Oh fuck, I forgot. I'm going to hop in the shower.

I'm so over summer. Scott said it was 101 on the big digital thermometer outside of a business, a few blocks from our house, at 5:30, this afternoon. Summer can talk to the hand.

Gee, and I sent Summer to you, special.

Eta -- Topic!Cindy – On a more serious note, today was the 10th anniversary of my mom’s death. I found myself thinking of you a few times today, too. Not my most pleasant of days, remembering the death of a parent and his/her absence from our lives since then. But the pain does lessen in time, and the memories of happier moments do stay.

Skipping ahead a few posts to say, after all that Old Testament stuff--have any of you been reading "Blogging the Bible" on slate.com? It's fascinating stuff...

I feel remarkably better now. You know how usually, just cold water in the shower is unpleasantly cold? Not tonight!

Note to self: just be glad you still have power and therefore AC to sleep in.

I ran a cold bath and sat in it for a while when I got home.

FTR, today sucked on like a million different levels. None of them big ones, mind, but still a million different tiny little fucking ways.

I feel remarkably better now. You know how usually, just cold water in the shower is unpleasantly cold? Not tonight!

When we lived in the craphole appartment with no a/c during our first two years of marriage, sitting in a bathtub full of cold water eating popsicles wasn't that unusual during the summer.

New drug sniffing dogs.

People best give some PR whitefont for the big deal, some of us do not have Bravo.

Oh yeah, it's wednesday, isn't it?

More reality teevee for me.

I've also heard commentary that it [Abraham's almost sacrifice of Isaac] was an object lesson.

I read somewhere that this was a test, but Abraham failed it. Fortunately for him, God loved and forgave him anyway.

Actually the two characters in the Bible (yes, I am continuing to treat it as a narrative) I have the most sympathy with are Lucifer Morningstar and Judas Iscariot.

There's a great book on Jesus's life that has an interesting and sympathetic portrayal of Judas, Testament, by Nino Ricci. I like his take so much, that I sometimes have to remind me, when it comes up in conversation, that it wasn't actually in the Bible. Hmm. [link]

Yeah, it's been sitting in my Amazon cart for a while, waiting for me to have a moment of weakness.

Weakness isn't necessary. Get it from your library for free! If your library doesn't have it, they may be willing to purchase it or to obtain it through interlibrary loan, and those options are often free as well.

I wish that I could understand why those people fail to turn away from this God in disgust. The God of the Old Testament is a petty tyrant: selfish, impulsive, and irritable. He’s a psychopath who torments, tortures and kills without the slightest guilt, if that is what is necessary to extend his influence. His claim to authority is that of a warlord: he is powerful and therefore you should bow down to him. I doubt that there is such a God, but if there is, the response of any moral person would be to oppose his influence with every force available. That there are people who worship this monster has never ceased to amaze me.

I called myself agnostic for years because of this. I guess I probably wasn't so much agnostic, as I believed that God existed, but didn't believe in God. From what I had been taught about God, He wasn't someone I could follow, even if I ended up in Hell over it. I literally walked around scared for my eternal soul for years. Then I had a conversation with a friend that completely changed my understanding of God and my life. She explained how God was far to vast for anyone to understand completely, how She was far too good and too powerful to be constrained by the boundaries that a literal Bible requires. I don't know if it was just the right time for me, or if she just explained things in a way I hadn't heard before, but I'm so glad for it.

Looking for a link for Testament, Amazon made me go three searches in before it gave me the advanced search option. This sucks. Do you know how many books have the word 'testament' in their titles? A lot.

PR: Keith is such a fucking cheater in multiple ways! Am glad he's busted.