Honest To Blog: My Misadventures

Part One: A Holy Quest

21/08/11

So as you may have determined from my current status update, I was tricked into going to Mass today.

Let me start off by specifying that I am staunchly atheist - for any of you who didn't guess this from my characters' views on religion - but I was raised in a very strict Catholic environment. This is not to say that my parents are particularly devout, but being that I live in the back end of Nowhere, you can imagine that the choices of schools, clubs, etc, was quite limited. 

The primary school I went to was so small that there were only five in my class, all girls, even though we went to a mixed school. In fact it started out with only three of us, the other two joining in periodically over the next eight years.

Anyway, by the time I got to secondary school I was pretty well versed in the Bible. So even though I haven't actually been to Mass for four or five years, I could still recite the whole service in my sleep.

The emotional blackmail began at twenty past eleven this morning. I was still in bed (judge not lest ye be judged) and my mom popped her head around my door, big doe eyes on full offense. I was, of course, immediately on my guard.

'Will you come to Mass with me at twelve o clock?'

I admit I sat there in mild disbelief just staring at her for a few seconds. Then, 'Mass?' uncertainly.

'Yeah.'

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

Then I felt bad, so I said I'd go.

I like churches, but not when there are other people in them. Churches by themselves are all lovely and silent - two qualities I appreciate in a building - but when they're full they become cold and imposing and unfriendly. 

I didn't bless myself upon entry with some holy water (I would of course burst into flames on the spot were I to even try) and I didn't take a leaflet and it felt like these people knew. They glared at me as I followed my mom down one of the aisles, as if it was branded across my forehead that I'm a heretic. It's unnerving and uncomfortable and causes me without to fail to respond in kind - I glared back.

Seeing as I could recite the service in full before it even began (aside from the sermon of course) I obviously chose to tune out and think about boys kissing each other instead, which I find is always a pleasurable way to distract oneself from an uncomfortable situation. I found myself going over the scene in Kiss Me Like You Did where Johnny finally tells Noah how he feels about him, and a whole story about them started unravelling in my head, with the conclusion that I am now going to write it and post it as a one-shot. But that's another story.

I quite like how small children react to being in a church, which is saying something, since I violently dislike small childen. They're like, 'Whatever, just another place to scream and cry, but with better acoustics, so maybe I'll scream and cry a little bit louder.' I often feel like screaming when I'm listening to a priest.

The service went on for forty-five minutes, which is long even in Catholic standards. By the time for receiving Holy Communion came about I felt like shouting at the priest to "fuck the eucharistic ministers and just fling it out like confetti so we can all go home already". (I suppose I become quite angsty when placed in a zealous environment.) 

I was sitting right beside the aisle and promptly interrupted my own train of thought when I saw Ian Somerhalder walk past me to receive the sacrament. Briefly considered attending Mass more frequently if there were hotties like this to be found; reconsidered when I realised we'd argue over how to raise our children.

12:45 : Mass ends.

We leave and my eyes burn out of my skull; not due to God catching onto my sudden uninvited reappearance in his house but because it was sunny outside and dark inside. I suppose those are the small prices you have to pay when you constantly denounce Him.

When I got home I ate some cheese. And it was good.

*As a sort of postscript, it bears mentioning that I listened to Superchick on my iPod the whole way in in the car. So, yeah, okay, Christian rock music, but also catchy as hell. (Pun.)