My Guest Post on favorable odd$

     I wrote a guest blog post for my friend Oddleft over at Favorable Odd$ called "In the Game."  Be sure to check it out, and read some of Oddleft's posts.  She is hilarious and has a unique outlook on the universe.

     If you have trouble with the link to Favorable Odd$ here's the URL:  http://oddleft.tumblr.com/

"I hate Halloween!"

I Hate Loaded Religious Questions

     When a priest-friend of mine, Fr. Black, was in the pit of depression and struggling over whether to leave the priesthood, he reached out and confided in a priest-mentor, breaking down in a torrent of despair.

     His priest-mentor did not respond, “I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” or, “What can I do to help?” but rather, “How’s your prayer life?”

     Fr. Black received no compassion, no understanding and no help from this canned “pastoral” response to pain. His priest-mentor was really saying, “If you just prayed harder, if you just believed more, if you really trusted god, if you were just a good holy boy like you were formed to be in seminary, you wouldn’t be so fucked up.”

     The priest-mentor told Fr. Black that he would pray for him, and Fr. Black returned to his rectory feeling horrendous and all the more reluctant to ask anyone else for help.

     Fr. Black is no longer a priest.

     As my fellow heretics in the Freedom from Religion Foundation say: “Nothing fails like prayer.” All types, all the time.

     So, how’s your prayer life?

Image Credit: Offensive+Delightful Industries @ www.oplusd.com

Postscript:  This fabulous image was given to me by my dear friend, Mrs. Levine.  Check out her incredible, insightful, and ingenuous blog at  http://whisperedbetweenwomen.tumblr.com/.

I Hate Tradition

     My throat was raw.  The rat-like mass of hair glued to my smooth sixteen-year-old face itched.   I had to pee, but the twenty pound homemade fat suit had me captive.   There wouldn’t be a window to get out of the fly-lacking fat suit until intermission, and it was only the first scene of act one.  All I could do was breathe through the pain of my burning bladder and sing:

Who day and night must scramble for a living, feed his wife and children, say his daily prayers, and who has the right as master of the house to have the final word at home?  The papa!  The papa!  Tradition!  The papa!  The papa!  Tradition!

     I hate Fiddler on the Roof, and I hate Tradition. 

     In Fiddler, Tevye (the papa) struggles against the encroaching modern world to get his daughters married off in the appropriate traditional manner (matchmaker, dowry, Jewish husbands, etc.).  He fails, and his daughters’ new fangled idea of marrying for love, wins out.  I hate Fiddler, because generations of conservative Christians across America have flocked to the show and failed to get its message: tradition is relative!

     I hate tradition, because people use it as a weapon against people who are different or as an excuse to continue their own ignorant ways.  Most arguments from tradition are narrow minded and fail to be hermeneutically grounded in any real sense of the diverse historical tapestry that makes up human experience and tradition.

     Which tradition is the ultimate Tradition?  Greek?  Roman?  Jewish?  Native American?  Islamic?   Buddhist?  Catholic?  Hindu?  American?  European? African?  Asian?  Etc. etc.  And within each of these groups, which subgroup’s tradition takes precedence?  Which historical period?  How far back does one go to find the ultimate Tradition?   When did tradition start?  With Lucy?

     Tradition is historically, culturally, and religiously relative.  Tradition is the favorite tool of the religious elite for keeping the lesser masses in check.

     When people use tradition to make their argument against my right to be married, they need to learn a lesson from Fiddler’s Tevye.  There is no single governing “tradition” that defines marriage.  History proves this, and, yes, even their bible proves this.  So, all you tradition-loving conservatives, keep your tradition and your religion out of my civil rights.

Postscript:  For a whirlwind (and humorous) tour through what the bible has to say about “traditional marriage,” click below to watch Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian.

Post-postscript: I did make it through Act I without wetting myself.  Thespis was proud.

I Hate the Crusades and the Inquisition

On Tuesday, voters in Maine (Question 1), Washington (Referendum 71), and Kalamazoo will go to the polls to decide whether same sex couples "deserve" equal rights.  I find this repulsive.

