Thanks, Garth

I am much more afraid of things than I would like to be.

Cats, for instance.

Sometimes squirrels, if they look especially twitchy.

Most other human beings.

I don't like this about myself. I want to be one of those confident, nonchalant people who walks like she's bullet proof. I would like to not have a panic attack every time a dog barks at me; I would like to not suspect that all of my neighbors are rapists and axe murderers. I really would. And I would like to not have to cede ground to stray cats every time they cross my path.

I know where this fear comes from. And I know that although it is overblown it is not unfounded. There are, after all, some really screwed up people out there (and some really mean cats), and I'm not exactly an impossible target. Still, I want to be able to take a walk in my extremely safe neighborhood and smile at the people who pass by without looking over my shoulder and wondering if I've already seen that blue van drive by once or questioning the motives of the guy with the limp walking thirty feet behind me.

Today I took a walk and coached myself to look at the birds and the trees, to think about all the beautiful things around me, to take note of the basketball hoops and wading pools and rose gardens. To think about the good. And I was doing very well until a bug flew into my eye and I was immediately after accosted by a large young man with long brown hair, a black T-shirt, and a face full of acne, who wanted to know my name and shake my hand. I hesitated, sized him up: He was a lot larger than me and he had big hands. I gave my name but decided to forgo the shake; he said that he was Randall and then asked abruptly who my favorite country music star is. I realized then that he was harmless and tried to come up with a country music singer even though I don't listen to that stuff. But before I could answer, he shouted excitedly that he loves Garth Brooks, that Garth Brooks is the greatest country music star ever. I laughed and said that yes, Garth Brooks is a pretty cool guy. Then Randall walked off down the road talking to himself about Garth in a loud voice and swinging a plastic bag. I went the other way, rubbing the bug out of my eye and laughing that I was scared to shake that guy's hand.

I didn't feel afraid the rest of the way home. Well, except for when I passed my neighbor who looks a little like Freddy Krueger.

Subject + Predicate + Infinity

I have always wanted to be a great writer.

When I was a kid I wrote stories and my parents read them, assuring me in excited tones that I was going to be a famous author, that they would buy my best-selling novels and that I would take care of them in their old age. I always won the writing competitions at school and wrote A+ papers all the way through college. I haven't published a damn thing (and honestly haven't even tried), yet my father still asks me, now a 23-year old test editor with an English degree, when I am going to publish a book so he can retire. I always laugh and say, "Dad, it doesn't really work that way."

I have always fantasized about life as a writer, just me at my desk pumping out literary brilliance, perhaps in a cabin in the woods somewhere or in a condo overlooking the beach. Publishing novels, poems, creative nonfiction. I've also dreamed of being a passionate, crazy journalist telling all the smug middle-class Americans about the injustices and triumphs going on all over the world, waking them up from their contented self-seclusion. Traveling, writing, protesting, fighting for the good. I am smiling as I write this because it sounds so beautiful and worthwhile and noble, and the job I'm really doing--answer reviewing and editing Language Arts tests all day--seems more harmful to the world than helpful. I'm also smiling because I'm geographically illiterate and terrified of airports, so my journalist career would be quite a stretch for me.

Still, when I'm really honest with myself about who I am and what I want, I always come back to the same simple declarative sentence: I want to be a writer. It's the only thing I've ever thought that I was good at, the only thing I've ever felt at home in. Writing has always been my space, the place that makes sense for me. I feel so alive when I write, so real. I am disgusted with myself for having neglected something that I love so very much, for shrugging my shoulders and saying that I'm too tired of reading after work, too tired of looking at a computer screen, too tired to do anything that matters to me. Too tired to live?

I know what it means to put a sentence together: subject plus predicate plus infinity. The writer writes worlds into existence.

How could I not want to be a great writer?

Because I'm tired of ranting in my head...

Gay marriage. We've been talking about it at work lately, all of us agreed: Is this seriously still an issue? It's as backwards as Jim Crow laws or the need to fight for the 19th Amendment. Are human beings seriously still being denied the right to marry, make families, share the privileges and joys and (as my more bitter co-workers suggest) miseries of marriage because they want to share them with a member of their own sex? Really?

I know that in writing this I risk alienating my more conservative friends, and that is certainly not my intention. I am just absolutely dumbfounded that gay and lesbian persons do not have the full rights that I hold in the United States, a country that is supposedly founded on freedom and tolerance. This is my big, loud "Huh?"

Admittedly, only a few years ago I was on the fence about the issue. I decided to write about the legalization of gay marriage for my ethics class, but I was undecided, unsure of what I really thought about it. I ended up writing against it only because it was easier and I knew that was what the professor wanted to hear. But the arguments I used, even if they did win me a 98, were ridiculous. Gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't reproduce? Neither can the infertile or the elderly--but no one is stopping them. And what about people who don't even want children? Should they be banned from marrying?

How is granting people who genuinely love one another the right to marry going to damage my marriage, make my marriage any less special? It isn't. And the next argument is that if we let gay people marry, what's next? People wanting to marry their dogs? I won't even validate that illogical, heartless argument with a response.

I realize that I am ranting and oversimplifying the opposing arguments, but I'm just so fed up with it all. I know that some people view homosexuality as sinful and against their religious beliefs--and they have every right to do so--but how many other "sinful activities" are religious people working to ban? I haven't seen them trying to deny marriage to heterosexuals who have sex before marriage. Why should my religious beliefs determine someone else's happiness? It's disgusting.

I don't think this is just a religious issue, or even just a legal issue. It's a basic human rights issue. A ban on homosexual marriage is, simply, inhumane. So that's it: I am praying for same-sex marriage to be legalized in all 50 states.