"Living is a pretty grim joke, but a joke just the same."* OR "The universe may not always play fair, but at least it's got a hell of a sense of humor."**

   Over the weekend I thought of a really great idea for a sexy, smart, new sitcom for the younger set. It’s about four fun, plucky gals living in Los Angeles and dealing with dating and men and life and careers. But what makes my show different and relevant in today’s fast-paced world is that they’re also Scientologists.

   Okay, I’m just brainstorming here, but I feel like this is exciting. I’m guessing date nights for the gal pals and their men could include “acting workshops” at the Celebrity Center and couples' auditing sessions. The girls could drink cocktails and discuss who has achieved the highest Thetan level. For jobs, they could all belong to Sea Org and stress out over projects having to do with membership training and ecclesiastical development. They would simultaneously be working off their one billion dollar contracts with the Church, so that could also be a source of drama. But they wouldn’t have to worry about rent or food because that’s included with their jobs. So it wouldn’t be like that time on Sex and the City where Carrie worried about how to buy her apartment when it went co-op and Aiden moved out. Or like that time when Charlotte couldn’t find a paying job after her divorce from Trey. They’d always have jobs and a place to live. But, oh crap: Miranda couldn’t belong to Sea Org because you have to give up membership if you decide to have children. Oh well. She could still be a lawyer, then. Wait, this is a new show! None of them have to be the characters from Sex and the City. They can be whoever I want them to be.

   But…if we were to imagine that it was like Sex in the City, this is how the billboards would look:

That's the official Scientology logo up there. NOT easy to draw. But it looks really snazzy, so I'm glad I made the extra effort.

   The fact that they all have to wear naval-looking uniforms to work would really change things up a bit. They wouldn’t get to explore their fashionable sides quite as much. But I have visions of each of them tailoring their outfits to their individual tastes (I've made Samantha's very low-cut, for instance). Sort of like that part in Troop Beverly Hills when Phyllis makes her troop leader uniforms look elegant and fabulous. Or when Molly Ringwald destroys Annie Pott's beautiful prom dress to make it her own because she's a "fashion designer" in (Not So) Pretty in Pink.

   There's a lot you could do with this premise. I'm tired now so I can't write any more about it. But there's a small chance I'll tack some cool, hip ideas onto this post at a later point in time.

   'Night 'night.

*This first quote is L. Ron Hubbard.

**And the second is something Carrie says on Sex and the City.

"Like sands through the hourglass, so go the days of our lives."*

    Do you think Katie Holmes read my post about Scientology and that’s why she’s leaving Tom Cruise? Because I do.

    I am pretty convinced that I scared the shit out of her and now she’s running for the hills (one year short of the 7-year mark which, reportedly, would have netted her a HUGE chunk of change from their alleged “marriage contract”).

A marriage I thought would never end.

    Okay, so here’s the thing: she’s claiming (or news sources are claiming for her) that she’s wicked scared of Scientology and doesn’t want her daughter raised in the church. BUT, as my dad pointed out, “You can’t marry Tom Cruise and not know there’s some weirdness going on with him and the Church of Scientology.” True, Dad. Very true.

    And I’m going to stop talking about it, but first a quote from US Weekly (my favorite news source): “Suri was fed a mix of barley water, milk and corn syrup, which Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard believed was healthier than formula.”

    Yum! Seriously, sign me up for Scientology!
 
    [Brief aside: is this what Jane and Michael were talking about in Mary Poppins? Remember their "The Perfect Nanny" song? They sing, "And never smell of barley water?" Kids must know it's bad from a very young age. I'm not sure, because my parents never made me drink it. I thought it was just some lame turn-of-the-nineteenth-century British crap. But apparently it's a real menace to the children of Scientology.]

    Okay, so I’m babbling about a few different things here today.

    The other thing I’d like to discuss is how I recently realized the futility of recycling glass. Omaha recycling crews have stopped accepting glass and I was kind of confused about it. But, as has been pointed out to me before by both Gabe and my dad, glass comes from sand, so it’s not a precious and/or limited commodity. In addition, it takes more energy to recycle glass than to make new glass. Okay.

