Took me a while to find it again, but I thought this was an interesting article on different types of prayer: [link]

Haven't found the reference yet, but I remember another article about how prayers are basically either "Gimme!" "Thanks!" "Wow!" or "Why?"

Vortex, I love that helicopter joke. (I tell that one, and an old joke about evangelicals thinking they're the only people in heaven, so much that The Girl groans on cue as soon as I start saying the words "There was a man who died and went to heaven...")

Like, a woman who stays with a verbally abusive boyfriend gets breast cancer, because she's not taking care of her feminine needs.

How interesting. I wonder, are my joint and connective tissue problems the result of... not having connection in my life? (Of course, they could be the result of, y'know, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. But that would clearly be the view of a crazy radical.)

I tell that one, and an old joke about evangelicals thinking they're the only people in heaven

I love that one. I think there's a version of it for every single sect in existence, except the Unitarians and Episcopalians.

WRT attitude and illness, there's a great (and distressing) scene addressing that in Todd Haynes's Safe, where a warm and fuzzy group support/mutual affirmation group at a New Agey convalescent facility is interrupted by a woman in an utter rage that her husband's positive attitude hasn't helped him one goddamn bit, she's sick of hearing that his illness is his fault, and isn't this all deflecting talk away from industrial and environmental toxins and all the big scary monsters that involve more serious battles than merely turning that frown upside down?

I've heard variants of her tearful rant a few times since from critics of the Pink Ribbon industry.

And, in other news, I am now groaning with proof that God exists and wants me (and possibly my entire division) to be happy -- division holiday lunch with sushi, egg rolls the size of burritos, honey walnut prawns, and Princess cake from Schubert's. If there had been a pitcher of martinis, we might all have been bodily assumed into heaven.

Safe is one of the scariest non horror movies I have seen.

See I can talk movies in bars!

I just spoke to my friend Sandy - she's the one who I stay with over holidays. Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving I went with her to take her oldest cat (of two) to the vet - to be euthanised. And now she has had it confirmed that her 11 year old retriever has cancer. I mean, yes, she is 11 but that really doesn't make it easy.

her minister and saying that she'd been praying for a Cadillac

Has she never listened to Janis Joplin?

That song is so fucking Texas it's not even funny. Except it is.

God. With these phones Jon and I are those poeple.

Gah, Sumi. That's rough.

On a completely rediculous note, Dallas got groomed: [link]

On a completely rediculous note, Dallas got groomed

Aww.

Hell. Just subluxed a rib. I hate that feeling.