Two rosaries are hanging in my hallway. One was employed as a prop when I walked into the Catholic bookstore to begin my fake conversion. The other actually looks pretty nifty, it’s got wooden roses as beads and I can wear it as a fashion peace and pretend to do so un-ironically. Then there’s the plain wooden cross hanging on the wall above my bed. It’s just there. For show, I guess.

Funny story: I went through the “Rite of Welcoming” back in November. Pre-baptism hubbub. My very religious Catholic grandmother answered my invitation to attend this pointless ritual. She deserves her own post, so we’ll talk more about her later. Afterword, we had breakfast at a diner across the street from my apartment. That very apartment came up in the conversation, naturally, and I realized, to my horror, that in my haze of not giving a fuck before ten a.m. on a weekend, I had forgotten to stash away my alter. This is very obviously an alter, by the way. There’s a black book with a pentacle and candles and acorns and it doesn’t look innocent. I’m proud of myself for making an excuse awesome enough to validate ditching my grandmother and her boyfriend at this diner to run out to stuff the alter contents away better than you hid that porn you stole from your dad that one time. I even stuck some knickknacks on the otherwise awkward table and dashed back like a secret pagan super hero.

So proud of myself. End hubris.

First off, I’m ok with the gay. Secondly, stereotypes exist for a reason, and that reason sometimes makes me sad. I automatically disapprove of upholding a stereotype, but go out in the world and try not to. The second banana in this local church hierarchy is a pleasant enough guy. I’ve met him a handfull of times. He’s snarky… and sassy. He talks with his hands, rolls his eyes, speaks with a lisp, and someone told me, innocently, how he just loves pink. I still wonder if I’m the only one with a working gaydar.

I was far from saying anything about this guy being a potential child molestor, and actually hadn’t thought about it until one of my friends said something off color about it. Then my other friend bitch-slapped with both disappointment and stfu about how it is “traditional” to encourage (read- pressure) potentially homosexual members to join the clergy. The reasoning behind that is so, ideally, the celibacy and devotion to God would distract, if not cure, these “evil” intentions.

I can now see how so many sexually repressed homosexual child molestors end up in the non-news of church scandals. There’s no moral to this story. I just thought it was funny to see such a flamboyant old man in charge of a homophobic system. I will refer to him here on out as “Father Fabulous.” He also runs the RCIA program, so I’ll be seeing more of him.

Somehow, I had a plan. I would wander into the Catholic bookstore downtown and shly look at rosaries. The proprietor, about whom I had solid word was a friendly soul, would offer assistance. I would bat my big blue eyes and meekly explain that I’d like to know how to pray with it. A conversation would blossom, I would sell my aforementioned back story, and begin attending services. I would get baptized on April 1st and many lols would be had.

The first part of that worked like a charm. I even asked if Jesus would still be my friend if I had tattoos and divorces. I swear, I asked it just like that. This well-meaning woman earnestly answered all my questions with great sincerity that I privately, stoically brushed away, just like Momma taught me. She sure hated emotions, my Momma.

The second part was way off and much less fun, so much harder. I was actually just in time to start attending classes. Yes, convert classes. The program is called RCIA and involves three hours of my week be sacrificed to biting my tongue. I also try to make an appearance at Mass a few times a week.

There are so many rules and drills that go along with being a Catholic that lately it seems over whelming. It isn’t really though, I just ran out of coffee and enthusiasm for a little bit. I just have to show up, memorize a few things, and pretend to believe. They did give us this pop quiz the other week, though.

It’s Justin Beiber getting RoboCop’d. For 10 hours.

Yes.

You’re welcome.

My name is Cera Blake, and none of that is true. That’s just my cover story. In truth, I am a Pagan and strongly against organized religion. I do, however, have some free time. So I’m really going to blog about the mysterious inner workings of the church. I’m a philosophy major in a state university, single, tattoed, pierced, and opinionated. If I can keep my mouth shut and not mess up my back story until Easter, I will be baptized, and then I win at religion.

She wanted to know if I wanted to blog her story, for my “dirty, heathen website.” I agreed, because as she explained, she’s converting to Catholicism, but with no real intention of believing in it; it’s just a hoop she has to jump through to hopefully snag some scholarships.

“I’m undercover,” she sold me with a wink emoticon.

