Julie Andrews is a dirty rotten liar.*

Someone who had recently escaped from** a convent once told me something about how you should always start at the very beginning, because it’s a very good place to start. But in the case of the Bible, though the book of Genesis is technically the beginning, it spends most of its time alternating between telling some of the Bible’s most famous stories and being an excruciatingly boring who-begot-whom of early mankind. So yeah, I’m not sure I would call it the ‘best’ place to start. First? Definitely. Most famous? Debatably. Incestiest? Dear God, I hope so. But…best? Probably not. Regardless, let’s dive right into this very, very small gene pool.

So in the beginning there was light and shit and God only had, like, two house rules:

1. God rules over everything. Man rules over all the things that aren’t man. This includes women and fish and beasts and birds and creeping things (Gen 1:26 says man has “dominion over every creeping thing that creeps” and while they never really elaborate on that, I can only assume they mean like bugs and snakes and R. Kelly.)
2. See that tree? Yeah don’t eat from it.

And that was all very well and good. But then Eve ate the apple and the serpent lost its legs and they were banished from Eden and shit starts to get freaky. Real freaky, if you know what I mean: Adam and Eve beget Cain and Abel. Abel is the keeper of the sheep, which is how you know he’s the good guy (though they never really mention who keeps the sheep after Cain goes all Claudius on Abel, which concerns me). Cain gets to flee to Nod and get hitched. Not to go all Hermione Granger on this, but who the BALLS did Cain marry? Adam and Eve were the only people on Earth, and then they only had two sons, one of which Cain killed. So theoretically the only woman on Earth is his mom, but whatever. He begets a line of weirdly-named people who don’t matter and Adam and Eve beget another son: Seth. Despite being the fourth Jonas brother*** of this situation, Seth still gets to beget a line of weirdly named people who don’t matter, until you get to Noah, of ark-building fame. Though Cain is all up in Nod and never meets his other brother, Seth begets a son named Methuselah who begets Lamech while Cain begets Melhushael who begets someone else named Lamech. But I think the real question here is why didn’t the name Methusaleh catch on? Anyway then the flood happens, God promises never to destroy mankind again, save for a little smiteyness that occurs circa Sodom/Gomorrah.

Then we get to the artist previously known as Abram. While years and years of Hebrew school had taught me the gist of what happens during this part, for some reason my impression of Abraham was waaaay off. I’m not sure if it’s just something I made up in my head, or if it has to do with the way the Bible is presented to young children, but I had this idea of Abraham being a really righteous and noble dude. But he kind of…isn’t. He’s just a normal guy who God talks to and bickers with occasionally. Also, he’s kind of a little mischief maker. Seriously, though. When he isn’t busy running around belligerently circumcising everyone, he’s killing goats or introducing his wife, Sarah, as his sister so that then people hit on her because they don’t see no ring on her finger but then they get in trouble with the Lord. And then when Abimelech confronts Abraham about how he misled Abimelech into trying to get with Sarah, Abraham is all ‘Tee hee! She’s my wife AND my sister, so I technically didn’t lie, nah nah nah boo boo.’ Which is kind of really gross and immature, if you think about it. So yeah. I would love to know why I thought this dude was like some crazy holy biblical hero when he’s really kind of just a brat.

Anyway. Here are some vaguely scattered thoughts from the first half of Genesis that didn’t really deserve their own paragraph:

•  This part isn’t particularly well-edited. In fact, I spent most of my time itching to grab a red pen and go to town. Example (Gen 2:2): “On the seventh day god ended his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.” Repetitive much?
• Gen 9:21—”[Noah] drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent.” Dude. Noah knows how to party. Katy Perry circa ‘Last Friday Night’ has nothing on him. Seriously, though. I’d love to see bitch try to build an ark.
• Gen 10:8—“Cush begot Nimrod.” And sometimes there are no words.

*except in The Princess Diaries, because everything is perfect about that movie.
**or maybe gotten kicked out of a convent? I don’t really remember. I always skipped the beginning of this movie. Too much opera singing, too few gay Nazis.
***or third Olsen sister, whichever analogy you prefer.

Can I get an amen?

Dude, Bibles are expensive. 

I just spent the better part of an hour in a Barnes and Noble looking for a Bible since mine is unfortunately in a storage unit in Poughkeepsie. As I was oscillating between the Bible section and the adjacent pregnancy section (one would prove too embarrassing then I would go back to the other) I learned the following lessons:

1. Contractions don’t stop after birth. Seriously. People can still have contractions for several days afterwards. Ew.
2. It’s really popular to put the words of Christ in red.
3. Sometimes baby boy fetuses have erections. And fetuses of both sexes have been found to masturbate in the womb, which adds a whole new level of what-the-fuck-ew-gross to pregnant sex. Ewwww.
4. Shakespeare was rumored to have helped on the King James bible, which was released five years before his death.
5. Babies’ eyes change colors. But actually though. Seriously. That’s some Edward Cullen shit up in here.
6. Evidently ‘Bibles for women’ are really popular. I almost bought one, but I don’t know how well I would have been able to read it through all the tears.
7. The whole ‘pregnant for nine months’ thing is really more of an estimate than anything else. Pregnancies have lasted for over a year. Ew.
8. BIbles can be: under $15, reasonably legible, or of a veritable translation that does not contain creepy ‘study questions’ or cite Glenn Beck’s opinion on the matter. You can only have two. 

Long story short, I ended up coming to own an intense, deep-seated fear of pregnancy/babies and an $8 New King James Bible which is written in approximately three point font. Also, the cashier commented on my purchasing of a Bible, to which I responded “Oh…yeah…you know…Jesus…” before my ringtone (which happens to be the first four seconds of this song) happened and then he just kind of looked confused and forgot to give me a receipt. Which I realized thirty seconds after leaving the store. This concerned me since I wanted to go check for a better deal at Half-Price Books because this may have been the most Jewish purchase of a Bible ever to happen to the world, or at least to Overland Park, Kansas. Anyway, when I went back to ask for it, he kind of glared at me and I was like “Oh…I mean…in case I need to return…you know…like…the word of God?” and then he fished it out of the trash and probably thought about how I was going to hell.

So yeah. We’re off to a flying start.

So it begins.

So I have ninety-two days until I go back to Vassar. 

Dude.

Really?

I had a list of books and movies and TV shows and shit I wanted to do. Then I lost it. Then I made a new one, but it was shorter and contained significantly more Disney Channel Original Movies. Then I did NOT lose that one, but I have this sneaking suspicion I accidently threw it away with some of my school things but am not about to rifle through trash to find it again.

Moral of the story? Clearly I am not responsible enough to have goals that contain bullet points or are easily thrown away in a fit of Oprah-inspired cleansing. So I have a new plan for summer 2011. 

It’s similar to ‘Two Girls, One Cup.’ But only if you replace the ‘Girls’ with ‘Books’ and ‘Cup’ with ‘Blog.’ Which books, you ask? Well. A wise man once remarked [read: some frat boy once drunkenly slurred, possibly at me, probably at my boobs, almost definitely at the cans of Heineken he was double-fisting] ‘GO BIG OR GO HOME.’ So yeah, dude, I’m going almost as big as you can go in the world of literature: Shakespeare and God. 

So yeah. I’m live-blogging the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Oh yeah. And the Bible (King James Version, natch). Not sure if it will be on Tumblr or on some other form of…thing. Thoughts? Feelings? Opinions? Concerns.

Gonna go buy a Bible. Accidently put mine in storage. Whoooops. Sorry about that, Jesus. Also sorry for introducing you with a Two Girls, One Cup reference. But we’re gonna get along great, probably.