Head Trauma

There is a giant club swinging at my head. Who can I thank for this gift of mucus and sore throat and this head that feels as though it has been clubbed and then stuffed with cotton batting? Perhaps the girl with the soft ball size tonsils that sat on Philip's lap* at the toy store this week-end? Just when I thought I was in the clear to work my ass off in semi-comfort this whole week I have to come down with a doozie of a cold. There's no time to stop. Life does not wait for colds. Life runs right through them and often will bless you with a secondary cold just for the fun of it.

I was up until two am last night sewing. Aprons. Although I love aprons I sometimes hate them. I hate them when I have to sew the same one four hundred times. I want to make the new one but am not sure I have time to find out it's total crap. I am doing the Crafty Wonderland Holiday Sale in Portland this coming week-end and suddenly find I need to sew a ton of shit for it. What the hell have I been doing in the last few weeks? And how can I know what will sell? What to focus on? Angela says to make lots of Peace aprons. OK, but what about the pin-up fabric aprons? I would think those would do very well in Portland. I have limited time. And a cold. What to do?

Philip has a cold too. Max doesn't have a cold.

Incidentally, the gingerbread house making went quite well. The kids had lots of fun making them and only one of Philip's eyes is permanently crossed from all the frosting negotiations. My kitchen is a total wreck though. Oh well. The kids had fun. That counts for a lot. They will remember this kind of thing when they grow up. (Because I will remind them nonstop.)

I have been wondering this week what kind of a response I would get in this town if I told everyone I was Muslim? My mom thinks I need a religious alias to keep the proselytizing Christians from trying to save me. (Oh yes, there has been some "save this bitch from Satan" activity going on of late.) She says that they give up trying to help her find her way to Jesus when she tells them she's a Buddhist (which she is, mostly). She suggested that I could tell them I'm a Buddhist too, or a Muslim. I immediately had a vision of me being lynched. There are plenty of open minded people in my community who welcome people of all faiths, but those aren't the people I would worry about. It has recently come to my attention that McMinnville is truly the Bible Belt of the Pacific Northwest. Not being Christian here is like being a pagan in the deep south.

There is always the obvious path to take when you are the bright red bird in a sea of black crows: keep your mouth shut and try to blend in. I could do that.

No I couldn't! When standing around with a bunch of people talking church talk (it happens more often than you would suppose) it is impossible for me to just blend in. I don't even want to blend in. I don't want to live my life in the shadows, discreetly, like a lone Jew in a Nazi town. This is the United States and if there's one thing I am supposed be able to do here, besides carry dangerous weapons, it is the freedom to not go to church. Or share the same religion with my neighbors.

The truth is that I am fascinated by religion and I love to talk about it with people and I don't want to become a person who is unwilling to hear other perspectives at all just because there's always the risk that someone will mistake my curiosity for an interest in being converted. And they do. They do. Something about me and my openness makes naive Christians cherish a false hope that I am a lost soul just waiting to discover a jealous** God with a martyr for a son.

I've thought a lot about my inability to keep quiet about the things I think, the questions I have, the topics I open in public and how I could be making different choices. In the end I have to bring it all up. To hold it back would be like trying to hold the tide. So I will have to take the heat for it.

Time for work.