Thursday, February 15, 2007
5 Slightly Odd Things
1. I used to be a conservative Christian. (Wait, I thought this was a list of 5 Shameful Things...) My high school research paper defended censorship in school libraries. I attended a youth group cookout where they wanted to burn my brand new Bryan Adams concert t-shirt. While visiting my aunt in NYC when I was a kid, she wanted me to harass a gay couple walking through Central Park. "They probably wouldn't say anything to you, Chrissy." Once I had a horrible kidney infection, and the church men annointed me with oil and prayed over me. I'm told it worked. I didn't remember any of this until recently, and now I only vaguely can picture the tall men in suits murmuring prayers, eyes closed, each placing his right hand on my back or shoulder. My mom says I was going to have to go on dialysis.
2. I'm not baptized. This is odd, I suppose, after reading number one on my list. Recently Carlin and Kelly had Baby Ruth baptized. Tripper was signed on as godfather. Tripper's Grandmother Vandervort was pleased, but mostly relieved. "Your great-grandmother let your grandfather go to war without being baptized! He always thought he was, but he wasn't. What if something happened??" I wisely said nothing-- a red letter day, for sure. At my church, infants weren't baptized. Instead, you chose to get baptized when you became born again. I guess I just never felt it. As I became older, the thought of our televangelist, red comb-over and all, plunging me into the baptismal in front of everyone became less and less desirable. It was the 80's, after all. I had failed swimming in junior high for the very same reason: it took too long to do the hair.
3. Sloth is my favorite deadly sin. I can watch Bridezillas for 12 hours straight, and have. I really want to be a person who has to get right up in the morning and work, work, work away before the day is wasted, but I can't. I like to get up, check email and blogs, eat breakfast, then take a nap. Thousands of years ago, I most likely would have been shunned, left to die upon the veldt.
4. I wouldn't mind being donated to science when I die. By donated to science, I mean the whole shebang-- eyes, organs, etc., but also my body. My limbs. My head. Yes, I could be a cadaver used for educational purposes by pre-med students. Tripper won't promise me this. He says if I go first, he'll have me cremated (another wish), he'll have a memorial party, he'll even allow Monster Ballads to be played. He won't, however, subject me to being taken to parties and wearing funny hats. He knows that this is the fate of cadavers. I say, why should my afterlife be any different than my actual life? He won't budge.
5. I'm not a huge fan of books, DVDs, stuff. Tripper has called me Der Fuhrer because of it. I got rid of a box of his paperback books, or pressured him to get rid of it, because we were moving, and they stunk. They smelled musty, mildewy. Their pages could hardly be turned. Another time, he brought home a box of a hundred books or so, books that his boss's wife wanted out of their own house. I was not pleased. Tripper, in his defense, has worked his way through most of them, but I think there are still dozens taking up space in one of our closets and on our shelves, shelves where we could put books and things we actually choose to have. When I get new things, I get rid of old things. If something comes into the house, something must exit. (Maybe that's why we don't have kids. Tripper's probably afraid that he'd have to go.) When Tripper's grandmother Suffolk moved from her house into my mother-in-law's home, we had to downsize an entire life. Someday we'll have to do this for my mother-in-law, and that will take years.
I'm slightly odd, it seems. I'd be perfectly happy lying in a state of sloth on the veldt, bereft of books and DVDs, just waiting for my unbaptized soul to leave my body.
2. I'm not baptized. This is odd, I suppose, after reading number one on my list. Recently Carlin and Kelly had Baby Ruth baptized. Tripper was signed on as godfather. Tripper's Grandmother Vandervort was pleased, but mostly relieved. "Your great-grandmother let your grandfather go to war without being baptized! He always thought he was, but he wasn't. What if something happened??" I wisely said nothing-- a red letter day, for sure. At my church, infants weren't baptized. Instead, you chose to get baptized when you became born again. I guess I just never felt it. As I became older, the thought of our televangelist, red comb-over and all, plunging me into the baptismal in front of everyone became less and less desirable. It was the 80's, after all. I had failed swimming in junior high for the very same reason: it took too long to do the hair.
3. Sloth is my favorite deadly sin. I can watch Bridezillas for 12 hours straight, and have. I really want to be a person who has to get right up in the morning and work, work, work away before the day is wasted, but I can't. I like to get up, check email and blogs, eat breakfast, then take a nap. Thousands of years ago, I most likely would have been shunned, left to die upon the veldt.
4. I wouldn't mind being donated to science when I die. By donated to science, I mean the whole shebang-- eyes, organs, etc., but also my body. My limbs. My head. Yes, I could be a cadaver used for educational purposes by pre-med students. Tripper won't promise me this. He says if I go first, he'll have me cremated (another wish), he'll have a memorial party, he'll even allow Monster Ballads to be played. He won't, however, subject me to being taken to parties and wearing funny hats. He knows that this is the fate of cadavers. I say, why should my afterlife be any different than my actual life? He won't budge.
5. I'm not a huge fan of books, DVDs, stuff. Tripper has called me Der Fuhrer because of it. I got rid of a box of his paperback books, or pressured him to get rid of it, because we were moving, and they stunk. They smelled musty, mildewy. Their pages could hardly be turned. Another time, he brought home a box of a hundred books or so, books that his boss's wife wanted out of their own house. I was not pleased. Tripper, in his defense, has worked his way through most of them, but I think there are still dozens taking up space in one of our closets and on our shelves, shelves where we could put books and things we actually choose to have. When I get new things, I get rid of old things. If something comes into the house, something must exit. (Maybe that's why we don't have kids. Tripper's probably afraid that he'd have to go.) When Tripper's grandmother Suffolk moved from her house into my mother-in-law's home, we had to downsize an entire life. Someday we'll have to do this for my mother-in-law, and that will take years.
I'm slightly odd, it seems. I'd be perfectly happy lying in a state of sloth on the veldt, bereft of books and DVDs, just waiting for my unbaptized soul to leave my body.
# posted by Chrissy Snow @ 2/15/2007 06:05:00 AM 
