St. Augustine's Confessions

Ok. I lied. My title tricked some of you into reading this. I am not St. Augustine. St. Augustine was born in 354 ACE and died in 430. He was also a philosopher and theologian, and Bishop of Hippo. And more importantly, St. Augustine was a HE and well, I am not, despite those rumors of me having a "set of brass ones". So, again, to clarify, I am not St. Augustine.

This is also not a confession. I know, I know, but I needed to get the attention of the other millions of people who don't read my blog. Granted, I have my very few fans (who I love dearly for making me believe that I do not talk to myself), but in this fast paced world you need a catchy blog title to get these peoples' attention. I mean, look at LolCatz. A bunch of stupid cat pictures with mispelled captions, a URL about eating cheeseburgers and WHAM! instant internet fame. I've got to be hip and keep up with the times here!

In hindsight, I'm thinking that the title "St. Augustine's Confessions" is probably not the hippest title I could have picked. I think this title may attract that one lone history professor who served with Sherman on his march to the sea and who now looks at the "internetz" as some kind of "hocus pocus malarkey", but hey, there's one more reader for me. Plus, do I really want the type of fan base that is attracted to titles like "Chicks with hawt asses doing guys with strap ons!" or "Robert Pattinson from Twilight is the coolest vampire ever!" (See how I cleverly did that? Now if someone does a search for those, my blog will come up in the keywords. And they will click on it, and come to know the wonder that is me, and then I will feel cool when some tween from tittyfuck [did it again see?], Nebraska wants to "friend" me.)

Anyhow, moving on. Now that I've gotten the title mishap off of my chest I would like to introduce myself:

Hi. I'm Alessia. I'm an atheist. My husband is an atheist. Our son doesn't know any better because he is 2 years old so as far as he's concerned it's not something he's interested in at the moment. I'm telling you this because.....dun dun dun....we celebrate Christmas. Yes. We do. Atheists who celebrate Christmas here. Not the Jesus' Birthday Christmas. Not even the Pagan Festival the Christians Stole Christmas. We celebrate the put-up-a-tree-and-decorate-it-with-Star-Wars-and-ornaments-you-made-in-3rd-grade Santa Claus is coming to town Christmas. Yes. Atheists who celebrate Christmas. That's us.

I tell you this because we have to hear shit from both sides of the fence here. On one side we've got Christians telling us that we're not "allowed" to celebrate Christmas because, as Atheists, we did not get an invitation to Jesus' birthday party and thus cannot even remotely celebrate anything on this day. Not even a good BM or anything! No. We have to sit at home in our Atheist heathen depravity and just pore over science books and have intelligent discussions about the universe and quantum physics and whether or not our new neighbor has a boob job or not. But NO CELEBRATING because we are not friends with Jesus. On the other side we've got Atheists telling us that by celebrating Christmas we're "acknowledging the religious aspect of the holiday and therefore submitting to the idea of the existence of god". Yes, stuffy stick-up-your-ass Atheists really talk like that and I'm with you. They either need a good fuck or a swift kick in the face or both depending on how kinky and how "into it" they really are. So I'm here to clear the air and state clearly and plainly to both sides of the debate: Mind Your Own Damn Business.

To the Christians: you don't hold a monopoly on the holidays. You may think you run the joint, but no, you don't. That's just your egomaniacal two-thousand year history talking and I'm still not listening. The church fathers of long ago, after slaughtering millions of Pagans upon order of "God's Love", decided to incorporate ALREADY EXISTING holidays and folklore into their own and trick the remaining people into blindly following. They had a formula, it worked, I'm not going to fault them for it. But before you start bitching about "let's put the Christ back in Christmas", how about "let's do our homework and read up on history" instead.

To the Atheists: get a sense of humor about life. Seriously. You're draining my very essence with your seriousness. Yes, I get it. There is no afterlife, no heaven, no hell, this is our one shot at life, bible fucks are idiots, and science rocks. I'm with you on all of that, but seriously, can we maybe be mirthful a bit? Just because we know we're mere specks in a vast Universe with no real purpose in life doesn't mean we have to think about the void of nothingness every day! So get off my effing back if I want to put a tree in my house with pretty lights. So what if I want to tell my kid about Santa. No one's ever died in the name of Santa. There have been no jihads in which you hear Santa's name being called as a truck full of C-4 slams into a supermarket. Putting an Xmas tree in my house is not going to magically make me lose all rational thought and start parading around the house singing "Jesus loves the little children" while baking cookies. (Ok, I did bake cookies the other day but I was listening to Rammstein while doing so, but you get the idea.)

Do we understand eachother now? I don't have to follow any sort of holiday rules here. I'm free. I'm free from dogma and ritual and scripture and browbeating and fear that "Mr. Cloud Guy" will be angry with me if I don't please him. I'm also free from following a strict "code of conduct" from a group that shouldn't have one to begin with. If I wanted to celebrate Easter by hiding bowls of spaghetti in people's cars who leave them unlocked, I can. That's the beauty of being an Atheist. I can make up any kind of holiday I want. So get off my back, both of you. Or I will have to celebrate "Smite those that piss me off" Day.

