Lasts aren’t something people think about a lot.

First are always important: first steps, first kiss, first job, all those momentous occasions we prepare for and remember, hopefully fondly.

But lasts often pass by without knowledge, and when you go back to think about it later, you’re often not sure when the last was, you just know there was a last. So when you know something is going to be a last, it takes on more weight. It starts to loom in your mind with importance.

I write a lot of letters.

Before my grandmother moved in, I wrote regularly to her, to my other grandmother, and to Michael’s grandmother. After my grandmother moved in, I was down to two letters for a few months, and then began writing letters to my cousin’s grandmother; she suffered a stroke years ago, and became afraid of everything, including leaving the house. So I wanted to bring some of the world back to her.

When my other grandmother died in February, I knew the end was near, but I didn’t know how close it was, so when I wrote my last letter to her, I didn’t realize it was going to be my last.

Now my cousin’s grandmother is failing rapidly, and when I sat down to write this evening, it occurred to me that this could be the last letter I write her. Maybe not. I may yet write her a couple more, but the end is close. Strangely it didn’t make the letter hard to write–I wrote her about my garden and the flowers and color that are everywhere you look–things she can’t see for herself from her room. But signing, addressing, and sealing the letter was strangely difficult.

It feels like there should be more pomp and circumstance, somehow.

V’z fbeg bs (va zl zvaq) jbexvat ba n cbfg ba JI cbyvgvpf, cevznevyl ba Qba Oynaxrafuvc’f vaibyirzrag jvgu JI cbyvgvpf, naq rfcrpvnyyl uvf gvrf gb Fhcerzr Pbheg Whfgvpr Fcvxr Znlaneq. Rkprcg fnlvat gung fbhaqf n ybg pbbyre guna jung V unq va zvaq, juvpu vf ernyyl ubj zhpu V pna’g fgnaq Oynaxrafuvc.

Fb jbaqrevat jung V jnf tbvat gb jevgr, V erzrzorerq gung n pbhcyr zbaguf ntb Reva fnvq fur gubhtug ebg 13 cbfgf jrer xvaqn sha, fb V qrpvqrq, jul abg? Vg’f abg yvxr V’ir tbg nalguvat orggre gb jevgr.

Vs lbh’ir tbggra guvf sne naq qvqa’g nyernql xabj vg, vs lbh Tbbtyr ebg 13, lbh’yy svaq na ba-yvar genafyngbe juvpu punatrf ebg 13 vagb grkg naq ivpr irefn jvgu n pbhcyr pyvpxf bs gur zbhfr. Rira rnfvre vf gur Y337 xrl rkgrafvba sbe Sversbk, juvpu nyybjf lbh gb perngr ebg 13 grkg naq genafyngvbaf ba gur syl.

Be |337 5c34x vs lbh cersre.

Naq ncebcbf bs abguvat: Vf rirelguvat bxnl Gnaln? Jr unq arvgure uvqr abe unve bs lbh va n jrrx naq V’z ortvaavat gb jbeel. Qb jr arrq gb fraq Wvz gb purpx ba lbh? Orpnhfr V’z fher vs nalbar pna svaq lbh ur pna. Be jnf vg gung gur zbbfr fpenccyr svanyyl tbg gb lbh? Naq V pna bayl vzntvar ubj zbbfr fpenccyr vf tbvat gb ybbx bapr V genafsbez vg. UN!

Fb gung’f vg. V’ir tbg abguvat ernyyl, ohg vg qbrf nzhfr zr gb glcr nyy uvf hc naq gura genafyngr vg gb ebg 13.

So the pope is in the US. And his visit is all over the news.

All of which has served to remind me of the many problems I have with the Catholic church.

Religion is a very difficult subject for me to discuss here, because my family is quite devout, so I feel as if my lack of faith is letting them down.

Actually to be more clear, it is not a subject I have discussed with my family, first and foremost because I don’t want to upset them. (And that right there may tell you all you a whole lot about me.)

I think the biggest problem for me is that I have no faith–to try and put it another way, when it comes to religion, I feel nothing. When people talk about their faith and how it makes them feel, I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. It feels like I’m blind and someone is trying to explain color to me. I can accept the idea that such a thing exists, but I can’t imagine it myself.

