I guess it’s inevitable that in seven seasons of Buffy, Joss Whedon was going to make a few errors of logic. I usually run crying to Michele when I find one, but today I’ve decided to run crying to the internet. Why? Because Michele is busy.

So here’s my problem: we know the first slayer was pre-Christian, because the scythe they find in season seven was made before Christianity and was forged for the slayer line. That means vampires, which came before slayers, are also pre-Christian. So why do crosses and holy water work against vampires?

One could theorize that this is what evolved out of whatever pre-Christian holy symbols were used to repel vamps before, except if it’s just about holiness then why don’t Jewish symbols work? (In season two when she’s fortifying her home against bad Angel, Willow is worried that her Jewish parents will see her nailing a cross to her wall, so obviously she’d be using a Jewish symbol instead if she could.)

One could also theorize that Whedon is making a subtle statement about Christianity being the true religion, except he’s very careful not to do that. When Buffy dies and comes back (the second time), she could have been in “any one of a number of heavenly dimensions,” rather than heaven, and while there is a hell mouth, there are countless hell dimensions (as we are told when Angel comes back from death, and when they find out where Glory is from). Buffy also tells a vampire in season seven that “there’s no word yet” on whether God really exists.

Finally, one could assume Whedon is just using what he’s been given in terms of vampire lore by making vamps allergic to Christian totems, as is traditional. However, Whedon never has a problem bending that lore to his own use. For example, apart from Dracula in season four, vamps can’t transform themselves or fly. They don’t fall into a deathlike sleep during the day. They do have blood circulation, which as the dead they technically shouldn’t, and while the characters frequently remind us that vampires don’t breathe, when it suits Whedon’s purposes they can smoke, be choked, and be drowned. So we can assume he could have dropped the cross and holy water business if he’d so chosen.

What is most likely is that he never gave much thought to it. Certainly he gave it less thought than I’ve used just writing this entry. So who’s the dope: him for creating a poorly-imagined plot point, or me for watching so much Buffy that I’m able to write all this? I think you all know the answer.

Last night over dinner, I said “You know what are small and cute and not yappy but still a perfect size for an apartment? Beagle puppies.”

“Nope,” said the Lad. “I don’t want to live with an animal in my home.”

Later on that night I got down on all fours and crawled around being an armadillo for awhile. Then I put on my princess pants and did a dance around the house. I really do not see how a beagle puppy could be any more disruptive than me, and he likes me just fine.

Purely by accident I stumbled across Robertson Davies, and then across this:

“Oh, this Christianity! Even when people swear they don’t believe in it, the fifteen hundred years of Christianity that has made our world is in their bones, and they want to show they can be Christians without Christ. Those are the worst; they have the cruelty of doctrine without the poetic grace of myth.”

-Robertson Davies, Fifth Business

When I first registered to vote, I registered as an independent. I don’t remember if I was leaning towards Green or Libertarianism or what, but at any rate I had some clear idea of what I wanted and I was equally certain that I didn’t support the Democrats. The strain of this nearly killed my poor mother. I clearly wasn’t a Republican, we all knew that much. To register as anything remotely liberal was, to her thinking at the time, to register as a sort of lapsed Democrat — so why take support away from the Democrats in favor of a weak imitation? To me, of course, it looked different: the Green Party provides things that neither Republicans or Democrats offer, and that’s what I wanted. I wasn’t just going to hop the first party train that traveled to the same part of the country I wanted to go, not when I knew the exact name of the town I wanted to visit.

I am often confronted with the religious equivalent of that. There seems to be a general opinion that to be aetheist in America is to be a lapsed Christian. I usually hear this from Christians, Davies being a notable example. It’s funny to me that these Christians seem to feel a belief in Christ is a negligable part of their religion: I’ve got a moral code more or less aligned with theirs and I live in the right part of the world for it, so I must esentially be one of them. After all, aetheism is a lack, not a presence, right? So I obviously have a hole in my soul-bucket where religion should go.

The truth, of course, is that it’s a belief in something different, not a non-belief — I’m aetheist, not agnostic, and not a faded version of a Christian. There are those who don’t like it, just as there are those (crazy people) who don’t like my eyebrows or my giant crooked feet, but it’s an unchangeable feature of me that Robertson Davies and everyone else is just going to have to accept.

Bones, schmones. There’s no hole in my bucket.

The Lad and I recently visited Katy at Farm Camp.

I still remember the day I met Katy. I was four and she was five. She was sitting on a bench at recess and she had hair down to her waist. I — kept in enforced moppet-cuts by the Moms, who refused to deal with the tangles that ensued otherwise — was pretty sure my life would be complete if I had hair to my waist. I sat down next to her and started telling riddles.

Twenty-two years passed. Our friendship is now old enough to legally drink at bars, then drive itself to the polling place and vote for president. In two more years our friendship will be able to rent a car without paying extra fees.

The proper gift for a 21st anniversary is nickel; I’d say that’s about what your ring is worth. Happy anniversary, Vigilante. Here’s to twenty-two more years.

Sean pointed this out a few days ago.

Look, I’m not saying I am Jared Leto and I’m not saying I’m not, but I will say this: isn’t it sort of weird how you never see us in the same room at the same time?

Hey, Jared, take off your glasses for a second…