I just got home from two three-quarter-days at Disneyland. Last night was all California Adventure Park and today, all Disneyland. It’s already all decked out for Christmas, and holiday carols are heard throughout the park. Christmas trees and Santa Claus are everywhere. The crowds were enormous, throngs of people just trying to get from one side of a pathway to the other. The waits weren’t so bad, mostly because I had younger children too afraid to see Pirates of the Caribbean, and we mostly went on things like Autotopia and the spinning teacups.

Today - Frances, my assistant/nanny, who came along, had an idea where each child got to pick one favorite ride and we all just followed that clear agenda (that meant six rides; four children and the two of us.) My favorite: The Tiki Room, OF COURSE. I can’t help but get all choked up in that room. And even though it uses technology from 1963 (as the MC told us at the beginning, like he was warning the younger ones that it would be archaic and hokey) to me it was as enchanting as anything else there. The worst moment of the day was waiting for an hour in the sun just so we could order lunch. But otherwise, a good time was had by all.

Okay, I am so thrilled with all the posts to my blog! Wow. I wish I could respond to every entry. I thought all day yesterday AND today about Anonymous’ comment, the first one. He or she wrote:

“If I get pleasure or comfort from my religious faith, logic is not likely to change me. Why, because the "pain" of self-deception is less that the perceived or real pain of facing reality. I think it's only when life throws us a "sucker-punch from god" (the seminal event I mentioned in the email) that the pain of continuing to embrace our faith exceeds the pain of abandoning our faith.”

Yes! Wow, I thought about that so much. Even though that wasn’t what it was for me, in terms of God. I really just learned way too much about science to keep leaning on the vague crutch I had, the political correctness I enjoyed, the culture I dipped into. It was truly an intellectual crisis where I really felt I had to choose between my mind and my learned reflex of belief.

But in terms of the pain/change equation, what about people who have, like… their children die? And this horrible event is what makes them stop believing in God. That seems to have been a contributing factor for Darwin. I mean, supposedly, their faith in God is something that would be quite comforting in that moment. Hmmm…

I guess in that sense, their loss of faith is like mine, that you just can’t be comforted anymore by something that makes so little sense. It’s just mine didn’t involve a crisis like that one. I mean, actually I did have a crisis, and I believed that God comforted me. And then, I analyzing that comforting made me Uncomfortable. It embarrassed me. It didn’t make sense to me.

But I didn’t really think about this comment, this statement of fact by Anonymous, in terms of God. I was thinking about pain=change comment in terms of everything else! How this applies to almost anything – and how there are things I want to change about myself – habits, behaviors, I mean nothing gigantic, but still. And I wandered around Disneyland thinking, “When will the pain of behaving in the way I have been be bad enough that the pain of changing the behavior be less painful?”

It’s so elementary, but so potent – just thinking about things like that. Really – it applies to my inability to organize the papers on my desk or to stop over-scheduling myself or exercise or anything, just anything. Pain is such a great and useful and wonderful thing. The pain of frustration is such a powerful motivator. But not always the motivator I wish it were.

I am really appreciative of all the posts about the second law of thermodynamics. I do understand it better now. And Dan in the U.K. talking about the faithful fogging up their arguments so quickly! Yes, I find that too. It’s laziness – it’ such slutty-ness in thinking. They will quickly move from one argument to the next, without fully understanding what they are throwing out and not caring that the second or third argument they serve up is contradictory to the one before it.

But whom I want to address right now, and really only for my own practice really, is Pontifica, another person who wrote a response to my blog. I am going to break apart her post and answer it piece by piece.

Pontifica writes:

“This specious binary opposition (God or Not God, faith or science) neglects the very many people who can unproblematically get behind both. Not all "Christians" believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old, for instance. There are many shades of spirituality.”

You are saying a lot of different things with those first three sentences. First of all, yes, you are right. There are millions of people who say they “believe” in science and in God. It is my opinion that most or nearly all of those people haven’t looked into either God or science very far. I was raised by people like this: well educated Jesuits who could debate with you with word games long into the night, doctors at the hospital who prayed with their patients before heart surgeries. These are the people who raised me. Well-educated, intelligent, mainstreamed – not fundamentalists or survivalists – smart people who had professions that required them to be at a high level of knowledge.

And yet, it is my experience that very few of them – including the Jesuits, I am so sorry to report – had really thought about the real cold hard chilly probably truth about the existence of a loving God and very few of them understood the nature of science. The doctors knew a lot of facts – they could use those facts to help people. So did the priests. But they were traders in bits of knowledge. Not people who thought deeply about the theory behind it or the implications of their belief or knowledge as it applied to God. Or even people (like the priests) who were capable of or inclined to confront the likely truth about what their faith was really based on. How that evidence stood up to the standards of good evidence. How what we all know about psychology and human behavior made the invention of God inevitable – or at least much more likely – than their Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.

Because, as Anonymous so rightly pointed out: what was in it for them to let their minds confront this? There would be too much pain in it, and for what? So they could become atheists – the most reviled group in America? A group that association with makes them unable to be elected to office? Un-trustable? They would be out of step with their culture. They would be out of their religion, the religion they loved. They would not be able to call upon God in times of crisis. They would not be able to let a vague sense that the world was in some way pre-ordained (the poor, the unjustly punished, etc.) allow them to look the other way. (And think about it. People who are attracted to the priesthood are attracted, probably, partially because they enjoy the "trust" that this job gives them. They like being this symbol of trust to a community. Why would they do something that would jepardize this -- just so that a few, a very few people who HAVE thought this through would have more admiration for them?)

There is SO MUCH that not-really-thinking-it-through provides. There is a big gigantic incentive not to look at this stuff deeply. The facts are profoundly unsettling. Our vulnerability, in this spinning world without God, is frightening. Denial of our vulnerability is necessary on some level, just to get through the day. Religion offers us that denial, it gives us so much. It’s perfectly reasonable that people feel they can accept religion and science. But that doesn’t make them compatible or meant that the person really understands either line of thinking very deeply.

Then, when you say that people have “many shades of spirituality.” I really don’t like that you throw that sentence in there. What do you mean by spirituality? A sense of wonder and connection to the material universe? That’s what I feel. I think the feelings I feel when I contemplate myself as a living, breathing, temporary piece of matter to be deeply profound. Profound in a way that most people would call it spiritual. The word spiritual is used to mean so many things that it’s really wrong to label a person who doesn’t believe in God as a person who is not “spiritual” in the way that you mean “spiritual.” I try not to use that word, in order not to be confusing. But the experiences I have, the feelings I have, the connections I feel, are all things that I would have used the word “spiritual” to describe before I became careful about the words I used.

Pontifica continues:

“ I find it reductive and insulting to paint all people who believe or have faith in a force greater than our little, temporary, individual selves as stupid, weak, and unable or unwilling to let go of a crutch.”

What you are saying, when you make a statement like that, is that people who don’t have faith are people that have an overly inflated view of human intelligence, and in particular, their own human intelligence. You are basically saying that people who believe in God are people who are humble, and see that humans are small and limited in awareness. But the truth is that the opposite is really true. People who believe in God are people who think that their limited ability to intuit truth should take precedence over a concillience of evidence pointing in another direction: towards a world that evolved without the help of a God, without the intervention of God, and without the guidance of God.

Pontifica: “If you don't believe in god (and believe me, many Christians and other people of faith don't believe in a vengeful, bearded guy passing judgments and thunderbolts from a pink cloud either), it doesn't somehow make you smarter than and superior to those who do. I truly admire you, Julia, and yet I seem to pick up that this is really what you and your atheist friends think.”

This is a hard one. It really falls under the heading of an ad hominum attack. I mean, I don’t think it necessarily makes me smarter. I think I am right about this. I think I am right that there is no God. I may be wrong. Or I may be not as smart as you in a hundred different areas. Or maybe I’m right. But this kind of stinging statement is made so that a person is humbled, and fearful that others think that “they” think they are smart. I think it’s insufferable to be around know-it-alls or people who have an inflated sense of their own intelligence, just like anyone is. I think it’s really beside the point. And this kind of remark is made to let the person know that if they come off sounding like they think they are so smart, others won’t like them. What does that prove? Maybe they are smarter. Maybe they aren’t smarter, but they are right! Maybe the smarter people are wrong. What difference does that make? I’m not sure. I just hate statements like that.


Pontifica continues: "This seems just as wrongheaded as the so-called religious right (which is just about as un-Christian a bunch of villains as you could hope to find) claiming that anyone not in lockstep with their worldview is going to hell."


Why do you think the religious right is un-Christian? Jesus said in Matthew, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.” Jesus told parables where he asked people to bring those that did not have allegiance to him and slaughter them. That is Christianity. Granted, there are a lot of admirable, or loving things that Jesus said too. The point is that… well, what is Christian anyway? I was brought up on what I consider to be the best type of Christianity – the Jimmy Carter – Vatican II type of Christianity of my Jesuit high school. I loved their view of the world and their call to social action. I liked what kind of social movements they were part of in Central America. They felt their worldview was inspired by Jesus. So do the fundamentalists who would happily see me burn to death in a rapture. Who is Christian? All of them, or none of them. The bible gives you a smorgasbord of views, a Jesus that is a character that could say wildly divergent things – a hodgepodge of views. Movements pick and choose based on what they want their church or personal view to be. Who is right? How can you say what is right when it’s a mythical character (most likely) who has had a stew of ingredients thrown into his character profile. Christianity can be anything and still be Christian as far as I can tell, after reading the Bible.

Pontifica: “You can't prove that god, or, let's say, an eternal force of love and creative intelligence of which we are all a part, perhaps, doesn't exist - any more than you can prove that it does. So if you're an atheist, you're just like every single other person on the planet: someone with a theory. No more, no less, no smarter and no dumber. Maybe we should all label ourselves agnostics. Because no one knows!”

Yes, yes. I can’t prove that there isn’t a purple dinosaur in my garage either (to use the classic analogy). I mean, the dinosaur is invisible, so I can’t see him. But is he there? You can’t prove a negative! Well, yes, you are right. I can’t definitively prove that the invisible purple dinosaur is not there. But I would say that the probability that the dinosaur is not there is really high. I am going to conduct my life under the most likely scenario – that the purple dinosaur is not in the garage. I think that makes me smarter. Yes, I should – technically – be agnostic about the existence of the invisible purple dinosaur, but then I might be afraid to enter the garage – not committing to any one view on whether the dinasaur exists. And that makes my life very limited. Because my garage has lots of space that I can use! Blah, blah, blah. I can’t go on. I just had to take a stab at that one.

