I love it when you call me il papa!

Both Jive and I grew up what we describe as "ethnically Catholic" meaning that neither of our households were crazy religious or even went to church on a regular basis. What it means is that essentially, we are supposed to identify as Catholic, or raised Catholic, based on our race(s). I went to a Catholic elementary school, and so did Jive's siblings, but not him. My brother went to a Catholic all-boys high school, and my parents, being clever and seeing the error of their ways, sent me to prep school instead. My relationship with religion isn't torrid at all. These days I pretty comfortable with my ironic collecting of saints and saints candles. I appreciate Jesus bling, and Jive has grown to embrace the fact that his parents have a safe filled with what he lovingly refers to as his "guido gold".

This was not always the case. During my Catholic school days, around second or third grade, I was utterly terrified of not being saved. I was constantly paranoid that at any moment I was going to die and, the the evil sinner that I was, I would go to hell, because although I had acccepted baby jebus into my heart, I never felt all good and bible-thumpy . And this was of course, reinforced constantly by us kids being told that we could indeed go at any moment, so we better confess and pray always! So my biggest fear as a little kid was death. For some reason I became convinced that I was going to die when I was in the garden. Yes, my family had a little backyard garden, that for some reason, despite my incredibly indoor-centric ways, I thought the garden was pretty keen. What can I say, I like fresh veggies? And yeah, today the closest thing I have to a green thumb are my fingertips after rolling a joint, I still can say I like vegetables. Anyway, I think being under the open sky like that while plucking tomatoes made me think that I was going to be struck down by god at any moment and then I would be dead. Needless to say, my bookish ways got the best of me, hearty skepticism set in, and by around 5th or 6th grade, I no longer feared the wrath of my vengeful gawd, and was on the path towards my atheism. A story for the ages!

Although, the pope and I do have something in common, advocating the learning of Latin! During my prep school days, I took both Latin AP exams, discovered Catullus, and I'd really like it if I could still read and translate, but hey. So yeah, me and the pope, bringing back dead languages, yo.