The organization leading the financial way to take away gay rights in Maine: the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has now donated more than $550,000 to the Yes on 1 campaign, making it the single largest donor in the crusade to strip away the legal, equal marriage rights of Maine's same sex couples.  A spokesperson from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine, said the last donation of $152,600 came from the diocese's "rainy day" fund.  This from a diocese that is closing parishes and a church that is closing parishes across the country.  Apparently, it's more important to strip people of their rights than to preserve generations old parish communities in the Catholic Church, or perhaps to spend money fighting poverty, disease, and homelessness.  What would Jesus do? (Isa 58:6-7, Lk 4:18)

This is nothing new.  Last year in California, the Catholic Church joined forces with two of their theological enemies, the Mormon Church and the fundamentalist Christian churches, to endorse Yes on 8 and to raise $39.9 million in their crusade to take away the legal and equal marriage rights of same sex couples in California.  The largest donation total, $1.4 million coming from the Catholic Knights of Columbus.  Here's a link to a site where you can look up who donated for and against CA Prop 8.

Some argue that the names of donors and people who sign referendum, propositions, questions (whatever the fuck you want to call them) should remain secret.  This is hogwash.  (Maine's court agrees!) We live in a democracy, and if my rights are being voted away, I deserve to know who's paying for this to happen, so I can decide whether I want to give them my money.

This is why I don't understand how anyone who supports marriage equality, women's rights, or scientific research can still tithe to the Catholic Church.  Part of their money is paying for lobbyists and referendums to do the exact opposite!  This is why I struggle with the fact that many of my family members and friends continue to support the Catholic Church, not only by putting their butts in the pews but also by digging deep into their pocketbooks, all the while knowing the abuse I endured and saw covered up in the church, not to mention the millions of other atrocities of the present, the recent past, and of history.

The Crusades and the Inquisition didn't end hundreds of years ago, they continue today, only instead of swords and torture chambers the Catholic Church is utilizing their coffers, ballot initiatives, lobbyists, scare tactics, Vatican censures, and reparative therapists/spiritual directors to fight their divine battles.

The disgruntled people in the pews need to stand up to their hierarchy and put an end to this contemporary crusade.  Of course, this will never happen.  I, for one, know what it's like to be a serf in the Catholic Church and to live in fear of being burnt at the stake and losing everything.  But, after walking through the fire, I'm glad that I lost everything.

Postscript: I had to join the Knights of Columbus while in seminary.  It was one of those things that was expected of all good priests.  The Knights have a daddy-complex and feel unjustly neglected if Father doesn't join, so one of the burdens of priesthood is having to join the K of C and suffering through the drudgery of their meetings.

     Anyway, the secret ceremony I had to got through to get inducted was so lame.  All those butch knights put on costumes.  They had a skull sitting on a folding table and read monotonously from a prescribed script about life, death, and brotherhood.  I think there may have been holy water involved, but I don't remember.  The fake skull, I do remember.

     I was inducted with a childhood friend back in my hometown, and we bit our tongues through the entire cheesy ceremony.  I had to pull hair out of my thighs to induce pain, so hard it was to stifle my laughter. When my friend and I got outside after the ceremony, we laughed for ten minutes.  The whole secret ceremony was ridiculous and very homo erotic, and that was only the 1st Degree.  I've always wondered what getting the 3rd or 4th Degree entailed.  Now, I'll never know.  A small sacrifice to pay for my integrity, happiness, and freedom.

Blasphemy Poll #1

Blasphemy Poll #1

Which do you hate most?

• The Father
• The Son
• The Holy Spirit
• The Virgin Mother

Now, don't hold back.  This is your chance to let it all out.

And remember that in scripture, the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:32, Mk 3:29, Lk 12:10).  I, for one, know how I'm casting my vote.

Cast your vote in the right hand column of the Holy Blog.

I Hate Stupid Signage

More proof of the thin line between love and hate.  

Six of the most hellacious signs on the drive between Dallas and Los Angeles:

 

Don't ask me what they're trying to sell.