From that stems all my other problems, I’d guess. Because since I lack faith, it fascinates me. I want to understand what other people think, why they feel the way they do, to see if I can figure out what is wrong with me that makes me different.

But I’ve found that this only makes things worse.

The more I read about religion, the less I understand it, and the more alien I feel from it.

Let’s take the Catholic Church for starters. Although there are some things I believe the church does right, there are many other things where I believe the church is mistake, and in their error are actually causing harm. Women in the priesthood. Birth control. Homosexuality. I think that by saying such things are wrong and unacceptable, the church is actually causing harm, not just to itself, but to the greater community.

These have long been issues for me, but the more I read and learned, the more areas of disagreement I found. Papal infallibility? Don’t accept it. Immaculate conception? That just seems like a really big fudge. And then there’s the creation of the New Testament. The Christian bible was created through years of what was essentially political wrangling. The idea that something was acceptable one year, and then suddenly out of the cannon seems ridiculous. And don’t even get me started on the translation errors and issues. You don’t like what the bible says? Just find another translation you like better.

Never mind the internal inconsistencies in the bible.

And then there’s the whole relativism thing. The pope is really big on telling us how bad relativism is. Well, guess what? I’m a huge relativist.

First and foremost, I don’t think God damns people for calling God by different names, or for worshiping in one manner over another. I also don’t think God is the sadist many make God out to be. I mean, the seven circles of hell? That sounds not like the God of loving kindness, but instead like a vengeful human hoping that his enemies get what’s coming to them.

Secondly, the more I read about different religions, the more similarities I see between them. Why allow humans to create different religions that are REALLY similar, but not QUITE the same, so these religions can all claim superiority and cause more war and suffering than any other subject in the history of humanity.

But putting all that aside, I don’t think the God described in these religions fits into the world today–or even the world of the past. Now before your head explodes, let me explain. American Christianity seems to have some bizarre focus upon a personal God. The God of healing and miracles. Well, when I look around the world I see absolutely no sign of that God. I see a world that continues on it’s merry way with no external intervention. Which is GREAT as far as I’m concerned, because I think a personal God counter-indicates free-will. And I’m an even bigger fan of free will than I am of relativism.

So I look at the world, with my lack of faith and my lack of belief. I see a world completely unlike the world described by so many religions.

But I don’t see a bad world. And I don’t see one in which God is absent. I simply see a world in which God exists in everything, and it is up to us to recognize that fact, and treat all other creatures accordingly.

I heard this song sung by someone else, and it just felt so wrong, I had to hear Margo Timmons sing it.

To live is to fly
low and high
so shake the dust out of your wings
and the sleep out of your eyes

Maybe it’s just me, but there is something about her voice that I fine absolutely perfect.

Oooh! It’s also here (the recorded version) along with Misguided Angel, I’m So Lonesome I Could I Die, and Blue Moon Revisited.

I think I need to pull out my Cowboy Junkie’s CDs.

I just didn’t have anything much to say, other than gratuitously insulting Nathan.

Blue & Gold game is tomorrow (if you click on the link, please notice that all profits benefit the Children’s Hospital), so we did the shopping tonight, because this side of town gets a little messy when there is football–of any sort–over the hill.

The good part, is that I may be able to get a little gardening in before it rains. (Insert long discussion about compost here.)

Dear students who would like to get an assistantship with us.

An inability to have a grammatically clear and correct resume, cover letter, and e-mail is NOT impressive. Failure to understand the basics of capitalization and correct tense, and an expressed inability to look over EVEN ONCE what you have written, drops you to the bottom of my pile.

If you can’t even take care with your attempts at employment, why would I think you would be willing to take care if you were hired?

As I love techno, I found today’s xkcd particularly amusing.

Dear Geeks,

Let me remind you of something important: DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!

No, really! I’m not kidding! I’ve got two computers I’m trying to set up in my office that we can use for tutoring sessions, and my ex-officemate NEVER WROTE DOWN THE PASSWORDS he used to set them up.