“Better yet,” I told her, “You can just blog about yourself and use a false name. I can set you up on my site.”

That’s the great thing about SuperFunAdventureTime. We have no sponsors to get upset, we host ourselves, and we’ve no real expenses. (Those aren’t real ads; Kyle just finds them aesthetically pleasing.) As a part to our continued commitment to excessive free speech, Cera has been made a regular contributing author. There’s nothing holding us back from saying whatever we want, and there’s nothing holding you (yes, YOU) from writing on here if you’ve got something to say.

“I think that would be pretty awesome. You would be surprised the things they talk and pray for in mass. It’s a different world in there.” she said.

“As a former Catholic, I know all too well,” I tell her. “Yeah, blog about what you see. Hold a mirror up to Catholics from an atheist-pagan perspective.”

That kind of melted her brain, because she, like 40% of the people I’ve met in the last five years, thought I wore yellow hats every day because of the mistaken belief that I’m an eccentric Hassidic Jew.

Also, apparently atheism and Wicca can go together in an internally-consistent way. This was news to me, I always though that atheism and Wicca would mix together as well as ice cream and mung.

“Wicca, it’s not very organized, so there’s no doctrine. Most Wiccans believe in a god and goddess, and some like to pick from various pantheons and collect them like PokeMon or something. I personally have more of a respect for the duality of nature and I enjoy the philosophies of Wicca. So no, I don’t believe in gods or magic.”

I tried selling her on Taoism, which I think is what she’s after, and got to work making her an account.

“I will definitely be all up in this for a while. My least favorite thing about Wicca is Wiccans,” said Cera.

Well, at least everyone can agree on something.

So, enjoy our new sub-blog, “Cera Blake — Undercover Witch.”

______________

*Actually a pseudonym.

The night was growing old. Mike was playing Return to Dark Castle; I was going on Wiki-walks. We were chatting politics, as we generally do, usually about the crazy Republicans and their horrid pasts. Michelle Bachmann popped up into the conversation, like she does.

So, we wiki’d her, and saw that Michelle Bachmann has been a keynote speaker for “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International,” which is apparently the Christian Spinal Tap. You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, or YCRBYCHI (no, seriously) is a ministry that goes into high schools and attempts to reaffirm “disappearing” Judeo-Christian values via the Christian rapcore/nu-metal band Junkyard Prophet. We could, and probably ought to write about them, but it’s a lot more effective to let them damn themselves by talking to you:

Junkyard Prophet (previously known as Reign of Kings) is the crux of their ministry and their primary media outler. Their leader, drummer, Bradlee Dean, is a de facto Tea Party advocate, with a “degree” from the Institute on the Constitution. He also has put together a movie entitled My War, which is apparently a documentary about many different facets of society as seen from Dean’s perspective. Fortunately, their ministry appears to have been contained to the Phantom Zone of reason which is the Midwest, and the deep South. Presumably the international part implies and only refers to the occasional jaunt into Canada, much like Erie International Airport.

You might also have noticed around 2:33 in the video, that this ministry is located in Real America, meaning Anandale, MN. Their headquarters is a storefront, next to the Pizza Works & Deli, across the street from a bowling alley, and around the corner from a Snooty Fox Adult store. So this neighborhood is surely one to be saved. Not to mention this is actually located within Rep. Bachmann’s Congressional District.

By their own running tally, they’ve performed 331 of their high school assemblies. This is one of their singles, “Betta Beware”

If this is truly their message, they should avoid the following:

-        Sean Hannity

-        Glenn Beck (actually, everyone should, in an abstract, general sense)

-        Fox & Friends

-        Infowars

-        Alex Jones

Because this group cannot heed their great advice, they have engaged the media. by recently, suing Rachel Maddow for defamation. The funny part is that the defamation suit can’t actually point out an act of defamation. You see, when there’s public information, and someone uses said public information negatively towards you, while citing it — that’s not “defamation” — that’s “news.” If Maddow claimed that YCRBYCH kills thousands of newborn children each day with their legions of invisible pink unicorns with laser-beam horns, that would be defamation*.

Bradlee Dean has been a guest on Alex Jones’ Infowars, and others shows that wish to support this right-wing patriot, who is trying to save America from its doom by endorsing the genocide of the LGBT community, noting that:

Our position is not libertarian because we cannot accept the idea that sex is a private language. But we are not authoritarian because we do not believe that persecution is going help homosexuals.

