Being Bored

I am so very bored today.

Bleh.

It looks like I’ll get to run a Dungeons & Dragons adventure or two in the near future.  I know a couple of my friends are interested.  Now I have to contact a couple more of them to wrap it all up into a neat package.  All this will be easier once Misty and I have our own place.

Going over the budget last night revealed that I still need to go over the budget a great deal.  Dentist bills are piling up now, as well as car maintenance and moving expenses.  I want to hire a moving company to haul our stuff away, but other expenses may prevent that.  I’ll probably get a lot of help from friends packing things, but hauling things has always been far too much of a hassle.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
-- William Shakespeare ("King John", Act 3 scene 4)

Fun & the Future

Nearly every Tuesday, Misty and I visit The D-Pad.  It’s a cool little place with about a dozen or two video game consoles and TVs, with big comfy couches in front of each.  You pay a little per-hour charge, and you play whatever you want.  They get a lot of new video games, and they have a lot of old school stuff, all the way down to Atari 2600.  They also have a music stage and host live bands every now and then.  The people who run it are extremely friendly, and they love to talk about games old and new.  The owners have these little children, about 11 and 4 or so, that completely own people in Halo 2.  It’s really amusing.

Anyway, a friend of ours got us to go one week a while back, and it’s turned into something of a tradition.  It’s really a fun place to visit, and it’s really the only time we get to see our friend these days.  We’ll be moving this December, and we’re hoping to get a place further west, closer to her, the D-Pad and plenty of other friends and locations.  

Misty and I are both really looking forward to next year.  She’ll finally have a degree and will be taking a semester or two off to work and gather herself.  We’ll be moving to a new apartment, probably the best we’ve had so far, to settle in for a few years.  Having our own place will mean that we can invite friends over and actually entertain at our home, which we’re thrilled about.  Misty will probably be getting a job, so we’ll have even more financial freedom.  She’ll probably be getting her own vehicle, too.  All told, there’s a ton to look forward to.

The future ain't what it used to be.
-- Yogi Berra

At the Movies

Two posts in one day!  Double-you tee eff?!

Misty and I saw Tim Burton’s lastest movie last night, Corpse Bride, in a late night bit of spontaneaity.  Despite slightly-burned popcorn, we both really enjoyed ourselves.  We got tickets an hour before show time, so we took a leisurely stroll around the theater to see the new movie posters.  There was one for the inevitable third X-Men movie, the upcoming Narnia movie (which Misty is very eager to see), and nothing else that stuck in my head.  When we finally got seats (good ones, too), we saw a new trailer for Harry Potter’s next movie, and we were both pretty pleased with that.  Misty was thrilled to see a trailer for Sense and Sensibility.  She’s never read it, but she’s really excited abou the movie.

As for the feature, it was a lot of fun.  Of course, the comparisons to The Nightmare Before Christmas are inevitable, so let’s get that out of the way.  This movie is not The Nightmare Before Christmas.  This movie is not for kids.  Not that it’s scary or intense or anything - it’s just more mature.  The subject matter deals with love, marriage, loyalty, and – of course – death.  Nobody is saving any holiday.  There are no child characters of any importance.  The songs are not of the fun, catchy variety.  They are there, of course, and some are fun, but they aren’t the point or the focus.  They convey mood and help tell the story.  I expect that there will be very little merchandising for this movie.

Having said all that, I’ll say that I enjoyed it a lot.  The plot was interesting to follow, if a bit predictable.  The animation was top-notch.  The voice acting was superb and fit each character very well.  (Christopher Lee, one of Misty’s favorite actors, was in it, too.)  Johnny Depp’s role was what you’d expect from him, and he did it just as well as I knew he would.

I’m no film critic.  I just know what I like.  I enjoyed the movie, especially for the animation and unique artistic style.  I might buy it on DVD.  If you were considering it, I’d recommend seeing it.  Just don’t expect the kids to enjoy it.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
-- George Bernard Shaw

You Gotta Believe!

