Just a few days ago I wrote in the Swistmas Package Giveaway post that my favorite animals for decor were “foxes, squirrels, hedgehogs, and owls.” Then yesterday I was at Marshalls with my mom and look what I found:

THOSE FOUR EXACT ANIMALS. ON A SET OF FOUR LITTLE PLATES.

Furthermore, note the hedgehog’s feet: LITTLE STRIPEY TOE-SOCKIES.

I think it would be fun to do a Merry Swistmas package like we did a few years ago and then I forgot all about doing it ever again. Whoa, was that in 2008?? That is longer ago than I’d thought.

Anyway, I certainly wasn’t reminded of it as I was trying to stuff more things into the gift cupboard and being frustrated in that attempt. No. The actual inspiration is that I have a new favorite Christmas mug, and it was sold in a 2-pack so I have a spare.

It seems like there was something else as well, because I remember thinking, “Yes, but that’s two Christmas-themed things, which makes it a little disappointing if it’s someone who doesn’t Do Christmas”—oh, yes, I remember now: a copy of my favorite Christmas book, This Year It Will Be Different by Maeve Binchy. I didn’t love it the first time as much as I love it now that I re-read it every December. I can get happy-weepy just THINKING about reading it, which is PERFECT for making the Christmas lights look all diffused and pretty.

So anyway, that’s the backbone of the box, and then if I can get anything OUT of the gift cupboard I can see what the other options are. “Assorted” is the theme here. I’ll bet there’s some stationery in there, and maybe a Webkinz, and a pretty tote bag or coin purse or something. I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve been able to get in there since 2005.

The giveaway is only for U.S. mailing address (so if you don’t live in the U.S. but you have a friend/relative in the U.S., you can have the package shipped to them if you want—I can put in a little note saying it’s from you), which I realize is sad but there it is. You can, however, win it even if you don’t celebrate the same holiday as me: I’d just switch to a non-Christmas-tree/stories kind of theme, but the Assorted theme could still stand. You can enter by leaving a comment on this post before noon U.S. Pacific Time on Wednesday, December 11th, 2013. The comment can be anything, but if you’re like me and that kind of freedom makes you feel self-conscious and awkward, why don’t you tell me your favorite animal (I like cats for pets; foxes, squirrels, hedgehogs, and owls for decor), or tell me what you’d name a reindeer (I think Midge for a girl, Fisher for a boy).

Update: The winner is Caitlin of the December 4th, 12:56 p.m. comment! I’ll email you, Caitlin!

Two years in a row, I have made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Two years in a row, it has been a flop.

Part of the problem, perhaps the MAIN problem, is that I don’t like pumpkin pie. When I LIKE something, like for example brownies, I WORK AT IT. I make that recipe again and again and again, sacrificing my own figure to make sure the recipe is truly as good as it was the last time I made it.

My heart isn’t in pumpkin pie the same way. And because I don’t like it, I don’t think, “Hm, this is okay, but what it needs is more/less _______,” or “No, this recipe is no good because ______.” I just think, “For pumpkin pie, this isn’t too bad, or “Even _I_ know this pie is no good.”

I don’t remember what I did last year, because last year I had the flu and was doing things like forcing myself to go to the kitchen and do one single step in a recipe, and then going back to the recliner to spend 10 minutes gearing up to do the next step. Maybe I hallucinated the pie, now that I think of it. Either way, it was no good.

The year before, I got one of those refrigerated pie crusts that comes folded up in a box and you have to make sure it comes to room temperature before you try to unfold it or it’ll break. I got that because that’s what my mother-in-law used, and my mother-in-law was big on making things from scratch, and she said the pie crust in a box was better than the pie crust she could make. And I had had samples of several of her pies, and they were quite fine pies. I might not in general model myself after my mother-in-law, but since Making a Pie Crust From Scratch is not an option (no, not even if it’s really easy) (no, seriously, I’m not using a rolling pin ever again) (NO MEANS NO), it seemed like a good second-best.

Then I made the filling recipe from the can of pumpkin. I figured it would be likely to be pretty good, because they want to sell you the pumpkin.

Anyway, it was awful. The crust was not good, though it seemed more like an underbaking issue, not like the crust itself was no good. The spices in the pie tasted off, and it seemed kind of goopy. I usually eat a tiny slice for tradition’s sake, and I couldn’t get through it. Paul likes pumpkin pie, and he said cautiously that it was “not inedible.”

