January is the worst month.

It’s also the month for consumption.

The coldness, initially a welcome relief from allergies, has now gone on too long. And the freshly fallen December snows have crushed underfoot. Sure, it might snow in January, but instead of a gentle blanket on everything, it will be a whitewashed covering of grimy ice crusts and rock-hard drifts. In December, at least, I spend the first 20-odd days of the month looking forward to the plant shutdown, when my good days – and I count as a good day any day that I don’t have to get in a car – will hopefully outpace the bad. But in January…no. I mean, I don’t have to go to work today, obviously, but now I’m at the point during my break where I just keep thinking about the break ending. Maybe I should go to bed earlier, I think, so that I get back on schedule. Maybe I should put away the project that I know I won’t complete.

Actually, the year felt like it started last night. The five of us went to the Jayne’s house; they have a New Year’s Eve party annually. On account of sickness, we didn’t go last year, but this is our fifth time attended. We have yet to stay until midnight. Last night, with a record-high attendance, and half the attendees inexplicably standing around in the kitchen, and with some poor man’s Dick Clark blaring from the TV regurgitating clichés and showing off the worst that pop music has to offer, we only stayed until 9:45. We’re not really partiers.

Anyway, on the way there, I asked Jennifer, “So, do you have any resolutions, or goals, for 2017?” I had to say it in an overly-dorky manner, since we don’t really makes resolutions – they’re as artificial as Hallmark cards for Hallmark holidays – and I had to add in the synonym “goals,” since Jehovah’s Witnesses think new year’s resolutions are “worldly,” and thus “bad,” yet they encourage goals, which are the same thing. We’re not Witnesses, obviously, otherwise we wouldn’t be attending a New Year’s Eve party – especially not one hosted by a Minnesota Atheists board member – but I made the resolution-goal joke because it reinforced the silliness of using December 31^st as a day to make goals simply because it’s the last day on the calendar.

Jennifer reminded me that her primary resolution is to completely organize and back-up our photos and videos. This was our goal for 2016 as well, but it didn’t pan out. So she’s set it up as a goal for 2017. Then I mentioned the goal of installing a fence for our yard. Then she mentioned Disney World. Then I mentioned graduating from college, and then she noted that that’s not so much a goal as just something that’s going to happen. “Like have a goal of turning 42?” I said. She laughed. “Yeah, like that. It’s just going to happen no matter what we do.”

Well, graduating from college isn’t quite as inevitable as surviving until my next birthday, but I get what she’s saying.

I didn’t say this to Jennifer, but another inevitability has to deal with my Grandfather’s death. From my sister Diane, I’ve learned that he’s only marginally healthy right now. In September, she told me he only had a few days to live, and I said it would be sad if he died on our grandmother’s birthday, which is on September 19^th. Despite being Jehovah’s Witnesses – Witnesses don’t celebrate their birthdays – I agree, it would be sad to lose your husband on your birthday. But he had a couple operations, and they sent him home from the hospital in late September to die in peace with his family. Diane had plans to visit Florida soon after, and she worried he would die before she got down there. But, even with a flight delay due to a hurricane, she still got down there and visited with him for, presumably, the last time. He was still alive on the fifteenth of December, which marks my grandparents’ 70^th wedding anniversary. Witnesses do celebrate their anniversaries, though I don’t know if my grandparents were well enough to do anything special for that milestone. Nobody would tell me, anyway. Regardless, he’s still alive. Now I’m wondering if he’ll make it to his ninetieth birthday, which is in April. More than that, I wonder if I’ll go to his funeral. Or “memorial service.” Whatever it is Witnesses call funerals.

 

The least noble item on my Ultimate To-Do list (the list most people call their “Bucket List,” an appellation I despise) is: Read a Smutty Romance Novel.

Last week, I fulfilled that laughable life-long goal. I read Wedded, Bedded Betrayed.

Before you judge me, let me explain. Then, by all means, please judge me. Label me, too. I don’t care.

For over two years, when I was a high-school student, I worked at the public library as a shelver. That meant I took books that were returned, organized them onto a cart, then wheeled the cart out to the shelves and placed the books back in their proper places. The paperback fiction section had its own room and, besides segregating by age group, the books were also separated by genre. The romance section was the largest section, and the majority of the books had a certain uniformity to them. They were just under 200 pages, white and red dominated the covers, and a photo on the cover was usually framed inside a circle or oval and depicted a heterosexual couple just moments away from ripping off each other’s clothing. Lots of skin – the man was often shirtless, and the woman’s dress/skirt/gown featured a slit that went practically to her waist. They were either on a bed, or foregrounded by fireworks, a medieval castle, or a luscious countryside. Their limbs were intertwined, with the racier images skillfully placing the limbs in such a way to cover revealed flesh that, had it been shown, would have landed the book in the porn section instead of the romance section. Nearly all were published by Harlequin Romance.

