Blogger Rules...Not

I had this post all spanking and ready, and Blogger went fucknuts on me.

So here it is, much belated.

I am not afraid of my neighbors.

My upstairs neighbor is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Of course, all I've seen of her is her face, and a collection of headscarves that I envy. She has told me that I could find beautiful ones "in her country", but has never specified where that is, exactly.

She beams a smile every time she sees me, asks how I am. I do the same. Her two children see me in the parking lot sometimes, and sometimes when they are particularly excited, share a sentence or two about their day, of the "We went to the PARK" variety. Her husband is very quiet, very correct -- makes way for me when we pass in the breezeway, says "Hello", sometimes asks me whether I'm going to or coming from work because we have similarly strange schedules. He also smiles at me every time he sees me.

I know the family upstairs is Muslim, and African. I don't know what country they come from, and as they are very private, I don't know that I'll ever ask. But they are something I am grateful for.

Every stereotype I've ever heard is untrue. Discordia does away with stereotypes -- in the end, it all comes down to five, which means you can blame anything on anything, instead of understanding that everything turns out exactly as chaos causes it to, that every explanation is at best, a guess (including of course the one you're reading). I don't understand how people who go around hating people so passionately ever have any fun. I don't understand the allure of yelling about "im'gnts" and "A-rabs" and "Mohammedans". I don't fear my neighbor. My neighbor does not fear me.

Perhaps it's also that I'm surrounded with cynics, but most of the fun I have comes from playfully poking holes in the fabric of reality in good company, rather than joyously clinging to my own hearty and self-serving illusions with the likeminded. Not that I never do that, because I am not an Episkopos, but really, I have more fun making my mind work than letting it sit home.

CDHSarah took me to get a decent meal last night and we spent the entire dinner in a perfectly harmonious, laugh-filled, yet nonetheless significant, discussion about ideological consistency and some ongoing tension in the reforming group -- which is going along Very Nicely, and is one of the reasons I've been remiss here, because a lot has been happening -- with reference to the significance of the Sabbats, as not all traditions included use the Sabbat calendar, and the inclusivity of our first holiday as the New & Improved Group is important to us. Now, when CDHSarah and I have a Discussion, it's often punctuated by cries of "Oh, bullSHIT," and the like. The tone is light. Sometimes we laugh until we cry. But for a minute there, I think we scared our waiter into thinking we were about to have a dykey bitch fight at seven on a Friday in the smoking section. Then he realized we were giggling irrepressibly. Nonetheless, we came out with more understanding.

Fun is important to Discordianism, which is why the Curse of Discordia is the Curse of Grayface. I am not going to look up the page number right now, but will link it later from Fnord, which has the entire text of the Principia scanned for your perusal. Suffice it to say that the Curse of Grayface is the curse of No Sense of Humor, which if you extensionalize it can be taken down as one of the maybe causes of most ills perpetuated in the name of the Right Thing to Do -- no sense of humor means no ability to laugh at yourself, or "That's what fundamentalism breeds...no irony," as the late Bill Hicks so eloquently put it.

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Sorry for my long absence, and more about it later. It's been a really rough month, guys, and I'm sorry. Plus my lungs are inhabited with green aliens born of the fickle spring weather (TMI) and I think it's time for more Theraflu and Vick's. And Harry Potter. I am getting into the epic fantasy series thing. Maybe eventually I'll write one. More likely, I'll sell my soul for copies of the Narnia books, since even though my mother expressly promised it wouldn't happen, my copies got donated to her school when she retired. Not that I begrudge the chillun or anything, but those were the copies I'd had since childhood, and sentimental value, you know. I only dwell on it when I want to read it, like now. (A lot of my good children's lit went that way, including my copies of The Great Glass Elevator and The Witches, dammit.

I am going to end up a spinster librarian, y'all. That is my New Goal.

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The above was ready on 4/9. For the record, I am feeling much better. And I still wanna be a Spinster Librarian, or at least get the bumper sticker, which I don't believe has yet been made. PROJECT!