHING VERY WONDERFUL IS TRYING TO COME TO YOU.
When you use this Biblical Faith Church Prayer Rug, go into a room where you can be alone (just God and you). Turn off the television and radio and try to be by yourself when you kneel on this Holy Ghost, Bible Prayer Rug, or spread it over your knees. We want this Church Ministry, Prayer Rug to be touching both of your knees as you pray for the needs you are facing right now. It is going to be like you are kneeling before God All Mighty at the altar inside a great church of blessings. If you need more joy, peace, health, money, a new car, a new house, healing in family communication, or whatever, we as a very old (57 years) church, want to know about it. Check your prayer needs on page two of this letter. Talk to us. This power you and this church ministry are about to use works! (St. Matthew 18:19)Kneeling before "God All Mighty" in a church full of blessings sounds to me like a good night in a bar bathroom. If that is all it takes to get joy, peace, health, money, a new car, a new house, healing in family communication and whatever, I'm suddenly newly confident in my ability to put this Holy Ghost, Bible Prayer Rug to good use.
These next 24 important hours are crucial to you. Timing is important to God. After you kneel on this Church Prayer Rug, or place it over your knees, place it in a Bible, on Philippians 4:19. (If you don't have a Bible, it's okay--just slide it under your side of the bed, for tonight, if you can. If you can't do this, it is okay.) Leave It There No Longer Than Tonight Only! God sees. Then, in the morning it is a must that you get this unusual blessing Church Prayer Rug out of this house and back to us, here at the church's chapel prayer room, in faith. We must also have this letter back, with whatever you need prayer for, printed on page two. You must get this Bible Prayer Rug back to us so we can rush it onto another family that's in need of a blessing. Do this without fail. Please, do not break this flow of power between us.Okay, okay...this is complicated, but whatever. I actually even have a Bible.
Notice the face of Jesus on this Church Prayer Rug. When you first look, you will notice that His eyes are closed. If you relax and continue looking straight into His eyes, you will see His eyes slowly opening, and He will begin looking back at you. Jesus sees your needs (Philippians 4:19). Use this unusual, important, Church Prayer Rug for tonight only.Whoa, an interactive Jesus is on the prayer rug. That sounds trippy. How did they fit a prayer rug into a damn envelope? Hopefully this informative missive will inform me of that next.
Let us ask you: Would you like to have God's blessings upon your home, your family and your finances? Say, "Yes, Lord Jesus, I do need Your financial blessings upon me and my family's finances (Deuteronomy 28:6). Just put a mark by your needs below, telling us that you want prayer. Also, check any other needs you are facing. Pray about sowing a seed gift to the Lord's work. Give God your best seed and believe Him for His best blessing (St. Luke 6:38).Uh oh, this sounds like the catch in this whole deal. "Sowing a seed gift" actually means "open your wallet to the Lord," and that I don't do. Okay, I put a few ducats in the collection box at Mass, but that's about it. I don't just write checks to the church. If this whole "financial blessing" is conditional upon my monetary investment, then fuck a prayer rug!
Dear Jesus, help this one get their best seed to sow towards their coming harvest (Galatians 6:7). We pray in Thy Name. Amen.
Now, go and use this Church, Faith, Prayer Rug. The Lord is watching and waiting, by faith. You are about to enter the Holy Spirit of God right here in your home, through this faith exercise. Then, it is a must that you return it for another to use.Oooo! Secret prophecy?! Well, now I'm definitely going to do this prayer rug business and follow my faith, Holy Ghost instructions, if only to get the equivalent of a Jesus freak fortune cookie. I checked out the testimonials and I have to admit that they sound pretty convincing, at least if you're willing to assume these people from the 1970s are credible witnesses:
Friends of Jesus for 57 Years of Glorious Service!
Saint Matthew's Churches Bishops
P.S. Read your faith, Holy Ghost instructions on the enclosed, sealed prophecy, only after you have mailed this Prayer Rug back to the church.
They may look like reject extras from a vintage Breck shampoo ad, but they put great stock in the prayer rug method of wealth acquisition. And speaking of the prayer rug, I finally found it. Apparently over at St. Matthew's, a piece of paper constitutes a "rug."
Unfortunately, no matter how long I stared, I couldn't make Jesus open his eyes. I attribute this to either the fact that my prayer rug is broken, or my complete inability to solve Magic Eye puzzles. It has to be that, because there's no way Jesus wouldn't open his eyes for me. If he could, he'd probably be winking at me. You know JC picked up some game hanging with all those hookers back in the day.
Anyway, since I still had my doubts about the efficacy of the prayer rug. I decided to do a little experiment. Although St. Matt's prides itself on its 57-year history, my faith is considerably older. In fact, my religion has approximately 1950 years on St. Matthew's Churches. Since I've been praying the Catholic way my whole life and have yet to be on my knees in a church full of material blessings, I figure this can serve as a negative control for religious devotion that breeds copious overnight wealth. Being Catholic hasn't gotten me a lot besides the ability to metabolize unholy amounts of alcohol and solid blow job techniques. Let's see if St. Matt's can do better. Time for the power of the prayer rug versus the power of the Holy See!
First, I said a full decade of Hail Marys using my trusty rosary. I would have said the whole rosary, but I was watching TV and I can't remember the damn Apostle's Creed. I suppose I could have looked it up, but let's face it: ten Hail Marys might as well be fifty plus some extra Our Fathers and Glory Bes. And nothing happened, anyway. For example, a slutty team of lipstick lesbian models and professional football players didn't show up with a check for a million dollars after rocking the beads off my rosary with the devout piety of my prayer.