All of this sounds like I’m working up to asking for a recipe, and if you have a recipe that works with a pre-made crust I’d be glad to hear it. But what I’m ACTUALLY asking is for reports on the decency of pumpkin pies purchased pre-made from grocery store bakeries and grocery store freezers. I was buying ice cream the other day and I saw pumpkin pies just IN THE FREEZER. But are they good? And if so, which BRAND is good? If I liked pumpkin pie, I would buy one of each ahead of time and try them all, just out of pure scientific curiosity.

Or, our grocery store has a bakery. And they make pies. The pies are just sitting there on tables, ready to buy. But are they GOOD? And can I buy a pumpkin pie the day before Thanksgiving and have it be good the next day? And I see there’s a big sign up in the bakery asking people to PLEASE make sure they order their Thanksgiving pies before November 21st, so perhaps that option is for next year anyway.

So that is what I am asking: If you have purchased a pie from a grocery store freezer or from a grocery store bakery (especially from a freezer, since it may be too late for bakery), how did it turn out? Was it yummy?

Do you remember the awful woman I’m volunteering with? First I’d like to beg you not to feel sorry for her or worry that she’s just shy or whatever. My descriptions haven’t been very detailed because I’m nervous about that (I’m going to come back later and delete a couple of my examples below), but you will have to TRUST ME that I am familiar with social awkwardness and the range of comes-across-badly-but-is-from-a-good-place human behavior, and that armed with that information and experience I am not steering you amiss. She is not at all nervous. She is not at all awkward. She is utterly, relentlessly, inappropriately confident. Picture someone you know who is incredibly bossy and self-centered, who takes no one else’s thoughts or ideas into account, who thinks everyone else is stupider than her, who thinks she knows a better way to do everything, and who has to have everything her own way or else you’re way stupider than she thought you were. THIS IS NOT SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS. She is the OPPOSITE of bumbling or shy or awkward or blurting out something that comes out the wrong way. She is the OPPOSITE of wants to fit in. She is the OPPOSITE of going home and kicking herself for saying something dumb. I DEMAND YOU REFOCUS YOUR PITY. (Mine. I want it. Give it to me.)

Okay. So do you remember what I wished for, the last time we discussed this? I’ll just go ahead and quote myself, since I have a quote-indenting button right here in front of me:

I DO wish, however, for several other parents to make subtle remarks over the next few months that let me know (without it turning into back-biting, because that feels wonderful at the time but comes with a nauseating hangover) that they don’t like her either.

I will just say this: I got my wish. One of the other volunteers said (tactfully, delicately, and only when someone else brought it up) that the woman in question has been “stirring things up” all over the school. That she went to the principal and demanded a key card like the teachers have, so that she doesn’t have to be buzzed into the school building like other parents do. [Example snipped.] That she went to the cafeteria and demanded that they get their food from a different source, one that would more than triple the cost of school lunches. [Example snipped.] That she doesn’t like the assignments her child’s teacher was giving, and asked for them to be changed, and SENT IN COPIES OF HER VERSION OF AN ASSIGNMENT FOR THE WHOLE CLASS.

Immensely satisfying, as you can imagine, and I hope we can avoid the temptation to keep discussing her when she’s not there. I’m wondering how long she (the woman) is going to keep this up, considering that so far the answer to each of her demands has been “How kind of you to take an interest, and no way in hell”?

I just finished Fin & Lady, by Cathleen Schine. I don’t know if I’m recommending it to you, or if I’m just telling you about it.

(photo from Amazon.com)

I enjoyed reading it, but I was very conscious of Reading a Book. One main character (named, improbably, Lady) is a Perfectly Cool Girl; it was hard for me to accept her as real. She’s just sooooooo pretty and witty and always says the right thing and everyone loves her.

Lady is the guardian of her half-brother Fin, who has recently lost both parents. While reading about how this arrangement worked out, I thought:

1. Either this author does not have children, OR

2. She does have children, and her children are fundamentally different from my children, OR

3. She does have children and her children are of the same species as mine, but she is nevertheless as susceptible as any Hollywood screenwriter to the Cute ‘n’ Convenient Child Character: a child who fits into a single woman’s life like a witty, fulfilling, adorable handbag

Fin is the kind of child who would be played by an older version of that kid with glasses in Jerry Maguire: he’d come into a room, listen intelligently and appreciatively to an adult’s witticisms and wisdom, feel tremendously grateful for all that adult has done for him, make an adorable or thoughtful or wise-beyond-his-years remark, and then leave the room for seriously DAYS without needing anything from the adult.

