The Day of Hobbits

Yesterday, I encountered hobbits, twice. The first incident was at the retirement party for the man who hired me here. During his going-away speech, he gave Bilbo's going-away speech, which is, as follows: “I don’t know half of you as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” Then, at home, the Redheaded Kid came over to watch the game and I made some joke about how his mother must think we're a bad influence on him as he seems to be in the process of renouncing* the Catholic faith. He said that he told his mom we were like hobbits, in that we sit around and talk about things all the time. That cracks me up. * The Professor and I were once talking about a scholar she knows who's renounced Marxism, which totally cracked me up. I was like, "Of course," because who other than Marxists renounce anything? Everyone else just stops doing it, but Marxists (or ex-Marxists) renounce it. The Professor claims to have renounced Christianity and, if this is the case, I feel very cheated, as I have never been to a renunciation, and would like to go. When I finally gave up on it (Christianity, not renouncing things), it was more like deciding not to go see that relative one can no longer stand. Nothing formal, just started being it less and less and then one day, I wasn't any more. But if I can talk the Professor into some kind of public renunciation of something--Christianity, Marxism, Aleister Crowley, cottage cheese, whatever--that's going to be great. I wonder what one wears to a renouncing? Something vibrant, I bet. If the Professor renounces a bunch of things, then I could renounce renouncing and we could have a public feud that fueled our respective fames, even as we privately continued to be friends. See, this is why there are still Marxists and ex-Marxists; it's so much fun.