Billy Ray, if you need a nice place to stay outside Amarillo, try the Ace Rat Hole.

This sign's honesty is moving, in it's simplicity.

KTTT: We have no problem exploiting religion and instruments of capital punishment for commercial purposes.  Ain't it cute how those crosses make Ts?

And now, the worst election sign from Texas, Fall 2008:

I guess god wasn't on their side after all.

The worst election sign from New Mexico:

You have to see Greg Sowards' website to believe it.  

He really is short and bald.

I Hate that Jesus Hates the Yankees

     I root for the underdog. Perhaps it’s a gay-boy side effect of always feeling like an outsider in the world. Perhaps, it’s being from Iowa and witnessing the carnage of the Hawkeyes and Cyclones in bowl games every year and tasting the acceptance of mediocrity emanating each October from dejected, elderly Cubs’ fans.

When I was a priest working in nursing homes in the fall of 2003, there were so many old folks holding on just to see the 1908 World Champion Cubs get to that World Series again. “Just once before I die, Father, I want to see the Cubs win one. That’s my last will and testament. Just one World Series.” But the Florida Marlins had to go and beat them in the 2003 NLCS. The following week throughout Iowa and Illinois, there was a spike in funerals.

Click here to read the full posting.

I Hate Friendly Deaths

     I said farewell to a friend last night. Forever.

     Fifteen years of friendship: celebrated joy, shared pain, compassionate laughter, indifferent circumstances, inside jokes, outside barbeques, pure trust, and unconditional love;  all of it ended in seven words.

     Fifteen years.

     Seven words.

     Two names.

     One email:

"Take care, Name.
All the best to you,
Tom"

     Seven words to realize a friendly death.

     Of course, it wasn't my choice.  When one is on the receiving end of endless anathemas, there is really nothing that can be done but to say farewell and move on into what remains of this frail life.

     For all we have is today, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Be the change you want to see in the world.  -Gandhi

Image Credits:

The Excommunication of Robert the Pious in 998 by Jean Paul Laurens

Death Is a Side Effect of Most Things by www.woot.com

Confession #3

     Forgive me, Father Hate, for I have sinned. It’s been one week since my last confe...
     ...
     Father who?
     ...
     Father Boundarilessi. Did I pronouce that right?
     ...
     Oh...Boundary-less-ee.
     ...
     Yes, I have a bit of a lisp. Big deal. So, where's Fr. Hate? I only confess to him.
     ...
     Working vacation? A cruise chaplain, really? Well, good for him. Everyone needs a little R&R now and then.
     ...
     You know, a little rest and recreation: R & R, B & B, T & A, S & M. I bet he's on one of those special cruises.
     ...
     All gay cruises.
     ...
     Yes, they have those. Why? Interested? Because I have a cruise guy.
     ...
     For the past seventy-five years, really? Wow, that must have been hard for you.
     ...
     I meant hard as in difficult, Fr. Boundarilessi.
     ...
     So, why didn't you just come out?

     ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
     But why didn't you...
     ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
     I see, and then...
     ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
     (yawn)
     ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
     (double yawn)
     ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
     Wow. So, let me be sure I got this straight, not that there's anything straight about it, right?
     ...
     Sorry. I just think it's good to be able to laugh about such things, our limitations. I mean, even Jesus laughed for fuck's sake.
     ...
     Excuse me? You, like it, when I talk dirty? (cold shivers, swallow vomit)  Anyway, let me see if I got this right. You've known that something was different about you since you were in third grade when you first got to serve Mass. It was then that you discovered that you liked putting on the cassocks and surplices because it felt like a lacy dress. You spent the next five years making up excuses to stay home from school so that you could dance around in front of the mirrors wearing your mom's and your granny who lived in the attic's underwear while they were passed out drunk from the homemade whiskey. After you were caught dancing before the ark, you were sent off to high school seminary, where you happily got to wear a "dress" every day and you even slept in it.  In fact, this was encouraged, so as to avoid self pleasuring.  Then you fell in love with Jesus and the Pope because they were surrounded by all men all the time and you thought that would be a good way to stay celibate because you wouldn't be around lascivious and tempting women.  All the while, you were still secretly mail-ordering women's lingerie and wearing it underneath your cassock. Finally, in major seminary, a kind old priest showed you "the way" to channel your ejaculations into Jesus in secret group "prayer" meetings with the older seminary professors and other seminarians that had strong historical interests in birettas, ferraiuolos, and baciamanos. From then on, you were celibate, because you didn't have sex with women, and because you didn't swallow with men, and you always rinsed your mouth out with holy water afterward. You have served thousands of people and brought them closer to God, all the while decrying the "sin" of homosexuality as a violation of God's Natural Law. And, you are a serial boundary violator, confessing this truth to anyone and everyone who will listen in the confessional box, because they are bound by the seal of the confessional.
     ...
     Yeah. When you put it that way, strangely, it does make sense. I mean, the good news is that you found a way to be open about this, the bad news is that I'm the one thats supposed to be confessing here.
     ...
     No, I don't really have anything to confess today. After listening to you, I'm beat.
     ...
     Well, that's your problem. I don't feel much like confessing, so technically the sacrament didn't take place. I'm not bound by the seal.
     ...
     This is going to be great for my blog!
     ...
     The internet, Father. Check it out. Write this down: www.ptown.org and www.manhunt.com. Have fun.
     ...
     And peace be with you, too.

Image Credits:  

• Confessional Shot: http://deusexeverriculum.wordpress.com

• Seal of the Confessional: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/the+seal+of+the+confessional
  

I Hate Compassionate Conservatism

I was hungry, and you threatened to cut my food stamps.

I was thirsty, and you watered your desert lawn.

I was a stranger, and you entered my home, pulled me from my children, and deported me.

I was naked (and gang-raped), and you defended Halliburton.

I was sick, and you refused to treat me without bankrupting me because of a preexisting condition that developed back when I had health insurance before you spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war to protect your oil interests resulting in an economic depression that pushed my money-hoarding boss into firing me because I was turning fifty and my health insurance premium was going up by thirty-three percent.

I was in prison, and you executed me.

Jesus:  “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.  And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Mt 25:36-44)

Postscript: My friend at Everything Sounds Better in French lists a link for you to email your political representatives and demand that they make it illegal for health insurance companies to count rape and post-exposure prophylaxis treatment for possible exposure to HIV-AIDS as a preexisting condition.

Post-postscript: The GOP's Healthcare Plan:


Post-post-postscript: Representative Alan Grayson's Apology

I Hate Birthdays

      SHE turns sixty today.  Sixty!

      We’re going to celebrate his life, our life together, but, still, something’s changed. I’ve lost something. I used to love birthdays, but now, that feeling, it’s retired.

      Aging into my driver’s license, R-rated movies, voting, gambling, the right to gamble again (the law changed from eighteen to twenty-one in Iowa when I was nineteen), buying alcohol, renting a car, and finally coming into that ultimate age of twenty-five when the car insurance rate drops; all these milestones are long in the past. I’m in the purgatorial decades when the shiny novelty of aging has buckled and tarnished, and the grateful relief of being granted another year of retirement has yet to materialize.

       Looking in the mirror, I see the face of boy with the lines of a man; the thick, lush skin of a teen with the materializing age spots of my father; the musculature of an eighteen-year-old chest with the nearly drooping fatty chunkiness of my unforgiving genetic nipples.

      I turn from the mirror to the world. The black and white of my youth has matured to bountiful grays; but so have many of the fluorescents and pastels. The sweet milk chocolate and sour apple starved taste buds that spent countless quarters at Rooshy’s Candy Store, now tolerate only dry reds and bitter darks.

      I look back to the mirror. Running fingers along my hairy scalp, I’m grateful for the shaggy fullness inherited from my mother, but the coarseness of Grandma’s strands has taken a strangle hold that it will never relinquish. With wise surrender of the shame I felt at twenty-one, I pluck my monobrow weekly, but now, I also trim Grandpa’s flaring, ex nihilo curlicues that wind crazily towards my crow’s feet and furled brow. Blinking, the sparkling blue of my four-year-old irises giggle back at me, but the darkening bags, trophies of depression’s survival, sing songs of lament to their weighty reality.

