Save the Queen

It really annoys me, the typical sermon heard in the churches lately. Content doesn't really matter, but here's the formula:

1 - Speaker comes up with a new spin on some doctrine.
2 - Starts off with going to the original language because this helps with the clarity of his new doctrine.
3 - Continues on by going to a number of other translations, as this also helps with understanding.
4 - Goes on to say that this word was mistranslated originally - it should have been translated this way. The word happens to be the focal point of this entire doctrine.
5 - Goes on to cite a number of commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and/or papers written by "learned men", although the speaker will tell you that these "learned men" don't understand what the Bible really means.
6 - Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

And it bugs me. If you have to do all this to prove your point, maybe it's not a valid point. Let the Bible interpret the Bible. I mean, it was God that wrote it. Like these professors that all want to pick apart some great work of literature and determine what the author "meant" when he said the curtains were blue. Maybe he was depressed, maybe it was a commentary on how we view the world through our own sorrows, maybe the author felt at peace and wanted to portray that peace in his work. OR MAYBE HE NEEDED A COLOR FOR THE DAMN CURTAINS AND CHOSE BLUE AND IT MEANS NOTHING OTHER THAN THE CURTAINS WERE BLUE AS OPPOSED TO PINK. Damn! Really irritates me. But that's what these people do with the Bible. A scripture can't possibly just mean what it says - God's a tricksy hobbit apparently and therefore is incapable of just saying what he means, and so we all need the ministry to tell us what God really meant.

Okay, this is kind of getting away from my original point, which is:

Let the Bible interpret the Bible. If you have to jump through hoops and say that a scripture doesn't mean what it says to prove your point, maybe your point is invalid and just freaking let it go.

Not to sound like I'm ten years old or anything, but:

HE'S NOT MY DAD! JUST BECAUSE YOU MARRIED HIM DOESN'T MAKE HIM MY FATHER SO STOP FREAKING CALLING HIM THAT! DAMN! NOT LIKE I REALLY LIKED MY FATHER OR ANYTHING BUT AT LEAST HE ACTUALLY HAD A HAND IN CREATING ME, UNLIKE THIS DUDE YOU MARRIED THREE YEARS AGO - WHO I'VE NEVER MET - SO JUST. FREAKING. STOP. IT.

...

I'm just... lazy or something.

Days like today, I realize that I kind of really dislike people.

I was going to write 'hate', but that's too strong. I don't really hate people. I just get really tired of their crap sometimes.

I really dislike being the only one who apparently has any responsibility whatsoever in maintaining friendships. As such, I have decided to just stop. I'm not dealing with it anymore. People that have decided that they only have time for me when they want to, and otherwise no, but I'll be the one expending all the effort? No. I'm done here.

What really sucks is that these are people I actually, genuinely care about... but their actions - or, I suppose, lack of actions - hurt me. I don't really need more hurt, wouldn't you agree? So I'm done. Not trying anymore. I'll be polite on those very rare occasions in which they feel a need to contact me. If they call me on my silence, I'll be polite but blunt: I don't have time for people who don't have time for me. And that's that.

I'm also really sick of going on Facebook and seeing people bitching out others about religion, politics, sexual orientation, whatever. Or else - well, what it really comes down to is, I'm sick of people being douchebags to each other. Really sick of it. I'd deactivate my Facebook entirely if I could still access my MoW account without it, but I can't. So Facebook stays up. And if I had any sort of self-control whatsoever, I'd stop myself from reading my feed and seeing the douchebaggery... but let's face it, I don't. I'm some sort of emotional masochist or something. Can't stop myself. I don't think I get off on the pain, but who knows? Wouldn't that sort of explain, I don't know, MY ENTIRE FREAKING LIFE up to this point?

It wouldn't be so bad if I made friends really easily. But I don't, and therefore each one is precious to me, and sucks even more when I lose them.

Really, Christina? Really? This is how it's been your entire damn life? In a relationship you're okay, out of one you're a suicidal disaster? This is how it is?

I'm actually really pissed at myself. I never thought I was one of those chicks. One of those girls who has to be in a relationship or she goes to pieces.

But of course it's perfectly obvious in retrospect.

What a freaking twit.

I KNOW TWIT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE AN INSULT, DON'T FREAKING JUDGE ME.

(twit; noun
a weak or thin place in yarn caused by uneven spinning.
Origin:
1810–20; origin uncertain)

Good thing Dave'll never leave me. I'll fall apart and probably kill myself in a big shower of little emo tears.

