Wednesday, October 31, 2007

On Second Thought

The Hat and I had many interesting conversations yesterday. There were themes. It all owed to the fact that both of us wrote posts yesterday about which we felt awkward. She deigned to step outside of her light and fluffy box and comment on politics. I confessed to hating a kid.

Hat and I have talked before about our tendency to "self-censor" on our blogs and sometimes even our comments on other folks blogs. There are things I choose not to discuss in my blog. That's one thing. But there are other things that I sometimes want to say but don't because of what I'll call the Kerfuffle Factor. It's not that I'm so insecure in my nuanced views of some issues that I couldn't debate them, but I'm disinclined to debate. I'm afraid of a smackdown if someone disagrees with me (well, maybe a little I am, but just a little). Rather, it's that I find the forum of bloggy comments to sometimes be limiting in regards to real, authentic debate. What happens is this: you write something on your blog. I don't agree. Am I really going to come over to your house and tell you that I think you're a fundamentalist atheist or a wild-eyed liberal or a neanderthal wing-nut neo-con? Of course not. It's your blog. You have a right to your opinion. But the fact is, if I read your blog every day, it's because I like you. I enjoy your presence in this bloggy little community of ours. I'm not very often inclined to challenge your stated views because I don't want to rile up anyone. What's the point?

Discourse in Blogtopia is, I think, a different beast than in real life. If we were sitting in my living room having wine and you said something to which I took exception I'd be more inclined to offer a different view. But that's because we could look each other in the face, hear each other's tone, access all those physical clues that make it possible to disagree and still like each other. The black and white of the comment section makes that all a little more difficult. For me, anyway. And for The Hat, too. Which is what we talked about.

There was some rousing conversation on her blog post yesterday. None of it was mean or ill-intentioned (although I did take exception to the accusation that all Americans drive Hummers. I so don't. And neither do you). But it was rousing. A good bit of back and forth. And it made The Hat edgy. Because she likes everyone to be happy and get along. And again, people were getting along, but the mere fact that she'd opened things up to debate made her uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, over here, I vented about a horrible little girl. You all came along for the ride, imagining with me her deserved and bleak future, pledging to join a bitch slap party. It was gratifying. Until I started feeling bad about it. I mean, yeah, she probably isn't going to amount to much if she keeps this up but holy cow. I'm a grown up, allegedly. I'm a Christian. I'm supposed to be all about the tolerance and forgiveness and peacemaking. And I didn't do a very good job of that yesterday. Which started making me feel bad.

I am, I admit, a bit excitable. I can rant and rave with the best of them. I've never liked that about myself, but it isn't something I've been able to get much of a handle on even as I've gotten older and supposedly know better. Self-restraint, calm in the face of agitation, I admire that in a person. Being able to not get kerfuffled is an art. It doesn't mean one doesn't care or isn't passionate. But it is possible to feel deeply and still act and speak in a way that is thoughtful and has the power to ameliorate, to pour fragrant oil on troubled waters.

Two people did that yesterday. On Hat's blog it was Sling, who said:

Great post Hat! An Edwards/Obama ticket would be great way to bring this country around to the idea that the status quo needs to change....However..I'm too damn old to wait!I would love to see an in your face, break all the rules, flush the whole damn thing and start over, Hillary/Obama ticket...Really. I agree with you that fear breeds fear, which is why I think electing those two would get the people of this country back on the offensive where we belong. A statement that says that maybe we actually practice all that tolerance and equal rights rhetoric we preach. (any room for me behind that curtain?).

On my blog, it was Iwanski, who had this completely humbling thing to say:

Don't worry about slapping the princess. The universe will slap her around plenty. Hopefully, she will take her slaps and learn from them, becoming a great person and one of the Child's future best friends in the 12th grade.

Now be clear: I love all of you. I love what each of you offers, whether it is passion, support, edge, humor, recipes and/or outrage. I learn from it, am challenged by it and think you should all just keep keeping on with whatever you are doing in your bloggy world. I'll bring pie. But that said, I have to give snaps to those two guys for their roles here in Blogtopia.

Sling strikes me as a very calm fellow. He thinks plenty deeply and a strong sense of right and wrong. He'd kick your butt if you truly deserved it. But he has a way of expressing his views that is not confrontational or arrogant or self-righteous or any of those other sorts of things. With love and quiet humor he respectfully says what he thinks and then blithely moves on.

Iwanski is one of those rare folks who manages to always see the side that no one else bothers to mention. His perspective is unique. He can get his Irish up as much as the next guy but he is so kind-hearted, so self-deprecating, so humble that he rarely ever makes you feel a fool. Or rather, I felt like a complete fool after reading his comment yesterday but only because I had the good sense to see the error of my ways, not because he was pulling some holier-than-thou schtick on me.

So Hat and I were discussing all this last night and going on for some minutes about how much we love and respect these two guys and then it hit me. We live in such a bitterly divided society right now. Everyone is right, everyone is wrong, the vitriol flies and the vast majority of us in the middle sit quietly on our hands because it seems impossible to engage in a meaningful way. We are desperate for leadership, desperate for truth telling, tired of feeling horrible and embarrassed by what our nation has become. We are exhausted and a little sad. We need someone to lift us up out of that and push us on to being better than we've become.

There are good candidates on the Democratic side and I suppose the Republicans in the group feel equally confident about the worthiness of some of the folks on their slate. But there is still plenty of time between now and the first primaries. I would like to propose a new ticket, a ticket composed of good men, well-intentioned men, men who drink beer, make people laugh and have sweet, shiny eyes. Ladies and gentleman:


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18 Comments:

Blogger Kimberly Ann opined...

