acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

ac⋅quire

1.	to come into possession or ownership of; get as one's own: to acquire property.

to gain for oneself through one's actions or efforts: to acquire learning. Whose idea was it to use this word to describe this virus? Does anyone think it was an innocuous choice? And putting all possible insinuatory political connotations aside, it doesn't really make sense looking at this kid, does it?

We are a nation of consumers. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I've never understood what parents felt when they were upset about their children encountering unforeseen sex and violence via media that they are not always able to filter. I grasped the concept, and understood why, but I've never sympathized; I've never felt on a physiological level the emotions and the adrenalinic affect of being terrified that someone you loved and were responsible for was being irrevocably damaged and molded into something you were utterly opposed to.

I don't even have kids, but watching this video, with its sensible, friendly, with-it sounding voice and its depiction of people who are purported to be my fellows, with baby consumers smiling in the backseat, enjoying the warm, light-giving glow that comes from knowing they've just purchased something good....I don't know. I felt like sobbing in failure, picturing my children playing with legos, and watching tv, and seeing those cool looking kids they could relate to, and not even comprehending what they were hearing and what it meant, but having it become an unquestioned preconception, embedded in their spine. That it could possibly be these things that could distance my children from me. That these beliefs would be what set the generation gap between them and me; these could be what they latch on to in their pride that they are young, and I am old, and thus we are simply different.

Maybe I have the soul of a fogey. I try not to be morally outraged by things, because it's usually in bad taste, and it usually says as much or more about me as it does about them.

But if this is where the zeitgeist's mores are at now, I don't really want to even be aware of what they will be by the time I have children and they are old enough to be affected by this.

Guess I won't be getting a TV.

yet without fail, 4 days later:

i want t say all sorts of things.
the sorts of things that sound great and profound bouncing around inside my mind.
the kind of things that would sound like lies by the time they'd escaped my lips.
the sort of things that i fantasize as being able to touch her, to make her feel a fraction of what i feel: love, pain, etc.
things that would really just make her feel guilty, and maybe hate herself a little bit more.
things that wouldn't accomplish what i want them to at all.

i want t tell her that we was a baby balloon, always freshly filled with helium every time we talked, by every conversation we shared. s'been gently popped, all th life draining from it. all the gas that kept it filled and floating in midair, dancing like magic, eight feet off th ground, stopped by what seemed like such an inconceivably unnecessary ceiling. used t wonder why it had t be there. turns out there are nails in th attic.

but that's really all just bullshit anyways. sometimes words are just useless. sometimes you just come to an impasse.

lord.

that girl puts the sweet in my tea.

prop 8?

what the fuck, people?
okay really, i'm happy about Obama. yes i am.
and maybe i feel a little guilty about being outraged about something the day after so many things went right for "our" side.

but i couldnt find an outlet for this particular sentiment, because i live with and respect people who unfortunately take an opposing stance on this issue. and whenever i write some very polarized rant on facebook, i feel like i'm yelling at the christians i'm friends with.

but really, that's the truth. I am yelling at them. and I'm yelling at my fucking cousin. and my mother. and really anyone who takes this sanctimonious "preservation of marriage" argument seriously.

cliched talking point first:
preserving marriage? really. have straight people been doing such a good job at preserving marriage? have they? that's what i thought.


you believe god set up marriage as between a man and woman? great. great. keep that to yourself and whatever church you get married in. I'm pretty damn certain the faggots and the dykes won't be strolling in there to get hitched any time soon. this is a legal matter. a state matter. not a religious matter. two people who love each other --yes, just the same as you love your hetero mate-- wish to be able to display their mutual dedication to the world, and to be afforded the same rights in making that union as people who have opposite and not matching genitalia.

i've heard this argument that it's not the gays whose equal rights are being violated. no, its the rights of people who believe in the "sanctity of marriage" whose rights are being violated. their freedom of religion? someone explain that to me. no one is taking anything from you. oh but they are? what, you have some vested stake in the definition of a word? and that is supposed to be more important than the effects discriminatory policy-making has on individual lives?


i get really wrapped up in things and it becomes hard for me to hold an image of the other side's feelings and thoughts in my head. but i'm sorry; all i see from prop 8er's is ignorance. lack of personal connection, maybe? not even hatred or bigotry necessarily. perhaps just standard human recoil to things they're not accustomed to. perhaps indoctrination or inculcation of what is sinful and what's not. but i keep getting the picture in my head that prop 8 proponents have just never had a gay friend. i guess it's the same as people who think all muslims are terrorists or something. maybe they just can't envision gays as actual people. I don't know what the fucking deal is.

the gays and lesbians that i am blessed enough to have as friends are wonderful human beings and in no way any less deserving of love and respect than any of the straight people i know, and in some cases are far wiser and more interesting of individuals. and in many ways prop 8 supporters, they are just like you. they like the same bands. they dig the same foods. they like bowling and a good beer. they like judd apatow movies. when they fall, it hurts. when they're broken-hearted, they cry. and when you treat them as less than human, how do you think it feels? you can lie to yourself and say gay rights is nothing like womens rights or civil rights for non-whites. but you're wrong.

