Tolerance

So we are making Nashville our capital-H Home. That little thought I had in mind for years, the idea to live in Nashville, and actually followed through on last Christmas has turned into one of my better decisions. We've made a great group of friends in addition to people I knew from past touring and new work friends I've already spent huge amounts of time with on the road. We bought a house. We're getting to know our neighbors. I've found a place to volunteer. I wouldn't have predicted this move would make THIS much sense this quickly.

When asked why I've fallen so hard for Nashville, I mention people's friendliness, the community involvement, the music and creativity, the affordability, and the relative proximity to family in Cincinnati. I wasn't sure about all of these qualities before moving here because if you don't know where you're going and are driving around Nashville, the city can come off as lackluster. The vacant lots and barbed wire don't always give off indications that when you turn right or left, or just look closely, there are charming districts of independent businesses, bars, coffeeshops and creative spaces. The suburbs and country areas may be different, but it seems that city neighborhoods are largely mixed income so within the same blocks you may have a drug house, a working low-income family, a trendy modern condo, and a historic cottage. The pace of new building is fast and residential and commercial structures are springing up regularly. There is definitely a feeling of change.

Some of these qualities I've admired in other cities but other aspects are brand new to me. Nashville is politically blue. It has a strong progressive bent, queer- and eco- friendly, especially in East Nashville where we are, but the state of Tennessee does not. Tennessee is more Christian right conservative than this Northern gal is used to. It's a proud, God-fearing culture and they will be damned if you try to tell them what they can and cannot do with their guns. Their many, many guns.

GUNS!

Sweet Jesus, I've never heard more gun talk than I have in the past year. Or seen so many signs on bar doors asking you to leave your firearms outside, since many people carry concealed weapons. Nor have I ever met as many people who have been held up at gunpoint than I have in Nashville. The little buggers are EVERYWHERE. People buy them online for home protection. People buy them illegally, unsure of whether they are stolen or not, to add to their collection. I'm sure people are stockpiling to fight our government who they are convinced will turn against us a la Hitler and Stalin, just as you hear on Fox News.

This is all foreign to me as I didn't grow up with guns but I did marry someone who knows how to handle a rifle and who won a turkey shoot in elementary school, beating out many grown men. My grandpa Roncker was a gun-carrying Cincinnati Police Captain. My father-in-law was a Green Beret Airborne Ranger, Customs Officer, and firearms instructor and is the best shot I know but I still haven't gone all warm and fuzzy with guns, besides the joke I had with Bova where I promised him that if I ever get a gun it will be a Glock with pink accents and the inscription on the side: Bless Her Heart.

Our new neighborhood, Cleveland Park, is rather crime-friendly but I'm still choosing to go with an alarm system, a dog, and padlocks on the privacy fence over keeping a gun in our house. Oh, and the sword Matthew keeps under the bed. The closest I've gotten is that guns in general now seem kind of normal and not shocking as they would have, say, when I were living in Seattle. Speaking of Seattle, when I was there I had the feeling that I was living in a bubble, a utopia of like-minded, agreeable people where it was just so dang pleasant that it bugged me. I wanted more grit and disagreement; I imagined that would feel more real. And, now I've got it.

GOD!

I believe in God. I don't claim to know the details but I do think there is more. I grew up going to public schools during the day, Catholic Mass on Sunday, and CCD religious instruction on Tuesday nights. My family's liberal Jesuit church and its high school youth group had some affect on me but in my earlier years I promptly forgot everything poor Father Nastold tried to teach me all those many Tuesdays that I doodled and smirked; apparently I am a natural born skeptic. Since the Bible went in one ear and out the other, I drew my moral lessons from family, the aforementioned church youth group - that welcomed teens of all faiths or of none, not just Catholics or Christians - and scores of excellent teachers.

The Christian message that stuck with me was that Jesus was a good man to emulate: compassionate, in service to others, kind, courageous, accepting of people who are different. I didn't, and don't, put any great importance on the idea that what I do in this life will affect what happens to me when I die. I'm not worried about heaven or hell. I just do my best to be a good person while I'm here and hope to be judged by my actions, not by my faith or gender or voting record. I think religion, if it is to be used, should be used for people, not against them.

