Okay. This is why eye-witnesses are so unreliable. I watched my appearance on Craig Ferguson, thanks to One Good Move.org, and it’s startling to me. My version of my appearance is disputed by the undeniable evidence that I saw. I didn’t get a big laugh off of not being “sure” there was no God. I think the comedienne in me just relaxes after I get a quasi-laugh, and that was the quasi-laugh that relaxed me, so in my mind it was a big laugh. So, that realization is kind of embarrassing. But on the other hand, I thought I didn’t mangle things like I thought I did. In any case, I think I did okay and thanks for the notes of support.

I really don’t want to be one of those needy girly-actresses who says she thinks she sucks while her eyebrows raise, waiting for others to chime in and say she didn’t suck at all. Oh, I hate that kind of person so much and that is what I feel I did with my blog entry, to a certain extent. In any case – yes! The appearance. And I did sell a bunch of Cds so that is good. (Thanks if you are one of those people!) I am trying to wait to put the Cd on Amazon until AT LEAST after Christmas. So, this publicity is good in that I am making my money back towards the initial investment of the Cds before Amazon has it and my profit goes down to almost zip. Amazon – amazing how they do business. But that’s another story.

I was wishing I had said something about eye-witnesses to Craig Ferguson when he said the thing about people having experiences with "purple dragons" that make them know they are real. Because right there, that is one of the most startling and unsettling things I learned in my journey away from God. I didn't realize how completely unreliable personal experience was in terms of verifying facts and relying on it for real hard information. All those religious experiences that people have had, that convinced them there is a God, that started religions and so forth -- all personal experience and memory, all highly faulty! It might seem like it's obvious to the people reading my blog, but just this little thing to me -- made everything different. This alone turned me into a skeptic. Visions, feelings, memory -- emotionally important, sure. But reliable as truth? Not really. Not really at all.

OH. I am just about decided on the type of forum that I am going to put up. This, I hope, will happen very soon. I mean – all those forums look almost identical to me, but I have to have a certain type of one that goes with the language that my website uses. Talking to people about this is like me in a foreign country where I know exactly ten words and I just keep using them over and over and nodding my head vigorously like I know what people are saying when really I only get a very general idea.

I loved people’s posts from yesterday. I really loved the person who wrote with all the reasons I should send my daughter to a religious school. I agree with everything she said! And it was really funny too.

But I don’t think it’s going to happen. Mulan is in a really great public school and unless I move to Spokane while she is in school, the chance is incredibly small that she would go. I think I couldn’t do it, anyway, if it really came down to it. On the other hand, I really want Mulan to know religion. I want her to know about St. Paul and Abraham and have some idea of why those stories have such impact. I think I will have to start my own Sunday school teaching it all my way! Ha.

My grandmother had this beautiful rosary – it’s large, like maybe three or four feet long, with huge wooden carved beads. It was always hanging over her bed, on two nails, so that the rosary hung in a kind of shape that almost looked cross-like. And the beads sunk down in the middle. I thought it looked like a person with arms outstretched to the sky, to God. I really loved my grandmother and that rosary reminds me of her and how it felt in her house, which was really cozy and safe.

Anyway, after my aunt died, I got the rosary and I hung it in my bedroom. Not right above my bed, but over some bookcases. I really like it there and it’s comforting for me to look at. So, the other day, Mulan referred to the big “Y” necklace. And I said, “What?” And she pointed to the rosary and said, “Y’know, the big “Y” necklace!” And my heart sank. How does she not know that is a rosary!?!

I know, this falls under the heading of anything that kids won’t be familiar with that I was familiar with – dial phones, Tvs with no remotes, blah blah. But still, there was a little sword sticking me inside when she didn’t even know what a ROSARY was.

I guess it’s that I think of Catholicism as art. That was the art of my childhood. That was the place with flickering candles and people in robes and incense and paintings and stained glass windows and people huddled together away from the cold reciting poetry and singing songs. And I am giving none of that to Mulan. And even though – really, I mean this, I think she is better off without it, it KILLS ME that she isn’t getting it. Sure, sure, I am giving this feeling to her in other ways, in other places, with other things – sure. But not in this particular way.

On the other hand, I think of this incident, too. Last summer I was up in Spokane, with my girlfriend Darcy at her house. She had had a lunch with me and four or five other of our friends. We’ve all known each other since childhood. And anyway, there was a kid’s drawing framed on one wall and it said, “Family is important. Family is great!” And there was a picture of a family. Darcy’s children are now in Catholic school. And another one of my girlfriends said, “Isn’t that darling? It’s so… Catholic.” And I said, “What’s Catholic about it?” And she said, “It’s so Catholic, the importance of family.” And I said, “But that’s not particularly Catholic.” And she said, “Oh yes it is. They really talk about family a lot at Catholic school.” To me the implication was that in a public school, kids wouldn’t draw pictures like that.

Now the point of this is – as we all know, family is important, especially for kids – this has nothing to do with religion. Mulan comes home with pictures like that all the time. But for my friends who send their kids to religious school -- they think that something like this is unique. They reinforce to each other and their kids, just with little comments like that one to me, that it’s Catholicism that promotes the idea of family and in the cold harsh world outside Catholic school, they don’t. It’s this subtle prejudice that is built in. I mean, we all do this, of course, about some things. But this time it really struck me. It was so odd to me, that comment.

What’s funnier still about this is that my friend Darcy is gay, living with another woman and they have two sons together. Not only that, my friend Darcy is not even a Catholic anymore but this choice of school for her sons is the right one for the moment and the situation for her. Furthermore, when Darcy put her sons there, she and her partner went to the school principle and said, “This is our family, we are proud of our family, and if there is any problem with the school about our family, we aren’t coming here.” And there were assurances that there would be no problem. And as far as I know, there hasn’t been one.

But still. That comment reverberated in my mind. “It’s so Catholic.” The emphasis on family is… so Catholic. ARGH! And that’s why I am so glad that Mulan is not at a religious school no matter how enlightening it might be and how inoculated against religion it might make her.

I know, I am rambling about small points today.

And I am off to Mulan’s school for the Holiday Performance this morning!