I loved putting these books back on the shelves. Not, as you might think, because I was a hormonal teenager who liked the pictures, but because they were so uniform in size (and dominated by a few authors) that putting them in order and dropping a half dozen onto the shelf at once was a very speedy, satisfying job.

They were also very popular. It was easy to fill a cart with nothing but romance novels, and there were always middle-aged women standing in the section gobbling up the books – ten at a time, in some cases.

I decided I just had to read one at some point in my life.

But like my insistence that I read A Christmas Carol in mid-December, I likewise had some stipulations. The book had to:

*Be the same size as the once I remembered from my shelver days

*Be published by Harlequin

*Feature a racy photo on the cover

*Have a hilarious title

*Be obtained from the public library

*Be read by me while on a vacation, preferably one featuring a beach

Okay, so on August 11th, I checked out Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed from my local library. From August 15th-17th, I read the book while on vacation at our family’s cabin on a lake. I read most of the book while sitting a few feet from the beach.

The cover wasn’t quite as racy as I had hoped. I wished that woman’s dress was unzipped, or that the guy’s shirt was off. I mean, look at them – you can sometimes see people embraced like that at a mall or a park. Still…it’s not exactly asexual.

The title, likewise, isn’t quite up to snuff. I was hoping for a book title consisting of a pun, such as Inside Her Heaven, or When He Comes, or The Long, Hard Voyage Around the Curves. Okay, I made up that last one. Still…this title did make me laugh.

More than that, I laughed at the other stuff on the cover.

First, notice the blurb directly under the title. It’s from Lynne Graham. Who the hell is she? I don’t know, but there’s also a call-out circle just below it informing me that “Lynne Graham Recommends” this book. Yeah, no shit – I see her blurb right above!

But there’s also more Lynne Graham. Check out the last page of the text:

Right after telling me that the author, Michelle Smart, has some other books I might like, the page then tells me to be sure not to miss Lynne Graham’s 100th book! A hundred books! Holy cow! Oh – and the book is available this month!

Okay, but back to the cover. Here’s the back:

“The man she loves to hate.” God, that’s great.

Here’s the plot: A multi-billionaire breaks into his adversary’s mansion to steal documents that will clear his name and implicate his adversary’s. On the way out, though, he spots Elena, who is gagged and handcuffed to a bed. He rescues her, realizes she’s the daughter or his foe, and says he won’t go public with the information he has just obtained if – and only if – she agrees to marry him, pretend she loves him, and has child.

This is difficult for her not just because she thinks he’s a criminal who hates her family, but also because, despite running the family’s auto business (the European section, at least), she’s been very sheltered. Unlike her four older brothers, she was homeschooled. She was never allowed to leave the mansion. And, though she’s in her mid-twenties, she’s a virgin.

Of course they fall in love.

By about the halfway point in the book, I wondered what, exactly, made this book different than, say A is for Alibi, a book I read in which Detective Milhone falls for a man who has an impressive “knot” between his legs (when she sees him in his briefs), and with whom she has good – not great – sex. Or what made it different than Angels and Demons, in which Professor Langdon ends his romp around Italy and the Vatican by having mind-blowing sex with a Yoga master.

Here’s the difference: The book never looks away from the sex. So often in books and movies, the couple kisses, they lie down in bed, and then we cut to the next scene. Or, maybe we read of them having sex, but were just told they did it (such as in the two examples above). In this book, in which the couple has sex at least four times, every details is provided. Elena’s train of thought – especially during her first experience – never ends. Even once they’re done, and she rolls over fully expecting him to fall asleep, we still follow her train of thought as she’s pleasantly surprise that he gently puts his arm on her waist and snuggles with her through the night.

A very corny, unbelievable story but – since I’ve also read The Old Man and the Sea and On the Road – certainly not the worst work of fiction I’ve ever sat through.

I’ve now moved “Read a Smutty Romance Novel” from the “Things I Want to Do” column to the “Things I’m Glad I’ve Done” column.

I don’t plan to read another Harlequin.

This week marks ten years since Jennifer and I left the Jehovah Witness religion. Of course, they would insist that their religion be called “Jehovah‘s Witnesses” and they wouldn’t like my use of the word “birthday,” claiming that “anniversary” is a better term in this case anyway. But fuck them.

