Significant Others

I started to write all of this in a comment box, since I was responding to Amalia's comment on the last post, but it got kind of long and is probably more of a new entry.

I've heard about the "drop your family" exercise, probably from Kelli. It puts me in mind of a confession I need to make.

I was on retreat at a Catholic monastery last week--very progressive place, for Kansas--a Benedictine center where 168 sisters live together, and provide hospitality in the form of a very nice retreat place called Sophia Center. I was having dinner with one of the sisters, and she asked me about family. I talked about my mother and my brother, and then she said, "Yes, but don't you have a nuclear family." I panicked and said--really awkwardly--"uh, no." And then sat there thinking, "You're wearing a wedding ring, you dope. It's not like she can't figure it out. She lives with 167 nuns." (Nothing against nuns, certainly, but my gaydar was working overtime.)

I hate feeling the need to hide my family, and I almost never do it. But once in a while I just don't feel like I have the emotional stamina to go into it all, to change the tenor of a conversation or make others uncomfortable (and if that isn't a really stupid reason to lie to people, I don't know what is.)

So thanks for letting me confess. I did tell my spiritual director about my "nuclear family" the next day, since we were going to be spending an hour together. And she was great. Chances are very high that the sister at dinner would have been as well. I just didn't give her a chance.

Dafinitions

Yeah, so it's been forever since I've written anything and I don't have time again, and so here's a little something I got in an email, since it made me laugh out loud. Lazy way out? You make the call.

In case you missed it, this is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from thedictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, andsupply a new definition. The winners are:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders thesubject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an ***hole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lastsuntil you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stopsbright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows littlesign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purposeof getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and theperson who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are runninglate.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extracredit.)
12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all thesereally bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes, and it's a serious bummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the dayconsuming only things that are good for you
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarterwhen they come at you rapidly. 16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just afteryou've accidentally walked through a spider web.
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.