I write mostly in public places like coffee shops or the airport because I am one of those types that requires background noise to concentrate. I guess it was my time in the Army where I learned to sleep on the hand grenade range and could read Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls while waiting to jump from a C130. But recently my state of concentration has been broken by people praying together out loud. I can’t quiet figure out why but it makes me feel so uncomfortable I start to shift in my seat like I am regretting the decision to sport a cheetah and lace thong. I believe in God and I am comfortable with my faith but for some strange reason I hate it when there are three business men planning strategic development of a project and stop every ten to twenty minutes to pray. The God I choose to believe in answers prayers for the sick and destitute not for promotions and golf scores!
Ugh, maybe I am being too cynical. I guess people sharing faith is a good thing. Perhaps I have more of the Devil in me than I would like to know. Regardless, these dudes seem like the type that would be pretty annoyed if a Muslim started bowing to the east in here or a Wiccan broke out into chant or me as a Catholic got drunk and took off my shirt. So all I have to say is, take it to the house because you are harshing my blog.
In other news, tonight is the big premiere of Dean Karnazes movie, 50 Marathons. It will only be showing tonight so if you can, get tickets and go see it. It will be an experience not to be missed! You can find out which theater it will be showing near you right here. The guy ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days. Incredible.
Edit: Crap! This didn’t post until now. So I guess you missed Dean’s movie but that’s ok. I am writing a review of it right now and I bet it will be on DVD real soon.
Casserole of Disaster 
I’m with you on the religion thing. I believe in God and all, but I get uncomfortable when people start talking to me about being ‘saved’. Especially on Sundays as those are my dedicated hangover days. The nerve!
And I was going to miss Dean’s movie anyway, but if it comes out on DVD I’ll definitely check it out!
When it does I will send you a copy. 😉
There is a huge difference between faith and religion… praying in public is definitely a religious act.. but, not necessarily one of faith…and I feel the same way you do about it.
So, when do we get to see a photo of you in your cheetah and lace thong? 😆
In high school the administration invited former professional athletes to assemblies. These got all the kids worked up but rather than leaving students with the message “Stay in School”, they went into great detail how they were drug addicts and spent millions on hookers only to hit rock bottom and find Jesus. Then they’d call people up to be saved.
I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe my religion, but I’m also a HUGE believer in the separation of church and state. Along with my fellow newspaper dorks, we wrote an editorial pointing out that the school district was breaking the law by FORCING us to attend said assemblies; we sponsored a walk-out and the principal had a stroke. The next year, as was written in the handbook, students weren’t required to attend the assemblies but couldn’t leave campus.
P.S. I also enjoy background noise but if I have to hear the student worker babble on one more time about this stupid drunken MTV music fest he’s throwing next month while I’m trying to write a report on inter-organizational relations, I may have a meltdown. Also, it’s difficult to tune out the Rush Limbaugh show (blaring from the secretary’s radio) because he’s such a windbag.
I get a little uncomfortable when people pray in public as well. Not exactly sure why b/c it’s their right I guess and I’m not opposed to praying but I do nevertheless. I’m going to be on the lookout for this movie because my interest is definitely peaked. Thanks for the heads up.
Ugh! Rush makes me want to jump out a window. He has great points from time to time but over all, he is just as conceded as the rest of the media/talk show hosts. I don’t care that you are in the top 1% of America’s money makers! Have an open mind from time to time!
So you were really smart in high school? Not this guy. I would have been the kid that was in the top row of the bleachers drawing on my pant leg. You would have hated me.
Hey Blue!
I think ‘dorky’ is a better word: newspaper editor, president of Quill and Scroll, library club, Spanish club, and my crowning achievement: the Quiz Bowl team. I really only hated half of the teachers and anyone associated with the high school sorority, because they were super mean. I pretty much got along with everyone else. My 10-year reunion a few years back taught me that I was pretty forgettable back in the day. Thank heavens because high school isn’t worth remembering.
