Thursday Thoughts - And I'll build me a life in the open, a life in the country

1. I'm burning incense over here like the future version of my 17 year old self's wildest dreams.

2. Less than, now. Time to do.

3. When we were young. From a 2003 boardwalk amusement.

4. John Bender's second birthday was yesterday. Four dogs is a lot but I am thankful every day we got this guy.

5. I am eating blow pops like they contain life sustaining nutrients. Jesus take the wheel.

6. Thanks to everyone who linked up or read Show Us Your Books Tuesday - both the link up and the giveaway are still open. I've finished a book, started another, and am picking up a big ass stack of library books tomorrow.

7. Happy happy birthday to my longtime friend Melissa.

8. Alright. A difference in beliefs is one thing when it's like I don't believe in mixing my food up on a plate before I eat it and you do cool cool vs. I don't believe gay people should marry/I don't believe women should make decisions about their own bodies/I believe black people cry racism/I believe the best place for brown immigrants is in cages...not beliefs I want to sit next to at a table regardless of my relationship to who holds them. Differences are fucking great. They make life interesting and give us so much to talk about. But if the difference is that your beliefs infringe on the rights of others to fucking live as they are, then no...we can't agree to disagree. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, all that shit continues to thrive because we (by we I am mostly referring to straight white people) would rather be civil and not ruffle friends than confront it. Fuck all of that. Look where we are after hundreds of years of messages of kindness. Marginalized groups are still getting shit on and fighting to live as we live while bigots smile and still sit at dinner tables. I am all for kindness and friendship too but damn, man. No. That's just letting bigotry and prejudice thrive under the veil of niceness and civility. Do you see the bigots being kind and friendly to the marginalized groups? No, you fucking don’t, but no one gives a shit about that. Sorry you all...this Ellen thing is nice but it’s the easy way out and the privileged way out because our lives are not on the line when we choose that. It allows the people perpetuating all of those isms to hold onto their beliefs that groups that are “other”  are less than because bigots are still embraced as they are like they can’t help the hate they hold inside. Yes they can, but they won’t unless there is a societal and cultural pressure to examine those beliefs. If you REALLY want to live in a kind world where differences are embraced, we have to have hard conversations with people we love about how their beliefs hurt other people. Not a damn one of us is perfect and the kindness comes not in letting “beliefs” that hate on others be, but in challenging those beliefs and then allowing ourselves and others space to change our beliefs and behaviors to ones that don't threaten the lives and humanity of others. Not in just ignoring those beliefs. It’s hard work, but it’s necessary. We want to say we hate politics but guess what? Politics is people in that rulings and laws and acts etc impact actual human beings every second of every day. Don’t you dare attempt to disconnect those things and wash your hands of politics. How we vote has outcomes and other people thrive or wither by them. 

9. Reminder: courtesy of grace.d.art

10. Ecards. 

What appears after the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts is a song lyric to whatever I'm listening to when I start to write the post. This week is Sweet Seasons by Carole King