There, but for the grace of Zach Braff...

My Sociology professor is really cool and has the
super-intense gaze of a young, bald Christopher Lloyd.

I'm taking a short break from slogging my way through “Elementary Forms of Religious Life” by Emile Durkheim, required reading for my Sociology of Religion course, to write a brief and possibly boring post.

Along with the usual winter-weepies and weather-necessitated solitude, this season has also made way for Act II of my philosophical awakening with a) the previously-mentioned Sociology of Religion class, b) a plethora of time for reading literary classics and c) my own curiosity-fueled exploration of new-age-y religion.

While primarily for the sake of gaining insight into the way the people around me think and live, I have also been doing a little bit of introspective experimentation for my own enjoyment.*

*Translation: I joined a Jedi temple and you aren't allowed to make fun of me.

Along with the Buddha/Jedi idea of a collective consciousness (or "Force") and a general respect for nature, the Sagan-esque tendency to worship the hard sciences also comes naturally to me. [For anyone interested, here's the link to the Jedi temple.]

(Other things that I consider "exploring religion" include:

• Talking to a Hare Krishna on my college campus and skimming the very brightly colored book he gave me,
• downloading an app that generates a daily passage from the Qu'ran for my consideration,
• "favorite"-ing a bunch of homemade Wicca stuff on Etsy but not buying it, and
• doing more extensive character development for my Level 3 Druid D&D character.)  

Thus far, Durkheim and I have a lot in common, especially considering that he's an old, French-speaking Jew from 1912 and I'm an aimless 20-year-old geek in a different millennium. (You should hear about what Alexander Hamilton and I have in common - it's eerie!)

According to Durkheim, “God,” like reality, is a collaborative social construction that each religion perceives differently - I'm on board with this. One interesting thing Durkheim writes is that no religion is false. This is based not only on the necessity of religion to society/perception of reality but also on the Thomas Theorem – the idea that if somebody believes something to be true, it is true in its consequences.

Studying the sociology and psychology of religion has been nice because I find solace in knowing how things work. (i.e. neurons, inguinal hernias, mitosis, peeing in space.)

Earlier today I heard a lecture on mythology and legend and the way that stories supplement religion. Any avid reader/daydreamer like me definitely appreciates the zen of a well-told story. The benefit of knowing the sociological purpose of mythology is that I can then objectively select my own stories against which to measure the human experience, since I know the function that they need to fulfill. Of course, I’ve already been doing that, but now I don’t have to feel misguided or shallow for finding my religion in ordinary things, primarily pop culture.

I’m only human. I like to read things that sound pretty and are generally sense-making and cause me to feel feel-y things and the Bible just doesn't do that for me. (The Bible specifically because I was raised United Methodist. And am consequently still kind of afraid to not capitalize "Bible.")

The increasing multitude of resources from which we can find guidance in pop culture gives me hope for the future of philosophy and art rather than a feeling of contempt for the post-modern entertainment world.

Not to say that there isn't a limit.

That being said, here are some excerpts and a little wisdom from one of my personal essential religious guidebooks:

“I think one of the most universal human experiences is feeling alone.”

“I've been thinking a lot lately about taking chances, and how it's really just about overcoming your fears. Because the truth is, every time you take a big risk in your life, no matter how it ends up, you're always glad you took it.”

“Maybe the mistake we make is thinking our parents will change. And maybe they did a better job than we give them credit for. And maybe there, amid all the crap they dumped on us, are some things worth keeping. Like a passion for something you never knew you had. Or the ability to constantly surround yourself with people who love you.”

“And who's to say this isn't what happens? Who can tell me that my fantasies won't come true?”

These are some of Zach Braff’s voiceovers from Scrubs, the series that narrowly defeated Futurama for the title of Most Surprisingly-Emotionally-Evocative TV Comedy. There’s a particular episode that hits home with me – “My Catalyst,” an episode that features Michael J. Fox as a brilliant doctor (Dr. Kevin Casey) with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

The cruel beauty of OCD is that it’s impossible to hide, and the mostly light-hearted episode wraps up with J.D. finding this powerful, intelligent, compassionate man in the surgery prep area unable to stop washing his hands, and realizing that all of Dr. Kevin Casey’s successes are possible because he faces his flaws head-on – he has no other choice. Once you’ve done that – once you’ve stared all of the ugliness of your imperfect human soul in the eye and accepted that it’s a part of you – then and only then can you hope to make forward motion. Some people are lucky enough to have curses that are easily hidden, but that can be a double-edged sword - the conflict is then also easier to ignore, and that rarely accomplishes anything but misery.

