Savannah Lee

After careful, deep, spiritual study (aka finding out that the ritual "libation" was a milkshake), I have joined the First Atheist Church of True Science (FACTS).

You all should know that I took this important step with due solemnity and seriousness of purpose (aka giddy delight).

Wish me well, friends, as I vest myself in the all-important FACTS Ritual Garb--silly hats are involved--while striving to follow my new church's stringent teaching with regard to money.

"Inasmuch as it violates the FACTS Second and Third Suggestions (i.e., "Be honest" and "Do what's right"), we strongly disapprove of using monetary instruments that say "In God We Trust" to make any Church-related purchases. (We disapprove of using such instruments for any purchase, but - unfortunately - there are often no other choices available.)"

Oh goody, I have an overly-literal, daily-life-impeding rule to get around! Just like Catholics and Buddhists! I feel so included. Let the search for loopholes begin! To wit--I'm hoping debit cards will get around the prohibition, since they are monetary instruments, but do not "say" "In God We Trust."

If they are indeed permissible, that'll actually be great, because I never have cash anyhow. Sometimes, when making a ridiculously small off-the-cuff purchase for which I am forced to use my debit card, I have felt embarrassed. But now, I can swipe my card for that fifty-nine-cent candy bar with pride. I will say, "CASH is AGAINST MY RELIGION. It says 'In God We Trust,' and I belong to the First Atheist Church of True Science. So I can't use it. Thanks for understanding. Have you heard the good news about atheism? Check out our church! You can join online. Yeah, no, I know it makes no sense to call an anti-church a church. Or a non-religion, a religion. You're right. It is absurd. But this is America. We eat absurdity for breakfast. Know why there aren't any American surrealists or Dadaists? Because our REALITY is surreal. Just think about-- What? How many people have piled up behind me? Oh. Sorry."

I hope to find a minister of my new non-faith so that I can earnestly confess some of my doctrinal fears. Such as:

--What if I unthinkingly yell out "Oh God" during sex, or "Jesus" if I hit my thumb with a hammer? After such lapses, how shall I purify myself? Must I recite from Brecht's Life of Galileo, or will a mere contemplation of a single physical law (lighting a candle, boiling some water, dropping a shoe) suffice?

--Also, can I get extra credit for writing erotica? I'm sure that puts me well beyond the pale of even the Unitarian Universalists, especially the bondage stories.

--When making the FACTS Libation, if we are found not to have any ice cream in the depths of our freezer, is it permissible to substitute frozen yogurt?

--What about a combination of kefir and ice cubes?

--May I still continue to listen to kirtan, despite its frequent references to deities such as Shiva and Krishna? What if I preface each theistic song by saying the word "Disbelieve!"? Will that be sufficient to neutralize the "effect" of the theistic words?

--And how about the fact that I'm even talking about something as metaphysical as some mysterious "effect" which is supposedly produced by someone singing a song about Shiva? Clearly, I have a long way to go in ridding myself of un-Scientific thought patterns. I must humble myself and repeat the Catechism (of my own devising):

"Atom. Atom. What a beautiful word."

--Tillie, "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds," Paul Zindel (1964)

Well. I've always believed that.

And now, I must go. May probability work in your favor as often as possible, my fellow bits of "matter with curiosity" (Richard Feynman).

I used to love to watch figure skating. I was THERE for the Battle of the Carmens '88, watching the drama in the lounge of my dorm room. In '92, I missed Kristi Yamaguchi and bemoaned it for weeks. In '94, I went to a friend's apartment to see Oksana Baiul edge Nancy Kerrigan. In '98, I witnessed Lipinski rack up more points than Kwan, and in '02, I watched Hughes do the same to Slutskaya.

The Olympics of '06, however, I completely missed. So this year, I was looking to get back into the insane adoration of a ridiculous and arbitrary event otherwise known as sports fandom. We don't have cable, so the fam and I trooped over to a relative's place to watch Mao Asada and Kim Yu-Na duke it out for the figure skating gold.

And I have to say, I'm sorry I did.

Here's something I wrote on this blog about the gymnastics competition of the most recent summer Olympics:

[The Chinese competitor] nailed her first [vault] beyond all nailing, sending the commentators into raptures. I am pretty sure one of them said, "It feels like destiny here!"

