Welcome, my Unconventional Conventionalists...

Hmm, well let's see here. Since last Friday I've...

... sent off "The Shepherds of M15" to F&SF. They report in two months so by Samhain...

... had lunch Sunday with my family.

... had Orientation today at NWTech, after which I bugged a bunch of people out of sheer anxiety, and got signed up to try to test out of Intro to Microcomputers. Which apparently involves not only Windoze but Word, Access, Excel and PowerPoint. I've never even looked at PowerPoint so I guess I've got to look it up on the net.

... got munchies for DragonCon.

... sent out another mad missive of dubious DragonCon advice, again out of sheer anxiety.

... washed clothes.

... read some fanfic.

... read several stories in the copies of F&SF, Asimovs and Analog that I got.

... let myself go without food too long, but I'm trying not to eat so much anymore anyway.

... worked on notes for my next story.

... tried to cater to my cats, since I'm already feeling guilty I'll be leaving them for four days.

... printed out the schedule grid for DragonCon and marked some of the things I'm going to for the writer's track and the classic sci-fi track, etc.

... and generally allowed my Generalized Anxiety Disorder and control-freak fears run my life.


... and now I'm very tired and I'm going to sit here and read Stargate Jack/Daniel Bunnyfic until my eyes get gummy, I run out of Diet Coke, or I fall asleep in my chair, whichever happens first.

And tomorrow, it's back to work. Happy happy, joy joy.

Oh, and would somebody please tell me which TV evangelist decided it was Revival Week and ordered the troops out to convert the unwashed heathens? Because both my mother and the guy who cuts my grass have for some reason have either proselytized at me or tried to get me to go to church in the last week. It's like Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I'd scream "Get out of my miiinnnndddd!" like Rev. Mother Mohiam in Lynch's Dune, but they wouldn't get the joke.

*sigh*

Okay, once again, this time with feeling.

I am a Jedi. Yes, the Jedi from Star Wars. My beliefs are based on a combination of Buddhism, Taoism and Science, and provide a system of moral and ethical standards that in many ways exceeds those of the Judaeo-Christian religions. My moral and ethical standards are structured in a set of rules known as the "Jedi Code" or usually just "the Code." The Code consists of thirteeen rules governing ethical behavior between sentient beings and between sentient beings and their environment. Futhermore, I have a collection of documents that I am slowly accumulating which further elucidates my beliefs which I refer to as "The Book of the Force". It consists of Buddhist, Taoist, Gnostic Christian texts and also bits of Star Wars "canon" as well as one or two bits I have come up with myself. A living religion is not something one memorizes by rote. We have no holidays, no observances. All that is created is part of the Force, and so every moment of time is sacred ritual. In my beliefs, there is no distinction between "sacred" and "profane" or "mundane" -- all is the Force, and ultimately has no division. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am a moral and ethical person, some would say far more so than I need to be. I came to this as an adult in full possession of all my mental faculties, such as they are. No matter the hopes of the Conservative Right to proclaim the United States a "Christian nation", the Bill of Rights guarantees the right of freedom of religion and freedom of speech to everyone regardless of belief or lack of it. I am not a Christian. I don't want to be. I don't want to be an inheritor of four bloody Crusades, innumerable witch hunts, the madness of the Inquisition, and over two thousand years of persecution, murder, brainwashing and intolerance. I am a Jedi and for the last time I will not change my mind.