What joy. What a great day yesterday was. I was filled with glee and optimism. What a stunning reversal. It’s the happiest Election Day I have had in recent memory.

My television, which has been out for longer than three months, and then got fixed last week, only to go out again when I tried to turn it on, on Tuesday night, frustrated my desire to watch Jon Stewart and Fox news (so I could gloat.) So I was reduced to using my computer, which I was constantly updating, on the New York Times site. And calling my friend Smartypants so he could tell me what he was watching.

It all seems too good to be true! And yet, it is. I mean, things will inevitably get screwed up – but not as screwed up as they might have been. In any case, I am feeling unrestricted joy.

I shot this Yahoo thing all day yesterday (me doing little one minute bits about parenting and other thoughts about life) and I am wiped out and I am not very articulate right now. Later today Mulan and I are going to Disneyland with three of her friends and staying overnight. We will be at the Disney parade tonight and at the doors at the park opens tomorrow. I am sort of excited about going. And also looking forward to it being over at the same time.

Oh, I will say that I got into a semi-debate yesterday with a person I met recently and who happened to be at this Yahoo shoot. I like her a lot. But we disagree on the subject of God.

Her arguments were in a typical range – that atheism was a “faith” like belief in God was a “faith.” And that my “faith” was stronger - or maybe she meant required a bigger leap -than her “faith” in God. I never quite get that argument. It’s like the person is denigrating their own faith as “Faith” – for being so flimsy as “faith” at the same they’re accusing you of having something you don’t think you have.

I was reminded of the James Randi quote that goes something like, “Atheism is a faith like not collecting stamps is a hobby.” Oh that line gives me such joy. I don’t get to use it often. Even though, what I actually think he said was, “Atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby.”

Then she moved onto the second law of thermodynamics. And that this law shows that matter should move towards chaos, not towards cohesion. I am paraphrasing her own definition of it. Although that part is correct, about matter and cohesion over time, I don’t think she understood really thoroughly what the second law of thermodynamics was, frankly. (I don’t fully understand it either – but I know it’s not relevant to where a God existing is likely or unlikely.)

But when that argument is used by believers it goes something like, “Science shows us that matter should not stick together and that over time it moves away from complexity towards simplicity. But look at the world around us; it is filled with complex beings and things. This is not explainable. God must have done it.”

I need to get better and making my case in regards to this argument. I tried to explain how that law was uniform on a macro level, not a micro level. Or that entropy will increase, but only over time and in the meantime, we can – well, exist. Things can have mass. And then I scrambled to figure out the best way to articulate how that scientific law affects us, and does not contradict our existence. But already even with this (and I was not doing a good job) I felt I’d lost her.

I always end up sounding like the eager science professor when I get into these discussions. And I can see that the person I’m talking to has already lost interest in what I’m saying. And usually they move to something emotional immediately – something that is, for them, outside the arena of science. They say something like, “The world cannot be explained just by using science, I like to feel things, I am a feeling person.” I guess implying that I am not a feeling person. And that only someone in touch with their feelings could understand that God exists.

Now I am feeling badly writing this because this woman is truly likeable and she was not trying to argue with me, and in fact, the producer of my Yahoo shoot really wanted us to get together and watch us have a conversation and we were really not trying to have an argument, and yet, I found so much to be desired from her way of thinking that I couldn’t stop – probably long after I should have – trying to explain myself.

The other way the “feeling” argument can go – this is what my mother resorts to, and in fact what this woman in particular resorted to – and that is, “I just cannot live without feeling that this connection to God is real and I just can’t even contemplate letting it go, because I need to believe.”

Then, I really don’t know what I can say to that. I WANT to say something like, “Well, I might feel I need to believe that I am a Super Hero that can stop a meteorite from slamming into the earth. But… the truth is… I am not.” But I don’t because that would sound condescending. And plus, to me – all bets are off at that point. To me, that’s like saying, “I don’t care about reality.” What kind of conversation can you have with a person who has that opinion?

I did end up making a argument about how human beings have these feelings and intuitions about how the world works that were useful when we lived in an ancestral environment, but now we live in a different world where we can gather information and test it. And that even though it’s probably instinctive to believe that the world is flat – I mean, the sun rises in the east – it sets in the west, the land seems relatively flat as we walk along it – that we know the world is in fact not flat. We know this because all kinds of evidence presented itself and made us look at the earth in a new way – one that is not one we could have gotten from feelings and from casual observations.

But by then I think everyone wanted me to just shut up, including me! Agh. I want to get better at this.

I ended the night with several people from Yahoo sharing a few bottles of wine around the outdoor dining table, and eating cheese and crackers. We all lamented about Hilary Clinton, our great hope – and how she has revealed herself to be a person of so much less integrity and so much more political ambition than we had realized. And how could she be going to those prayer meetings and how could she have supported this war? And how now she is just the person we’d like to begin rallying around for President, except that – too bad, reluctantly but truthfully, we all don’t really like her anymore.

However, we all agreed we would support her if the alternatives were worse.

Off to Disneyland.

I am voting. I am going to be watching. I am going to be interested. I am going to be hopeful. That is my day today. Along with…

Today I don’t have that much to say, except that I love Norma Blum and Smartypants and Sheldon, of course.

And Big Daddy is seriously trying to put me on with his story about impregnating women. I think he is trying to impersonate someone with a scientific Darwinian view of life and to him that makes him think that impregnating as many women as possible is the logical conclusion to that worldview and how do I like that? Or something. In any case, it made me laugh, so I guess that’s okay. If he’s in any way serious, he should have read “The Moral Animal” by Robert Wright.

What I am currently reading: It may sound silly, but I am going to bed reading “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff With Your Family – Simple Ways to Keep Daily Responsibilities and Household Chaos from Taking Over Your Life.” (Pretty titillating, huh?) I can be a real fan of some of these types of self-help books. I loved “Simplify Your Life” – the even simpler version of “Don’t Sweat, etc.” I actually followed some of the advice in the book. More than that, I thought about it.

Also I just read Nora Ephron’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck.” I got it at the airport and read it in a couple of hours on the plane. It’s only 137 pages! I really like Nora Ephron’s writing much more than her movies. When “When Harry Met Sally” came out, I absolutely hated it. I hated it so much. I couldn’t stop telling people how much I hated that movie. I hated the way Meg Ryan behaved. I hated the throwing of the tissues in the air and the overacting. I felt that they were all trying to be so sophisticated but they really weren’t. I found it insufferable.

But then, over Christmas last year, it was on TV. And while I was killing time at my mother’s condo, I re-watched it. And it was so much better than I remembered it! Sure, there were cheesy parts – lots of them. But I didn’t know why I loathed that movie so much, before. Maybe I’m getting older and I’m not so judgmental about contemporary romantic comedies the way I used to be. Anyway, “I Feel Bad About My Neck” is breezy and funny and unexpectedly poignant. The best chapter in it, I think, is the one about her apartment in New York at the Apthorp. And how she eventually moved. I read it in the New Yorker, I think – a while ago. Anyway, that essay is in this collection as well and it’s really even better the second time around.

My favorite magazine right now is: Seed. It’s glossy, it’s a science magazine, and the layout is fantastic. It’s going to be my Christmas gift this year. E.O. Wilson is on this month's cover. He's trying to bring the religious right together with the environmentalists to get them to work together. I have read some evidence that there is some alignment. I still don't know what I think about that yet. I guess, if it get's people to behave differently towards their environment and actually take the future seriously, I am for it.

There is also an article in this last issue of Seed about creationists in Turkey. There is a creationist museum, and there is a lot of fighting about irreducible complexity, and how a scientific worldview is what leads to violence and fascism. Here’s a excerpt from the article:


Terrorists, according to Oktar, are "social Darwinists hiding under the cloak of religion," while communists, still active in Turkey, are in "bloody alliance" with Darwinism. "Evolution is a communist and fascist belief," offers Tarkan Yavas, BAV's president. "The Muslim community understands that now."

Oh jeez. It’s so important that evolutionary psychology be understood. And how everything falls under “Darwinism” – not just violence, but everything else too; love, community, altruism, sacrifice for others. People, in general, don’t understand that you can be good without God.

Daniel Dennett, the last time I saw him, said that this is the one thing he wished the typical, average person who might not think through ethics and morality and religion understood: You can be good without God.

Tomorrow I am doing a shoot for Yahoo – eight little comedy bits for their “Lifestyles” webpage about parenting. My assistant, Frances’ mother has a friend with a horse ranch in Wyoming. I’m thinking what a wonderful environment that would make for Arden, my dog. I mean, I’m just thinkin’.

While I was away, I watched an episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.” His guests were Alec Baldwin, Republican Rep. Jack Kingston, and AB Stoddard. One of the topics brought up was about Haggard and then, the gay marriage movement.

On the one hand, Jack Kingston just kept saying that it’s not right for marriage to include other than one man and one woman. And children need a mother and a father. And that almost a million children were born out of wedlock, and how sad that was. Then, Alec Baldwin had some angle where he said that if Republicans were against gay marriage because you needed a man and a woman to procreate, what did they have to say about heterosexual marriages where they couldn’t have a child and then adopted? Were their marriages and families just as unnatural and should they be unlawful?

Then Bill Maher said that just because there were almost a million unwed births that didn’t mean that the parents weren’t there to be parents. Maybe they didn’t want to formalize their union with a legal document, but still intended to be participating parents. And that he never married because he didn’t want the government in his bedroom or something like that.

This is where Maher’s libertarian streak just pisses me off. And then, I also felt that Alec was just making intellectual arguing points and missing the real issue. The real issue is that a high level of parental investment IS better for kids. Children do better when more adults invest in their futures – not just in terms of money, of course, but in concern, time, setting examples and so forth. And children born out of wedlock (which, incidentally has nothing to do with gay marriage – it was kind of hilarious, although understandable, that they were conflating these things – or rather, that Jack Kingston was) do tend to have less parental investment than children born to two committed parents. (I think Maher’s point, that the parents were committed, but not legally binding their union was sort of silly. If there are a million unwed births, a small percentage of them are in situations like the one that Maher was describing.)

