If You're Hungry, Eat My Head
2003-08-11, 10:13 a.m.

So the wedding happened. It was a pretty traditional Methodist wedding, lots of God talk and how he'll make your marriage all the better and the like. It seemed to me, though, that the reverend was merely going through the motions, as it were, of the ceremony, like he had absolutely no vested interest in the proper formation of this union. Which is entirely possible-- I don't think either of them are regular church-goers and I doubt highly that there were any meetings aforehand between the couple and the minister regarding the state of their impending union.

I was listening to NPR a few days ago, and the Episcopal bishop of D.C was on discussing the fate of the church regarding the recent and controversial appointment of the openly gay bishop. The topic of marriage in general came up, and he was saying that the role of the minister/priest in marriage proceedings has become largely symbolic, going as fas as saying that they're mainly just a tool of the state as far as marriage goes at least. Being an atheist, this doesn't concern me personally and didn't when my wife and I made our Forever and Always official. But I know that, in the real world, 90-95% of the U.S. gives a damn about organised religion and, considering that divorce rates are hovering somewhere around 60% these days, the D.C. bishop makes a strong point. If organised religion must exist, it should do its job, one being the proper validation of marriage. I'd like to see more ministers say, "You know, I don't think that you two are getting married for the right reasons and that it's doomed from the start; I'm sorry, but I just don't think you should do it." More of this please, and maybe people will start taking marriage more seriously again.

In case you were wondering, I have no trouble with this whole gay marriage issue. I think that including gays would only serve to validate the concept of marriage even more. I mean, isn't the idea here to promote monogamy and fidelity? By branding gays as outcasts, they're bound to love in secret and for the wrong reasons, out of a confused sense of not belonging in society, leading to promiscuity and, thusly, disease. It's like abortion and the coat hanger-- making it wrong socially won't stop it from happening, it'll just make people do it unsafely. Sigh.

Anyway, back to the wedding. I was bound and determined to make up for last week's 'good guy' role and get good and schlockered at the reception. Goal attained. I did learn, however, that a good cure for the stupid-drunk is the Polka, i.e., if you get your blood moving you can drink more and not fall over. Not that this prevents you from feeling like a withered husk at 530am. But 6 glasses of water and 4 Advil took care of that. Mostly. That, and a good breakfast, and I was able to push myself through Sunday without any real suffering.

Speaking of Sunday, I got an interesting view into Japanese culture, via my wife's friend, whom I'll call K-Bird. She married a Japanese native a few years ago and they had a daughter, Mi, who's now almost 2. They've been living in Japan for the last year cos they wanted to give Mi some time in their culture. They're planning on moving back into the states around the beginning of next year (much to the relief of K-Bird, not to mention those of us that miss them), and are in town �til the end of the month.

So for entertainment for the little one after her nap, in goes a tape into the VCR of the so-called "Mickey Mouse of Japan", Anpanman-- whose name loosely translates to Bread-coated Sweet Bean Paste Man. He flies about helping the hungry by feeding them pieces of his head (which he can readily replenish). The video was of he and his friends singing cute little counting songs and such, not to mention lots of making fun of Baikinman, the resident oddball and general bad egg. The odd thing is that there's versions of these characters for older kids that's much more violent, where Baikinman is an actual badguy and they fight alot. I wonder what this does to kids that grow up with them all singing and happy, then later beating the crap out of each other? And these are the most popular cartoon characters in Japan. Strange.

Dang, time to get ready for work.

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