Religions Inc.

Work was great today! Now isn't that a nice thing to say for a change? Things went so smoothly, I got out of there early even! Maybe there's hope for me after all. I had a nice Mother's day weekend too. My boyfriend's mother came up for a visit and we had a fun time going out for pizza, playing dominoes, eating cake, and going out to Applebee's.

I got my mother The Davinci Code book for Mother's day. She is currently taking a class at church that is designed to inform its participants the real "truth" about Jesus. So I told her that she could read it and have all the angles covered. It's really a good book. I was skeptical at first. I thought that because it was such a popular cultural phenomenom (something outageous like 40 million copies sold, and a new movie starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard no less is coming out next week)it might actually be crap, but it's really not. I almost NEVER read fiction so this is a real departure for me. This book is a real page-turner. But before everybody gets their panties in a bunch they need to realize that this is a work of FICTION. The events are based on ancient historical documents, but to me this information is just as intangible as the Bible. There is supposed evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they had a daughter, so there is a continuation of the bloodline in this world today. The Holy Grail is not the chalice used in the Last Supper, but it's the tomb of Mary Magdalene instead. But to me, this so called proof is just about as authentic as everything the Bible says about Jesus in the Old Testament. How do you know what's true? We don't know. That's why you just have to choose to believe what you want to believe. All I would really like to know is if Jesus really did exsist for real. I don't care about his realtionship with Mary Magdalene. I'm going to CHOOSE to believe that he was the son of God, because I like that concept, that someone would DIE FOR ME so that I would have eternal life. I just want to know if that's really true or not is all.

But with all that said, I hope my mom actually reads this book. If she's gonna get upset about a controversial cultural topic, she needs to know what she's talking about at least. There is another story out there that differs from the Bible and apparently it's been around for centuries. People need to know that. Here's one more thing: one of the main characters talks about the Bible as a string of metaphors. Now THAT, is FOR REAL TRUE. Next time you go to church, count the number of metaphors the pastor uses. The more charismatic the church the more similitudes you hear. I'll give you an example. Today the pastor was saying "You need to let the Spirit stir you." Now what is that really supposed to mean? A literal meaning I guess would be to be thinking about what God wants you to do with your time. But then, how do you really know what God wants? You read the bible to get a clue. It just sounds more spiritual to use that exemplification doesn't it?

Sigh. I could go on and on about religion couldn't I? But I won't. Let's get to the Humanities section, OK?

Book I'm currently reading: Oh take a wild guess (The Davinci Code)! Also, Anderson Cooper is on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair. I love this guy and I love CNN so it's a great issue. The background is a bright blue, and it just matches his eyes perfectly.

Best Album I Listened To: I really heard James Blunt's "Your'e Beautiful" this week. You know how when a popular song is played over and over again on the radio and VH1, you've heard it a million times but you don't really GET it. Well this week I was washing dishes and listening to my Ipod just doing the shuffle songs thing, and this came on. I listened to it in it's entirety and it's like I heard it for the first time. The most interesting thing was I discovered that there is a different version for the album, than the radio version, and just one single word changes the context completely. It's this:

Well she caught my eye
As she walked on by
She could see from my face that I was
Fucking high
I don't think that I'll see her again...

Now in the radio version, he sings "Flying high" instead. Yeah, it's not much different I know and maybe it wasn't meant to be, and I'm just reading too much into this, but to me, saying "fucking high" just gives the whole song much more clarity. I guess I just thought that the lyric "flying high" was an ebullience about how thrilling it was to see such a gorgeous creature, but now I can totally see somebody wasted out of their fucking gourd seeing a beautiful woman on a subway and then launching into this whole fantasy trip about her and then feeling so ashamed and worthless, druggie that he is, and singing

And I don't know what to do
'Cause I'll never be with you

See what I mean? The first time I heard this song I thought it was a little preposterous that a guy would see a pretty girl on a train and go to such great lengths to rhapsodize about a complete stranger, but when you know that everything that girl symbolizes and represents, is something you'll never have because you're a piece of shit and you know it, well that makes a lot more sense doesn't it?

Which is a perfect segue for Best Movie I Saw This Week: Dope Sick Love. This is a documentary on HBO about two couples who live on the streets of New York and they're junkies. The saddest part is that they each got some sort of help, but because they are such addicts they went right back to it within days of stopping. I'm so glad this was never my life and it only served to remind me of the lifestyle my ex-husband lived when we were together and still continues to live to this day.

Top News Story: The current CIA chief Porter Goss resigned this week. Why? Well the details are sketchy but it's starting to come out that he was involved with parties and hookers in a Washington hotel room on many occasions. Oh whatever. Jeez. We all want to be P. Diddy for a night sometimes. Just because this guy was the head of the CIA doesn't change that. His replacement is controversial because he's an Air Force General or something like that. People say there shouldn't be a connection between the military and the CIA. Excuse me? I thought there always was anyway.

Well, I gotta wrap up this post now. Time for bed. My gorgeous man is awaiting. I must go shag him rotten before he falls asleep. Good night!