Part of me thinks it’s hard to believe 10 years have gone by, but I suppose in looking at the changes since then, ten years seems right. At that time – back in 2006 – we owned a home in Big Lake and we had one child. Now we own a home in St. Paul, and we have three kids. And though I still work for the same company, I now work in a different department and have been promoted to a different job.

In the interim, I’m so glad to have had so much more time for things that really matter – leaving the religion has easily freed up an average of ten hours a week, which is sort of like getting an extra day every week! It’s meant more time to be with each other, and our kids, and to work on our house or at our jobs, and more time to just have fun.

Witnesses frequently pride themselves in how busy they are. They somehow make a connection that being busy equates to pleasing God. At the same time, they also point out how wonderful it is that they are “free” from all the stresses of non-Witnesses. They note that non-Witnesses are often busy with work, school, holidays, and other pursuits – and isn’t it great that we, as Witnesses, have “freedom” from those vain time-consumers? Several talks I heard while I was a Witness made mention of Witnesses’ freedom…

* from health-damaging habits (notably tattoos, smoking, and overdrinking – but also homosexuality and premarital sex, which can lead to AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, respectively)

*from money- and time-wasting ventures (notably gambling, but also over-indulgence in entertainment and holidays)

*from faith-weakening texts (notably books by former Witnesses and movies steeped in the supernatural)

*from mind-muddying studies (notably philosophy and biology)

Of course, what Witnesses are leaving out, and what I noticed even back when I was a teenager and a devout Witness, is that people don’t automatically do those things just because they are not Witnesses. And even if they do participate in one or more of these activities, they’re not necessarily indulging to the point of hazard. Really, then, what Witnesses term “freedom” is just forced obedience. Most rational people can see the health benefits in not smoking, for example, but for Witnesses, the choice is already made for them.

So, in the decade since leaving Witness-dom, I’ve noticed that they are right: many of the activities Witnesses forcibly avoid are unappealing or do cause stress. I’ve tried a few cigarettes and I’ve gambled at casinos…and they’re not for me.

Meanwhile, I really don’t care about most holidays. New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, and Independence Day can all just come and go for all I care. In fact, the only participation I do engage in with those holidays is due to my children – when Isla brought home construction paper cut-outs of hearts for Valentine’s Day, I thanked her and decorated with them. Birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, meanwhile, are more to my liking. But they are stressful, and I do spend a lot of time and energy preparing for and worrying about them.

With all the pros and cons of participating in all the activities that Witnesses won’t touch with a 144,000-foot pole, here’s the key difference: They’re not allowed. Doing any of the above things without remorse is enough to get a member evicted from the congregation. So, yeah, even though I don’t care for tattoos, cigarettes, or Valentine’s Day, I’m way happier living in a world where I can make those decisions myself. It’s also wonderful to not have to look down on others because they have chosen something different.

A few months after we left the Witnesses, Jennifer and I thought about which of our friends would be most likely to leave the religion. Of course, we wanted nearly all the Witnesses we knew to leave the religion. But we knew many of them never would. We also knew that many of them, even if they did leave, wouldn’t make much of a difference in our lives. Instead, we thought about who was most likely to leave, who would benefit the most from leaving, and whose exit from the Watchtower would cause us the most happiness.

We made a Top Ten list.

After ten years, I’m happy to report we were half right – 50% of the people on our list have subsequently left the religion.

Here’s to another ten years in the world and the hope that those other five friends leave!*

 

 

*Not that it would matter that much. Jennifer and I have observed that the religion bound us to people we might not otherwise have been compatible with. So, if they ever leave, maybe we’d just discover we don’t have much in common with them. We’ve also noticed that most of our friends who leave the religion contact us to catch up on old times, then quickly find a new circle of friends.

This past weekend, Owen and I went to the theater to see X-Men: Apocalypse at Carmike Cinema in Oakdale. The “showtime” was 7:10. When I purchased the tickets at 7:00, the employee at the box office informed me that I was plenty early since the film didn’t actually start until after 7:30. You know there’s gonna be a lot of ads when employees have taken to warning patrons about the wait!

So Owen and I first peeked into the theater and, seeing plenty of open seats, we decided to walk around a bit and see what else was playing. With 16 screens pretty much everything you’d want to see was there: both sequels and remakes!

But wanting to get a good seat, after about 5 minutes we moseyed back into the theater and took our place. I let Owen pick the seats. Then I sat down to watch the movie.