Continuing on my religious theme…

Progress in the Paganism book has been slow this past week, for various reasons.  Misty is concerned that my interest is waning, but that’s not it.  I haven’t been very good about reading books consistently for a long time – since college, actually.  I’m determined to make it through this book, though, because it’s important both to me and Misty.

I just finished reading the section on beliefs.  The main point I got from it was that we are free to choose our own beliefs and we are responsible for determining those for ourselves and living up to them.  It really seems like a foundation for the rest of the book – preparing you to be receptive to the ideas that they’ll be explaining.  The authors also point out that, by their own definition, no one set of beliefs is “right”… that we all have to determine what our view of the universe is and that view is different for everybody else’s.  Part of the chapter attempts to comfort the reader who has difficulty with this open-ended concept, but I was already leaning that way anyway, so it serves as more of an introduction – a prelude to the ideas to come.

Misty is going through the book slower than me, but that’s because she is taking the time to do all the exercises and journals that the book suggests.  I admit that I’m not doing those, although I do read them to see what they are meant for.  Once I get into material that is more eye-opening for me, I’ll probably write about it here.    

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
-- Lewis Carroll

Do Wonders Ever Cease?

This is the longest blog post I’ve ever written.  It could have held a lot more, as you’ll see if you indulge me to the end.  I’ll have to elaborate later.  For now…

I often don’t get very personal in my blogs, but I’m making an exception today.  This has been on my mind a lot lately, and it’s important to my wife and I, so I thought I’d write it out.  Plus, some of my family and friends might be rather surprised.

My spiritual journey has been … pretty dull, I guess.  Probably the first steps involved attending Vacation Bible School in Montpelier, Louisiana, in my early teen years.  One of my mother’s friends had kids attending and convinced Mom that we would enjoy it.  So, my siblings and I attended.  Most of what I remember involved popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue and making Christmas trees out of TV Guides.  I remember sitting in neat little rows of seats while somebody spoke to us about Jesus and God and how they loved us and wanted us to let them into our hearts.  I remember singing hymns I barely understood and learning pantomimes for some of them.  I think that was the first time I ever read a Jack Chick pamphlete.  In them, God doesn’t have a face, and I thought that was a little funny.  That week, though, was when I really started thinking about the metaphysical.

It made sense that there was a reason I felt bad about things.  It was comforting to think that somebody out there loved me unconditionally and was willing to accept me and look after me.  Barely knowing what I was doing, I accepted the invitation and walked up to the preacher afterward and said a prayer with him that made me a Christian.  I no longer remember how it felt.  All I have left of that time is vague sensory memories.

Shortly thereafter, I started to go to a small Baptist church nearby.  I got into it.  I joined the youth group, got baptised, and witnessed to my family.  Eventually, over the years, my entire family came with me to church.  It was all so easy and comforting.

To be brief, let’s say that I grew out of it.  It probably had a lot to do with the distractions of high school, but I stopped attending church, although I still prayed to God every night.  Once college rolled around, I started thinking that the whole deal made little sense.  That was when the whole Christian lifestyle really started to feel like a sham to me.  It all seemed like brainwashing, and I resented that a bit.  I started to swear for the first time when I was a freshman at LSU.

Since then, it’s all been “downhill”.  This is getting long, so I’ll sum up.  I’ve variously called myself agnostic, aetheist, and undecided since then.  My problems with Christianity blossomed into questions about religion in general and the belief that there really wasn’t anything else out there.  Still, I could never bring myself to believe completely that there is no other plane of existence or that the sum our beings is a collection of vague sensory perceptions.  I’m a deep thinker (despite what some people think), and I couldn’t reconcile it.  How could I know?  How could any one idea be right?

Now, I’m studying a book on Paganism.  I’ve known Pagans, mostly Wiccans among them, but I’ve never considered any alternative to Christian thinking.  I asked a friend of mine who teaches classes for Pagans for information, and she lent me a book.  I’ve been reading it for a couple of days now.

So far, it feels right.  The book says nobody “becomes” Pagan; rather, they find that “Pagan” describes what they already are.  It looks like my spiritual journey may be turning onto another path.  It’s exciting.    

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
-- Mark Twain