Atheist

In all the individual prayer times in mass, once I was old enough to pay attention to what was going on, I only ever prayed for one thing.

"Please, God, help me to believe."

I would look at all these people around me, who obviously felt some sort of divine presence in their lives, people whose sincerity was obvious, people who knew there was some non-interacting but apparently caring and IMPORTANT consciousness floating around, and I couldn't feel it. I wondered and wondered, "what is wrong with me? I don't feel like that!"

I wish I'd had the vocabulary to express agnosticism and atheism as a tween. Knowing there are other people who can't convince themselves that a magical force that loves everyone but doesn't ever do anything but controls everything exists would have been very comforting.

I tried behaving as if I devoutly believed, to see if that would help me to. It didn't. I was afraid to act devout publicly, because I knew I was faking it. I didn't talk about my struggles with church and religion, because I just thought something was wrong with me. If all these other people are getting something valuable out of church, I should too.

In high school, I quit caring. I went through the motions of confirmation, because it was important to everyone around me, even though it was a massive waste of time. I didn't have any particular belief set then, I just pushed the issue away and focused on more important things. Like picking a college major, and a college, and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. The only time I really thought about it was at an elementary school reunion, where one of the classmates who had always been nice to me told me he felt God had called him to service. "How does he know that? Why is he so sure? Why have I never made it to probably?"

In college, I had a lot of more-or-less devout friends, so I started attending church again. Maybe this time it would work, and I would feel...whatever it is. I really liked the church there. The priests were fun, good speakers, and talked more about reality than divinity. Lots of sermons on tolerance, being good people, doing good things. I enjoyed the message, the music, and the people.

I still prayed at every mass for faith, because I still couldn't convince myself that any of the god stuff made any sense at all. Again, people all around me had no trouble believing that an invisible being that never did anything anyone could sense and only left one very random mish-mash of books written by men to say anything about itself knew and guided everyone all the time. Lovely, intellegent, fabulous people. So I figured that if everyone else could see that this bizarre concept made sense, and that creating an entire philosophy out of a self-contradicting compliation of documents was not only reasonable, but the best way, that it must just be me. Obviously, there's something wrong with me.

That's not a comfortable feeling to have, but EVERYONE I knew identified as a Christian believer of some sort. There were variations, of course, between the non-introspective roommate who was a believer because that's what she'd been taught and she never really thought about it, who attended church during the major holidays and the Aeroboy who attended two services every Sunday and truly believed that doing anything fun at all would send you straight to Hell.

And then there was me, unwilling to admit I couldn't believe because that indicated there was something terribly wrong with me, but unable to read the Bible any differently than the fairy tales and Greek myths I loved as a kid. Except the Bible was usually more tedious, more violent, less coherent, and didn't include the names of the women.

I was scared of the word "atheist" because all the people I knew considered it derogatory, indicative of moral failing, or at best, misguided and pitiable. I defined myself as an apathetic agnostic for awhile, because saying "I don't know, but I don't really care" is safer than saying "I don't understand how all of you can make any sense out of this."

I talked about it with MM once, asking her how she could deal with the biblical discrepancies, the lack of response from the universe, the non-appearance of God. Her reply, "That's part of the mystery" is the best answer I've ever gotten, and it simply doesn't work for me. Accepting that there's no reason to believe and believing anyway is not something I'm capable of.

I find the notion of eternal life absolutely terrifying, and can't understand why it's considered a reward. I want more time than I'm likely to get, but I don't want forever. The concept of infinity really freaked me out as a kid.

I shall be grateful for the rest of my life to one of the Aeroboys, for telling me he's an atheist and giving me the resources to find others. Suddenly, there was nothing wrong with me. I can't believe because believing in something that can't be detected in any way at all because some people wrote some stuff down a couple thousand years ago doesn't make sense.

There is nothing intrinsically valuable about faith. In no other area is it considered a good thing to believe everything anyone says without question. Whole classes are taught on evaluating the validity of web resources. You're supposed to actively disbelieve the stranger who says he has candy in his van. Food processors have to prove their factories are clean and their products are safe. I'm feeling compelled to provide examples to back up my statements on a personal blog that nobody reads.

I am an atheist because I can't choose to believe in something that doesn't make any sense or provide any actual, measurable, proof of its existence, and I am okay with that. I am much more comfortable with a god-free world, and an ethical system based on empathy instead of a deeply sexist, xenophobic, and authoritarian ancient book. I wish it had taken less than 24 years to learn I wasn't profoundly broken.

