Christianity is Not a Panacea

For the last few months, for one reason or another, I have been going through a Difficult Time. Friends have been great in varying measures and without them, I don’t know where I’d be.

However, I have been amazed at some of the beliefs that have been unearthed through friends trying to give me words of comfort.

Let me give you an example. One of the exhausting motifs of the last 12 months has been my relentless failure to find full-time employment following UCCF. The rollercoaster of hope built by getting to the interview stage (17 times now) followed by the plummet of disappointment when again I am thanked for applying and told that my performance at interview was exemplary, but that one other candidate was better qualified and had more experienced than me, has been wearing to say the least and has gently eroded my confidence and my bank balance.

More than one friend has said to me in response, ‘God has just the right job for you, you just haven’t found it yet’. This was said lovingly, and with a real desire to restore hope, and a genuine belief in its truth. But I am incredulous.

Where has the idea come from that for Christians, if we wait long enough, everything will turn out just fine? That a little while longer, or just that smidge more faith, will give us just the perfect little happy ending? When did we decide that Romans 8:28 was authored by Walt Disney?

Look around you at your Christian community – how many Hollywood endings do you see? How many people in perfect situations that are just right for them?

I’m not saying that life is a crock of crap for everyone, that’s clearly not true either, but neither is this idea that because we believe in God, we will either be free from the big pains of life, or the little irritating shitty little things that seem to happen for no reason, and that deny the description of ‘just right’ whatever sphere they happen to be in.

Perhaps the most eye-opening thing about hearing all this from some of my friends is that I have bought into it too. Even though I am one of the most cynical Christians I know, I’ve become aware that the reason my response to suffering (whether it’s small-scale but slowly draining like the job situation, or large-scale and heart-wrecking like my perpetual relationship situation) is rage. I am just so angry with God that all of this isn’t easier than it is. That now that I have given everything to him, I still have hot water that cuts out, or bills that I didn’t expect but can’t pay, or loneliness, or unemployment, or friends that cut themselves up literally and metaphorically, or that people die, or miscarry or get Alzheimer’s and there just isn’t anything I can do to help. Those things just don’t seem to fit.

Surely we should be able to say to those who are not Christians, ‘Look! Follow Jesus and you will have a life like mine!’ without feeling the need to shove all the pain and disappointment and unanswered prayer into some big cupboard that gets opened up when they’ve been a Christian a little while, and everything comes crashing down off the top shelf onto their heads.

We know that this should never be what we sell, that’s why we bang on about the evils of the prosperity gospel. We know that becoming a Christian is not about converting to a rosy life of ease and laughter, because we are happy to quote things about ‘taking up your cross’. We would all, and perhaps me especially, readily tell you that often in this life following Jesus means suffering.

So why am I so surprised and angry?

I have felt pressure from friends recently (and sometimes from my own internal promptings) to stop being so angry and disappointed and be thankful for what I’ve got. And it’s true that I have a great deal to be thankful for. The 365 project was very helpful for someone of my personality, and I’ve recently started it again over text with a friend, because it’s good for me to remember to be thankful everyday.

But I’ve also been told repeatedly that ‘Christians should be joyful’. My response to this has been further rage; at other Christians for not understanding my pain, and at God again, for not giving me something that is a clear expectation from scripture.

I have felt that the pressure to be thankful and to experience joy, comes from an expectation that I ought to shrink my disappointments, my pain and my genuine authentic responses.

I don’t think this is the answer.

God knows my true heart reaction to these situations, so pretending that my reactions are different is a waste of time. All through the Bible Christians have responded to suffering by spilling out their anger and tiny human understanding at him;

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
There is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”

Habakkuk 1:1-4 for example.

That is not slapping on a smile over the crap and saying that it’s all OK really because Jesus loves me. Habakkuk is a person with faith who just cannot see the mind of God in his mess and is authentically yelling out his fear and confusion to him. I am relieved that God puts passages like this in the Bible. It helps me not to be afraid that I will scare him off with my honesty.