I didn’t feel this way while reading the book, exactly: I too enjoy the fantasy of the Surprise Left-to-Me-in-a-Will Child Who Works Out GREAT Because I Am So Extremely Awesome. But I did keep realizing I was reading that kind of fantasy. It didn’t feel to me that this is how things would actually go. So I guess that’s what I’m saying: it’s a good fantasy, the way an romance novel that ends with the deliriously happy wedding is a good fantasy. I thought it was a good STORY, and I ENJOYED reading it, but I didn’t believe it. It would make a good movie.

Right before that, I read The Valley of Amazement, by Amy Tan.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Any complaints I have about this book are my own damn fault: if I don’t know perfectly well by now that Amy Tan books make me want to leap off a cliff and hope to fall as fast as possible, then I don’t know how to end this sentence. But I DID read it, and I DID end up feeling like there was no point in the continuation of the human species.

And, simultaneously, I thought, “What? This makes no sense.” For example, a woman has her child TAKEN from her. And then she thinks, “Welp, guess I’d better find a job.” She has powerful friends, but she doesn’t use them to help her get the child or anything. What is going ON? It’s a hundred years ago and in another country, but was there seriously NOTHING she could do about it? And if not, we’re back to opening our arms eagerly for the rapidly-approaching rocks below, so really there’s no right answer here. Either life really is that terrible, in which case it’s the cliff and/or no more reading Amy Tan books; or else it isn’t, in which case no more reading Amy Tan books.

It feels a little as if EVERYONE has a FitBit, so perhaps this post is unnecessary. But if you DON’T have one and you’re wondering what it’s LIKE, then I will tell you in time for you to add it to your wish list.

I have the clip-on FitBit (as opposed to the bracelet style). It’s the least expensive FitBit option and it looks like this:

(photo from Amazon.com)

(photo from Amazon.com)

I chose the green one. It was an agonizing decision.

You may notice it looks different in its two pictures: this is because it’s shown with and without its little protective case (the case has the clip on it). I think the case makes it look even prettier, because it’s a complementary shade of green that takes it from “is this green, or is this yellow?” to “green—a yellowish green, but it’s green.”

You can clip it to your bra strap, or you can clip to your pocket. I tried it both ways, and I much preferred the pocket; my mother prefers to clip hers to her bra, but this does make for an amusing sight if she’s trying to check her steps while we’re out in public. If you clip it to your pocket, you’re supposed to clip it to the INSIDE of your pocket: that way if it falls out of its little clip-case, it drops safely into your pocket. It also means that all you see from the outside is the little one-inch-by-1/4-inch stripe of clip, rather than the whole FitBit. This is something to take into account, though, before ordering one of the brighter colors: the green would be very noticeable against my jeans if I didn’t always wear long shirts.

I’ve had the FitBit for just over 2 months now. I wondered if I would even like it, but I DO. In fact, I really, REALLY like it. And you know I am not an Exercise Person.

Here is what I like: it uses the kind of methods that are effective on me to encourage me to do the exercise I feel like I ought to be doing. I like the feeling of having someone monitor my good behavior approvingly: if I walk to my parents’ house instead of driving, someone NOTICES and makes a little SMILEY FACE about it. It’s why I like the Wii Fit, too: I like that someone is KEEPING TRACK. I get CREDIT. And I don’t know why it would be motivating to have a computer keep track uncaringly of steps or minutes or whatever, BUT IT IS. The downside is the same as for most such situations: it increases the feeling that if the monitoring stops, there’s no point behaving. If the FitBit stopped working one day and I knew it wasn’t recording my steps, my motivation would PLUMMET. Buuuuuuuuut….”plummeted” is near my USUAL level of motivation, so not much lost, and lots gained.

Here is what the dashboard (on the computer) looks like:

(screen shot from FitBit.com)

When I first set it up, I changed the step goal to 2000 because I didn’t have any idea how many steps I might already be doing, and I didn’t want to get discouraged right off the bat. (The miles and active-minutes goals are also adjustable.) After awhile, I raised the step goal to 5,000, and then to 7,000, then to 10,000.