Then she completely blew the second one. She didn't even land--the floor rudely cut her off while she was still struggling to get out of her mid-air gyrations. She found herself on her knees before the world.

...

Can't everybody see how stupid these competitions are?

I mean...those two vaults, the nailed one and the blown one, the triumph and the disaster, each from THE SAME GIRL AND WITHIN TWO MINUTES OF EACH OTHER...don't they show how stupid the whole concept of these competitions are? How arbitrary they are?

In the figure skating, there were no "blown vaults." Everyone in the last group skated cleanly.

And then they got scored.

Gold medalist Kim Yu-Na scored way beyond silver medalist Mao Asada (and, indeed, everyone else on planet earth).

This created the impression that Mao Asada "lost" to Kim Yu-Na.

Which I find so blitheringly, phantasmagorically stupid that I honestly do not think there is a combination of Anglo-Saxon gerunds profane enough to express it.

George Clooney once said, "I don't know how you compare art."

Yeah, I don't either. And what happened on that ice last night--look. If you want figure skating to be a SPORT, reinstate the fucking compulsory figures and make the "programs" into a series of exercises like in a dance class. Everybody waits in a line and goes through: TRIPLE LUTZ! Kim....lutz...score. Asada...lutz...score. Rochette...lutz...score. Etcetera. Once everyone has done that particular trick, the next one starts: AXEL! Kim...double...score. Asada...triple...score. Rochette...double...score. Etcetera. Each skater gets two chances at each trick, like the freestyle aerial skiers do.

They can wear the same uniforms as the speed skaters.

THAT would be a sport.

What happened last night was a highly athletic form of art. It unfolded for us like a modern dance program, each piece technically stand-alone but oddly, subterraneanly linked, like the roots of a series of ferns. It unfolded like fiddleheads in the mist.

And then it got ranked.

Which can only do untold violence to the souls of those both watching and participating.

Why, I ask you, why IN FUCK was Mao Asada left decimated and feeling like she'd failed after her perfectly emotionally coherent and fluid performance?

Because people gave her numbers which said 205 as opposed to the numbers for Kim, which were 228.

I completely deny that those numbers were meaningful in this context. I realize the judges think they're based on something, but they're not. Not if you accept that this is a "program," a performance. Art needs room to breathe. You let it into the room, the rules change. Figure skating ignores that, using art for its own ends and then violating its spirit with crass, reductionist ranks and numbers.

Get those stupid numbers the FUCK OUT of there, or put those girls in speed skating suits and make it about tricks and lines.

Sports are such a travesty.

I had feared it would be worse--much worse--because I let go of the house with both hands this past year.

Instead, I've been pleasantly surprised. There hasn't been as much junk to wade through. Apparently we're getting better at figuring out what to do with stuff we can't figure out what to do with. (Other than putting it in an ever-growing pile by the desk/table/couch.)

But yeah, I've been scrubbing and vacuuming and dusting and rearranging furniture. So that's pretty much it. No new news.

As we speak, ladies and gentlemen, I am racing to beat a deadline for my part-time typing job. Why didn't I get it done last night, as I'd planned? Ask the Kid's dance competition, the kitchen (spring cleaning) and my yoga teacher training homework.

I once again lament the necessity of humans to eat. Why? It wastes so much time! Time which could be far better spent zipping around in the Vata-Ectomorph-Water/Metal ether!

(If you click on the "Metal" link, what fascinates me is that it's a mirror-image Vata--someone thin, cold, and respirationally-distressed, but rigidly-scheduled, to the point where that's an actual problem, as opposed to the Indian Subcontinent version of the same type, who is all over the place and needs to be given structure. Isn't that fascinating? Since these traditional medicine forms were developed primarily by observation, it suggests that most of the thin, nervous people in the Indian Subcontinent must have been scattered, whereas most of the thin, nervous people in China must have been rigid. I wonder--seriously--if the difference might have to do with climate. The heat of India could make the delicate type come totally unglued, while the seasonal changes of China could make the delicate type lock up. And down. And all around.)

OK. I have already lost thirty precious minutes on a job I have to get done. See you next week! Oh, and sorry about last week.