I seriously don't know why my brain insists on making me dream unpleasant things. I seriously don't. Does it dislike me this much? Does it get some sort of sadistic thrill out of torturing me? I don't get it.

I used to go to bed so late and so exhausted that I wouldn't dream at all. Of course, this makes me miss out on the cool dreams (I just had one a few nights ago where I was a general in an army - that was cool), but at least I'm not tormented by the unpleasant ones.

I would like to point out however that these are not nightmares. I haven't had a nightmare since I was five years old. Seriously. I had the granddaddy of all nightmares when I was five, and apparently that one made up for a entire lifetime's worth of nightmares, 'cause I haven't had one since.

(For those of you who are curious, my little five-year-old self had a dream in which I had to watch Satan torture a guy. It was... well, terrifying. Poor li'l Chrissy.)

All I'm saying is, for example, I've had pleasant interaction with babies that hasn't resulted in them all dying. In fact, I've only had interaction with one baby that died. Instead of having pleasant dreams about babies with said pleasant interaction, which accounts for 99% of my interaction with babies, my brain apparently wants to kill them all off and pass it off as my fault, which only accounts for 1% of said interaction. Thank you very little.

Meh. I know that I can't do anything about it except whine about it. But at least I can do that. :P

So it's getting around toward Thanksgiving again. I guess our plan is to take the kids up to Dave's mom's house again this year. This was nice last year, so I have no complaints. "But Christina, all you do is complain." Har har. I'll have you know that I eat sometimes and sleep occasionally as well as complain, thank you.

I really don't remember very much about Thanksgivings with my family (should I be thankful for that?), but I do remember that almost invariably we'd have it with my grandmother, who was freaking awesome, and of all the people I know that've died, I think I miss her the most. I often wonder how my father turned out to be such a jackass when he had a mother like her.

I think she was the only person in my family that I ever really respected. There was just something about her that commanded respect. Like, you're going to respect me, or I'll kick your ass and then you'll respect me, but either way you're going to respect me. Not that we were afraid of her... okay, we were a little afraid of her, but it was fear mixed with love and awe at the same time.

(Now I have to tell Kim's story. I should get her to tell it, but she's not here.)

So my grandmother had lung cancer. She'd had a tumor in her lung for year, but through sheer strength of will fought it off well enough so that the tumor stayed the size it was when she found out about it... until she had minor surgery on her toe, which diverted her immune system there and let the tumor go nuts, which it did, and at that point she only lived for like another month. Anyways. Have you ever forgotten whether you're still writing in parentheses or not? Just wondering.

Anyway, during the last two weeks of her life, my mom and I moved in with her to ease her out, and Jean and Kim would visit almost every day. Grandma's mind was one of the first things to start slipping, and she was on morphine to boot. (What an odd phrase. Also, I seem to be in rather a parenthetical mood today. Wonder why.)

So Kim's sitting on the sofa, and Grandma's laying in the hospital bed we've moved into the living room for the duration. After a few minutes, Kim gets up to go to the bathroom.

"What do you think you're doing?" Grandma demands.

"Uhh... going to the bathroom?" Kim says.

"No you're not. Sit down."

"But Grandma, I really have to go to the bathroom," Kim explains.

"No you don't! Not that bad. Now sit down!"

Kim sat. As she said years later, "I wasn't about to get up. She told me to sit down, so I sat. Not like she could have gotten up and punished me, but I wasn't about to disobey her."

I think probably Grandma was the only person in Kim's family that she respected, too.

Hehe, I have to tell this one, too. I was getting Grandma something to drink, and made some smart remark, and in a rare moment of lucidity, she smiles and says, "Smartass."

:-( People keep saying that to me and I don't understand why. /further smartassery

Coffee and pineapple is an odd combination.

Well, that all started with me babbling about Thanksgiving. I can tell what kind of a day this is going to be. Then we started having Thanksgiving with Jason and his family. I seem to remember always having fun, Then there was the Thanksgiving that Dave boarded a plane (which he hates doing), flew for nine hours (which he hates doing), and spent Thanksgiving with me and the Cartwrights (which was half-and-half - he liked spending Thanksgiving with me... not so much with the Cartwrights... which is a tale that may or may not get told today, depending on... well, whether I tell it or not. Man, I'm in a rambly mood today. This is what I get for not posting anything meaningful to Livejournal for weeks and weeks. Well, I feel like I have nothing meaningful to say. Wow, I'm still going on in parentheses. Focus, Rothwell.)