Most of my new friends are leftist and a few remind me of some of my favorite people I know elsewhere: Justin = Nashville Dennis, Oscar = Nashville Fabian, Ryan = Nashville Bova. I've also gotten close to a number of people here who believe that homosexuality is a sin, that Mitt Romney had the right solutions for America, and that any gun control is a freedom issue (always with the FREEDOM). And I'm not even getting into health care or taxes. I think homosexuality is perfectly natural, if not as common as heterosexuality, am Obama-voting, and I think there should be a compliance of some standard that is enforced before regular, non-military, people can own guns. I'm not against guns or against the Constitution, I'm for considering public safety.

My friends and I who are politically and religiously different have more in common than we have apart but oh man, the differences are biggies. I, however, choose to see their lives from a broad perspective, not focusing on guns and gays, and I think they're good people. I believe they think the same of me. We love each other, enjoy being together, and miss each other when we're not. So how does one reconcile those things that could be taken as personal, perhaps offensive, affronts? Or do we just concentrate on our similarities and accept our differences with mutual respect?

Personal details I've shared about myself with some of them: that one of my bridesmaids was a gay man who walked down the aisle with another guy or that I'm not Republican (WHAT?!) have elicited laughs, dropped jaws, or resigned head shakes. But not all details are easy for me to delve into. I'm sensitive when it's about women and when I see vaguely misogynistic-hahahaha Facebook posts from anyone, even if we aren't close, even if we're just acquaintances, I have to remind myself to breathe.

East Nashville has more in common with Portland, OR or Austin, TX than greater Tennessee where a Senator from Knoxville is proposing legislation that would require schools to inform parents if a child is engaging in homosexual activity (what exactly "activity" entails is unclear). Where in talking about education, someone tells me how mad he was when his child came home from school and told her daddy she learned about evolution. Apparently I've been more influenced than I even realized by the bubbles I've lived in because I honestly thought creationism was more on the out than that.

I'm still learning how to deal: how to gauge when a reaction or response is just enough or too much or not enough at all. I still shy away from certain conversations and am not necessarily proud of that. The point, however, is that I'm learning as much or more than if I were always surrounded by people exactly like myself. And if I'm ever surprised or taken aback by what I hear, I have to examine myself and pinpoint what I do or don't believe. Whether or not my viewpoints ever change, I gain something in my understanding of the issues, people's different interpretations of them, and of how our fractured country may be tolerant.

laughing quietly to myself

About how I stayed up until 3 am watching episodes of Sister Wives.

Reality Tuesday

Jocardo recently asked me where I was going to work on the computer and I said, "The cafe up the street."

"What's that place called again?" He asked.

I thought for a minute and told him, "Reality Tuesday."

I also told him that though I've lived here for five months and pass the cafe almost every day, I have a hard time remembering its name. It has no ring to it.

"I like it there," I said. "People are nice, there are outlets for laptops and good chairs but I usually find it easier to call it THE CAFE UP THE STREET YOU KNOW THE ONE BY SNAPPY TOMATO PIZZA."

On and on we complained about why they called it that and how we don't like cute names like Shear Madness for barber shops but at least you remember it and we ranted against alternative spellings and then finally shut up.

Jocardo then did some research and sent me an email:

The cafe was started in order to attract the young adult population to an alternative Christian scene. It was an idea born out of a Tuesday evening Bible study group that has evolved into a reality.

Oh. I see.

Later I text Jocardo and ask for his address and he sends it back to me and said "We've been friends for how long and you still don't know my address?"

I could have been sarcastic back but chose instead to write, "You almost sound sincere and now that I know I go to a Christian cafe, I am sensitive to that."

I am also more sensitive to the Jesus art in the bathroom that I never noticed before because I was too busy being psyched that the cafe's so clean. Apparently I am more concerned with hepatitis than God when it comes to my coffeeshop.

Getting older and going to Confession

Today I got this birthday card from Cathy.

My birthday is coming up in a few days and while I don't think I'm all that afraid of getting older, I did take some time out today to dye my roots and ask my mother if 34 counts as middle-aged. So yes, apparently I have concerns.

But whatever, we are all on our way to the inevitable, what is important here is whether you have spent quality time sending someecards before you check out.

Why? Because you care enough to hit send. And because they rule. If you doubt, let me remind you of one of my favorites - You never pee on me anymore - or the one I sent Lindsay today - I believe I'm getting closer to God by spending a few weeks not eating M&M's.

Actually, the last time I remember observing Lenten sacrifice was around my first confession, when I stood outside our parish priest's office trying desperately to think of something I could talk about.

