It's almost like I'm home again!

And soon I will be! In 29 days!

I just got a call from Matt, my good friend who I never call. He calls me though, usually when he's being a danger to others such as while he's careening down the freeway at 70mph. It's always great to hear from him since he doesn't seem to use the internet much, so I can forget my fear of phones for a few minutes while we give express updates of our lives.

I also heard Laura today for the first time in 6 months! Not that I haven't heard from her because she is sometimes found on google talk, but Matt apparently thrust the phone at her for a precious few seconds while he was walking into work, long enough for her to say "Hi" and "I totally can't talk right now" before he snagged it up again and muttered something about the General Nutrition section.

"Are you helping a customer?" I said blandly.

"Yep," he said, still talking to me. Oh, boy.

I'm so happy my Borders isn't closing. I can't wait to go back there and see all the people again, maybe buy some nasty Seattle's Best coffee and roam the Bestsellers tables.

I started a new book the other day, called A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (the author's name is totally real). My roommate gave me a copy for World Book Night, since she's going to be distributing 50 or so copies around the city for the event. So far the book is really good-- I am actually pleasantly involved in the characters and their stories. So far as I can tell, the book will focus on a few people's lives in India right after it gained its independence from England. As of yet, I haven't heard much other than passing comments about politics, as the current chapter focuses on the social life of a woman in 1940s India.

I would suggest it as the YT gang's first International Book Club book, but it is very long and I have no idea how long it could take me/us to finish. Besides, I need those awesome YT pancakes as fuel.

I think I'll start a list of things I have to do when I'm back in Ohio:
1) Go to Borders, mess with people
2) Have a sleepover at Cthulhu's place
3) visit Matt and Marty's apartment where Marty does not live
4) Eat pancakes and sweet potato fries with.. the sauce... what's the sauce called? WHAT IS IT CALLED? OH JEEZ how could I forget?
TANGO!!! Oh dear, I almost forgot about the tango! Never again.

Last night, Jana and I watched the documentary Jesus Camp. And you just know there's filmmaking trouble going down when you see a messily-edited clip of someone shouting "You cannot read Harry Potter! Harry Potter is the devil's warlock!" Really, liberals? I know the conservatives are just as bad, but really? I thought I was going to get an accurate portrayal of Evangelistic Christianity, but instead I get a kind of mishmash of scenes that are bound to have Typical America gasping, "They actually teach their kids that stuff?"

To be fair, some of the interviews are very cute, such as those with the fiercely devout little nine year old, who nervously asks strangers if they have accepted Jesus into their lives, or once said something along the lines of, "When kids at school tease me about my religion, I tell them, 'You can judge me all you want, but the only judgment that matters is God's'" as she clutches her stuffed panda. There's also a 12-year old boy who seems a pretty average character until he opens his mouth and then you can see clearly the shadow of a future orator in him.

In contrast, those same kids are shown in worshipping-mode, overseen by an intense Bible Camp leader in scenes that are seemingly supposed to make you exclaim, "Look how brainwashed they are!" and "This is borderline abuse!" In this regard, I get the impression the kids are being used as the filmmakers props to make you feel sorry for them rather than astounded by their faith and discipline. And the addition of the radio host/evangelical critic who laughs at the faith with oozing 'intellectual' scepticism doesn't help. Of course, I put intellectual in quotations because I don't know how it can be considered smart to candidly judge someone by what they believe, being perpetually deaf to the other side of the story, and taking words and phrases out of context to strengthen your point.

Then again, that could be the brilliance of the movie-- perhaps it is, as they claim, objective, and I only see a negativity in the film because of my fear for the evangelists; that I imagine after watching this movie, more and more people will only hate them and misunderstand them because we tend to remember the bits that are strange to us and forget about how happy the kids are, how confident and well-spoken they are, and how they are living completely healthy and wholesome lives. It is a different culture within our culture. That may be what throws people for a loop. Evangelists are happy. Let them be!

So it may be completely weird, but...
I am an atheist and I <3 evangelists!

So there.