Yeah, that was a nice Thanksgiving. And after we got married, it was no longer a option to go have Thanksgiving with the Cartwrights, so we had it at Dave's mom's, and last year we brought the kids with us, and it was fun, so we're doing it again this year.

Oh yes, and there was the time that I had Thanksgiving with the Cartwrights, and then Kim decided I was having another Thanksgiving with her family, wherein the following exchange occurred:

Bethany: Christina, where's your cape?
Christina: *blank stare* My cape?
Bethany: Yeah, the cape you always wear to your sacrifices.
Christina: Oh! Yeah. Crap, I forgot it at the last sacrifice. Man, Lord Rupert's going to kill me. Can you imagine sacrificing a goat without a cape? What am I going to do?
Roger: *very studiously trying to look like he's not paying attention)

And now I have to explain this. See, I told you it was going to be this kind of day.

Christina; Your dad probably thinks I'm a bad influence on you. I mean, I don't smoke, drink, do drugs, have sex with every guy I see... I'm terrible.
Kim: Yeah, but he thinks you're going to make me sacrifice a goat.
Christina: ......................................He did not say that.
Kim: *laughing* Yes he did.

Because I have a weird religion, and he hated my dad. (Not that I blame him.) So I proceeded to make up a fictitious deity (Lord Rupert, King of the Goats) and crack jokes about said fictitious deity at just about every opportunity. Well, Roger of course took me seriously, and talked about it with others, as is proven by the following exchange:

Andrew: Hey Christina, do you really sacrifice goats?
Christina: *blank stare*
Kim: Yes she does.
Andrew: *eyes go round as beach balls* Really?
Christina: Oh man.
Andrew: How do you do it? And where? *proceeds to ask more and more questions*

Hahahaha. This reminds me of the time... Feel free to stop reading at any point, because the rest of this entry is just going to be more of the same rambling from subject to subject. I'm serious.

Anyway. That reminds me of the time that TSC Asshole Ben came up and brought his idiot cousin Kenny. Somehow Kim started on about Lord Rupert, and Kenny believed every word we said. So naturally we spun him a rather large story about Lord Rupert, and the ceremonies and sacrifices and whatnot, and he believed us, regardless of my stopping halfway through because I couldn't stop laughing. When we finally told him that we were just messing with him, he gave us the old "Oh, I knew that" routine. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, dude.

Haha. That also reminds me of the time where I had to move out of the house 'cause Mom gave the papers to the bank. The windows were still covered up in plastic because of the winter, and Kim found a black marker, and proceeded to write goat propaganda all over the plastic. Things like "Have you sacrificed today?" and "Fear the goat!" and "You shall worship the Lord thy Goat or he shall rain goaty death upon you!" I still have pictures of that somewhere.

No wonder people think I'm crazy.

Jae wrote recently that she was more into older music than anything today. Something along that line. I’m finding myself doing the same thing. I mean, there’s modern music that I like, but I find myself gravitating toward older stuff more. For example, I like a lot of U2’s music, but I’m really of the opinion that 80’s U2 is the best. Actually, I’m really into 80’s music right now. Probably my favorite song is ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’ by Naked Eyes.

I think this is in part because most modern music is insipid. Ooooh I don’t think I’ve ever used that word in an entry. I’m all impressed with myself now. Anyway, yeah, insipid. Vapid. Meaningless. You’ve got a dude on a guitar, a dude on drums, and a guy talking his way through the song – which doesn’t even make sense – sounding like he’s stoned. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good. ‘Cause most of the time it isn’t.

There was a time where musical talent of some kind was required to be a successful singer/musician/band/whatever. Not anymore! Now all you need is sex appeal, bam! instant popularity.

I was going to rant about how the only reason Lady Gaga’s popular is because she was a stripper, but I actually think she has a neat voice, so I can’t really go there. Don’t laugh at me. I can’t help it.

For me, there are four qualifications for whether I like music or not. They are as follows:

1 – The lead vocalist must have a great and/or interesting voice.
2 – The lyrics must be meaningful.
3 – The group/artist must sound interesting, neat, and/or different than whatever else is out there.
4 – The music must be phenomenal.

One of these doesn’t make up for the lack of the other three. I can deal with two out of four, but the best artists have three or four. Most artists today only have one, or two at best – and most of the time, #2 isn’t included. I mean seriously. “I can ride my bike with no handlebars… no handlebars… no handlebars.” Well good for you. Now that you have a hit song, maybe you can afford a bike with handlebars, eh?

Well, if I were the arbiter of good music, there’d be a lot fewer artists saturating the airwaves. It’s probably a good thing I’m not.