Okay, so that is kind of hateful towards GBLT individuals, but that’s not all!

Bradlee Dean is also a regular contributor of “Sons of Liberty,” an AM talk radio call-in show advocating a world where America is to defend itself from other governments to prevent the creation the New World Order.

So if these guys are using the media to put out their message, we figured that we might as well see what they have done on-line as well. To do this, Mike suggested using Klout scores**. Bradlee Dean has a klout score of 46, which, after some goofing around, was determined to be equal to the early-90’s monstrous balladeers, Nelson. Ryan still listens to some of their singles, even though he holds them accountable for the fall of hair metal.

“Really? I score better than Nelson — I mean, c’mon!” said  Mike, incredulous.

We kind of lost track of things for a while, wondering where they laid on the scale of influence. Then, we went one step further and compiled our findings into a table. We were kinda in the zone.

The point is, Michelle Bachmann is running for President of the United States. She has crazy friends, and that these skeletons will come out since she’s kind of out in the open. The fact she has not even made a press announcement about how she is going to distance herself is not surprising and should be taken as a note of merit for her background. Her silence speaks volumes. She endorses this behavior. She wants your kids to be subject to this during school hours — instead of learning science, math, art, music, or metal shop. These are the tomorrows she will create all over this great land. We must stop her, because metal shop was awesome.

————————————-
* Unless Maddow thought it to be true to the best of her knowledge after careful research.

** The Klout score is a poor metric, but Mike didn’t tell me until afterward, as I was having to much fun.

I was at the annual meeting of the Secular Student Alliance o’er in Columbus, OH. It was Saturday night, turn Sunday morning. We just finished up having a neat-o party at the Buffalo Wild Wings, where I chatted with a number of very groovy people and enjoyed Labatt Blue responsibly. A group of us were walking back to the dorms where we were holed up for the weekend, when someone with a couple of ranks in Knowledge(Local) pointed out that there was an Insomnia Cookies a few blocks away.

“Oooo… Insomnia! We have to get some!” said Jen (who is not to be confused with Jenny), because she always gets nostalgic after a few drinks.

So we walk down the street, and as we approached the UDF o’er on the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk, this blue beater sedan slows down — CRACK — then speeds off.

I grab the side of my left leg.

“Uph. I’ve been shot.” I said. “Pretty sure it was just a BB gun though.”

Jen looks back and smiles, thinking that I was recounting one of my wild stories to someone else,  unaware that one was happening right then, and that she was a character in it.

It felt like being cracked with a giant rubber band, like in high school we tied rubber bands to other rubber bands repeated the process again and again then tied knots in the end until we had some 30 foot rubber band to crack jokers with. The shot didn’t hurt that bad, and that terrified me. Long ago, I learned that the more horrific the injury, the less it hurts. A shoulder dislocation feels several orders better than a Charlie horse.

I’ve been shot at from cars before. Once was by Stewart Center about a year earlier, when some punks in a beater station wagon hit me on the inside of my right thigh. I was pretty pissed, as the shot was danger-close to hitting me in my bathing-suit place. Still, it wasn’t that bad, only like two-pumps or so, and I just kind of went about my day, because I was really busy that day for some reason. I also was in another drive-by late one Sunday night while walking around Purdue, but that doesn’t count because they just had Super Soakers. Had to take a knee, I was laughin’ so hard. So were they! Those wacky guys!

Anywho, since my friends had no real intention of stopping, I hobbled on for another two blocks or to Insomnia Cookies, but it was closed, just like how it’s not supposed to be. We were all pretty depressed. Then whoever had Knowledge(Local) pointed out there was this stomp-ass donut shop a few blocks away. I look at my leg and don’t see a giant blood stain, so I hobble along.

We get to the donut shop. I buy peanut-coated donut for $0.95. It was totally clutch. I ask if they have a bathroom, they send me to one in the back of the kitchen. I drop trou to get the lay of the land.

Sho’nuff, there was a hole in my leg, right where the hole in my pants was. It seemed bigger than a BB; in fact, it looked to be the right size as a .22, and that’s bad. There was bleeding from the surface, but it was a slow creep, like a scraped knee, or a road rash. There was blood on my underpants, but interestingly enough, the only holes were the ones placed there by the manufacturer intended for my legs. Since the shot went through my pants, but not my underpants, it became clear to me that it had to be a BB, because they don’t sell any bulletproof shit at K-Mart.

