The New World

There are words in the world. I understand this. I cannot find the right ones.

I have been staring at this screen for an hour ( actually, I've been staring at it for a week), trying to figure out what to say about the last weekend, the last week, and I cannot find the words. Rendering my smart-ass speechless says volumes.

First of all, as of November 4th, I don't have to learn Portuguese. I can almost be sick in my own country now and that is a huge relief. The part that worried me most, (other than Sarah Palin, a hundred year war, the possibility of a further privatization of health care, and the ridiculous $5000 health care credit idea) was the pet quarantine. How does that work? Can you go visit? Can you bring roast beef? Doesn't matter now.

I have a friend who still cries when she sees pictures of Election Day. I understand. I am reminded by the young and the beautiful crowding outside the White House telling a certain man to "Get the fuck out!" that not everyone lived through the Reagan Years. These last decades those of us who were "trickled down" on have watched our country morph into something ugly, gaudy, and sick. Self-serving and self-indulgent. That "shining city on a hill" had become some awful tan-and-taupe gated community. The rest of us weren't welcome anymore.

On November 4th we beat the gate down.

The following weekend was Apocalypse Meow.

If November 4th did not bring hope enough, the weekend that followed sealed the deal. I am a doe-eyed cynic, a worst-case scenario sweetheart, an Eeyore who sings. For all of my want for things to be better, I am tempered by the fact that things rarely cooperate the way one may want them to. But as of the late, late evening of November 9th, several shots of bourbon ahead of myself, I realized that I'm a changed person. Cynic be damned. I've been broken. Built again. My gate was beat down too.

Thank you is not not full of enough to begin to express the depth and breadth of this. Thank you is what you say after someone has given you a blender.

Community and family. I keep going back to community and family. Howard said it best on Friday night, "This is community. This is family". You all built me a barn and as soon as I possibly can I will return the favor. I'll build you a bajillion barns and sing in all of them. And make chicken.

When the idea of a benefit came up my first response was "No!" which was greeted with a resounding "Too fucking bad, get over it, we're doing it anyway, buck up!" But I was reminded by a man who has known me a good many years that all the good in the world that you do doesn't mean shit unless you let other people return the favor. Otherwise its just selfishness. I had to remind myself quite a few times that The Rev. was right. If good can come of this bullshit cancer thing than let good come of it. Let good come of it!! There is no better way of telling it to go to hell!

I will find the right words soon. Right now I can offer up the awkward-not-making-much-sense ones. The ones that don't seem to express what I mean. I'd take bullets; give all I had left.

Thank you.
Thank you....

We're living in a different world now.