      Seeing myself in the mirror, I think of SHE. What did SHE look like at thirty-five? I’ve seen pictures, but I want the full 3-D, tactile, surround-sense experience. What will I look like at sixty? Will SHE still be here to celebrate with me?

      Love.

      Love is.

      Love is to blame.

      Love is to blame for aging.

      Love is to blame for aging’s indiscriminate gut checks.

      I love SHE. We accepted the fact that our age difference is substantial and that we have no idea what the future holds; how many birthdays we will share. We will enjoy what we have, honoring; celebrating, in spite of the persistent frailty of the present.

      But, still, I don’t have to like birthdays.

I Still Hate Balloon Boy's Parents

Can't the news media just give the whole Balloon Boy hoax and money drain a rest already?  I mean, even the Larimer County Sheriff is blogging about it? 

Give it a rest, people!

There is actually real news out there in the world, like whether we should go to the moon again, Oprah saying Cookie Johnson Jeans are her favorite, and the love quarrel between Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas over that famous kiss.

Still, I can't get this damn song out of my head.  Click below to hate it with me.

Oh, and did I mention that there are ties, key rings, and a video game?  Play it at balloonboygame.com or on Facebook.  It's also coming soon on PC Worldwide.

And, my personal favorite: Balloon Boy pisses off Hitler.  For real!

We are a sick, sick culture.

And if you still haven't had enough, click here.

I Hate People that Name Drop

Don’t you hate it when people drop names like Amy Ryan, Stephiana Bell, or Megan Williams just to get attention? Or how about when people bring up topics like the Brooke Hundley Pictures, the Steve Phillips Scandal, and Marni Phillips’ photo just because it’s what everyone is talking about on the internet?

It’s annoying and smells like rat cheese.

I wish people like that would step on a Scottish thistle or have to suffer an eternity tied to the speakers of the Bayou Country Superfest. Just picture them being hit by the meteor shower last night, losing all their money at First Republic Bank, or getting their asses kicked my Laila Ali.

And when couples sell out together, I fucking lose it. I turn into an onionmaniac. I want to stuff my NFL week 7 picks up their asses or force them to spend hours thinking of Halloween costume ideas for couples.

Personally, I think they should be forced to wear Jeff Fisher’s Peyton Manning jersey or matching balloon boy costumes. Maybe they’d get sucked up into the air and experience phosphoglycerol dehydration or at least end up getting evicted like a 6 year old.

Name droppers suck.

They need to Bring Change 2 Mind, embrace the secret of Isaiah Thomas, Ahman Green, and Joseph Wiseman, actor, or they will suffer the fate of going missing since the 80s like Andie MacDowell and Bronson Pinchot and spend their Halloween alone in Florida with their Nook eReader, Pioneer BDP-121, or even worse, with Harold Reynolds and the Fuel Girls.

Postscript:
If you wonder, what the hell this post was about, check out Google Trends, and the ways that name dropping can boost visits to your site.
And a special thanks to Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Tom Cruise, President Barrack Obama, Tiger Woods, Brett Favre, Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, FOX News, MSNBC, Jesus Christ, Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Law, Cookie Johnson Jeans (CJ Jeans), and Mickey Mouse.

In memory of Michael Jackson.

I Hate (Bad) Religious Art

It's true that there's a thin line between love and hate.

Here's proof:

A.I.G.sus

Raptor for the Rapture Jesus

Turn Me on Jesus

Sacrament of Confirmation: Confirming Parents' Worst Fear for Two Millennia

The Virgin Urinals

There is so much more, but I'll stop now.

If you have a strong stomach, are over 18, and don't take offense too easily, click here for the mother of all tasteless religious art.

Image Credits: 

Confirmation, St. James Episcopal

Other Photos, Facebook: Bad Religious Art

I Hate Balloon Boy's Parents

     I don’t have any kids. I probably never will.

