Games

I wonder when these people will get a clue that I am really not interested in playing their silly Bering Strait game. I am just sitting here trying to have a life and they are standing around me with daggers poised waiting for a chance to slaughter me because I have better English spelling skills than they do. I think this game is rigged from the get-go and I am not going to be playing by their rules, thanks anyway. I would rather commit suicide than cave in to this contrived reality. You should know, however, that if you do play by their rules that their rules will become everybody's rules and that reality will be changed, eventually. Perish the thought. I would rather just not have a life if I have to play the Bering Strait game. It is legal to play in self-defense but when I am greatly outnumbered the odds are against me.

Quiet

I am a quiet person and it is better this way. I vaguely remember in college Cori and maybe others complaining about me never talking very much. I might have said that I don't usually talk very much when I don't know people very well and don't trust them. Even now I see no reason to talk very much. There never was any reason for me to trust Cori with any personal information, now less more so than ever. I don't remember what I was thinking.

Candyland Game

I don't think that we ever actually owned this game, Candyland, and I only vaguely remember playing it when visiting other people's houses and playing with other people's children. I don't think I need this game in my house. The spelling would really bug me, for one thing. It would only perpetuate the confused notion of these naughty children who imagine the name Candy has something to do with me when obviously my name ends with an "i" and not a "y." And besides, it would perpetuate my sister's misperception that success in life means beating on me at every opportunity and taking every chance to humiliate me in the eyes of everyone who I formerly imagined might be my friends. I am tired of fighting about this but just copping this Mom act and reminding me to clean the bathroom is not going to gain you any peer respect from me. I know better. This is all just another game to humiliate me and so it doesn't really have very much to do with the reality that God loves me and has a plan for my life, a plan for good and not for evil, that is if the Bible can be believed and applied to me just the same as everybody else on the planet.

Misery

There is no forgiveness for three-year-olds like me and so it would be pointless for me to try to do anything more. Of one thing I can be sure, that all my relationships will be taken from me, that all my achievements will be taken from me, that anything good will be taken from me and I will be given only bad, so obviously prayer is pointless. Why should I give the putridly wicked enemy Hoskins anymore presents? God hates me, obviously, so no remedy is available to thrust stupid swine Rob into a bottomless pit. Besides, they needed a substitute Mao to bash and I was available to represent my generation in a life of misery inflicted by the U.S. Army for whatever mysterious reason. That was so mean and nasty what they did to Mao, I have to agree. However, it is not supposed to be my problem. Does Mao really think that she alone of all women on the planet was cast aside with utter contempt and disdain to make room for the U.S.-favored Madame Chiang Chai-Shek? Hardly. It happens all the time but it becomes just so much more political when these generals and captains are poking their noses in places where they don't belong.

The Facts Of Life

My mother explained to me the facts of life when I was about 11 years old. She gave a very thorough and excellent explanation and also gave me a small book, "Almost Eleven," which includes all the essential information helpful for an 11-year-old, including pictures of the component parts necessary for human reproduction. Thus I have no further need of any other mother to explain the facts of life to me. I am assuming that all mothers give the same valuable instructions to all of their daughters and there is no need for me to explain the facts of life to anyone else on the planet in the future, certainly not my own sister, only my own daughter should I ever have one. I cannot imagine why anyone would think otherwise. Obviously, literature class has absolutely nothing to do with it. As far as I am concerned, the books assigned to us in literature class are mostly written by tortured individuals who have a lot of problems that I cannot possibly imagine and mostly would profer not to try to imagine. Literature reflects the sinful condition of people who mess up very badly and I do feel sorry for them but that is not my problem. My mother did mention on a later occasion about having read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" which is obviously the big "A" but that conversation was not in connection with or by way of explaining the facts of life. That was a whole different conversation at a later and different time about the problem of literature and how sometimes we have to read these books for homework assignments even if they are very unpleasant or boring or weird because they do say something about reality or the culture in which we happen to live and must function, not because we would want to take those people home with us and live in their sick realities and absorb their warped and twisted worldviews as our own. I can say pretty much the same about all books and magazines. My knowledge of these matters might have expanded through the years in terms of reading but still there is no reentry law requiring me to explain the birds and the bees in order to resume my duties as a citizen of the United States upon returning from Latin America. There is no reason, no law on earth, requiring me to discuss these very personal matters with the Pentagon. What would those stupid stuffed-shirt bigwigs know about girl stuff? Nothing obviously. To this day, I fail to understand Cori's fascination with asking stupid questions about these subject matters. Why should I care about whatever Cori said about her mother? I really don't care. I don't even remember those people and Cori was never my boss except in her own sick and twisted mind. There is no need for me to prove anything to anyone about what I think about these matters and no reason for me to accept a slave position in regards to Cori. I can't have these trashy rich bitches getting accustomed to thinking of themselves as my boss or master. How ridiculous. It is necessary for poor girls like me to tell rich bitches like Cori what I will do and what I will not do and that's just the way it is. Cori has no power to fire me or to tell me anything else. I don't need her garbage. If I want to quit and I can certainly quit any time I want to. There is no law requiring me to do Mrs. Nipper's dirty work. And anyway, it's not a matter of being right in terms of intellect and understanding. It is about finding the Mr. Right but if he never made an appearance in my life there is just nothing else I can do about it. Statistically there are just not enough men to go around, too many single women left over who just are never going to make it to the altar through no fault of their own. That is just a fact of life. There is no reason to self-flagellate and beat myself up because the odds are against me. Yes, if I only I had attended the Foursquare even church I might have perhaps had a slim chance of sighting Lisa Welchel from the TV show, "The Facts of Life." But as it is, the odds are against me.