And he didn’t use the passwords we use for everything else. So one system I had the help desk come down and hack to reset the Admin password, the other I’m reinstalling Windows XP on. Which involved much crawling around on the floor, which I don’t really find that thrilling.

So really, document everything. And then make sure your co-workers have copies of that documentation.

Because making me crawl around on the floor and run the quarter mile between my office and the help desk multiple doesn’t make me incredibly happy.

This ends todays public service announcement.

Oh yeah, don’t forget it’s Tax Day if you’re in the US.

We mailed our checks last week. Wasn’t too bad. And like John Scalzi says, we do get benefits. I’m particularly fond of the Interstate highway system, public education, and the Center for Disease Control myself.

So pay your taxes if you owe ’em. Then we’ll wait patiently for our stimulus check (which will be coming quite late for us, since we’re towards the end as far as SSNs go. Ah well.)

My only wish is the WV would fix it’s tax code, because even though Michael and I are both getting the max taken out of our paychecks (and then some in his case) we still owe the state.

I just installed a new anti-spam plugin.

Please e-mail me if you can’t comment.

I’m sitting at the front desk–one of the GAs is out for a funeral–so I’m sitting here waiting for someone to call and ask a question, or come up to the front desk and ask a question.

Also, walking around every 10 minutes and pushing in chairs, because people are SLOBS.

Anything interesting on the Internet today? That is, anything that won’t get me fired when the librarian turns around to see what I’m doing?

ADDENDUM the First:
HA! WIN!

I just got a call from Tanya in Alaska! WHEEEEEE! Talk about the opposite of boring!

Thanks Tanya, you totally made my day!

ADDENDUM the Second:
No more time at the front desk, NOW I’m waiting for scandisk to finish on one computer so I can run disk defragmenter. Woo hoo!

Yes we are.

Conversation 1:
Michelle: How do I look today?
Michael: Monochromatic.

Conversation 2:
Michelle: (looking at gym bag covered in fur and feline footprints.) Someone’s been sleeping on my gym bag.
Michael: Yes, they have.
Michelle: Why were you sleeping on my gym bag?
Michael: (snort) Because it’s so comfortable?

I’ve slacked all week, so I just sat down to do the bills, which includes the $1300 we just put on the credit card for the tickets to Denver (Woo! Woo! [for the trip, not for $1300 on my credit card.])

For the first time in an extremely long time, I actually had a negative balance in Quicken. Of course $900 of that was on two items that are 12 months same as cash, so they aren’t gaining interest, and we’re both getting paid on the 15th, but still. That red $300 was extremely sad to see.

Then I started opening bills, which was of course was even more depressing. Nestled in the middle was the monthly statement for our savings account. I jokingly thought to myself, “Well, maybe there are a couple deposits Michael forgot to enter.”

There were.

To the tune of almost a thousand dollars.

(This is why I don’t let him do the bills. Because it’s a bad thing when I discover several hundred dollars in un-entered credit card slips. [In his defense, it Christmas.])

So in the span of ten minutes I went from being worried about money, to being happy that I had a thousand dollars I didn’t know about. Which really makes no sense because the actual amount of money in those accounts has not changed. I have no more or no less money than I had yesterday (at least until I write out the gas bill.) So why should that discovery make a difference?

But it does. I felt MUCH better than I had, even though the actual numbers meant nothing. (Unless we have a 6 or 12 months same as cash deal, we pay off all credit cards each month, so it’s not like we’re garnering interest or anything.)

Now I just have to wait for August and the economic stimulus package. (Talk about unfair. With 75 and 99 Michael and I are in the LAST group to receive checks. My brother is 01, which means he’ll get one of the first checks written. BAH!)

OK, back to writing bills.

ADDENDUM the First:
And the last thing I opened was a check! Yippee!

The following is an excerpt from the story I’m writing, as requested by Vince, who provided me the name of the news station.

I was just going to give the news excerpt, but decided to publish the entire chapter instead. Maybe this will get me motivated to finish things up. (I just checked, I’m at 52k words right now-103 pages in Word.)

Strangely, the news bit came to me almost fully formed, and was a lot of fun to write.
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