Thoughtful, insightful but don't be so very hard on yourself. Oh and I've vote for that ticket any day. Vote early and vote often is my motto.

October 31, 2007 10:32 AM  
Blogger Kimberly Ann opined...

* I'd vote...

October 31, 2007 10:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous opined...

I agree with everything on this post. And even if I didn't, I wouldn't tell you.
HAH HAH! I am being ironic.
Don'cha think?
Seriously though, yesterday sucked and I'm never going there again. I just don't have the confidence yet. I'll leave that shit up to Cowbell. Or Bullbell when you git right down to it! (why do I want to spank her so much?)

October 31, 2007 11:03 AM  
Blogger Lorraine opined...

Trust, KA, I can be waaaay harder on myself than that. I just felt kinda oogy after I bashed that stupid little kid so hard.

Let's write in Sling/Iwanski next Tuesday...even though it's not our primary. Wanna?

Bat: Like rai-ai-ain on your wedding day. You chucklehead.

October 31, 2007 11:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous opined...

Sling/Iwanski '08 Ticket
What a great idea!!
You can be their campaign manager! I'll do that envelope thingy, (after all I am a secretary)they always show workers busily flinging envelopes about at campaign headquarters. Don't know what it is they're doing but I am all over it!!

October 31, 2007 2:04 PM  
Blogger Doralong opined...

Dear heart- when someone hurts your child, you react- period. It happens.

Where do I go to sign up to volunteer and such? And where might I get the bumper sticker please?

And I really do understand the after effect of such anger.. But you know what? It only shows how much you do love your child that such poor behavior actually hurt you as well..

Just sayin' The Child is one lucky kid.

October 31, 2007 2:11 PM  
Blogger Lorraine opined...

MNF: You are officially the Head Envelope Stuffer. Welcome to the campaign!

Doralong, Thanks. You're sweet.

Still working on the bumper sticker (now wouldn't that be fun), but feel free to steal the button and put it on your own site. This campaign is going to need lots of word of mouth. And money. Lots of money. Oh, and the candidates probably need to agree to run. Details.

October 31, 2007 2:55 PM  
Blogger booda baby opined...

I don't know the other half of the ticket, but I'd vote for Sling in a Second.

That must've been a wonderful, wonderful talk. I don't know how you/we/me get around the unnaturalness that blogging is. Without all the human-right-in-front-of-you cues and the drunken weaving that real conversations are, what can you do except trust that someone reads you fairly and has broad enough reference points, appreciates the Heisenbergian thingie going on (as in 'I'm writing this now, but it might change very very soon') and has sympathy for the tiny canvas you're painting a much bigger story on. (ick. another anology gone wrong.)

Wow. That was a lot to trust. Oh well. It's the only way that I, personally, can do it.

October 31, 2007 3:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous opined...

heh heh, "drunken weaving"? I think Booda knows more about the sort of conversations you and I have than I'm entirely comfortable with. HAH!

October 31, 2007 3:34 PM  
Blogger Lorraine opined...

There is that, Booda. A certain level of trust has to factor in. As in "trust me when I say the other half of the ticket is as solid as the Slingmeister".

I know, right, Bat? Like she's listening in or something. Bet she works for the NSA but is using her powers for good and not evil.

October 31, 2007 3:40 PM  
Blogger booda baby opined...

I do not. I swear. I swear a lot, really, which makes it double hard to do blogging since it's regarded as the first refuge of illiteridiots and also bad manners.

Unless the people who read your blog are still clinging to their Sex and the City aesthetic and fantasies.

October 31, 2007 5:14 PM  
Blogger Sling opined...

Are you kidding me??..I only just now read this post,and you got me all verklempt.
PLUS!..I couldn't ask to be in better company than Iwanski!

Dibs on President!...HA!

Seriously,if elected,I promise to model my administration after my my personal Presidential hero..Martin Sheen.

October 31, 2007 5:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous opined...

I'm not much on stuffing envelopes, but I'm an excellent proofreader, so I can make sure that what goes into the envelopes doesn't make our candidates appear untutored. Untutored is bad. ;)

p.s. What it all comes down to, Lorraine, is that before all else, we're human. We get miffed, or overjoyed, or whatever. And we try to do better than the day before. You still rock.

p.p.s. Also, Hat still rocks.

October 31, 2007 6:15 PM  
Blogger Lorraine opined...

"Illiteridiots"...good word oh person who works for the NSA but denies it.

And that, Mr. Sling, is why I drafted this ticket. Can I pick 'em or can I pick 'em? And I guess this means Iwanski is riding shotgun since he wasn't here to call firsties.

Syd, You are the campaign's Proofreading Czar.(I think everyone should have good titles).

And thanks for the rocking. And yes, she does.

October 31, 2007 7:42 PM  
Blogger Doralong opined...

Dibs on Secretary of Protocol! Mainly because it wouldn't require actually doing anything...

November 01, 2007 6:54 AM  
Blogger Lorraine opined...

Totally, Doralong, you will so rock it in those heels and pearls. It's all about the image.

November 01, 2007 9:16 AM  
Blogger Iwanski opined...

Thank you so much.

I had a bad day, and was feeling pretty bad about myself, and this fixed it all up.

Thanks again. That is all.

November 01, 2007 4:40 PM  
Blogger Lorraine opined...

(((Iwanski)))

(I take it that means you'll run?)

November 01, 2007 5:55 PM  

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