Next, I decided to do this prayer rug meditation routine. I elected to kneel on it, which is a position that comes naturally for me. In fact, I decided to get really comfortable to ensure maximal transduction of energy between my prayer rug, St. Matt's church, and God. I figured that my assuming what is a relaxed and secure position for myself could only help my energy beam reach as far as Oklahoma. And heaven.
Unfortunately, after holding this pose for a few minutes, the only blessing I felt I had received was that my Heineken was still cold. I asked God to pretty much hook me up with lots of money, ice, and a fleet of whips to show-stop around town in, and wrapped it up. I got up to stretch, and was just about to dig my Bible from its burial site beneath books about seamen, infectious disease, serial killers, and classic mythology to put the prayer rug in. Upon my vacating the prayer rug, a new tenant moved promptly in:
Either Caesar has some blessings to request from upper management, or a major souce of variability has been introduced into my impeccably designed scientific experiment. The letter didn't say anything about whether or not it was okay for one's big, goofy dog to get in on the praying action. It's probably not. After all, "God sees."
Since Caesar decided to meddle with my comparative study of Catholic praying versus St. Matthew's Churches praying, it was basically irretrievably fucked, so I tossed aside the prayer rug and went back to beer drinking and TV-watching. I totally don't have a stamp to mail back the prayer rug or the money to sow a seed at St. Matthew's, but oh well. Hopefully God will find it in his heart to forgive me and hit me with a blast of holy blessing power (ie: a check with lots of zeroes).
Besides, I don't feel all THAT bad about not seeing the prayer rug method through to its completion and reaping the benefits. I'm not sure that 46 grand would have appeared out of thin air even if I had bothered to tuck my prayer rug into my New Testament. I decided to crack open the secret prophecy that I wasn't supposed to look at until the prayer rug was safely on its way back to Tulsa. In spite of the fact that lengthwise it was a damn novel, there were precious few predictions about my future in it. Basically, the only one I could see was "As you remain faithful in your seed sowing into my kingdom, surely you shall be blessed." In other words, I'll be blessed in a to-be-determined way after I hook St. Matt's up with some cold, hard cash. Obviously, that prophecy is WAY off.
I think I'll just stick to munching rugs rather than praying on them. That's more fun, anyway.
Labels: Caese Doggy Dogg, Catholicism, correspondence, Dear God, intentional buffoonery, Razzification
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The Immaculate Ms. Britney Spears
Anyone who has ever been to my apartment can vouch for the fact that I'm crazy about the Virgin Mary. I have pictures and statues of her everywhere. I've had honeys come over, look around suspiciously, and say, "Hey, are you really religious or something?" I always put their mind at ease with something along the lines of, "Relax, baby, Catholic girls grow up to be either virgins or whores, and you're in luck, because I'm the latter." I don't know why I have these icons everywhere, but after twelve years in Catholic school, they make me feel at home. Anyway, today my interests came full circle when the internets informed me that the Blessed Virgin (or BV, as I like to call her) is about to be represented on the silver screen by no less than the legendary Ms. Britney Spears! YES!!!!
This is like my dream come true. I always wondered how Britney would follow up her seminal film Crossroads (which was shafted at the Oscars in favor of Chicago, just another example of how Hollywood REALLY has fucked up priorities in picking a musical over the tale of a not-yet-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman's coming of age road trip). Now I know: some French movie producer is angling to cast Britney as the BV in a movie called Sweet Baby Jesus. The movie will feature Brit-Brit as a pregnant teenager with no apparent baby daddy who gives birth in Bethlehem, Maryland (not Bethlehem, PA? That's bullshit!). The baby is then lauded as the second coming of Jesus H. Christ. Sweet baby Jesus, indeed!
I know that everyone is scoffing at this notion and that Christians will probably start using a lot of loaded words like "blasphemy" and "heresy" to describe the premise of JC returning in glory to make his final judgment via Brit-Brit's vadge, but I love it. Britney is down with religion, and I think she'll do it justice. If you don't believe me as to her level of piety and devotion, then look no further than the Blackout album liner:
Britney has obviously spent a lot of time reflecting on Catholicism and the nature of sin and talking about it with her local parish priest, so I wouldn't be shocked if the archangel Gabriel was giving her the good news that she got the call from upstairs. Think of how awesome the Nicene Creed (now called the "Profession of Faith" post-Vatican II) would be revised to reflect Britney's MOG (mother of God) status:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, of all C-section scars seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
I know that everyone is scoffing at this notion and that Christians will probably start using a lot of loaded words like "blasphemy" and "heresy" to describe the premise of JC returning in glory to make his final judgment via Brit-Brit's vadge, but I love it. Britney is down with religion, and I think she'll do it justice. If you don't believe me as to her level of piety and devotion, then look no further than the Blackout album liner:
Britney has obviously spent a lot of time reflecting on Catholicism and the nature of sin and talking about it with her local parish priest, so I wouldn't be shocked if the archangel Gabriel was giving her the good news that she got the call from upstairs. Think of how awesome the Nicene Creed (now called the "Profession of Faith" post-Vatican II) would be revised to reflect Britney's MOG (mother of God) status:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, of all C-section scars seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,