Birds and Thirds: "You say it's a good thing // that you float in the air // that way there's no way I will crush your pretty toenails // into a thousand pieces." -Weezer "Only in Dreams"

DISCLAIMER: I love people. And America. But I also hate some American people. If you know me, you know I'm a gentleman and a scholar unless I'm not. In which case, I'm not. If you can't handle this public/private, utterly contradictory existence here at B&T, please STFU and GTFO.

It's hard to not think of Jesus here. He's damn well everywhere.

Shown strung up and bleeding, his crown biting holes in his forehead. Suggested in the empty crosses that tower over church parking lots. His name is spoken on the radio and etched on the water towers. He's on everyone's lips. He's on everyone's bumper. There's a trucking company with big bold letters on their mammoth eighteen-wheelers, "JESUS CHRIST. HE IS LORD, NOT A CURSE WORD."

From where I sit, I could practically spit on the gates of the Yearning For Zion Ranch.

I arrived in Eldorado in the rain and almost dark of storm clouds. If your mind drifted while passing, you might miss it. But people live here. Real people with real thoughts. Real feelings. I often disagree with those thoughts, and they no doubt disagree with mine. But we have them. Our existence is authenticated by them.

Who am I to blow into town and judge anybody?

So here I go.

The Christian radio has been…of interest. Today, they told me that Pat Robertson wants to decriminalize marijuana. Yes. Pat Motherfucking Robertson. The televangelist.

He's a self-proclaimed "hero of the hippies" for this stance, though it's primarily an economic interest. The war on drugs is costing the taxpayer too much, he says. Of course, he continues, he's never tried it and does not advocate trying it, but he's just appalled at the young people clogging our prison system and being turned into hardened criminals while doing time for minor possession.

Right on, Pat. That's huge.

He doesn't tell the whole story, I don't think. It's also more innocuous than alcohol. It's also not the only drug that should be viewed this way. It also has medicinal applications in proper dosage. It could also be MAKING the country money as opposed to costing it. It also reveals an antiquated way our country looks at things. But hey, it's a start. And he did hit the big one. We're making criminals of ordinary people.

The Christian mission too, continues doing good work in other countries, drilling wells and promoting access to nutrition. But with your water and food, you have to swallow Jesus. That's the part that I always choke on.

"We're with you, because God is with us," they say.

The host continued, "The Lord knows how you hurt. He knows how you struggle. Hey, he even knows how much you weigh, but Bless Him, he doesn't tell anyone." The opening chords of an uplifting ballad hummed though my speakers.

God. It would be so simple. It would be such a relief.

But the ill and delusion that comes along with it all. The ignorance and misogyny and violence and just stupid bullshit that seems to nip at the heels of faith is all too substantial to ignore. I don't believe in Ghosts, and the allegory has become reality for too many.

It would be a comfort though, to imagine oneself as never alone.

When I sleep, I dream of a slight figure pressed against me. Her small hand is clasped under mine and our breathing falls into a rhythm, then gradually syncopates and falls out of time, the way sounds do when one is faster. I idealize her, of course. She's perfect. Perfect in a way no one could ever be. In a way that would, in reality, be fucking annoying. But I miss the imperfections of reality, too - the cold and the huddling for warmth against it, the slow ripples of too much to drink, the knowledge that time is short and would be over all too soon. I miss that even.

There's no love. It's just neurons misfiring. But when she really was, so recently and briefly, pressed against me, a feeling swept me that sweeps me still when it creeps into my mind without invitation. And that is a feeling I chase.

When I wake, I keep my eyes shut a few seconds more to savor the other world, then reach over to feel the space where my mind placed her, vacant.

It all comes back then - the cold of a winter dawn in Texas and the rush of the world and my place in it. Alone with myself, one more day at least. And that's ok. Some things are so exquisite as to be worth waiting for - or even worth knowing and never having.