Of course it makes no difference who those two committed parents are – and that they are even biological parents. In any case, marriage is good for a society in that it corrals, legally and publicly, the responsibility of two people towards offspring. I mean, the whole reason that natural selection selected for parental love was so that the child had better odds of making it. And while everyone knows there are lots of examples of shitty parents even though they’re married, in general, children are better off having two people to look out for them. And in that sense, Kingston is right, it’s just better for kids to have two parents and out of wedlock babies, in general, don’t have it as good. They do not do as well at school (in general), their home life is less secure and insulated from disaster, etc. Plus, if the parents are not legally committed to each other in terms of raising the child, the chance for other adults getting mixed into the family is higher – like new fathers, etc. And children raised by people other than their natural parents are at a higher risk for neglect. There are ways that nature can trick us (I mean, trick us in a good way) – like me, for example. I feel as attached and responsible for my daughter as if I were her biological mother.

So that’s when I thought all three of them were missing the real issue. The real issue is creating the best environment for children to grow up. (Peronsally I don't understand why people even get married unless it is for raising kids together -- or for insurance purposes, or because parties with special outfits are fun.) And anyway, the best environment for child-raising includes two or more committed adults to the welfare of that child or those children. And it means a family having enough money so that time can be devoted to that child. And that means that raising the minimum wage, and using tax laws to lessen the inequity between the rich and poor – laws like that (as opposed to opposing gay marriage) does MUCH more to create an environment that makes children better off and parents more likely to stay together. When families are terribly poor, father’s often, under the burden of being unable to provide for the family, have a greater incentive to just abandon it - or to have to travel far and wide to find a job, which can create further instability. And when families are very very rich, the ability of a father to leave and just start another family is higher too. Or for the mother to toss the father out because the greater income (from her OR him) allows for two independant households. So big differences in income in society is not good for keeping families intact, on both ends of the spectrum.

In that sense the Republican family values agenda is horrible. It penalizes the very people they are trying to protect, the children.

When I adopted my daughter, I was militant about the fact that I had the right to do so as an individual. And I think I’m doing a good job and blah blah blah. But now that I am truly in the trenches – even as a relatively high-income earner with a flexible job that allows me to be pretty full time in mothering Mulan – even though I am in that category – I think I was ridiculously naïve that I could handle this all myself. I think kids need – or rather, they are better off – having two parents and an extended family around them. I am now totally in favor of tribes. I want to be in a tribe! It’s so much better for everyone! Now I look at everything from the harsh, wide-eyed view of the vulnerabilities of our life – how everything can change in an instant. How easily people can die, for example. And having two parents who are hands on insures a child a little bit against that horrifying possibility. So in that sense, the Republican Representative is right – marriage, in so far that it’s two people committing to a child, makes the child better off. And that is something, that as a society, we should be pushing for, and certainly (like people opposed to gay marriage) not trying to legislate against.

Back in 1999, when I was watching the movie, “American Beauty,” I almost let out an audible – “Oh, come on!” in the theater when the homophobic Chris Cooper character admits that he himself is gay at the end.

I mean, if I were teaching a screenwriting class and my student had turned this script in, I would say – that is way too much of a cliché – the homophobe turns out to be… gay! It’s so one-dimensional; it’s a cartoon character. And while I’m sure there are SOME outspoken homophobic men out there who are actually gay, I think there are a whole lot more outspoken homophobic men out there who just don’t have a clue. They aren’t gay; they are just unsocialized and small-minded. And this stereotype is just that, an enormous over used cliché.

And now here we have that cliché prancing around us, with Haggard. OH MY GOD. It’s too good to be true. And yet, here it is, TRUE. Oh! I am so giddy. And yes, I hope that Richard Dawkins is lifting a nice glass of bubbly in the air. This guy is so reprehensible! He was also featured in “Jesus Camp.” That movie is even creepier now.

It’s so obvious that when we make some behavior absolutely taboo, we tend to fetishize it. This is like, SEX 101. So while I think it’s an overused stereotype – the closeted preacher, it is also everywhere! I just hate that people like Haggard and Foley fall into self-hate so quickly (and in Foley’s case, blame.) If they derive pleasure from having sex with people of their own gender, it’s not hateful. They aren’t in “sin.”

And it’s so tricky, because the progressives just want to heap disgust and anger on the person, not for being gay but for being such hypocrites. But it’s obvious that the person themselves, who has been set up for this naughty-boy, self-hatred by their screwed up church, takes the criticism as if it’s about the sex act itself, not the fact that they were penalizing others who had the same tendencies. They don’t seem to get it – it’s not about being gay, it’s about lying about it. And I fear that the message American’s get is: being gay means being fucked up. When it doesn’t. Only if you are lying about it and, oh – yes, in this case, advising the president about legislation in regards to it. THAT’s when it’s morally reprehensible.

And the cycle continues, I’m good – I’m bad, I’m clean, I’m dirty. It’s so depressing!

This is what I don’t get. When I see people on television, like Bush – like Haggard – they seem to be so obviously reacting to some deep screwed up personal issues. Their facial expressions, the way they get heated up and testy over the smallest things. I’m not saying Bush’s thing is sexual – I actually think his problems are so much deeper and more twisted than that – but to me, is just so… OBVIOUS. And come on, aren’t we supposed to be social animals that have evolved a keen ability to detect insincerity in others? And yet all these people voted for Bush because they “trusted” him more - they “liked” him more. And the same with Haggard – when I saw him in “Jesus Camp” or in the Dawkins BBC show – or even when I saw him preaching on television, he was so obviously about to explode with repression. I mean, look at the guy’s eyeballs – they are practically bursting out of his head! He seems crazed and on edge.

Haggard wrote to his congregation about his attempts to “cure” himself of his sexual “problems.” He wrote, "… the dirt I thought was gone would resurface ... the darkness increased and dominated." It’s like he’s involving his congregation in his own naughty-boy sex games!

Haggard, you are such a bad boy! A bad, bad boy! And you just need to be spanked right now! Jeez, it’s almost like we’re reading pornography. I just kept thinking, “Wow, his next sexual encounter with a man is going to be muy, muy caliente!”

Can’t write more now because I just flew home from New Jersey where I attended a Bar Mitzvah. (It was really fun! It was my first! So much like Catholicism to me! The venerated objects! The recitations! The goblet, even!)

I also want to say that my website has so much wrong with it right now, it’s making me lose sleep. I am trying to get things the way I want them by the end of this week. But at least people can finally order the Cds.

And yes, Shannon is obnoxious. But I feel weird banning someone from commenting on my blog. He doesn’t take up a lot of space.

And it’s weird to me, that since I am sympathetic to people’s nostalgia for the church, and appreciative of the community it creates, that makes them think I am leaning towards belief in God – when that is so very much not the case.

I woke up in the middle of the night, over each of the last two nights, and shuddered that I had written a blog entry that ranted about Mulan’s spelling requirements and then, misspelled Arachnid myself. This is why I should not be writing a blog. But yet, I still am! So nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

School. Yes. Schools. How to teach. How to learn. Yesterday I had moved into the “Acceptance” stage of my relationship with Mulan’s school. It’s our local public school. It’s public. It gets crazy high scores on it’s tests. There’s so much to love. But then, as I help Mulan with homework (we tried a new system where we sat at school and worked for an hour right in the school yard) I was just flooded again with how much I hated school. And how school just inoculated me against learning for so long. And all the mindless repetition and the purposeless convoluted questions. If I had my druthers, Mulan would be in gymnastics school for hours each day and then for one hour a day she would learn math and reading and science and that would be it. This kid really just wants to turn cartwheels and do somersaults and flip herself around bars.

Today is Mulan’s seventh birthday and I start my show – Letting Go of God - with a description of my seventh birthday. Wow. We are in the realm of her own memory of childhood now. Last night Mulan said, “Now I’ve reached the Age Of Reason and I’m capable of committing all sins against God and man.’ She was paraphrasing the line in my show that my own dad says to me on my own seventh birthday. And then she said, “And I don’t even know what that means!” And I laughed and said, “Nobody really knows what that means.”

And speaking of inoculating people against the very thing they are trying to connect to – a few days ago I read on Salon.com (my personal homepage) an interview with Camille Paglia where she says that, although she is an atheist, she has respect for religion because it’s the way most people connect with the Universe. And at first I thought I might agree with her. But then, as I’ve turned that over in my head the last few days, I think what religion actually does is the opposite. It prevents people from connecting or experiencing themselves in or with the universe. It placates their natural wonder with easy answers that are not only dead wrong but infantilizes them. And, I think, even prevents them from experiencing the world in the most human way, with the knowledge that we have won – won at hard cost, which shows us more accurately who we are and how teeny and vulnerable and fantastically lucky we are. My cat, Val, cannot possibly know that she is a mammal and all the amazing ways that mammals have come up with, or rather – evolved into – on this planet. There is great joy in understanding even that little thing. She cannot. And I can. And anyone, any human, can too - who is willing to look into it. And yet we, as a society, have chosen to lie to our children – in my mind, keep them animals of a different sort – keep them blind and looking only a few feet away instead of seeing even a little bit bigger picture.

I loved that one of my blog readers reminded me of that Seneca quote:

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. __-Lucius Annaeus Seneca,_(4BC – AD65)

I guess the thing for me is, I WANT to be one of the common people. (I shudder with a creepy feeling of elite-y-ness even using that word, but I am taking this from Seneca…) I don’t like that I am set apart or even seen as elitist (or... wise?) for having my views about religion. I think that’s possibly what many of my family and friends – especially from Spokane – think. And I am such a good “common person.” I don’t want to be different, I really don’t. And yet, it seems that I had to choose between, on one hand, my mind and on the other hand, my desire to not stand out and blend in and enjoy the culture that I was raised in. How frustrating. Truthfully, I really do want to move back to Spokane and send Mulan to St. Augustine’s. And I just may still.

Even though I know I am just in love with a memory of how it was, how it appears to me now. I am sure that this ideolized version of Spokane that I have in my head, is in reality filled with its own plusses and minuses. My yearning for Spokane is probably just a simple yearning for a lost childhood or nostalgia dressed up as a real choice, when in fact it isn’t.