I believe I said I was impatient with my brother. Or didn't want to help do dishes. Both of which were surely true, I just don't if they were awful enough to warrant an official church confession.

What I remember most was my sense of this is bullshit but might impress them, the same sense I had when I raised my hand in third grade during a class discussion on the theme of Determination and told my teacher Ms. Jansen that I was DETERMINED to be the first female president.

Ms. Jansen exclaimed something along the lines of, "There we go, children! THAT is determination!" and I relaxed my hand and looked smug.

Yeah, that was a big lie.

A lie that I could have, in good faith, confessed to Father Nastold instead of making up some crap about dishes.

Prop 8, The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Thanks, Jane.

Field trip: Creation Museum

I've been ranting a lot lately so I thought I'd try to say something positive. Try.

I was impressed by the Creation Museum.

What.

It was well thought out. Serious, serious money went into that place. I don't agree with what the museum is teaching but LORD, did the creationists do a slick job trying to convince me of their garbage.

Multi-millions went into it: planetarium, botanical gardens, full-sized theater, huge bookstore, Noah's Cafe, walking tour that takes two hours to go through. It was modeled off a classic natural history museum with statues and flags and big money exhibits. See, we're not provincial at all! kind of vibe.

This is me posing with a dinosaur who's 5,000 years old, not, I don't know, 100 million years old.

This dinosaur was supposedly created by God on Day Six, along with all other land animals including Adam and Eve. They all lived happily and perfectly together without strife until the whole serpent/apple/sin/Fall of Man issue.

I wondered if other people in the museum would cast me and Jocardo looks, if we'd reek of sin and stand out as non-believers. Actually, the museum employees were nice, like so nice you wanted them to chill out a little. The other visitors, however, they knew. We were getting so many head-to-toe check outs, I whispered to Jocardo through gritted teeth, without moving my lips, "I feel like I'm in a bar."

But like he pointed out to me before we went in, for all they know we're in a Christian rock band. No matter how different we look - even if I left my long skirt and hair piece bun bonnet thing at home and don't have eight kids yapping at my feet - we could be Christian rockers. Totally possible.

Here's Jocardo taking a stroll through the morality ghetto. Around the corner, spray painted on a few 2x4s it reads: modern world abandons the Bible, the message being that Scripture abandoned in the culture leads to relative morality, hopelessness, and meaninglessness. Everyone knows that garbage cans and graffiti symbolize a lack of ethics and that the suburbs are riddled with meaning.

After a few hours, Jocardo and I were exhausted, our personal spirituality suffocated. I'd digested the burrito I bought at Noah's Cafe and I was still pissed about the book I leafed through in the bookstore, the one Jocardo kept telling me to put down, the one about how feminism in the church is leading to a lack of obedience by women. Damn straight it is, you idiots.

We sat on a bench in the lobby and decided to do one more thing, go to the Men in White movie. Because the Men in White have the Answers. Oh, how novel.

And I'm so glad we went because that thing was the highlight of the afternoon. No matter how much the movie pretended to re-enact the Flood, we were not expecting the chairs in the theater to shake and actual water to squirt on us. From the ceiling? From the walls? I don't know! All I know is that it was really surprising and that it got in our eyes, a couple times, and that it felt good to laugh.

Marriage, beyond definition

OH MY GOD THANK YOU, KEITH OLBERMANN.

I'm so sick of the rhetoric surrounding opposition to gay marriage. Guess what? Marriage is already being redefined. It's been reconstructed over and over again and it hadn't, black men and women wouldn't be able to marry and interracial marriage would still be illegal.

If marriage had never been redefined, we wouldn't choose our own partners and it would be arranged by others in the interest of economics and property and politics, never mind romance.

Some of the people who are screaming about homosexuals redefining marriage are the ones who redefined it themselves in 1996 with the Defense of Marriage Act, which said that marriage is only a legal union between one man and one woman and defined spouse as a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

I was born into a white body that happens to be attracted to men. I don't have to fight to get married, I have the privilege to roll over and dream about my fairy tale ending but that's kinda bullshit.

There is no fairy tale. Grace Kelly was not normal. The royal family of Monaco is fucked. We're all fucked! It's the human condition! The fairy tale is a myth that's being sold to us. And if we buy it, we aren't using our imagination.