So, from all of us, to all of you Merry Atheist Christmas and a Happy Secular New Year.

Evolution

1993, Dojo Restaurant, St. Mark's Place, NYC. The scene opens with me, 19 years old, sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer; dyed black devil lock/shaved head, brooding over the Village Voice and leaving traces of black lipstick on my beer. I've got my 6" platform boots on (you know, the ones with the cool buckles) stretched across another chair while I eye the "fucking lame ass tourists" walk by. A couple of people I know from "the scene" stroll by and notice me.

• Them: "Hey! What's up. What are you doing?"
• Me: "Nothing much, just having lunch/dinner/whatever"
• Them: "Cool. What are you doing tonight?"
• Me: "I'm going to a show".
• Them:" Who's playing?"
• Me: "KMFDM/Front 242/Skinny Puppy/Front Line Assembly/Thrill Kill Kult/whatever"
  
• Them: "Ok. See you there."

*cut*

2008, Super Target, Hollywood, Florida. The scene opens with me, 34 years old, pushing a cart loaded with diapers, milk, bread, tampons, xmas presents, while sitting in the child seat, my son is screaming to go back to the toy section because he "forgot something", dyed red and black hair is falling out of its ponytail and its roots are showing, it hasn't seen a brush in 3 days, brooding over the coupon book and leaving traces of cheddar goldfish across the store's linoleum floor. I've got my crappy flip-flops on (you know the ones I got at K-Mart for $3) while I eye which line is shorter so I can get out of here faster. A couple of people I know from "the scene" (a.k.a. The Mommy Group) see me.

• Them: "Hey! What's up. What are you doing?"
• Me: "Nothing much, just trying to get some errands done"
• Them: "Cool. What are you doing tonight?"
• Me: "I'm going to a show."
• Them: "Who's playing?"
• Me: "The Wiggles"
• Them: "Ok, see you there!"

Observations, Rants, and Playing Catch-Up

I've been lax in my blogging. I have. It's not for lack of wanting to blog because I'd get ideas or vents I wanted to post and then something would happen and I would either forget or end-up having to give the dog yet another bath because Dante decided to go Jackson Pollock on her fur. A big shout out to Crayola Washable Markers, because yes, they are. Even on dog fur. I'd also forget to blog because it would be 3 am and I would have the urge to come type, but then I'd fall asleep the moment I logged in. You see, it's hard to find blog time when every second of the day is spent following a little person around who has the talent of finding everything he's not supposed to touch and touch it. The other day he walked into the room where I was folding clothes with this "I have something I'm not supposed to have in my hand" look on his face and the moment I said, "What have you got D", he ran out of the room saying "You can't catch me mommy!". To which I did indeed catch him only to find that he had somehow found a bottle of glitter that we use for arts and crafts time and had decided to sprinkle the rug in his playroom so as to make it look like Liberace had stopped by for a visit. LOVELY. The other day he came over to me as I was packing up the bag for the park and said, "Mommy, I'm all better now, smell." Which in "2 year old code" means, "I've just done something potentially dangerous so don't freak out". Turns out, he had climbed onto the toilet in his bathroom, taken the Baby Vicks cream and rubbed it on his chest. Thankfully he had not eaten any or we'd still be in the hospital, he for poison ingestion and me for a nervous breakdown.

But I'm not complaining. Dante is a great kid, despite the tantrums, the constant use of "no" as an answer to everything, and the infinite numbers of times he says , "but whyyyyyy" to me when I tell him something.
"Dante, please go put your shoes away", I say.
"But whyyyyyyyy", he replies.
"Because we don't leave our shoes all over the house."
"But why mommy we no hab shoo all ober how?"
"Because they're stinky"
"But why dey sticky?"
"Because you have smelly feet Dante now go put them away"
"But why mommy but whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"
"Because I said so, that's why"
"NO!"

That's pretty much my day. Juxtapose "put away your shoes" with "don't hit the dog", "get your hands out of the garbage", "don't pick up that ant", "please do not throw cheese on the wall", "do you have to go peepee in the potty", and our favorite, "Dante, please stop playing with your penis". I had really nice thick hair before I had a child. My hair now falls out in clumps and looks like straw. I also get zits now. I never used to get zits. Hm. I'm pretty sure there's a connection.