     When I was in seminary this was something extremely difficult for me to accept. In counseling sessions I worked through my grief over the loss of children I would never have. I was told this was a natural thing for priests to feel and to do, because we were biologically hardwired for procreation. Because we had to be celibate and since the people in the pews were going to be our spiritual children, we had to open up our lives to be parents for all. There was no room even for adoption. Sure, a few priests managed to adopt, but that was viewed as questionable. Were they really going to be able to give their entire being to the church if they had a kid to care for?

     Growing up, I always thought I’d be a father. I neither thought I’d be a priest, nor that I’d end up being engaged to a man. While being a priest was in the collective imagination of my Irish-Italian Iowan roots, being a healthy gay man was not. Since kindergarten and my days of parenting various stuffed animals with names that rhymed with Jeffrey (Keffrey, Meffrey, Neffrey, Peffrey, etc.—I was very creative), I knew that there was something different about me.

     Was it the pink birthday hat that I requested? Was it the repulsion I felt when Tammy Schultz asked me to play Show and Tell and Touch under the bedcovers with her? Was it the fact that I got caught by my big sister and reprimanded by my parents for playing the same game with Chet Blackmore in the basement the next weekend? Or was it my fascination with the intriguing parts hanging between the legs of the plump daddy in the children’s book Where Did I Come From? Whatever it was, I didn’t call it gay. I didn’t know that word; except that it was something you called sissies on the playground.

     As I grew older, my fantasy life evolved as well. Nightly as I lay in bed, I got trapped in snowstorms with my He-Man and G.I. Joe guys (especially G.I. Joe arctic trooper: Snow Job). Snow Job and I were freezing to death. In order to survive we had to strip naked, share a sleeping bag, and lie close to each other for warmth. (I’d learned about that survival method from Latka on an episode of Taxi.) Eventually, the fantasy came to involve some of my male teachers, my friends, and their fathers.

     As a teen, I fantasized about being a father, about marrying my best friend, who looked like Ariel, The Little Mermaid (the wedding was going to be fabulous), and having beautiful auburn-haired girls to raise with her. (See the video below for the full fantasy.)  Of course, there was no sex in the marriage. They were virgin births apparently, because I was still getting accidentally stuck in blizzards with co-workers and football-loving buddies, luckily getting the last room at roadside motel, and unfortunately having to share the room’s only bed. (And did I mention the power outage?)

     Now, at 35, I’m engaged to SHE (Super Husband Extraordinaire) and there’s quite an age difference between us. He’s got grown kids. We’re not going to have children—nieces and nephews, yes; grandchildren, maybe. I know that I could be a great father, but in my life at this point, I cannot support a family financially. I’m in grad school. I’m a writer. There’s no money, no job, no stability. Love there would be, but we’d be living on the streets. I’m not going to introduce a child in to that kind of uncertainty. It wouldn’t be responsible or fair.

     So, when I turn on the news and see the latest Octomom saga: Balloon Boy; when I hear of parents using their children to get media attention or to make money; when I hear stories of parents verbally, physically, or sexually abusing their children; when an addict to whom I listening tells me he been addicted to heroin since age nine when his mom made him shoot up with her; and, when I see parents damaging children out of their own selfishness, I get angry. I want childhood protective services to rescue those children. I want the world to do something.

     But then, what am I doing? I make less than 30K in Los Angeles. I’m in school. I’m thirty-five and have no children. What am I giving to the world? How I am helping the situation? Is there salvation for the Balloon Boys of the world?

Image Credit: Snow Job from Hasbo

Confession #2

Forgive me, Father Hate, for I have sinned. It’s been one week since my last confession.

This week was horrible. I hate this fucking blog. What was I thinking? Somewhere in my crazy mind, I thought that people might actually enjoy seeing someone put all their inner crap out there. I thought that it might be therapeutic for them as well as me, but instead I’m in some deep crap.

Haven’t you been reading my posts?

And the comments?

