Oh Man! Gotta start out with the latest from Upscale Mayberry:

Bigsby’s are moving. Which means that the unofficial slot for community black sheep candidate is gonna be open. All the divorcees have mostly left and now it’s gonna be me or maybe Brandi Sheridan. Remember her? Slutty hairdresser with kids a little older than ours whose claim to fame is having taken every Hampshire bartender for a mustache ride? Saul is adamant that he is not part of that pool. But he does have a mustache, so I remain suspect. God, I hope it’s Brandi and not me. I’m not nearly as interesting, right? My kids are smart, we try to stay under the radar, no one is getting caught giving bjs to the quarterback under the bleachers. We don’t vape (we rarely even light our gas start fireplace). So it can’t be us, right? The worst I get called (to my face) is the Private Benjamin of boy scouts or the Unibomber when shopping therefore. That cannot possibly be grounds for townie. I’m dying to get OUT Of this town, not make my dog pissing on the fire hydrant long haul mark on it.

Packing for a work trip to your old stomping grounds: Hello Big Apple! It’s a fly-in, fly-out. Makes for a long day, but so long as that awesome thing keeps happening to my checking account every other Friday, I’m game. I always pack at least two good pens, a new legal pad, phone, charger, laptop, glasses and swimsuit. The last two in case I get stuck. And yes, that swimsuit has saved me on more trips than I can recall: you can fly home commando but you cannot enjoy the hot tub if bad weather moves in and you’re at the hotel for the night with just your work suit and your birthday suit. Plus it’s backup underpants.

Colin’s mom hanging at your house again? Please tell me she made your crew more of the matching bedazzled cat sweatshirts. Those are awesome – you can start a new trend!

Hey, you asked me if I needed religion more when my dad died during the last time we spoke. I didn’t get to answer because we then got waylaid by whatever child catastrophe had hit that moment (kids do that: you try to get serious and then you gotta divert; you finally divert to fun and then something happens that you gotta get serious. As long as the diverts don’t involve casts and are squabbles over who gets to wear which jersey or why you’re a bad mom for not doing laundry 14x a day, it’s a win. This is why the wine industry is BOOMING). Anyhow. I have now taken some legit time to think about that, so here goes (fast forward to the end of the page if you do not want my two cents on doxology):

Yes and no.

Losing a parent as a teenager did not draw me closer to religion; but it did make me analyze big picture life in a way that made me more appreciate it. I didn’t take on a death wish. I didn’t feel the need to become something greater than myself. But it sure put reality in check.

The upside is I never had to see him grow old. He is always going to be a guy with a smile in his 40s to me. The downside is, I never got to see him grow old. And he never got to see me grow old. Or older. Trauma does that: it strips you of the goodbye. But the blessing is that I learned an important lesson earlier than most: a life well lived didn’t have to be long-lived.

I’ve given up on much of the religion in which I was raised, but I haven’t given up on Hope. Growing up I could be out as late as I wanted, but was expected to be in a pew, in a skirt, awake and listening to the 8:30am service. Here’s the Stormy Dale thoughts on God:

• I believe in an intelligent agent: something kick started it all. Call it God. Call it Science.
• I believe there was a Jesus, but that those stories would change if the world got a restart. Science would still play out and evolve all the same. Did Jesus turn water into wine? Let’s hope that superpower exists. Was he a prophet? Sure. As for the rest – who knows.
• I believe in Heaven. Absolutely. Jury’s still out on what Hell afterlife (which sounds like the name of a video game) means.
• I believe the energy of US goes somewhere; that it reconnects and reinvents and that we get to see those we love again. In what capacity, Lord only knows (pun intended).
• I don’t believe “God” is good or bad. A good God doesn’t give kids cancer. And since we are supposedly “all god’s children”, that means you and every other GPU (“Good Person Unfortunate”) that has been on the receiving end of that or any other awful diagnosis.
• A good God doesn’t give people more than they can handle. A good God doesn’t punish his own supporters. A good God would know those limits.
• A good God doesn’t let people be assholes who hurt other people and then call it free will. And then expect the victims to issue blanket forgiveness. Why we hold business managers to a higher standard while the omniscient Good God gets a “by week” on all things bad under the things we are too mortal to understand excuse is a conundrum. Marx ignorance of the masses was partially right: being manipulated into believing that it’s okay to be crapped on because things get better when you die is bullshit.
• Of course Heaven exists (repeat of above but bears further discussion). Not because we cannot imagine the universe without some super existential version of ourselves, but Science says so. How? Because we are more than the sum of our parts. Neurons don’t have personalities, but people do. Each individual one of us takes the mass of cells and electrons morphed in a uterus provided to us and brings forth an actual Soul into the world; a specific unique persona. That’s more than dust to dust worm food energy.
• I respect the Pope – even if most of his predecessors were mobsters: and we probably need religion to keep people in check, some need that structure to do good or to get through the day feeling somehow superior to others for believing in a faith based deity. But the same individual humanity that gives me more than mere hope, but an actual staunch belief in the after life, is the same flawed humanity that makes life here tough to go all in odds on any religion. Each religions version of papal abuses have been too many; maybe pure religion existed once, if so, we humans did our human thing and sent it the way of the selfishly irresponsible urban sprawl. Like the coyotes run out of the overdeveloped prairielands they once called home and flourished, elements of true religion exist but they’re struggling to not get taken out by the idiots driving too fast on the road behind my wooded lot.
• I believe in evolution: Genesis doesn’t say how long a god day was: a god day could be millenia from which the seas were created, in which the fish crawled out on land and became man, spare rib female genetic mutation for Eve and all.
• I believe that anything that makes me people nicer, inclusive, loving, supportive is generally good.
• I believe having a greater power to thank, to ask, to try to channel positive energy through prayer or meditation or just thoughts that calm you down is a necessary element to all humility.
• And believing in a higher power is crucial because believing there’s something far bigger out there, maybe not pulling the strings but giving some sort of definition to the process, means there is always always always Hope, which is the greatest aspiration we can be for others. God means hope. And so the Hope part of god is good – very very good.
• Lastly, I could be wrong. All wrong. On all of it. Call me a religious realist.

Anyhow, you know how emotive I get. And I’m not sure I’m well equipped to handle serious asks like this, but you did ask (careful what you ask for) and the peanut gallery has now responded.

Hope you’re feeling better. Don’t be afraid of the chemocurl. Although we are so gonna have to face time if we don’t get together soon as I do not believe your fear of having head pubes will find fruition. Maybe you will luck out and it will come in blonde! Which is why I’m sending you a blonde joke book – because having lived your life as a brunette, this could be your saving grace tutorial and will prepare you in case the awesomeness of fairhair strikes your noggin.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy