Nostra Aetate: The Declaration on the Relation of the Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council.

So today is the 40th anniversary of nostra aetate. As I got to a Jesuit university this proves to be a big deal in the goings on around here ... but really it's kind of a big deal for anyone. Having been raised to be a good Catholic, I suppose for me this has an actual meaning. Really what it means is there's a reason I have a disconnect with my family when it comes to religion. I was not raised in the same sort of Catholicism that they were. By the time I was born there was a new Catholicism around. It makes sense then my own disconnect with the church - not being able to connect the Church to my family and yet at the same time being aware it was always intertwined.
My family represents the old Church and the old ways of thinking. They don't, of course, understand that the Church is no longer against other religions, that it's not important if you eat meat on Fridays, and so on.
I no longer call myself Catholic. I have not been able to make the Church as my family sees it fit into my life; and I have not worked to make the new Church fit in my life either. Instead I have found pagan faith traditions to be more applicable to my lifestyle. In spite of this, I still feel connected to the Church and I just might go to the event tonight .... Afterall, it might be interesting.

At risk of offending a few of my good friends I have to say ... I absolutely despise the coventional girlishness that they all have. Just that tinge of superficial fakery makes me absolutely vomit. I simply cannot stand the way they smile and act nice and say the most absolutely ridiculous things: like they can't respect drug users ... And they get positively smashed from Thursday to Monday. Furthermore, they surround themselves with similar types who get smashed.
And heaven forbid them have a good time doing ANYTHING ... Unless, of course, they are smashed. Let's never enjoy ourselves sober and actually, everything simply MUST be met with utter disdain.
No boy will be good enough, but we can always pretend so we can rip him down in private. In fact, let's be catty and rip everyone while they're not around.
Maybe I'm just not a girl. Maybe I was raised better than that - or rather maybe I was raised to do that and it didn't' really get me anywhere. Maybe I grew up ... I'm not sure but I really can't stand it.
Some of them would be very lovely girls I'm sure if they focused on something more than six figure salaries, cute boys (which incidently they couldn't possibly work the nerve up to talk to unless they were wasted), and designer jeans.

As for me ... who really wants to dress in the J Crew catalogue? It's so bland. That's my problem with them ... They're just so bland. Why would you settle for that when you could have so much more if you were just willing to sacrifice a little more maybe? Perhaps be a little more free and natural and someone might actually find you beautiful - rather than just pretty. Live a little and it could bring some colour to your bland personality.

I'm forever doing it - that thing that I hate. That un-feeling, numb extinguishing of my emotion as if it were just a tiny candle flame. The unfeeling again and again.
Where I manage to bury the shit I'll never know. The snap, snap of the rubberband against my extended wrist keeps time with the music - like the match that refuses to light; I can't for the life of me remember why or what these red welts, or the pills and powders and chemical cocktails are for.

"Clothes"
Put on a clean shirt
before you die, some Russian said.
Nothing with drool, please,
no egg spots, no blood,
no sweat, no sperm.
You want me clean, God,
so I'll try to comply.

The hat I was married in,will it do?
White, broad, fake flowers in a tiny array.
It's old-fashioned, as stylish as a bedbug,
but is suits to die in something nostalgic.

And I'll take
my painting shirt
washed over and over of course
spotted with every yellow kitchen I've painted.
God, you don't mind if I bring all my kitchens?
They hold the family laughter and the soup.

For a bra
(need we mention it?),
the padded black one that my lover demeaned
when I took it off.
He said, "Where'd it all go?"

And I'll take
the maternity skirt of my ninth month,
a window for the love-belly
that let each baby pop out like an apple,
the water breaking in the restaurant,
making a noisy house I'd like to die in.

For underpants I'll pick white cotton,
the briefs of my childhood,
for it was my mother's dictum
that nice girls wore only white cotton.
If my mother had lived to see it
she would have put a WANTED sign up in the post office
for the black, the red, the blue I've worn.
Still, it would be perfectly fine with me
to die like a nice girl
smelling of Clorox and Duz.
Being sixteen-in-the-pants
I would die full of questions.

I'm not sure why I find comfort in reading Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath when I'm suicidal. I'm quite certain this really shouldn't be the case.