Well that explains it. You see, two of my closest friends posted comments telling me that I’m offensive, Satan, and evil and that they don’t want anything to do with me. Fifteen years of friendship gone like that! I’m ill over it.

That doesn’t help, Father.

And why should I feel happy?

That’s bull, Father. They were—they are—my real friends. And, this is the first time that I know of that I've done anything to piss them off.  One strike and I'm out.  

You’re wrong.  All this therapy, religion, blogs, honesty, catharsis, coming out, expression, etc. etc. it’s absolute bullshit, Father. All of it!

Because everything in life is so transitory. Fragile. No matter how hard we try, any minute it can be taken away forever. I always said the fragility of everything made me appreciate life and people all the more, but as I get older there’s probably less life ahead of me than behind me, the constant loss in life is suddenly…overwhelming. I mean, if friends and family can discard an entire history built on understanding and intimacy in a blog comment, if people are left starving on the streets in a country where there’s enough for everyone, if religious superiors can order subordinates to lie about sexual crimes so that clerics can go on abusing, if democratic nations can invade and occupy countries under false pretenses, if a child can die of an aneurism while playing in the backyard, if all these things can happen and everyone gets away with it, then what’s the point? Why try to connect with anyone at all?

No, Father. I disagree. I’m in the pit, and the pit sucks.

What?

No, Father. “It” will not rub the lotion on its skin!

I don’t get it.

Silence of the Lambs?

Seriously?

I’m in the pit—the pit of depression! And, no matter how many times I climb out and fill it in, it always opens up when I least expect it and sucks me back in. And you know what? I was actually feeling much better last week. I felt a great deal of peace after getting all that pent up anger out in my blog posts and channeling it into creative energy and humor. Suddenly, the things that were driving me crazy didn’t seem to matter as much. But then the comment got posted and it all went to hell. I’m back in the pit.

What do you mean “it gets the hose”?

You’re a sick man. Seriously, Father. Seek help.



Ah! Ah! Ah! 

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Hate Poll #2 Results: The Easter Bunny Hates You, Too

 Who do you hate most?

• Santa Claus 9% 

• Jesus Christ 18%

• The Tooth Fairy 27%
  

• The Easter Bunny 45%

Who knew that people could hold such repressed ire towards a bright, benign, benevolent, and bewhiskered bunny?

No Cadbury eggs for you this Easter!

Image Credit: Sun-Sentinel.com 

Don't worry.  The Easter Bunny hates you, too.

I Hate Bejeweled Blitz

I can't stop playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.

When I need to write for class, I play Bejeweled Blitz.

When I need to go to the gym, I play Bejeweled Blitz.

When I need to sleep, I play Bejeweled Blitz.

I hate Bejeweled Blitz.

But, it's not the end of the world.

Check out the fruits of my labor:

Did you see that?  I got "one of the best scores in the world!"

Really.

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Why I Hate Mustaches, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and PTSD

            I stare at my Rebocks and the grey floor of the rectangular office.  The thin carpeting is immaculate, not a blade of fresh cut September grass, shred of paper, or dust bunny to be found anywhere.  I know, because I’m both janitor and lawn-boy of the red brick Catholic student center.  The extra cash pays rent on my studio apartment ($175/month), and cleaning the church gives me pride; lets me know I have a place at the university, an understanding community of peers and wise spiritual counselors.  The office in which I’m sitting must be spotless at all times, for it’s the campus pastor’s office.  Even the top of the door frame passes the white-glove test.  I know, because Fr. Mustache checks it monthly; therefore, I check it weekly.

            Every item has its place in Father’s office.  Endless volumes line the floor-to-ceiling corner bookshelf.  Next to the shelf is a window, whose vertical blinds are always open to the view of the ΣΑΕ house.  At night, drunken frat brothers can sometimes be seen peeing off the porch in the direction of the church.  On the window sill (and also covering every other empty, flat space in the office), are framed pictures of Fr. Mustache and the couples he’s married during his campus tenure.  Below the window stands a simple table, with a green fabric covering (liturgically appropriate) that holds a wooden stand and Bible, displaying Father’s favorite passage: Sirach 2:1-18, “The Crucible of Humiliation.”  Next to the table is another dustless floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and in front is a black rocking chair on which I sit, wondering whether I have a place in the Church.