I picture you as a grunge kid who said a few bone head things to get laughs but were actually quite bright. You had friends in all cliques but weren’t associated with just one and you downplayed your wit because it wasn’t “cool”. Am I right? And you would’ve hated me, too, because I had a huge chip on my shoulder and liked everyone to know just how brilliant I was. I was one angry bitch.
Wow, that was me. I’m impressed. I wouldn’t have hated you. I probably would have asked you out. I was/am always attracted to independent thinkers.
My high school sweetheart was a feminist that turned extremist when she left for college.
I have to confess (and you might hate me for this) but after I finished boot camp we went to see Saving Private Ryan and she kept talking through the movie that it was “over dramatizing” the war and laughing when US troops were killed saying, “that’s what the US gets for choosing war”. There were WWII vets sitting in front of us, crying.
I excused myself to go to the restroom but left her there at the theater and never talked to her again.
My 10 year was exactly what I thought. People were still essentially the same.
Reading from the comments is reminding me of the high school days. I was also a newspaper editor. I didn’t join many clubs and only ran track for a while. I actually didn’t go to my 10 year renuion. Anyone I cared to continue to talk to from HS, I still do. The rest were not worth going to a renuion to see again. There were a lot of petty arguments in HS, mostly because I went to an all girl school…yes, private school and no, I don’t still have my uniform. That was a nice short trip down memory lane. 😛
Why would I hate you for that? I was blown away by ‘Saving Private Ryan’… emotionally shell shocked. I cry when I sing the Star Spangled Banner. 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. While I never had the desire to join the military, I’m a huge patriot who minored in US history, reads history books all the time, watches the history channel, and am fascinated by the causes of war. While I don’t always agree with war, it’s sociological impact is incredible.
See? Dork. And your ex-gf is a self-righteous, uneducated, tactless bitch. Leaving her at the theatre was the best way to end it.
DC: All girls school? Holy crap! How did you make it through that?
Pammy: Yeah, she sucked. She didn’t show up to the high school reunion, much to my relief.
How many degrees do you have and what are they?
AS: General Studies, emphasis: journalism (Snow College, 1991)
BA: Journalism, minory: history (Brigham Young, 1996)
MA: Communications, emphasis: politics (Johns Hopkins, 2007)
Wow. you smrt.
I am slowly working on my MBA from Villanova University. SSSSlllllooooowwwwlllyyyy.
Actually, I’m not that smart. I graduated with my AS in 1993, not 1991. Villanova is an excellent school… but in Pennsylvania. Don’t you live in Atlanta? Online courses? I’m the communications director at a business school — lots ‘o work to get your MBA… especially if you’re already working. When do you find time to write blog posts and have a life???
Duh….
I was in band (band president in my senior year) and played soccer ( team captain my senior year). I was also a write and illutstrator for the school’s literary magazine. Aaaaaaand… most unique senior.
They called me “bull dyke”. I do not know why. Because i was not a skanky pushover? Perhaps.
School sucked ass. Even though I’ve been dating my high-school sweetheart for 10 years, the rest of it was ridiculously lame. I will not go to my 10 year next year. I care for no one in my class… and a 1/3 of them will be dead anyway.
That is the most huggable Jesus I have ever seen. And that’s pretty impressive cons…
Okay, no need to turn this into Josh’s blog.
I don’t pray, anymore.
I found that it’s just not for me.
I suppose you could say that I am happily athiest.
But I still think Richard Dawkins Is an idiot,
I believe one thing you believe another, lets be friends, thats my philosophy.
I don’t run, It hurts my knees,
Pammy: i have been enrolled for almost a year and a half. I am stll struggling online every night. Yeah, it’s online and remotely sponsered by GA state. And you are smart. That’s why I dig you.
Kelli: I’m sad they called you names. That remindes me of a story Goob told me. Makes me feel awful. Kids suck.
Doho: If only…..
Josh: Are you sure I can’t save you? 🙂
Oh.. I see how it is! You are avoiding my question aren’t you? 😉
Do you get money or presents if you save me?