O Seneca, you are so right. Religion is so useful for rulers, isn’t it? Gawd, how can those people on the religious right, who think that their leaders – the ones they helped elect – care a wit about them? They do not. It’s so transparent. And in the meantime, this same group of rulers – while pandering to their little causes (without really doing much about them) sends their children off to war to die. And still, they accept it! It’s like we are living in a pre-enlightenment world – the kings and the royalty aligning themselves The Church, and thereby with the peasants – then sending the peasants off to die, all so that the same system can be maintained. If Voltaire were alive today he would never stop throwing up. (To paraphrase Max Von Sydow in “Hannah and Her Sisters” talking about Jesus. Actually I’m not paraphrasing it, I’m mangling it -- )

I wish more than anything that the conservative religious electorate just knew that they are joining so many just like them in history -- that their alignments are just the same as it's been for eons -- religion, royalty, rulers, and those with the least opportunity for any advancement -- dancing this creepy dance. It's like the snotty head cheerleader hooking up with the ugliest girl at school because it makes her look so good and plus, she can boss her around, and yet the sad pathetic one feels so... lucky! Cause she thinks she's almost like... the head cheerleader!

I think it’s time for me to retire and become a grumbling lady barking at people outside the grocery store.

Well, I think, I THINK the new webpage is going up today and the 500 list are getting his or her notices, which – will unfortunately be only a day before anyone else. OH, I so didn’t want it to happen this way. We are hung up on only one small thing – and that is – I am offering (that’s so funny to say “offering” – it reminds me of an over-eager salesperson at the same time that it reminds me of the bread and wine at Mass – the “offering” - wait, it might be the money collected that's called the offering -- oh jeez, that is really creepy...) that if you buy five Cds you get one free. And that makes the shipping calculations wonky and we have to fix it. Oh dear, time to make some calls.

Dog & Cats & Homework & Websites

(I wrote part of this last night and then part of it this morning and that's why the time-line might seem jumbled.)

Today is a day of re-entry. We flew home last night, getting in around nine p.m. L.A. time. The reality of the fact that I’ve been gone for 12 days set in. Not only piles of mail, but Mulan has homework that hasn’t been done. Her teacher sent some homework off with us to do in New York. I would say we’ve completed… about half of it. And it’s really my fault that I hadn’t made her finish it.

That’s funny, me saying, “made her finish it.” Because homework these days, as any parent I know who has a child in public school can attest, homework isn’t about THEM doing it, it’s about sitting with your child for hours on end and talking them through it.

Mulan has about… oh, I would say a half an hour to forty five minutes of homework a night. She is in first grade. She is reluctant, however. And that makes homework take about an hour to an hour and a half. All I’m saying is that this homework thing is kicking my butt. I never had my parents help me with homework, unless I needed something big typed up when I was in sixth or seventh grade. Mulan is six and one of her spelling words this week is “anarchid.” ANARCHID.

Also, I put our dog, Arden, into this schmancy Kennel while we were in New York. And when we returned to Los Angeles, my old cat, Val, showed up. I have always had outdoor cats. I’ve always been a bit lackadaisical about my cats. Sometimes they didn’t come home for a day, or even two. And then they did. At one time I even had four cats. Three of them lived to be over 16 years old. And the three of them died within a month of each other about four years ago. But Val was left. And when Arden arrived on our doorstep (he was a stray) he chased Val off. I thought they would work it out, but Val is rather timid and didn’t stand her ground. Or maybe she was just smart, because Arden seriously hates cats. And squirrels. I have seen him tear a squirrel’s heart out in front of my eyes.

So Val went off and I imagined she found some other home. Because I would see her, once every two weeks or so. And she looked well fed, even chubby. And sometimes I would hear Arden chasing her out of the yard. Every so often I would give her a pet and wonder which neighbor was now Val’s owner. Or rather, her feeder. Who was getting Val’s little fluffy head rubs against their ankle?

This must make me seem so irresponsible.

In the meantime, Arden took over our life. He is active and needs at least an hour of rigorous exercise a day. He is overly protective of the house, in my opinion. Anyone who comes to the door is greeted by a crazed barking maniac of a dog that any reasonable person would think would kill them instantly. And that’s good. Except when it’s bad. Like children, he scares the bejeezus out of children. Also, I can never have the front door just open casually anymore, because I have to worry about Arden rushing out.

I came to really like Arden. Even love him. It IS irritating that every time I get up out of a chair, his claws scrape across the tile floor and he begins to hyperventilate in anticipation of a… possible… could it be?… walk! And mostly it’s just that I have to go to the bathroom, or answer the phone, or get a tissue. Okay, I’ll admit it, he’s seriously irritating.

I like lazy dogs. I like big, dopey dogs. I like dogs that lie about all day and drool in one spot and then look up out of their haze. I hate the subservience of dogs. Or rather the eagerness of dogs like Arden. I like, I’m temperamentally more appreciative of the aloofness of cats. I like that you have to work a little bit to get their attention. I like that you can ignore them and they can ignore you.

But still, I love Arden.

I really do.

Anyway, when we came home, Val was at the door. And we let her in. And she’s been hanging around. Sitting on the table while Mulan does her homework last night. Sitting on my lap while I chatted to my boyfriend last night. Purring sweetly in the chair next to me while I read. Rubbing against my legs while I give Mulan a bath.

I miss her! But I can’t have both of them.

I called the Kennel and they are keeping Arden another week. This gives me time to think. Mulan wants Val to stay. I am shocked at my own lack of feeling about Arden. But maybe in a few days I will miss him too. Hmmm… what to do. What to do.

My new website is taking longer than expected. It should be up by Wednesday. But then, the merchant people who do the credit card processing for the CDs won’t be ready until Wednesday too. And then, Thursday, the list of 500 people who are on my pre-order list will be shown where to buy the CD. But then – Fresh Air said they will rerun the interview I did this weekend and have my website listed for people who want to buy the CD. So that means that the 500 people will probably only get a one or two day advance chance to buy them. Which wasn’t how I intended this to work. Agh. Also, I want to try to get as many people to buy the CD in the first two weeks as I can. Because, since it takes four weeks to order more CDs, I can accurately judge whether to order more CDs for Christmas. I have no idea what going on shows like The View (especially since I have no idea how that interview will go, whether it will be like – one minute or ten or fifteen minutes) will generate in terms of interest.

I got thousands of emails after the Fresh Air interview. Thousands. Frances, my assistant, is sorting through them. Some of the letters are so moving. I wish I could read them all. I intend to.

But first, I have to be (and thrilled about being) a chaperone with Mulan’s class today when they visit a nearby museum. And it’s Halloween.

Also, I can’t stop thinking about Bookboy’s comments on my last blog. Or the quote he posted. I wish I could stop my life and just muse over how we all frame our perceptions about reality and then seek to confirm our perceptions and at what point we change them based on what types of evidence. This area is super interesting to me.

After one of my shows this week, I had a moment when I was standing with -- not only a nun and a rabbinical student (they were not together, just standing together) but also with a small group of ex-rabbinical students who had stopped their intended religious trajectory (they were orthodox Jews) because they were gay and they had been forced to chose between their sexuality and their faith. I wasn’t sure if those people were atheists or just alienated by their particular religion.

In any case, that moment after that particular show is my take-away image from this trip to New York. The nun blessed me. Which was partially shocking to me because I had sort of made fun of a priest blessing me during my show. I think it’s what those type of people do when they don’t know what to say next. In any case, I liked this nun, nonetheless. I can’t help but like those fresh-faced beaming lit-from-within nuns. And she was one of them.

The rabbinical student argued with me that I had gotten the Jephtheh story wrong. In my show I tell a story about how in Judges a character named Jephtheh tells God that if he can win a certain battle (I think it’s against the Ammonites) he will kill whoever greets him when he returns home, as a burnt offering. And that the first person he ends up seeing is his daughter. And after he allows her to go off into the woods for two months to mourn her virginity, he kills her. By lighting her on fire.

The rabbinical student argued that Jephtheh didn’t promise he would kill a person. When he said whatever greeted him, he meant an animal. And that it was customary only to kill animals in sacrifice. And that he didn’t kill his daughter, he told her to run off into the woods and then he didn’t kill her.

I was beside myself. I thought I must have gotten the story wrong. I mean he was a rabbinical student and I was an actress and what if I had exaggerated this story that much? I apologized and promised to immediately look it up.

And I was right. Jephtheh does promise to kill “whoever” greets him. As far as I know, “who” is referring to a person. And he does kill his daughter. In the story, his daughter actually begs him to kill her, because he must keep his promise to God. I’m sure this is told this way to make it less sadistic.

How does someone sit and listen to their teachers rationalize and explain away and blur over the more difficult stories of their sacred texts? I don’t get it. But then, as my boyfriend pointed out, I was one of those people at one time. Why did I accept that? And my answer was that I wasn’t studying the Bible so closely, and then when I did as an adult, I did question and finally reject it. But I accepted it earlier because it seemed like the people teaching me about it were smart and kind. And I liked them. And I wanted it to be meaningful. And l looked for only that evidence that confirmed what I already wanted to believe.

Anyway, these are the kinds of encounters that makes me infinitely glad that I came to New York to do the show.

On of the gay ex-rabbinical students told me that when he went to his superior and told him he was gay and how could he deal with this – the rabbi told him that he should sacrifice his sexuality the way Abraham had to sacrifice his son, Isaac. And that after several years of trying to do this, the ex-rabbinical student said he felt the sacrifice was much to great. And that Abrahams test of his willingness to give up what mattered to him most – his son, was a one shot deal and then when he proved his loyalty he got to still have his son. But this person said he would be having to turn away from his very nature every single day for the rest of his life. And that was too much. And for what reason? Finally this man left his religion and has had no contact with his family for over ten years. What a sad, sad, unnecessary result.

Anyway, I tell this just to give you that image of me standing there with the current rabbinical student, the former rabbinical student and the nun. What great moments this show has afforded me. I was so happy, in spite of the tragic aspects to some of those people’s predicaments. Being “Pat” on Saturday Night Live did not give me moments like that.

WOW. All those comments. I can’t stand it, it’s so fantastic. I can't even begin to respond to them right now. But I read them all, including the long one from the depressed person. Lordy, lordy.

