And now, I'm back.

The weekend has left me calmer and several gift certificates richer. There were books, too, but the Terry Pratschet book I just finished was so much like all his other two dozen books that I feel no need to single it out. It was good.

At the same time, I realize now that instead of that long sentence I could have just said "I read a book, it was good" but where's the fun in an uncomplicated world?

Likewise, that sentence was useless.

A superfluous sentence decrying redundancy. I'm choking on the bitter irony of it all.

No really, I am. If I had medication to take, here's where I would say "I think I'll take my medication now". Instead, I'll quickly change the subject.

There's a commercial for "Darren's Dance Grooves" on television (well, FX, which is a kind of television, I suppose) right now. If you've seen it, you understand.

Mass today, because at my gramma's house there's no way to get out of church, was odd. To be honest, it's been a while since I've been to church; that lazy agnosticism so crucial to being a lapsed Catholic has prevented me from attending masses at my parent's church (St. Christopher's, which is always interesting) or at my church (St. Andrew's, which is in town), and I can't say I like the idea of laziness deciding the fate of my immortal soul. Even if I didn't believe in an immortal soul, I think I'd still find that idea perplexing.

Come to think of it, I don't even know what I am, and religion is one place where I've always desired at least some sort of label. Even atheists have a label, and hence a religion, for all that they profess to deny it.

It's an important idea, one's religion. I used to be all for spiritualism, but, although I still like the thought, the fact that Kevin Smith preached the "ideas" religion in his movie Dogma makes having faith without some kind of religious label seem trendy and thoughtless.

I liked Clerks, though.

The first reading was Isaiah 7 (the one the faux rabbis are quoting at the beginning of Snatch), and I really had a problem with the way the priest explained it. He made it sound like Ahaz (the first guy in the Old Testament to be told that a virgin would give birth) was told "be a better person" instead of one of the most important prophesies in what would later become Christendom. Or maybe was prophesying. I'm really still confused, but the first reading is really just a launching point anyways.

I started chuckling to myself when the next song was that O Come O Come Emanuel song, simply because I imagined what the world would be like if the whole this was just a big misunderstanding and we were waiting for Kant, not Jesus. It wasn't that funny, but I was half-laughing at my own lameness, and at the fact that not a single person in the entire church would have laughed at my joke.

Another song was at one point a poem; you really could tell just by looking at the screen (this church doesn't have hymnals, because everyone just sings the words anyways, without bothering to hit the right note) that it was meant to be sung much differently than it was. The parishioners totally messed up the meter of the poem; I don't say this to be smug and superior, not entirely, but because it was really really obvious that the words did not go with the melody. I suppose it's not the parishioners' fault, anyways… looking back, that's the way the song was written when we sang it at my church.

Naturally I won't be telling you the name of this hymn, so that no one can prove me wrong.

I still don't really know what I am, probably some kind of Catholic-Agnostic, or merely a Cynic-Catholic. One day I'll buy the Catholic's Book of Heresies from newadvent.org and look myself up. It's really interesting to see a partisan view of some things, whether or not you agree.

I got carsick on the ride down to the cities, and on the ride to Cold Spring today, and prettymuch everytime I was in the car. No one believes me, but being in a car with the AM radio on is like the first time you walked into the grocery store and heard the sickening buzz of hundreds of fluorescent lights. At least for me. The constant buzzing of WCCO, which never comes in right, never goes away from my head, whether I'm blasting music in my headphones or reading intently. It always always makes me carsick, but only to the point where I complain and can do nothing but look out the window.

Being on my laptop for too long has the same effect; the constant whirring of its valiant little fan is just like the buzzing of lightbulbs or the soft hiss of radio static. I get a headache, I get queasy, and my symptoms just hover there for the rest of the day. Actually, when I think of xmas, that's what I think about; that feeling of being carsick and cramped in my mom's SUV. Not gifts or love or Jesus. The Garden Hotline and Garage Logic.

Speaking of Jesus, the homily (where the priest explains the Gospels and maybe the readings, for the grievously uninitiated) was horrible. I really have no grudge against the church but I guess this particular priest wasn't that good, to make so many mistakes. He painted Joseph as this guy who thought his wife had cheated on him, something I've heard many Christmases before but which is still quite clever, and very human, but then he made Mary into the usual demigod and Jesus apparently never cried or had need for a diaper, ever.

The apocryphal Gospel of St. Thomas shows Jesus as a human boy with supernatural powers and wisdom, but nevertheless unsure of what to do with said wisdom. He plays at turning stones into birds; he plays. That's what was missing entirely from this homily; the humanity. I want to hear that Joseph thought his wife was unfaithful at first, that was a good start, but I want to hear about Jesus wailing and Mary screaming as she gave birth. I mean, it didn't happen in a few seconds, right before that calm manger seen. It was labor. Something that, I understand, is very hard to do. And Jesus was a baby, too (for those who believe in him as an actual person; for me it really doesn't make a difference, because the idea is enough, I guess). Where's the screaming and the crying? Babies do that a lot.

But I digress; making the holy family seem inhuman and remote surely has it's benefits too, but I'm tired and I suspect that some of what I wrote is blasphemy in a few circles. The stuff about WCCO annoying me was surely blasphemy on the ride down. Honestly, my dad thinks he can laugh off my headaches, every year. As annoying as it is, I wouldn't stoop to that level.

Time Magazine has destroyed much of the esteem in which I held the media; Osama Bin Laden is no worse than Hitler or Stalin (a two-time winner) as Person of the Year, and to pick that New York mayor (whose name I can't spell) is, well, typical, if you read their online pro-Rudy editorials. I understand the motives, and that it's American Ignorance of what Person of the Year is supposed to mean (and the Ignorant Americans' threat to cancel subscriptions) that led to this stupid choice, but I'm annoyed at our citizens and the magazine.

That'll do, Dan, that'll do. And I'm done, and tired, and spent. Night.