Stabbing At the Air

None of this may come out as it should, but I am stabbing at the air tonight and fine with whatever direction it goes. I will start by saying that the only real problems I have in my life right now are sore calves and not being able to wave a magic wand to take away grief for some of my friends who suffered a profound loss this past weekend...so clearly sore calves are nothing to bitch about. I am just worried about humanity a little bit at the moment.

A woman I know left this comment on a mutual friend's Facebook page today: THANK YOU for serving our country!! We are proud of you and all the others, even if the president isn't.

Maybe I am just in a bad mood, but this pissed me off, so I left him a comment that says: F that!!! The newly elected president is too proud of you! Maybe his views will be different than McCain's, but I still believe he will be coming into this with good intentions and is proud of you all. AND I QUOTE..."Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us." McCain and Obama are both noble men. McCain bowed out with class and dignity. His followers will hopefully do the same.

So, hopefully I don't get my ass kicked for mentioning this, but the same woman voted Yes on 8 in California. Welllll, I'm questioning why people continue to be comfortable hating others as discriminatory ballot measures in Florida, Arizona, and California were passed. In the news article discussing this, Ron Prentice said, "This is a great day for marriage. The people of California stood up for traditional marriage and reclaimed this great institution." My God, yes, marriage is a GREAT INSTITUTION. But imagine if someone said, "Oh sorry, you can't marry your boyfriend because he is Hispanic and you are Peruvian," or "You are poor and he is rich. A marriage between you will never be legalized." Instead of banning marriages between two people of the same sex who truly love one another, I'd love to see us throw the book at every union between a man and woman that is riddled with infidelity or abuse. Or every marriage of the people who decided that their marriage is superior to the union of the ones they voted to ban yesterday. And, while I feel fine acknowledging a difference of opinion in some matters, deciding on someone else's civil liberties just does not seem right to me. PS...in 1992, I had a bright pink button that said "Fuck the OCA." I wore it to school all of fall until my freshman science teacher ordered me to take it off and said, "Maybe you need to learn to express yourself in a less aggressive manner." To this, I replied, "But Mr. Nunn, this is what I think!!!" I bizarrely had a lot of respect for the guy, and can ultimately see where he was coming from (ie...hate of any kind tends to only breed more hate), but still.

So, I hate to say this, because I have mentioned it before, but I was so excited watching Obama give his acceptance speech last night in front of a tearful crowd, but at the same time, I was terrified for his life. A PostSecret came in a couple months ago with clipped out pictures of Martin Luther King Junior, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, and Obama that reads: It's only a matter of time. I hope like hell this postcard's idea never comes true.

Alright, I can't end on a negative note, so let me tell you this story. Last Friday, we had a huge trick or treat festival at our work for all of our foster children. About 300 kids made their way through the building, gathering candy, pizza, and prizes. We all had candy outside our cubes, except one coworker...he had stuffed animals...tons of them. I walked to his cube and praised him for passing out stuffed animals to our kids, and asked how he managed to collect so many to give away. "Oh, these are my daughter's and we thought it was time to give them to new children who can enjoy them." This daughter passed away from cancer years ago, and as a child would come up to pick one, my coworker would say, "Oh, that is a great choice" and say the name of the toy as it was tucked away into the child's trick or treat bag.

I couldn't help but cry, and cry, and then cry some more. It was a great sign of the humanity I neglected to mention in the first three quarters of this post...and the reason that, even though life gets irritating at times, we all go marching on, even if it is on sore calves that don't deserve to be bitched about.