So trying to pretend my problems are smaller than they are is not the answer here. Trying to pretend my response to them (to the pain and problems themselves as opposed to the bigger picture) is joy and gratitude is inauthentic. So what can I do?

I had a conversation with Priss last night about a comparatively small issue. She told me something she had recently learned and articulated;

“I was challenged to remember to make Jesus lord over everything. Wanting him first, even if that meant never having a well paid job or remaining single, not getting my own house, having no friends... etc.”

She shocked me with that. She shocked me by showing me how many millions of miles I am away from making a statement like that. That in fact I have managed to turn that attitude upside down. I realised that my misguided belief that God ought to give me everything I want because I’m his, had made me into this big greedy monster making demands, while God was my little servant, expected to feed me with things and if he didn’t, he incurred my rightful rage. What an ugly image.

Importantly, that does not mean that my needs and desires are not legitimate. It does not mean that my lack of them is not a real deficit. It does not mean that I ‘ought to be glad’ that things are hard.

It does not mean I should pretend that all of this is small.

It does mean I should remember that God is BIG.

Priss (and the Holy Spirit!) stretched my tiny butler God and showed me a glimpse of his greatness and his rightful place as Lord over everything. This is not then, a begrudging acquiescence that I have to submit to him, but a wonderful realisation that his bigness means that I can trust him to be big enough to carry me through the pain, the disappointment, all the rest.

Lately I’ve been trying to hold on to truths of him guiding me by his right hand, but I’ve been hating the places he’s taken me and wanted to shake myself free. I’ve now caught a glimpse of how powerful that right hand is. I hate to say it, but one of my most hated Christian kids songs has helped me here (I mostly hate it because English Christians seem to always insist on singing it inexplicably in an American accent. Since when did we worship Gad?):

Our God is a great big God
Our God is a great big God
Our God is a great big God
And he holds us in his hands.

This is TRUE and unbelievably for someone who hates kids songs, is a truth that helps me in the depths of my adult pain.

If Jesus is Lord of my life, I won’t demand from him. If he’s really Lord of all of it, I will trust him with it. I will not try to wriggle out of that great big hand, but I will rest in it. I might cry, I might shout, I might fall apart in the middle of it. But I will trust that it carries me, instead of assuming that it just pushes me where I don’t want to go, and takes away the things I want.

I have a long way to go still before I can say that this is how I am actually living my life, but at least I am on my way there. I feel I have a little way to go before I can say with authenticity that my response is joy, but at least I know that joy in suffering is possible (Romans 5 and countless others, promise me that) and so I can hope for that promise. Habakkuk begins with rage and confusion, but it ends like this:

“Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
He enables me to go on to the heights.”

I think I am somewhere between chapter 1 and chapter 3 of Habakkuk at the moment. I am feeling the loss of the olives, the sheep and the grapes. I am trying to learn not to expect them, while acknowledging the pain of their absence, and I am trying to learn and hold onto the hope, that the bigness of God will lead to joy in the heights, even if it takes me a little while to get there.

A Tribute to Relay

This morning has been a tearful one for me, as it's the morning that some of my favourite ex-colleagues head off for Relay 1 - the first conference of the year for UCCF Relay Workers. I am tearful because I am not exaggerating to say that the Relay conferences (which I have done 3.5 times over) have been some of the best weeks of my life. As far as I'm concerned the Relay programme just gets it right. It is so soaked in grace that it's dripping it all over the floor and there is no greater foundation for, well, anything.

Grace means that the nervous ones on trains and in cars right now will learn that they have every right to be there even though they are all too aware of their inadequacies and failings. Grace means that the cocky ones on their way there will learn that they have no right to be there despite their achievements and talents, but that they're welcome anyway because it's God that's going to be doing the work. Grace means that each of these things are equally true the other way around too. Grace is that wonderful leveller and I so wish I could be there for a 4th time to watch it doing its work.

