A Year of Living Biblically

The day I started to note how often I broke the Ten Commandments was also the day that I spent $80 to get my hair chemically straightened. Probably not a good start. We aren't covering the Seven Deadly Sins, granted, but they do come into play a bit. It wasn't a good move to follow that up with chai tea and writing the beginning of this while watching the first season of Sex and the City.

You see, my bookclub is reading A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I'm only 100 pages into it, though for once it's not my own laziness combined with a (somewhat faked) excuse that if I read it right before book club, I'll remember it better. That works until instead of reading the book on the last three or so days I go out instead and it doesn't get read. In fact, I seem to finish the book and not attend book club (hangover) or don't read the book and show up. Anyway, I finally got the book from Nami on Friday night, along with some fascinating chat, cake and a glass of red wine, and stated reading it tonight, while undergoing the three hour process that is Magic Straight. Three hours is more time than I spent on my hair in the past month, but it will be well worth it because now it will look more fabulous with the same amount of non-effort. Plus, I needed to have the uber-short hairs at the back buzzed again - I am a bit of a novice in the arena of short hair styles and I'm wondering when it has to be cut again. Now that it's straight (which was a necessity - that 50's flip was starting to flip in on itself) I'm wondering when I have to cut it, I'm thinking soon. Next pay cheque, I suppose.

(Samantha hit on Mr. Big! I had forgotten that!)

Right, back to the Ten Commandments. Nami emailed us the project over the weekend (right after we'd been discussing it Friday night, actually), so I didn't get it until Monday. Since the book club meeting is Sunday, I figured I should probably contemplate yesterday, what with one of the commandments involving the Sabbath.

So, yesterday. I did very, very little. There was lying around in bed. I read an Anita Blake novel, I ate a bagel and cream cheese and some tofu green curry, I watched a lot of movies while doing some writing, and I masturbated. Does writing about stuff count as a graven image? I certainly adored the food, the reading, the laziness, the masturbating, and since I am an atheist, I guess I did adore them above god. So, #1 broken. I don't recall taking the name of the Lord in vain (this is something I do rather often for someone who doesn't even believe in religion - though I picked up the most offensive of sayings from a Catholic). I'm pretty sure my idea of keeping the Sabbath, while a lovely way to celebrate not working, isn't holy in the slightest, so there goes #3. Honour thy mother and father - well, I didn't do anything, parent-wise. I suppose that is a broken commandment there - I didn't dishonour them in any way, though considering that I call home maybe four times a year and email generally on holidays, birthdays, or when I need something, I'm not doing this commandment very well. Since all my DVDs are $3 or less off the street, I've broken #7. And while I have no idea if the actress that plays Kate on NCIS is married or not, I was certainly coveting her. I'm trying to remember if I was coveting in a non-lustful way - yep. I was having one of those days where I totally coveted the idea of being in a stage of my life where friendships and relationships would have a chance of lasting longer than a year or two at most. I can't imagine I'm going to do well with this one. Six out of ten broken on the first day.

(The cell phones are soooooo big on SATC in the first season!)

Then there was today. I slept in (thank Maude sloth is a deadly sin, rather than a commandment). We'll take #1 as read for the rest of the week - when you don't believe in god, it's not hard to adore something more than him/her/it (I don't like that use of the male pronoun, but where do you go with that?) and I'm pretty sure the lack of capitalization and the thank Maude comment constitutes breaking #2. I felt guilty about my lack of mom and dad communication, but I'm pretty sure guilt is not equal to honour, so I buggered that one too. I'm watching more street DVDs. False witness - lying, right? I've done that one. I got off work early tonight, so I popped into a hair place near Noksapyeong. When they couldn't do my hair tonight, I made an appointment for the next day, knowing I'd be seeing if any of the places in HBC could do it right away. And I didn't get the number so I could call and cancel tomorrow. And when the woman who did my hair asked me how long I had lived here, moments asking if I spoke Korean, I totally told her I'd only been here seven months, to make up for the embarrassing fact that I speak virtually no Korean. And as for coveting - well, I coveted straight hair enough to purchase the chemical version of it. It also looked for a moment like there was a joint being smoked on SATC and I certainly coveted that. And the lustful coveting of commandment nine, I thought that A.J. Jacobs looks pretty hot on the back of the book. Seven broken out of ten.