Still, the hole was atop a lump. Maybe I missed the hole in my underpants — the lighting was kind of off. Maybe the swelling was the bullet or BB was lodged in my leg, acting like a bloodcork. Knives and other things impaling-things act like bloodcork. Maybe it was just swelling. How to tell? I needed an x-ray.

I’ve always maintained that when living properly, snippets of your life could serve as the basis for text-based adventure games for the VIC-20. This could be one of them.

“YOU are in a small BATHROOM. It is 3 AM. YOU have been shot by the people in a BLUE CAR. YOU don’t know where they went. YOU have had four beers. There may be a BULLET lodged in your LEG. YOU should GOTO a HOSPITAL. YOUR PANTS and UNDERPANTS are pulled down. YOU are holding a CAMERA-PHONE and eating a DONUT. There is a DOOR facing WEST. COMMAND?”

All I knew was that I wasn’t in any real danger, because I was among friends.

I also knew that I’d need some evidence that didn’t involve indecent exposure. So, I whipped out my cameraphone to take a picture of the wound, and then couldn’t because my phone’s memory was full.  So, that time I was eating peanuts at Five Guys and got a peanut with three peanuts inside and I was all like “Yay!” — is now lost for all time. That’s okay, that was a lame story. The lighting was kind of off in the bathroom, but I managed to get a basic, useable photo.

I walk out, and talk to Mark.

“Hey do you have a car around here?” I ask.

“Yeah, I drove some people [from Indiana to Ohio],” he said.

“Could you drive me somewhere?” I ask.

“No!” said Mark, with hysterical drunken laughter. “What kind of question is that?”

My face grew long.

“What’s going on?”

“I need to go to the hospital for an x-ray,” I tell him, as I show him the photo. “I was shot.”

Mark says nothing, but he goes to explain the situation to Jen, because she’s our perennial de facto leader.

“Wha?” said Jen.

“Yeah! He got shot!” said Mark.

“Yes, I was shot.” I tell her.

“Oh my God! When?” said Jen.

“Remember when I said: ‘Uph. I’ve been shot?’ Yeah, someone actually shot me.”

“Where’d this happen?” asked Jen.

“When we were over by the UDF on the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk — when I was all like ‘Uph. I’ve been shot?’ Yeah…” I said.

“Why didn’t you stop?” pleaded Jen.

“I wanted a donut!” I shouted, as I ate the last of my tasty treat.

“You need an ambulance,” said Chana, who I met just then.

“I just need an X-ray to see if there’s anything stuck in there,” I say.

“You need an ambulance,” said Chana.

“I just need a ride…” I said.

“You need an ambulance,” said Chana.

“It was probably just a BB gun, and I need to see if anything is lodged in there. I can’t afford the ambulance fee.” I said.

“You have been shot. You’re not capable of making medical decisions. You’re getting an ambulance,” said Chana.

I conceded because I found her reasoning to be sound. She was the voice of reason in this group. It’s nice to have a day off. She was a mensch, and I made sure I informed her of the fact.

A few minutes later the ambulance came, at about 10 MPH, I waved my arms to flag it down. Then the ambulance pulled over to the side of the road, and then slowly oozed away from me — at 10 MPH — never to be seen again.

“This is the saddest photo I’ve ever seen,” said Hemant, as he took it with his camera phone.

“Yeah, you need to send me that.” I said.

He did.

I was tired, buzzed, shot, angry, slightly disillusioned — in that order. I was starting to worry, and to keep myself together I knew I’d have to turn it up to eleven. Sanity time was over, and the results were eerily reminiscent of a latter-day Tom Thompson*.

Chana recalled 911 to get a more-different ambulance, while everyone else was just like “LOL, Facebook and Twitter,” in order to fuel all kinds of wild-ass rumors.

Anyway, two guys in police uniforms with “CCP” emblazoned on the back of their jackets walked right past us. Ben ran to flag them down, explained the situation, and dragged them back.

“So you were shot with a BB gun up the street?” asked Johnny Law.

“No, down the street,” I tell him.

“Oh. Someone was shot up the street with a BB gun, too. There’s been a couple of them tonight.” said Johnny Law.