Open House

The open house today went well. Most of the people in the age bracket appropriate for this size of house LOVED my paint colors, although several elderly neighbors were rather taken aback. I hope they were only shocked by the orange wall in the basement, because if my blue and gray living room was too much, that's kind of sad. The realtor really liked how we staged what little stuff we have, which was nice to hear after all our hard work! Another realtor who came to see the house thinks a house-hunting client of his would like ours, and love the neighborhood, so we'll hopefully be showing again later this week.

In the past week, not only have we cleaned the house twice, we've also painted the front door white, painted a small angle wall gray, scrubbed the baseboards the dogs get muddy, washed, folded, and put away a month's worth of laundry (since I don't have to wear job appropriate attire, laundry is usually motivated by R running out of socks, and he has a lot of them), moved all the packed stuff into the van, organized the storage room, put the storage room door back up, fixed the guest room door, planted butterfly garden seeds and mulched the flower beds, and changed the dining room light switch. We didn't manage to get the bedroom ceiling fan up, because R slept wrong and strained a neck/shoulder muscle. He couldn't lift his arms above his head, making wiring near the ceiling impossible.

We spent most of our exiled time at the bookstore, where I overheard a conversation between a couple of 15-ish year olds. The boy was sad because some girl wasn't calling him, and the girl was recommending not stalking the not-calling girl. I really wanted to tell him "she's just not that into you, quit trying" because the situation sounded like the not-calling girl just didn't know how to say no. I didn't, though, because that would be a tad creepy. I imagine he'll figure it out.

My lovely blue lace knitting project is moving right along. Now that I understand the pattern, it's pretty fast work. I imagine it'll get tedious before the end. I've finished 3.5 of 14 pattern repeats, so I still have a fair amount left to do. According to my spreadsheet, I'm 30.38% done. I'm very happy with the clear beads, and glad I went with them instead of blue ones.

A letter to the dogs

Dear Nova and Quasar,

You're adorable, you really really are. And lovey, and hilarious, and pretty much awesome. However. I just cleaned the house yesterday, and I have an open house on Sunday, so it would be really really really fantastic if you could quit trying to bring the ENTIRE backyard into the house with you. Muddy footprints on the floor may seem fun, but I have to mop, and it makes my back hurt. Bringing in mulch might seem like getting new toys, but it breaks apart, isn't picked up well by the vacuum, and will do a lot more good around the plants than as splinters in my feet. All those dead leaves you're bringing in are just making me vacuum more often, which means carrying the heavy thing up and down the stairs, which makes my back hurt. Really, you can let the leaves decompose outside. The soil needs some more organic matter anyway.
Please quit stepping on the tulips. They'll be pretty and happy if you give them a chance to grow. The same goes for the bluebells, once they start coming up.
I am allowed to eat without help. If I don't want all of my delicious cinnamon toast, I'll give you what's leftover, because I don't like throwing food away. Just because you can jump on the chaise, Nova, doesn't mean you always should. While I'm mentioning jumping up, if I have the beads out for my new knitting project, please don't step on them. They fall and roll and disappear, and I'm sure the vacuum won't like them.
Quasar, you can throw the soft toys all you want, but not the bones. They're hard and heavy and there's breakable stuff near the floor. Like R's string bass. And the fireplace doors. And my teevee.
Lastly, just because I walk past the puppy cabinet in the kitchen doesn't mean I'm there to get treats out. Sometimes I need to walk through the kitchen. Especially on laundry day. Nova, I know you're smart enough to figure this one out, so do that, and explain it to Quasar, would you?

Keep play fighting to your hearts' content though, because today's fight was hilarious. The cuddles, kisses, and fetch are good too.

Love,
Me

In which I trimph over a ball of yarn

I got new yarn yesterday, and the pretty blue laceweight for MM went onto needles, as soon as I found the size 6 circular. It was hiding. Casting on laceweight was interesting, since I've never worked with such tine, stretchy stitches before. The cast on I was supposed to use just resulted in knots, so I internetted to find something that would produce the same effect that would work for me. The border was super easy, even with learning how to add beads with the smallest crochet hook ever, but then I got to the lace. The first row took me 3 tries, because I had dropped a stitch in the previous row and kept not noticing. Luckily, this yarn sticks to itself pretty easily, so after all that time, I could still just put the stitch back on the needle. The second row I did 1.5 times, because I forgot the beads but noticed halfway through the row. The third row I got right to start with! I am making much progress, and I LOVE how the beads and the yarn look together. The timing was fantastic, as I can now work on this project and leave my two airplane projects for the long airplane ride. I didn't want the airplane projects to get too bulky, but I needed something to work on. Naturally, now that my new yarn is here, I have the perfect light for scrapbooking again. I'm pretty happy to have things to do that generate a sense of accomplishment though.

