Spring Cleaning | It's not Summer until June 21

When you feel like you need a change in your life, and it's 11:00 at night, start with your bookshelf and your closet. That's where I go.

Reclassified a bunch of ratty old t-shirts as pajamas, and some nice-but-itchy pajamas as "guest pajamas," like that'd ever happen. Oh yes, I have so many lady guests clamoring to sleep in nothing but the oversized It's Nerf or Nothin' ringer I picked up at Comic Con. Maybe the Boondock Saints shirt. I had some luck with that one. But not Nerf, no. The ladies do not appreciate a small, floppy cylinder to the face, Go figure.

Hit up the bookshelf, threw some finished books on the main shelf, moved around the on-deck nightstand rack, moved a short story collection I'll never bother with to the living room shelf. Then I realized I've got a lot of bibles for a guy who doesn't like organized religion. I've always found that. Non-religious people always have the most reading material. Part of me wants to say it's because we shopped around a bunch trying to find something we liked, like buying a new washing machine.

Multiple Jewish prayer books, a Torah, two Book of Mormon (off-Broadway),
the Apocrypha and alternate gnostic texts and gospels, two King James,
a Necronomicon, and an interfaith minister's manual. And holy water.
… and three Jesus action figures. I may have a problem.

"Oh, don't touch that pile. I know, it's a mess, but I've been photocopying thirty years worth of Consumer Reports to track trends in the structural integrity of washing machine drums shipped from Italy. But only by riverboat."

Really, I think it's that agnostics and atheists love to have all these arguments loaded up beforehand on little index cards, highlighted and ready in case they ever get into an on-air theology battle with devout born-again-and-raised hardline Christian scientist creationists. Prepare your arguments, kids, we'll be discussing this later on in the semester. I'd donate my extra bibles, but for fear of spreading dangerous notions. Feels wrong to throw it away, though. It could help someone, I guess? Maybe I'll just carry it with me on vacation and swap it for another Gideon bible out of a hotel. They want you to take theirs, anyway. Or maybe I could just leaves copies of Eastern philosophy and A Brief History of Time. That would start some discussions!

Except I've never met anyone that I've felt it necessary to debate in public. Mostly, it's just my family, and I know that if they're right about religion, they're also definitely going to hell. In public, all you'll ever find is a bunch of atheists agreeing with each other. Loudly. It's the same as meeting vegetarians. All the ones I've ever met were super-nice about it. We just get separate meals and don't split the maple-bacon ice cream.

You mean I get ALL the maple-bacon ice cream JUST FOR ME?? Man, I love vegetarians.


Oh, and I neatly folded a few dress shirts and put them in a Good Will bag for the tax write-off. There's nothing funny there, I just started paying a little more for better fitted shirts and I make the difference up at the end of tax season. It's smart budgeting, really.