Beall

In her diaries, my great-grandmother often speaks of her friend Anna Beall from Pasadena, Calif. Anna and her husband, Granville 'Grant' Edsell Beall, seem to have moved to California from Ohio at about the same time that my great-grandparents did, perhaps even earlier. However, according to military records it appears that in 1898 Mr. "Grant" Beall was a 21-year-old private fighting in the Spanish-American War. A quick Google shows that Mr. "Grant" Beall was actually white, not black, and he was also not the only Beall soldier fighting in that war. Beyond that I really can't say much about that. I have not studied the Spanish-American War very much and am only vaguely aware of it. It seems that Grant Beall, originally from Greene County in Ohio, also spent some time in Tahiti in the 1920s, according to ship passenger records of him having sailed at least twice to and from Tahiti and San Francisco. What was Grant doing in Tahiti? The answer is not clear. I have no other clue so don't ask me. And why was Grant Beall admitted to a mental hospital in 1926, at age 50, with a diagnosis of manic depressive and psychosis? I just have no clue about that either. He died in 1944 at age 68 so obviously we never met. I never knew this person existed and anyway he is not even related to us, just the husband of a friend of my great-grandparents, so I can't say much about it. There is no real connection there. We have no idea what happened to their daughter Miriam and her family after they moved to Northern California. Life is too short to keep track of all these people.

Literature

Literature does not tell us how to survive. Literature only tells us about the hopelessly sinful human condition and often what not to do. From high school's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" we learn that your decision to flout the rules of Nurse Ratched at the mental hospital could result in your lobotomization. They will literally have your brain disabled so that you really won't know what happened to you or even care anymore. That's the problem with insane asylums. The people are just drugged all the time so barely functional and there is no privacy, no way to avoid rubbing elbows with the inmates. There is no real "asylum" for the insane, an oxymoron of terminology. Tht is what happens if you do not play by the rules, a scary prospect indeed. And from "To Kill A Mockingbird" we learn that the Deep South is a very weird place to be and not my choice of permanent residence. I was never one of those tortured people and hopefully will never have to go there.

Canadian Farewell

It really is annoying that this Canadian, lewd crude Madame Crawley, has parked herself nearby pretending to be someone of importance when actually she was only a friend of Pam from Michigan. She was always rude to me and I always sensed that she was trashing me behind my back all the time. So why should I care about her opinion? I couldn't care less. She is one of the most boring people. She knows nothing about anything other than her own nursing career so there is no intelligent conversation to be had with those people from the hospital. Hopefully I will never need them. I shouldn't have to explain this. I shouldn't have to verbally express my extremely low opinion of them and risk endangering myself, but these Canadians  never seem to get a clue about when to back off so finally I have to tell them to shut their big fat mouths. They never seem to realize that it's not all about them. Someone really should get a message to them in Canada while there still is a North America not yet wiped off the map.

