My first entry. This is cool. I used to keep a journal, but writing with a pen bothers me. I like ink for abstract images not writing. I start writing with a pen and I always end up doodling.

All four of my grandparents are still alive. Got some long livin folks in my gene pool. Three of my great grandparents were kickin when I was a kid. I remember at the age of five shaking my great grandfather's hand, and he squeezed it so hard. Smiled at me with his gums and said "You got a beaut of a grip son." I had a great uncle, died a couple years back, he was in his late eighties. Last 30 years of his life he only ate ice cream, drank warm Schlitz, and smoked stinky cigars. Damn was he happy. He'd laugh at everything, and the layers of wrinkles on his face when he smiled looked like rice patties, one on top of each other on a hill. Anyway - the four grandparents. Two of them have cancer, one has Alzheimer's, and the other has a myriad of difficulties. Needless to say - there are some funerals coming up. I'm an athiest. And I want nothing to do with religious services of any kind. But my mom and pop are gonna lose it, and will need my support. I dunno what to do. Ugh.

I have come out of the atheist "closet". That has to be a part of my first entry. It's a huge part of who I am. My family used to go to church every Sunday. It was a Lutheran church in St.Louis (where I'm from). Lutheran's for the most part are a fairly stolid bunch. But this church had a "reformation" in the sixties and got all granola. Which was actually kind of cool, the parishiners were a liberal group. Well as liberal as Christianity goes. But, the church was modest and reached out to the community extensively. Which, if your going to follow the tenets of Christ, should be the way you conduct your affairs. I have fond memories of that place, as well as some creepy ones. I ran a puppet show with some of the other kids. My dad made the puppets. Every Easter all the kids released balloons with paper blessings tied with ribbon. Chili cookoffs. Street festivals. The kaleidescope colors that came through the stained glass windows. The dark chestnut wood beams in the apse. The huge brass pipes of the organ. The organ player was really cool. He used to play creepy phantom of the opera type music when everybody left. We always were there late doing our extra stuff for the church. The creepy part was the guilt, people's morning breath, being on display for every old person that wanted to have a good time at children's expense, the politics. Fuck, the politics. We had a change of pastors, the old one had retired. And the parrish had to vote in a new one. The wheeling and dealing, back biting, mud slinging, two faced assholes, had a month long squabble about who was fit to lead us. Ugh - and I had to go to Lutheran school. Mostly cause I was a "troubled" kid and got kicked out of public school. That's another story for another time.

What really made me become an athiest was masturbation. See when I discovered that my dick did wonderful things, it set me off on a life long course. At first I did it without much thinking. Then the pastor one sunday in his sermon mentioned non marital sex as a condemning sin. God is watching you. I was terrified, I'd do it anyway, but I felt so guilty afterwards. Then one day years later, I was waxing on waxing off, and I thought to myself - "How could anything that feels this good be a sin" And I decided it wasn't. After that I started questioning everything about Christianity. If god is so omnipotent, why did he have to rest on the seventh day. Why will good Jewish and Muslim people go to hell, but someone like Jeffrey Dahmer or Hitler can go to heaven as long as they repent right before they die. Why is there vast empirical evidence that we evolved from apes, but no evidence that we were made from dust and god's spittle. How can one man loving another man be a sin or one woman loving another woman, how can love be a sin. I once had a pastor tell me it was a sin to run a red light or to drive over the speed limit, because breaking man's law is as good (or bad) as breaking god's laws. All religions were created for two things 1. To keep law and order, as well as some health matters (eating pork two thousand years ago could definitely kill ya). We as a society can determine what is acceptable. Basically, if you wouldn't want something to happen to you don't do it to others. You don't want to be raped, then don't rape others. You don't want your shit stolen, then don't steal other's shit. 2. To assuage fears of death. It is not easy to not know what's going to happen when your dead. Or the fact that it is simply gonna be a void. Think about it, the universe is millions of years old. Do you recall anything of that time before you were born. It is comforting to know you will go to an etherial place of clouds and harmonious music. You have wings. Wings!?! Fuck, you mean I can fly when I'm dead. Whoopee.