Over the past week I have probably run the gamut of emotions. I'll drop it for you in text.Went to Thomasville, GA to visit my uncle and his family down there. Except, they weren't in town... My uncle was on call doctor of nephrology and an internist. My cousin Lauren was apparently doing an internship at fucking Emory. She is fifteen! My other cousin David, baseball bad-ass, was a bat-boy for some Double or Triple A team in Chattanooga for the weekend. Raul's wife was gone too because Lauren got homesick and she visited her. So the family I went to see for the 4th of July, a time to drink and celebrate all things America, was absent as hell.
Lucky for me my favorite person in my family besides my mother was there. Maria my aunt and her child Sirena ("I am four and one half years old, Cwistopher!") were there. Sirena doesn't stop moving and is spoiled. I used to think she was more spoiled than most kids but upon closer examination I feel that I was able to impose my will about as freely as she was able to. But whenver I said no, my ass got beat. She says it freely followed by an, "I love you Mommy!"
On an aside, if my kids step out of line, they will regret it.
We visited my grandmother who now lives in a nursing home. Its reasons like this that I can't imagine a world where a divine creator and manipulator exists. She is the greatest woman I have ever known. Her life was fraught with struggle and peril for years. I won't go into all the details now (save that for the screenplay), but know that she escaped communism and took her three children and mother to America and created a great life for her entire family tree. And now she lives almost mindlessly. The psychiatrist whose comprehension of the human mind had hers taken away. The site of her frail body and even weaker mind brought me to tears. The last time I saw her she had just had a stroke (last summer as a matter of fact) and I thought that her condition would improve a bit again. I was very wrong. Seeing the strongest woman I have ever met confined to a wheelchair despite her will to stand and walk hurt me in ways that I wasn't prepared for.
Later that night I was about to go to sleep when my Aunt called to me and told me she was going to do a quick workout. She motioned for me to follow and I did. She was doing sit-ups and not crunches. We don't do sit-ups anymore. They have been proven to suck by scientists in ways that affect your sign and don't matter to me. I showed her proper crunches and how to hit at different angles if she wanted to. She has always been the most beautiful person in our family and seems to be struggling with her weight now and I can tell it frustrates her. Whats even more frustrating is that her husband is very learned on nutrition but wastes that knowledge on vegetarianism. Wank.
Well, after she was done she began talking politics with me (I guess she assumes that me being a political science student I have heard a thing or two). Last time we were discussing the US's presidential election and she, a longtime conservative, was struggling in voting for McCain. I tried to talk her out of it, but apparently failed. We then switched to our current president and foreign policy and then terrorism. She then said something about the fact that the Islamist fundamentalists are crazy to which I replied, "But so are Christians and Jews." She gave me a slightly strange look and it just came out of my mouth.
"Yeah Aunt Maria, I'm pretty damn Atheist."
This sparked an actually very stimulating discussion about her faith and why she believes there is a god. She and I have always had the best discussions and perhaps the best relationship in the family (We're number 1!) so this was two-hour discussion until 1:00AM was almost expected to get back to some normalcy. She told me she believed because like all wise humans, a certain amount of comfort in our lack of knowledge is necessary. Correct. But she lost it when she attributed the grey areas to divinity. Incorrect.
300 years ago we knew very little of germ theory. 200 years ago we knew nothing of the beauty of natural selection. 100 years ago we did not have penicilin. 50 years ago we were thinking of mapping our very own genomes to see just how much of us is really animal. We build upon knowledge and search out for more. To me, that is life.
As a former engineer with Lockheed Martin whose team's goal was to design a space shuttle capable of getting to Mars and back, I figured she would be religious only because she needs to take her "four and one half years old" daughter somewhere on Sunday to instill morals. Thats when we got to the discussion of morality. She is of the opinion that we have morals because of Yahweh. This is simply not true. The nature of morality is as intrinsicly human as is the creation of gods. To levy morality on the 10 Commandments of the self-centered deity of the Old Testament or the curriculum of the kind and cool carpenter of the New Testament is simply taking away from the achievements of humanity. But I think she imagines that our morality is god-given into our soul. But this also assumes that we were created and not the result of Darwin's evolution. Now that's just silly.
Anyway, this has gone on long enough.
Tuesday ~ 7/7/2009
Weight: 177.0!
Shoulders:
Arnold Presses: 3 sets of 12 @ 30.
Behind-the-Neck Presses: 3 sets of 12 @ 65.
Bent-over Dumbell Laterals: 2 sets of 12 @ 12.5.
Shrugs: 3 sets of 12 @ 45.
Legs:
Squats: 3 sets of 12 @ 135.
Calf Raises: 3 sets of 15 @ 195.
Leg Extensions: 3 sets of 12 @ 105.
Leg Curls: 3 sets of 12 @ 105.
The workout was rushed in 45-minutes between Jeff and I but felt great! It was the first sign that I have redeveloped some actual endurance again.
Our time has come to a close for now. Until next time, True Believers.
~Santos~
||椎名林檎 - MarunoUchi Sadistic (EXPO Ver.) ||