At my first Relay 1, I was in the first camp. That first conference was the first time I ever remember feeling accepted as I was, and seeing that acceptance rooted in the unchangeable truths of the gospel. It was the first time I really realised that I did have something to offer, and that God had given me gifts that were usable and relevant. That conference was the first time I heard the parable of the sower taught, and that teaching was what got me through years of disappointments in the FE ministry. It was a constant (thought sometimes quiet) reprieve, whispering "Just sow, and sow, and sow, and sow, and sow, and sow....."

As I've repeated the conferences from the other side, it's Relay more than anything else that has taught me again and again that Jesus is enough, Jesus is worth it, Jesus is all I need, Jesus is all there is. I remember making notes in a talk at my last Relay 1, thinking "THIS is what I'm doing wrong! This is the key to the Christian life!" and then realising that what was being taught once again was that old chestnut, grace. There really is nothing new to learn, and nothing else needed.
I am going to miss singing songs to God with a room full of people who really, really mean it. I am going to miss singing those songs around a bonfire in the dark with people who really, really mean it. I am going to miss getting deep into rich books like Ephesians, Colossians, Isaiah and Zephaniah in ways that I've never enjoyed so richly anywhere else. I am going to miss that feeling of hard-heartedness, cynicism and failure being washed away by truth. I am going to miss waking up each morning with my mates. I am going to miss baring my soul to the girls and seeing it change and free some of them. I am going to miss caring for my fellowship group and watching it grow and change from conference to conference. I am going to miss the staff meetings, mixing hilarious banter with real love and concern for the Relays and each other. I am going to miss the 'fun nights', the content of which I can't reveal on here in case future or present Relays read and have their surprises spoilt. I am going to miss crying almost the whole way through Relay 3 each year as I hear testimony after testimony of God holding on to Relay after Relay, even through pain and grief, but often through real joy and change. I am going to miss the secret Relay rituals. I am going to miss having best friends as colleagues. I miss it.

The word 'privilege' has become a cliche when describing ministry, but there is no other word to describe what it has been to be involved in something like Relay. It has been genuinely life changing, sanctifying and joy filling, and it has glorified Jesus in my life more than any other gift he has given me.

It's hard to see, this morning, what life will look like without Relay. I can remember writing a similarly gushing post about Anna moving out a year and a half or so ago, which was equally accompanied by sodden tissues and snot. It took a long time to learn to enjoy the change that that brought. As I'm in two jobs without colleagues, that don't quite make ends meet and don't really get me out of the flat much at the moment, I think it's going to be a long time before I enjoy the gap that's left from Relay. But there was a kind of mantra that we learnt at Relay conferences, and that is not going to expire.

God is still God, and the gospel is still true.

Poetic Procrastination

During a near terminally boring quiet day at work, Witsy rescued me by setting me the following task:

"Write a poem on the theme of public transport including the words 'tripe', 'exorcist' and 'boobies'."

Here is the lyrical result:

Public Transport

London’s a vast complex maze

So to travel efficiently, pays

By rail track or gravel

It’s exciting to travel

In all kinds of different ways

It’s called ‘Public’ so on some occasions

You’ll meet people of different persuasions

A librarian, a flautist

A docTOR, and exORcist

Or Frenchmen, Mancunians or Asians

You may hear a Londoner gripe

About prices and other such hype

But that’s propaganda

See yourself, have a gander

You’ll see it’s a load of old tripe

There is only one warning I’ll say

Before sending you off on your way

Since you’re such a cutie

Cover boobies and booty

Or be tube-dwelling lecherous prey

OddBabble's School for Young Ladies #1

How To Receive a Compliment from a Young Single Man

Actual conversation after a recent gig*

Young man I barely know: That was lovely OddBabble
OddBabble: Thanks
Young man: You sound a bit like Dido actually
OddBabble: WHAT?! I HATE DIDO! TAKE THAT BACK!
Young man: Oh...
OddBabble: TELL ME I SOUND LIKE JONI MITCHELL.
Young man: Um, I don't know who he is
OddBabble says: JUST SAY IT
Young man: Um...ysndlikjjjmmmmll
OddBabble says: THANKYOU!

