Since I've deluded myself into believing I'm a writer again (much less dangerous than some of my other delusions, although potentially more annoying to the general populace), I've decided to get a workout every day. A nablopomo workout. This week's theme: character. So I must insist you read every post with Donald Duck's voice inside your head.

It's not February yet so I've got to save up some writing fodder. This is all you're getting.

Oh, and I know the picture attached to this post has nothing to do with the content. I just found it representative of my worldview.

I accompanied a busful of fifth graders on a field trip to a super secret location yesterday, which is something I can do now that I'm unshackled.

It was lovely riding three to a seat. I think this is a good time to mention, we should be checking to make sure our children actually brush their teeth.

Anyway, I shepherded my little group of 2 girls and 4 boys around the place, making sure to hit the three MANDATORY exhibits while also keeping the children from either wandering into Lake Michigan or breaking off a souvenir piece of Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle, which every parent seems to think kids want to look at, but no one over the age of 5 ever does. (That's because they can't get close enough to peer inside or even listen to the recorded information on the headsets, because 38-year-old balding men with long greasy ponytails hanging down their backs are hogging it up. I wish I were making that scenario up, but I regret to say I am not.)

I took the kids to see the trains where a developmentally-disabled young man told me I was nice looking ("I don't want yer phone number or nuthin', but you are nice lookin'), which all the kids found monumentally more interesting than the elaborate, painstaking display of rail travel between Chicago and Seattle, proving once and for all that my beauty regimen of tucking my hair behind my ears and pulling a pair of jeans out of the laundry is finally starting to work for me.

Then I had my lunch out of a paper bag, and it wasn't even in bottle form this time. Afterwards, the boys went insane for some reason, got yelled at by a museum employee, we looked at some hatching chicks and some cloned mice without reading the accompanying wall-mounted plaques explaining about DNA and genetics, got back on the bus and came home.

Who wants to sign me up for a reality show?

I know all the cool kids are atheists these days, and I wish I could be, too. I'd have more free time and I wouldn't have to cringe as often. However, that's not who I am, and I'm at peace with it.

I'm trying to figure something out, though. If someone calls him or herself a Christian, I'm assuming that means a follower of Jesus Christ, right? From what we have of what he said and did on file, I mean. It takes a lot of study and research and understanding or Jewish life at the time to understand what the guy was trying to say, and the stuff we have has been translated and edited through the years, so different interpretations and misunderstandings have arisen through the years, but... some things are pretty clearcut. Like, not getting all focused on material possessions, and not hating anyone, even your enemies. Stuff like that.

So someone explain to me how anyone professing to be a Christian can espouse the philosophy of Ayn Rand? Oh, and they do, even when they aren't using her name. I don't want to point any fingers, but the political philosophy matching Rand's rhymes with bright bring.

The Bright Bring may call Obama a Socialist. I am calling them Satanists. Anton LaVey, the founder of modern Satanism, said his religion was 'just Ayn Rand’s philosophy, with ceremony and ritual added.'"

Just read this. Go ahead, I can wait. Did you catch the part where they distribute Atlas Shrugged like Gideons distribute the Bible?

Also, "In “Atlas Shrugged” Ayn Rand’s hero purposely collapses the economy to show the evils of government regulation." (from the article I wanted you to read. You did read it, didn't you?) Right wing hero! In 1966, Frances Fox Piven wrote about bringing about social change by overwhelming the welfare system, and now she's getting death threats from Glenn Beck listeners. Left wing villain! Do they even try to be consistent?

When someone hands me anti-tax, anti-poor literature from now on, I'm going to cheerfully say, "You know this makes you a Satanist, right?"

In a colossal demonstration of how little I value financial stability, I quit my job. My last day was the Tuesday before Christmas. Now, my monetary contributions toward the household treasury will come from a hodgepodge collection of odd jobs and freelance writing opportunities. Do you find my recklessness refreshing, or perhaps even titillating? That's why I did it. To titillate you, the reader.

Titillation aside, feeling has returned to my brain. I mean, besides dread and hopelessness and uncertainty. I kept feeling THOSE things while taking two buses and a train each way, every day. But now, I also feel things like pride and contentment and sheer, unadulterated joy when, from my living room window, I watch the commuter heading to pick up Nick in below-zero weather while I stay home snug and warm. Suck it, Kansas!

Anyways.

I am definitely writing again. Both here, just to irritate Randal, and on the Downers Grove Patch, to irritate my entire town. I'm rusty, though. I need to crank back up into production mode.