I had a fun weekend. Went to the zoo yesterday with buddy Tango, had a great time, then off to the club, which was holding a Prom Night theme, allowing me a good excuse to wear my absurd dress.
I love the clothes at this sort of thing, really I do, many of them are truly fantastic, and if occasionally some people wear things that are not entirely flattering to their body type, such is life. It took me awhile to make peace with the fact that gravity had won and I cannot wear anything that does not include underwire, I can hardly fault anyone else for trying to make due with optimism and duct tape. Some great hats, too.
However.
I had already gotten around two rum and cokes and was dancing very badly, in heels, on feet that had already walked around the zoo and weren’t doin’ too well, and Kevin was doing his particular boogie, which is enthusiastic and reasonably skillful and at the same time…well…let’s just say that if the Village People ever get together for a goth reunion tour…*
And then I saw a woman dancing who had "MISTRESS" written across her lower back in electrical tape, and that would have been perfectly acceptable, except that she’d left off the terminal S and it said "MISTRES."
I try not to be a grammar nazi, I have no leg to stand on there, but I do have the internal spellchecker, and this was the purest of pure torture. Even another rum and coke failed to blunt the agony. It’s like a crooked painting. Once you have seen it, you cannot UNSEE it. The music changed. The S failed to appear. A tic started up under my right eye. **
"Am I allowed to go say som–"
"NO."
"Awwww…"
I sought a second opinion.
"All you will succeed in doing is starting a fight. No."
"Awwww…"
Being a drunken editor is hard.
Eventually we went home, with me smashed and still muttering. Then we had to get up for Easter brunch, which Kevin asked me to come in for. Since he never asks me to do anything in that vein, I went in, mainlined weak Lutheran coffee for awhile, had a reasonably tasty brunch, and sat in the sound booth with Kevin, trying to keep our snarking to a minimum. With the two of us, this is difficult.
K: No kneeling! And at least you can understand our music without a degree in Latin.
U: I think that’s part of the problem.
K: Well, we did borrow heavily from the Anglicans.
U: This hymn would be better if it didn’t borrow so heavily lyrically from "Frosty the Snowman."
K: *listens with expression of dawing horror*
K: Yeah…well…um….my god is more compassionate than your god!
U: Dude. My god has a pet rat.
And then I listened to the pastor claim that the more highly evolved a species was, the closer it was to God.
U: This is hinged on a completely flawed Linnaean view of linear evolution!
K: Look, most of the people in the audience aren’t going to know that…
U: By that logic, God is a giant panda!
K: *head in hands*
U: Bamboo for Jesus!
(The fact that Kevin carefully saved the accompanying sketches to this conversation, including Giant Panda Jesus disdaining your foolish primate gods, probably says something about our relationship and his tolerance thereof. )
Sadly, afterwards the pastor came over, and the conversation kinda went that way, and because whatever else they say about me, let them never say I lack the courage of my convictions, I found myself saying "OkayI’msorrybutIhavetosayit–the notion that the more highly evolved something is, the closer it is to God is a relic of an outmoded Linnaean linear theory of evolution and by that logic God is a giant panda or a flu virus."
I am the sort of person who can deliver that without stopping for air.
Kevin: Oh, lord.
Priest: No! That’s the completely wrong way to interpret it! If you read C.S.Lewis’s Mere Christianity, he explains–
Ursula: But evolution isn’t a straight line into higher forms–
P: But C.S. Lewis says in the first two chapters–
K: Both of you…
U: I have no quarrel with C. S. Lewis as a Christian apologist, but the fact remains–
P: That’s completely the wrong way to look at it! Lewis is right!
U: C.S. Lewis died before our understanding of evolution was refined!
K: Am I going to have to separate you two?
P: Look, Lewis is right! You have to read him!
U: You cannot say that the higher evolved something is, the closer it is to God!
P: I didn’t say that!
U: You totally said that! We have the tapes right here!
K: *moves protectively over his recording equipment*
P: Then maybe I said it badly!
U: Well, okay…
K: *looks hopeful*
P: But what Lewis says is that the greater the qualities something has, the closer it is to God–
U: Qualities? In what sense?
P: In any sense!
U: I don’t know what you mean by that! What is the definition of "qualities" in this context–
P: Oh god, I was never any good at these debates in seminary.
K: *prays for a double case of sudden onset laryngitis*
P: *leaves, returns seconds later with a copy of Mere Christianity in hand* Have you even read C.S. Lewis?
U: Do you even know what punctuated equilibrium is?
K: I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL GET THE HOSE IF YOU TWO DON’T CUT IT OUT
As Kevin had broken out the Daddy voice that he uses when his children are killing each other, a voice that goes directly to the hindbrain and announces that if you kids do not stop RIGHT THIS MINUTE, he will turn this car around and NO ONE will get to go to Disneyland, both pastor and I froze, gave each other vaguely guilty looks, and slunk to opposite corners. "Good to see you," he muttered, as we left. "Always a pleasure," I muttered back.
In the car:
U: Err, sorry…
K: Oh, don’t be. You’re brilliant and passionate, and I love you for it.
U: Yeah, but I’m still a tactless git.
K: Nah, don’t worry, he’ll probably be looking up counterarguments all week. I’ll get an e-mail about it eventually…
U: Sorry.
K: It’ll probably be a very positive e-mail.
So that’s how I spent my weekend.
*Although after watching the Kevin remix of "Sex on Wheels," I would like to propose that someone form a cover band called Thrill Kilt Kult, consisting of Celtic-accented covers. And kilts.
**It occurs to me that if one were an actual genuine sadist, this would be an astonishingly effective way to cause intense pain to a wide audience. I only wish I believed it had been intentional.