Art vs. Faith

I vaguely remember that interesting short story from Salvadoran fiction in which a thief and murderer and lapsed priest in Guatemala of the 1500s is crucified. I might have read/translated part of this story for Barbara Miller of Mississippi although I really don't remember. During Uraco's long criminal career he had come to think of himself as a noble creature, one who committed bad deeds in order to spare "good people." He murdered his friend so that his friend would not have to carry out orders to act as executioner. Uraco took upon himself the bad in order to spare the good and after he was captured the judges decided to reward Uraco's "generosity" with his own execution by crucifixion. It so happened that while Uraco's body was hanging on a cross on a Central American hillside that a professional artist who had been commissioned by the Catholic church to make an artistic rendering of Christ's crucifixion was walking nearby with his notebook in hand and saw Uraco's dead body. Immediately he sprang into action, sketching a vision of Uraco that would serve as the model for his artwork, a sculpture known as the "Black Christ." It so happens that there really is a famous sculpture named the "Black Christ of Esquipulas" located in a Catholic church in the Guatemalan town of Esquipulas which is just across the border from Guatemala but the verifiable facts pretty much end there. It is said that the wood from which the 400-year-old sculpture was carved has turned dark as it has aged over the years, thus matching the skin color of the original inhabitants of the region when it was conquered by the Spanish. The story is an interesting and well written contrivance of human imagination, an entertaining blend of fact and fiction. In truth, art is beautiful and fascinating in its place but in and of itself it has no redemptive value. Art for art's sake is a dead end. Uraco, if he ever did exist outside of the author's imagination, was just another sinner who died. Praying to his image will not save anyone. The artist also was just a man carrying out the orders of the religious clerics who rewarded his talent according to the local market value. The artist was just another sinner who died. The church of Esquipulas was built on a site at which it is said that a local inhabitant had a vision of Christ crucified. The local inhabitants were just people who died as are we all. It was only Jesus who rose from the dead and who holds the keys to sin and death and is at the right hand of the throne of God making intercession for us. So sometimes all this art is just a distraction. So I found the story of the "Black Christ" very interesting in its own artsy way and yet it is wrong in a sense. There is no glory in being bad and sacrificing a good and clear conscience in order to meet the demands of art. Or maybe that was the author's point, sort of. Christ died so that we would not have to do that.

Not Impressed

Yes, it's true. I never much liked or had any desire to talk to or be friends with Canada's "Madame" Crawley. She always was much too busy servicing all the men that flocked to flop and spend the night at her high-rise apartment near the beach, especially those dippity dumb MK guys Warren (MK-Uruguay) and Tim (MK-Nicaragua). Why does she even pretend to be a Christian and attend church when she obviously has no brains in her sick Canadian snowbrain head? I have heard what people said about her behind her back, and also the things that people say about stupid Canadians who flock to South Florida and never have a clue about how rude they are and how nobody really likes them and wishes they would get a clue and go back to Canada, and I can't say that they were wrong. Just because she got married later to a U.S. guy who lives at the airport, that doesn't mean that her opinion is worth two cents, at least in my humble opinion.

Bottled

During my second semester at Evangel, my roommate in Spence Third North was Jan Green. She was a wild and worldly redhead except that her red hair actually came out of a bottle so she really does not represent redheads in any real way and is not an example of redheads. She proves that lots of wild and worldly women are actually not redheads and so there is no direct correlation.

The Problem With Canadians

The problem with Canadians is they come down here and impose on us their alternate reality, as if their opinions ever mattered to us in the formation of our country. Ha! We cannot have these stupid socialist Canadians running our country. We are independent of Canada in case the wicked Canadians forgot. We need to remind these Wicked Canadians more often that they really have no choice in the matter of what I do with my life or where I go. If I choose not to discuss my personal business with Canada's demon trash Ann Campbell, that is no big deal. We are not impressed with these stupid socialist Canadians who come down here and pretend to be part of the elite rocket scientist immigrants who were brought in here to show us how to run our lives. That's ridiculous. There are plenty of U.S. well trained nurses to fill the hospital staff when the Canadians go back to Canada where they belong, in case they forgot. If Canada is such a great place to live and if Canadians are so smart, then I really think the Canadians should just stay in Canada or go back to their idealic country because we would be just fine without them and their alternate reality, thanks anyway.