    Then I thought, “Well, aren’t the homeless still getting money for recycling glass bottles?” So…it turns out that’s still a thing in California, BUT it only counts for very specific types of glass. For instance, wine, milk, and distilled spirits: they don’t give you money for those bottles (though who the hell is still getting milk in glass bottles?). I guess they only want those groovy, vintage Coke bottles or your beer bottles. I don’t drink either of those beverages. So, I guess I'll stop putting what bottles I do have (the wine kind) in the recycle.

    But what if, in a couple thousand years, the people of the future discover that sand is a precious natural resource and they start using it for fuel or food or exfoliating? What if, in the year 6743 C.E., they realize that they’re RUNNING OUT OF SAND?

    Personally, I hate sand. It always manages to get into places where it’s least desired (e.g. my shoes and underpants), it clogs up the drain when you try to rinse it off, and it makes me feel like my entire body is one big fingernail being scratched against a chalkboard. It’s kind of gross, actually. So I don’t care if my descendAnts** (and let’s face it: I probably won’t have any descendants, so this is all pretty moot) don’t have any sand to turn into glass. They can go check out the Pyramids of Egypt on a nicely laid asphalt or Astroturf floor, or visit the ocean by flying their hovercrafts right on up to the water. No sand in their gears, no sand in their shoes, no sand mysteriously coming out of their hair four days later. Win-win.

Remember how fun the desert was in Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)? Sand sand everywhere but not a drop to drink. Or any shade of any kind. Also the outfits weren't flattering at all.

    What’s so great about glass? I thought really hard about it, and could only come up with a few things: wine, liquor and beer bottles; it's microwave safe; fake diamonds (which are decidedly cheaper than the real ones); glass-blown or –fused art; windows; and glass slippers like Cinderella had (those where pretty rad, though I’m guessing they were also SUPER uncomfortable). Other than that, I don’t see why we need it so badly.

Meaningful because an hourglass has both sand AND glass: it's symbolic of the cyclical nature of life. Get it? It's kind of deep.

    So, I’m not going to beat myself up about recycling glass anymore. Future generations may figure out a way to use it as a pretentious culinary ingredient or a replacement for blood, but my generation thinks of it as an epic movie backdrop or a way to lie on the ground in public without anyone judging you. And I won’t be around to feel sorry for the future generations, so no big whoop.

   And maybe Katie and Tom can take solace in the metaphor of sand and glass and whatnot. Katie: you're welcome.

*Quote is the epic title phrase from Days of Our Lives (1965-Eternity? No, actually, it's ending this year. 1965-2012. Bummer.). I think Socrates might have also said this in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989), though perhaps not in real life.
**When I originally posted this, I spelled "descendants" wrong. But no one called me on it. I am of two minds about this: 1. God love you all for overlooking my heinous spelling. 2. Please, bitches, tell me when I spell something wrong! Seriously! You know I can't spell!

"What's better than telling people a stupid story and having them believe it? Having them pay you for it, stupid!"*

    Every now and then I feel like I’m a naïve, little mid-western girl living in a great, big, sprawling metropolis. On these occasions I feel like I would give my left ovary (or both ovaries—who needs ‘em?) to walk across the street from my parents’ house in Omaha to Memorial Park and just lay down under a big old fir tree and think about nothing (not that I ever did that when I lived in Omaha. At least not between the months of September and June). Or drive all the way across town in under 20 minutes to hang out with a friend who lives on the “West Side.” Or drink a glass of wine downtown by myself and not have anyone use my aloneness as an opportunity to ask me to contribute to their film, play, charity or gas fund.

    Sometimes I get bogged down in traffic and smog and noise and I start to think maybe Los Angeles has it in for me. Why would they make it so hard to get places if they weren’t hoping you would just pack up and leave one day?

    But today I had great luck all over town. I got where I needed to be in a (relatively) timely fashion and didn’t contend with (too much) unnecessary road construction. So I was feeling pretty great when I got to my apartment and checked my mailbox.

    And I felt even better when I found this:

    What can I do about it? Seriously, what?!??

    Luckily the answer was right on the opposite page:

I can join the Church of Scientology!

    Scientology is the answer!