They part company

*I mean actual. I haven't even added anything for comic effect. I ACTUALLY said all this.

My Husband, Mr Rice

So I went to see him play last night as a birthday present from Peach. I had great seats, described as 'restricted view' but actually, they were above the side of the stage so I could see all the technical things that were going on - the sort of thing that makes the secret geek in me very happy. He came on, dressed all in white linen (in preparation for our after-show matrimonials, I assumed) and watched his vulnerable little back as he meandered around meaningfully on a grand piano before morphing it into a beautiful version of 9 Crimes. This began a whole section of some of his most beautiful, self-pitying, melancholic misery and I wondered if life could get any better than this. Then I heard a strange sound - dischordant, incongruous...a...ring-tone? The poor person must be so embarrassed to have left their phone on! Oh..they can't be, they're not...ANSWERING THIER PHONE? They can't be actually having a CONVERSATION?? Damien is singing his beautiful heart out about delicate looks and 'hurting parts of her garden' (I'm not sure what that means, but I think it's probably rude, and he's the only man who can make filthy things sound tragic. Reason #42203 why he is wonderful) and I am forced to listen to someone say in Trigger Happy TV style "I'm at the concert.....yeah....ooooh it sounds lovely dunn'it.....yeah I wouldn't mind 'avin 'im at the end of my bed *gaffaw*" I turned to her and said "Excuse me, do you think you could have your conversation later? I've paid for this ticket to hear Damien Rice, not to listen to your running commentary." In my head. In reality I glared at her with my best withering look, which 5 people down in a dark auditorium, did not seem to be having much effect on her. I remained silent and physically maimed her in my head.

The highlight of the night was when he played Coconut Skins, with a long mad solo section at the end using lots of pedals (which I gleefully observed from my restricted view) even though it was an acoustic guitar, and ran it smoothly into one of my favourites, Woman Like A Man.

After this dirty acousitc noise-fest, he moved back into some of his slower ones (lets face it, most of them are) and another disturbing sound assaulted my ear, this time from my right. It began with an a-rhythmic tapping. The man next to me suddenly felt he wanted to express his enjoyment of the show by demonstrating his entire lack of musicality by TAPPING in an indescribably irritating way, with no apparent reference to the beat. I had to sit on my hands to prevent myself from restraining him physically. Unfortunately this was not the entire scope of his lack of talent. He also chose to share with me the fact that he was utterly tone deaf AND, joy of joys, he knew all the words to both albums AND the B sides! I turned to him and said "I'm sorry, would you mind not singing? It's just it's quite loud and I can't hear Damien properly. Thanks." In my head. In reality I sat siliently while imagining punching him in the face, cutting his hands off and stuffing dirty rags into his noise-emitting mouth while revealing the more unsavoury depths of my vocabulary. These feelings reached thier climax when Damien unplugged his guitar and sang Cannonball with no microphone into the audience. We needed to be so quiet to hear this raw and beautiful sound, so the wailing in my right ear, with the lyrics just SLIGHTLY and MADDENINGLY wrong in places, made me so enraged I actually thought my eyes might bleed.

Despite all of this, and my discovery that my black and sinful heart means that I would rather indulge my anger and imagine murder than actually draw attention to myself (*shame*), it was still one of the most amazing gigs I've ever been to. Every song was done in such a fresh way - different from the recordings but still retaining everything that makes you love the song. Even the lighting was perfect. Thank you Peach.

OddBabble sings!

Click here to go to my new Myspace music site and help me to become an International Folk Bitch. If anyone has a myspace site themselves, please become my friend to help me look less pathetic. Ta.

Peckham's Got Talent?

Shoekeeper 'n' me

Logic

While reminiscing with my mum about my experiences in the FE colleges:

Mum: "I didn't know Bluebeard was bonkers."
OddBabble: "Of course he is! He's called Bluebeard because he's got a blue beard!"
Mum: "Well, I don't see why that should be my natural assumption. You also have a friend called Shoekeeper and as far as I know, he doesn't keep shoes."
OddBabble: "Good point!"

