Can We All Just Calm Down for a Second?

I'm really happy right now.  I've been feeling good for a couple weeks. Good enough, in fact, that my brain is trying to find ways to sabotage my happiness, because it knows that for every happy moment I steal, there's hell to pay later.  The devil gets his due.

SHUT UP, BRAIN and let me be happy.  So that's something I'm working on.  (I'm now going to update y'all on my life now, but the real meat of the post is farther down, in case you want to skip it.  Or whatever.  I don't tell you what to do.)

I'm really enjoying my job.  It's only-just-above-minimum-wage at Starbucks, but I'm getting 2 raises in the coming months (one for being there 6 months and one because everybody at Starbucks is getting a raise in January - people are rumbling about raising the minimum wage, so I imagine they're trying to get ahead of that so it's not such a blow when it does happen.  Good for them.  Good for me).  I think that some of the enjoyment comes from just being an employee again - I know exactly what is expected of me at all times, there are no ambiguous social situations to navigate, and I don't have to be in charge of anyone.  It's much less stressful.  

My last job pretty much required a codependent attitude in order to survive.  I was basically on-call every day - if they needed help, I was the only person who could come in.  It's kind of nice to be so desperately needed, but you can never really relax when you know that a call could come in at any hour and you'd be needed - and you can't really say no.  Part of this is because we were such a small unit that we couldn't really afford to hire any more people, part of it was some issues with "upper management."  But seriously - I'm not an EMT, I was working in a college cafeteria.  Ain't nobody got time to cut years off their life with the stress from that bull.  Beyond that, I feel like there was so much time there when I wasn't sure what was expected of me moment to moment, and we didn't get regular reviews, so it was hard to tell if you were doing good, bad, or indifferent.  You were fine until suddenly everything you did was terrible, then you'd get ignored for another 5 months.  It was weird, and stressful, again, to never know when the hammer would come down.  So between that and being "on-call," just every minute of on and off time was filled with anxiety.  Yuck.

Starbucks is working out great so far.  I can ask for days off!  I work with only nice people (who can ever say that?  Me!  Right now!)  I am good at this stuff.  I can relax when I'm home - be home at home and work at work.  Plus, free lattes ;)  And tips!  And healthcare!  

But anyway, the point of this post right now is to talk about my "biological clock" and how it needs to shut itself right the hell up.  (Not a Sparrow Falls...you might not want to proceed).

One of the great fears among a life of great fears...

"One of the great fears among a life of great fears, perhaps the last great fear is the fear of being no longer useful. We find a role in life, and we do that role to the best of our ability for as long as that ability is there. But all of us — even me, dear listeners — will someday hit a point where we no longer are able to do that thing that we define ourselves by doing. And more than the fear of injury, more than the fear of death, this is the fear that looms. The loss of self. The self that is self we imagined we were our whole lives. But we were never that self, not really. We were only a series of selves, living one role and then leaving it for another. And all the time convincing ourselves that there was no change. That we were always the same person, living the same life. One arc to a finish, not the stutter-stop improvisation that is our actual lives.
Worry less about the person you once were. Or the person you dream you someday will be. Worry about the person you are now. Or don’t even worry! Just be that person. Be the best version of that person you can be. Be a better version than any of the other versions in any of the many parallel universes. Check regularly online to see the rankings."
--Cecil Baldwin, Welcome to Nightvale

That's all for today, just that quote. Because I found, when I listened to this episode, that I needed it. Here it is, in case I need it again. Here it is, in case you need it, now and again.

Leaving the WELS, Never Easy

So, working at Starbucks is killing my writing.  Not that I was doing a ton of that anyway, but I'm a night owl, and my writing-brain usually turns on between 7:30 and 9, which is prime bed-time for me now.
Which is not to say that I don't love my job, because I do.  I work with only nice people (for the first time in my life - and I'm not exaggerating - literally, ONLY nice people.  Awesome!)  I have benefits.  It's tough supporting both myself and Husband on near-minimum-wage, but with food stamps (so great) and a little help from the parents, we're doing ok while he continues his job search.
Obviously, this post isn't about any of this.
The title comes from an REM song that I like.  It's not my favorite, but when the day arrives that I can't think of an REM song that's at least mildly related to the topic at hand, I might as well just stop living.  I like REM, is my point.  Also, the lead singer from REM looks a bit like a bald, sad Ewan McGregor, which is a fact that the world must acknowledge.
That's still not what this was meant to be about.  I suck at this blog crap.
Well, to be honest, I'm dancing around this because I'm at a weird crossroads and there's religious and personal and bitter and scary stuff all tied up in it, so I'm avoiding talking about it.
I've decided to leave the WELS, the church body that I was raised in.