I'm allowed to legalize my commitment to another person and reap the benefits of the state, which has its stake in heterosexual marriage. The state is desperately and sadly protecting its interests, its laws, its policies, and its money when it opposes gay marriage. Other countries are not so backward (see: Europe). All the moral quibbling and religious hoo-ha should be arbitrary, outside of American law. What's up, First Amendment? It's exhausting.

So don't tell me that marriage is static and can't evolve because you can be sure that in my wedding there will be no hint of me being "given away" or me wearing some virginal white princess dress which would require a massive suspension of disbelief by anyone who knows me. If I thought I had to trade in my identity, I wouldn't get married. As it is, I just think it means I legalize my commitment to another person, something that anyone should be able to do.

Kentucky postcard challenge #2

Right before I moved home, I found the link to the Creation Museum. Gulp.

The Creation Museum website celebrates "creation, evolution, science, dinosaurs, family, and a Christian worldview". A pretty hefty mix if you ask me. The museum is 20 miles from Covington, KY where I'd be living and, according to the museum website, I should PREPARE TO BELIEVE.

Well, how about I pick a few beliefs off that list up there and ignore the rest? I love dinosaurs. Science is cool. Biology class was interesting.

I didn't want to make any assumptions. Assumptions like the museum discredits evolution. Batshit stuff like that. Even though the name Creation Museum pretty much says it all, I investigated. I clicked on "good news" and The Gospel of Jesus Christ popped up in my browser to provide helpful info on how the origin of the world is related to what a sinner I am.

Which would be discouraging -

as discouraging as the idea that biblical history is the key to understanding dinosaurs

and as discouraging as walking through the Cave of Sorrows to see the horrific effects of the Fall of Man

and as discouraging as hearing the sounds of a sin-ravaged world echoing through the room

AND, finally, as discouraging as seeing the sacrificial Lamb on the cross and the hope of redemption, all of which one can do at the Creation Museum up the road -

yes, it'd all be discouraging, if I were someone else.

But that sacrificial lamb-like redemptive hope doesn't really apply to me. My hope springs from an entirely different well. It's quite easy for me to disconnect the Bible and science. Just as I am able to separate church and state. I don't tangle up the threads of theology and philosophy and biology.

I was done getting all worked up about this until Halle's second Kentucky postcard challenge postcard arrived. You may remember that #1 did not make into my sinful fingers. It was too obscene with its f-word.

#2 (which I'll post photos of once I get the dang scanner to work) arrived! It's of a big dinosaur fighting with four little green dinosaurs and I mean they look like they're really going at it. On the back, Halle wrote:



I'll give you three guesses as to how hard this made me laugh. Maybe my postal carrier isn't into the Cave of Sorrows, either.

Utah scares me but it sure is pretty

I've been to Utah half a dozen times but each visit was short and less than 24 hours long. Recently I was in Salt Lake City for 11 hours, between Benise's Sacramento and Denver shows.

I was walking down a Salt Lake City street feeling unnerved by the cleanliness that I find somewhat unnatural and creepy, when I saw this sign and started thinking more about the Beehive State.

I know that Utahns got this moniker because their settlers, the Mormons, fled the Midwest, followed Brigham Young into the desert in 1847, and worked like busy little bees, displaying all of the industry and cooperation and toil typical of pioneers.

I know that Joseph Smith (1805-1844) founded The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - AKA Mormons - in 1830 and that he's considered a major prophet by Mormons, right up there with Abraham and Moses.

Joseph's family back in Palmyra, NY were Christians who respected all denominations. In his teens, however, many of them converted to Presbytarianism, and for whatever reason this troubled Joseph to find one true Christian religion.

Instead of rebelling like most teens by withdrawing, smoking, and getting into moonshine, Joseph had VISIONS: From God, Jesus Christ, and the formerly unknown Angel Moroni. Revealed to Joseph was the location of golden tablets which told new histories of early American tribes and the Bible.

Well, it caused a stir.

Joseph's followers eventually moved from New York to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. And everywhere they went they pissed people off because they said their brand-new faith was the only valid religion and that the Book of Mormon was THE work of God, right up there with the Testaments.

Community relations were not helped when Joseph introduced the concept of polygamy and encouraged Mormon men to take more than one wife. In fact, it led to his being killed at the hands of an angry mob.

My childhood intro to the religion were the Mormon girls who lived on my street. They weren't allowed to drink soda, which didn't faze me since my mom didn't buy soda either, though for reasons related more to my sugar intake than salvation.

