Confessions on the fourth floor (Happy Easter)

For the first time in weeks, I'm all by myself on a Saturday night. It's Easter weekend and I haven't planned anything for the short holiday. And it feels great.

Recently I've been travelling quite a bit for work and the few nights I've been in Paris haven't been spent in my apartment. (naughty me). My place looks like a giant mess. Hurricane Katrina found my apartment two weeks ago and has left it dying since then. The plants are dead and I left without doing the dishes. Since I've been allowing myself to be really lazy this weekend, I took a nap all afternoon and looked at the ceiling after that. I still haven't done the dishes. The real questions are:

- Should I do the dishes knowing that it's going to take at least 2 hours of my precious time off?
- Should I throw it all away and pretend it never existed?
- Should I wait until small funghi start growing on it and then throw it away?

It's raining cats and dogs and I hate Easter.

I don't even know what Easter means. Was it when Jesus died or was it when he became reincarnated? I'm so religiously illiterate. I'm a little bit ashamed about that as I'm supposed to be catholic and all, and I used to go to "Wednesday school" which is religious education for kids on Wednesday mornings (kids don't go to school on Wednesdays in France, they just go to religious class).

I never really listened to anything Sister Marie Thérèse said when she taught us about Jesus. I could only focus on the big wart on her face and wonder if she found Jesus because she really loved him or if she knew she would never get a chance to get laid and therefore found Jesus? I'm still wondering.

Then there was father Francis who begged me to confess. I didn't understand what it meant. So he said I had to tell the truth to Jesus and tell him all my sins. (What the hell? I thought but not in so many words)

I was 10.

The only sin I was guilty of (back then) was of not understanding what the word confess meant. I said to him i didn't have anything to say. He looked puzzled and said that we are all guilty of sins and that it's just a matter of admitting them and then we would be forgiven. After a long discussion, father Francis forced me to admit that I had been a bad influence on my little sister the day I helped her cut her Barbie's hair and hung the doll with a condom on the balcony. But now that I admitted it, I would be forgiven and everything would be fine.

I felt horribly guilty after having confessed something I didn't know I should feel guilty about.

When Marie-Thérèse would tell us about Jesus' amazing life, she would show us pictures. In the pictures, Jesus always looked handsome and clean. The only thing I could focus on was how often Jesus could actually shower, year 25. Not very often I assumed so how could he look so dashing and well-trimmed then? I was convinced Sister Marie-Thérèse was inventing Jesus' life story as she spoke.

The other thing I would focus on was Sister Marie-Thérèse's drewl that ran through her deep mouth-wrinkles. Sister Marie-Thérèse was so excited about Jesus' life that she would talk about it with emotion and occasional saliva production. She would either spit or drewl out of excitment. It made Jesus' life look really disgusting to me.

And then there was confirmation. I was happy I got to wear a white gown and received lots of presents, never really understanding how I had ended up in this white dress and feeling that confession at least had a point as I had just received this top-notch radio alarm clock. Real good quality.

Despite a supposedly strong traditional catholic heritage of latin countries, France is not any in-your-face religious society. I don't know ANYBODY who goes to church and I never talk religion with my friends. Ever. Not that we don't want to, but just that we don't know anything about it. I remember when, a few years ago, I did a survey among people I knew, on what Easter was all about. Most people answered in a clumsy, slightly guilty manner something that didn't really make any sense. It went from: "That's when Jesus rang some bells in some church to ask people to pray or somethin" to "that was the day when Jesus and the Apostles ate Easter chocolate for the first time and it was so good that Jesus went straight to heaven". Ok the last one was meant as a joke, but still none of the answers seemed right.

Last year, John-Paul II died and suddenly news reports showed how thousands of French people went to churches and looked genuinely sad and prayed liek they never had. I wondered where these people came from as, among the people I know, I can't even think of a single person who goes to church or really cares about what happens in the Vatican.

Ok, I know that some of you are not happy about what you are reading right now, you're feeling I'm not being very respectful of the traditions and Jesus and stuff. But that's not at all the case. I'm jsut saying that I'm complete idiot and that I don't even know what Easter is all about and I'm honestly admitting this serious lack of world knowledge, so please no preaching, just teach me. So will somebody explain it to me? Oh! and also I'd like to know why Good Friday is good? I don't know what it means, I just know I wasn't supposed to eat meat and have sex.

ooops!

Good Friday was good to me though and I'm sure Jesus is happy for me.

So Happy Easter!

(whatever that means)