Blessed Odin in Valhalla, I hate spiders.

I think it's an aversion most people share. That, and snakes. Humans don't like something they know will cause them grevious harm. I saw one of the little bastards crawling around the corners of my bathroom tonight, and I thought to myself, "Damn, we have a lot of spiders in this house." I like spiders because they kill everything else I hate, which is a lot, but I still don't like the ugly little bastards because, well, they're ugly. And sometimes poisonous. And ugly.

Speaking of Valhalla, I'm reminded of a bit from Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" series (which, if you've never read it, means I don't like you). Towards the very end, when the protagonist, The Sandman, Morpheus, is killed, a series of mourners from real life and mythology come to pay respects. One of them is Bastet, the cat goddess of Egyptian mythology. She is seen before the procession as a haggard old cat-woman, and though the meager prayers of the few who remember her name, is restored to her former feline glory, if only for a few moments. It reminds me of a few lines I read in a story, which went along the lines of; "Do you know how to kill a god? You stop believing in him." It's almost sad to think the wonder and fear of the old world is being systematically and methodically replaced by rational thought and the sciences. I'm at odds with myself about that - I love having things explained, though I equally love the mystery of the things we cannot comprehend. I've heard once upon a time that humans have the need to put a meaning to things they cannot explain. Death, ghosts, coincidence, happenstance, et cetera. It helps us come to terms with the world around us; put an order to the chaos that we cannot control. While it grants us some sanity, there is still the desire to completely comprehend the actions that take place around us, though I wonder what life would be like with all the mystery and wonder taken out of it. If you believe in the Christian God, should it not also be viable that Odin and Apollo are as real? The workings of nature; what of the stars, and the heavens? Life and death itself? Humans have been sentient of their existence for only a second on the cosmic radar and I often find myself musing of our place in the grand scheme of things. I'd almost like to think of ourselves as animals that have briefly fallen out of the natural balance, only to have woken up to realize that we are out of the natural balance, with half of us striving to reclaim that equilibrium, and the other half running away from it. Neither path is wrong; it's merely what we do. DIg deeply, and ask yourself, where are you?

---------------
When life hands you lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over.