Known By The Company You Keep

We see those poor empty-headed boys Thomas and Raymond thinking that the only word in the English dictionary starts with a big F. Wrong! There are so many other words in the English language so rich in meaning and depth and clarity of understanding. How sad that those two guys have been spending way too much time hanging out with foul-mouthed Canadian demon-witch Ann Campbell. Obviously. It is so easy for the incredibly wicked nasty Canadian Ann Campbell to buy friends. She is so very rich and has so much money that obviously everyone takes everything that Ann Campbell says way too seriously. Ann Campbell is one of the dumbest people I ever knew. She is a classic example of spoiled rotten rich kid, one whose opinion is given way too much importance given the lack of content contained in her empty head. It is not like I ever had a chance to tell dippity dumb Ann anything. She was always trained from the beginning to hate my guts because I never did have the money that Susie did nor the Stewart connections, nor did I ever try to pretend such but try to explain that to these little spoiled rich brats who sit around gossiping and collaborating on their fictional works behind my back. Besides, I never did have patience to fawn all over these pompous little rich kids the way that the Stewarts did. Down there, it is easy for these Scottish pretenders to use their vast wealth to buy friends and followers but that is just not my thing. That was never my modus operandi, my reason for being. Obviously, those people seem to think that all missionaries are pretenders to royalty but actually it is only the Stewarts and the Campbells that I know of who ever did that. The rest of us just suffer by comparison because it is just part of the company that we have to keep. I am not really one of them but it is hard to explain this.

Tom

I have no idea what Tom's problem is. I just don't remember much of anything about Tom. His oral book reports in class always put me into a deep sleep. I always thought he was such a boring guy with nothing of interest to say. I cannot remember a single thing that Tom ever said except for the time that I was stuck in a small group and he and Raymond were saying mostly F— F— F—. It is sad that those two guys were not born with brains so they have nothing intelligent to say. They have no vocabulary, obviously, or they would be able to articulate their deep and abiding hatred for me which knows no bounds. Whatever that means. I just couldn't care less about Tom and his empty mind so all this hubbub about Tom means nothing to me. It's just ridiculous.

Stuart Pretenders

Oh yes, I forgot. There is yet another pretender to the Stuart throne of Scotland, a Polish count or something like that. Perhaps he is some sort of cousin or kin to the Smeyas and that is why we have this Polish shrew screaming in that background about her son Roy who as we all have heard spends a lot of time checking in and out of depressionville. How bizarre! And how were we to know that all of these people we thought were simply our friends and co-workers and classmates were actually pretenders? That they had so-called Stuart monarchy connections? We had no idea. I know I certainly never gave it a thought. It is so weird how these Stuart pretenders pretend to be better than me even when they just have a lot more money to throw around because of their royal connections to elaborate their pretentions upon which they hope to build a global throneroom or something like that. We have no preference for any of these Stuart pretenders. Don't these people realize that we do not have any monarchs here in America? I do not think that we even have any Chinese monarch in our connections either. How common are these royal Chinese surnames anyway? This is all just so ridiculous. It's cruel to put me at the crux of this blob of nothingness.

Clock

I never opened my Christmas presents before time, but I do remember one Christmas that my parents put a certain box under tree. The box was still ticking when they put it under the tree so obviously it was a clock, even though it wound down later. No surprise there.

What is Faith?

According to the Bible, faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
And yet there is no evidence that I have anything to hope for. I never get what I want. I feel ridiculous if I even try to pray because it is just ridiculous thinking that I have any hope of anything. Don't I know that I have been cursed by all kinds of important, rich, powerful people and condemned to a life of uselessness for some mysterious reason? It's almost like those stupid rich people think that I am a snake that should be crawling around on its belly for the rest of its life. How utterly absurd and ridiculous! It is no wonder that that the sacred cows are now locked away in an insane asylum so that their drugged out hallucinations do not spill over onto the rest of the population. What did I do to deserve this horrible curse of being treated like a crawling snake? I just cannot imagine. And how could anything good ever come of anything that I ever think of doing, especially with all of these wicked rich people leering down at me from their lofty perches, because I am under this curse and tripping me every time I turn around? God must really hate me to treat me in this horrible way. That's all I can say about that. By their logic, then, the Bible is just a bunch of gibberish and all of His promises are false and church is a farcical exercise in futility. I don't really believe that but I am just repeating whatever they say, obviously, because, after all, I am a copycat and I reflect whatever they want. It's not like I have any choice in the matter. I reflect snakes because they are snakes. That's all.

