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Shrine to the Beloved Virgin
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Places
- Hits: 2115
An older house, in the hallway there's a niche built in where people used to keep their phone. But the jack has long been painted over and it serves no function. So I've converted it to Shrine to the Beloved Virgin, filled with those kitsch religious artifacts I've acquired in my travels.
It's looking good. There's a 12" porcelain statue of the Virgin presiding, numerous devotional cards with classic images of the Saint to be petitioned, rosaries in cut glass, sparkling crystal, wooden nuts and plastic, there's an postcard of Jesus that turns into an image of the Shroud of Turin when you turn it to the light or walk past, there's miraculous healing balm (blessed, I'm presuming), a small antique oratory votive, intricately detailed in the shape of a castle, there are votive candles and a large pricket candlestick with images of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, tiny lead figurines of the same, and there's more on the way.
It jogs the imagination every time you pass, an inspiration, this assemblage of Catholic Witchcraft.
Atlas Obscura | Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1268
For most of you this is old news, for those that haven't discovered it, a guide to all the worlds more eccentric and curious travel destinations and roadside attractions.
Link: Atlas Obscura
She's not a slut
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1628
"She's not a slut you know..." he tells me, and I hadn't suggested that she was but he's been finding himself in this position of defending her more and more lately.
They're new best friends, the beautician and him, he takes her drinking every night, she crashes at his place, he's paying of course because she's broke and pretty and I know he very badly wants more than her friendship, and I try to picture the awkward scenes where she rejects his clumsy advances and crude propositions, delicately so as not to interrupt the free flow of liquor and grass, she's increasingly in his debt, and knows it, and it would be a simple enough thing to even matters out...
She's not so popular. At first she was, attractive and pleasant enough, but she's hungry for money, she's been for a couple of beautician try-outs, but they haven't worked out, and her ambition to move into the front and usurp the other waiters/hostesses position with him as her spokesperson, it's not making her any friends.
"She's not a slut you know..." and it may, may not be true, I don't know, don't care, he's gotten awfully touchy about things we used to be able to laugh about. I ask him what he's up to after work and he's quick to say "Nothing" and when invited out for a drink decides quickly, too quickly, that he's tired and going home.
After she's gone home he's caught surreptitiously texting in hidden and private rooms in the restaurant, hastily flipping shut his phone when you draw near.
"We're just friends.." and I believe him, not the intent but his complete lack of smoothness, finesse, his desperation and stupidity will keep them friends, late night threesomes with Jack Daniels until she passes out on the sofa and his fumbled gropings go ignored in service of the debt.
Every morning a fresh hangover, he's tired, wants to sleep....
I'm curious, given his skills and approach how many women have found they weren't sluts, thought they were and though reputation confirmed it circumstances proved otherwise, how many survived the power assault of drinking and smoking and still found they had hidden reserves of integrity and morals, I'd ask but he's a poor witness.
He's doomed and you want to tell him, "heed the friendly warning", but he's become far too sensitive and so we walk round it in conversation, there's the World Cup and what we did (and didn't) do this weekend, there's how many days to vacation?
And there's her walking into the dining room to bum a cigarette and ensure we're not talking about her....
Off his meds
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1387
He's stopped taking his medications. It's obvious, but he thought he'd tell me anyways.
They were bringing him down, he couldn't move, couldn't work, now he feels better, full of life...
He's right. On his meds he was a Zombie, nothing to say, impossible to talk to, reminding you very much of Jack Nicholson in "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest" after they'd "fixed" him, the medications he was taking were some sort of Chemical Lobotomy and you wondered if the cure wasn't worse than the disease. But he's feeling better now, and it's only a matter of time.
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