damned mystery atheist!

Can an atheist suffer religious persecution at the hands of another atheist? Looks like it.

I've had a little tiny bell at my desk for a long time, pinned to the cubicle wall; it's got a little card attached that reads "hope" and has a blurb on the back about how my contribution has helped the St. Something organization care for the community. The message isn't overly religious, but definitely has some sort of churchy association.

Today was my first day back at my desk since leaving on vacation, and while reorganizing all my desktop stuff I realized that someone had taken down my little bell and added a sticky note that read "c'mon, be reasonable, God doesn't exist!" and left this on the middle of my desk. This instantly made me unhappy, but it took a good 30 minutes or so of back-of-the-mind thinking to find that I was really angry about it. What kind of person does such a thing? Who goes snooping around someone's cube when they're not home, touching and moving their stuff, and then leaving an anonymous note with their unasked-for commentary? The note ended up with my manager, as I ranted in a fairly controlled manner about the inflammatory nature of this cowardly, presumptuous note.

I asked around a bit, thinking that perhaps someone who knows me was just joshing around, but I soon realized that the people who know me well enough to joke would know better than to do such a thing.

I'm not angry with the stealthy note-writing atheist for being an atheist, I'm angry with them for being a passive aggressive loser, for touching my stuff and for getting me to fall for such juvenile attempt to get my goat :P Not sure what else I can do except hang up the bell again.

I never realized this before

but I think smoking helped me get off my bum and do something else once in a while.

Now that I'm back at home (and not yet back to work) I'm finding myself at times just standing around wondering what to do now. A smoke break used to force me out onto the porch to look around and collect my thoughts. I think Byron is quite vehemently opposed to substituting chocolate for smokes, so I'll have to think of some other way of addressing this.

a new year, 7 days in the sun and $30 in my pocket!

hooray, it's a new year! Byron, Frank, Anne and I have just returned from a well-earned week in Montego Bay. Byron and I logged about 40 hours in the water, futzing around with our new snorkels and also managed to get a good amount of vitamin D and some pretty hearty meals as well.

Byron and I had also decided to quit smoking on this trip, and had our last cigarettes over a week ago. We purchased Nicorette inhalers but they're not really a great substitute for smoking, so Byron's going cold turkey, while I'm using the inhaler to hold in my hand and wave around in a cigarette-like fashion every once in a while. The change of scenery and routine certainly was helpful in distracting us from our cravings; I did feel a little unstable and cried a fair bit for the first two days or so, but a steady diet of cakes, watermelon, frequent naps and plenty of paddling around the coral reefs soon had me feeling better :)

During the flight home, I figured that I've already saved about $30 that would normally have gone towards smokes during the week. Over the course of the next year, that could either be a nice bonus chunk to stick on the mortgage, or a nice getaway next winter. I'll keep this in mind when battling the cravings that are bound to plague me over the next while.

While I'm busy patting myself on the back about being smoke free for over a week, I'd also like to brag shamelessly about my tooth flossing: I've flossed before bed for 399 of the past 401 days, hooray for me! This impresses no one but myself and my hygienist, but I just had to get it out there. :D