This is Where the Battle Begins" We've been in Florida now for about five days, and it hasn't snowed. That's the good news. In fact, just yesterday I rode my bicycle over to the neighborhood I live in for coffee and a bagel. (Yes, I have my own bike, and thank you all who have given money for my medical bills.) I went down this long dirt road to where the store is. The snow was already high in the trees and branches, where it had been all winter long. There were birds chirping in the bushes, and I saw a frog out in the weeds. The world was bright and alive. But something felt off, like it was some sort of illusion. I had the whole story in my head, though, of how bad the economy is, and how the unemployment rate is high, and all these people are looking for work. You know how people say we're the last generation to make something of our lives, to have a shot at being better than the previous generation? I've always liked the idea of that. And now I know. It's real. I don't feel like anything will change until jobs become plentiful, until I see people who aren't in desperate need of work go out and find jobs. And there are things that all of us can do right now, at this very moment, to have a larger impact. The other day I was watching MSNBC during lunch with my roommate, and I heard Ann Althouse talk about not participating in the anti-choice movement. As soon as I heard her say it, I knew that was the kind of thing I wanted to do. For her, it was a moral statement, about not helping to hurt people. For me, it's the same thing, but from a completely different angle: not using my voice to say bad things about other people. The first woman to ever put the word "feminist" in her name did it, along with several others, after an uproar about abortion in South Dakota. It's important to note that this is still a small movement. The women who do this aren't changing things yet. But they have decided that they don't want to be part of something that hates women. They don't want to be part of that. They've decided that it's worth something to do this to show the world that they're just not going to do that anymore. I think it's wonderful. We're all human beings. We all want to make friends and build something better for the next generation, something more powerful than the world we left them with. But we can do it in different ways. We can make it a better place without telling people they have to do things in a certain way. And for me, the way I can make it a better world is to speak out against the war against abortion. Because if we don't speak out, who will? I don't know what the solution is. I don't have any special wisdom. But I know that if we keep going down this path, we're all screwed. We're all going to end up living in dirt huts and slinging hotdogs. There's just something in me that doesn't want to live that way. I'm one of those people who likes to make a big fire in the winter and stay up late talking and listening to music. I like looking at trees. I like talking about ideas. I like being able to write a blog post about a cause I care about, because it means we're making a change somewhere, and I want to make a difference somewhere. I like creating a feeling that I believe in. So my friends who think that being pro-choice is immoral, I ask you to please not do this. I'm not saying that you have to agree with me or anyone else. But I am saying that it's worthwhile to consider where we're going and what we're doing. Instead of criticizing each other, we could be listening to each other, finding out how we're alike, and not being afraid of each other. And when things are good, we should rejoice. I know that there's a lot of support for abortion rights out there, but it's buried under so much bullshit. It's buried in people who feel they're victims because they don't have control over their bodies, and so they need to choose a victim status in order to make themselves feel safe. It's buried in people who don't want to look at the world as it really is. They want to believe there's some sort of God, some deity watching over them and their right to choose their own destinies, so they don't want to hear anything bad about this world, because it's all they've got. It's buried in people who want to fight for things, but don't want to put any effort into actually doing anything. Don't misunderstand: There are plenty of people who support abortion rights because they want to feel better about themselves. I'm not telling people that you have to be perfect and never do anything bad, or never do anything they're not supposed to do. I'm just telling you that there are things you can do right now, if you're willing. And all of this comes from me wanting to talk to you. I feel like a little bit of a hypocrite. I've spent so many years bashing religion. I've come to believe in God, and I believe in God as a force that moves through us and the whole universe, but I'm not really any more religious than I was before, in the sense that I believe that we're in this together, and we need each other, and we can't separate ourselves. But if you take the Bible literally, then in one sense it's the most pro-choice book in the world. If you don't take it literally, then it's just poetry. I know there are people who've had abortions, and who see abortion as a horrible thing. But I know there are more people who've had abortions and haven't told me. I know there are more people who support abortion rights and haven't told me. I wish they would, but they don't have to. One of my friends wrote in an email: "I think it is very sad that you have to stand out in the cold on a street corner for people to know there are still pro-choice advocates, but if there are so many in opposition, that is a good sign." I'm not saying I want everyone to start marching, because that's not what I'm doing. I'm saying that if you don't want to march, then keep talking to the people you love, and see what happens. Look out for each other. That's the best we can do. Wednesday, March 09, 2005 It's really not that bad. I can talk. I can hear well, and I can write. But people don't understand the language I'm trying to use. Even now I have to think about the words I want to use. Because I don't know them. And the people who are supposed to help me don't really understand them either. They've done MRI scans. They've taken x-rays. They've tested my hearing, my balance, my heart, my joints, my spine. They've done these all in a matter of months, and all of a sudden my problems are worse. I think that they aren't working as hard as they should. They're saying I need to rest, but that doesn't help me. I need something to do. People keep coming into my room and asking me how I'm doing. There's some kind of confusion about whether this is something temporary or permanent. I need the hospital to take better care of my education. I'm not sure what all these tests are supposed to show. It would help if they gave me a test of my brain, because they can't hear what I can hear, and they can't see what I can see. I think that's why they keep putting me in this room. There's no purpose for me being here. The only person who's interested in hearing me talk is Dr. Q, and she just stares at me and watches me move my mouth. She's the only one. I want to get out of here, and get out of this room. And as soon as I do, I want to see whoever it is that's supposed to be my doctor. I want her to let me see her in her office, where she does the work she needs to do with me. I want someone who is going to do what they need to do with me. Monday, March 07, 2005 First, I just want to apologize for my absence from the blog. Things have been just a little too complicated lately. I haven't been able to do anything creative because my body just doesn't let me. The only things I can do now are think and talk, and there aren't enough hours in the day to do both. I need to go sit on a beach for awhile and recharge myself, and maybe I'll have the energy to get back to doing what I really love, which is having conversations. A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend about what a bad mood I was in, and then I realized that, after all these years, I still had no idea what it felt like to be happy. For me, happiness is something that happens in other people. So I decided I needed to just watch people and listen to them and try to see where