leftovers

Everyone woke up pretty early and in Camp Lesbo we had quite the breakfast spread going on. We had brought our own stuff, so I had a couple pop tarts and then cooked some eggs and sausage on one of the camp stoves the girls had brought. Dylan was in a huge hurry to get to the rock climbing site, so we ended up forgetting a few crucial things (the cooler, our food, etc) but it was fine. We all staked out this nice shaded area to set up in, and I ended up reading a lot in my book, “Blown for Good,” a Scientology expose which I ended up finishing later in the day. Chris, Dylan’s brother in law, had set up the rock climbing ropes with his friends and people were climbing all morning. Dylan finally decided it was his turn so I went with him and took the camera so I could capture the action. He did a really good job scaling a really steep rcck! There was also this little girl, couldn’t have been more than 3 or so, who climbed and it was so cute, she laughed and smiled the...

{this part was edited out per the request of the person it was about - however I promise you it was nothing salacious or worth trying to figure out} I had to run over to CVS to have some photo prints made for our office in preparation of the open house we are having tomorrow, and on the way, I happened to look right up at one of the video cameras on the Scientology building and gave a funny look, just to mess with whoever was monitoring it on the other side. Well, I ended up being the one who got freaked out because about 15 seconds after that, an Asian lady approached me and handed me a card for free admission to the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition. That was the first time any of them have approached me since I've been working here.

I've been procrastinating getting ready for my Emmys party on Sunday. Since Dylan is taking Adrienne to the show and the Governor's Ball after, I wanted to have a viewing party and make a dinner and everything, but after sending the initial invite out on Facebook I've been slacking. I finally decided to get my RSVP's together so I could have some idea of how many people to expect. Meanwhile, we're also planning a trip to Catalina Island on Saturday for Angie's birthday. Since Adrienne is here, we wanted to do something fun and unique. Brandon and Adrienne have never been to Catalina, so it should be fun. I got a little obsessed with reading about this other fake religion, Eckankar, which calls itself the "religion of the light and sound of God." I remember seeing their ads in the back of Rolling Stone back when I was an impressionable youth and always wanting to learn more about it. Now, everyday on my way to work I drive past their LA headquarte...

Spirituality is something I think about often and is sort of a mystery to me in many ways, but I do believe that it is supposed to be mysterious. Today I was watching this series on homelessness in LA, specifically Skid Row downtown. I have done a lot of volunteering for homeless causes, mainly PATH, because of how much I am affected by it through my job and just by living in LA. One segment of the series was really interesting and frustrating for me; the one that dealt with God and spirituality. Part of the reason I started volunteering was because I get so upset that so many service organizations are faith based or religion based. Sometimes it's hard for an atheist to convince people that we are still caring, compassionate people who like to do good. I don't pray, and sometimes people who are religious don't really seem to understand that they are excluding me when they talk about praying for this or praying for that. I don't pray for people, but that doesn't ...

Today was the first day back to work this year but it was pretty boring. I had to type some pages and organize some financial matters, and of course clean my office a little, which I had meant to do before vacation but never found the time. After work, I came home and started taking down the holiday decorations. When Dylan got home, he helped me, and we ended up getting everything put away. It looks so empty now without the tree, but I like to get it put away before too much of the new year has come to pass. I spent a little time reading about Jesus tonight while I was listening to the instrumentals of my songs. I'm always a little curious about the historical Jesus, like what facts have actually been shown to be historically accurate. Unfortunately, of course, there isn't really that much which has survived to be passed down in the form of verifiable truth. I do think Jesus probably existed, but I'm curious as to how he has come to have such a large following. I try...

Type. Read. Delete. Type. Read. Delete. That's the constantly repeating cycle that I've been going through with regards to my blog, in this wacky and tense presidential election season that we're in here in America. So many nasty things being said, so many accusations being leveled, but scariest of all is the trotting out of the "extremists" and airing their ill-informed views on national news. Most of my life I prided myself on being fairly in the "middle" - I never even considered myself much of a political person and I'm ashamed to say, but have admitted it before, that I didn't even vote in the 2000 presidential election. And, just today in writing this blog, I went back and realized that I would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 1996, when Clinton ran for re-election against Bob Dole. Not only did I fail to vote in that election, but even if I had, it's very possible that I may have voted for Dole simply because he ...