7) Yeah, I watched the Keith Olberman video.

I'm starting to remember why I don't write much. Because largely what I write about is negative.

The text of Prop 8 is as follows:
PROPOSITION 8
This initiative measure is submitted to the people in accordance with the provisions of Article II, Section 8, of the California Constitution.
This initiative measure expressly amends the California Constitution by adding a section thereto; therefore, new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.
SECTION 1. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the “California Marriage Protection Act.”
SECTION 2. Section 7.5 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California
It's on page 128 (or 49 of 62) of this PDF.

It's weird to think that only five or six years ago, I probably would have been all for Prop 8 and yet today, I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that so many people would be so petty as to amend their constituion to make gay marriage illegal. That so many people would have been so spiteful as to sign their name on a petition for it. That someone would have been so vindictive as to go through the steps to create said petition and travel around getting the necessary signatures to put it on the ballot. After all, they weren't preventing anybody from going through a religious ceremony. They weren't outlawing gays from putting on their tuxes and civilly uniting. As far as I understand the proposition, they weren't even preventing gays from having something that had all the same legal rights as marriage but with a different name. That's why it's petty.

It's just a word. A word that in varying societies is between one man and potentially several women, one man and one woman who've never met before and didn't agree to the terms, one man and one woman who can stop being an and through a long and expensive legal process, between one geriatric millionaire and one nubile young stripper, or between one princess of a weak country and one prince who will be gaining some new land on his wedding day.

Our country managed to get along for many years just fine without people dictating what gender combination had to be in place for two people to marry. Sometimes it's better to leave things as they are.

6) I caused the credit crunch.

Okay, I'm tired of this culture of victimization. Nothing's my fault, everything is because of the media or my parents or the corporations or society. All I've been hearing on the news for months is how the banks screwed us over and _______ are a bunch of crooks for fucking up the market.

We all have ourselves to blame.

When you bought that shirt that you really couldn't afford but you "deserved" it and you put it on your credit card?

When you couldn't to pay off the credit card this month but you could afford to eat out twice a week?

When you decided you wanted a house and you went with the bank's advice to lie about how much you made?

When that investor bought a bunch of securities without reading the fine print.

When I convinced you to open up a credit card account with my store even though you already had four maxed out? And I knew about it? And told you about how you could get another shirt for only $20 more?

When I said it was disgusting that that company had huge layoffs and gave the CEO a raise and then I turned around and bought something from them that afternoon?

Yes, executive boards fire half the company due to their own incompetence then give them raises. Yes, banks told customers to lie about how much they made and then sold off the loans to people who basically immediately jacked up the interest rates. Yes, companies shove credit cards down our throats. Yes, they bombard us with marketing.

But you know what, at every chance we had a fucking choice.

Look, society's only going to improve when we accept responsibility for our actions. And by accept responsibility, I don't mean demand retribution or curse ourselves and our bad luck. No, own it. And work to fix it. Pay off that credit card (but don't close it- just every once in a while put what you were going to put on the debit card anyway on the CC and set it up to pay the whole thing off at the end of the month automatically), eat in more (you'll lose weight and feel better), start a garden (seeds are cheap), cruise the thrift stores (they have cooler clothes, anyway), but don't sit on your ass feeling sorry for yourself and waiting for the gubmint to send you a stimulus check.

5) I really need an alarm to remind me to do this.

So tomorrow I'm starting my new part-time job at my stepmom's adhesive fulfilling business. I will be doing various campaigns for them such as trying to acquire government contracts, getting our product into stores, and getting into women-owned business organizations. I've worked for this company before as sort of an office and shop manager and I wasn't too thrilled with what I was doing (calling customers, filling orders), but now I am. I guess it's because I feel that now I actually have an opportunity to expand the business. I feel that I'll be making a difference. Sure, it's glue but I'll have something real and tangible that I can point to and say, "I did that." Also, the last time I was working for this company, it was before my job folding shirts and selling clothes to overpriveleged Dallasites and, gotta tell ya, selling glue to craft stores will be a lot more rewarding. Sure, when I was selling clothes I was occasionally selling suits to people going on their first job interview or selling an outfit to an out-of-towner who lost their luggage, but I was usually selling shit they didn't need, that was only going to make them feel guilty when they got their credit card statements. Now I will be selling products that allow people to engage in hobbies and to do nifty DIY stuff. And who would object to giving people a tiny boost in their sense of empowerment?