Fasting

Yes, I am well aware of the biblical prescription and instructions on fasting. I vaguely remember talking to Mark Brown in the lunchroom and he was making all kinds of snide remarks about Lee Bueno's book on fasting and how fasting is supposed to be a secret and so basically it would be sort of annoying to have to promote Lee's book. One would come off sounding so pretentious and phony and hypocritical, sort of like those drugged out dogs of Northern California. I sort of agree with Mark in a way although Mark is too extreme. Mark thinks that it is wrong to have any book on fasting ever written or published. I think Mark is an off-the-wall Baptist extremist. I think there is a place for books on fasting in the Christian book marketplace. I imagine there are probably hundreds of books about fasting available if one wants to look for one and buy one. I personally would not buy Lee's book mainly for personal reasons, because in my experience it is well proven that she is one of the nastiest meanest people on the planet and I am not going to give that Wicked Witch a place to tell me anything and run my life into the ground promoting her own family's vast wealth at my expense, not because there is necessarily anything wrong with fasting or reading or writing a book about fasting. So I disagree with Mark on many points. So that's my opinion, not that I would ever dare to say what I really think about those people in public. It would be too risky and dangerous. Lee would have my chopped head on platter, that's how mean and nasty she is, obviously.

British Petroleum

All of which begs the question: Why does BP hate us so much? Since when does BP care about Texas oil? Don't they have enough oil sources all over the world? Why make this such a personal vendetta? Is it because my grandfather happened to be Scottish? Like, why should that matter? Are there no other oil companies out there investigating the validity of mineral rights claims in the United States? Certainly the land is the territory of neither Spain nor Britain, and no Spanish or British claims would be upheld in a court of law, obviously, so I don't see why all of this should escalate into an international incident. Obviously the owners should be U.S. citizens and that is all that should matter to them. The Baptists never did anything to deserve it any more than anyone else, obviously, and do not have even a shred of legal standing in this regard so there is no reason to consult their selfish and greedy opinions. Certainly, the extraction of oil would not make us all that rich anyway. Assuming that drilling ever did occur, which has not happened in all these many years, and assuming there actually were oil down there, even though they often would have us believe there is nothing there, we would only get a small percentage of which ten percent would be tithed to the church but not necessarily the Baptists and anyway I probably would not even have a chance to decide that because I will be dead and gone long before anything could ever happen, having been murdered by everyone I ever trusted, because it just takes too long and I am not immortal and who knows, the longer this is delayed the more the Baptists will take every opportunity to grandstand and finagle even if it doesn't belong to them and it's really none of their business. And who is that horrible lady who owns some of the land nearby but has nothing of ours so it is none of her business? With their meddling way the Baptists will be ruining it for everyone else, and especially for me. I am not immortal and there is no reason to count my chickens before they hatch so I am just a sitting duck, a dead sitting duck. There is no reason to assume that I would ever derive any benefit from something that does not belong to me anyway so this is just an exercise in futility.

Speaking of Christmas

Speaking of Christmas, I vaguely remember that during my first newspaper job in Central Florida, while I was assigned to cover the goings on at Dundee Town Hall, the mayor and city council at the time made a big fuss about Christmas. Every year they placed a creche or nativity scene on public land near the town hall. This particular year they received a letter from the ACLU requesting the removal of the creche from public land. The mayor of the city made a big dramatic statement about that in her remarks from the podium. So I dutifully reported this incident in the bi-weekly newspaper. The reporter for the competing newspaper also reported the story in the larger daily newspaper. Her story was more spun in favor of the ACLU and basically ignored the city's reaction whereas my story was more reported in terms of reporting the mayor's comments about the city's determination to continue defying the ACLU. That was in about 1989 or 1990. I have not been back to Dundee since being reassigned out of Dundee so cannot comment on subsequent city councils or whether they still have a creche there on public land or not. It could get very expensive for the city if the ACLU decides to take the battle over Christmas to the courts so I think it is very reasonable for them not to have a creche simply for that reason. No one is paying my salary so there is no reason for me to say anything else about that. There is only a story if people talk. Talk is cheap, certainly, no matter what angle you take. As for my personal Christmas and what Christmas decor may or may not exist in my house, it's just none of your business. I wouldn't want the ACLU showing up at my doorstep, you see, so I will just keep it to myself, thanks anyway.

Speaking of Books

Yes, I vaguely remember that Miriam Denham, Bob Hoskins' joke-cracking and shorthand whiz secretary and Susie's erstwhile roommate, mentioning that she wants to write a book. And who wouldn't want to write a book? I also might have mentioned that idea to other listening posts at some time in my life. Every day thousands of books are published by thousands of authors so this is nothing unusual. Lee Bueno might like to imagine herself the only creditable book author in Christendom, and that with only one published title to her name, and yet hundreds of other Christians also have many books published and write books of many kinds all the time so it is not really such an unusual thing to want to write a book. I fail to see why it should matter that someone says that. It is a long way from saying that to actually getting a book published, certainly, but anyway talk is cheap.

