My Cat Is Smarter Than Your Honor's Student

My cat is missing. For a lot of people, this statement is inconsequential and unimportant. For others, their hearts may have just dropped. I'm with the second group. Otherwise, I wouldn't deem it important enough to mention. For a pet to be missing for me is like a child to be missing. Not to say that people are less important, I just find that some of my more meaningful relationships have been with animals. Which is sort of sad to admit to but that's part of the reason I like animals better than people. For an awkward and shy kid, people are the worst thing ever. People are judgmental and cruel. They question why you like to play by yourself or prefer boy stuff to girls stuff or why you play with imaginary friends. I liked to play by myself and I had imaginary friends because of stupid people asking their stupid questions and they couldn't stay on script. When the world is danger of being destroyed by a giant rhino-squid-bear and the only person who can stop it is Mad Dr. Lucy and her powerful serum or when the ship is in the middle of a fearsome battle over some precious booty and Captain Lucy needs all hands on deck, it is friggin' imperative to stay on task and not try to steal the limelight. Regular people do that, but imaginary friends are always on mark. Oh, and boys always have the cooler toys for some reason. Fuck Barbie.

I've always thought Barbies prepare girls for a more dependent role in life.

Legos prepare you for...ummm...the dangers of public transportation.

Animals don't give a crap what you play with. They don't care if you're awkward around people you don't know and they don't expect you to speak to them. You ever met somebody who was so obviously making their own assessment of you at first glance but they were smiling this giant fake smile as though you might have some mental deficiency and won't notice? I meet these people a lot. Granted, I may just be jumping to conclusions, but I know I'm weird and I know how people think of me. Outside my group of friends, I stick out like a sore thumb. The point is, you know when these people don't like you but they are actively trying to hide it. Animals don't do that. If you meet a new dog, you let it sniff you and if dog is okay with you then the dog will let you pet it. If it doesn't like you, you will know because you will be trying to pry it's jaws off your hand. Simple and direct.

"You are not very nice. Also, you smell like trout."

The other great thing about pets is that they are by far the best friends you will ever have. They will listen to all your trivial bullshit and they put up with all your drama. All they ask in return is food and a pat on the head. They are the best therapists. That's been proven time and again by science. There's a reason that there are programs for pets visiting patients in the hospital, it's because it is medically proven to help the patients emotionally and occasionally physically. If you are a good pet owner, your pets will love you unconditionally and they will show you complete adoration. When I start fighting crime, the first group of people I'm going after are the ones that show up on Animal Cops.

How do people look at this and think "Oh, tiny punching bag!"? It's too fucking cute!

If a dog is happy, you will know. If a cat is pissed you will definitely know. My experience with rodents and birds is limited but I'm sure the same rules apply. They are easy to love and wonderful buddies. I have lost a few pets over the years and every time it feels like a punch in the stomach. I've been to funerals for people and there's only been one that I cried as hard as I did for any one of those pets. Steve, you get your ass back home right now so I can hug the bejeezus out of you.

He's the orange cat. The other one is his sister Mistletoe. She's....kinda dumb. But aren't they cute?

A Gift From An Idiot

I got to honk the horn on my car today for the first time. It was a great privilege for me. Not that I have never had the chance to do so, it's just that I have a new car (finally) and it has a working horn, which is a novel little perk for me. So, I got to honk the horn today at someone who I am pretty sure was on the phone so he deserved more than just a honk, perhaps a good boxing on the ears, but nonetheless an idiot on his phone would not move when the light turned green so I got to honk my car's horn (I refuse to say "honk my horn" because something about that sounds weird). Then there was that self-satisfying moment between the honking and the going where you know exactly what is going through the person's head and you can see without seeing exactly what they are doing. I like moments like that.

Why yes, I am awesome like that.

Anyhoo, Dickhead McTextypants finally goes and I figured I would give him a little extra punishment so I played a little game of "You Made Me Wait At The Light, So I'm Going To Accelerate Until I'm Right on Your Tail" and I got all hunched up over my steering wheel as if I was somehow menacing but in reality I am short and not menacing and afraid of bees. Then, as I am wont to do, I started talking to McTextypants. "I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna get you" and then realized that YMMWATLSIGTAUIROYT (as the kids call it these days) is nothing more than a game of tag. And what's more, driving itself is nothing more than a game of tag. But with the added risk of FIRE.