But before the movie started we were first treated to…
-A Netflix ad
-A hotels.com ad
-An informative segment telling us to locate the exits
-An ad for Ice Age 12: Even crappier than the other 11
-A trailer for Jason Bourne 12
-An American Express commercial, in which Tina Fey impulse buys thousands of dollars at a fitness store, to show that she’s just like a regular person
-An ad for The Runner
-An ad for King of Queens 2: Kevin Can Wait
-An ad for Extra Gum
-An ad inviting us if we’d like to meet new people and kill them (aka, “The Air Force”)
-A Taco Bell ad that’s somehow supposed to entice us with a steak taco for $1.49
-A commercial for Starburst
-An ad for No Man Left Behind
-A State Farm ad in which a kid is riding his bike down the street and, when he lets go of the handlebars, there’s a disclaimer at the bottom that says – I kid you not –  “do not attempt.”
-An ad for Mazda
-An ad for Verizon
-An ad for Geico
-An ad about the ads (which they call “Front + Center”)
-An ad for Chevy
-A reminder to find the exits, which was completely unnecessary since that’s all I’d been thinking about since the last exits reminder
-An ad reminding us that, while talking on our phones during a movie is obnoxious, using our phones to take pictures of the movie is illegal. Because even though talking in a movie is a bigger offense to most people, photographing the screen is a bigger offense to really rich people.
-An ad for Carmike Cinema…the very theater I was sitting in
-Another ad for Ice Age 12: The Squirrel and the Nut is Still Stupid
-An ad for The Secret Life of Pets (think Toy Story meets Bolt)
-An ad for The Suicide Squad
-Another ad for Jason Bourne
-An ad for Star Trek: The Search for Original Scripts
-An ad for Ghostbusters: Original, Evidently, Because Women
-An ad for Coca-Cola set to Queen’s “Under Pressure”
-An ad for Vitamin Water
-An ad for Carmike Cinema…the very cinema I have, by now, sworn to never attend again
-An ad for Coca-Cola which, I’m sure, raised the audience’s awareness of Coca-Cola by 0%
-And an blurb from the actress who plays Storm, telling us that lots of people are required to make movies.
…The movie probably started sometime after that, but it was getting late so we had to leave.

Just kidding. The flick finally commenced at 7:32. Or, at least, the Twentieth-Century Fox logo and an assortment of other financial contributors’ logos commenced.

I’m happy to announce that I am now a Return Visit! In case that makes no sense to you whatsoever, first, consider yourself lucky and, second, it’s a Jehovah’s Witness term. Basically, when Witnesses talk to people at their doors, if that person shows any interest in their message – and especially if that person agrees to take their publications – then the Witnesses write down the person’s name, address, and stuff like that, and then they come back a week or so later to talk again.

This particular man has actually stopped by at least twice since I first took his copy of The Watchtower but, both times, I was not home. Yesterday (Sunday morning), however, I was home. He was with another Witness and the three of us talked for about a half hour while Emmett played in the yard.

First, they handed me this magazine…

…then, they asked if I thought the bible was “just a good book.” I said no. Then he said, “Oh, so you think it’s more than just a good book?” Then I said, “No, I don’t even think it’s a good book.”

They asked why, and I listed off a lot of things – there are some very boring chunks, lots of it makes no sense, it contradicts itself in hundreds of places – but we ended up talking about one specific thing I don’t like about the bible: it contains lots of abhorrent violence.

The Witness told me that those disgusting acts of violence are in the bible to demonstrate how far humans have fallen from God. Then I corrected him and said, “No, I don’t mean the violence that humans just do to each other, I mean the violence – the rapes and murders – that God sanctions in the bible.”

At first, they didn’t really know what I meant, which makes me wonder if they’ve ever read the bible. They asked if I had anything specific in mind, so I mentioned both the Noachian Deluge and the wholesale destruction of the city of Sodom. I also mentioned the genocide in Canaan and the subjugation of women prisoners by “God’s People.”

Oddly, after listing off a few things, the other Witness opened her bible and red Isaiah 55:11, which says that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and so we don’t know the whole story. Then the man asked, “Don’t you think having a righteous, just ruler over all humanity is the best form of government?” I said, “No, I think the best form of government is that which allows all citizens to effect change, if that’s what they think is necessary.” I don’t think they really understood my answer, but then pointed out that the bible is really filled with lots of good things that help us appreciate the Creator. Then they mentioned sunsets and puppies as two things that show how beautiful and loving God is.

This was a really weird line of ‘reasoning,’ and I conceded that there are good things in the bible, and there is much beauty in the world. Nevertheless, I compared the god of the bible to several historical figures – I named off Thomas Jefferson, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King – as three people that undoubtedly did much good for the world, but were also so deeply flawed that I could write a 20-page paper just touching on things wherein I disagree with them. “Jefferson was far, far from perfect,” I said, “And so, even though I like a lot of his ideas, I could never worship him. It’s the same thing with the god of the bible. Even if we agree – for argument’s sake – that He does exist and the He has done good things, I could never love – much less worship! – Him.”