Speaking of Susan

I fail to see why I should rearrange my entire life to make room for the nothingness of fat ugly Susan. Just because her last name is really Stewart, that does not mean that she is closely related to the Stuarts, especially not Jon Stuart, or that she is really an heir to the throne of Scotland or England. Ha ha ha! Do not make me laugh. This is too stupid for jokes. Some pathetically ignorant peons of Latin America may be inordinately impressed with persons by the last name of Stuart/Stewart for that very reason, because of the lingering legends of ancient Scottish history, but that does not justify capitalizing on the misunderstanding and confusion of them by setting oneself up as some sort of aristocrat of royal ancestry in their eyes when actually one's ancestors were just regular folks, farmers and ranchers or something like that. The actual recognized descendants of the Stuart monarchy now live in Spain, as we read in the celebrity gossip mags. They mostly speak Spanish probably and have no kingdom or Scottish subjects to justify any claim to political power even if they may have a lot of money and influential friends. The Stuarts were never elected president of Scotland and it is doubtful that anyone living would want to return to the days of absolute monarchy when the people just didn't have any choice and were captive to the whims of despots and tyrants. The world has changed and there is no one living who can predict what will happen to them in the future one way or another. Still, I fail to see why my life should be placed on hold to accommodate for Susan's big fat mouth when actually they are always playing the field against me behind my back.

Typing Test

I vaguely remember that during the time I was living in Virginia Beach that some person from the Pat Robertson for President office called me about applying for a job. I went over there and took some sort of maybe a typing test. However, it was too late for me. Within the next week that campaign was over and the office was being dismantled so obviously they never called me back for a job, not that I was expecting anything. It just wasn't meant to be, as they say.

Stupid Letters

I see no reason why I should apologize to Lori for the fake love letters that my sister wrote unbenknownst to me. My sister and some other girl, a tenth grade classmate of my sister who was in tenth grade at that time, came up with that little plot all on their own without consulting me in any way and I only learned of it after the fact. My mother explained to me that my sister had gone to apologize to Lori and, well, their friendship always was a lot more frosty after that. My sister and that other girl put fake love letters in Lori's locker supposedly addressed from some guy, I am not sure whether real or fictitious. I have no idea where my sister came up with that bizarre scheme but she always did love to pull various pranks. She really doesn't care and in fact enjoys the sight of me getting perturbed at having all my stuff strewn around all over the place. She has no thought or regard for the feelings of the victims of her pranks. In fact, she thinks it is very funny to watch me getting angrier and angrier until finally I reach the boiling point. My mother always told me to ignore her but it's really hard to continue doing that when she just won't stop.

The Problem With Baptists

The problem with Baptists is that they are not really Spirit-filled Christians. They might be saved but that is about all one can say about the blah boring Baptist Bells and Reeces. Beyond that minor point, the Baptists are indistinguishable from the masses of Christian religiosity, just more purveyors of lifestyle and social standing at whatever the cost may be. The Baptists assail us with curses and slander because, obviously, they are not Spirit-filled Christians. If they were Spirit-filled they wouldn't be saying those things. Their only concern is their social standing in terms of appearances. Do they seem like "good" people? Well, that is nice and well and good, but it does not mean that we are obligated in any way to "like" them. There is no law requiring us to invite the Bells and the Reeces over for dinner and I don't think that we ever did. I do remember being at the Bells' house once or twice and it was always such a boring and miserable experience to be screamed at by Shannon and to have to sit there and listen to Lori's boring Dad, Jerry Reece, talking about how she is pretty enough to be Miss America. She does have a certain flair for looking like a fashion model but I don't remember her ever saying anything of any significance. For them, it's just all about appearances. Beyond that, there is really nothing to say about those boring people. They think that speaking in tongues is of the devil, they don't believe that God heals, they think they know everything, so obviously it would be hard to have any cooperation with them in terms of the local work. Obviously they are not flowing in the Spirit and would be a huge stumbling block if allowed to control us. We give them a little rein in some areas but we have to keep them on a tight rein because we cannot let them run our lives or be in control. They would just run everything into the ground, obviously.

