Sunday Top 10: Jesus Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Last night, circa midnight, as Haviland and I were planning our wedding talking about How to Take Myself Seriously, my roommate MM called (using initials in totally vain attempt to avoid potential googling by the AlAnonitute)--and I generally don't answer the phone, because I'm: 1. deaf, 2. busy--but Haviland suggested that maybe my apartment was on fire. Obvs this is a sensitive topic right now, so I did.

However, it wasn't the apartment that was on fire. It was our souls, burning in the pits of eternal damnation!

Apparently the flames of our mutual sin-i-tude have driven the AlAnonitute, who was living here before either of us, to move out. (Okay, honestly, I have no idea why she's moving out. And she's a nice girl, I think, really a perfect roommate--docile, quiet, never home, never complained (to me)-- and besides my occasional maddening guilt over the fact that, as a schoolteacher, she is way more Noble and Good than I will ever be, I found her altogether non-invasive and pleasant).

So my theories relating to the origins of her desires are based upon some very shoddy detective methods (observance of Self-Help and Jesus literature in her room and my total ire towards anyone who, two years ago, asked a lesbian to move out because she felt uncomfortable living with someone who could want her body, which, p.s., is super unlikely, if you know what I'm sayin') and the fact that, as Sherri points out, it's always fun to make fun of Jesus.

However if she is moving in with her boyfriend, I hope she knows that is also a sin. In fact, I believe it's called "living in sin." Burn THAT, King James!

TOP TEN REASONS APARTMENT 1A IS NOT A PLACE FOR GOOD CLEAN VIRTUOUS LIVING

10. Average Time Spent in Refrigerator by the Average Alcoholic Beverage Before Being Consumed: 3 hours.

9. The Company We Keep. My best friend in the city is a lesbian--a lot of my friends are either lesbians OR at least have had sex with a lesbian! MM's boyfriend is a member of one of the most famous Heavy Metal bands EVER. If I had a boyfriend, he'd probably be a member of an indie-band that maintained it's Artistic Integrity while slipping into poverty and General but Trendy Levels of Disillusionment and Resentment Towards the Man. You can imagine the immoral behavior just bursting through the cracks of our drywall.

8. Banned Books Because my room is small and I am large, I often do work in the living room. Which means some of my books (in particular, books-I-am-reading-for-book-i-am-writing) are on the shelves there. Some of these titles, to the virgin frigid eye, may appear to be somewhat disarming, among them: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution, Fever: How Rock N' Roll Changed Gender in America, Gender Trouble, and, of course, A Tribute to Freud.

7. Pill Poppers On the note of "Things I Did Do for Jesus": I don't think Jesus wants the AlAnonitute to be taking Ambien--that's like, artificial and stuff. He probably does want Stephanie and I, however, to enjoy a restful night of sleep every now and then. So we took care of that mis-appropriation of pills. Life is hard, y'all!

6. Strong Hell-Raising Content Of the 20 DVDs (not including the John Cassavetes collection, because I've only got so much time, people) on the shelf in the common room, the MPAA has found these films guilty of the following sins against the rating boards (obviously all rated R or NC-17)
Adult Language: 75%
Nudity/Sexuality: 50%
Graphic Violence: 40%
Strong Sexual Content: 35%
Substance Abuse: 35%
Violence: 25%
"Graphic" Substance Abuse: 20%
"Pervasive Strong Language": 10%
"Graphic Sexual Dialogue": 5% (Closer)
"Sex-Related Cartoons": 5% (Crumb)
TV shows, and therefore without MPAA ratings, but I can tell you from experience are filled with adult language, possibly even pervasive strong language, and possibly, though not necessarily, Sex-Related Cartoons: 10% (Family Guy, Little Britan)

5. Degrassi...It Goes There. According to the promos, Degrassi "goes there," and for the first few weekends I lived here, the Degrassi marathon kept me endlessly entertained as I set up and did work that required only 50% of my brain. There=pregnancy, homosexuality, violence, drugs, abortions, god-club, rape, internet porn, etc. But like, with high school students, and um...shiny packaging. It might be a little confusing. If you aren't like, familiar, like, with it. p.s., sometimes MM puts in foreign old-school black and white porn for background imagery while we do work.

4. I'm more of a 'Utne Reader' kind of girl. Someone in this apartment subscribes to Time magazine and gets catalogs from the Omega Institute, and it ain't me. Also, it's not MM.


3."In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety" I've been known to mistake men's boxer-briefs for "shorts to be worn around the house" and MM usually cleans in five-inch heels and skirt worn as a chic strapless mini-dress, which is one of my favorite things about her, because it's really funny.

2. Um..this blog? If she finds this, then I actually probably will go to hell.

1. When she confessed to accidentally taking my yogurt instead of hers, I screamed: "You are going straight to hell! Don't talk to me anymore! Just get out of here, I can't trust you!" Obvs I was clearly sarcastic, and she laughed, but then I realized that she actually believes in Hell. And I uh, am a Jew.