I know that, as a bleeding heart liberal, I'm supposed to be open-minded and tolerant and all that shit but the thing is, there are just not that many people that I truly like and could be friends with. Partly because I know I'm right about everything and so everyone should think like me. But I mean, I can shoot the shit with most anyone but the minute I find something out about them that I don't like, a red flag goes up and I make the pronouncement (in my head) that I could never be REAL friends with this person. Now, if they are straight up racist or sexist or something, chances are I'll try to work it so I don't ever have to talk to them again. (I'm not much for the confrontation.) But there are other, more subtle hints that just make me decide not to waste my time. The thing is, besides the fact that I just don't have or want a lot of friends in the first place, I'm too fucking old to be trying to or pretending to like someone that I just don't. If someone is indifferent to President Bush's cocking up of the country, I'm sorry, thank you for playing, we have lovely parting gifts. I mean, a person doesn't even have to be a rabid America: Love It or Leave It fanatic to turn me off anymore. Taste in TV shows, movies, or music can tell you a lot. And books too, unless you don't read, which turns me off, but only a little 'cause most people don't read. But if someone only reads Cosmopolitan and the Shopaholic series, well, I probably am not going to have a lot to say to them. I'm not saying I can't talk to you if you don't like Chappelle's Show...but, yeah, I kinda am.

I saw this mini-van yesterday with a bumper sticker that said "AbortionBreastCancer.org" and something under it, but I didn't understand the other thing, so I don't remember it. I totally hated the person in that mini-van. It was virulent and immediate. Part of it all is that if you're indifferent, then you don't think about others enough. But if you're anti-choice or racist or sexist or whatever, then you think about people but only as far as how much better you think you are than them. Is Stupid Mini-van Woman going to feed, clothe, and love every unwanted baby born this year? No, she's not. And she probably never really thinks about what will happen to babies that are "saved" from abortion. It's the birth they're all worried about. After that, the babies and the moms can go screw. Their not "pro-life," only pro-birth.

I've known a few people who have had abortions and if they had been forced to carry their babies to term, regardless of whether or not they kept the babies afterward, I know they feel that their lives would have been ruined. And that's their prerogative. I also have met people who should have seriously thought about abortion as an alternative to, say, being a single mom at 17 after your mom's kicked you out. That happened to a girl I know, and ten years later that child has more problems than you can shake a stick at, and his mom is STILL wishing she'd never had him. Kids pick up on that shit, you know. They are terribly, terribly perceptive and even if she's never said to him that she regrets being his mom (although I don't know that she hasn't), there is no way he can't tell. It isn't inherently wrong to have a child at 17, but this country makes it damn near impossible to have an easy life if you're a teenage mom, especially if you're single. This country is very clear on how it would like you to live. Tax breaks are given to heterosexuals and married couples (especially ones with kids), houses are damn near impossible to buy without two incomes, forcing the coupling up (and, of course, breeding) of this nation - this nation that can't feed the people it already has. The US makes it really, really hard to live any way that is viewed as "different" - which is anything that isn't white, traditional-family oriented, and suburban. So, The Powers That Be don't want you to have a child at 17, but they want to outlaw your alternative. It really chaps my hide. So, fuck you, Stupid Mini-van Woman, what the fuck do you know? I also always think that people who really want to toe the line (usually Christians) about things like abortion or welfare have never really had to make any kind of hard decisions, like food versus medicine or how to pay for hospital bills. I know that's probably not really accurate, but blind faith and believing that "the Lord will provide" just really doesn't do it for me.