4) 4′33″

The whine of the fan, rocking. Now softer now louder. I hope it doesn't crash in my sleep.
The pull-chain clinking against the light fixture. The longer one is the perfect length to achieve harmonic resonance so it swings wildly.
The groan of bedsprings.
Feet slap against cold faux wood flooring.
The floor creaks where the carpeting was laid down improperly.
Earrings tap together as I run around looking for a pair of sunglasses.
I turn the door handle. Small metal bits slide against one another. The door was cut a little too long, it drags against the carpet with a ffffff. A thud and a click and the door is shut.
A slight wind makes the trees go shhhh.
Scrapes and crackles as I walk down the driveway littered with pecan shells.
I rummage in my purse. Bits of plastic clack together. A bottle of ibuprofen rattles around. My keys jingle as I pull them out.
I press a button, four simultaneous clicks as the locks disengage.
My key grates against the pins in the lock. The car dings. I haven't put my seatbelt on. I turn the key, the car chugchugchugchugchugchugaWHOOMs into life.
The car gripes as I shift into drive. The air swishes around the car, twigs crunch under the tires.
A light eeee as I apply the breaks. I rummage in my purse again, pull out the face plate to my stereo, click it into place, and turn on some music.

3) Only my third day and I'm already slipping.

And my sister told me an hour ago that there was rioting in Waco when Obama won. Obama posters were burned and groups of white kids tried to start fights with groups of black kids.

Okay, seriously, what the hell is wrong with us? What is wrong with this part of the country? What is wrong with this state? We became a state because we wanted to own slaves, and mean ol' Mexico didn't want any of it. Some pussy-ass human rights shit. Sure, we were a country for a few years but we joined the US the first chance we got. Texas. Exists. Because. People. Wanted. To. Own. Slaves. We got off to a bad start. We've had two female governors but one was only elected because her husband wasn't allowed to be in office anymore and the other one was a tobacco lobbyist!

I didn't realize how much I missed Austin and the culture and liberalness of Austin until I went there for Halloween and voting. I think I'm either going to have to move back there or somewhere up north so I don't lose it. Is there a place such that they are reasonably accepting of atheists? Where you can have an intelligent discussion about science or a book or hell, even an actual intelligent discussion of a movie? I sort of had that in Austin, but I lived in a co-op. The nonreligious seem to be attracted to such things. I want to live somewhere where I can have a tiny house with a good-sized yard and a huge vegetable garden. I want to be within biking distance of a grocery store and a decent restaurant or two. I want to not need a car except for lugging heavy stuff. I want to be able to occasionally say off-the-wall things without people thinking I'm completely insane. I don't have this in Dallas. I miss it. Bad.

2) It's gonna be Obama-related posts for a while. So... just deal, zero people who are reading out there.

So, for the past two weeks I've been afraid that he's going to die in office. Obama has already had how many death threats and how many assasaination attempts? It seems that eventually someone's gonna get through. I tell myself, Nelson Mandela survived his presidency and he doubtlessly didn't have the technology and personnel that Obama will have access to and in fact has access to now. I tell myself, except for LBJ, every president from Kennedy on has had someone try to assasinate him. Only two were able to cause harm and only one was successful and because of that one, the Secret Service is what it is today.

I fear for him because Obama doesn't just have political opponents after him, he has people that think he is an abomination, residue of miscegenation. People see him and come to the conclusion that hey, maybe this whole racial mixing thing isn't so bad (because apparently everyone is stuck in 1957 and nobody has heard of CLINAL VARIATION) and there goes the pure white race.

I fear that some crazy stupid redneck fuck who would rather blame his inadequacies on them blacks gettin' uppity is going to through sheer lunacy come up with an assasination plot that nobody has though of yet. I only hope that the ones intelligent enough to not get caught beforehand are also intelligent enough to know that the backlash (and there's a lot of us who feel enfranchised for the first time in our lives and really, really like it) wouldn't be worth it.

1) One post every day for 365 days.

I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I was going to wait for the beginning of the year, but I decided that the day after Obama's election would be a nice time to start, symbolically. I might decide later on down the road that this was a stupid reason to start this exercise, but I think the important thing is that I'm doing it.

I will post something on this blog every single day from now until November 4, 2009. It could be musings, poetry (ha!), jokes, stream-of-consciousness writings, whatever. Why am I doing this? I was inspired by a guy I heard of (really wish I knew who it was) who drew something every day for a year, and by the end of the year his drawing skills went from total crap to quite impressive, not trying to study drawing or anything. I want to improve my writing skills and while I'm definitely in the top half, why not improve on what skills I have? Also, I think it will be good for me just to have something that I'm plugging away at every single day.

My rules:
At least 12 hours between posts that count for the day. I don't want to get into the habit of posting something at, say, 11:56 pm and then posting something at 12:05 am and being done for the next day. That's a good way to forget if I've posted or not.
At most 24 hours between posts, barring a situation where I don't have internet access. In that case, I will write something and post it a soon as possible.
No starting the day's post before 12:00 am.
Each post that counts for the day must be at least 200 words long. This ensures a good faith effort to write a real blog post and not just something that's meant to count for the day.
This isn't birth control, it's a diet. If I fuck up and miss a day or two, I won't throw the blog out and start a new one on Sunday. I will post as soon as possible and add more days on the end until I've reached my goal.

I may have to add more rules as I see fit, but I think this creates a good place to start. If anybody reads this, this is important to me so if you notice I've been slacking, remind me of my commitment to myself.