If so I’m in.
Did you hear that? A sigh of relief. I “prefer” Catholics, if I can say so without getting flamed. I am quite weirded out by the praise and worship of Protestants actually.. and most of my friends are non-Catholic Christians. 🙂 Glad I read this post. Have a good day.
I find the Judgment of “bad” to be an expression of lacking in substance of character, most notably, character traits related to coping skills. Such as Tolerance, Acceptance, Understanding, Forgiveness and Compassion.
Raised “Catholic” myself, I cite the fundamental Principle of an Absolute. “All That Is”, is ALL inclusive, ALL embracing of “bad” as well as “good”. A limited unlimited or an impotent omnipotence is not only senseless, being a contradiction but it also a representation of our limits in Understanding and Compassion for our own Humanity, deified.
I agree with you on the religion stuff as well. I’m confused about religious to be honest. I am not sure which religion to even follow, so i gave up on it and consider myself agnostic. My father was Muslim and my mom is Christian confusing right?
-http://teaaa.wordpress.com
Stop by! 🙂
If anything Téa, that would make you ChristMus. 🙂
I’ll be here all week, mostly here: http://galileo908.blogspot.com
I’m a lesbian and I still attempted to visualize you in your cheatah thong lol!
As an Atheist people praying in public or saying “God Bless You” as they are saying goodbye, and all of those things bug the crap outta me. People praying in public is just as annoying to me as someone smoking in public and I don’t smoke and I think it’s a disgusting thing to do to yourself. I think they feel praying in public is more to benefit others then themselves. They are advertising. I try to respect other people’s religions but I go from 0 to pissed when people act like they are all about this new thing called religion and I should get into it because my life would be 500 percent better. I mostly keep it to myself actually because they win the battle every time but it is very annoying. The ones that can’t keep their opinion to themselves ruin it for the rest of society and the ones that are religious but keep it to themselves in privacy are looked down upon because of the louder more obnoxious ones. Thong hehehe 🙂
This is what I get for not reading the comments first…
Ahhh yes being teased in school. Will you know me from X-E I have lots of great childhood memories and so I don’t want to say my entire childhood was a chain of one humiliating thing being done to me after another but I have a lot of bad memories as well. I looked up the guy that was the ringleader of teasing all throughout grade school on myspace a couple of months ago. It was an emotional experience. He has a couple of pictures of a little girl that is about 5-6 years old. So that means he had a kid when he was about 20-21 years old. There are comments on his myspace about how beautiful she is and how lucky he is. He isn’t with the mother. And his myspace page’s background is pot leaves. So augh still the same guy I knew in high school but with a little offspring to share his assholeness with. I had a very dark revengeful moment glancing through his pictures and description and things and I felt like I could see where the kids that caused the Columbine shooting and also Kip Kinkel at Thurston High School in Springfield Oregon came from. But I called my best friend on the phone and it was ok. I was just feeling kind of depressed.
I don’t think about it as much as it sounds but I just want people to know that even as an adult it doesn’t just go away and it’s not just petty teasing it’s a serious thing and it’s traumatizing. Take care dude.
I don’t know if public prayer would bother me, but I do know that young men with black pants, white shirts, a tie, and backpacks send me hiding to the closet.
I know! The come on bikes so they can chase you down.
I have missed much of the discussion here, so all I have to add is, “No Billy, you are not bad at all.”
So, in the same vein. . .whenever someone decides to say grace at a group dinner, I always find myself stricken with an uncontrollable urge to bust out laughing. This has been going on for years. Just tonight, at the Lackey family reunion here in Myrtle Beach, there were ten of us sitting at the table, everyone older than me by at least fifteen years, and we paused for grace and I already had a mouthful of brisket because I am RUDE, and I almost lost my mind right there at the table because for some reason Jesus makes me giggle with abandon.
Nice way to dump a chick. Go for a piss and never go back. Like the manager of Steel Dragon from Rock Star. Your ex just did not get it.