Serene of the Oakland Serenes

We're here, really! (At the end of the article is a great reading list. I know what I'll be doing between writing blog posts today.)

Where Are All the Atheist Women? Right Here

I know there are several atheists on my friendslist. The rest of you, go ahead and skip this post. :-)

I am creating a series of PSAs -- they will, I hope, be circulated widely, and I'm going to print them in the new magazine. They will look something like this (this is a crude first draft; imagine them better):



You totally want to be in these PSAs, right?

Send a photo to 42magazine@serenepages.com if you want to join. You should also suggest some nouns. We're looking for the blandest, most middle-america aspects of you (the_ogre was the example I thought of: "Veteran. Cat-lover. Atheist."), but if that grates on you, choose your own.

[Edit: "Bland" isn't exactly the right word for what I'm talking about. I guess the feeling of it is "Look, here's this list of qualities that is really unlikely to offend anyone, and here at the end? Atheist. This is a person just like any other person. This person is also an atheist."]

My questions from jb98, who gets *smooches* for fun questions:

1.) What if there is a God?

Then I'm wrong. I've been wrong before. I'd be *very* surprised, as it is very clear to me that god(s) is/are a made-up thing, something people made/make up to help them make sense of the world, but I'd actually be kind of tickled to find out that things work completely differently from how they appear to work to me. I'd also be *extremely* pissed if it turns out that the god of my childhood is real and works the way I was taught he works.

2.) What is your favourite food to eat? Has this stayed the same
throughout your life or changed?

I don't have one clear favorite, but some things have been constant faves over my lifetime (good watermelon, popcorn, cream-of-anything soup), and some things are new loves (sushi, Ethiopian food, Thai curry, tom khar soup).

3.) How do you stay happy when finances get tough?

I think I have a natural predisposition to not care much about money. It's stressful for me to be broke, but it doesn't seem to hit any of my actual unhappiness buttons. I've been broke most of my life. Maybe being a hippy on a commune for a while made me romanticize the whole hand-to-mouth thing, I dunno.

4.) If money and employment were no object and you could live with your
family (however you define family) anywhere on the planet, where would
you choose and why?

Here. My block. I fantasize all the time about buying this house and the apartment house behind it, maybe the buildings on both sides, too, and moving everyone I love (the ones who want to, anyway) in around me. I LOVE my neighborhood, and I never want to leave.

5.) Do you miss living in San Diego?

Not a bit. I miss my family, and I occasionally (maybe three or four times in the last three years) have felt sad/homesick around not knowing this town the way I know San Diego, but really, Oakland is the first place I've ever felt really home.

I've seen this on no fewer than a dozen people's journals. Not a one of them has crossed out fewer than six attributes supposedly belonging to them. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, ain't it?

- Pick your birth month.
- Strike out anything that doesn't apply to you.
- Bold the five-ten that best apply to you.

SEPTEMBER:
Suave and compromising. Careful, cautious and organized. Likes to point out people's mistakes. Likes to criticize. Stubborn. Quiet but able to talk well. Calm and cool. Kind and sympathetic. Concerned and detailed. Loyal but not always honest. Does work well. Very confident. Sensitive. Good memory. Clever and knowledgeable. Loves to look for information. Must control oneself when criticizing. Able to motivate oneself. Understanding. Fun to be around. Secretive. Loves leisure and traveling. Hardly shows emotions. Tends to bottle up feelings. Very choosy, especially in relationships. Systematic.

( All twelve months )

[Warning: contains atheism, violence, and rape. Don't read if such things upset you.]

Cute-poet-chick has cancelled our old ISP because she got DSL, so I have to clean out my old webmail folders. I will be posting some of what I want to keep under private filters, such as poems I don't want to inflict on people, but a couple of things I'll post either publicly or friends-only. Please please please feel free (as if you don't already feel free) to completely ignore me today as I get all faux-prolific.

( The 7-Eleven story, also known as The Day I Saw God and Left the Church )