Spring bit the UPS man's pants last week. I tried to tell him to stay on the stairs, do not come up the stairs, but I think he was trying to be nice. And his pants got bitten. I'm very happy to have an invisible fence, but am discovering that a lack of signage to acknowledge said fence leaves an element of mystery for anyone visiting the house. They may think, "Well, the dogs are outside with no fence! Must be happy, friendly dogs!"
They'd be wrong.
To distract me from my horror at my dog's miserable behavior (which I am endeavoring to correct) I decided to sing a fence song.
Oh, give me land, lotsa land, under starry skies above.
Don't fence me in.
I think Spring would sing that song if she had a penchant for singing. That's left to Sprocket. Sprocket speaks in tongues, though, so she wouldn't sing that song either.
Speaking of speaking in tongues, I saw Hell House tonight. It's a documentary about a Pentecostal church in Texas that does a "haunted house" each year at Halloween time. The wacky twist is that instead of creepy, spooky, un-namable stuff, you see school shootings re-enacted. Domestic violence and incest. A gay man dies of AIDS. You see the results of going to a rave, taking drugs without knowing it, being date-raped, figuring out that the repercussions of that evening's events are so severe that a young woman screams, "What kind of God are you?!" at a picture of Jesus and then slits her wrists. And in the meantime, a Grim Reaper character is wandering around being the devil on the shoulder.
Shockingly, the documentary is completely balanced. At least it seemed that way to me. There were things that I felt the urge to snicker about. I generally gave in to those urges. Yet, it was really hard for me to chalk up their behavior to complete idiocy. And I really wanted to. I hate that. I want to be just as prejudiced and ugly as the people I'm preparing to meet, and then I discover that the prejudice isn't necessarily ugly. They really think they're saving me from eternal damnation. They really do! (I'm waiting for a personal letter informing me of my position on the list of folks to be eternally damned.) And it's kind of obvious that the prejudice thing, the one that I firmly grasp and hang on to, isn't one that's of a right or wrong nature. There are different questions being asked and answered. It's a bit like jousting, but the riders have their lances on the wrong side so no one can do any real damage except to try to push them off the horse.
And here's a tip from me to you:if you're on a moving horse, don't try to push anyone off of theirs. You're going to fall down.
As usual, I'm struggling with how to make my gut feelings match up with my thoughts. I think the problem is that they're so far apart. Brains at the top wanting to be in charge; guts in my belly warning of gastric distress should they be ignored.
Don't fence me in.
Posted by dotty at December 12, 2004 11:22 PM