Atheist Meditations

I'm embarrassed to admit that in catching up with a good friend's blog this afternoon, I discovered that he had 'tagged' me almost a week ago. That's why my blogs been sucking lately, I just can't endure the caffeine levels that allow me to produce content constantly and keep up with the few noble souls who give a shit about what I'm posting here. Fair enough, I'm 'tagged' so I'll devote five paragrabs to personal details.

#1 I'm an Aquarius from '75. That makes me 32. Anyone who has known me for the last decade will tell ya that I'm terrible when it come to the anniversary of my nativity. I get depressed sometime around Christmas, and lay the whine on pretty damn thick regarding the erosion of my physical prowess as well as the certainty of my mortality. Partly, I think I just like the attention and the chance to engage other's mental constructs with novel notions, partly I think I'm saddened by the fact that our consumer culture targets the young and the wealthy. I once was young (and damn good looking); I'll never be wealthy. It is rather depressing when you realize that the media that once worked overtime to stimulate your ego no longer gives a good god-damn about you or your purchasing habits.

#2 My woman Cindy is the most important thing in my life. In my twenties I had many 'friends' but our disagreements regarding the nature of reality insured that they would never be my 'intellectual equal' or even view me as anything other that a 'lost soul to be saved.' Any brother atheist will understand immediately how rare it is for our kind to find a partner who can contemplate the horrible awesomeness of Atheism. I consider myself to be diabolically eloquent, but I can never express to her how lucky I am to have her as a partner. Too many women have been bred and indoctrinated to a level of submission that is boringly sub-human. Daily I stagger at the blind luck of finding a female who still thinks of herself as a full member of the species - she sees her sex as an equal part of the human family, not as a caste; like worker bees or drones, with the species.

#3 I live in a household with FOUR FUCKING CATS. Since they are all calicos I often lie about this, since a casual observer may be unable to differentiate between all those shapes of white, black, and brown. 'Nope, that's the same cat, we only have two.' Suffice to say, I've never walked down the stairs, or crossed the kitchen without considering the disrespectfully sprawled form of a cat.

#4 I was a judoka in my youth, and still find the skills and philosophies of Jigaro Kano to be valued in my later life. I was the state champion in my weight class in 1989, and won the silver medal in the 'star of the north games' the following year. I'm not trying to impress anybody here, when I was competing in judo the field contained less than a dozen competitors at my age/weight class at the time. This was Minnesota. Yet I consider my training in ukemi (the art of falling) to be largely responsible for the fact that I have never broken a bone, despite my many misadventures. No child should enter their teens without that training, unless their parents have limitless health insurance or just don't care about them.

#5 I'm nearing completion of my first serious work of fiction, what I've titled 'The Education of Io.' For the last three years it was the 'Education of Aelectra,' but I decided Io was much more visually groovy. Basically, it's a post apocalyptic world where slavery has returned and the American Empire has been largely balkanized. What Io learns about how the world works will hopefully be a education for my teenage readers in realpolitik and the structures of social control. I hope to have a working draft by the end of the year.

Thus concludes our test of the compulsory tagification system. Thanks.