The Harvard show was really fun. I got to do my show in this amazing place: Sanders Theater. It was like doing the show in a Cathedral. The inside of the theater is all wood. It was really an honor to perform there.

The 500 Club will get their emails to be able to order on Tuesday. And then on Thursday or Friday, assuming everything is moving along, it will go up for the public. I am so excited!

I am still in New York. I have one show to do before I head home. I am really beat. Tomorrow morning I have an interview for that PBS show, “Religion & Ethics.” And that’s before I do the show at 11 a.m. Then head home.

Tired, tired, tired. I am so thrilled that the daylight savings time-change is tonight. That’s what is going to make tomorrow work.

And I love New York. Tonight I was at Grand Central Station and it’s just so gorgeous. I miss living here.

This morning Mulan and I are taking a train to Boston. She is still sleeping. I have been letting her stay up really late while we’re in New York – basically I’ve kept her on west coast time. Poor bug, I’ll have to drag her little body out of bed and into her clothes in a minute. She’s such a stage-baby. She likes to play in my green room while I’m on stage so she can see me during the intermission. And then she plays with her dolls while I’m doing interviews which just breaks my heart at the same time that I’m so glad she’s there and learning how to navigate herself through this world of such unpredictability and people. She’s having such a different childhood than I had.

Anyway, I did the Fresh Air interview yesterday. It was lots of fun for me, because I am a huge fan of Terry Gross. We spoke for over an hour. When I left the NPR offices over on 2nd & 43rd I walked back to the theater slowly and sipped my coffee and I was so happy. It was clear and the air was crisp and people were bustling about. Oh how I love New York. There is just no place like it.

By the time I got back to the theater-apartment, I had a call from Janet (my publicist) that Fresh Air was going to put the show on the air tomorrow! OH NO! The new web site isn’t up yet and people can’t order the CD yet!!!!! Oh gawd. I was so upset. I thought it would be on in the next couple of weeks or something.

I got Eric (my web guy) on the phone and he rushed up a preliminary Letting Go Of God site only. It has the release date as November 2nd. When I saw it up, I had all kinds of tweaks I wanted to make – the print is too small, it seems too girly, things like that. But in any case, the new site is up well, the part that has to do with Letting Go of God.

Yesterday Janet and Frances (my assistant) sent out over 60 CDs with letters to various magazines and TV shows. We will see what happens.

I am really excited to see Harvard today. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to see. I wish I could get a glimpse inside the Lampoon, but I don’t know if that will be possible. We had a mill of Lampoon writers coming through SNL. I have this image in my mind of some old building, with dark worn wood, cigar smoke all around. It’s probably not really like that, but it would be fun to get a real image to replace it.

On Sunday I’m going to do an interview with that PBS show Religion and Ethics. I cannot wait! Wow. That’s like a dream. I always would see those shows and want to be on. Now I’m going to get to!

I hope we are sold pretty well for Sanders Theater. I actually have no idea how many tickets have been sold. I do know that the Fresh Air that features me will air in Boston today, before the show. Maybe that'll help.

Well, the new website design goes up in the next few days. I am so excited to get that old design off! I really like the new design. We are already talking about further designs too – because now I want more sections in it, for example, I want a whole area where people can talk about their own loss-of-faith stories.

Things are going well here in New York. The house was packed last night for the show, just packed. I almost felt sorry for the people in the first row. They were so crammed in next to the stage, I could almost touch them. Really, they were like two feet away from me. There were even a lot of “Uh huhs!” “Mmmm hmmms” during my show, like it was a revival meeting or something. Wild. And really, really fun.

I have booked a couple of interviews that I’m really excited about. This morning I am doing an interview with Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air. To me this is just… just the most exciting thing. She interviewed me about eight years ago, after the release of “God Said Ha!” I am such a fan of hers and I listen to Fresh Air regularly. I'm not sure when the interview will air.

Then, on December 5th, I’m doing The View. It’s kind of funny to me because I mention the View in my show. I don’t know if they will realize that or not. But I don’t care, because I am so happy to get to be on that show too! (My mother will not know if she should be mortified or proud. I’m sure she will be vacillating back and forth.)

Well, today I got reviewed in the New York Times. It's a very nice review, but the picture. I want to throw myself in the Hudson over the picture. I look like I scream at people for two hours, "HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY BELIEVE IN GOD???!?!?!?" Wow.

But my friend Dan Karslake just called me as I was being driven back to the apartment I'm staying at (I had to do an interview for a special that NBC is doing about Saturday Night Live, the early nineties) and said, "You are the toast of the town! And yes, the picture is horrifying, but you look young and thin. Even if you look really, really, REALLY angry."

The anguished, angry atheist. That's the picture.

I promise not to obsess about the picture. Sometimes you just can't take the actress out of me.

Mulan and ma and I are off to the Natural History Museum today. Yesterday we toured Brooklyn from the second story of one of those busses. It was AWESOME. I lived in Brooklyn for two years and I learned all kinds of things I didn't know. I am so into these tours now. I'm going to take the ones in L.A. when I get back.

I am in New York doing my show, Letting Go of God. Tonight I’m doing something different: I'm at Joe’s Pub with Jill Sobule. My mother is in town with me, helping to babysit Mulan while I am on stage.

Yesterday I had a matinee and afterwards my mother and Mulan and I went on a tour of the city on one of those Grey Line tours where you sit on the second story of the bus. I really didn’t want to go. I have lived in New York for years at a time. But it was super, super fun. I mean I am SO into it now. Today I’m going to make Mulan take the Brooklyn tour.

The audiences in New York have been amazing. Saturday night, Massimo Pigliucci came to the show. I mention him in my show and quote him in his defense of evolution over intelligent design. It was great to see him again. I had met him before at a conference, but he had only heard other people telling him that he was mentioned in my show. Anyway, now he’s seen it. I was so glad.

There was a New York Times critic in the audience on Saturday. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I think my CD ordering off my website to the general public is going to be delayed by one week. I will know more today. It’s just tricky coordinating all these things. I had no idea. But it’s all sooooooo close. I am so excited. The response I’ve been getting from the CD is really nice. And the book too. I am so happy I took a long time and made it just the way I wanted to.

My mother’s friend, Joy, came from Spokane just to see the show. She was also raised Catholic and after she began teaching Sunday school and had to teach the Old Testament, she left the church and she’s now an atheist! We got to have a spirited debate with my mother after Joy saw the show. My mother says she enjoys believing in God. And so that is that. And you know, I think that’s what most people think. I don’t feel any hostility towards my mother, in fact we are getting along better now than ever. But I keep mulling that over in my mind, enjoying believing in God. Yeah, I think I enjoyed it too. But I think you can only enjoy it if you don’t think about it too deeply or look at it too closely.

I am too tired to write a proper blog entry. I just want to say that I am so thrilled at the responses to my last blog entry!!! WOW. I am so honored to have people saying so much! Wilbur Owen, you know I love you. And you too, Sheldon. I was glad to see you in San Fran.

This week has been horrendously busy. I was at the Freedom From Religion Foundation conference over the weekend. I drove up to San Francisco with my daughter, stayed a night at Michael’s (boyfriend) brother’s (Joel’s) house (we all – Joel, me and Mulan went to the Exploratorium on Friday, it was AWESOME. The best museum ever) and then I performed my show -- Letting Go Of God -- on Saturday night at the conference for the first time in months.

On Sunday, me, Mulan & Michael went to a concert in Golden Gate park – there was a folk festival. We saw Elvis Costello do a duet of “San Francisco” – y’know - the song, flowers in her hair – yadda yadda -- with T. Bone Burnett! It was so great! Then Emmy Lou Harris came on and sang with both of them too! Then Richard Thompson came on afterwards. It was sunny and warm and beautiful and just the most unforgettable day.

I drove back to L.A., starting out from San Francisco on Sunday night, and it was really too late by the time we got out of town. I was supposed to be at a pitch meeting on Monday at NBC at nine a.m. and I got soooo tired that I pulled over at about 11 p.m., cancelled the meeting, and Mulan and I stayed in a Motel 6 for the night. The room was bare bones, not even a clock. $29.99,

But they did have a Bible!

Which got me to thinking, why not write “The Hotel Bible” ??? I would have it be the book that people really should be reading when they are in a hotel room, I suppose – distraught enough to reach for a Bible. Huh? Huh? I am very excited about it. It would be advice for coping from an expert… ME. A non-professional coper. But a good one, and one who doesn’t rely on things like the Bible to help me cope. I have been writing this in my head every moment since Sunday night at the Motel 6.

I got back to L.A. and then, on Tuesday night and Wednesday night I did shows with Jill Sobule at Largo. I have stayed up way past my bedtime for many nights this week. The show we did last night, on Wednesday, was our best. I think it’s finally coming together and we are finding our stride. Gruber – that’s David “Gruber” Allen, an actor and comedian and musician – joined me and Jill. He played piano. We had such a fantastic time. It was really a fun night. Gruber has a new show, The Naked Truckers, that is debuting on Comedy Central in January. They got the most amazing time slot – right after the Daily Show. He is so funny and talented. I really hope that show explodes and they do many more episodes.

I sold almost 200 copies of Letting Go Of God – the CD/book -- at the Freedom From Religion Foundation conference. WOW. I only sold four at Largo after I did my Jill & Julia show. Hmmm…

This whole CD world is wild. Tomorrow I have to negotiate with the CD manufacturer and the fulfillment house so the CDs get delivered to Salt Lake City early next week. This whole CD endeavor is worth a book, in an of itself. I feel there is some poetic justice in the fact that the fulfillment house, just outside of Salt Lake City, is run by Mormons.

Oh my god, people, I am so tired, I am delirious. But I just wanted to post something, anything, just to show that I was paying attention. I just want to go back and read, again, the responses to my last post.

Today I went to San Diego and did about half of my show, “God Said Ha!” for a medical convention. Then I raced back to L.A. and pitched my pilot to CBS. I love the ladies who run CBS. I just want to constantly hang with them. They are so cool and funny and smart. I know this sounds creepy and fawning, but it’s such a relief to walk into a room of women in television – women running television – women with some genuine power -- it fills me with genuine glee.

I am beat. I am so tired. I can’t see straight. I will write more. At a later time when I can think.

This is what I think.