Back to insipid. We went over to David Beattie’s house Saturday night and hung out with him, his dad, and his (girl?)friend Christina, who introduced us to Speed Scrabble. For those of you not familiar with this fabulous game, you play it with one other person. Each person takes ten random Scrabble tiles, turn them over at the same time, and proceed to use all ten to make words. Once all ten are used, by either player, both players take another five, whether the other person’s used all of theirs or not. This continues until one or the other of the players has used all their tiles and there are no more to take.

Christina and David demonstrated. Christina won. We had decided that the winner would play the next person… which was me.

I won. Then Sandy challenged me. I won. Then Dave challenged me. I won. Then David challenged me. I won. Then Christina challenged me again. I won. Mind you, it was really close a couple of times, within a matter of a second or two… but I still won. It was pretty cool, and a lot of fun, but I’m not too optimistic about people continuing to play against me. They could take the approach of, let’s keep trying till we knock her off her throne, but they could take the Cartwright approach of, let’s not even try.

Meh. My N key doesn’t work properly. I guess it’s not the end of the world, just a little annoying. I’ll live.

Oh. I bet you’re wondering what Speed Scrabble has to do with the word ‘insipid’. Well, nothing really. Just that big/uncommon words remind me of word games, since ‘insipid’ would have brought me like seventy points if I played it in one turn in Scrabble. That is all.

We’ve been burning wood in the fireplace when it gets cold, and we’ve been getting wood from the park. This has a point, I promise. The log is making funny noises. It’s like there’s a squirrel somehow trapped inside the log. I’m serious. There are little scratchy chewy noises coming from the log. But here’s the thing. There’s nothing in there. There can’t be. How could a squirrel survive a tree growing around it, and continue to survive to gnaw its way out?

Besides, the other log that was doing this we’ve since burned, and – here’s a shock – there was nothing in it. I know, it’s ghost squirrels! We’re haunted now. Oh good. Well, I guess if nothing else I have a interesting story now.

So I finished Le Miserables, and have started The Red Badge of Courage. Oh yeah, I’m reading the classics. Well, at least the ones that don’t bore me to tears. The Red Badge of Courage is trying. Le Miserables was pretty good, if a little sad. The Count of Monte Cristo was way better than the movie. The Three Musketeers was…meh, okay. Hmmmm. Frankenstein was… probably terrifying for its time, but I found it dry and kind of boring. I didn’t finish it. I tried, mind you, I just couldn’t make myself do so. Okay, commence the hate mail, “wtf how could you not like Frankenstein it’s a classic!!111!!!eleventy!!!!shiftone!” Whatever, dude.

Dave’s boss is driving me freaking crazy, and I don’t eve have to work with him, so imagine how Dave feels. I was trying to think of a masculine equivalent to calling someone ‘Nagatha’, and all I came up with was ‘Nagamemnon’. As far as I can tell, Nagamemnon is more than willing to try to make Dave do everyone else’s job, and then bitch him out over stupid piddly little crap. Because clearly it’s all Dave’s fault. It just inflames my sense of fairness and treating people with equity. I mean, even if all the stupid piddly crap were Dave’s fault – which it’s not – it’s not right to bitch people out about it. Far less than to make him do everyone else’s job as well as two or three of his own, especially when the architect on one of these jobs is a raving lunatic.

…Okay, I’ve never seen her rave. Okay, so she’s not even a raving lunatic. She’s just a spaz. A control-freak, ultra-detail-oriented spaz. Not to mention the homeowner, who I think I can call a raving lunatic and not be exaggerating by very much. Without going into a lot of detail, Dave has bent over backwards for these people for months (seriously, I started hearing about this job at least back in March), and every aspect of it has been a total freaking nightmare (up to and including phone call upon phone call while we were in Tahoe. Hey Stacy, how about you go on vacation and I’ll call you about stupid piddly crap two or three times every day of your vacation, would you enjoy that? No? Huh, what do you know.)

…Yeah, I might be sort of done here.

My head hurts. Bet you couldn't tell that from my subject line, though. :P

It has been a busy month.

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. Here are my major talking (typing?) points, though, and maybe I'll get through them:

New car.
New place.
Greg.
Balboa Park.
Passover etc.
Diet.
TMI type stuff.
Jess.
That might be all, we'll see.

So new car. The HMS was making funny noises, so Dave took it in to the mechanic, and it died a block before it got there. The engine was terminal, so we decided that, rather than get the HMS a new engine, it was time to buy a new car. Long story short, we're now driving a thus-far-unnamed Buick Century. Which runs. Nicely. And it's comfortable. And it looks cool.

