just be.

grace is for you

you know i'm a big steeler fan. watching steeler games, especially at heinz field (but also at home on tv), is a highlight of any autumn or winter week for me. we all wear black and gold in this house all day on game day; even the dogs wear gold bandanas during the game. we never miss kickoff, and each dog gets a treat every time we score. 

fan culture can be weird, though. i wasn't always a fan; i think i started watching in 2004 or 2005. before that, fandom bewildered me. game time was just the best time to head out for errands because the streets and stores would be deserted around here.

i've lacked any belonging to a fan base (at least for sports) for most of my life up until that point. in high school, i went to basketball and football games as a social activity but didn't really care about the sports.

but i learned some things at those games. my school belonged to something called the prep league, which enforced some pretty strict rules. no booing, ever. no making noise to distract the opponent trying to score. (cheering was fine.) everything was positive. i never thought a thing of it until i got into the real world and saw that this is not how sports fans generally behave.

i'm also a quaker. even before i became a quaker, i was a quaker and didn't know it. that whole some-light-in-every-person thing? that is completely how i'm wired to think about the world. though i'm definitely imperfect, i become very uncomfortable at personal, violent, or unkind attacks. 

this, too, is something that is not the norm for sports fans, i've learned.

most recently, i've been participating in a steeler fan group on ravelry. mocking opponents is pretty common there, and i don't like it so i just don't participate in those conversations. but sometimes things go further and i feel like maybe a little nudge could pull everyone back into a kindness zone. today, someone wrote about michael vick,

You know, if he can’t perform, we can take care of him like he did his dogs.

and another person replied,

Wicked! I love it!!! (she grins evily)

now, if you're unfamiliar with vick's story, he was convicted of participating in a pretty brutal dog-fighting ring a few years back. he owned the facilities in which the fights took place; he reportedly tortured and killed dogs that underperformed, and many were buried on the property. part of his plea bargain included agreeing that he'd not only financed and knew about the activities but also personally hanged or drowned dogs. after he served his time, he got a job as quarterback for the philadelphia eagles, where he still plays.

so i read this statement and was uncomfortable with it. obviously i would never ever defend michael vick's choices. but advocating violence against someone isn't okay with me. i thought for a while about what, if anything, to do. and i couldn't stand the idea that anyone could ever see that i had been a participant in this conversation and had not said anything about that.

so i wrote, 

we can be more gracious than that, y’all.

and the original poster replied,

For Vick? No, I can’t.

i have a few reactions to this. one is how sad i am for this person that vick has that much power over her. grace isn't for vick. it's for me (or her or the other poster). 

 

my dislike of those kinds of comments isn't any reflection of my feelings about vick or his choices or other people who make those choices. it's about me. it's about who i am and my own choices and values.

yeah, i know: it's just sports. trash talk is part of being a fan.

sorry, not for me. i can build up my own team without denigrating anyone else. and, if only because i think it would reflect better on my team and its fans, i wish that everyone thought that way.

ah, if only i were in charge of the world. ;)

day 12: a song from a band i hate

hate? i don't hate much. i hate to *admit* liking some artists, but it's hard for me to say i hate anyone, especially anyone who hasn't, say, committed mass or serial murder. even that gets my quaker-humanist hackles up; if there's some light in everyone, i shouldn't hate anyone.

so yeah. i'll go with a band i hate to admit that i like: extreme. yes, i sing this loud and proud when it comes on my ipod. and yes, it's on my ipod. (and i like "more than words," too, but it's not on my ipod.)

 

i love christmas songs.

the world is a confusing place.

you know how people always say don't put anything in an email you wouldn't want the world to read? i blew it tonight.

using twitterific, i feel like my mother-in-law: i love the benefits of the newfangled technology, but i don't always get it. the differences between direct replies and general tweets are not always (okay, almost never) clear to me. and that's where disaster entered the picture today.

my friend katie and i had been having a conversation on the facebook about who would play us in a movie (i can't remember how it started, but there it is). we have never met in person, and i'm not even sure we've ever seen photos of each other—we met on ravelry and continued our friendship in email and fb. anyway, i declared that i pictured helen hunt or julia louis-dreyfus. she sent me a direct tweet saying, "can't remember her name, but I picture you played by Best in Show trainer." (that is one of my favorite movies, so that endears me to her, of course.) so i tweeted back, "Omg. She very dykey, but he is hilarious. The one who hooks up with jennifer Coolidge and starts bitch magazine?"