Now it's really a game

Now, stay with me. Think of the road from a bird's eye view. All the little toy cars are really just chasing each other around. None of them want to get to close because once you start packing up together, you make a bigger target. Plus you don't want to get to close to whoever is "it" for fear of being tagged and thus having the title of "it" being passed along to you.

Much like this, but with more tears

I have noticed something from working with children that when the child who is "it" finds a suitable candidate to pass along the torch (re: the slowest child) the new "it" child experiences something strange. The field seems to grow larger and expand. The other children are speeding by, too quick to catch, as if all of a sudden they have rocket boosters attached. The immense undertaking that lays before this child is heartbreaking and soul crushing and all too much for one child to handle. And when you have experienced this once, you never want to experience it again. So when you are tagged you call out "Nay! Thou hast not touched me, vile cretin! How dare-est thou even consider such a foul and blasphemous lie! I call a pox upon you and your family!" which roughly translates to "Nuh-uh!" and an argument then ensues. Names are called, tears are shed, hair is pulled, and in general everything comes to a stand-still. As though it were a traffic jam.

Do ya?

Going back to driving (and adulthood), whenever you are "tagged" there is a grand pause and tears and shouting and arguing and perhaps even hair-pulling until the cops come to pull everyone off each other (playing the part of the teacher) and resuming traffic flow once again (the game resumes). The fun part here is, and something I want to figure out how to incorporate at my job, the person who is "it" is unknown; a mystery player. Which is honestly a great thing, minus the damage and fire and arguing.

Edit: Minus the damage and arguing and death-causing-fire. Other fire is okay.

I suppose I should thank Dickhead McTextypants. But not really. Don't use your phone when you're driving. Everyone knows you aren't supposed to do it. It's like getting caught in class with your finger up your nose. You look stupid and lose friends.

This child is not being bullied. He is learning a valuable lesson.

Oh and it's election day.....yep. Bye now.

Notes From A Heretic

As I understand it, part of this whole blogging thing is that both the writers and readers of blogs find other blogs to follow. I, however, have yet to find anyone that is writing something of interest to me. I know that what I'm writing definitely doesn't appeal to a lot of people but the majority of what I'm finding are blogs dedicated to attractive people's family portraits and Bible quotes. That's all well and good, but I am not married, I don't have kids, and I am not Christian. But every time I click the "Next Blog" button I get Bible quotes, family portraits, or blogs written in languages I don't understand. But mostly I see religious blogs. And while I am a firm believer in accepting any and all beliefs, there's something about the increbidly preachy blogs that scares the be-Jesus out of me (religion pun!). If you come up to me and say, "Jesus love you!" I'm not going to shoot you down. That was really cool of you to say it. It means you think that this awesome power you believe in loves someone who doesn't believe it, and that is incredibly nice of you and a great self-esteem booster for me. My problem is people that think their religious beliefs automatically make them a better person than everyone one else and that the heathenous non-believers are doomed to a fiery pit. You know, the snotty religious types. The ones who wear their religion as a label rather than an internal belief.


Others use their religion to be bat-shit crazy. Or maybe it's the eyes that make her do it.

I like religions. I like reading about them, learning about them, studying them, talking about them, arguing about them and making fun of them. For the longest time I had decided I was going to make movies for a living until I took two religious studies classes with the incomparable Dr. Chris Brawley and completely changed my mind. The whole idea behind religions is that people, for thousands and thousands of years, have made entire belief systems and cultures surrounding these huge, undefinable beings. Why? We still don't know! Before we had a spoken language, we were grunting to each other about things we can't and won't ever truly get a grasp on. Is it evolutionary? Is it a biological reflex? Do fish have a god? The whole concept is fucking mind-blowing because it is the huge thing that spans generations and lands, people have died for it and fought wars over it and still, religion remains an undefined, intangible concept. It's simply fantastic!

How I feel about religion, but with more rainbows and whimsy.

