catholicism: my culture

this morning i got to thinking about culture. as an italian/german/irish/welsh/? 21-year-old male, it occurred to me that most white people in america don't have much "culture," at least the same way as my pakistani roommate or an african-american or an asian immigrant. to figure out what it is that makes up my background, i go no further than my upbringing. i was raised in a strict catholic household - church not just every sunday, but every holy day of obligation and then a few others days as well, catholic school for 9 years, prayers before every meal and before i was tucked in while i was still being tucked in, family devotions and rosaries every week, etc. the list goes on.

last year i started dating a protestant. she wasn't as much a protestant as she was a catholic-hater, because she scorned most things religious. after a few bad experiences with the religious types, i was sort of doing the same thing. to this day, i think of people (like g.w. bush) who proclaim their love for Jesus and i gag to myself. i think of pretty much every evangelical i've ever met and i shudder when i remember hearing them tell me i am going to hell if i don't either convert from catholicism or whatever else it is they're bent on. when i think of some of the people i knew in high school who only really went to church for the social element but still put on the Jesus-lovin' facade, naturally, i just get annoyed and start thinking about something else. i guess that as a result of these things plus the natural twenty-something questioning of everything i was brought up with (i feel i should believe what i believe, not what my parents want me to believe), i stopped going to church sometime last year and pretty much only went when i was home visiting my parents. i figured that if God wanted me, i'd wait till the both of us were good and ready, and i reasoned that i just wasn't ready yet.

fast forward. the last few weeks, i've been feeling like at the very least, i should be attending church. on top of that, i live about a block away from a catholic church which i had never been to and i just lied to my mom yesterday saying that i go there. this morning, i convinced myself to go to church there, finally, so i got up and went to the 11:15 mass. as the service was going, i noticed that this place was much different than any other catholic church. there were comments of acceptance for the gay lifestyle, and i'm pretty sure i saw at least 3 gay couples there (assumption based on sign-of-peace behavior) and so on, which was really interesting. however, there was a lot of stuff i recognized. obviously the songs, prayers, etc. that i haven't heard in about a year save for the 2 times i went home. it was at that point that i realized who i was. i don't get an ethnic background to fall back on. i knew that. i guess i never really realized how much religion is espoused in culture, and how much of that catholic stuff is my culture. i'm not sure what i believe still, but it was quite an experience to go to church and see something that i identify with so much more than i realized this morning.

sex and the city

after a long year of working at it little by little, i've finally seen the entire six seasons of sex and the city. it's really embarrassing when i watch stuff like that and i actually feel something, because then i feel like i'm just a pawn in the writer's game to make people squirm or cry or whatever it is they want us to do, but sex and the city is different. it raises a lot of questions (okay, that's a bad choice of phrase) about the way things really are, although i feel a lot better knowing that the real world is probably somewhere between mine and theirs. still, i feel like i've learned a lot about real relationships from watching theirs evolve and crumble and regenerate and cycle. i have been every single character on that show at one point or another in the last year and a half... but i ended up (at least thus far) turning out to be ME. and i like that.

blogosphere

i find myself wondering everytime i come to this site what i want from this blog. 17 people have come to this site. no big deal at all, right? this is, for all intents and purposes, as private as a journal i leave lying on the streetcorner in another city. all the same, whatever. i'm rambling about nothing. i guess that's what happens when you're bored and you're procrastinating.

what exactly does it mean?

i have another blog on xanga. i still write on it daily. it's never stuff that's really important or significant, but i've got a larger following there than i do here (especially since i'm not sure anyone reads this). lately i've taken to reading up on my site stats almost as much as i read my comments, and what's more exciting than a new comment is seeing that "she" has come and visit. she quit xanga. she's not supposed to be on it anymore, right? yet she visits more than once a day.

it's one more piece of a puzzle that is bugging me to no end. two nights ago, my phone rang for the first time in about a week. since it's been refusing to do that, i was excited enough, but then i pulled it out and saw that it was her. i was even more excited, except that i was watching the premiere of a show i did some work on, so i couldn't really answer it. thankfully, though, the show was almost over and about ten minutes later after the final bow, i called her back. she had already had a couple drinks i guess, but she denied calling me. this confused me a lot, but when she showed up yesterday and showed her my call log and then she admitted that she might have called me.

we got to talking about relationships and stuff yesterday. i don't know where she stands on closure from her last one, but it seems to me that we're both ready for one. not that either of us wants one. i certainly don't.

i don't know why i was so worried, though. she's just like me in so many ways. she is me. she told me she's not the kind of person to have a crush on someone. she ends up dating friends after she's become friends with them. i'm impressed. most girls can't handle that and they miss the best opportunities that way, not to mention stepping on guys that inevitably give up and date girls like my ex-girlfriend (because i was one of those guys waaay too many times before). so does this mean if i hang on for awhile, she'll want to date me? does she already? the pace of things has been pretty rapid, since we've spent so much time together walking up and down the streets of minneapolis with a video camera.

are we there yet?

an open letter to someone who will never read it

dear you,
i hate you. why did you have to be so damn cool? you're ruining everything. it's 1:05AM and i can't sleep. i can't get you out of my head. your coy antipathy only fuels my frustration/fascination with you. i wanted to be alone. i wanted my time. and then you came along and messed it all up, because now all i want is you.
love,
me