Dr. Kevin Casey: Everyone's got their own burdens, J.D., and I'm not gonna be one of those people that dumps mine on somebody else. Now whatta you need?

I firmly believe that anyone’s life can be beautiful in its consequences – that is, the "ugly" parts of you can create something beautiful, and thus become beautiful by doing so. (My mutated version of the Thomas Theorem.) The following is the line at the end of “Catalyst” that anchored itself in my mind when I heard it:

I think owning your burdens is half the battle.

Who cares where I choose to find the meaning of human existence? Whether I find my religion in Star Wars, Shel Silverstein, Simon & Garfunkel, Fullmetal Alchemist, John Hughes movies, or an XKCD web comic, the final question is: what will I do with it? How does it change me? Does it really matter that I learn to live meaningfully from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead of from Buddha?
If you ask me, it’s not the source that defines the sentiment – the victory is that the lessons are learned at all.

Prank Call

I knew when my caller i.d. said "Restricted" that there was a 90% chance it was a prank call. (The 10% of doubt is because for most of the time that my first boyfriend and I were dating, his caller i.d. inexplicably showed up as "Restricted" whenever he called me and I got into a bad habit of answering all "Restricted" calls with "Hi, Kevin.")

Truthfully? I'm so desperate for human interaction that my heart practically skipped a beat when my phone vibrated, restricted numbers be damned. I felt flattered that somebody, somewhere had thought of me, had decided to call me, even if it was to confirm my order of 200 dildos.*

*I'm almost definitely sure that's what he or she was saying. It was hard to tell because the dildo salesman's accent was alternating between Swedish and Japanese. 

Here's the transcription of the conversation as I heard it.

Me: Hello?

Prank Caller: Hallo, is this a-Grace a-Smith-uh?

Me: ...yes?

PC: Yes, I'm-a calling to flaflafloofla mumph banana omnom order of 200 tiptoes from wawawawa.

Me: What?

PC: Your order of 200 banana dingoes from mop mop mop moop.

Me: [Long moment of silence, unsure how to respond.]

PC: Hello? 

Me: [Urge to hang up outweighed by intense loneliness. More silence.]

PC: Hello? Are you there? (Giggling in background.)

Me: [Having decided to engage prank callers in conversation out of boredom and despair] I'm sorry, you were calling about my order?

PC: Ja, ja, your order of-a 200 dilberts. 

Me: Two hundred? I thought I made it very clear that my order was for two thousand. 

PC: Ah, oh, yes yes, two thousand. You forgot that pesky little zero there, huh huh huh. [Accent now becoming Canadian.]

Me: I don't see how there was any mistake on my part, but I guess it's a good thing you called or I would've been very unsatisfied with the shipment.

PC: Yes, huh huh, okay ma'am, we'll get that right in the mail for y- for your a-night of pleasure. Huh huh. (Muffled giggling.)

Me: Yes, thank you.

PC: Whad do scale thing say begin.

Me: ...bye. *click*

What is wrong with me? Why does this brand of attention make me feel special? It's like when I was in junior high and sometimes high school boys would yell lewd things out of their car windows at me, but it really stung because I knew that they were not actually making sexual remarks, they were being ironic because I was such a funny-looking kid in middle school that it was humorous to imagine that anyone would ever find me appealing.

Cut to high school, walking down Main Street in shorts and somebody honks his horn and whistles at me and I immediately assume that, as before, he is doing it ironically because I am so far from what society considers sexy. Then I have a sudden moment of realization - he's not making fun of me, he's objectifying me! Awww!

Do you know how twisted that is? I was legitimately flattered because some creep honked and whistled at me and wasn't doing it to make fun of me, just to sincerely let me and everyone else within earshot know that he would have sex with me because of the way my ass looks in shorts.

