Cats Sleep in the Strangest Places

Honey does have a cat bed. She rarely touches it.

Now that we're married...

And it's too late for divorce, Larry's friends have been showing me some incriminating photos of my dear husband. Photos that might call into question Larry's true nature, and therefore my wisdom in marrying him so soon.

Take for example the photo at left. Apparently back in 2002, Larry and Ted Rooney (L) started a "love commune" at their church. Larry was looking for more of a 1960s hippie "love in" and Ted envisioned a Studio 54 harem. They parted company over "creative differences." That, and when the church discovered their activities.

Later, Larry teamed up with Debbie and Doug to form "Kingdom Now," where members live out their fantasies of Heaven in the present. Kinda like Dungeons and Dragons for Jesus freaks.
Debbie believed the Little Mermaid was the true "Bride of Christ. "
Doug appointed himself a modern-day Gandalf and began casting "salvation" spells on cute women to get them into the church.
Larry stayed true to his visionof the 1960s Peace and Love. However, as this picture shows, Doug misfired a spell and Larry ended up in a pretty-girl dress.
Good thing Doug didn't aim lower, or I wouldn't be married today.

Even if these pictures are odd, I feel secure knowing Larry has stayed true to his original vision: to bring the kingdom of God now, with love and peace.

But does he have to be prettier than me?

Apple Computer, Beatles' Apple Settle Lawsuit

Apple Corps, the Beatles' record label, agreed to settle a trademark lawsuit with Apple Computers, over the tech giant using the name “Apple” on its iTunes music store.

Now that the Beatles and Apple have agreed to “let it be,” Yoko Ono has moved on. She's suing Gwenyth Paltrow for using the Apple name on her daughter.

Web Discoveries: Yoga Dawg, Creative Little Daisy

Yes the internet can be a terrible thing, all manner of crime and fraud, and much worse. But it's also a great thing. Take, for example, research. Who needs the public library, with all those kids on myspace, when you can stay home and read wikipedia. And if you're Bill Gates, you can use wiki as false advertising. Ooh let's not go there.

But here's to the good stuff. It was on the internet that I discovered my husband; through emails I fell in love with his words, and his love of words, and him. And on his blog I found more of who he was and more to love.

I've discovered some terrific blogs, too; like The View from Wood Road. For more, check my LINKS at left.

My Latest Discoveries: I love yoga, but yoga can be as dogmatic as church and as cliquish as high school. You know, you gotta have the right clothes, yoga mat bag, hair, the right mantra. So it was with sniggering delight I found the Yoga Dawg Website and his blog: My Third Eye Itches. Check out his page on Yoga Styles where he satirizes the too-serious, too-hip yoga joints, like his skewering of the "hot yoga" school. The "Crombies."

This school of Yoga has managed to blend all of the things America love most: a limited set of yoga poses for the attention deficient Yogi, sex scandals, copyright litigation along with hot, sweaty and half naked bims and bimbos in a tropical heat. Combine this with a swarmy, smelly studio led by a loud-mouth, swaggering Yoga Star swinging a big dick with a couple of radioactive balls and you have a winning formula for the Yogic success in America.

And his page on Yoga Fashion, where you too can look like a winning yogi, including getting your yogic beard extensions, and Super Shakti Yogi Loin Cloth.

Hey, it's all in fun!

I was doing a search for "aqua and brown," the color combination I used for my website and then my wedding. From this search I found some really cool images, and more: gorgeous purses at Creative Little Daisy. This woman makes amazing tactile art in the way of handbags and other usable delights.

And if you are looking for a way cool yoga mat bag, visit Wendyloo.

Not that I'm doing any internet shopping or editing wiki for money. Not now , I'm too busy writing.

The Nice Jesus On Every Wall

Three weeks into my sixth-grade year at Prince of Peace Lutheran Day School, I got sent to the principal's office. My family were loyal members of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, and I'd been attending POP Day school since I was four. This was the first time I had ever gotten into trouble.

It was also the first time I had stood up for myself.

As I sat on that hard wooden bench, waiting for Miss Olson, the retired-missionary principal, to come out and paddle me, I looked up at the picture of Jesus on the wall.

You might know it: Head of Christ was painted by Warner Sallman in the 1930s, and is arguably the most famous portrait of Jesus from the 20th Century. Not like Jesus had his portrait done, but you know what I mean.