My (Very, Very Incomplete) Thoughts on Abortion

 Here's another one that's been mulling in my mind for a long time now.  My 3 regular readers (Hi guys!) have seen it pop up a few times as I have begun to contemplate it.  It's about abortion.  Eeww.  I'm not sure how much my opinions have changed, but I am aware that they are on the move.  So here's my brain as it grapples with an incredibly difficult and divisive issue.
(Another opinion that's on the move for me is my affiliation with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.  I'm not going to write about that now, but I will when I've had a chance to think through it better and gather my thoughts...but I'm actively seeking a LCMS church to attend in my area.  So, not a huge change, I know - I'm Lutheran, dammit, and I loves me some liturgy, so there's only so far I can drift.)

ANYWAY
What started it is this article: When evangelicals were pro-choice.  Here's the juicy bit (verses, as always, linked for your convenience):

"In 1968, Christianity Today published a special issue on contraception and abortion, encapsulating the consensus among evangelical thinkers at the time. In the leading article, professor Bruce Waltke, of the famously conservative Dallas Theological Seminary, explained the Bible plainly teaches that life begins at birth:
“God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: 'If a man kills any human life he will be put to death' (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22–24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense… Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.”
The magazine Christian Life agreed, insisting, “The Bible definitely pinpoints a difference in the value of a fetus and an adult.” And the Southern Baptist Convention passed a 1971 resolution affirming abortion should be legal not only to protect the life of the mother, but to protect her emotional health as well."

Whoa!

Ok, so this is a sort of non-post post. I've been dealing with some shit in my personal life that's put me behind, and also I'm working on a post dealing with abortion, even though I'm pretty sure no one wants that, because, quite often, writing these things is how I sort them out myself, in my own head. I need to do that. That topic, however, is WAY more tangled and confusing than anything I've tackled thus far, to my own very great surprise.

Anyway, I caught wind of a fabulous discussion happening in my vicinity, and thought I'd share part of it with you (none of it is my own words).

I have an internet friend who is a cultural Jew, an actual atheist, an expert historian on Victorian sexuality (specifically same-sex relations [if I understand that correctly]), a regular Anglican church attendee (while she was in Cambridge), and an all-around interesting, thoughtful, and lovely liberal person. She undertook to read the Bible, in an attempt to understand more of her own heritage and the prevailing cultural norm, etc. I have great respect for that - not a lot of people would do it (Interesting! Thoughtful! Lovely!) She's been posting little updates and questions as she goes. Today's was this:

"My jaw drops lower with each chapter of Leviticus, which manages to top the last in moral precepts completely and utterly at odds with the world I live in. Liberal members of the Abrahamic faiths, how do you even cope with the fact that this text is a central part of your scriptural tradition?!

Oyster Man

Ok, here's another fiction piece. It's one I've been holding back for a while, because I can't quite get it right, but I think that maybe this is as good as it's going to get. It's not bad, but it's not as beautiful or as salty as it is in my head. Anyway, it's called Oyster Man, for no reason whatsoever:

In my dreams, I see the future. I don’t know how, or why, but I know that if I want to keep doing it, I have to stay pure. I know this the way one knows things in a dream, without needing to be told, without doubting the veracity. So I have my little rituals. I stay clean, I don’t touch other people, I only buy certain brands of clothing, that sort of thing. I always know what to do. A few of the prohibitions rankle me, but the reward is so very worth the price.
In my dreams, I am alive. Vibrantly, shiningly, gloriously alive in the way one can’t be alive in life. My life is Plato’s cave, but in my dreams, I see Truth. Everything I dream is true, comes true. Every single thing.

She came to me one night in my dreams. I stood on my balcony and She walked down the telephone wire to get to me. Her hair was black, Her lips were red, and Her eyes were the sea itself, liquid and profound. She wanted me for Herself. “Come with me,” She said, “Dream for me. I can give you freedom. Freedom to dream, freedom from purity,” But I don’t let Her finish. I turn and open the sliding glass door. I do not trust Her. I dream only for myself.
In my dream, the storm whips around me. She calls out my name, 3 times. “Amos! Amos! Amos!” I turn my back and begin to go inside. My vision blurs.
My dreams are never indistinct.
 Cold wind blows the rain into my apartment. Papers fly. Huge gusts knock over my bookshelf and send me sprawling. I turn my head to look back, shielding my eyes with one hand, and my vision clears. She drops her arms and the wind dies and she is gone. I wake in a sweat. I spend the rest of the night tossing in bed.

The Innkeep's Perspective

So, here's a bit of fiction.  It's from a writing prompt where you're supposed to talk about a historical event from the perspective of someone in the time - I went with a random innkeeper in the town of Gevaudan, between the royal hunters' supposed killing of the beast and Jean Chastel's supposed killing of the beast.  It was mostly a practice in dialogue (or monologue, I guess).  But here it be, hope you enjoy it.

"I don’t think much of it, either. It’s been a year since those fancy sods left, taking their prize with them. 'Msgr. Jean Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval' gets to take his fancy new titles and his great big sack of money and settle down. It wasn’t even 3 months later there was another attack, but nope!  The beast’s dead!  Musta been something else hurt those little girls.