That's the spirit!

I've found a couple of sites that might help me sort out the remains of my spiritual side.
Abe's Atheventures is an account of one man's quest to educate the masses that God is fake.
The Daily Scribe is a collection of spirited bloggers representing a broad swath of faith backgrounds...they're looking for progressive Muslim blogs, so if you know of any, help make some connections.

But Ah luv Uh'mair'kuh!

You Are 35% American

America: You don't love it or want to leave it. But you wouldn't mind giving it an extreme make over. On the 4th of July, you'll fly a freak flag instead... And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch!

How American Are You?

Petty Thievery

There's a small fig bush along one of my dog-walking routes. About a month ago, I noticed that it had a fair number of green figs developing, and I was reminded of warm, sweet figs on my neighbor's fig bushes in Lufkin. I've been keeping an eye on the figs since then. Yesterday, I saw that one of them was gentle purple, not yet ripe enough to eat, but almost there. Fearing that a crow or squirrel might deny me a small pleasure, I plucked the fig from the bush and walked away with Toby. I heard someone call out, but didn't think they were addressing me.

When Toby decided to do his business, near the end of the block, I glanced back and saw a man examininig the fig bush. I do believe my small theft was observed.

Heaven

What might heaven be like?
-warm, fresh-baked brownies and ice-cold milk
-snuggling with your favorite snuggler
-afternoons of rope-swinging from tall, ancient sycamore trees

My theory of how heaven might work is like this: when you die, you go somewhere where you're confronted by all the crap things you ever did in your life. You are filled with empathy for those who received the brunt of your doings. To deal with the despair, which overwhelms you, you are wracked with sobs that last a proportionate length of time to how crappy you've been. As soon as you start your crying, someone appears (not God or Jesus or Buddha, just someone who has already spent some time in heaven) and they hold you and comfort you for as long as you need, smothering you with understanding, unconditional acceptance and forgiveness. Once you've been comforted, you then get as many opportunities as needed to be the comforting arms/legs/presences of the newly dead. Everyone who dies goes through this, and heaven is thus populated with eager grief councelors who spend eternity comforting the newly dead and anguished. Down times are spent consuming brownies and milk, snuggling, rope-swinging, and whatever else can be done.

This theory appeals to both my revulsion of retribution theology and my desire to have people understand the consequences of their crappy words and actions.

Wind in my hair

I've now experienced LA the way God intended, from a convertible. Ford Focus, your days are numbered.

Pew Blogger Survey

I stumbled across this survey yesterday. Taking it, I asked myself why I blog. I know a handful of people check this blog occasionally, but I'm not really sure why. I'm not a poet or song writer or photographer or essayist, just a guy ambling about a few parts of LA, trying to get his head on gaily forward, rediscovering himself and building a home with a wonderful man. When I read Raul's blog, I read art and poetry and contemplation. When I read Kuntry Konfession, I find satire and humor.

If you read this blog, let me know why you read it, why you read other blogs, and what you're looking for as you surf the blogosphere.

If you're a blogger, I recommend taking the Pew survey. It's fairly harmless.
http://jonsnook.blogspot.com/2006/06/jay-hooks.html
And as I questioned before, Jay Hooks, where are you?

Pop Tarts and cookie trails

Some people like Pop Tarts (I do!), some people don't. Similarly, some people have pop-ups enabled, others have them blocked. I've changed one of my blog settings so that if you want to comment on any of my posts, you won't get a pop-up window.

I have no idea if more of you will [be able to] comment now, but I thought I'd give it a go. It's fun reading your comments. Gives me a sense of being connected somehow, kind of like having pen pals (which I failed at as a kid).

A shout out to Raul "Tony" Gutierrez' recent post on being cool.

Cookie trails are fun to follow. Gvisit.com lost some data in a recent blackout, and my visitors prior to Aug. 2 are lost forever until they return to my page (sigh).

Treadmill Choreography

Watch this!

Vampires and Apocalypse

I'm reading two books right now. S.E. Hinton's "Hawkes Harbor" is an intriguing vampire tale. I picked this up in a drugstore near my former psychiatrist's office, initially intrigued when my eye caught the author's name on the cover. I loved Hinton's "The Outsiders," "That Was Then, This Is Now" and "Rumblefish" as a kid. Now I'm a fan of her adult-targeted fare.

In "Messiah" by Andrei Codrescu (author and NPR commentator extraordinaire), two young women are being slowly drawn to each other from New Orleans and Jerusalem, as part of the coming end of the age as we know it. Spirits and the internet are major players as well. This is my first reading of Codrescu's work, and I'm hooked.

Celebrating Rob Meunier

We've been busy at work, dealing with personnel changes and planning a memorial gathering for a staff member who died recently.

High today in downtown LA in the 70s. I thought it would be hotter here.