Yay! I may not be a one shot wonder! I've got a really great idea for a story, and it keeps getting better upon reflection! I will write it tonight, possibly (hopefully!) in one sitting, as the more drawn out the process is the more likely it is to fail.

Anyhoo - I was thinking today about how utterly odd it is that I can't seem to take a lit class at an extremely secular state university without the bible being brought up. In a sense it isn't weird as so much of our literature is informed by the bible even when we can't see it. The stories in Genesis, for example, are archetypal at least. Who hasn't, symbolically, eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and suddenly found themselves outside their protected little garden, dealing with pain, suffering, death.

Secondly, I think FA (fundamentalist atheists) much like FB (fundamentalist believers) can't stand the thought that someone might disagree with them.Yesterday I was throwing around the terms atheist and fundamentalist really loosely, when I meant something very specific. So, I'm going to use FA and FB to refer to these groups. I've met a lot of extremely open-minded people who are also dedicated Christians and might even call themselves fundamentalists who do not fit the stereotype promoted by our media. However, the closed-minded ones I will refer to as FB.

The same thing goes for atheists. I was really hard on atheism last night, but I know many atheists who are very relaxed around believers and don't feel like trying to beat the ignorance out of someone who has different views.The people I was talking about last night, those atheists who can't stand the fact that someone might believe in God, those people I will call FA.

My point is that a lot of the professors in the English department where I go to school lean towards the FA end of the spectrum - not all, but enough so that a casual, somewhat antagonistic atheism prevails and has become, perhaps unconsciously, embedded in the curriculum. So the teachers feel the need to subtly teach atheism.

Or, maybe I'm paranoid.

I ran across a prayer request yesterday on a website. Someone died and the family is falling apart and the guy wanted people reading the site to pray for the family. I really wanted to pray, but I couldn't.

What is going on?

Finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay recently. It is a great book and you should all read it. My brother read it a few years back and he told me it lost momentum at the end, but I felt the exact opposite. I think it really picked up towards the end. It's about two guys making comics back in the 30s and 40s (maybe into the 50s?) and often there would be a lot of talk about comics and some chapters were written from the perspective of the comic book characters and I think my brother wanted more of this as he is a big comics fan.

Well, I'm not a big comics fan. I read them now and then and recognized many of the names mentioned during the historical bits, but I don't read them regularly, so, to me, although I liked the parts that were about comics, the real attraction was the great writing, plot and characters.

My father couldn't finish it, but he reads mostly mystery novels. He wanted to be a poet, once upon a time; what the heck happened to him that he can't appreciate such a fine piece of writing?

Someday I hope to write a novel as good as this.

The Final Confession of Mabel Stark is coming along. Mabel has just put her head in the mouth of a lion as part of a rite of passage and now she is dodging restive tigers who don't like their new trainer very much. I have my own confession to make, though. I probably wouldn't have started to read this if the main character wasn't a short blonde woman. I have a thing for short blondes.

I go to this one Starbucks downtown a lot - or I used to. I haven't gotten there as much as I used to. Anyway, there was this really cute, short blonde who worked there. I'd see her every week for months at a time and we'd smile at each other and so forth. Then she disappeared for a while just after I broke up with Louise. I went in several times a week thinking I would ask her out and she just wasn't around anymore. Well a month ago or so, I saw her and made myself ask her out. Her name is Stephanie and when I heard that I was doubly smitten because I have a thing for girls named Stephanie. I gave her my phone number. She hasn't called and I haven't seen her since. Women suck.

I haven't always had a thing for girls named Stephanie. There is a story behind that which I will tell later. Drop me an email if you want to hear the story. If enough people write in, I will post that story. It involves strippers if that is any motivation.

Reading
Wishing
Plotting