My Weekend

-Friday night, lovely date with Diana/dbang. (Though I think we eventually decided the word "assignation" fit better.) In the course of which, she served as head-shaver and photographer for the generation of that icon.

-Saturday was Em's (my brother's girlfriend's) birthday party. Of the people there, I knew 1) my brother, 2) Em, 3) the hostess, slightly, and 4) one other attendee, slightly. So, I mostly noshed on the foodstuffs and observed people. Met Em's assorted siblings, one of whom commented, "I can't believe you're Nat's brother. You're so sedate and calm." My brother is definitely the extrovert in the family.

-Yesterday, working on sanding and spackling my bathroom, while fighting off moodiness. I swear, I sometimes feel like moody Jon is this mule, standing in a mud puddle of gloom, while sensible Jon is pulling on his reins. "C'mon, mule. Good mule. Get out of the !@#$%ing mud-pit, you stupid mule!"

-Today, more of same re: bathroom, though I seem to be in a better mood. The walls need one more round of sanding, maybe a little touch-up spackle, then we can start talking paint.

Conversations w/Mom: Nature of Evil

-My mother (the Episcopalian priest) and I got to talking about evil. She has had parishioners with lives full of abuse, that manifested itself in ways both spiritual and demonstrably physical, and which also perpetuated itself physically, spiritually, and demonstrably in their offspring. She said:

Mom: It makes you feel like these things are connected, y'know? Like sexual abuse causes medical problems, which in turn caused a son to be born missing the necessary empathy for others.

Jon: Like the damage, or the evil, was a physical, contagious -- uh, transmissible? -- thing.

Mom: Right. We can have a good person, but the mark left on by the abuse somehow ended up causing genuine, diagnosable medical conditions. It feels like more than just genetics, or familial cycles of abuse.

Jon: Almost enough to make you believe in evil as something real.

Mom: Excuse me? [she gives me an amused look] Evil is real.

Jon: I mean . . . [I wave my hands helplessly] I mean as something more than "People do bad things."

Mom: Yes . . .

Jon: Look, there's a spectrum, from "People do bad things," to "Satan is an actual being." I don't think you believe the latter.

Mom: [looks thoughtful] I believe in Satan as a symbol . . .

Jon: Right, but you don't think he's a person, with personality and such.

Mom: [more thoughful] No . . . But if Satan doesn't have a personality, does God?

Jon: This is what I'm asking, if you believe in that as a necessary duality.

Mom: [more thoughtful] Not as such. But I believe in evil as a real thing, and as a way for people to talk about their problems. Like in Lord of the Rings, where evil is a presence.

Jon: And where you can end up tainted by it, while still being good. Or like wossname, Swimming to Cambodia guy, committed suicide recently (Edit: Spalding Gray), who believed in an invisible cloud of evil, circling the Earth, and landing at random spots, like Cambodia, where it made Pol Pot kill everyone with glasses. Like at any moment we could be touched by it, and not know why.

(Now, to cheer up, I'm going to watch the last half-hour of Hellboy again, in which a Hell-born demon kills a man who just wants to give the Earth a fresh start, but it still counts as good triumphing over evil.)

Diesel & OPN & Seeing my Friends

-This week Diesel is a definite, OPN is a probably not.

-Also, my slow and feeble brain came up with a solution for a certain social problem. I have friends I don't see often enough. There are problems both geographic and housemate-related with me hosting a get-together, and I can't make them throw parties at their places solely 'cause I want to see them.

-So, why don't I just organize a group dinner at a restaurant? I mean, duh, Jon . . .