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.