I think a class in Ethics should be taught in public school. I hear the same thing over and over again from parents whom I talk to about schools. And that is that the reason they don’t send their kids to public school is because that they don’t teach "morality." I’m not sure this is true, frankly. I mean, I was taught about God wanting us to behave this way and that, and if we didn't... what would happen. And, it wasn't going to be pretty! I'm not sure that's ethics. I think that's more in the scaring children category.

But I do think that there should be a class called "Ethics" and it should be taught from first grade. There is a lot to teach about ethics without getting into religion: trustworthiness, responsibility, family, and lot of ambiguous and complicated situations that could be debated and talked about. There is enough shared agreement over certain behavior that this could be taught. When the public schools refuse to teach ethics, they reinforce the idea that morality and religiosity are synonymous. And that is untrue.

Here’s the other thing I think: Religion should also be taught from first grade on in public school. When people say they don’t want the Bible in schools, I say the opposite. The Bible should be in schools. Along with the Koran and all the other major religious texts. Children should learn about religion. Just look around us, religion is a major force in the world. It’s a mistake to think that ignoring it is the right way to go.

The instructor/teacher should teach about religion, not indoctrinate children. If the teacher is a member of a certain religion, he or she may spend ten percent more time on that particular religion. He or she must not speculate on the veracity of any one religion. They must simply teach about the different religious beliefs. (See? I can already make up rules!)

I know this all may seem statement-of-the-obvious, but to me this is fundamental knowledge that each child deserves to know about. Last night another parent told me that public school was no good for them because those schools don’t teach “how to be good.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but on my daily dog-walk today, I ranted in my head about it.

Today I got to interview a scientist at Caltech (see, I spelled it right this time!) who is working on the special glasses that allow some types of blind people see some objects and the future of that research. I spoke to him yesterday as well, but today it was much more in depth. I mostly just sat in the background and listened to him hold a model of an eyeball and talk about the retinal implants that are possible. It was really fun. It actually takes my breath away that these types of technology are being developed.

Also, I spent some time talking to a person at the Paramount Theater in Seattle (where I did a show with Ira Glass last May) about doing “Letting Go Of God” on December 26th there. It seems possible. It might even be fun. It might even be successful! I will keep you posted…

I am bleary eyed. I am so tired. But I wanted to post something. I had an amazing day shooting for this PBS documentary. I got to interview a couple of scientists who are working on implanting electrodes in blind people to help them see along with these special cool glasses. I got to talk to a blind woman about what it was like to see things with those same glasses. It's wild, like the glasses are literally hooked into her brain. I also got to talk to another Cal Tech scientist who is doing a lot of work to change the whole paradigm of how cancer is treated, and the early clinical trials are promising. It's exciting. And I got to talk to this same scientist’s wife about her own battle with cancer. (From which she has recovered.) It was an awesome day. OH! And I got to eat lunch in the Atheneum at Cal Tech and the food was fantastic. And Mulan is about to lose her front tooth and it makes me simultaneously sad and excited, she is really growing up. Oh, oh, oh…

Of course the Pope can only bring himself to say he was sorry… that... people got SO UPSET by his remarks. I laughed so hard when I read his apology. It’s the classic non-apology, no? It’s the big fuck you apology.

“I’m sorry you are too stupid to be unable to interpret my real meaning.”

“I’m so sorry you’re not smart.”

“I’m so sorry you don’t agree with me.”

"I'm so sorry you don't see things the way I do."

That kind of apology. Where the person issuing it believes that merely using the word, “sorry” means that they have apologized. My experience with this type of apology is that later, when you let an exasperated expression graze your brow, the apologizer shouts, “What?!!? I apologized, didn’t I?” I don’t know how someone can even issue an apology like that one without laughing while they are doing it. It’s so embarrassing! It’s so transparent! It’s sooooo fake.

On the other hand, why shouldn’t the Pope make snotty remarks about the Muslims? My only complaint is that he didn’t quote the Bible too.

This is from the AP report of his initial speech:
"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

How about, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword”? Jesus said that. Or how about when Jesus tells us a story about how he is like a King who wants those who are not willing to be subjected to his rule to be slaughtered before him while he watches? I would say that would qualify as violent and evil. In any case, it all amuses me. I am amazed that Ratzinger would accuse Mulsims of spreading their faith by the “sword” when that same means of spreading “faith” is a long and dear tradition of the Catholics, in particular.

WAIT a minute! Maybe that's what he was saying. We use the sword to make people convert and we did it before you Muslims did it, nah, nah, nah, nah!!!!

In the newspaper reports I read, the Pope said that his Cardinal Secretary Of State issued a statement explaining the true meaning of his words. I couldn’t find this statement anywhere. Also, the Pope said that his quotation did not reflect his personal thought. Then… why did he say it? There would be no reason to quote this unless it were his personal thoughts. The entire speech makes it clear that the quote parallels his personal thoughts.

For the record, I also enjoyed that the Pope stressed that the text he was quoting from was “medieval,” in his apology. Somehow suggesting that it was old and dusty and not modern. When the entire Catholic Church rests on texts that are old and dusty and even older than medieval! It read like he was saying, “That old quote? Why that’s OLD. I mean, come on. I don’t think that way, that’s not my personal thought.”

I actually am enjoying the stew he’s made of himself in this regard. I also love the Bush issued a statement saying he thought the Pope was "sincere." Ah... yeah. He sincerely wishes people wouldn't be offended by his remarks. Also, it's classic for me that Bush finds truth in "sincerity." Isn't that his whole way of divining what is real? By the sincerity of the speaker? Forget about actual truth, it's what someone feels that matters. It reminds me of when people email me and say, "People don't die for something that isn't true." As if the sincerity of the belief on the part of the dying person somehow makes it more true. AGH!!!!!!! All this makes me so angry and so giddy at the same time! Oh joy, how will this play out tomorrow I wonder. Did you notice that the Pope's "diary" showing he was not sympathetic with the Nazi's was released right... now? As if to say, "Jews, you still like me, right?"

Okay, for the record, I absolutely loved “The Girl With The Pearl Earring.” I was not surprised that women wrote the novel and screenplay. I was riveted. Many of my friends found it slow and unbearable. I would watch it again in a heartbeat.

Saturday night, Los Angeles. Mulan has her friend Coco over for a sleepover. This is what we’ve planned: Fish sticks, cauliflower, or as we call it, “Cauli-Pop” (roasted cauliflower that looks like popcorn) and just so we can learn to be sophisticated: berry juice in plastic wine glasses. For your information, the berry juice is Dole, 100% juice, berry blend, expiration: Oct. 15, 2006. A fine 100% juice berry blend if you ask me. Then, we are going to watch “The Sound Of Music” – Mulan and I just got the DVD at Rocket Video where I was told that I owed many, many dollars in late fees from several months ago when I rented “Shampoo.” It slipped behind the TV and I forgot about it. And then found it two months later. And dropped it in the drop-in box and never went in. Ooops. (Turns out that that showing of “Shampoo” cost me $40. Oh Netflix, here I come!) We also bought microwave popcorn at Rocket Video, so during the screening, actual popcorn will be served, not just the yucky must-be-eaten-or-no-movie cauliflower version. Mulan is interested in seeing this movie because I am always singing, “How do you solve a problem like Mulan?” and now, it’s source will be revealed. While we were at Rocket, we ran into my dear friend Lynn Stewart, who I met at the Groundlings a thousand years ago and who, every time I see her, feel deep gladness that I live in Los Angeles where the chances of running into her are infinitely greater than if I lived in Spokane. Lynn was Miss Yvonne on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, “the most beautiful woman in puppetland.” Lynn’s rewatching Sopranos episodes. But for us: “The Sound Of Music,” and “The Girl With The Pearl Earring.” I am kidding myself if I think I’ll have time to watch Girl With before the movies are due on Monday.

So, I sign off on the blue-line for my book on Monday and that means that the CD/book (my 102 page transcript of the show) will be in my hands by Oct. 6th, in time for me to drive to San Francisco for the Freedom From Religion Foundation conference. Why has this taken so long, you may ask? I’m not exactly sure. I just… took a long time. A long time deciding on which performance was right. A long time deciding whether to include a transcript and then what it should look like and then I made a lot of mistakes that had to be redone. And anyway… It’s finally basically finished. It may be finished just as the interest in it has abated. Or… not. We will see. If you want more information about the time of the release for the CD/book (yeah, that’s how I’m referring to it now) please visit my website and click on the balloon that says CD.

And speaking of balloons, they are going away! Yes, the whole website is being revamped in the next couple of weeks. To get ready for the official release date of the CD/book which, by the way is OCTOBER 25TH.

This weekend I am spending almost all my time getting ready for some shooting this week and next at Cal Tech and at JPL. I am sort of hosting (we hate the word “host” – we haven’t come up with anything better so far) this two-part show that is going to be on PBS (like, in a year at the earliest) about some of the scientists at Cal Tech and JPL and their amazing may-change-our-life-as-we-know-it work they are doing. And also scientists who are just doing interesting research and we don’t care if it changes our life. So, as you might imagine, this is really a dream job for me. This wonderful person, Mark Mananucci, who is directing and shaping this series, has been researching scientists at Cal Tech and at JPL for months and he is so knowledgeable at this point on what everyone is up to, that in my opinion – he should really be the host (or… whatever the name for that job is…) But for some fluky reason they are still having me be part of this, so I am reading and learning and watching research DVDs. I got to be part of some of the initial interviews and I’ve had such a great time. For example, I got to ride in a robotic car. As a passenger, it seemed like the computer brain had been drinking but was still functional (I’d say two glasses of wine.) In any case, the van (or car) is amazing and thrilling and I realized with a new level of profundity what kind of computations we are all constantly unconsciously making, just to drive a car down the street. And, this is the one thing I’ve learned so far about the life of a scientist: you spend a lot of time waiting for computers to reboot. I mean, like… a lot. Like seriously, you could become a tennis pro if you spent all that time waiting playing tennis. Or a professional cellist.

Which reminds me that I am going to try to play the cello for one teeny part of one song that Jill sings when we do our show together again Oct. 10th. It may be a bust. I have never played a cello. But I have contacted a cellist for instruction. Also, I am thinking about cellos and cellists.

