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Fun quotation of the week, courtesy of my dad (via a biography he’s reading):

“the idea of sports struck him as ludicrous.”

Body dismorphic disorder:

Photoshop. Cheaper than plastic surgery, (slightly) less creepy than extreme makeover.

So I have a confession to make: I hate the idea of disagreeing with someone in public. I know, I know – most of you have no problem with it (hello, Shaw), but this is something I’ve never been good at, even in anonobloggy land.

Which is too bad, ’cause I’ve developed a new shameful habit: reading conservative Christian blogs.

One forgets about such things, holed up in San Francisco with her books and wacky neighbors.

I feel like I should mention something I didn’t include in last night’s post. I like Dawn Eden’s blog. She’s a good writer. I sypathize with a lot of what she writes about: she’s self-reflective (is that a word?), trying thoughtfully to make her way in the world.

And I know that the pang I felt reading her post about gay pride was probably very similar to the pang she felt watching gay pride. Its hard watching someone you’d rather respect than judge engage in behaviour that makes your bowels clench.

I stumbled across this blog a few weeks ago, The Dawn Patrol. And I don’t really know what, exactly, to say about it.

There’s a line in Inherit the Wind: “God created man in his own image, and man, being a gentleman, has returned the favor.”

So goes one of the most frustrating day-to-day trials of religion. Everyone that lingers on the idea of, I dunno God? eternity? – whatever – be it me or Dawn Eden – wants a God that feels the way we do about the world. We feel love and we want it reflected back through eternity; we feel revulsion and we crave judgement raining from on high.

But that’s the problem with our image of God. We’re so quick to judge – millenia worth of survival instinct, I guess. But this quickness denys one central fact: we are not God, nor can we know the mind (for lack of a better term) of God (for lack of a better term).

There’s the rub: the very idea of being right is blasphemy. And as much as I feel frustration and anger at reading some entries in Dawn Eden’s blog, I know that that frustration and anger is mine, alone.

I have a headache. And food poisoning. Well, the food poisoning’s gone. But the headache’s not. Blorp.

New goal: nice by 2005.

Now I know what you’re thinking: ‘nice’ is a pretty tame ambition(or more likely you’re thinking, ‘who cares?’ Whatever. It’s my blog, and you’ll think what I want you to think).

In Jr High we had to a silly class called ‘health’ where we learned about reproduction, birth control, and the importance of drinking enough water. I always hated those classes.

For some reason, in spite of my inherant egotism (see below), people always think (or at least thought, when I was 12) that I’m somehow lacking in self-regard (I’ll say it for you: ha!). Anyway, at some point in the class we were asked (via mimeographed survey) what we thought our friends thought of us and what we wished our friends thought of us. I forget what I put down for the first question, but for the second, I wished my freinds would think I was nice.

Now, I didn’t wish my friends would think me nice because I was – far from it. I was awful: mean, spiteful even, doing my best to enforce my end of the Jr. High-School pecking order (I wasn’t cool, but I was cooler than some of the loosers I hung out with). And I knew it. I felt bad about it sometimes. I wished I were different.

The teacher called me to the front of the room. “Of course you’re nice,” she assured me, her face glowing with forced kindness.

“Ok,” I smiled back, shyly.

But I’m not.

And its just as hard now as it was in Jr. High. So much easier to snark than to empathize. And part of me likes it that way – I mean, some people are just dorks, right?

Bleh. Nice by 2005. How hard can it be?

Angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry, angry.

So there.

Strange and frightening dreams last night. Mostly anxiety-type stuff. Lately I’ve just been convinced that I talk too loudly and too much. Bluh.

At least it’s four o’clock – I can’t seem to get anything done today, and my eyebrows itch. Mioght as well hit the gym and go home (although I’m not looking forward to benching with ichy eyebrows).

Am I ego-centric? I asked Brian last night and he just laughed.

I know I am, really, I was just trying to guage whether or not anyone noticed. I mean, a certain amount of ego-centrism is de rigeur, isn’t it?

Speaking of ego, I prefer the term “das Ich” to “the ego.” So much more Freudian. What would Freud say about our need to make words more mysterious and impressive by putting them in Latin? Does removing the ‘I’ from ego obscure or reveal it? Do we put ‘das Ich’ in Latin to remind ourselves that ‘I’ is a refracted term, or are we just pretentious?

Can I speak without using the interrogative? Does it matter?