Entry 10:

As to why I have subjected myself to abuse from the Catholic Church ... look, girl, I just do as I'm told. If my wife wants to do something that I don't find particularly onerous, it's done. I lack the wherewithal to fight about trivial things. My rant about the bureaucracy and ideology of the Catholic Church has nothing to do with my belief in God or transcendence. But I have to say, I do love me some rituals, especially communal rites, the more traditional (if not insane) the better; the Catholic Church has some pretty phat ones--I especially love the baptismal bit about renouncing Satan; I search out opportunities to be a godfather for this. Here is why: Yes, I do believe in a higher power of transcendence within (call it God or whatever), a power that can be approached only asymptotically in our lives and that can be certified only communally, only through service to others. Heavy, no?

Gloria Steinem, feminism ... damn! I have a vague recollection. The '70s, right? I'm down with the program, but I wonder why I have always found self-conscious declarations and dramatizations of feminism ludicrous at best. It's the reveling in victimology that I find distasteful. (By the way, one of my favorite titles is All God's Dangers--issuing from a remark made by a 19^th-century black sharecropper to the effect that "all God's dangers ain't a white man." Similarly, with respect to feminism, all God's dangers, simply put, ain't a man.

As to whether or not some Anasazi Indians partook of human flesh, (now I don't mean no harm) I don't care. As long as it ain't me they're eating, I'm cool.