What did make an impression, however, was the Mormon girl telling the Catholic girl who trotted up the street everyday to St. Mary's in her plaid skirt that she wasn't going to heaven. Tears were shed, parental reassurances were given, and I thought the whole thing could have been avoided if we all went to Montessori school and learned from the lesbian ex-nuns to think for ourselves.

I actually own a Book of Mormon.

In an unlikely but true scenario, I once pounced happily on a group of Mormon missionaries when I was 18. I didn't care that they wanted to convert me, I didn't care that we didn't agree on anything except that soda isn't good for you. I was in Chile, I didn't speak Spanish, and I hadn't expressed a complete thought in way too long. So when Elder-This and Elder-That knocked on the door, I was uniquely amenable to shooting the theological shit and I talked and talked and talked to show my Chilean hosts and remind myself that I could do more than smile, nod, and say thank you.

I didn't give Mormons or Utah another thought until a friend, Anonymous, took a cross-country road trip and stopped in Salt Lake to buy drugs.

Anonymous told me that the crackhouse he went to was lovely and immaculate. Anonymous said he would have joyfully eaten off the floor of the spotless crackhouse. I imagine it as the IKEA model of crackhouses.

Having been to Salt Lake since, I'm not a bit surprised by Anonymous's well-lit and sparkling drug experience. I have watched what I assume were city employees spot-clean the rims of garbage cans on downtown streets with spray bottles of disinfectant.

The city gives off a STRONG WHIFF of sanitary tidiness. But I think it smells funny.





My favorite are the orange flags: LOOK LEFT AND RIGHT WHEN CROSSING. FOR ADDED VISIBILITY CARRY ORANGE FLAG ACROSS WITH YOU.

It's fun to take pictures of each other tromping across the street, waving orange flags at cars. It's a good joke. Especially when you're half drunk on sake.

It reminds me of Seattle, where jaywalking is a big no-no. I was once followed into a coffeeshop by two cops who informed me that they saw me crossing the street without using the crosswalk. They didn't give me a ticket, just a warning, and a friendly reminder that what I'd done was illegal and dangerous.









I found this reprimand by the Seattle police just as I found Salt Lake City's orange flags: hilarious. And irritating.

I think orange flags and friendly reminders are patronizing. They offend my sense of personal responsibility. I think the penalty for being dumb when crossing a street should be getting hit.

And if I think about it too much, WHICH I AM WONT TO DO, I will eventually leap from thinking about personal responsibility and crossing streets to thinking about personal responsibility and fundamental Mormonism.

Is it THAT different to say, "It's not my fault I got run over by a car! No one gave me an orange flag to wave around!" than "It's not my fault I'm raping a fifteen year old who didn't want to marry me! I need at least three wives to gain entry to the kingdom of heaven and I'm just obeying the will of the Lord!"

Hm?

I know that plural marriages were outlawed by the church in 1890 and that the so-called fundamentalists of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are not even considered true followers by more mainstream Mormons. The fact remains, however, that the fundamentalists are numerous - there's an estimated 6,000 to 11,000 thousand members in the U.S., and powerful - they rule the border cities of Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT.

This is nothing compared to the populace of the regular old LDS church which exceeded 12 million in early 2004. But in terms of how many women they have BRUTALIZED, it is significant. Because plural marriage is no free-wheeling hippie lovefest. PLURAL MARRIAGE IS NO RAINBOW GATHERING.

A lot of boys in Colorado City/Hildale aren't psyched about it, either. The creaky, old, rheumy-eyed men tend to kick them out of the community, especially if they're hanging out with a teenage girl THEY want to fuck.

I mean, the old man has had his eye on his friend's daughter since she was like TEN, and she's finally getting tits and getting old enough to start having ten or fifteen kids, and some young punk thinks he can GIVE HER A RIDE HOME FROM SCHOOL?

If I were that boy and tossed out into a world I knew nothing about and cut off from everything and everyone I'd ever know, I'd probably do meth, too.

Men who do stay and enter the upper echelon of the community are still afraid. If they lose favor with the leader, they'll lose their homes and their wives and children will be reassigned to other men. Women are afraid for the same reason. And they're all quaking in their boots over disobeying the leader for fear that they'll lose salvation.

I know I'm a public school heathen who no amount of baptism, confirmation, and weekly CCD classes can save, but seriously: CAN SALVATION BE THAT GOOD?

