wish you were here

I was supposed to go to a show tonight. Actually, I was supposed to go to said show to get paid, neither of which happened.

I feel really strange. Sad in a way, defiant in another way, but mostly I’m tired.

The thing I hate most about a trip is the packing part. I usually wait until the day that I’m leaving to actually pack, since there’s always something I bury that I need to use before I leave. But I have most everything organized in haphazard piles for now until tomorrow afternoon.

And I’ve been tying up loose ends, like talking to legal people, paying bills, finishing laundry, cleaning the house, quitting the freelance job.

Oh yeah, that last thing. My editor was very nice about it. Actually he gave me a few things to do while I’m on vacation to turn in when I get back as a going-away gift. Bastard.

But it always seems like the most simple things, like making mix CDs for the trip, somehow always end up being a project.

Last weekend, I made the mistake of getting into a religious conversation.

I was a Religious Studies minor in college. Ever since I started writing at the age of fifteen, I’ve been facinated by the Bible. At first it was a writing tool to stick some ideas in my brain for stories. Later, in college, it became something to analyze and argue over, to agree with and debunk, to study and read out of sheer curiosity. I’ve had profs who were ministers re-read passages that mean one thing into completely different meanings, and other profs who were agnostics take passages literally, so I’ve seen all different kinds of sides.

I, by my religious nature anyway, am pagan. I do believe in One Force, but you can worship that force using more than one face. I’m not Wiccan, because in my own experience, masculine forces have always been incomfortable to me– although I do believe in the balance of male/female, I lean towards feminine aspects. (That would also explain my abrasiveness towards the idea of an Almighty Father and worshipping Jesus.) I don’t need an altar or statue per se to visualize, but I do believe that prayer/meditation is the most effective method for communication. I’ve been studying the craft since I was sixteen, and initiated myself when I was twenty. I used to be a practicing witch, but after some residue effects from various acts of karma, I’ve stopped binding spells so that I frankly won’t fuck anything else up in my life. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.

I’ve had Bible Study with devout people before. I’ve even had many positive conversations with my cousin, who is an ordained Catholic Priest and fully knows my religious beliefs but respects my differences.

But, like this weekend, because I know so much about Christianity and am not of that faith, I end up falling into being asked if I am Christian. Usually my response is, “I was raised Cathlolic, I was a Religious Studies minor, but I like to keep my daily devotions in my own home, so I don’t belong to a particular church.” That usually keeps things nice and vague.

I usually don’t openly acknowledge that I’m pagan only for the sake of immediate dismissal. I usually get the line, “Oh, you know that’s worshipping Satan, right?”

“Actually, I don’t believe in Satan, and I don’t believe in Hell, either.”

“Then how are people punished?”

“Usually through Karma (or as you would say it, “God’s hand”).” Then there’s the usual afterlife discussion about where bad people go when they die, blah blah.

So, this time around, I just said my usual line and then just nodded and filled in the blanks for everything else. And it’s not that I don’t respect the energy of new converts and their ambitions to spread the gospel, in fact I wish more people would be into God in a positive way that’s less psychotically fundamentalist and more spiritually aware. I just don’t like being told that the most private and comfortable thing in the world to me is wrong. I know that the devout accept the Bible as absolute truth, that’s all fine and dandy. I would just hope that more converts would take the Bible into its own context and actually read about other religions in a quest-for-knowledge aspect rather than convincing themselves that reading another religious text somehow violates their own beliefs. It’s only because you’re insecure in your faith that you would believe that.

But again, when I give out my email address, I am the PickyWitch. It throws people off. And it makes me laugh.

Okay, is it bad that I don’t want to take a break and just see how much more I can churn out today?

No. Must eat.

…and another 2500 at Roma. And I even hung out with people.

I might be able to be close to finishing by bed this evening.

3000 words. Gotta love that.

Of course, I haven’t eaten today and my plan is to head to Roma to try and be even more productive. Caffiene on an empty stomach could get interesting.

Yeah. So I’m sitting here with this thing open when I just as well could be doing work.

DJ Shadow was absolutely sick tonight.

I’ve been going to a lot of good shows lately. Make me happy. Make me forget about things.

It was really nice just to hang out with my brother, turn him onto some new music, celebrate his birthday kinda chill-like.

Probably the nicest thing about the whole evening was that this was one of the first shows where I didn’t run into any local musicians. But I almost got groped by some random dude, which was not good, considering I was wearing my thick-soled orange-flame shoes that lift me about 3 inches taller. He wouldn’t want me to kick him with those.

I’ve been getting very little work done the past couple of days. Mostly because I’ve been back and forth at work. Today was one of those days when I looked at the screen and knew exactly what was going to happen next but I had to shoehorn it out, excruciatingly, with only a 600 words-or-so result. Even though I’m close, I’m not close. I know how my ending is going to be, but I just have to fill in the gaps with about 8,000 words which in about 2 days is going to be… a challenge. I might be able to get a little in before I head to bed here.

And I almost forgot to mention this: if you know anything about the travelogue you know that I had a picture signed that one of my best friends Roz drew for me. She drew it as practice for a painting she was doing for me, and gave it to me for shits and giggles, and I promised her that the next time I saw Neil I would have him sign it. And he was gracious enough to scribble on it, and I got it framed. Two inspirations in one frame hanging right above me on the wall.

Makes me happy.

I don’t mind going to work really. It’s just worse when you really know what’s going on.

Yeah. And stuff.