What does it say about the way people treat each other that being objectified gave me an ego boost? What does it say about the way we alienate each other that a prank call was the one thing all day that made me feel like somebody cared about me? 

Roommate

It was both my little brother's recent exodus from the house and an effort to maintain my tree-hugger-flower-child image that got me into this room-sharing situation a week ago.

I probably deserved it for staying up obscenely late and as the condescending angel on my shoulder pointed out, it was technically his home first: when I finally started to get into bed there was a little brown spider on my wall right above my pillow. He was doing that spidery thing where he was perfectly still but could shoot across the wall at any second.

I don't know why I chickened out. There's only one kind of spider that I am legitimately afraid of and that is the daddy long-legs, which this spider was not. He was actually probably the closest a spider can get to being cute; about the size of a nickel, little brown body and legs that were not freakishly long and spindly. 

Every time this happens to me at a despicable hour, I do the same thing. I stand totally still, staring at the spider, and speed-dial my brother on my cell phone. 

He answers groggily and I say something dramatic like "for the love of god, help me" in a quavery whisper and he sighs and hangs up and opens the door of his bedroom (which is four feet away from mine) and slouches over in his boxers to size up the spider. Then he gets a tissue and kills it and I thank him and apologize profusely until he closes the door of his room again. 

It was the perfect system because a) I did not have to put a part of my body near the spider, b) I would not feel guilty about killing a spider that did nothing to hurt me, and c) I would not get that withering look from my dad that he gives me when I wake him up late at night for stupid things.

Last month, however, I became the oldest-child-who-still-lives-with-parents because my brother left for college. Which was okay other than being a little depressing; there has been more food since he left and now I know for a fact that all of the pubic hair in our bathroom is my own. 

Anyway, when my little buddy showed up, I was not really sure what to do. I'm ashamed to admit that I did stand by my bed holding a wad of toilet paper like an idiot for several minutes, but I was too afraid that when I reached out to squash him, the spider would suddenly jump off of the wall and onto my arm or face or body.

When that didn't accomplish anything, I spent twenty minutes whispering and gesturing emphatically while my cat ran around the room in confused circles. 

Finally, in one of the most achingly passive decisions I've ever made, I decided that I had wanted to sleep downstairs on the couch anyway and the spider could have my bed.

The next morning, he was not on my wall any longer but was presumably still in my bedroom. I decided that I could be civil about the situation and share my good-sized amount of personal space with a spider. (Meaning that hopefully my cat would kill and eat it while I was at school.)

A couple days ago he showed up again in my curtains, and then in a rather eerie coincidence, appeared right when I was describing him earlier and for a long time was in a groove on the lid of my yarn-bin and I can't believe I'm saying this, but he had his little legs tucked up under him and it was kind of adorable. 

I've been calling him Dennis, which is the name of Cordelia's ghost roommate on "Angel." Unfortunately, my Dennis does not hand me cans of pop or put an extra blanket over me when I'm cold, he just skitters around my room making me nervous and magically not being seen by my stupid cat. I am one with nature.

Thankfully, Dennis was released into the wild tonight because my mother is a saint and carried him outside for me. Here is a video tribute that I made for Dennis. He may be living in the front garden now, but he'll always be in my heart.

Ninjutsu

I see a therapist. (Make any and all judgments now so that we can continue un-hindered.) We have monthly appointments, sometimes we work on CBT and sometimes I go on existential and/or nihilistic rants and sometimes we sit in silence while I stare at my fingernails, although recently, we've been playing Scrabble.



I went through several therapists in an impressively short period of time but prior to that, all of my knowledge about psychiatry and/or seeing a therapist came from Jamie Lee Curtis' character in "Freaky Friday" and reading Gary Larson's The Far Side. Since my understanding was limited to talking cows and a movie that involved Lindsay Lohan, I had no idea what to expect the first time we walked into the waiting room of a psychiatry practice.

It was disappointingly normal.

Finally, after about three years of sitting in ugly chairs and wondering what was wrong with all of the other normal-looking people, it happened - the experience I'd been waiting for.
And it was beautiful.


There were four of us in the waiting room on that particular day. Normally, I plop myself down directly next to another patient even if there are a bunch of empty seats so that I have at least one last-minute exposure to tell my therapist about. On this particular day my selected victim had been called in for his appointment right after I sat down, so I was alone against the back wall. A guy who could've been anywhere from 17 to 24 sat opposite me, sexting his girlfriend. (Wild guess.) Perpendicular to us against the main wall was a generic middle-aged white couple.

I was reading the same sentence in my book over and over again when the door from the offices into the waiting room opened and this rather large, blonde guy in a dirty t-shirt and sweatpants walked out. I was reminded of a member of Count Olaf's entourage detailed by Lemony Snicket in Series of Unfortunate Events; the large person whom the orphans could never identify as a man or a woman. This guy was obviously a man, but everything else about him was ambiguous. Age, mood, sanity, homelessness, et cetera. He had short blonde hair and now that I think about it, kind of looked like he had been drawn by the previously mentioned cartoonist, Gary Larson.

He was giving off some seriously weird vibes, but I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt since I can be pretty weird myself. First, he turned around and tried to go back into the offices but could not - there's a lock that you have to enter a key code into, which had always seemed unnecessary to me until just now. Being denied access, he turned and leaned his weight on the counter by the window, engaging the reluctant receptionist in conversation.

"Have you ever heard of a side-effect of schizophrenia that gives you the power to learn martial arts in your sleep?"

At this point we all thought he was making a weird joke. Sexting Guy and I shared an amused glance.

"Because when I woke up this morning, I knew Ninjutsu."

I was still under the impression that he was joking, but then he set his jumbo-fast-food-beverage down on the counter and in a miraculous demonstration of agility for his heftiness, suddenly chopped the air with his hand in a wide arc, stumbling forward a little bit as a result of the wild motion.

The four of us in the waiting room all jolted simultaneously. Sexting Guy and I stared at each other wide-eyed, the situation having officially crossed over from funny to scary.

The receptionist was impressively composed. "Wow! Look at that."

"It's the strangest thing - I've never had any training." The guy flailed around a little more doing nothing that looked like "the martial art, strategy, and tactics of unconventional warfare and guerrilla warfare as well as the art of espionage purportedly practiced by the shinobi." (I google-d Ninjutsu when I got home.) He motioned around to the four of us and said, "I could take on everyone in here." (The alarming truth is that he was probably right.)

The receptionist quickly changed the subject. The next thing I recall the man talking about was astral projection, which he claimed to practice regularly.

He had allegedly done the following things through out-of-body experiences in the spirit world:

• Met what I suspect were some anime characters
• Learned ninja secrets
• Lost his virginity.

Just when I had come to my senses and realized that I needed to remember everything this guy said for storytelling purposes later on, an older, female version of him strode through the door from the back offices and dragged him behind her out of the waiting room without breaking her stride. 

For a few minutes we sat in stunned silence, unsure of the appropriate way to react. (If anyone understands how un-funny mental illness can be, it's a bunch of people in a psychiatrist's waiting room. Then again, I think it's absolutely necessary to find humor in hardship.)

Finally, the middle-aged man broke the silence. Quietly and seriously, he said to the receptionist,


"I am also a master of Ninjutsu."

Connor con Queso

It was July of 2012, and my good friend Connor and I had just started dating.

(For those of you confused by my cryptic wording, Connor is a current good friend and former boyfriend but for some reason that's ridiculously hard to phrase without sounding fickle. Unrelated side-note, I'm obsessed with writing about a super-villain called the Fickle Pickle. Trademarked by Grace.)

Early on in our relationship, when we were getting to know each other, Connor and I played the Question Game via Facebook message. (Question Game: Must ask another question after answering one.) We eventually got around to "biggest fear," then the far more interesting "biggest irrational fear," or what some may call "phobia." Here's my list:

• Horses*
• Escalators
• Open water*
• Daddy Long Legs
• Those little monkeys that wear diapers**
• Orangutans***
• Pregnant women's bellies

Granted, I have a rather hefty list. Truth be told, I can ride an escalator if I absolutely have to and I could probably hold myself together if I had the opportunity to gallop to someone's rescue on the back of a horse. See corresponding footnotes for related stories.