OddBabble likes to...

1./ In her free time, OddBabble likes to dance, watch Lost and Grey's Anatomy, and spend time with her friends and family.
2./ OddBabble likes to spy on him from the darkness of her upstairs bathroom.
3./ Before her games OddBabble likes to relax and listen to music and indulge in her hidden talent: sewing.
4./ OddBabble likes to play on VMK. That's Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom.
5./ OddBabble likes to proofread the local paper.
6./ So, you know how OddBabble likes to do all these surveys and then post them up for everyone to read her answers, well for some reason, i always have to read...
7./ The newlywed OddBabble likes to buy furniture sight unseen, and, in return for Jeff's turning a blind eye to his girly house, he gets sex.
8./ Apart from writing, OddBabble likes to make/play games, beer, movies and a host of other things that cannot be talked about on a family website.
9./ Back from the challenge, pseudo celebrity OddBabble likes to quote Joe Walsh. "Everybody's so different; I haven't changed."
10./ After drinking a lot and expending a lot of...energy...OddBabble likes to get a snack to keep everything stable.

First 10 results after googling "OddBabble likes to"

Bricking It

In two months, my contract will run out, and I’ll have the UCCF door closed behind me and bolted. At the moment I am trying hard to make sure that I can walk right into another one, but so far all I can see is wilderness.

Either way, it scares the living crap out of me.

Whatever happens to me on June the 18th will be something I’ve never done before. All my life I have either been a student, or someone who works with students. Each stage of my life has been a smooth transition from doing something I know, to doing something else I know from a different perspective. I can hardly imagine what it will be like to step off that treadmill to somewhere foreign.

I know that change has to happen, and I know that I don’t want to stay where I am, even if I had the choice to do so. Things are finishing where I am and it’s like trying to warm my hands on a fire that’s almost out. I know I need to get up and make a new one.

I know too, or at least have been reminded, that God is still there. I know he loves me and that he loves to bless me. That he knows me, knows what I love, what I'm good at, what I’m scared of, what my weaknesses are. He knows the right job for me, and he knows how to help me get it. There’s no rational reason why he would lead me to being a make-up artist, or historian or cricketer, or something else that I would hate and have no talent for. I know he’s not vindictive.

The thing that scares me is the truth that he does know what’s best for me better than I do, and that that sometimes means that it hurts. When I look back over my life, I can see why all the twists and turns have come about. I can see most of the time, what God was doing at each point, and why he did it. I can see where going his way saved me from disaster, and I can see where going mine dropped me right in it. I know that whatever he brings me will be what’s best. The Bible tells me so.

But my memory is not short enough to forget that learning those lessons was always painful. That being sanctified, being obedient, being disobedient, being pruned by the great keeper of the vine; that these things hurt.

I know it will hurt to say goodbye to my UCCF family – it’s hurting now!
I know it will hurt to change such well-worn routines, to leave behind esoteric words, mannerisms, intonations, uniforms, networks; all the ingrained things that come from being part of such a small and particular world as I have been a part of.
I know that the challenge of my sinfully putting my identity in my work and in my ‘status’ in having this job, will be a painful challenge. A disorientating challenge. An uncomfortably humbling challenge.
I know that my shyness and fear of entering a world where not everyone has known my name since before they met me, and the things I have done before will seem meaningless to them; I know that these things will erode my sense of identity even further.

It’s these things that I’m scared of, even if I’m led into the most OddBabbleshaped job I could dare to imagine. I know I need that challenge and I need the change. I just wish there was a quicker, less painful way to do it.

Philosophical Conundrum

So I was told that rats made good pets. I thought that I would get two girl ones, and call them Pam and Barbara. Then I bought a book about rats and discovered that they wee on you carpet all the time and need constant attention and supervision. Bye bye Pam and Barabara.

