Good Morning, Archdiocese of Boston

I am not a very technological person. Nor am I an internet person. I can turn on the computer and I can browse facebook and youtube and I can access my email, but that's pretty much it. I never considered blogging. I am not a blogger. When I think of bloggers I think of zealous myspacers and Perez Hilton. And Lucy. But when life hands you lemons, you shut up and make lemonade. So here is my blog narrating my time as the receptionist for the Archdiocese of Boston.

This year has without a doubt has been the strangest of my life thus far. I can't even categorize it as good or bad, just really fucking weird. I went from studying Art History in college, to cruising my way through a BS internship this summer, to hating my life at a bead store, to being let go from said bead store and being unemployed for two months, to accepting a 3 month position as the receptionist at the Archdiocese of Boston. If someone had told me in May that this is what my life will become I would have told them to stop sniffing glue. I can only hope that Graduate school pulls through and I wont have to worry about accepting positions like operating the switchboard at the Zionist Organization of America.

I am not Catholic, I am a Protestant. An out of practice Protestant at that and I have no idea what Catholics do, besides be really nervous. Catholics are nervous about everything. This is basically because everything about contemporary life will send you straight to hell. Pre-marital sex, gay marriage and being gay in general, abortion, stem cell research, doing things on Sunday, democrats, sexual misconduct of priests (justified nervousness), divorce and the Apocalypse. Its a wonder Catholics don't go around shaking like Chihuahua all the time. Its weird to be a fish out of water just by being a different religion, but its freaking surreal when you go from zero Catholic interaction to spending 8 hours of your day surrounded by priests and nuns and the people that work for them. I can tell if Brother Peterson is coming down the hall because I can hear his prayer beads. I dont know if when I see certain people if I should address them as "Father" or not. When I get dressed in the morning to go to work I have to make sure I dont look like a slut by Catholic standards, and I still dont really know what those standards are. Apparently shoulders and knees are too sexy to be exposed. Who knew? I didn't.

This is the beginning of my second week, here are some highlights thus far:
1. The lack of tampon machines in the womens bathroom and how their absence makes the "sanitary napkin" machines stick out like a sore thumb
2. The people that call looking for answers to their questions on abortion, stem cell research and (my personal favorite) a man called to make a complaint about a priest in his parish, but not a "sexual complaint." As long as it's not sexual...
3. Jean, the woman who covers me when I take my break who carries a bottle of rubbing alcohol with her at all times to wipe down the phone before she touches it. It has yet to be determined if this a direct comment at me, or if she wipes down every phone before she uses it.
4. The woman who consistently drops off shopping bags full of hand knit baby blankets to be picked up by the Pro-Life department.
5. The priests that stare me down as they walk in the door as well as those who talk to me like Im an idiot in a way that makes me believe this attitude is provoked by my being a female. Its just a suspicion.

This blog is meant to basically be a stream on consciousness on my part as well as an alternate way to kill time. Don't tell anyone at the Archdiocese about this, or I may be fired. Hannah, this means you.