Cracked a bottle against the side of the ship.
Evidently, you christen things–claim them for Christ–by breaking a bottle of alcohol against them. (This is never, ever, ever to be confused with a baptism.) While I’m not an avid reader of the Bible, I don’t seem to remember a passage in the waiting room kiddie-Bibles in which Jesus went among the people, liberally smacking them with amphoras of mead and pronouncing them saved.
(That’s good, Bilal. Start your journal with wry religious examination. See if the Pope ever talks to YOU again.)
I used to keep a written journal, years and years ago, in the style of dialogue. Rather than write letters to the journal (Dear Diary, etcetera), or simply compose private essays, my journal talked back.
Example:
Me: I’m depressed.
Journal: Why?
Me: Because I’m in high school.
Journal: Ah.
Of course, what I’m not mentioning is that I used to talk back in three different voices.
Example 2:
Me: I’m depressed.
Journal 1: Why?
Journal 2: Oh, good. This bit again.
Journal 3: Leave him alone.
Journal 2: I will NOT. This bastard keeps whining to us about his bloodydamn depression like we don’t have other places to be.
Me: Well, you don’t, really.
Journal 1: What’s bothering you?
Journal 2: Lemme guess. You’re in high school?
Me: Er. Yes.
Journal 2: Fucking typical.
I stopped keeping journals after about two years of this. And now I’m trying again. Why not? Perhaps what stopped me the first time was the knowledge that I could easily guard the old one from prying eyes. But realistically, many of us who keep journals want them to be read by another soul. We pretend otherwise, but deep down, most of us want these things in the mind of another.
So, thanks to this place for promoting such honesty.
At some point, I should get into personal stuff, then. But not today. Tomorrow, perhaps.
Hello to John, who directed me to this place through his own intriguing musings in his journal.
Creative Control 