R finally has some options, and might be heading to California to earn better money, in a job in his field, while looking for something in The Netherlands. I'm not thrilled with the long distance idea, but adding to savings instead of subtracting from them until the house sells is a pretty big perk to the idea. And with the paperwork issues, he can't move until he gets a job anyway, so he might as well work somewhere that isn't happiness-destroying retail. When our house sells here, I might be buying our next one without his input (just like this one) but hopefully someday we can house-hunt together. I've found a darling house that's practically on campus and has a decent yard, and another farther away house that's rent-able IF there's some sort of transportation available. I don't think a 15 mile bike ride to and from work is reasonable. Especially since I haven't touched a bike in 8 or so years.

I decided it would be a good time to review my New Year's Resolutions. Thus far, I'm doing well at 1, haven't had the chance to work on 2 (I don't currently have a bike), am still Rosetta Stone-ing my way to 3, have done nothing at all for 4 (especially now that I'm carless during the day), can't work on 5 because I have no deadlines to meet, have rocked out 6, and am not doing so well at 7 because there's nothing in my house to photograph except the dogs. I will take some new yarn pictures later when the camera battery is charged.

Something good that happened

I realized that I forgot to post this on Friday. My car is sold! Everything is done, and having that money (plus eliminating that debt!) is pretty reassuring, and very very awesome. However, I miss my little car. It was a good car, with excellent gas milage and enough space for the dogs in the back. Not that Nova ever stayed in the back. I was sad to see it go, but the new owner is super excited about it, and I'm thrilled to be this much closer to a car-free lifestyle. Not that I have anything against cars themselves, as a concept. New technology means we can shift away from burning oil to run them, and exclusively human powered transportation is not practical in a lot of places. I do, however, hate driving in traffic, paying for insurance, trying to park, being a designated driver, and paying for a machine that needs a fair amount of maintenance and depreciates in value very quickly anyway. Attending a university with amazing bus service made me appreciate being a passenger. Given a choice, I much prefer being able to review notes, play games on my DS, read, talk on the phone, or otherwise productively spend my commute time instead of paying attention to the road. The great thing about having a car is the freedom of movement, being able to go places easily and quickly, and at university I had that (for the most part) with the buses.

I also paid off my credit card, and am going to pay of R's as soon as we figure out a safe way to transfer money to that account. In another week, our only debt will be our fairly modest mortgage, and that's pretty awesome for a pair of 25 year olds!

It wouldn't be an adventure without obstacles

I sent an email today. R and I have decided to apply for just my visa at this point, because we can't figure out how to authenticate his birth certificate. The authentication office took 5 weeks to tell us they don't handle births abroad. Thank you, obviously understaffed and probably suffering from budget cuts authentication office. I don't like you. And while you did try to direct us to the right place, they seemed confused, and if they're the right place, we're looking at another 2 months of waiting. Once we figure out our end of the deal.

This is complicated. The Netherlands has salary requirements (at least for the skilled worker category I'm in) for immigration with dependents, which I find rather sensible. Because R hasn't found a job yet (although we've found a couple for him to apply to!) he counts as a dependent, and my salary isn't high enough for the first year to meet the requirement for him to get a visa too. However, there's a loophole for students, if we apply for both at the same time.

So, by applying for only my visa, we are depending on R finding a job so he can join me before I get a raise. Which would happen at the earliest at the 1 year mark.

I'll admit, this is scary. Really really scary. I don't like long distance, and thought we were done with that when we got married. Our original plan was that he would move when he got a job or the house sold, so realistically this doesn't change the reality that much. But it feels like it does.

However, I know we can do long distance, since we managed for 3.5 years before. And I don't know that I can do another 3 months of unemployment.

Besides, if everything went smoothly and easily, it wouldn't be an adventure. It wouldn't even be reality. So I'm not happy about our new plan, but I'm not unhappy either. R can get a job, and things will be fine. The house is still our bigger issue, because until it sells we can't afford a dog-friendly living space. And R has to be working. If the house sells, he could come visit for 3 months at a time without a visa, and that would be workable.

Explaining everything to myself was very helpful today. I think that this wouldn't have seemed so drastic if I weren't coming down with a cold.

How did I get a cold, anyway?