My conundrum is this: By calling into existence the concept of Barbara and Pam, were there from that moment, two ACTUAL rats, who would in the future be named thus? If so, when I decided not to buy them, did they cease to exist? Have I murdered two theoretical rodents? Or have there, since their conception, been two rats, who I WOULD have bought, but now that I haven't, they are just called, say, Sylvia and Prunella?

It tortures me so.

Compromise

When I go on holiday, I like to lie in in the mornings for as long as possible, before eating something delicious and slowly consuming cooling alcohol in the warm shade, reading a book, watching the locals or discussing Interesting Things with my companion. These long days might be punctuated by visits to local markets to look at cheap tat, or various activities involving staring at foreign people, or long periods of sitting down. In the evenings I like to eat more (especially whatever the locals eat, as I like to try new food), then drink more, and then dance.

I also enjoy playing catch.

When Witsy goes on holiday, she likes to get up at a reasonable hour so that she can make the most of the time she has away. She likes to look at places of historical interest and visit museums. When eating in foreign countries she likes to find a place where she can eat a cheeseburger. She likes to plan her activity-filled days in advance.

She also enjoys playing catch.

Witsy and I are holiday buddies.

We play a lot of catch.

You would think that two such vacationally incompatible people would be an unwise Holiday Buddy partnership, but that is because you do not know the magic of the Witsy/Barney combo, or how inexplicably and endlessley satisfying the ancient game of catch can be (especially with the Hi-Bounce Pinky, pictured).

The secret, is that relational magic word - compromise. It is perfectly possible and pleasant, for me to sit and read contemplative contemporary fiction in the grounds of a castle, where Witsy is running around reading placards & feasting on historical facts.

After a quick round of catch, it is perfectly acceptable and enjoyable for Witsy to go and take photos from several angles of some ancient sewage works (or something), while I sit and sip a Bacardi, listening to music and watching people go by.When ski-ing, in between games of catch, there's nothing wrong with me gliding along green runs looking at the pretty trees, and then having a little sit down, while Witsy bombs backwards down black runs across mountains spanning three countries.

See? Compromise.

Becci's Strange Dreamworld #1

"Well...first of all you decided to go to taekwondo with me. When we got there it was at a swimming pool and everyone was walking round the edge and every now and again jumping in and getting out again and then walking around and continuing to walk around. Then we left and went to the changing rooms which were like little huts that you'd find in some foreign country. I can't describe them. Then we went back to your house where you were like this poor kid who had abusive parents and I relaised you needed to get out of there and it made me really sad. And you had all these brothers and sisters and then I realised you could leave because you were an adult, so we left and went to kath's house. When we got there her house was a crap-hole,so we were discussing that it needed decorating. So we decided to decorate it but Kath said we couldnt all live there whilst it was being done so you and her were like "we dont need Becci, lets get rid of her"
And i was sad.
You gave me a hug.
And then you grew a beard."

Oh Bother

I am a Christian, and sometimes I swear.

I was in the car with Priss listening to Rootless Tree by Damien Rice the other day, and I warned her that it had some 'rude words' in it. Sure enough, Damien got very upset, and in the chorus screamed a broken; "F**k you! F**k you! F**k you, and all we've been through!" She asked me whether I thought that he would sing different words if he became a Christian. I think it would be a real shame if he did.

I am a person that loves language. I love words and I love people that really know how to use them. I love the precision of it - that there is usually a perfect word to express that exact thing that you want to say, and I love the giving and recieving of that precision when we communicate. Sometimes I think that exact word has to be a swear word.

Imagine if Damien sang; "Go away! Go away! Go away!" or similar. There just isn't another word or phrase that communicates the pain and rage that he feels towards this ill-loved woman, than the one he has chosen. Trying to put a more socially acceptable word in there is an attempt to sanitize language, but language is not supposed to be hygienic. It describes the world we live in and the world we live in is not pure and lovely. We need words to express that, or it's like pretending that we live in a Walt Disney Mary Poppins bubble.