    For those of you who don’t know much about Scientology, let me give you some background. L. Ron Hubbard (the “L” stands for “Lafayette”) was, humorously (ironically? Coincidentally?) enough, from Nebraska. Tilden, NE, to be exact.** Check it out!

Looks fun!

    After he failed out of George Washington University in his second year, he started writing penny-a-word pulp fiction. He joined the Navy during WWII, but never saw combat and ended up in treatment in Oakland, CA, for ulcers. He made his way to Pasadena, later saying that he’d suffered from blindness and crippling ailments, which he was able to overcome with the techniques he eventually espoused in Dianetics. I’m a firm believer that when you have a make-believe problem you can make-believe a solution. So I back him 100%.

   Anywho, he ended up working as an assistant to John Whiteside Parsons, a person of some renown (read: money and connections) in Pasadena society and a co-founder of Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Parsons was a disciple of Aleister Crowley, a famed occultist. And most likely the subject of his very own post one day because check him out:

Yikes.

   And who knows what happened from there? But if you want to read more about it, check out this Rolling Stone article.

   Here’s the part you really need to know. The basic premise upon which this "religion" is founded:

   “These materials, which the Church of Scientology has long struggled to keep secret, were published online by a former member in 1995 and have been widely circulated in the mainstream media, ranging from The New York Times to last year's South Park episode. They assert that 75 million years ago, an evil galactic warlord named Xenu controlled seventy-six planets in this corner of the galaxy, each of which was severely overpopulated. To solve this problem, Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings and then flew them to Earth, where they were dumped into volcanoes around the globe and vaporized with bombs. This scattered their radioactive souls, or thetans, until they were caught in electronic traps set up around the atmosphere and "implanted" with a number of false ideas -- including the concepts of God, Christ and organized religion. Scientologists later learn that many of these entities attached themselves to human beings, where they remain to this day, creating not just the root of all of our emotional and physical problems but the root of all problems of the modern world. “**

South Park's take on Scientology's Lord Xenu. (Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 2005)

    So obviously, Scientology came to my mailbox at the perfect time. I’m clearly stressed out and in need of some sort of spiritual component in my life. This sounds like a reasonable and perfect opportunity to get all my higher-plane shit together!

    I know, I’m being sarcastic and nasty. So I’ll be fair(ish). The whole Jesus Christ and the miracles (or similar elements found in Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism) aren’t entirely believable either. But at least, as far as I know, none of these religions require a hefty fee for the privilege of participating (we’re talking a starting rate of $750 for an “auditing” session in which they read your Thetan level--with what can only be described as a version of the hyper-color t-shirt in machine form--and determine your next course of action). That being said, if the Scientologists are willing to make me into the next Tom Cruise or John Travolta, I say “Sign me up!” I’d just rather pay after the fact. You know, like an agent fee. I really don’t want to pay up front.

    When I moved to LA 12 years ago, my mom was angst-ridden about the potential for me to be “brainwashed” by the Scientologists. I laughed at the time and asked her if she’d ever met me before. First of all, I’m not a huge fan of religion for myself (or in general) because I'm incredibly lazy and would rather sleep than worship and second of all, did she think I could afford Scientology?

    Then, while I was living in this really cute part of Los Feliz, they opened another Church of Scientology right next to this gelato place I really liked. And the cute little accolades would stand outside waiting for loners to walk by--preferably loners that were eating their weight in expensive ice cream. And then I started to get a little nervous.

Right behind that Mission Los Feliz sign is my gelato joint.

    Here, it looks like this:

Doing the Lord's true work. (Photo)

    But now I think, what’s the worst that could happen? So I join a cult: big deal! At least it’s not one of those hippie-dippy cults where they make you wear sandals and live in a dirty commune in the middle of nowhere and drink the Kool-Aid at the end. This cult has a castle with restaurants and movie stars! Look:

Seriously, where do I sign?

    But don't worry, Mom. I'm not joining up. I still can't afford it.

*South Park. "Trapped in the Closet." (Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 2005).

**Janet Reitman for Rolling Stone Magazine. "Inside Scientology: Unlocking the Complex Code of America's Most Mysterious Religion." February 23, 2006.