Rapture abated.

Well.  I'm still here.  Not that I thought I'd be going anywhere.  My dog's still here too, and it was her I was most worried about, actually.  She's pure of heart and all that.  I'm glad she still cruises among us because I would hate to drag her leash around, all alone, on daily walks.

In other news, I have two questions.  The first: why does the manuscript assessment program care if my novel has more than 100,000 words?  I get it.  That's a lot of words.  But I don't want a lazy assessor.  And lots of books have lots of words.  I wonder if he knows how Anna Karenina ends?

Second question: how come no one ever told me just how easy it is to turn a man's shirt into a shirt that actually fits me?  Three new shirts today.  That's right.  The new Singer sang.  And I finally get to rock my Pie n' Burger shirt.  I wish I could actually go to Pie n' Burger though.  I'd really like some pie and a burger.

In case of rapture, I'll just be here.

My dog can predict stuff too.

It seems that an 89-year old man successfully maneuvered through the social media and crazy train networks of Christers to broadcast his urgent message of (dubious, cynical, perverse?) hope.  Hey!  Yay!  The world is going to end on May 21!  Save the date, 'kay!?  Because, kind guy that he is, he didn't want anyone to miss the fun by... say... visiting a luddite uncle or seeing a movie or something equally mundane yet out of hearing range so they'd miss the fireworks as 200 million naked folks streak into the sky for Jesus's big, boring bash in the clouds.  No spiked punch for them.

I'm of the opinion that the faster these folks get siphoned off the planet, the better.  Don't let the stratosphere hit you on your way up and out, okay?  I'll kick it down here, sigh contentedly and throw my arms wide for the calm age of reason that should follow.  And the legalized pot.

Okay, the whole rapture business is bat shit crazy, but what's crazier than the bat shit is the bat food gobbled into the pious (probably Tagament-coated) digestive track of the hordes of the fat and holy hopefuls.  There's an incredible hierarchy of unbelievably insane homework that had to be completed to finish the term and receive one of the cool Rapture t-shirts folks are sporting under smiles that don't know that getting saved means getting dead.  Yay, kids!  We stopped saving for your college tuition!  Who's ready to meet the maker?

First, the impatient rapture ticketholders had to believe that Harold Camping's reading of the bible is somehow authoritative.  He's a civil engineer, for pete's sake.  For chrissake, I mean.  (I'm really anxious to be among those left behind.)  Second, they had to follow his math, which, if I remember anything from math classes, usually requires numbers that aren't randomly made up just to get the correct answer.  Mr. Flattum always frowned on my creative number replacements while he gently massaged the shoulders of the boy in front of me.  Mr. Flattum had soft-hands, I'm told.  Third, you have to add up ages in the bible because the bible is really precise on the longevity of those tribal elders.  For example, some guys lived over 150 years.  And Noah, well he was in his 600th year when he decided to build his ark.  So, you take those ages and add them all up because there's no reason to question how those Old Testament guys were living to such ripe old ages  when most humans would have fully ripened and started to rot by 35, if they actually made it through their first five years.  Finally, I guess, they also have to believe there's some dude who's going to plop down to earth, take a look around, then hop back up into the sky to report to some other dude who's got the power to smite us all.  And that we will be smote by him.  And that somehow, a good smiting will be different than the physically torturous adventure of getting sucked through the earth's atmosphere with no clothes on.  Oh, geez.  I mean, oh fucking lord.  People really buy this shit?



Shit.  I'm pretty keen to see how this all shakes out.  All joking aside... no.  I can't do that.  It's too fucking funny.  I mean, like, it's funny in that way that I want to point at everyone who exhausted their savings because they had the hubris to think that they'd be specially selected to clear out of this mortal coil and I want to hold my stomach while I laugh at them.  And I'm usually pretty nice.  But with this.  Nah.  No need to be nice while they squirm to abandon ship.

Yeah, well, there's always a DIY option since you won't be able to pay rent next month, dumb-dumb.  And maybe that's mean, but come on.  It's actually really fucking funny.

I am remiss.

I have a friend in Colorado with whom I maintain a holidays-only correspondence.  So far, he's missed Easter and the MLK birthday but he made up for it by finding Waitangi Day.  At this moment, I'm deciding whether to make a go of it for Cinco de Mayo despite today's sad deficit of pinatas and warm weather.  I do have warm Coronas in the cupboard.  Maybe I let her rip?

A completely separate thought: paying taxes in this country doesn't make me feel any more connected to it. In fact, the opposite may be true.  And while I self-tag as a bleeding heart, the taxes I pay to the U.S. don't really offer much return on the investment either.  So, what am I becoming?  Surely, not a grumbling libertarian.  I mean, come on.  How silly is that political leaning?  Whoops, I mean, political stand.  Because a libertarian who tries to lean on anything should certainly fall flat on her face unless she's provided her own column for the purpose.  Otherwise, she's not very principled, is she?

No, I think my problem is personal, not political.  (Granted, I'm not thrilled with sending taxes to the U.S. to continue funding the war, nor do I believe that the government is efficiently managing the fun money we send it.)  But, this doesn't mean I don't want to pay for my governments.  It's just, I want to pay for my governments to govern me, which, in the case of the U.S. means that I want them to maintain or build programs that will take care of those who need it now and be available for me when or if I need it later.  In the case of NZ, I think I need to pay a little more attention.  See, it's old school here.  There's still a level of accountability in this government that shocks my long-neglected advocate's heart.  But I don't necessarily investigate the broad options available to me.  Maybe I'm going to go have a chat with legal aid.  Maybe I'd like to visit the free museum.  Oh, here's something I know I appreciate already: moderately clean, public superloos.

I do use the roads, as a motorist and cyclist, and though I moan the absence of bike lanes, I'm becoming aware of a slow conversion among policy makers here to ensure greater safety to bike riders.  Okay.  There's that.  My doctor's visits are relatively inexpensive, though I don't care to push that benefit, thank you very much.  When I decide to go back to school, I'll get a kickass deal.  Alright.  So, I know the taxes are flowing toward resources that I, as a human being, can actually use (unlike the money I sent to the U.S., which seems to accrue to non-human corporations whose quest for parity has put them in a power position that I won't likely know in my lifetime).  But I do need to create the connections that make me feel these benefits more keenly rather than relying on a rambling blog post to stoke some cognitive affirmation of them.

Maybe I should cruise by the Community Advice Clinic.  They exist just to answer those questions that keep us awake at night.  They're like google people, except they don't get paid and they actually talk to people who don't live on the interwebs.

I'll get myself connected yet.  Here I go.  Right after I hold my nose for that warm Corona.