Connor's list was only two things.

• Being attacked/murdered while in the shower
• Anyone (including himself) putting their finger in his bellybutton

I really do respect irrational fear. I'm not the kind of person who rubs my hands all over someone when I find out they have OCD. (Do people do that? I couldn't think of a better example.) I never entered the bathroom while Connor was showering without clearly announcing myself.

That being said, I, like most human beings, do have occasional moments of pure evil. 

July of 2012, I'm sitting on a white vinyl bench on a pontoon boat in a lake in Northern Michigan. There are about 6 or 7 people on the boat; myself, Connor, Connor's brother Brendon, and several of Brendon's friends including Shawna and Melissa. (The only two I remember.)

Connor has this really, really frustrating ability to fall asleep whenever and wherever he wants in about 30 seconds, and at this particular moment had dozed off whilst shirtless, his head in my lap. I was instantly bored. Boredom, as everyone knows, is a dangerous sensation. All of my truly evil moments are manifested from boredom. 

I scanned the boat for entertainment and my eyes instantly went - as if drawn by a magnet - to Connor's belly button. I began looking frantically around me for something funny to put in his belly button. All I could really see was a life jacket, cigarette butts, and a few pairs of sunglasses. Cigarette butt was too mean. I sighed audibly and made eye contact with Shawna or Melissa (don't remember which) who was sitting across from me.

"I'm trying to find something to put in his belly button." I explained. Shawna/Melissa laughed and contemplated for a moment before having a stroke of genius; she went over to the driver's seat of the pontoon boat where the boys were and came back with a jar of Chi-Chi's queso dip that had been brought on-board to accompany tortilla chips. I could barely contain my delighted freak-out; I couldn't have asked for anything sillier. 

I stuck my finger in the queso and got a nice big blob of it and very carefully dropped it into Connor's exposed belly button. He didn't stir. I added just a smidgen more so that it was sufficiently visible. Connor woke up moments later with a groan. 

"Wha... what? Awwww, maaaan." Connor groggily noticed the queso and acknowledge my hilarious prank with a groan. I had expected that he would jump in the lake to wash it out. That's where the story gets better.

To Connor, apparently, hunger for queso takes priority over irrational fear. When he was done grumbling, he stuck his own finger into his belly button.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" He grimaced in agony at the sensation. I started to say that he could jump into the water and he wouldn't have to do that.

Until I figured out what he was actually doing, which was eating the queso out of his own belly button. I have to admire his perseverance - he had to go back in three or four times before he got all of the queso. The man is truly unbreakable. 

When I decided to post the story, I mentioned it to my friend Josh, and as soon as I brought up the irrational fear of someone touching/poking your belly button, "Oh my god! No way! That is seriously my one irrational fear! I'm not kidding!" While my parents and I were watching the Modern Family premiere, I was looking up phobias online and the fear of having one's belly button touched or poked is called omphalophobia. Even better, there's an online community of people who share the common issue of omphalophobia! Apparently it's not horribly uncommon! Who knew?

Here are some of the more entertaining phobias I found in my quest:

Consecotaleophobia- Fear of chopsticks.

Eurotophobia- Fear of female genitalia. We have all had this fear at one time or another.

Papaphobia- Fear of the Pope.

More than you'lll never know.

Gymnophobia- Fear of nudity.

*Both of these fears originated with an early childhood viewing of "Black Beauty," the only scene from which I can remember is a large boat sinking and a little boy and horse ending up on some random beach, where the horse got spooked by a snake and flailed it's deadly hooves all around on the screen. Also, my parents had told me about Christopher Reeve breaking his neck by being bucked off of a horse, and in my mind it had turned into "a horse crippled Superman."

**The episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" where Craig has a homicidal helper-monkey may have something to do with this.

