& the lord did not ask her again

I do love how discussing Dionysus and the Maenads with someone can lead directly into my reading Neil Gaiman's 'Babycakes' to them.

xD;

Growing up, I was pretty much obsessed with the Greek pantheon, myths, etc. In short, I was basically the little girl running around going “OMG ATHENA, AWESOME! :D”. xD

My mother, despite being rabidly Christian, never seemed to have any sort of issue with this back then.

Now, however, she’s apparently gotten Jesus in such a big way that there is no longer room in her head for BRAINS.

Before we went shopping the other day, I mentioned to her that I was reading stuff like Homer, the Eddas, etc, online. Largely just to point out to her that, hey, I’m actually capable of doing something intellectual, despite how stupid she seems to think I am. e.e

I specifically said Homer, and surely she has to know he wrote about gods. Surely she at least has a VAGUE idea of what the Iliad and the Odyssey are about. She graduated high school; she had to have been exposed to them at some point. (Actually, I could swear that she's told me she read them.)

I’m pretty sure I also specifically said that the Eddas were sort of like the Norse version of Homer, because she had no idea what on earth they were and that was the easiest way to explain it.

Nothing exploded then.

No, the explosion came when I mentioned that I wanted to get myself an actual copy of the Eddas, because some of the translations online just weren’t that good. For example, one randomly started changing the spelling of gods’ names halfway through.

Then, there was an Explosion O’ Jesus™.

She looks at me –

“…GODS???? O___________O”

Damn, she’s onto me! And here I was hoping I could keep my little ruse a secret – that Homer’s works and the Eddas are really just about My Little Ponies frolicking through rainbow-coloured meadows, not deities!

Oh snap, foiled again.

HEAD. WALL.

I seriously have to wonder – what the hell did she think I was reading about, before I mentioned gods? O_o;;;

And, no. I’m 99.9% certain that she has absolutely no idea what Hellenic or Asatru paganism is, or that people today still worship these gods. No, to her, this is all MYTHOLOGY.

And yet it still sets off her Jesus-dar and gets her panicky.

Holy intolerance, Batman!

Not to mention ignorance. e____e;;;

There’s no excuse for shit like this, really. It's just outright pathetic.

Done loooots of reading in the past twenty-four hours. :D The Lokasenna, the entire Book of Enoch, all of the first book in Holly Lisle’s World Gate trilogy, and a bit of the second.

And if you’re wondering how the hell an urban fantasy trilogy fits into that list, it’s because it’s what made me first fall in love with Loki. :D I’ve reread it several times already, but not since reading about people’s UPGs with him and all. And now I wanna take another look at it from that perspective. Should be interesting.

Thoughts and suchlike will come soon.

( because if nothing else, I really am a bookslut. )

Thought it’d be fitting to start this on the first day of the new year, ^_^

Hrm, and now to get properly settled in here…