now. if you know me, you know that i'm using "dykey" ironically (and you're as shocked as i am that someone i've never met in person nails my persona so accurately. i talk way more like jane lynch than like helen or julia, though i'm nowhere near as willowy and pretty as any of them). but i am *mortified* that i sent the message out. without the context of what we had said before the tweet, it sounds like (a) i'm using "dykey" as a slur and (b) either i'm talking about some guy or i'm talking about the same woman and saying that she can't be dykey and hilarious. or something. i have been shaking and sick to my stomach ever since i hit send and realized that i'd sent it to all my twitter followers—some of whom know me but many of whom don't—and not just katie.

so i'm apologizing for any pain or confusion i may have caused anyone who read it, out in public like my words were. i hope that putting it into context alleviates any concerns, but really i'm just sorry i said it and humbly ask for forgiveness. it's not the worst thing i've ever said and wished i could swallow—but those are stories for another day. and yes, i know that putting it here on the blog opens it to a way wider audience than my twitter followers, but i'd be terrible at apologizing in 140-character snips, and i believe that an apology should be given as publicly as the wrong involved. so here it is on the blog.

and i'm getting rid of twitterific in search of an app that is a little more my speed. (speed 16.)

and now to the headlines:

• dick cheney continues to astound me with his awfulness.
• i wish i were half the wife nancy reagan was—and continues to be—to ronald.
• lawrence o'donnell was better when he was less rabid, less rude, and used fewer of his words to call people names than to state principles.
• you don't have to be a racist to oppose someone of a different race from yours.
• someone who attempts to glue your locks—twice—and who cuts the lines for your surveillance system and who drills holes in your roof is not committing vandalism. that person is preparing your location for a crime that he or she does not want you to escape and does not want watched or recorded for evidence. a crime like, say, using explosives or gas to kill everyone inside. we knew this 15 years ago when i interned with the national clinic access project. these are not new techniques or ideas. nor are they secrets. they are well-documented, widely published, nationally known methods used by a sick, misguided, sad segment of our society that is smaller than, but not qualitatively different from, any loose coalition of terrorists motivated by political or religious rationales. so let me give you a little tip for them, in case you see them: political voices can and should be expressed by voting and free speech. religious voices can and should be heard through free speech and free exercise of religion. spread the word. seems the message (and the methods) aren't making it around to everyone.

no pithy headline tonight.

• killing someone for doing something legal within his or her profession is not legal, no matter how abhorrent that something is to you. it is not self-defense.
• it is really, really cool to see a space shuttle piggybacked on a jet.
• fish should not be 15 feet long.

a little editorializing:

i have three friends who i know have had an abortion. i'm sure there are more—those are just the ones who've told me. two were single teens, one of whom had a child already and did not want to increase her family while she tried to put herself through school and lived partly on public assistance. another was married and had children already and was already overwhelmed.

abortion is heartbreaking, to me. i do believe that life begins at conception—that is, life in the sense that any organism is alive. when the one friend i knew while she was wrestling with this wrenching decision was agonizing over it, i asked her whether i could adopt the child if she carried it to term. (my husband and i do not intend to have children biologically or through adoption, and i have had my tubes tied for 11 years.) when she decided to terminate the pregnancy, i mourned the loss of a child with genes contributed by this wonderful woman and her amazing husband, a sibling for her other children.

but in no way do i believe that it is my place—or my government's place—to force any of these women, or anyone else, to carry a child to term if that woman does not believe that she can do so. it is not my place to tell her that (fill in the blank) is not a good enough reason to end her pregnancy or to make any other determination about her physical or mental health. that is up to her and her doctor, perhaps with the help and guidance of some spiritual authority or her partner or both. but it is never up to me, and it shouldn't be. my belief that the thing inside her is alive is not the same as believing that it is a person in the same sense that she is a person.

it certainly is not the same as believing that a medical professional who performs a procedure on her—a legal procedure, with her informed consent—is a murderer. and it is not the same as believing that vigilante punishment or vengeance against such professionals or their clients, families, or associates is in any way acceptable, let alone laudable. shame on randall terry and his ilk.