babble
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Since every blogger and their momma is talking about it I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. Well, okay, I was going to talk about it anyway. I'm so transparent.
I have a kind of odd history with the tradition of giving things up for Lent. I come from a Catholic family on my Dad's side, but I wasn't raised Catholic because my mom is a dirty Protestant and she decided to just raise me as an unholy, unbaptized child of Satan. Though I have always had an intense interest in all things spiritual, I did not formally become a Catholic until four years ago. The formal adult conversion process involves taking a class on the fundamentals of Catholicism for a few months, and then you get the religious trifecta of baptism, confirmation, and first communion all in one big ceremony at the Easter vigil service on "Easter Eve". I did this as an adult for several reasons - mostly because I was just at that point in my spiritual journey (god, that sounds cheesy). Anyway, what I was trying to get at with this little story of sin and redemption was that I've only had about 4 years of experience with this whole Lent business.
The first year I gave up something for Lent was also the year I got baptized. I was going to give up sex, but I figured that wouldn't be fair to my live-in boyfriend, so I thought long and hard about what to give up that wouldn't make other people's balls ache. I ended up giving up shopping. You may think that's silly, but at the time, my commute to work went through the World Trade Center, and there was a mall in it. A fucking good mall, too. I went shopping there almost every day. I didn't always buy stuff, but I'd say I bought at least one item every third day or so. When you give things up for Lent, you are supposed to give up something that you enjoy that you don't really need, and really, I had plenty of fucking clothes. I gave it up, I stuck to it, I got some water and stinky oil poured on my head afterwards, and all was right with the world.
Each of the next three years, I gave up drinking for Lent. This was a completely different ballgame. People who didn't say jack shit when I was spending my lunch hours at St. Patrick's Cathedral got all in my face about me being so "religious". Meanwhile, I had pretty much stopped going to church, and had nothing to do with religion in general or Catholicism in particular except for the Lenten tradition. (I'll tell you why some other time.) But man, tell someone you're giving up alcohol for any reason other than alcoholism and/or "my liver screams bloody murder in the night", and they get awfully pissy. I ended up in lengthy religious debates with people when all I wanted to do was, like, just not drink for a little while. Also, people kept asking me how I was "holding up" and if I thought I could actually "make it" and not have a drink for 6 WHOLE weeks. Jesus fucking Christ, people. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a raging alcoholic. Really, it's just like giving up candy or french fries or soda pop or something like that. Anyway, after enduring that kind of shit for three years and contemplating the various ways that I could injure people with common household items, I've made my decision on what I'm going to give up for Lent:
I'm giving up telling people what I gave up.
However, I really like Tony's idea of doing extra stuff during Lent, so I will tell you about that. I am going to try to do 100 crunches and 50 bicep curls each day. (I can't do 100 curls like Tony, because I have pansy-ass girly arms that get all tired out after about 30 curls. But I'll work my way up.) I'm also going to start bringing my own lunch to work, because it's cheaper and healthier than buying food from the crapeteria in our building. And, finally, I am going to learn how to develop my own film. You'd think a part-time photographer like myself would know how to do that, wouldn't you? But noooo, I don't have any idea what the fuck to do in a darkroom. So I am making a commitment to myself and everyone who wants to see all those photos of naked ladies I've taken that I'll learn how to develop my own film. I'm sure that will disappoint the guys at the lab who have previously developed the aforementioned naked lady photos, so I guess I'm back to causing blue balls with my Lenten choices. Sorry about that.
Completely off-topic: I finally have an about page. Enjoy.
babbled by Kat @ 3:24:00 PM |
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