Lazy Friday post

Negative space?

On being a recluse

Lately, I’ve found that all I want to do when I get home is stay at home. No errands will be run. No dinners with friends will be eaten. Just naps and CSI for me, thanks.

This is especially problematic when I need to go to the store for, say….food. I know the main reason I put off buying groceries is the fact that the HEB close to my house is busy. ALL THE TIME. It doesn’t really matter what time you go. It’s going to be busy. And this means that there are hundreds of people milling about the store, running you over with their shopping carts or staring at you blankly as you wait for them to finish perusing the green beans while their cart sits in the middle of the aisle blocking your way.

It’s gotten to the point where I’ll put it off until I run out of something vital. Like toilet paper. I’ll even avoid going when I’ve run out of most types of food. I simply justify not making the trip by telling myself that I still have something to eat, and this is reason enough for me to stay home. And it’s sad. Because I often only have enough food in the house to prepare a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner, and when I realize this, I say, “I’ve got plenty of food,” and proceed to take a nap.

Naysayers!

The folks at work don’t think I can make it until Christmas without a soda.

Of course, these are the same people who frequently go for breakfast tacos half an hour after getting to work, and who can’t go an hour without a cup of coffee, and who fail to resist the call of Wendy’s on an almost daily basis.

Quickie #6

My life has become an endless cycle of work, naps, and CSI. I think I need help.

Hoping I’m not opening a can of extinct giant reptilian worms…

So I feel I should clarify that bit about Noah and the dinosaurs in my last post.

While I was home this weekend, my mom told me that one of the 6th graders she teaches in Bible study asked how and where dinosaurs fit in the Bible. So my mom “did a lot of research” and went back to this bunch of 6th graders and told them that dinosaurs were alive during biblical times, that Noah took them on the ark during the great flood, and that what they’ve been taught in school is wrong because dinosaurs couldn’t have died approximately 65 million years ago because the earth is CLEARLY only 6,000 years old.

And during the entire 5 minutes of this explanation, I stood there biting my tongue because all I wanted to say was, “Please, for the love of God, go back to those children and tell them you were wrong and that what you said was absurd.”

So when I got home last night, I googled the topic and found this.

Now, I’m no geology/paleontology expert. And if I can read that and find multiple holes in the logic, it’s not saying much about the validity of that theory.

I’m also no biblical scholar. So I reread through the first few chapters of Genesis just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything between those lines there. I hadn’t. But I did find this very interesting passage in my Bible’s commentary: “Students of the Bible and of science should avoid polarizations and black/white thinking. Students of the Bible must be careful not to make the Bible say what it doesn’t say, and students of science must not make science say what it doesn’t say.”

As I mentioned before, I minored in geology, and my first geology professor was a Christian. One of the courses I took from her was basically a complete history of the earth, starting with the initial formation of the universe and going through the entire 4.6 billion years of the earth’s existence, including evolution. And all this I learned from a devout Southern Baptist woman who believed every word she taught us.

I know I’m just a crazy liberal Austin art fag, but I guess what I’m saying is that accepting the validity of scientific findings does not have to invalidate your religious/spiritual views. I’m pretty sure the two can coexist quite nicely. In fact, isn’t one of the strongest affirmations of faith the ability to learn as much as possible about what the world has to offer while still maintaining your beliefs?

My lonely road…

It seems I’ve been abandoned.

Apparently, a couple of my blogging buddies have given up on NaBloPoMo.  But fear not, Blogosphere! I shall trudge on! If I can brave three days of posting on my parents’ dial-up connection, I feel confident that I can make it these last five days (after today) on my gloriously fast cable internet. True, it will be a lonely journey. Countless dangers lie ahead. Starvation and thirst are imminent. But I will persevere!

In other news, since I drank my weight in soda over the past 5 days, I’ve decided to give it up until Christmas. That’s right. No caffeine. So, to those of you who encounter me in person on a fairly regular basis, I apologize in advance for beating you over the head with that tripod, and for stabbing you in the eye with that gel ink pen, and for tracking you down at your new job to yell at you about what an unorganized idiot you were when you worked in my department, and for going on that tirade about copyright law, and for calling you up to tell you how absolutely absurd it is to believe there were dinosaurs on the ark with Noah. Seriously, that’s not me. It’s the withdrawals.

And then we’ll play the back nine…

Today, my family is celebrating my grandmother’s 80th birthday with a surprise party at (get this) a country club. I’m pretty sure my parents and I will be kicked off the property before we reach the club house. We’re a little poor to be hanging around such places. And those people? They KNOW. They’ll take one look at the slightly frayed cuffs of my pants and my stepdad’s Wrangler work shirt and beat us away with their 9 irons and putters.

OK, not really. But they’ll be thinking about it.

And, of course, when celebrating such a momentous birthday, there must be photos. And, of course, if there must be photos, guess who gets volunteered to take them. That’s right. The kid with the photo degree. (Insert fake, accommodating smile here.)

What to say?

Don’t really know what to talk about today.

I was going to complain about my closed-minded family, but no one wants to hear about that.

I thought of outlining a recent disagreement, but that’s probably not a good idea.

I could discuss my friend’s current legal troubles, but no, that’s his story to tell.

Explain the difference between the three types of rocks? Evaluate the significance of rock glaciers on Mars? Analyze the benefits and draw-backs of both analog and digital photography?

No, no, and no.

Explore the myriad reasons why I have so much trouble telling my mother that, no, I will not eventually marry a rich, good looking cowboy and produce two to three adorable grandchildren for her?

Definitely not.

I guess I’m just not feeling very communicative.

Dialing up

I’m writing from my parents’ house until Sunday when I return to Austintown. This means no fancy stuff. No links, no photos. Just text. Because if I even attempt to do anything but type and hit the publish button, the dial-up internet connection will do one of two things: (A) take two hours to load what I’ve written, thereby causing me to play 167.42 games of Minesweeper while I wait, or (B) freak out, tell me the browser has encountered a fatal error and needs to close, and laugh at me when I have the gall to try to sign on again, because, really, why would I want to do a silly thing like that?

 Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

TP

So, apparently the custodial staff where I work think that the women in my department will completely FREAK OUT if we run out of toilet paper. The set up of the women’s bathroom is as follows: two stalls, each of which has dispensers for two rolls of toilet paper. But there are never JUST two rolls in the stall. There’s always at least one extra hanging out on top of the others. And on two separate occasions, I counted nine rolls of toilet paper in that bathroom. Nine. For two stalls.