I Tried, I Really Did...

But I just couldn't sit thru it.

I managed to last thru 34 minutes of it before the bile started to rise, the room started to go blurry, and the nausea flooded up over me. I managed to get thru the simple-minded rhetoric about Social Security, complete with cooked statistics, but when he started in on "preservation of marriage," I lost it. I snapped it off in disgust and came in here to clear my mind -- but when I opened the browser, the first thing that came up was CNN -- with a big "BUSH DEFENDS MARRIAGE" headline.

And I threw up in my wastebasket.

Sometimes I feel like there's just no point anymore. Sometimes I feel like the lunatics and crackpots and religious fanatics have taken over and there's just no hope for the rest of us.

But then I stop and think.

No way,

I'm not giving up that easy.

This is my country too. I may be powerless and excluded and marginalized and without any kind of a voice in the vast public discourse, but dammit, THIS IS MY COUNTRY TOO.

I'll leave it to the pundits and the analysts to dissect what he said and how he said it. Maybe later I'll even have a thought or two.

But right now, all I want to do is drink a cold glass of water, rinse the foul taste out of my mouth, and go to bed.

And just maybe, dream of a better America.