You get badges (little pictures on your dashboard) for meeting milestones: your first 5,000 steps in a single day; your first 5 miles; etc. They’d be more fun if there were more of them: after meeting all the early goals, the later goals feel so unlikely. Also, I don’t like the feeling it gives me that NOTHING IS EVER GOOD ENOUGH. “You went 30,000 steps in a single day? Great! NOW DO MORE.” Also-also, I want to see all my badges in little rows like on a Girl Scouts vest, not just the one they consider “top.”

I like that it differentiates among the intensities of different kinds of walking. Like, if I am strolling around Target, leaning on the cart handle indolently while sipping a coffee and barely lifting my feet, those steps are orange (“light”); but if I am out on a walk, those steps are yellow (“moderate”) and/or green (“very”). The colors can be a little tricky because each line’s color represents the steps done in that 15-minute period. So you can do 5 minutes of fast walking and 10 minutes of sitting down and end up with an orange or yellow line, no green showing—and yet the Very Active Minutes dial will still count those 5 minutes. (Someone who is Very Active Indeed may resent the level the FitBit considers Very Active: if I walk just over 2 miles/hour, it registers as Very Active.)

There was a calorie tile, too, but I took it out because I found it perplexing/upsetting/unhelpful, and because my latest attempt at improving overall health is trying not to get discouraged and give up when healthful moderate exercise doesn’t seem to result in being willowy and underweight, and trying to focus on exercise being good for overall health ANYway, especially now that I am in my Elder Years. But it’s interesting because it tracks ALL estimated calorie usage, including while you’re asleep, not just “exercise calories,” and so maybe I will use it later on.

You can see over to the right of the dashboard screen that you can be friends with people and see their steps, and it ranks you in order and declares a weekly winner. But I think I would find that kind of competition discouraging and/or upsetting and/or annoying. I MIGHT add Paul, if he were to get a FitBit—but I can picture getting annoyed and unfriending him.

I worried that it would be a pain to set up, but it was not. I wish I could remember how much personal information it asked for, because that’s the kind of thing I like to know before setting up something online. I notice that my weekly email from them is addressed to “Kristen Surname Initial,” so presumably it doesn’t make you put in a full/real name. I think it’s first and last name (though I used an initial) and user name and password; also I think height and weight. Then you plug a little nubbin into a USB port on your computer, and you hold up the FitBit, and it syncs up. Thereafter, it automatically syncs every time you get near your computer. (There are separate instructions for setting it up with a smartphone or tablet.) My mom almost never checks on her computer, and always looks at the FitBit itself; I almost never look at the FitBit itself, but I have the FitBit window always open in a tab on my computer.

The email level is nice. FitBit emails once a week to tell you your previous week’s summary: how many total steps, how many total miles, how many average steps/miles per day, highest/lowest daily steps/miles. It also nags you to set up the sleep tracker, but the type of device I have doesn’t DO sleep, I don’t think. FitBit also sends an email each time you earn a badge.

So! The FitBit is one of those devices that seemed very expensive to me for something I wasn’t even sure I would LIKE or USE—but now that I have it, if it broke I would buy a new one WITHIN THE HOUR and I would pay extra for overnight shipping. It’s made a significant difference in how I feel about exercise and how willing I am to do it. If I have to park far away, I think, “Yay, more steps!” If I JUST came upstairs and realize I need something else from downstairs, I think, “Well, I’ll get more steps.” If I’m at 8,000 steps for a day, I’ll think, “Hm, maybe I’ll go for a little walk!”

It takes me from “Very Unmotivated to Exercise” to “Just the Right Amount of Motivated.” That is, I feel a little uncomfortable if I don’t meet the step goal, but I don’t change my life in negative ways (finking out on other plans, staying up past bedtime, forcing myself to exercise even when I’m sick or hurt) in order to meet it. I’m not sure I would recommend it for anyone who feels they might get a little obsessive about it, or who finds themselves prone to “Nothing is ever enough” feelings.

This would also not be ideal for someone who gets a lot of physical activity in non-step-taking ways: I imagine it would be quite frustrating to lift weights all afternoon and then have a frowny-face on your FitBit as if you’d been eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Trees and reading People magazine.

Two things I had to discover by accident about jam, but maybe you have known all your life:

1. Grape JAM is completely different than grape JELLY. Grape jelly is the stuff that’s translucent and kind of like jell-o and doesn’t go on smoothly. Grape JAM is opaque and, after swishing the knife around in it, goes on smoothly. I didn’t learn this until my late twenties; I always just thought I hated grape jam because I was thinking of jelly and didn’t know there WAS a grape jam. But as anyone who has made jam or jelly knows, jelly is basically gelled fruit juice, while jam has the fruit in there.

