May 2005 Archives

The other day my mother attempted to convince me that the only way I would stop sabotaging my own life was if I started thinking positively.

"Just repeat positive affirmations to yourself," she instructed me. "Try saying, 'I deserve to be happy' to yourself during the day. It'll really work!"

So yesterday, as I was driving to work, I muttered to myself, "I deserve to be happy, I deserve to be happy, oh eff!"

I had driven my car, once again, into another car.

This, I decided, was God's way of telling me that I was wrong.

My relationship with God, like all of my others, has been little more than fodder for the comedy routine I call my life. A few years ago, after I caught hand, foot and mouth disease from a subway train, I decided that God was punishing me for not believing in Him. I told my mother about this theory last night while crying about my latest vehicular "episode," and she responded by saying, "Oh Lina, I hope you aren't serious."

"About what?" I asked.

She sighed deeply and replied, "This evidence of some kind of faith. I'd like to think we raised you better than that."

And they had. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher, Mrs. Smith asked the group of collected five-year-olds to have a moment of silent prayer for some major world event. Perhaps it was the Soviets' refusal to participate in the Olympics, or Michael Jackson's heinous pyrotechnic accident that result in severe scalp burnage. I sat quietly, while we prayed. I related the story to my parents that night at dinner, thoroughly confused. "Quiet time," was hard enough for me to comprehend, having experienced this at home so rarely. But this "prayer" thing, now that was a complete mystery.

When my parents heard about it, they grabbed me by a pigtail and marched me down to the school, where they filed a complaint regarding my teacher's attempt to inject some sort of spirituality into my my day-to-day heathenism. My parents' complaint was effective. Never again was I asked to pray, or even for that matter, silently reflect. I was free to go on shouting "penis" on the playground as I was wont to do before they tried to break me--it was a more innocent time.

Around the age of eight, I decided for a few weeks to pretend to be Jewish. This was something I did now and again when I wanted to cause trouble. Didn't want to participate in the school's Christmas Pageant? Must abstain, I was from a marginalized peoples. Before the time that I wielded Judaism as a tool to make my teachers uncomfortable, I actually gave it a serious go. Meaning, I read Anne Frank's diary and cried, and then insisted that my ungodly family have a Seder that year for Passover.

For those of you not in the know, Seders can be seriously painful events, despite the alcohol consumption requirements. Imagine sitting at a table with your family for three long hours, eating hard, unleavened bread and reading aloud a hefty manuscript about God, the only momentary reprieve is getting up to open a door for an imaginary friend.

My family solved this by creating a non-denominational, seven minute Seder. There was not a single mention of God, and the bulk of the seven minutes focused on the plagues. Vermin, boils, and locusts--now that's something my family can embrace.

This display of religious fervor was matched by a Hanukkah celebration we had one year. The meal featured latkes (potato pancakes) and applesauce of course, but also a giant pork loin that my father had decided would be somehow appropriate. "What goes better with applesauce than pork?" he implored us, raising a meaty fist to the sky in celebration of that cloven-hoofed swine. The men in attendance, having no yarmulkes, put napkins on their heads and recited, "Baruch atah adonai...blah blah blah." Not able to remember the actual prayer, they mumbled for a moment and lit some candles before feasting on juicy pork.

Never fear, our disrespect for Christianity was just as ardent. Our Christmas tree was topped not with a traditional angel or star of Bethlehem, but rather with a plastic lawn flamingo that had been hollowed out and stuffed with lights, giving it an unearthly pink glow. One year that I remember, we decided to not to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of the December, the anniversary of Jesus' birth, but rather on a day that we found more convenient.

My apartment is adorned with a 3-D picture of Jesus, that at different angles is a portrait of the Virgin Mary. My parents brought it back for me, on a recent trip to Italy. They like to feed my adoration of (usually violent) religious imagery. It is framed with shellacked pink Peeps, that ubiquitous Easter treat, and a gastronomic celebration of Jesus' resurrection. It hangs slightly crooked, unable to keep a straight face.

A few years ago, I found a gift under the tree with a name tag that read:

To: Lina
From: The Baby Jesus

It's no surprise then, that I reached adulthood, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, without the presence of a higher power in my life. I've been lucky though. I've managed to fill the spiritual void with a lethal cocktail I've concocted, comprised of shopping, carbohydrates and hibernation. I mean, what more can you expect from an infidel?