Fr. Mustache listens to my confession from his desk, which runs along the remainder of the wall up to a wall-sized window that looks out onto campus.  On a caster-mounted, padded, and black office chair, he sits and spins around on a transparent plastic floor covering to face his computer desk on the opposing wall.

He’s multitasking, probably working on his coming Sunday homily or a presentation for the archdiocesan building renovation committee; something important.  Really, I don’t know what he does in here for fourteen hours days (even when school is out).  I’d like know.  I’d like to know everything about what it is to be a priest.  But what’s the point?  As soon as I tell him what happened, my vocational journey will end.

Silently, I stare at the dark hair on my forearms, which are crossed in front of my concave abdomen and purple and gold T-shirt.  When did my arms and legs get so hairy?  I pick at the fraying edge of my loose-fitting jorts.  Nothing fits my skinny, boney, wimpy body.

Fr. Mustache's over-sized egg-shaped head and its tuft of salt and pepper hair stare at the computer monitor.  His short legs, small torso, and hanging belly are adorned in their usual black clerics.   His pianist-strong fingers, with their gnawed-to-the-root fingernails, punch away at the keyboard.

“Well, spill it already, Pastrone.”

I hate the nickname that he’s given me, but it does its magic.  I tell him my sin.

Something happened when I visited my childhood priest, Father O’Baldy, last weekend.  He’d invited me down after receiving my “I’m going to be a priest and in large part thanks to your positive influence on my youth” letter.   Fr. O’Baldy warmly welcomed and begged me to tell my life history.  (He was an old family friend and wanted details.)  Wholeheartedly, I trusted him, even with the truth of the sexual abuse I’d endured and about being attracted to males.  Fr. O’Baldy told me there was nothing wrong with my attractions, stripped naked, and invited me to do the same.  Confused and excited, I did.  We gave each other massages, but never touched each other’s genitalia.  (This was celibacy, after all.)  Then we masturbated in front of each other.

Fr. Mustache’s fingers stop typing.  He turns to me, his baggy, brown eyes piercing his glasses.  The plastic floor protector crunches as his chair rolls towards me.  The warm, moist scent of his coffee tongue overpowers my nose, which is now being prickled by his graying mustache.  My body freezes. His stubby fingers dig into my knees. 

“This is appropriate touch.”

His hands slide from my knees, move up my inner thighs, and grasp onto my tighty-whiteys, my soft cock and balls.  Squeezing.  Hurting.

“This is inappropriate touch!”

I’m no longer in the church office celebrating confession.  I’m in another rectangular room, smaller, brighter, purer.  Antiseptic.  The paper under my naked fifteen-year-old bottom crunches against the examination table.  The spicy scented pediatrician’s hand is on my penis.  His salt-and-pepper mustache pricks my clenched lips.  His tongue forces them apart invading my mouth, my soul.  The walls of denial tumble, each movement of the slug-like tongue confirming the truth that I cannot, will not, face: the genital “exams” of the past few years were not standard procedure—they were sexual abuse.  The pediatrician finishes before the nurse and my mother return.  I sit paralyzed, clothed in lies and denial that will protect me from the truth until I’m in college and I trust someone enough to tell the truth.  He’s a mustached priest, my boss, my spiritual director, my confessor. 

Ten months after telling him, I sit in my confessor’s office with his angry, repressed digits collaring my cock and balls. 

I’m paralyzed again, just as I was in the pediatrician’s grasp.  My eyes fill with tears.  Finally, I inhale.

“I’m sorry, Father…please…please let go of me.”

He does. 

And then, he absolves me of my sin.

 

Postscript:

Code of Canon Law:  Can. 1387 A priest who in the act, on the occasion, or under the pretext of confession solicits a penitent to sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue is to be punished, according to the gravity of the delict, by suspension, prohibitions, and privations; in graver cases he is to be dismissed from the clerical state.