Next... new place. So after the HMS died, we decided we needed to cut expenses (since either way, whether we fixed the HMS or bought a new car, it would be about the same amount, which was more than we could afford), and our place, while wonderful, is more than we can afford, so we started place-hunting again... long story short, Larry the Landlord knocked the rent back a bit, I'm going to get a part-time job, so we're staying here.

So Dave's brother Greg was arrested last month on a twenty-year-old DUI charge, he was extradited to California, so we've been going up on Friday nights, staying at Dave's mom's, and Dave and Cathy have been visiting Greg in the morning. Not a bad thing at all, just tiring, because it's almost a two-hour drive up and back. Apparently Greg's doing well, by the way, and we're hoping the judge will throw this out, since after the DUI Greg stopped breaking the law completely and it was twenty years ago.

Balboa Park. Hayden's been doing this parkour thing in the park every other Sunday, so since Sundays are our day with the kids, we've been going and hanging out in the park till Hayden's done parkouring. It ends up being a long day, but Balboa Park's nice. Linz and I are kind of getting a little tired of it, though, so we're trying to think up something fun to do tomorrow while Hayden's parkouring.

So Tuesday night we go up to Harold's for the Passover service (or, if you're us, it's the Lord's Supper and we just refer to it as Passover because we're... lazy? Less syllables. I dunno). Dave's excited because he's been asked to speak, and does a great job (I'm really proud of him). Drive back that night, get around the next day to have the Beatties over for Night To Be Much Observed or, The Old Testament Passover. Okay, this entire paragraph so far has been a bow in David Beattie's direction :-) Anyways, we have them over, I fail at the yams, Dave fails at the fire, but we all have fun anyway, and end up staying up way too late. Andrew stays the night with us, and the next morning we chat before he goes back home to LA.

What's next? Oh, the freaking diet of doom. So I've stopped with the garlic and the pills, and I've started with pau d'arco tea, coconut oil, and undecenoic acid. Since I have the worst memory evar, I can't say whether it's working or not, since sometimes I don't remember to take it. If I were to remember to do so, though, it might work, who knows? I really need to remember to do this, though. Honestly, how can I seriously expect to beat this thing if I don't remember to do the treatments? Blar.

( The TMI is LJ-cut, I'm a merciful crazy person :P )

So my sister. I really don't even know what to say about this, but I'm obsessing. I just can't stop thinking about her. I'm sure this fact will piss her off, because she seems ultra-volatile lately, but she's my sister, and I love her, and I'm seriously worried about her. I think that's all I'm going to say about it, for now anyway.

So that might actually be everything now. I'm hungry. I know that. Yeah, so, food. Right on it.

So the last week has been delightful and blissful. I could go through a daily play-by-play type thing. There's ultimately no point, though - we hung out all day and most of the night, then David would drive me home and we'd spend an hour in the car in my driveway saying goodnight, and I'd manage to catch about six hours of sleep before it'd be time to go again - whether briefly to work or over to Jason and Melanie's with David.

We talked. We drove around. We played games. We watched movies. We held each other. We talked some more. I would rather have done that than done anything else, with anyone else.

And now I'm wondering how on earth I seriously thought that a long distance relationship would be a good idea. I'm in agony here - David's on the plane leaving, going three thousand miles away, and I'm sitting here in front of the computer, seriously expecting him to pull into the driveway any second - just because that's how the last week has gone. How did I think this could work? I don't understand my thought processes at that point, seriously.

I won't break up with him. I love him far too much to do anything retarded like that - and it's a ridiculous notion anyways.

He can't move out here - Hayden and Lindsay are pretty much out in San Diego permanently, and David won't leave them.

That leaves one option. It sounds so insane on the surface - am I even seriously considering this? But I am. I'm 75-80% decided already, as a matter of fact. When I go out to visit him next month, I'm sure my decision will be made by then, or at least during.

It sounds like I've taken total leave of my senses and any common sense I may have once retained...I've thought this through and see it as my only option. Well, I could just, you know, stay out here, and like have David visit once a month, and yes what a smart idea, go through this agony all the freaking time, because that sounds like delightful fun NOT.

In other words, that's a gay idea, screw it.

Besides, it's not like I have a reason to stay in New York. Since my rent's being raised so high I might as well be getting kicked out.

I don't know. I feel like no matter what I say I'm to be judged "irresponsible" or something for this. Well...I'd like to say I don't care, but I do. I just don't care enough to let it influence me.