Something that you might not know about me is that I am a very spiritual being.

Whoops. That’s completely untrue.

What I meant was, I am very sought-after, spiritually.

I think I must have a certain FUCKING SAVE ME! air about me. Many religions seem to consider my soul an object of intense desire, and I practically have to beat them off.

It is not uncommon for religious groups to cluster mercilessly around me and practically go to fisticuffs over my divine path.

I’m not even kidding here. Name a religion, and I will give you an example of their wanting a piece of me. Seriously.

The Christians? The Catholics?

Come on. Too easy. What else you got?

The Muslims?

Oh, definitely. How about that time, flying home from Australia, when I fell asleep sprawled across the three middle seats and woke up choking on the bisht that Muslim man draped over my head? Remember that? And remember when I tried to sit up and rip the damn thing off and he held me down by my face until I bit him?

I sure as fuck remember that. That’s a hard thing to forget.

I also remember, as we were preparing to land, his telling me that we would play a game of cards and if I lost, I would become one of his wives. (Which actually, had I been remotely attracted to him, that might have been interesting.) So we played, and I didn’t understand the rules. They seemed to keep changing. And in the end, he declared himself the winner. Which left me with no choice but to assault my way out of the plane and tear breathlessly through the airport to get away, convinced that if he caught me he would throw me in a burlap bag and ship me off to the desert. An unwilling convert.

Next?

The  Hindus?

Um, namaste? Are you serious? I can’t even let my guard down for a minute in shavasana without being molested by Shiva and Shakti.

Well, okay, that was a bit of a snafu on my part. When I signed up for six months on a kibbutz, I was young and very turned on by the whole commune thing, and I somehow thought there would be round-the-clock spliff-smoking.

You know what? Let’s skip the Zionists for the moment…

The Mormons?

How about those two boys from Utah who were on a mission in Brazil? Do you know that they wouldn’t step foot in the ocean, despite being on an island, surrounded by the some of the most beautiful waters in the world?

But that somehow didn’t stop them from repeatedly showing up at the nude beaches in their sweaty dress shirts and black pants. Always right in time to catch me and my cute friends peeling off our clothes. Bibles at the ready.

They would also show up at the same parties we frequented, hosted by a notorious coke-snorting artist-musician. “What the fuck are you doing here?” we’d ask them. And they’d tell us that the artist-musician, Valdir, was in the process of being converted. Meanwhile Valdir, standing behind them, not understanding a word, would nod eagerly and smile beatifically, and then run off to dip his glass in the cachaça tub on the patio and snort another line.

Nice job, boys. We’ll take it from here.

The Pagans?

Good one. Do those invitations to “gatherings” that ended up being naked free-for-alls in the full-moon wilderness mean anything to you, smart-ass?

The Buddhists?

Ah, you saved that one for last, didn’t you? Because you know it is the Buddhists with whom I’ve had to scramble the most. Those tricky, tricky Buddhists. I never wigged out with anyone like I did with them. But I’m not supposed to talk about it. I’m serious. I could get in a lot of trouble here.

To the Buddhists I simply say, catch me if you koan.