I'm something of a lapsed Catholic. Grew up Catholic, went to Catholic schools, graduated from Catholic high school, briefly considered a Catholic college. I've drifted away over the past ten years or so, for a variety of reasons, but I've always done the 'give up something for Lent" thing. One year I gave up meat (I ate more cheese), another year it was sweets, another year it was soda (drank a lot of juice. And beer.). Like a lot of Catholic stuff, the ritual of it appeals to me.
This year I've decided to do something different. I'm going to give up something every day, but not in the sense that I'm going to go without it - more in the sense of throwing it away. Some clothing to go to Goodwill, some object that I don't want any more, or (and here it relates to my 'Enough' post from a few days ago) a website in my reader. A movie in iTunes that I'll never watch and whose very presence makes me feel bad for its neglect. The idea is that I do have "enough." Way too much, actually, and the attachment to my stuff lessens me.
Today is Ash Wednesday, so it starts here.
First up - a website that I follow in my RSS reader. I love The Onion. They do a side-site (I guess) called the AV Club in which they do TV reviews, music, movies, pop culture, etc. And sometimes it's pretty good - it's pointed me to some good stuff. But the RSS feed: dear heavens, it's like drinking from a firehose. In the last 24 hours, they've posted FORTY NINE items, and I may have actually read one or two of them beyond the headline. But - as my old boss used to say, "is the juice worth the squeeze?" Today, I'm going to say that it isn't.