Painted in humble, muted yellowy browns; a kind Norwegian-looking Jesus sits there, looking calm, sober, and slightly depressed. His eyes turn upward, as if he's listening to the Father. Maybe God is just now telling him he's going to be crucified, and Jesus is steeling himself for the sacrifice ahead.

Sallman painted a lot of pictures of Jesus. He must have had some old Lutheran friend stand in as a model, because Jesus always has the same long brown hair, square Nordic forehead, delicate features and sad eyes.

There's Christ Our Shepherd: Jesus tending sheep in the Alps. There's even a black sheep, though it is placed in the background. And then there's my favorite: Christ At Heart's Door: Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. Well it's really a farmhouse door, like a Thomas Kincade, painted before they invented anti-yellowing agents. But I saw the love and patience in Jesus' eyes as he stood there knocking. Like he would have stood there forever, waiting for me to open the door. "Oh Jesus don't be sad, I would pray, "I'm here, I’m here opening the door!" That was my favorite of the paintings.

But the one I knew the most was Head of Christ, or the "Nice Jesus" as I called it. And it hung in every classroom, pastor's study and toilet at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and School.

I spent many a day praying to the Nice Jesus on the wall: Jesus please raise my kitty from the dead ... Jesus, please make Toddie Williams love me ... Jesus please make my dad stop cursing. Jesus didn't answer many of my prayers. But that was okay. I knew he was listening, and I knew that he loved me.I saw the love and concern in his eyes. I saw his loneliness and sorrow, so I knew that He saw mine.

That's my image of Jesus: Jesus who loved, who listened, who never left; and who rarely intervened. Which was why I was in Miss Olson's office the third week of Sixth Grade.

My early years at Prince of Peace Lutheran School had been happy and uneventful. My mother was a timid Norwegian Lutheran who took her four children to church every Sunday while Dad stayed home and cursed at the TV. My brothers were already in public junior high; it was too late to reach them for Jesus. But my older sister Nancy and I attended the day school from kindergarten through sixth grade.

All of my teachers were little old retired spinster missionaries who smiled and turned the other cheek. My pastor, Torvald Ingebretsen, was a gentle man who never got angry, except when he preached on the Old Testament. In fact, no one at my church ever got angry. Which is why my dad rarely went to church. My anger was why I was in the principal's office.

Since my first day of fourth grade, I had been openly bullied by a Lutheran sociopath. Lisa Shanahan kicked my chair in choir when I got a choir solo. Oh, you think you're so cool! Bang, bang, my chair vibrated. She ridiculed me when I got better grades than she did. Oo, Susie wrote a poem! A poem about Egypt! DORK! The other girls laughed with her, terrified she might turn on them next. One day I got her out in Four Square. She got the girls to whisper and ridicule me, through the rest of the day, the rest of the week. For three years.

Oh sure, my friends would come to me in secret. Susie, we really like you. We just don't want Lisa to get mad at us. I believed them. How could anyone Lisa? Still, nowhere was safe, not even Girl Scouts: Lisa's mother was the troop leader, and they worked as a team. Camp outs were hell. I was alone.

Susie, my mother sat me down on her bed. This was the one and only time I ever remember my mother sitting me down to give me some parental guidance. Susie, I hear you say you're angry a lot. And that's not good. Because if you're angry, people won't like you. Well, that really pissed me off. I was angry was because Lisa was bullying me at my own birthday party in our house! And Mommy wasn't stopping it. Mommy never stopped it.

This torment went on for three years. My kind spinster missionary teachers told me to forgive Lisa and turn the other cheek. My friends came to me in secret: Susie we arelly like you! We just don't want her to turn on us. But my mother?

Mom, go tell Mrs. Shanahan to make Lisa stop!
My mother got flustered. I can't! I can't face her! She's too bossy.
Then talk to Miss Olson? I countered.
Susie, mom's voice trailed off a moment. Her voice came back trembling and scared. Susie, I can't handle your problems, you have to learn to resolve your own arguments!
But I didn't argue with her, Mommy! I didn't do anything!

My mother turned her back to me and wept.
I had no one.

But I had Jesus. I'd read about Jesus in the Bible, how he healed the sick and stood up for the weak and defenseless, and how he loved the unlovable. That was me.

Jesus was my invisible buddy who listened and loved me. The fact that he also loved Lisa made him a traitor or a wimp. But then, no one had stood up for me. Not the spinster missionary teachers. Not my callow friends. Not my mother. My father never came to church except to criticize the sound system. At least Jesus had the excuse of being too busy with the Viet Nam War.