“Oh really? So it’s for sure a BB gun?” I ask.

“Yes.” said Johhny Law.

“I was shot, and I have an ambulance on the way, but I think I’m fine, so I can help you file your report.” I said.

“Oh no. We’re not cops,” said Johnny Law.

“Wha?” I say.

“No sir, we’re the Columbus Community Patrol.”

“…and you’re not police.” I said, coldly.

“Nope.” said Johnny Law. “Have a good evening.”

“Yeah, you too.” I said to Johnny Law, shaking his hand before he and his pal turn away and walk off to oblivion.

“So what did the cops say?” asked Mark, while blinking eighty times, like he does.

“Those weren’t the cops.” I tell him.

“Who were they then?” said Mark.

“Not-cops.” I said.

My leg was starting to cramp up. I shifted into sleeping crane stance to keep the weight off it. This was getting old. Another ambulance oozed about the streets, and turned near us, and drove half a block down the side street.

“Fuck it! We’ll do it live!” I shouted, to cheers as I hobbled half a block to the ambulance.

The EMT’s came out. There was a pair of them; there was an older gentlemen and a younger one following him, like just like Jedi, or plumbers. I walk up to the older gentleman, shake his hand, and introduce myself.

“Hey, I’m Ryan Coons. I was shot, probably with a BB gun.”

They tell me to step inside the ambulance, and to lay down. It was quite roomy.

“Should I come in there too?” asked Jen.

“Uhh, probably not,” I told her, while entering an advanced state of pantslessness.

In the improved lighting of the ambulance, it was clear that the projectile did not penetrate my underpants.

“It’s just some broken skin. Just put some Neosoporin on it.” said the EMT.

I slid my pants back on and thanked the gentlemen for their time. I strut of the ambulance and shout “It’s a flesh wound guys! Let’s go buy some band-aids!”

“Horray!” shouts everyone, as we walk xor hobble xor stumble to the drugstore.

“Ooooo! Let’s get Spongebob Band-aids!” said Jen.

“Yeah!” said everyone, everywhere.

“Hey, eat this donut. It’s German Chocolate,” said Ben.

“Hell yeah! Thanks!” I told him.

It was a magical donut. Chocolate cake, chocolate glaze, moist and rich with flavor, sweet, but not overpowering. It was like a ‘Mr. Donut’ donut. It’ll be a while before I find something that good again. Man!

Eventually we get the CVS, near to the Buffalo Wild Wings, and the door was locked, so we went around to the other door. It took me a few minutes to find the first aid supplies.

“Oooo! They have Dora the Explorer band-aids!” said Jen. “You should get them.”

“Yes, but the Spongebob ones are thirty cents cheaper,” I explain.

…that and I have to look myself in the mirror tomorrow, and each subsequent day thereafter. I also picked up some of the 91% isopropylnol to clean my wound, with the intent of using it to light myself on fire — an old party favorite from back in the day — but I never got around to it. Some other time, I guess. Ben picked up the tab; he’s legit.

Jessica bought me a chinsy mylar helium balloon in the drugstore, because she thought it would cheer me up.

.

.

.

She thought right.

It’s the little things, guys.

Around this time Mike and Shawn turned up, and we all walked back to our building, where people yay-ed and wanted details. I cleaned my wound. Everyone hung out and chatted and relayed snippets of the epic tale that was the pre-event meet up party on Thursday, in a desperate and futile attempt to make sense of events.

The next day the bruise set in:

It’s not enough to make the top 10 bruises list.

At the conference the next day, all kinds of people came up to me for news and to see how I was. I could say that getting shot is an excellent networking tool, but that’s probably not the best moral for this story.

“Hey, you’re alive!” people said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “…and my album sales have tripled!” Chuckles from all. Good times, good times.

So what do we have to take away from this? Having friends, be they new or old, will turn fail into win, and can turn a terrifying situation into a funny story. Even a friend you’ve only had for ten minutes can be a good as a friend you’ve had for ten years, if they are the right ten minutes. I knew that I’d be fine, because of what I like the best about being a godless heathen. When you don’t have to serve a God, the only thing you have to live for is other people; and that’s pretty great, actually.

____________________________

*This is a pseudonym used for legal reasons, although we’re pretty sure his warrants have reached their statute of limitations.