And I am remembering a sketch that Christine Zander and I wrote while I was on SNL where I played a matron trying to seduce the pool boy and my seduction chat was all about Yo Yo Ma to the pool boy's great bewilderment. I think the pool boy was played by... I can't remember. I just remember saying the lines, "You know what a cello is, don't you Johnny? It's a womanly instrument that you straddle with your legs and if you stroke it in just the right way it makes the most beautiful sound." I know Phil Harman played my husband.

And since I'm free-associating I had a dream about Phil Hartman the other night. He was floating in water and so was I.

Sigh. Back to the chillins.

I am back in the game.

Because, you see -- my computer exploded three weeks ago. And now, I have a brand spanking new Mac and I have recovered most of my lost files. I am too tired to post anything. But I will report that I had a root canal today. It took three hours. My tooth has seven roots, which is apparently many more than the norm. A mutation! In my mouth! Even the Endodontist was amazed by the rootyness of my tooth. Assisatants were called in from other rooms just to look at it.

My cds are nearly ready. Everything that could go wrong, has. But let me tell you, it’s going to be so great! The book is 102 pages. It is the text of the whole show. There are two cds. I redid the slip cover and the book and it’s all taken very, very long. But I am truly excited to release this cd/book. I meet with my publicist tomorrow morning about forming a plan. I am really curious how this will do. I have low expectations and high hopes all at the same time.

Right now I am on Vicodin because of the root canal. So I shouldn’t write more. I will write more… tomorrow.

I am going to compile a list of 500 people who definitely want to buy the cd/book through my website and see how that all works in the system before I make it available to the general public. It’s sort of funny, maybe there aren’t 500 people out there who even want to buy it! But that’s what my business manager says I must do to make sure there are no cogs in the system. That’s probably a good idea. I looked at the galleys for the book today (after so many revisions for art, text placement, etc.) and I am so proud of it. I can’t wait for whoever is interested to see it too.

On the religion front: I reread the Epistles of Paul yesterday. I was debating whether I should add quotation marks in the text of my book to distinguish which epistle I was quoting from when I quote Paul. I decided that Paul says so many ridiculous, disgusting, sexist, delusional things that it really didn’t matter. As always, the Bible gets more coherent to me (in my recollection) when I haven’t read it for a while, and then I do and I am amazed again that anyone takes it seriously at all. I was reminded, almost poignantly, of Paul’s enthusiasm and commitment. But we all know lots of examples of enthusiasm and commitment that were dead wrong.

Speaking of dead wrong, I have been re-watching Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series on DVD with Mulan at night. It’s really so good. And then I was milling through a biography of Sagan’s last night and saw that before he died he made a list of all the scientific things he had gotten dead wrong. To me, it was all very hard to understand types of things, like how close to the speed of light a human could conceivably expect to go – things like that.

Imagine if a Pope did that, though. I mean, just imagine!

I’m thinking about Sheldon’s letter to me regarding celebrity or fame and being recognized which he wrote in response to my last post. I think I have finally come to terms with fame. And that sentence is hilarious because I have so little of it at the moment and it seems to disappear like running water – no, maybe like dripping water – each year. And the truth is, I was so uncomfortable for so long with anyone recognizing me. I was constantly mortified by it. I didn’t like the basic idea that someone knew me and I didn’t know him or her. And it wasn’t like I even did want to know them, it was just – it felt like an invasion of privacy, while at the same time unavoidably unfair.

Now I look back at it all so differently. I feel compassion for myself. I didn’t have the right psychological make up and the ambition and savvy to appreciate or use the fame I had when I had it. To me, the greatest value was humility. To be “proud” was sinful. My heroes were Catholic saints who did good works in secret. (Which had it’s own backfiring repercussions, but that’s another topic.) So to be publicly acknowledged all the time was just the worst. Plus, I never felt very good about how I looked. I always thought I was going to be judged by my inadequateness as a woman. And I think I was probably partially or even more than partially right. I have listened to all kinds of people now talk about female celebrities with such crudeness, with such a harsh critical tone, it startles me still - each time I overhear it, and I overhear it constantly. I don’t think I’m being paranoid to imagine that I was often on the receiving end of that kind of criticism.

Anyway, when I became famous I wasn’t a lithe, beautiful ingénue, so I felt I was failing in public all the time. (Which I now think is pretty silly, but this was then…) The last thing I wanted was for someone to recognize me. Or pay more attention to me. Even though I created a character that made me look as hideous as possible, as Pat, it still didn’t help me from feeling shame and embarrassment anytime someone recognized me.

In any case, I always marveled at the other actors at SNL and how they (really, the men) were so excited by their own fame. Again, I don’t judge this critically. Now I get it. The fame increased their status, their status gave them power, particularly over women. Fame is the greatest thing that could happen to a guy – especially a guy who was probably not getting the attention he thought he deserved or wanted deeply as a teenager. After the shows at SNL, beautiful models would swarm around the male comedians, while us gals just took the limo to the party and drank mostly with each other. (And we had a great time, by the way…) In any case, fame was so cruel then, it seemed. Even my little bit of it.

Later I met a few people who were really comfortable with fame. At this point, I just thought I wasn’t cut out for it. Some people were, some weren’t. I wasn’t. But then I got to hang out regularly with some people who were seriously famous. I mean, they couldn’t walk down the street without everyone noticing them or being constantly approached. To me, this would be the ultimate nightmare. But these two people who I am thinking of in particular handled it (at least when I was with them) with amazing grace and class. They took it in stride. They shook hands, took time to talk for a minute. They didn’t seem desperate, they just seemed to be dealing with an inevitable part of their life. And I really admired how they had grown into their situation with all its ups and downs. Because, what I finally realized is, it is nice to be recognized – especially if it’s for work that you’re proud of. And fame often brings power too, and that’s undeniably nice. And I learned the difference between people who admired you because you were famous and those who admired you because of something in particular, some specific piece of work. And then it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was pretty great! And then, just about the time that I didn’t shudder at the mere thought of being a famous person, it all began to dwindle away. Oh! Well, I guess that's how it goes.

But Sheldon, you were talking about people who were over-awed by fame. But it seems that we are hard-wired to recognize status. It’s such a deep part of our social and personal psychology. So to me, it’s perfectly understandable why people would – at first flinch – listen more closely to what a celebrity is saying even if it’s in a field in which they are not experts. Also, when it comes to politics, I don’t know if I trust a celebrity less than a politician who has some authority perhaps but also has a clear agenda. There are plenty of celebrities who risk their status by speaking out. I mean, someone like Janeane Garafalo could have continued a lucrative show-business career acting and writing, but she decided to do radio for 1/10 the money. I’m actually surprised at how few celebrities there are out there speaking out against this war.

Well, I just got home from doing the Uncabaret, this stand up like show at the M Bar here in Hollywood. Michael Patrick King, who is a dear old friend was there and he was absolutely hysterical. Also Taylor Negron was on and he was so damn funny. Beth is always great to see and I miss her and Greg so much. It was a really, really fun night. It makes me want to do more performing. I have a vague idea of trying to come up with a true stand-up show. I have never done that before but now I kind of get how I might be able to do that. If I gave myself a year and slowly built the material together. I think it would be fun to try to write solely for the laughs and forget about building the big story, like I’ve concentrated on in my last monologues. In a way, it’s sort of like going backwards. Most of the people I worked with at SNL were stand ups before they got on the show. I don’t know… something in me is telling me to try it.

I felt very proud of myself that after Beth did all this New Age material on stage, I didn’t comment on it. I don’t want to get into some thing where all I do is rag on people’s supernatural crazy-ass beliefs. Even though, it’s all so absurd.

Speaking of material. Here is my cute kid story. Mulan said, “When you do your quilting, you use material right?” And I said, “Yeah – fabric. Yeah, that’s material.” And she said, “Well, do you know there’s a song about that? I heard it on the radio with Frances (our nanny). It’s called Material Girl!”

When my friend Chris heard me say I think we have to have some sort of profiling for security for plane flights, and rate people on their likelihood of being an enemy or terrorist to us, he said, “Oh yes. That’s perfect. And you know who doesn’t have America’s best interest in mind? Democrats.” And he’s right. We can’t have profiling. I would be on the list. Dear God, I’m a democrat AND and atheist. So, I take it back.

But now I am too afraid to fly. I can’t stop thinking about how I can have a no-fly life. But I just bought tickets to New York on JetBlue for October 18th. Now, the terrorists, they don’t know about JetBlue, do they? I mean come on, they aren’t going to blow up a JetBlue flight, the-little-airline-that-could? Plus, as my friend Julia noted, you would have you watch yourself disintigrate on television as you watched yourself from the TV on the back of the seat in front of you. No, no, no. Weirdly, I feel safe on a JetBlue flight from Burbank to JFK. I wonder if I feel safe on Alaska Airlines? That’s what I fly to Spokane. Dear lord, if I have to take the train to Spokane. Well, we won’t be going all that often, that’s all I can say. Oh dear, oh dear. And now I have a boyfriend who like, flies all over the place. Damnit! He can’t stop it. Damn, now I have to worry about him! I probably can’t stop it either. I go around thinking I can just stop flying if things got scary, and the truth is, if I stopped flying it would seriously change my life.

And then I wonder if I will look back, or all of us will look back at these times and say, “We were still so optimistic about everything then. Even after 9/11. There were those five years where it hadn’t really sunk in yet.”

Wow. This whole thing is really throwing me for a loop.

I am going through this period where nothing is working. My Internet connection works only about an hour a day. I feel I am on the North Pole or something. I have called sbcglobal three times and it’s always arduous and time consuming and then it never really gets fixed. And then, after the brown outs happened and the electricity was off for a couple of days while we were in Hawaii, my cable connection to the television went out – as far as I can tell, completely. So, no TV and no Internet. Also, my air conditioning system is not working exactly right. Cool air comes through, but there is a big clicking sound that makes me feel it’s warning me of imminent demise. Anyway, the whole reason I go into this now is that because nothing is really working right, Mulan and I are enjoying watching DVDs when we would otherwise be watching television.

