Jesus, don't cry. You can rely on me honey.

So......what time are the riots?

And there's a concrete sky falling from the trees again and you know now why

So I've showered. I'm still not dressed. I still haven't left the house. I'm still not working. I will get there momentarily, but I have to at least write something.

Between IM conversations with louche and reading Langston Hughes's poem (posted by littleblueworld) and reading dommeyourass's post and....and.... and....too many thoughts to coherently articulate but I have to fucking try.

Last night I had my kids do a writing exercise where they wrote a piece and everyone's first line was "Why are you always so cynical?" and that line keeps popping up in my head today when I keep thinking the same: we get what we deserve. I mean, not "we", as in the small group of individuals around me as being the ones to blame, but those folks aren't exempt either. I mean "we" as everyone. I could toss around blame and I have some pretty good rants and theories -- everything from Karl Rove-driven dirty campaigns to Republican doctoring of ballot machines to John Edwards not doing enough campaigning in his South to John Kerry being too smart for his own good to etc. etc. etc. But fuck all that shit. Fuck that whole "what has happened to America?" because America has been a lazy, narcissistic, oppresive country for awhile and it's about time we wake the hell up and figure out how we have all these huge amounts of privilege and access but we live in fear. For legitimate reasons -- our government does scary things. Our CITIZENS do scary things. People are tortured and beaten and killed every day by Americans, in Iraqi prisons, in U.S. prisons, in the woods behind police stations in Chicago. People are fired, abused, yelled at, raped, and assaulted. These things genuinely effect us, psychologically and physically. But our life is simple float down the river compared to other countries, and I'm not saying that to mean "hey, shut up, we have it good here" because that's already being said, already being implied, by how our news and history is fed to us, saying we're good, they're bad, look how bad they have it, aren't you proud to be an American who loves freedom and has TiVo and a great life, so quit pointing out the bad stuff. I'm saying that our country is rapidly heading towards those supposed "other places" that we pride ourselves on being better then, and maybe one day we'll wake up and go, "oh. Wait a minute. When did this happen?"

I think America had some great fundamental things built into it's system, along with many more really really lousy ones. I hate when people say "let's go back to those original principles" because I hate a lot of those original principals, and not just the racism and sexism and classism, but even the theoretical structure. I just laughed for a second because I'm remembering being in a mall in New Orleans and Damon and I passed a store called "The Good Ole Days" which sold craptastic Americana pariphenalia and fake antiques and he said, "The good old days scare me." But I hate more when people then say "if you don't like it, leave." Because I don't fight for "America" because i happen to believe in the country or have nationalist pride. I fight for where I live to be a better place simply because it's where I live and I don't want to live in a place that's fcked up. I would not be able to leave this country without doing extensive research on the politics of where I was going and how I'd fit into and how I'd be fighting corruption there. Right now I have an advantage here because I know the system so might as well stay put.

I live in a place, a country and George W. Bush is my president. Yeah, that hurts to say out loud. And it's obviously not my solely fault. But that doesn't make it less true. So what am I going to do about it?

Here's my fucking concession speech:

President Bush, I acknowledge that you hold a position as a figurehead for this organization we call America and you will make decisions that effect everyone's life, whether I want you to or not. So I pledge I will do everything every day to live the exact life I want, whether you approve of it or not, as loudly and as boldly and as often as i can. This means I will read the news and watch what you do. I will write letters every week and send them to every paper. I will send letter to government officials. Most importantly, I will publish my own words and yell at the top of my lungs my criticisms of your actions. I will dance to music both radical and silly, both offensive and political. I will watch gay porn. I will read 'immoral' books. I will WRITE 'immoral' books. I will ask to get beaten with floggers and wear ass-less leather chaps. I will inject myself with hormones and control my body and live the life in the gender I'm choosing. I will love and fuck whoever I want as often as I want. I will not practice Christianity and will only be down with the Jesus teachings you seem to conveniently ignore. I will avoid corporations as much as possible.

My list will go on. I will add to it every day, every day will be more new year's resolutions.

I will concede that temporarily, today, you have "power" to represent me but I will use my own power to show I'm not in agreement with you at all. I will not be complacent. I will have faith that although living my life honestly and with integrity could get me killed or maimed or hurt and will be hard, but it won't hurt as much as pretending you don't matter and ignoring this life, and so many people have gone before me doing the same and I don't want to let them down. I will not let your culture of fear bully me into submission. If you claim to represent me, I'm going to make it as difficult as possible for you to ignore me.

And at night I will cling to those threads of integrity and pray to all powers of karma, because Mr. President? Payback's a motherfucker.