Pagans On Parade

WHAT CAME BEFORE

Had my Oakland flight from New York been delayed thirty minutes, I would've been stuck there for at least a week. That was when the freak blizzard hit and immobilized a huge chunk of the eastern seaboard in February. The storm came down hard right after our plane left the ground.

Some people would call it lucky. Others would call it fate. Still others, like my friend, Jamie, who picked me up at Oakland Airport, called it divine providence. Except it wasn't providence from any God I've ever known, not me who grew up in a third-world country that's almost totalitarian in its approach to Catholicism. Filipinos would probably call it the direct opposite of sacrosanct, blasphemous even.

See, the reason for the flight to the Bay Area was so I can accompany Jamie to Pantheacon. She's sort of my best friend so I let her push me to attend events I don't typically want to go to. She'd been looking forward to it. More importantly, she'd been looking forward to bringing me there – I suppose to show off the third-world ignoramus that I was. This was to be my first pagan convention, which I suppose should be a big deal. But for a recovering Catholic and an outspoken atheist, the sensation wasn’t unlike a lump of sugar staring profoundly at a cup of coffee and goes “And you want me to do what?”

The night before, I watch her study, with the same intensity as a cramming senior on hell week, this year's program to see which classes she'd be attending.

“Do you wanna check the line-up to see which classes you'd be interested in?” she asked when she surfaced for air. I looked at her in disdain. She seemed like an intelligent person otherwise.