Shoot

Which does make me wonder where that expression comes from: "Shoot McGroot"? A shortened version of it, just "shoot," was apparently in common circulation in the 1960s, but it wasn't about just randomly shooting people. It was about shooting a certain person who was blamed for everything, a sort of scapegoat you might say, McGroot. Is there a need to pin the blame on someone? Well, the solution is to just "Shoot McGroot"! That apparently solves everything although not really. It is just a joke from more ancient times than I can recall. We children were just the little parrots echoing the joke from an earlier age. McGroot himself might not think it very funny, however, to have everyeone's garbage dumped on him, certainly.

Christmas Junk

Yes, I fell myself under no obligation to join the mob for Pastor's Christmas Knick-Knack parade.  I am not going to say anything about my non-involvement for fear of being labeled some sort of public Scrooge. However, knick knack paddy wack give the dog a bone. Personally speaking, I can't think of a more trivial and worthless cause upon which to waste my time and energies than that of the right of private citizens to force the government to plant manger scenes and creches on public lands. Like, so? And what sort of fruit will this Catholic ritualistic parade of bric-a-brac produce, may I ask? Sometimes these so-called "Southern" pastors get off on these extremist tangents and what can we poor parishioners do about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing. If we force public acceptance of creches and manger scenes, who is going to block the installment of gigantic Buddha statues and various other symbols of polytheistic and pantheistic and occultic religions embraced by these peoples immigrating here from all corners of the planet? I just don't see why anyone would give priority to this type of religious statement at the expense of the true spirit of Christmas. Jesus really was God having taken on flesh, appearing in human form to meet with us here on earth so he is worthy of our praise and worship. However, some symbolic likeness fashioned by human hands just isn't the same thing. I seriously doubt that early Christians placed any faith in artistic representations of Jesus. That stuff developed later. It is good to be reminded of the historical Jesus always. However, God is spirit and the early church knew that true worship is expressed in spirit and in truth. If no manger scenes existed, would it matter? Would the Holy Spirit be any less powerful if we did not have to fill our houses with bells and baubles and other holiday junk for the season, if in fact we were not even able to do so for some unforeseen reason? What does Christmas really mean anyway? It makes you wonder.

Skipping School

I vaguely remember hearing the story about the younger brother of Libby Penders, the redhead in our high school class, who was removed from school by their mother and forced to stay home and pray because of the impending end of the world as per their Jehovah's Witnesss beliefs. I cannot remember who told me that story or whether there was ever any resolution to that or change in that situation, just that she had a younger brother that no one ever saw because he was not in school. Just because I was never glimpsed in dummies' English, that does not mean that I was not there in school, just never in dummies English. Obviously I am not in any way related to Libby Penders even though she may have red hair although much frizzier than mine and lighter more flaming shade of red as well as freckles and blue eyes. I suppose there are those who think all white people look the same to them but no we are not related to Libby in any way.

Linda Bosley

We all know that Linda Bosley is just another horrid nasty Baptist bitch, just like all the other mewling cows that are produced by this "process." We don't want Linda Bosley hanging around thinking that we would ever want to be friends with such a nasty horrible person as putrid Linda Bosley and her worthless family. I am just saying that I don't know they find all these fat ugly props for the show because they are nothing "special."

Possessed

Yes, it is unfortunate that my own sister is possessed by a host of demon spirits. I am not exactly who they all are although I have an idea but they will need to be cast out from my life. I cannot have putrid Linda Bosley demanding my attention. Why should I pretend to care about her screechy-voiced trashy slut daughter? I cannot have these Episcopalian nerds pretending to be Protestants when actually they are much closer to Catholicism than I ever dreamed of. It is hard for those Anglers to understand the radicalness of my faith. They cannot imagine their own sinful condition and are always trying to project it onto me. I remember Pastor Max of one of his stupid idiot lackeys saying that if you criticize somone then you are guilty of what you are criticizing in others. I somewhat disagree with that insinuation. Just because I have accused Pastor Webber of being a child molester, this does not make me guilty of the same sin by virtue of having lodged an accusation, (not that I ever was aware of this to be in a position to accuse ). The truth is that I have not caused any little ones to stumble. If my sister stumbled it was because she tripped herself knowing full well that she should not be running whilst carrying a glass bottle in her hand. I did not trip her. I also ran but did not fall but I did not cause her to fall. It is quite possible that she would not have fallen if she had not been so eager to outrun me but that is her own pride, not my problem.