go ahead. tell them that their love is sinful. That their love is evil. That their love is lesser. That they are lesser, and thus deserve to be treated as such.

does it make you feel good? does it make you feel morally superior? i hope so. because everyone else thinks you're an asshole.







p.s. maybe we should redefine marriage as strictly a religious term, and not something the state can give out. there would be no legal benefits in marriage whatsoever. it would only be something to be recognized by G-d. the state could only give out civil unions, and there would be no difference between whether a couple was gay or straight. there. the state wouldn't be sanctioning "gay marriage". or "straight marriage" for that matter.

and then gays could go to gay friendly churches and the God Who Doesn't Hate Fags would smile down on them as well. and the homophobic Christians could comfort themselves by making it a theological issue, and saying those churches aren't real Christians. everyone's happy. or something.

i feel like god takes souls when they're ready to meet him
even if the rest of us need 'em.

nuh uh.

nope girl i aint gonna let you bring me down no way. you can't ruin my day with that sunshine. i'll just think of rain and everything'll be alright.

watch "stardust memories"

i worry far too much about staying in touch. no matter who i'm talking to, in the back of my head i'm fretting about saying something that reveals my ignorance or lack of insight to their worldview or their personal experience. i read the autobiography of malcolm x last year, and as a young white suburban middle class christian raised male, i spent the entirety of the next six months in a mild to extreme state of anxiety about not understanding "the black experience" in the united states. and there seemed to be no legitimate way to go about learning what "the black experience" is, because i'm pretty sure its a myth. i've never really had "a white experience", i dont know what that is. my only white experience is some blend of trying to understand other people and trying to hold on to some shred of my own identity. i dont know what to say or think or feel when i hear elder members of my own family saying things like "well a lot of slaves loved their masters". what do you say to that?

i just have speeches about house negros and field negros running through the back of my head, and i feel some sort of indignation, like i should be playing the black nationalist. and then i consider all the unknown times i've spoken with people more educated or more culturally sensitive than myself, and i've likely said things that have seemed equally short-sighted. and even in the large majority of afro-centric entertainment i've encountered, the character who plays the black nationalist, in touch with his african spiritual roots, citing marcus garvey or w.e.b. dubois or the honorable elijah muhammad (don't mistake me for knowing what any of these people have said, i am definitely just dropping names), it seems they're a peripheral character, and the other characters tell that cat to "shet yo preachin ass up" or something along those lines.

i hear women in my family say things about how a woman shouldnt be president, how they're too emotional, and they're stating it like its a fact, not their own opinion, and i am similarly dumbfounded. lines floating through my head about male-centric development of thought, how these things are lies, how women are equally qualified, and i can't help but look upon these particular relatives as victims of our societal programming. they've been told they are inferior beings to men, or at least "different in nature"....in a way that dictates they not try to hold prominent positions in said society, because as women they are suited for other duties (which are "equally important" in the grand scheme of things....yyyyeah). and they seem to have swallowed it whole.

what do you do? try and "educate" them? a male telling a woman her thoughts are mired in backward oppression? how do i come across then? its not like im some bastion of equality, some flawless specimen of egalitarianism. i have plenty of my own biases, my own bigotry, some i recognize and some not. it's not like i never have racist thoughts or sexist thoughts. they're there too. am i supposed to be ashamed? i dunno. and is it really my business to go around upsetting other people's way of life? to drag them down into my cloud of uncertainty?

a lot of the time i feel that human nature is best suited for tribes, where there would be maybe 30-100 individuals at most, and knowledge of the world would be based on observation. where we could actually "know" the way things are, simply because there wouldn't be so many conflicting opinions, and we could just go about our lives. society wouldn't be large enough to really oppress anyone, because everyone would know everyone and would have to deal with things on a personal level. it would be incredibly difficult to come up with stupid generalizations like "all women are this" or "all men are that". there would always be someone there to say "well which woman are you talking about? susan? ariana?" and in that way bigotry would be difficult to achieve. there would be no concept of race, because everyone would be racially the same.

in my experience, there are so many opposing ways of looking at everything, and no matter how much one tries to educate (her)self anthropologically, there's always going to be someone being left out. even in the absence of psychotropic substances, i'm always uncertain of what reality is. everything's a bias, everyone is simply a filter and a mirror of what they've taken in, no matter how credible the source. no one is unequivocally correct. i guess that could be seen as "the beauty of it". i know the tribal scenario is incredibly flawed, because it results in one-sidedness for every issue. but a lot of times i just wish for simplicity, for sanity, for solidity so i can just go about my business knowing how things really are, even if that foundation is false. as long as i think it's there and there's no one to tell me otherwise, i'm fine.

unfortunately, it seems the great majority of people do have this sort of foundation, and they apply their narrow view to our infinitely multiplicitous world, and it may result in sanity for them, but they just brush off everyone else as "insane".

never let anyone call you insane. "insane" almost invariably means that the person calling you such simply does not understand how you think, and is too lazy to try.

don't get me wrong; i'm grateful i live in such an uncertain world. when it really comes down to it, i'd much rather feel a little confused and conflicted than be "right", and everyone else be "wrong".

i just have to remember to never, under any circumstances, watch network television. or 24-hour cable news programming.

What is a feminist?

let's hear it.