The world is not 'messed up'. The world is f**ked up. A messed up world is one where some people get sad sometimes - the kind of thing we tell little children when we try to guard them from the truth. The reality is that we live in a fallen world which is ravaged by sin; every concievable thing is spoiled by it and not as it should be. Every single person is fighting a losing battle against themselves from which they are helpless without a saviour. The language we need to describe that is strong and offensive because that is the nature of the thing it describes. We need the visceral percussiveness of that word to say things which make us rage.

Of course there are contexts where this is not true. Of course that word can describe sexual violence, or can be used as a weapon against someone. What makes language wonderful is also what makes it dangerous; it is powerful. We can choose to use words rightly or wrongly, for good or for evil. There's a reason why I've used *s instead of letters, and that's because I want to be sensitive to people that don't agree with me. I'm aware of verses like Colossians 3:8 (But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips) and Ephesians 4:29 (Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs) but surely this is about the context and the intent with which we use words. I don't think it means we speak in a watery way that doesn't express reality. I hope it doesn't mean that Christians don't have access to that precision of communication that others have.

Please don't hear me as saying that I think sermons should be peppered with swear words, or that Christians should regularly be effing all over the place. I know that there is a great inelegance in that, and a high potential for offending someone. I know there are few occasions when a swear word is the right word. All I'm saying is that we should not be afraid of certain words. They don't bite. They are just serving their function.

Anyone that doesn't agree with me can just....go away.

OddBabble's Strange Dreamworld #5

So I'm a man and I'm heavily pregnant.
I am on my way to have a caesarean, presumably to prevent the baby from coming out of some unimaginable orifice.
It's a local anaesthetic, but I don't have the luxury of one of those merciful green screens to stop me from being able to view the internal contents of my own body. Thus I am conversing furiously with my 'birthing partners' (Witsy & B) demanding that they 'ASKMEANOTHERQUESTIONASKMEANOTHERQUESTION' the moment a silence lapses, since I know if I don't keep talking I will......look down.After a suprisingly short time I am cautiously standing up (still not wanting to look down, as i had a nasty feeling they'd forgotten to sew me up again) and the midwife comes over and says; 'here's your baby'.
I look, puzzled, into the black bucket full of blood and fat. "Where?" I ask."There." She says. As I look closer I can see a tiny, foetus sized creature with a hideously disproportionately large head which looks as if it is made of glittery suede.
You'd think I'd be disgusted but it has such a beautiful, serene, knowingly content smile on its face that I know I'm going to be the most loving daddy in all the world.

Sorry. Even I feel a little bit queasy now.

So anyway, back to me...

What ever happened to lazy, egocentric blog posts? It's about time I brought them back into fashion! Found this on The Frightening Lisa Dickinson's blog, and thought I'd steal a bit of Me Time too.
Your Name:
My name:
Summarize me in three words:
Where did we meet:
Take a stab at my middle name:
How long have you known me:
When is the last time that we saw each other:
Do I drink?:
Do I smoke:
Am I happy:
Am I a good person:
What was your first impression of upon meeting me/seeing me:
What's one of my favorite things to do:
Am I funny:
How do you make me smile:
What's my favorite type of music:
Have you ever seen me cry:
Can I sing?:
What is the best feature about me:
Am I shy or outgoing:
Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules:
Do I have any special talents:
Would you call me preppy, average, sporty, punk, hippie, glam, nerdy, snobby, or something else (what):
I'm hot? Am I not? Go ahead, you can say ... :
Have you ever hugged me:
Kissed me?:
What is my favorite food:
Have you ever had a crush on me:
Am I dating anyone:
If there was one good nickname for me, what would it be:
What's your favorite memory of me:
Who do I like right now:
What is my worst habit:
If you and I were stranded on a desert island, what is the one thing I would bring?
Are we friends:
Do you want us to be more than friends?
Do I believe in God?
Am I family oriented?
Who is my best friend?
Will you repost this so I can do it?

Copy it, paste it in a comment, make me smile.