2. Seedless strawberry jam could instead be called Big-mushy-strawberry-lump-less jam. The seeds don’t bother me so I never bought seedless. Then either Paul or I bought the seedless by mistake—and it was a revelation like the grape jam: it’s LOVELY. Because they have to strain out the seeds, you don’t get those unspreadable big mushy strawberry lumps either. (If those are your favorite part, then you’ll want to avoid the seedless.)

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I have a small diaper bag I bought long ago on clearance at Lands’ End, thinking it might be useful even though I didn’t like the color. It ended up being the Emergency Car Diaper Bag: it was just the right size for two to three diapers, some wipes, some hand sanitizer, and a fresh onesie. It saved my bacon many a time.

Tidying the car recently, I found it under the driver’s seat. The bag is still in good shape, but what to use it for, especially since I don’t like the color? THIS is what:

It is now an Emergency Car Bag for teenagers.

This idea started when I picked a child up from school for an orthodontist appointment, and as he got into the car I made the immediate and uncharacteristic decision to RISK BEING LATE: instead of driving directly to the appointment, we stopped at home to have him change his shirt and put on deodorant, because LORDY. A clean shirt won’t fit in the bag, but a travel pack of diaper wipes and a thing of deodorant would help considerably if we didn’t have time to stop at home.

Also a comb, hand sanitizer, and a snack, which are potentially useful for ANY of us (as are the wipes).

There were requests on the How Religious Are We post for a breakdown of what TYPE of religion everyone is. And I think that’s a fun idea and I think we should do it.

Here is the trouble: I don’t know all the types. So before I make the poll, I need to know what to put ON the poll. I’m not sure how well this will work: for example, there are huge swaths of denominations that fall under “Christian”—do we need a separate poll option for every single one? Certainly the denominations vary considerably, to the point where some denominations would consider themselves significantly different than others (thus the existence of denominations). But do we need to list every single denomination, or could we clump them a bit with adjectives such as conservative and liberal? …I kind of think we need every denomination, don’t you, considering how very very relative such terms are? But multiply all the different religions times all the denominations within that religion and WHEW! We are looking at a long poll, aren’t we! Well, that’s fine. It’s not like we pay by the inch.

And what about people who consider themselves a particular religion but don’t affiliate themselves with a particular denomination? I suppose we’d need a Miscellaneous category for each religion?

If you’re religious but are not aligned with anything (religion OR denomination) that has a name, you can suggest a poll option you think would cover it well. It’s going to be a challenge, though, because so many possibilities would ALSO apply to all the other categories: “spiritual,” for example. Maybe something like “Unaffiliated Religious”?

(If you’re not religious, don’t worry: maybe we can do a non-religious poll later on, because there were requests for that as well.)

Well, I’m not at all sure this is going to work, but let’s try it anyway and see what we get. In the comments section below, tell me what you’d vote for if you saw it. (You may certainly be anonymous if you prefer.) If you’re somewhat flexible, say so (“I could vote for either Methodist or Christian, though I’d prefer to vote for Methodist”)—and it would be a good idea to say it in a way that explains how it works (“I’m a Christian, but more specifically I’d align myself with the Christian denomination known as Methodist”), to help me figure out which things are similar-but-different and which things are subsets of other things.

But remember that it would be useless to have a poll where every single person is the only person voting for their own exact, specific option: we are looking for CLUMP terms to fit a LARGER group, rather than, say, each person’s own name. It would be nice to end up with a format like this for the poll:

Christian: Baptist
Christian: Christian Reformed Church
Christian: Methodist
Jewish: Orthodox
Jewish: Reconstructionist
Jewish: Reform

And so on. I’m not going to make an option for “Christian: Liberal Politically but Conservative Biblically” or “Christian: But I Don’t Actually Believe in God, I Just Think the Christian Religion Offers a Good Model for Living Morally.” We’re looking for how we’d tell it to a census-taker, not how we’d explain it to a spouse candidate.

In fact, would it work to have the answers in exactly that format? ________: _________. Main religion first, followed by section? I’ll bet that WOULD work!

All right, are we ready to try this? Leave your poll-option choice below—and feel free to come back later and change it, if someone else mentions a choice you like even better.