Moving on. THANK THE FRICKING UNIVERSE BARACK OBAMA WON THE ELECTION. Seriously, I was getting very nervous there in the end. I kept having visions of a McCain/Palin administration and the Margaret Atwood book, "The Handmaid's Tale" all coming together as one and I was seriously considering moving my family to New Zealand. I could not believe this election. The campaign that the Republican party ran was one of the ugliest, ignorant, smear-filled ones I have ever seen. It wasn't about issues, it wasn't about policy, it was about a man who was not white running for President and all the talking heads can vehemently deny it, but that's what it was about. Had Barack Obama been blond and blue eyed, from a benign state like Vermont, and had his name been Michael Thomas Smith, I can guarantee you that the race to the White House would have been much, much different. I was so sick and tired of seeing Sarah Palin's face on television. I was so sick and tired of seeing all the YouTube videos of racist, assfucks at these rallies carrying "Obama Monkey" dolls and screaming "socialist" and "kill the n****er". I saw a woman refusing to pass out Halloween candy to children whose parents were voting for Obama; a man "lynching" an Obama effigy from a tree and claiming it was "free speech" and America was a "white Christian nation that should only be led by white Christians"; and I saw more ignorance, hatred, and filth that I would care to see in my lifetime. How happy I was to wake up Wednesday and know that all these backwoods fucks had to eat shit.

Yet unfortunately, it is still continuing; this racist, intolerant bigotry against Obama supporters. You would think that those against him would shut the fuck up now, crawl back to their bunkers and snuggle up to their swastika flags but no, now we've got priests refusing to grant communion to parishioners who voted for Obama, and pastors throwing people out of church for having Obama stickers on their car. Seriously? Really? They claim that they are doing this because of Obama's stance on abortion (B is exceedingly pro-choice) and say that no good Catholic would have voted for Obama and therefore these parishioners are not welcome. Really? Hm. Well, there is a HUGE group in the US called Catholics for Choice. Father Douchebag and his friend Reverend Asslick should look into it. I may be a "crazy atheist" but I vividly remember a passage in the bible that reads "God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him" (John 4:16). Hm. Where does, "if you don't agree with my politics, even though I am a servant of the church and cannot endorse a political candidate, I can kick you out for voting against something I don't agree with" occur in the bible? Is it in Ezekiel? Deuteronomy? Psalms? Maybe it's in the NEW New Testament, the one alloted only to certain asshats and idiots?

Moving on again. Life on Mars. I've been watching this show on ABC every week since it began. It is taken from the BBC show of the same name but I've never seen it so I don't know how true it sticks to its original counterpart. Long story short, the plot centers around a NYC cop in 2008 who gets hit by a car and ends up in NYC in 1973. The whole show is him trying to "get back" to 2008. You get hints that he's in a coma in 2008 and that his life in 1973 may be his subconscious working overtime, but so far it has been a good show. Michael Imperioli, a.k.a. Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos is on it, and he's great. It's also stars Harvey Keitel and is filmed in the retro-sepia-style film. I feel like I'm watching Starsky and Hutch sometimes. Anyhow, I was loving this show; part sci-fi, part cop drama, it was engaging. And then they had to go screw it all up by making it all about prayer and god and jesus. Seriously. I was banging my head on the table at last week's episode. The story was centered around the "killing" of a little girl. Her supposed killer sought sanctuary in a neighborhood church and our future cop, while interrogating the priest, reveals that he's doesn't believe in "your god" (while speaking to the priest) and that he has no interest in "praying for the soul of the little girl". Here I am all excited that there's finally an atheist character on TV who isn't in a Seth McFarlane cartoon or on WifeSwap. Yet my elation doesn't last long as the whole show turns into this "I need to find god again so I can come out of my coma and get back to 2008" bullcrap. The end of the episode has our hero PRAYING at his bedside. So, in a nutshell, fuck you Life on Mars. Go choke on a bible.

What else? Still no bun in the oven. Well there was a bun in the oven but I lost it last month. Yes, sad. Yes, frustrating. Yes, discouraging. But it just means we get to keep trying. It's so strange how I spent most of my youth trying not to get pregnant and now when I do want to get knocked-up, it's become this complicated and difficult process. I never thought I'd say I was getting sick of having sex, but, I'm sick of having sex. Now it's more like, "Hey honey come over here and stick it in for a second before D wakes up from nap". My poor Randy is all trying to be romantic and sexy and I'm just like, "Ok dude, just back and forth, in and out, and let your boys go swimming, I've got to fold some laundry". Pretty raunchy eh? Fingers crossed that one of these days I'll write with some good news.

I think that sums up most of the stuff I wanted to vent about. Oh no, wait. One more thing. It's quick because I don't have that much info. There's a new remake coming out. Now, you all know how I feel about remakes, (see The Curse of the Remake for a gauge) so you won't be surprised to hear of my absolute disgust in discovering that there is a remake slated for 2010 of the 1979 classic film Meatballs. Yes, I said it. Some asswipe is remaking Meatballs. On that note, I will leave you with my son's two favorite words which, I believe, express my feelings perfectly upon hearing this news:

BUT WHY?

Yes, we did.

Thanks everyone.