It looks like the government is finally getting on the case. I hear that the current FLDS leader, Warren Jeffs, is being indicted on two felony charges related to underage marriages and that on May 6, the FBI announced that it had placed Jeffs on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

It is also alleged that Jeffs had warned members that LAUGHTER CAUSES THE SPIRIT OF GOD TO LEAK FROM THEIR BODIES.

Now that pisses me off.

Ten Commandments: reflections from a hair salon

I had no idea that getting my hair cut this weekend would make me think about the Ten Commandments. I showed up for my appointment, met Natalie the stylist, and showed her the multimedia presentation I had prepared on my laptop regarding the kind of hair I do and do not want sprouting off my head. This is how I approach haircuts since September, when a New York hairdresser listened to me explain what I wanted, nodded, and then did the opposite, leaving me with a bowlcut not unlike the one I had in sixth grade.

Any perspective will reveal that a bowlcut shouldn't be that big of a deal but several people could testify that my immediate reaction was a fantasy involving the Anarchist Cookbook, a hardware store, a pipe bomb, and doing something DEFINITELY prohibited by the Ten Commandments. Natalie and I quickly struck up the sort of salon intimacy that usually makes me feel phony. For some reason, though, this time I yakked away with fluidity. 

While Natalie washed my hair, we talked about Columbus and how I like living here. She asked where I lived in New York and I told her: the East Village and the Bronx. She also asked about Cincinnati. The client before me had also been from Cincinnati and told Natalie that there isn't much racism there. Ahem. I'm thinking that this client has either not spent much time outside her secluded monochromatic enclave in the last ten years or she had recently been cured of deaf-blindness, realized her hair looked like ass, and that's how she ended up in Natalie's chair that morning blabbing about how progressive Cincinnati is.

For 18 years I lived in the pleasant and mostly-white suburb of Hyde Park and for a year after that I lived downtown in historic and mostly-black neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine. I told Natalie it's a pretty segregated city and that race relations can be tense. She asked what Columbus neighborhood I live in and I told her Old Towne East.

"How are your neighbors?" Natalie wondered.

"Um....I don't know. I don't know any of my neighbors."

We moved on from the subject and by the time I left the salon I felt light and bouncy and pranced down the sidewalk pretending not to secretly check out my new reflection in the storefronts. But there's one thing that will almost surely alter this sort of glib and self-absorbed mood and that is PIRG canvassers. I encountered one within a few blocks of the salon. A kid from the citizen organization Public Interest Research Group was standing down the street and I know he gripped his clipboard a little tighter when he saw me coming. No amount of eye-averting or false distraction on my part was going to keep him from posing whatever thorny question he felt obliged to ask.

The Village Voice calls these goodhearted civic-minded workers charity muggers. In New York there were charity muggers outside my work who would ask me, "Do you have a moment to help save the children of the world?" Except for the time I stopped to give one my parents' address since they actually do reserve lots of moments for saving the children of the world, I would say "No, I don't" without stopping. Which, GOOD LORD, sounds callous in writing.

I'd think, "Don't you all know you are on Fifth Avenue where stopping could result in injury?"

And that I believe is where the callousness stemmed from. Leaving work in New York was a uniquely bad time to be asked to stop, at least for me. I was usually in a rush or my mind was busy emptying out what I'd just done for the workday and filling up with what I wanted to personally achieve in the hours I still had before sleep. Right or wrong, in those moments I was self-absorbed and not focused on world issues. I'd also imagine myself stopping to explain to them that I, too, worked for a non-profit organization and was underpaid because my publishing company struggled financially, that I simply could not spare a donation right then. I'd wrestle briefly with my conscience and continue rushing to the 6 train.

Saturday's canvasser in Columbus wore a huge button on his coat emblazoned with a graphic of the Great Lakes. I smiled as I got closer and maintained eye contact while he politely inquired, "Excuse me, can you spare a minute to help Lake Erie?" I smiled ruefully and said, "No, sorry."

"Have a nice day!" He said as I passed.

"Thank you," I said over my should and then proceeded to wonder who I had apologized to. I decided I apologized to Lake Erie as well as to the children of the world who have been saved enough to inherit the earth and the dismal shape it's in. A fog settled into me and sunk fully into place while watching the local news in the living room. The Columbus news loves crime and seriously won't shut up for five minutes about all the horrible stuff happening locally, some of which takes place in my neighborhood.