If the temperature drops and the heat inexplicably does not come on, one of the first things to check is if a child has been playing with the emergency shut-off switch “to see what it does” and has left it in the off position. I am so glad we DID think of that (credit: Paul) because I would have been QUITE EMBARRASSED if we’d called a service company to find out what was wrong with our furnace and it was $160 for them to flip that switch back on.

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I was at Target the other day and they were putting up the Christmas stuff—and what to my wondering eyes did appear but OMG INITIAL ORNAMENTS. The Harvey Lewis ones, silver cursive initials with little rhinestone accents. They didn’t have them last year (and maybe not the year before, either? I can’t remember now), and I read somewhere they they’d been discontinued, and we were missing ONE ornament because I was being all picky/questy/relaxed about finding each one on clearance. So I had all these eBay searches set up, but the initial I needed hardly ever showed up, and when it did it had RED rhinestones instead of CLEAR, or else the seller KNEW people were frantic and so set a price of $20 when the ornaments sold at $6-7 full price.

ANYWAY. I stood there stunned for a minute, then put the initial I needed into my cart, full-price and so glad to pay it.

Now that I am not religious, it feels to me as if EVERYONE is religious. EVERYONE. But when I was religious, it felt like it was a rare and special thing to find someone else who was, too. It’s like chicken/beef recipes: when I have two pounds of chicken about to turn on me, it seems like all the yummy recipes are made with beef; when I want to try Edward on some red meat, all the yummy-sounding recipes are chicken.

I’d like to do a poll to get an idea of what the actual percentages are. Has your heart already started pounding with all the scientific/statistical problems inherent in this experiment? But I don’t care much about the population at large: I’m more interested in the percentages of the population I hang around with. And I’m not going to worry about the integrity of non-verified, voluntary-response data collection, or whatever. So we won’t try to apply the poll results to The World or anything—it’s more like a party game.

Here is another huge issue to contend with: what “religious” means. I use the word religious deliberately, even though when I was religious I was fond of saying I was NOT religious “and neither was Jesus,” or whatevs. But we need a word that includes ALL the religions, and “religious” IS IN FACT the word used for that. I understand if it makes you flinch a little, and alternate suggestions are welcome though unlikely to be used: a word that means religious but isn’t “religious” is something that religions would have figured out by now if it existed, I think. And I’m not using “spiritual,” because that one makes me flinch even more, and also I’d say it’s LESS accurate than “religious.”

So does this make sense so far? In this situation we are using “religious” in its nice, loose, no-flinching-required, “we need a good loose category-describing word here and I don’t think we have a word better than this one” sense. “Well, I believe in God and Heaven but I don’t really belong to a PARTICULAR religion” or “I’m a [name used for a member of a certain religion], but I’m not RELIGIOUS” are invalid statements for our purposes. We ALL would prefer to use a word that didn’t have some of the connotations of the word “religious,” but this is what we’ve got.

There is a huge, HUGE spectrum for what “religious” includes, especially when we are trying to cover more than one religion, and I am going to break that down into very rough categories which, as the editor of our local paper says about editing letters, never makes anybody happy. NONE OF US will be happy with these categories. NONE OF US, including me. We are just all going to have to choose the one that BEST represents us, and resist the temptation to say, “Well, I can’t vote because none of these categories describes the EXACT set of feelings/attitudes I have, which I will now list for you in multiple, detailed paragraphs.” [Though you MAY do the multiple, detailed paragraphs on their own, if that would be fun.] EVERYONE belongs to a Religion of One, and there is no poll for that. Instead we are looking for APPROXIMATE CLUMPS.

The category descriptions are merely samples to give you the gist of what I’m looking for—I wanted something that would be more helpful than just “A Little Religious” or “Strongly Religious,” since one person’s “strongly” might be another person’s “medium-low.” I’ll list a number of attributes for each level that MAY OR MAY NOT APPLY to a particular member of that level. You may VERY WELL find that you belong right in between two categories, or that you are a mix of two or three; in that case, pick the one that feels MOST like you. (If they are exactly equal, flip a coin.) Or you may find that you belong to one category for the most part, but one single descriptive point for that category is completely wrong; that’s okay, go ahead and choose it if it’s the category that suits you best OVERALL. This is not a poll to reveal the exact location on the spectrum of any one individual, so these “had to pick one that wasn’t quite right” answers (i.e., the answer of EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO VOTES) should average out overall to show us a group picture.

