It's 5 a.m. on May 22, 2008, as I write this. (Hi, still backdating my entries here.) I leave in less than three hours for the airport. In ten hours, I will be in Texas, Lord willing, to see Sexy Beast. He's one of my favorite people on the planet, and he's getting commissioned into the Marines on Friday night. Apparently, I've already mentioned this, so I'll skip along to the new parts.

I'll also hopefully be seeing my friend Jason, the father of my imaginary child and the star of two embarrassing posts. He's a pretty rockin' kid (despite being a ninja) for a multitude of reasons, one of which is that he let me talk him into starting a blog. Currently, he only has one post, but it's part of a series that he'll be writing. The best part? This work of fiction is entirely based on a really vivid dream. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

On a related note, I'd totally love it if you would read his blog, pantalonesindeed.wordpress.com, and leave a comment encouraging him to continue.

Meanwhile, I'm going to do that whole packing thing and see if I can manage to get to Texas 1) without the fine people at American Airlines scaring the pants off of me and 2) without sobbing my eyes out because I won't be in seat 17F. (Shut up. OCD is hot, and you know it.) Wish me luck, my pretties!

When I am queen, people who send spam emails will be forced to survive by selling their own products to one another. Take that, Mr. Discount Viagra and Mrs. Quality Replica Watches! Hope you enjoy getting ripped off by Prince Zumbaba and his $500 imaginary gift cards to Starbucks!

If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just have to bop them over the head, tell them not to scoop up any more field mice, and take away their internet access for the rest of eternity.

P.S. Wondering why my posts are backdated at the moment? Wonder no more.

Working at a church, there are a few things I expect to hear on a daily basis.

• A sincere version of "how are you doing?"
• "The baptismal is filling itself again. That thing is possessed."
• "The printer won't cooperate. That thing is possessed."
• "I [am / will be] praying for you."
• "Grawr! Enough with the Comic Sans already!"

I was not at all prepared, however, for what came out of my pastor's mouth yesterday.

He walked into my office to hand me a birth announcement. I publish the weekly church bulletin, and we always include a note about any new babies who have been born to those in the congregation. My office roomie, meanwhile, had received the original phone call from the first-time grandfather, also a church member. Jokingly, she began quizzing the pastor for details to see who had better "intel."

"How much does she weigh?" my roomie asked. The pastor quickly rattled off the correct answer.

"What's her middle name? Was she early or late? Was she delivered normally?" My pastor fumbled a bit, but he did nail every answer.

After a few more rounds, though, he whipped out a mischievous look and crumpled up the candy wrapper that was in his hand. He declared, "What kind of a quiz is this, anyway?" and chucked the wrapper playfully at my office roomie. She was clearly stunned, as my pastor is usually more serious during the week, devoting much of his time to studying.

We all three burst out into laughter, which caused yet another coworker to stumble into the scene. At this point, the pastor was on the way out the door. He paused, however, upon seeing my collage of pictures on the wall.

"Whoa, Rach," he said. "What's with all the boys on the wall? Any of those a 'special boy'?"

My face immediately turned fourteen shades of red.

"Uhh, well, no. They're . . . uh . . . my friends from --"

My coworker interrupted. "That's Rachel's harem."

Fourteen more shades of red.

Surprisingly, my pastor laughed uproariously. "Oh wow. So how does that work, Rachel. Do you rotate through them somehow? A little 'flavor of the day' thing going on?"

From red to purple. And then I died. And so did everyone else, but they were dying from laughter instead of embarrassment. It was easily the highlight of everyone's day, and I have yet to hear the end of it.

Now if any other person on the planet had made that comment, I would've been only a skosh embarrassed. But the fact that my own pastor, the very man who preaches godly and biblical virtues from the pulpit every week, thinks I'm a whore? Or possibly a pimp? Or maybe both? That will officially scar me for the rest of my life.