I am telling you all of this because I am feeling really left out. When someone has Bible verses emblazoned across the heading of their blog I get a little scared and uncomfortable. It kind of feels like when you see two people mashing their faces together in public; like you see these people just going to town on each others gob as if they are saying "Hey. Look at this. You see this? See what we are doing? Yeah, we're gonna keep shoving this in your face. We don't care. We're above you. We're going to keep having awesome fun and completely shut out everyone else around us because they don't really count as people."


I tried to find the grossest one. This isn't it.

Clearly I'm not saying religious expression in public is disgusting. It's when people take their religion and shove it in your face. That's what I feel like when I see those blogs. Fine, have a bible verse on their, that's cool. It's a little dry but there are some pretty kick ass people in it. Just don't use it as a tool to include some people with the same idea and exclude others. That's what a smarter person might call "being closed-minded".

I have hard-core Christian friends. I have friends that laugh in the face of religion and call it a way to control people. I have friends that are agnostic and friends that are so confused about religion they don't know what to believe. I've been friends with Wiccans, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and Pastafarians and I would never, ever even think about telling them to change their mind or force what I believe on them. You can't argue with someone that has a different religion than you because while you are thinking that they have it all wrong, they are thinking the same about you. Christians believe that Jesus commanded them to go and spread the religion, or as my priest says at the end of every mass, "the Good News." That's why the incredibly evangelical Christians think they are helping you and they are doing a good thing because while you are uncomfortable with it, they are being the best people they can be. Don't shoot them down, don't be crude or mean, be a decent human and say thanks because they are doing you a favor.

DON'T be her. Mostly because I don't think she's taken a shower in a while.

No I am not Christian. I was, however, raised Catholic, it just didn't happen to stick. I went to a small, tight-knit Catholic school where if you weren't a Catholic, you were like a rare animal. It was a fantastic school and quite honestly I am glad that I was able to go there. Yeah, it was a Catholic school, so students were taught the Catholic faith. But it wasn't like we were praying all day and reading the Bible. The school motto is "teach me goodness, discipline, and knowledge" and I did all that there. But that was the school. Church was a different thing for me. I liked the people I went to church with and the community I was a part of. I just never felt too religious. I don't think I ever really prayed or felt like I was being listened to if I tried to pray. It never bothered me until my family moved.

When I was twelve, my family moved to Charlotte and for the first time my siblings and I went to a public school. It was also the first time we had gone to separate schools: my brother in a high school, me in a middle school, and my little sister in an elementary school. I didn't have the benefit of my brother blazing any paths for me any more and it was completely uncharted territory. And here is what I figured out from going to public school: I didn't have to be Catholic and I don't think I ever was. My older brother started being argumentative with my parents about going to church and it had been my life-long lesson that when my brother makes my parents angry, do the opposite. I went to church with no problem, I was an altar-server almost every Sunday, I went to the relgious-ed classes, but I didn't feel a part of that church anymore. And then I noticed I wasn't identifying too much with the other people my age that were Catholic. They went about it differently like it was less a cultural thing and more of a something that happened to come up every Sunday. And then I began realizing I never felt too much like I was Catholic. The mass felt like a Pavlovian reaction to what the priest said or what kind of music was playing. I realized I never really prayed the way everyone said you were supposed to pray. And then I began learning the history of the Church and realized that Catholicism was started by a great guy but it was taken wildly out of proportion. Then some bitch-ass priest in training gave me the crap jobs on the altar and told me to pull my hair back because I looked too girly. It was my understanding we treat everyone equally but that was just what some crazy bearded middle-eastern guy in the desert said two-thousand years ago. That wasn't the final straw, I struggled with religion for a long time after, it was more like a turning-point.


Also I watched Dogma and read Lamb by Christopher Moore. That'll really turn you around

So I started looking in other places for answers. All this interest in new religions made me notice when other things came up about religion. It also took a while to get away from identifying myself as Catholic or Christian. And that wasn't easy. It upset my parents and my lack of religion is a well-guarded secret from the rest of my family, namely my grandmother, and now I mostly keep quiet about it around my family.

This turned into something completely different than I had originally planned. I was trying to make it more humorous rant but it turned into more of a confession. Sorry about that.That will be next. I promise. Also, I apologize for any offense but this is my opinion so be mad just don't be a little bitch about it



Promise you don't hate me?