So I trusted him. I spent many afternoons staring up at the Picture of the Nice Jesus on the wall. I prayed to him as Lisa kicked my chair or cackled to my gutless friends. "Please Jesus, make her stop. Please Jesus, make her nice. Please Jesus, make her die."

Jesus sat there, looking upward, listening only to his Heavenly Father. I hoped God was telling Jesus about it. Maybe Jesus was so sad, because he loved me and he couldn’t intervene.

So that is how I ended up in Principal Olson's office.

Three weeks prior, on the first day of Sixth Grade, I walked into class, only to discover that Wendy Barnes, the only girl who'd ever stood up for me, had left for Tewinkle, the public junior high. Lisa had planted herself in the seat behind mine, ready for one last year of taunting and torture and tyranny.

That afternoon I went straight home and found my mother in the back yard.

Mom, I want to go to Tewinkle.

Mom kept her back toward as she watered her irises, for what seemed like an eternity. The water spilled over into the strawberry troughs, and on into her nasturtiums. My mother put a lot of work into her garden. It was her outlet for being ignored by my father. Like she was ignoring me now.

Mom? I repeated after a long silence.

Finally Mother's back heaved and her voice pinched up into sob. "Why do you want to leave Prince of Peace?"
She was acting like I wanted to leave Jesus. But I didn't I wanted to leave Jesus, I just didn't want to be bullied anymore.

Mom began to cry openly. I went inside the house. Nothing more was said.

Three weeks later I was in Miss Olson's office. As I looked up at the Nice Jesus on the wall, I realized how much He reminded me of my mother: Maybe because they were both brown-haired, Norwegian, and depressed.

Miss Olson came out of her office and sat down next to me on the bench.
Susie, do you know why you're here?

I did. That afternoon, Lisa had hit me out in a game of prison ball. And she was on my team. Prison ball is like Dodge ball played in teams on a soccer field. Once you're hit with the ball you go to the goalie, and all you can do is throw the ball to one of your team members in the game so they can get an opponent out.

Lisa was hit out almost immediately. So she stood with the goalie, simmering every throw that I was still in the game. As other members of our team got out and joined her at the goal, she began her diabolical plan. She whispered to them. When they got the ball, oops! They didn't throw it to me; they threw it to the other team, so the other team could get ME out. That's all she wanted. She wanted me out. But I was fast and agile and angry. I dodged the bit fat red ball aimed right at me. Or I caught it and hurled it back at my opponent, getting them out instead. I was going to win.

Lisa had each side chanting for my demise. Girls are catty and fickle. And the boys, well boys always love watching girls fight. It was down to two players on our team. Me and Becky Knapp, a retarded girl who limped. She'd been ignored most of the game. Finally Lisa slipped the swollen rubber ball to Willie Snow and he slammed me, hard. The ball dropped. I was out. Becky the Retard was the only one left.

I ran straight for the goalie. Straight for Lisa. She was squealing in delight. My face was throbbling with adrenaline. I grabbed her thick red pony tail, and spun her around like a lasso with her head on the end. Like you spin way you pick up a toddler and swing them for play. Only this wasn't for play. This was for everything.

I let go and Lisa skidded several feet along the blacktop before stopping in a puddle of scrapes and terrified screams. The boys erupted in whoops and applause. Lisa ran off wailing. Her mother came to pick her up, threatening to remove her from POP forever. We could only hope.

My girl friends came over to reassure me they'd always liked me. I shoved them away and waited for the PE Coach to drag me to the office.

Susie, do you know why you're here? Miss Olson repeated.

"Because of Lisa?"

No. Miss Olson surprised me. "Because your mother says you're not happy here. Is that true, Susie? Are you not happy at Prince of Peace?"

I thought of my mother crying. Crying on Miss Olson's shoulder because her daughter wanted to leave Jesus. So I said nothing.

"Well, Susie. I think things will change after today." She smiled put a coupon for an ice cream in my hand, and sent me home. In good Lutheran fashion, Miss Olsen had turned the other cheek.

As I walked out, I looked up the picture of the Nice Jesus on the wall. Silent and sad and immovable. I prayed, "Please Jesus. Please understand."

Oh No. I Bought An Oprah!

Okay, Iadmit it. I bought a copy of Oprah! magazine today. Wait: is the ! reserved for her TV show title? Oprah! Maybe she's eliminated the ! altogether. It not the Oprah empire large enough that it needs an exclamation point to get noticed? Wait, I just checked. Her magazine is just O. She's more famous than Madonna. She's just a letter.

