My ultimatum to myself: write, or face cardboard boxes

A coworker informed me that Massachusetts is just as religious as the Midwest. Clearly, that coworker has not spent a substantial amount of time in the Midwest. After living in Ohio for 24 years, the past six months of living just a few minutes walk from Harvard University has felt practically like a different world, one in which atheism… well… doesn’t actually matter so much.

Sure, sure—there is religion in Boston. However, it feels more like the free-form Western European variety of religion where some people are religious, some not, and only a relatively small percent of the population actually wants to shove their religion down your throat. Compare this to Ohio, where atheism was such an oddity that I was included in a newspaper article about local atheists, and where, on my last day as a tutor, the mother of one of my clients spent twenty minutes explaining to me that god had asked her to witness to me because he wants to be a part of my life. (Note to god: asking a friend to ask someone out for you is soooo middle school. In the future, I’d advise both god and middle school students to try direct communication for better results.)

The only bad part of the move? No inspiration. Since packing up myself and my books and transporting us to Boston, I’ve been horribly lax about writing in general and blogging specifically. I think the best solution would be for me to move back to Ohio, thus recreating the religious tension necessary for good atheist blogging. However, since I’m not actually interested in moving, my second-best solution is to just sit down at the darn computer and start typing. Regularly. We’ll see how that works. If I’m unsuccessful, please start sending new cardboard boxes for my books.

(Okay, so I have absolutely no intention of enforcing this threat to myself. I (heart) MA.)