You may guess from my examples that I was brought up Christian. I tried to make the categories inclusive of religions in general, but I think the Christian thing will still end up seeping through, since that’s the only one I’m familiar with. I thought about trying to give examples from other religions, but it seemed like that was the sort of thing that could misfire and/or cause additional confusion. You may have to modify language, therefore, to get the GIST of the category: if I’ve said “deity” but you believe in a group of deities, or if I said “pray” but you’d use a different word for a different-but-similar type of activity, that still works for these categories. I have confidence that this is something we can manage.

Also, I left out crazy people. That is, I think that many of the people in the extreme categories are people using religion to justify stuff that has nothing to do with religion, to the appalled horror of other people in that religion. So I didn’t make a category for them. If you are a crazy person, you can choose whatever category you feel best describes you.

Let’s start at one end of the spectrum and work down:

1. Not Religious. This doesn’t require you to go around being ACTIVELY NON-RELIGIOUS all the time (though that’s an option). You don’t have to have a Darwin fish on the back of your car (but you can). Maybe you feel a little dismay when you find out someone with Friend Potential is religious, or maybe you don’t care. Maybe you scoff at religion, or maybe you don’t. Maybe you allow for the possibility of one of the many religions being true, or maybe you don’t. But you would not say, “Well, God has a plan for us all” or say that people who die go to heaven. You would circle “none” on the part of the hospital form about religious affiliation.

2. A Little Religious. You don’t go to church, or maybe you go for the Christmas Eve service. You are comfortable with religious-type words/songs, and you might say “God has a plan for us” or refer to people as looking down on us from heaven, but you might not know if there’s an actual god or actual heaven, or be investigating it further. You’re okay with a lot of different religions, as long as they don’t get pushy with you. You don’t necessarily think any one religion is “right.” Your own religious life might mix-and-match quite a bit, or you might try different things sometimes. You’re okay with word substitution: you’d be fine with saying/hearing “God, or Allah, or The Universe, or whatever you believe in.” You pray sometimes, but mostly in the “Please let him be okay” type way. If you found out all the religions were untrue and this was all there was, you might be disappointed but you would be fine.

3. Medium-Low Religious. You belong to a church: it’s an excellent way to meet people and participate in the community, and a good solid foundation for your kids. You like it and you like participating in it and it gives you a good feeling to do so, and you think of it as the sort of activity that makes people better overall. You’d prefer a political candidate to be the same religion as you, but you wouldn’t necessarily make that the deciding factor or anything. You don’t get into intense theological arguments with other people, and you don’t object if people belong to other religions than yours. If you found out your religion was untrue, you’d be upset for awhile but you’d be okay in the long run—and you might think an organization LIKE religion should keep going for the other benefits of it.

4. Medium-High Religious. You belong to a church, and you participate regularly (or you don’t right now but really feel you should as soon as it’s possible). You teach your children the stories belonging to your religion; you pay attention to their religious education, and think it’s important that they get it. You would be upset/worried if they didn’t grow up as believers. You pray fairly regularly and/or think you should do it more. You accept your religion’s structure for how things work: there is an actual supernatural world with actual real supernatural entities in it; there is a heaven and/or a hell and/or other supernatural location where humans go after death. If there is a difficult issue to figure out where you stand on it, you’d take your religion into account while deciding. If you had to make a short list of words describing who you were, your religious affiliation would be in there for sure. You feel your religion is the right one, though other religions may come close. If you found out your religion was untrue, it would be intensely upsetting and you would have to completely restructure your life and beliefs around this new information.

5. Strongly Religious. Everything in life is seen through the filter of religion. It is absolutely true, and of ultimate importance. It is pretty horrifying to imagine your children losing the faith, because it matters in an eternal way. The supernatural elements described by your religion are just as real (or more real) than the reality of the Earth and the humans and animals and so forth. There is an actual deity who actually exists, and there is no question about that (though feeling occasional doubt can be considered normal because of our failings as humans and because of attacks on our faith). Other religions have it wrong to varying degrees. If someone you love disagrees with your interpretation of a religious issue, it can be a very big deal. If you found out your religion was untrue—well, it’s too upsetting to consider that hypothetical.

Okay! Let’s just TRY this. Remember that none of the categories are going to describe you exactly. And it’s anonymous, so you don’t have to worry that you “ought to” choose a different category. As much as is possible with something like this, choose the one that actually best describes your actual level of religion.

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