And tonight I decided her film education had to start. I mean, I’ve shown her Buster Keaton silent films. She sort of watched The Awful Truth (Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, 1937) when she was two and a half. But tonight, I figured I needed to really start explaining some things. So, we watched “Some Like It Hot” on DVD. She was very confused about the beginning and I had to even stop the DVD and explain about liquor being outlawed in the “olden days.” Which I don’t think she really got. But there were moments, like when Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe are in the top bunk on the train and then all the girls pile in for the “party” and Mulan started to laugh really hard and it made me so happy. I think she barely could follow the plot, but she sure got that two men were trying to act like two women. Wow, Marilyn Monroe. She could barely act, but she blows everyone off the screen. She’s so vulnerable, so unfiltered by the usual actor-y-ness. It almost seems like if you scratch her, she’d really bleed. And this time I watched it, all I could notice was how revealing her outfits were. She’s practically topless in two dresses that she wears. And of course, as I get older, it’s continually arresting that the actors are so young. They just get younger. Every year, those old actors get younger and younger. Tony Curtis seems like a teenager.

Today I went to my cd manufacturer and signed off on the artwork for the “In The Family Way” cds. It’s weird to think I’ll have two cds available within the month that represents three years of work, but it’s true. Wait, no – four years of work. I think they are going to let me sell the cds at the Hollywood Bowl when I perform there. I will sell both “Letting Go Of God” and “In The Family Way.” It’s funny to think of being in the monologue cd business, but here I am. In it.

I was going to have someone edit by blog entries for things that I’m bad at like, run on sentences, grammar, and general do-you-really-want-to-say-that-ness. But I decided to just put a disclaimer on my blog and go forward and blather like I used to do. Then I considered doing a thing where you have only pre-approved people who can look at your blog so I could talk about, I guess – sex or something PRIVATE and not have nieces and nephews reading it. But then – well, first of all I can’t at the moment think of something I wouldn’t want them to read, (I’m not going to talk about sex – and frankly I don’t think anyone wants me to) and second the whole thing started to seem like so much work all I could think of was,.. forget it. So, here I am.

Early this morning I called Michael who is in Brussels and found out from him about the terrorist scares. And how you couldn’t get on a plane unless all your valuables and identity cards were in a clear plastic bag and all I could think of was how glad I am I am not about to fly with a six-year-old who needs to take fifteen stuffed animals with her wherever she goes and then also have a movie to watch on a computer screen or ELSE. Or else… you are involved in a non-stop interaction-conversation-hug-reprimand extravaganza with a six-year-old for fifteen hours. I feel so sorry for all those people I saw trying to fly somewhere. What is going to happen to us? Eventually one of these plots is going to work for them and then… oh. Oh dear.

I calm myself down by imagining myself moving to Spokane and never going anywhere, ever. I mean, if the atmosphere heats up ten degrees in the next decade or two, Spokane is not such a bad idea.

I know, I always say that. And then, what if the super-volcano under Yellowstone goes? Spokane won’t be such a great place to be then, eh? The thing is, it seems like we all need a big dose of illusion about our safety to just live a regular life which includes cars and busses and cancer and bullets and heart attacks that to focus on possible terrorist attacks doesn’t seem very rational. But, still. Scary.

I was wondering, now that there are so many more people who’ve been killed by terrorists in the last ten years, does that make the chances of getting married after age forty go up? I think Newsweek needs to redo that prediction.

I watched the news from the stair master at the gym. People were putting their toothpaste into garbage cans. Toothpaste? I wonder if dentists are happy about this or sad. Worse breath, but more business. Dentists: the newest profession to find itself a war-profiteer. What is considered a gel, anyway? That is a question that has probably had many opinions expressed today. I was wondering about mascara? What about super-wet mascara? What about those lipsticks that you squirt on, and who is going to get all this loot? I think of all the millions of little stork-shaped-manicure scissors that have been confiscated in the last five years, and now the gels! Oh you devious terrorists! NOT OUR GELS!!!

I actually think I am now in favor of profiling. I know that is very not pc of me. But it's so much more efficient. We need security clearance cards based on probabilities of a person blowing up a plane. It doesn't have to be based on ethnicity or skin color. But honestly, spending billions of dollars so little old grandmothers can get searched is ludicrous. Plus, they need their gels! More than anyone else!

Last night I saw “Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles” – a Chinese film, made by Yimou Zhang http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437447/. I saw it at Sony, at the studios. I went with my friend Greg. I thought it was a little in-your-face melodramatic and had a horrible voice over that explained every emotion that the actors were perfectly capable of portraying on screen. But as of this morning, I think the film grew on me a little. Part of it was filmed in Li Jiang, a city I spent some time in, in China. It’s such a beautifully preserved old town near the Yangtzee. It all made me determined to take Mulan to China in the next couple of years. But how will we get on a plane when we are all quarantined from fear? The film was shot to avoid the expanse of ugly communist architecture that surrounds the “old town” of the Li Jiang. It is romantic to think of China looking like it did in this film. Unfortunately, I found little beautiful spots like that were always surrounded by stinky polluting manufacturing centers and diesel truck engines turned into open cars with as many people as you could cram in them.

Okay, this is what I’ve been thinking about in terms of religion lately. I think it’s all about culture transmission. So, it’s hard for me to get on the bandwagon and imagine a world without religion in it. Because religion provides too good a method for transmitting culture. It has rituals, music, codes of behavior. And culture matters, too. And I am thinking that those terrorists, while they may be hopped up on religious ferver, what they really care about is that their culture is not killed off. But big parts of their culture (and really, nearly all cultures) SUCK. Authoritarian, misogynistic, and – well, those are the first two words that come to mind. I may have written about this before. It’s just what I’ve been turning over in my head a lot recently. I haven’t worked out anything yet for myself, but that’s what I’m thinking about.

O jeez. I have to work. I’m goofing off. More, another time.

I am thinking about some things. They are:

1. If I blog again I will have to ask someone to proof read it and correct it for punctuation and that seems like a lot of work plus asking for a favor.

2. I miss my blog. I want to blog. I am going to blog again. I am blogging right now!

3. But I can barely say anything. I mean, my niece and nephew can read it for chrissake.

4. I am tired of being so “open.” I want to be more closed. No! Door 1/3 open.

5. I am trying to finish the book "My Beautiful Loss-Of Faith Story" or give up on it. Not sure which way it’s going at this point, but I’m headed towards a readable draft by the end of the month at which point others can tell me if it’s publishable.

6. My cd comes out soon. I know. It’s taken a bazillion times longer than I thought it would. Like a year longer. But I wanted to do it all myself and I made every mistake you could make. I didn’t like earlier recordings and finally got one I liked. I spent three months trying to clear the music rights for some of the back ground music and then my producer found a way to cut out the music that we needed clearance for. Then I decided I wanted to print a text of the show and that meant basically designing an 80-page cd sized book and that took forever. Then I hated the picture I was using and had new pictures and the whole thing redesigned because of that. BUT now it’s almost done. It comes off the presses on August 25th. In fact, I will have two cds at that time, “Letting Go Of God” (2 cds, I big booklet) and “In The Family Way.” (That one will be one cd and no booklet.) It will be available to be bought off my website after Sept. 15th.

7. I am hiring a publicist and everything for the cd! Like a real professional!!! I'm pretty stoked. This whole do-it-yourself thing is wild. I mean, I could have released the cd through a label, but I wanted to do it myself and… it’s pretty fun, even if I probably lost a lot of sales because of how long it’s taken me.

8. I am not taking the show to New York in the fall. I was going to. I planned on it. Producers planned on it. And then, I just couldn’t. The reality of it began to sink in. Eight shows a week. Moving Mulan to a new school or home-schooling her (eeek!) Bringing a nanny. Never seeing Mulan because I am up, wired after the show, every night. Getting my house in L.A. ready to sublet. And then, doing the show that much. Suddenly, I realized I just couldn’t do the show that much! I want to do about fifteen more performances of my show. I want to do them around the country in different theaters. I want to film my show (now scheduled for December.) And then, I will be ready to stop. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

9. I accepted an offer to perform my show at Harvard in October (the 26th). This will sort of be my test performance before booking other Universities. Which I won’t do until after I film my show in December. Also, I’m writing two television pilots and I will be overwhelmed with work anyway. Plus, I’m doing this really great show for PBS about scientists at Cal-Tech and I’m going to be interviewing professors at the end of September. Busy. But the good kind of busy. Unless my head implodes.

10. I really shouldn’t be writing all this in my blog, but instead posting it on my website. I think I’ll do that too. Wow. I’m already sort of disorganized.

11. I just went on two big trips this summer. First to Iceland where I performed my show in Reykjavik. Mulan went too and so did my boyfriend Michael (!!!#!). We toured around for a week afterwards with various other people from the convention and had a blast. When I got home I was a bit ill and got very little done and then we all (Michael, Mulan, Me) went on another trip, this time to Hawaii. Oahu and Maui. I was gone 11 days. Now I’m happy to be home. Ready to work. Oh yeah, but my mother is visiting until Sunday. However, the visit is going very well. I just need to meditate three times a day for ten minutes each. Or at least that’s what I tell myself will make me the serene, above-the-chaos, compassionate, focused person I want to be. But I don’t have time to meditate three times a day for even ten minutes. But I have learned to pretend that I’ve meditated and I actually get a little hit of calm just thinking about it and imagining that I had meditated. That takes only about a minute. Maybe I should be writing about that. Instead of the One Minute Manager, the One Minute Meditater. “Get the Serenity of the Dalai Lama in only 45 seconds GUARANTEED!”

12. I’m doing a show at The Hollywood Bowl, August 25 & 26. I’m performing twenty minutes of my second monologue, “In The Family Way” and it’s going to be orchestrated by the L.A. Philharmonic and conducted by Leonard Slatkin. I’m not sure why I am being given this most amazing honor. Anthony Marinelli wrote the score. It’s really beautiful. We worked together for a couple of weeks on and off and it’s just… what an experience this will be. Just the scoring of it has been an unforgettable experience. A couple of weeks ago I was at the Hollywood Bowl as a spectator and I got to go up onstage after the show was over and saw what the Bowl looked like from there. It gave me tingles.

13. Now I really am mad at myself for not writing this in various places on my website.

14. Oh yes! Jill Sobule and I are doing two more shows together at Largo. August 22 and 29th. We had even more fun doing shows together the last time we performed.

15. I’m doing the Uncab on Saturday August 12th at the M Bar. Michael Patrick King is also on the bill. Should be fun!