So, I bought my first copy of O, The Oprah Magazine today. I had to do 45 minutes of cardio at the gym and had nothing to read (I can't do cardio without something to distract me. I might realize what a waste of life it is to be running in place on a stationary machine in a gym run by minimum-wage college drop-outs, while real life is going on outside in the sunshine)..

So I stopped by the grocery store to buy something to read. I'd finished Vanity Fair, I had several New Yorkers at home. Vons was limited to Women's Day, LA Latino Angeleno, and the glossy gossip rags OK! In Touch! People was outdated. Justin and Cameron's breakup? Sooo last week. The current US Weekly cover story was on "Britney's New Man." Britney doesn't even have time to put on underwear, and she's had time to find a new man? Why is this news? Why do we care? Why is this happening? No. No I can't buy that magazine.

I am also trying to distract myself from my growing suspicion that America is truly falling apart in a this-time-it's-for-real-folks fashion. in a Rome Is Burning, can't you smell it? No, because you've got your head so far up up britney spears smelly uncovered ass,that's why you can't smell ROME BURNING!

The only justifiable magazine left was O. I perused the cover. . "David Sedaris gets dumped!" on the cover. I love most everything he writes. Something else about improving your relationship without taaaaaalking about it. Compared to everything else, this was Chaucer. I bought it, went to the gym, hopped on the elliptical trainer and read.

David Sedaris' piece was three short paragraphs. It was a series of Firsts. My First Crush, My first Job (Donna Karan), My First Day Off (Colin Powell). I was disappointed I only got three paragraphs of Sedaris, but the rest of it was pretty good. An article written Lance Armstrong's ex (not Sheryl) on how to get over. Pretty good..

There was an article about couples with at least 10 years difference in age. It was fascinating in a train wreck kind of way. I admit this is x sexist, but it wasn't the older men/younger women who made me squirm. It was the younger men. Men who were 10 to 18 years younger. For on thing, only one of the pairings were married, and many of them had only been together for two years. Come on, you’re not really a couple until you buy real estate or have kids.

I guess it made me squirm because I recognized myself. I almost always dated men who were younger. In retrospect, I was avoiding dealing with myself, by dating men who needed babysitting. Larry is 7 years older than me. Given our age, experience, maturity, life experience, he’s just such a great fit. For Me. And I have to deal with myself.

I’ve still got to read that article about “how to improve your relationship by not talking about it.” And I haven’t gotten to the Oprah-worship pages. I’m worried about that.

But I did notice Oprah's Mission Calendar. This month Oprah's mission is Love. The Banner read:

Let love rule—give it your best, and receive it with open arms.

Who wrote that? That's just horrible. Fingernails on a blackboard horrible.

Look, Oprah does a lot of great things for people. She has amazing power and influence, and I respect her. The fact she has all that and is black and a woman makes me smile, considering the role minorities and women have played in our culture. Good on you Oprah! But she’s just a little too ... self-focused?

Maybe I should sample more Oprah before I make generalizations about her media empire. But what other celebrity has her face on the cover every month? I have several friends who love Oprah. One of them, I am no longer friends with. Because took Oprah's self-actualization, self-worship theology too seriously.

One afternoon I was at the gym and they had Oprah on the TV. Susan Sarandon was on to promote a movie. Oprah asked her about a Susan was part of wherein she bought a sheep for a mother in Africa. Susan talked about how the sheep empowered that family, and how it really touched her as well.

Oprah then said, “Well we have flown that African Mother out to the studio today!” and Susan and the matriarch had a startled, overjoyed reunion.

Then Oprah announced she was giving 50, count em, 50 sheep to that village! Wow Oprah! Susan may have given one. But you just gave fifty. Mad me think of that verse in Matthew: Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired ... don't shout about it as the hypocrites do ... they have received all the reward they will ever get ... Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.”

Again I know she goes great stuff. More than I have ever done. But if she’s going to call down James Frey for writing a fiction book and calling it nonfiction, why hasn't she called Tom Cruise back to excoriate him for acting out an entire fictional life on camera? Come on Girl! You can do it!

If I ever get to meet Oprah, I will probably brown nose her, stumble over how much I respect her and how she's helped so many people self-actualize, and how I admired her ... in The Color Purple. And that will all be true. Hopefully she won't ask me how I like her show. I might have to lie.