On the topic of creation, I told them they were being selective in their evidence. I said that if we look at puppies as a way to inform us about the Creator, we must also look at the ichneumon fly, which lays its eggs in the brains of other insects. Then, when those eggs hatch, the larvae eat their host from the inside out, careful to keep it alive as long as possible while it suffers a slow, paralytic death. Then I asked: “What does that tell you about the Creator?” Then, before they could answer, I added, “Then there’s also the mosquitoes who spread disease, animals that hunt other animals, and even some animals that kill and eat their own young.”

The woman then shared a scripture with me saying that, with God, all things are good. I started to say that using the New Testament to prove the Old Testament is a bit like using Empire Strikes Back to prove Return of the Jedi, but the man stepped in and told me that, ever since humans sinned, the world has spun out of control. “God is letting people do what they want to show how much they need God,” he said. He then noted that we have no way of knowing how this affects the animals. For example, since we hunt them, they need to defend themselves.

So I scrapped my Star Wars analogy and instead just stared at them for a few seconds. “Wait,” I said, “I’m not sure I follow you. You’re saying that because Adam and Eve sinned, that’s why some insects lay eggs inside the brains of other insects?”

“Possibly,” he said. “We just don’t know. We have to wait on Jehovah.”

“Okay,” I said, “I can understand that, if Adam and Eve didn’t want God, that God would say, ‘All right, just do what you want then,’ and that’s why we have murder and rape and war and pollution and child abuse…but I’m not sure I follow you that, because Adam and Eve sinned, we now have animals doing terrible things to each other. And what about earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis? Why are there birth defects? Why cancer?”

“Well, a number of those things are caused by humans. Like birth defects can be caused by leading an unhealthy lifestyle.”

“Yeah, but that only explains some of them. A lot are simply random. And, anyway, what about the other stuff?”

“Humans cause all that stuff.”

“Wait, what? What do humans do that cause earthquakes?”

He then spoke for about two minutes straight about how we don’t know what some corporations are doing. Some pollute the earth, clearly, and this leads to global warming – man’s fault, not God’s. I asked if they understood the difference between human-caused suffering (eg, rape) and randomly bad things that happen because we live in an environment almost completely hostile to us (eg, volcanoes). “Corporations,” he said.

“What possible corporation in ancient Egypt, 3,000 years ago, did something to the Earth that caused volcanoes?”

He said he didn’t know. We’d have to wait to find out.

“Maybe,” I said, giving them a huge benefit of doubt. “But in the meantime, why would I be drawn to worship someone who causes such things.”

They said God doesn’t cause those things, humans do.

“No,” I said, “I don’t see how humans caused floods and hurricanes and earthquakes – especially prior to the modern era.”

At about this time, a car pulled up and parked right in front of my yard. An older man got out and came over to us. I recognized him as the father-in-law of one of my (former) best friends and the sight of him made me nervous! I thought for sure he was going to pipe up and say, “This is James Zimmerman, he’s an apostate, let’s go.” But instead, he didn’t recognize me at all, and simply did the ol’ point-to-you-watch gesture to indicate they had to get going. I looked over at the car and saw three other Witnesses sitting in the back seat, but I couldn’t see well enough to identify anything about them.

Anyway, the man then said the bible speaks about an increase of earthquakes in the time of the end, which conveys exactly zero relevant information, but I followed that up with: “So then God is making those earthquakes, right? I mean, he knew they would happen – at least, if we agree that your bible is accurate – and he supposedly has the power to stop them. Yet he doesn’t. And innocent people die. Because God murdered them. Including babies.”

The women then said God only kills wicked people.

“No, that’s not true,” I said. “God killed almost every human on the planet in the time of the Great Flood, including children, babies, and fetuses. What did they do wrong?”

The woman then said that they could see I was a family man. She asked what my role in the family was. Then she asked if there were certain rules in our house, and if there are ramifications – discipline – for breaking the rules.

“Okay, I said, then let me ask you this: What possible rule could I have that, if my son (I pointed to Emmett) broke the rule, I would be justified in drowning him?”

The man said nothing, he just stared with his mouth agape. But the woman pointed out that I am responsible for my children, just as the adults in Noah’s day were responsible for their children. “And they chose not to get into the ark,” she said.

“Okay, then let me rephrase: What possible law could I break – against the State of Minnesota of the United States – that the government would be justified in drowning both me and my children?”

“Well,” said the man, jutting out his hand, “It’s been real nice talking to you. We appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us on this fine day, but we have to get going.”

I shook his hand.

Not sure if he’ll be back next week.