***I was at the zoo once and was at these glass windows that looked into the orangutan enclosure, and there was this orangutan who came up to the glass and I got all excited because I was going to connect with a monkey like Jane Goodall, and he seemed really curious and friendly! I got all excited and turned around to yell for my mom to come over and see the orangutan. When I turned back, the orangutan was rubbing this slimy, bright green goop all over the glass directly in front of me. The people around me were making "Eeeew" noises and turning away. I could not for the life of me figure out what the green stuff was, it was definitely not feces and the orangutan was having a ridiculous amount of fun rubbing it on the glass. Here's what I missed when I turned away to beckon my mom, drawn very, very poorly:

Of course, now that I've expressed my association of orangutans with nausea, I cannot not love this guy:

Gail v. Robespierre

I've been saving this work story for a while because I couldn't come up with good cartoons to go with it. I finally compromised and drew one unnecessarily-detailed cartoon.


Gail
A middle-aged, horse-loving, mini-van-driving, serial-dessert-baking vet assistant and mother of at least two with whom I used to work. (That may not have been a complete sentence but I went out of my way to avoid ending it with a preposition.)

Gail is funny. I really didn't like her at first - she just rubbed me the wrong way. Then one day she walked in with her usual "Good morning, Gracie!" and I suddenly realized that she'd grown on me and without knowing it, I had begun to adore her. The things that used to get under my skin became things that made me laugh, and not in a sarcastic way.

She had a tendency to scurry around the clinic like a chicken with her head cut off, doing random things like "cleaning all the dust pans" or Lemon Pledge-ing the wooden railings.To me, eventually, she seemed to take on a "mother hen" role. (I did not plan for those metaphorical clichés to match so well.) The bottom line is that Gail could be neurotic, but in a stressful work environment it meant a lot to have someone call me "honey" and make me feel appreciated.


Robespierre
A small, bean-shaped French Bulldog puppy who was born with a cleft palate. One of the technicians at the clinic took him home to do the rigorous tube-feeding required to nurse a pup with a cleft palate and he blossomed into a less-small, bean-shaped Frenchie with the derp-iest face I've ever seen on a canine and eyes that pointed in two visibly different directions.

He always had this "crazy-eyes" face that my dog gets when he's about to do something that he knows is blatantly against the rules. He looked like he was continually saying "Hit me, bro!" He didn't bark, either - he had a velociraptor-like shriek that sometimes sounded uncannily like the scream of a hysterical human woman.


The Showdown
I was standing in the main office filing paperwork. Robespierre was hanging out in the practice manager's office with a baby gate blocking the door while the technician taking care of him was at work. There were at least two pee pads laid out on the floor for him to use.

Which was, of course, wishful thinking, because the moment the manager stepped away he squatted in the center of the office and took a dump on one of the very few patches of floor that was not a pee pad. See left for a detailed but not-specific-enough-for-anyone-to-recognize-it-because-I'm-paranoid-that-I'll-get-in-trouble-even-though-I-haven't-said-anything-bad-about-the-hospital-and-I-don't-work-there-anymore map of the manager's office.

Gail happened to be passing through the office at that moment, and the sudden inspiration to do dirty work hit her - albeit not for a client's animal, but it was still a triumph. She grabbed a few paper towels and stepped over the baby gate into the office.

As soon as she moved towards Robespierre's poop, he starting freaking the hell out. He was squealing and screaming and snapping his crooked little mouth at her and would not let her take his feces.

Gail started "Oh!"-ing, all flustered the way she gets - "Oh! Oh no! Oh dear!" (and so on.)

Neither the receptions nor I thought to help her because we were too busy busting a gut watching Gail get terrorized by a tiny, retarded bulldog intent on literally guarding his poop.

Both parties made a valiant effort, but only one could win. Gail eventually rallied, got the best of Robespierre, and robbed him of his precious creation... although not without getting poo on her finger.



When Robespierre was older, an animal neurologist confirmed that his neurological issues were abnormal and irreparable. This is my homage to that crazy little mo-fo who terrorized poor Gail more and made me laugh harder than any dog ever has.

Today in Grace History: Late Submission Wins Pun-Based Pet Name Category

Today was my last day at work.

Also, today was the day poor Spotnick lost his crown to the new front-runner in pun-based names, his presence in the original competition non-existent for the sole reason that he had not yet been run over by an ATV and brought in to the clinic...

Didgeri-Don't.