In Old Towne East, stately stained glass windowed houses share corners with decrepit lots. It is a community in transition, which I believe means that of the neighborhood's residents, there's a wide range of both money in people's pockets and melatonin in people's skin. The first month I lived here I walked home at night a lot. I sensed that maybe it wasn't the BEST idea in the world and stopped listening to my iPod so as to be more alert. Bova told me to stop but I did it few more times until someone else told me stories involving kidnapping and an attempted break in: exhibits A and B of why my mother doesn't mind my having borrowed her car for weeks on end.

In New York there are hundreds of people around at any hour, day or night. There's so much going on and so many things to look at that "Oh, a crackwhore" is instantly followed by "That woman has her dog in her handbag" and "I think I'll buy a falafel sandwich." This is not so in smaller cities. I was dogsitting this weekend and while walking the dog yesterday I remembered my conversation with Natalie about my neighbors and I thought of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments get shuffled around and mean different things depending on whether you are Christian, Jewish, or Muslim and I'm certainly not literal enough to want to love all my neighbors just yet, but I would go out of my way not to bear false witness or covet their houses, wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen, and asses.

I'd actually prefer to just be friendly with them. I exchanged several "How's it going?"s and laughed when a kid on the street asked the dog's name.

"Her name's Karma," I told him.

"I better not pet her, she'll come back to get me."

Good one, kid. You're awesome.

I don't think that a universal code of conduct that may have been given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai is necessarily going to do anything about the people who really would like to do all that coveting, much the less the graver thou shalt nots of bodily harm as seen on the Columbus nightly news, but you gotta start somewhere. And maybe that's where the canvassers do come in.

What's on your mind, Baby Jesus?*

*Image exhibits immense historical inaccuracy and RT acknowledges that it is ex-treme-ly genetically unlikely that Baby Jesus had blue eyes and peach-colored skin and furthermore is sure that he didn't wear stocking caps or travel on the dashboards of vehicles.

This fraud of a BJ, however, participated in a live Nativity scene last night and spent four hours swaddled and pawed by a rambunctious 'Mary'.

RT fed a carrot to the camel on site.

Kids who sin die young?

"Hey! You've got a condition you need to get rid of! It's called sin!" said the middle-aged guy into a microphone, standing in front of a Christmas tree decorated with little American flags. Yesiree, I do have a condition, but I call it provocation. I periodically turn the television to the Daystar Network on Channel 19 to see what kids Christian programming is up to these days. I provoke myself.

I had been reading for hours and wanted to space out. The other channels were broadcasting infomercials for knives and real estate seminars and some Saturday morning show with kids dancing and talking with wildly exaggerated movements and expressions that I find SUPER CREEPY. There was also the Daystar Network.

The question What Does God's Voice Sound Like? was on the screen in the middle of a swarm of different colored question marks. They interviewed a dozen kids who all pretty much said a variation on the same thing. 

"Ummmmm, it's deep and low and powerful and great and....mighty."

A few of them also said God is nice and/or kind. The only one who stood out was an overachieving Asian boy who quoted a bunch of scripture before rattling off the list. Well, I thought, I would have said something similar when I was ten: may not all the scripture, but God as nice old guy in beard and deep voice, staff in hand sort of thing. 

Then it was time for Adventures in Dry Gulch, starring Gospel Bill and his sidekick Nicodemus. There was also a woman in gingham who ran the general store and who kept waving her rolling pin in people's faces, Mister Farnsworth, and Toby, Mister Farnsworth's grandson who was visiting from back East. The basic plot of this instructional drama was that Toby was a rascal who didn't obey his parents, particularly when he glued Nicodemus's boots to the floor, put Mister Farnsworth's false teeth in jalapeno juice, and let the horses out of the corral.

He was brought before Gospel Bill for judgment. Toby stuck his bottom lip out and scrunched his face up and denied everything while Gospel Bill lectured him on obeying one's parents. Toby was later overcome with guilt, fessed up, and ditched his bad ways.

Gospel Bill then turned to the TV audience to spell out further the perils of disobedience. He said that disobedience on a regular basis is like getting caught in Satan's trap and to illustrate his point he whacked a drumstick against a mousetrap so that it was caught. He gave the camera a moment to do a close up on the ensnared stick and satanic trap. He explained that the gospel says that if you obey your parents you will be healthy and have a long life.

"Well, if you disobey, the opposite must be true," and here good ole Gospel Bill held up two dinner plates that had HEALTH and LONG LIFE printed on them and he smashed them with his fists so that they broke into lots of pieces.