It was a remarkable day for a few reasons, a couple just mine, another for the whole world. When I was originally composing this post in my head yesterday it was much more lighthearted than the one that ended up here today, but thats ok.
I checked my Twitter around 10pm last night and its blowing up with PotUS is have a press conference at 10:30pm. My first thought - Fuck. This cant be good. So we wrapped up watching the Simpsons and flipped to CNN to see what was going on.
Aside: the talking heads on the news channels are sooooo fucking annoying. Obama didnt speak for about an hour after he was supposed to and for a portion of that hour of waiting I listened to every jackass on staff at CNN go from saying "we will not speculate" to "Osama is dead". Why is it so fucking difficult to shut the fuck up and let the President tell us what he has to? After about 20 minutes I turned off the audio & waited to turn it back on when the President started to speak. They all kept saying the exact same fucking thing over and over and over again. I dont know how people watch these jackasses all day every day. I would jump off a bridge.
So the end story - Osama Bin Laden was found and killed. Yes. This is tremendous news. We've hunted him so long there was definitely relief in my heart. I vividly remember 9/11. Who doesnt? It was terrifying to see that kind of destruction on our own soil and that overall sense of "holy shit we arent invincible and someone actually brought this to our front door". It felt like our worlds were collectively flipped upside down. I was insulted and offended to see them celebrating in the streets in the Middle East. I didnt then and dont now understand their hatred. I cant even imagine hating anyone so much that I would celebrate destroying that many lives and striking fear into the hearts of so many.
And I never would. I'm not wired the same way they are. I place a value on all life, I dont have the same kind of twisted faith that makes them think what they did was justified, I dont think that killing thousands solves anything ~ it just breeds more hate. I was disgusted with them, but at the same time pitied them. I would never understand the hate that motivated them to fly planes into our buildings and dance in the streets at our misery ~ and I'm ok with that. I dont ever WANT to understand that kind of hate & pity them because that encompasses their entire existence.
I drew strength from the fact that we drew together and helped each other piece it all back together. I felt safer knowing that no matter what else happened we would stick together and fight for what we believed in. I felt stronger knowing that you may knock us down, but we will get back up.
Obama told us all last night that he paid. The man that led the AlQaeda to level that crippling blow to our nation was found and killed. I am proud of the men & women who fight for us, those who went in to get him and all the people that were involved in finding him. He deserved whatever he got and I am proud that we got to deliver it to him.
Then I start to watch our nation react. People take to the street, dancing, singing, hollering and waving flags. Chants of USA USA USA everywhere. Couches are being lit on fire at WVU, the Penn State campus erupted, outside the White House there is an atmosphere like New Years Eve. I shook my head. After all that we have been through all we learned was to hate the way they do? That wasnt the message I took away from 9/11. This felt like the celebration of our revenge. The death of one man makes up for the thousands we've lost in the last decade to this war?
One man. One man of thousands that still hate us to the core. He was a symbol of the terror we felt, he was a person to blame, he was the embodiment of all of the fear we have felt for the past decade.
But he was still only one man. One SYMBOL.
I was as ashamed of people celebrating his death as much as I was of them celebrating the destruction of the WTC. Death and war are not things to celebrate. His death doesnt mean we can walk away from the shit storm we have spearheaded in the Middle East. This is not a war we are ever going to win and we sure as hell didnt win it by killing Osama Bin Laden. There will be another extremist taking his place at the head of Al Qaeda. We killed a symptom, not the disease and I am not so naive to think that this is even the beginning of the end in that part of the world.
I guess I had hoped that we learned something from our brash confidence pre 9/11. That we learned how valuable our freedom is because of how quickly that value was shook to its core one day ten years ago. I had hoped that we learned that hate is never the answer. I dont think we did.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Progress!!! (a.k.a the post I really wanted to put up today :-)
So this was my original post for today before the world erupted late last night...
Yesterday at 9:30am marked a full 3 weeks of me being a nonsmoker. Three weeks, 21 days, 504 hours. To some this may not seem like all that much of an accomplishment. I feel safe in assuming they also have never had a pack a day plus habit to battle out against no one but themselves. I can definitely say this is by far the longest I have ever made it in a stop smoking campaign and I am still finding it hard to believe that I'm almost to the 30-day mark. That whole 30 days to relearn a habit is a benchmark I have set for myself hoping that it works and I will have broken the habits of when I smoke and the random "I want a cigarette" moments will be fewer and further in between.
The Zyban has helped. A lot from what I can tell. It is somewhat hard to judge though; this is the honest to goodness first time that I have felt at peace with my decision to quit so that may also be playing a role. I havent had any adverse side effects that I can tell from taking the medication. Part of me wants to test it and stop taking them - I am not a huge fan of taking medication - but the other part feels that they wouldnt prescribe it for 12 weeks if it wasnt necessary to take it for 12 weeks so I should probably shut the fuck up and do as I was told...which is probably what I will do. Not worth risking falling off this wagon when Ive been on it for so long.
I am still having the random urges to smoke. Its strange because there is no pattern to why I have the craving, but it happens at least once a day that I have the overwhelming urge to find and inhale a cigarette. Doesnt help that I also have a really bad lil devil that likes to help me rationalize all kinds of bad decisions. The lil angel seems to be stronger than lil devil so I am still winning the battles and havent cheated. I wont consider the war as won until Im off the meds. Talking to a bunch of ex-smokers they tell it kind of similar to an alcoholic, I will just be a smoker who doesnt smoke. I sincerely hope this isnt true. But I can totally see that it may be. Kinda sucks...but if I never wanted to crave nicotine I should have never started smoking...so I cant be all that bitter, really. My choice, now I get to reap the rewards of being an amazingly dumb 17 year old. Lucky me :-)
My other big deal was the completion of the painting of the steps. The Mister & I are in week 3 of a major home improvement project - we are completely redoing the foyer & upstairs hallway. I decided, and whether this was smart or not will remain to be seen, to paint all of the wood work in those areas. This has been a major undertaking in that there is a metric fuck ton of wood in both of theses spots - an entire stair case, banisters & steps; the whole foyer which is one of those wicked leaded glass, side windows plus door; 3 bedroom doors, 2 closet doors, 1 bathroom door & a window frame to round it all out. Im doing it all in two colors so its not just as easy as tossing some paint on them and walking away.
I started with the hardest part first and yesterday afternoon I put the final touches on the staircase and all of its bullshit. I LOVE how it turned out, I did NOT love the sheer amount of tedious detail work involved with it. The doors upstairs are going to be a pain, but NOTHING compared to these steps with all the shit on them. They have been so bad that I have only been working on them a couple hours a time because I get so bored by the tediousness I get stabby, hence its taken this long. So when I got it done finally I did the happy girl dance. I see the light at the end of this project. Finally. Woooo!
Not a bad weekend, really. And finishing up that hard part means more motivation to complete the rest of it so the Mister can lay the new floor. Ahhhhh....the joys of home ownership. Tell me again why I dont just fucking rent?!? Oh yeah...because I decided to buy a house at 23 and didnt realize until I was 28 that 1) that was a horrible idea, 2) I got completely FUCKED on the deal and 3) buying a house isnt all its cracked up to be when you dont have kids & a school district to worry about. Moral of the story kids: when your much older parents try to tell you something, like not to buy an old house at 23, think twice before not listening. Some shit just isnt so easy to get out of...a mortgage on a house is a dying neighborhood is one of those things.
Yesterday at 9:30am marked a full 3 weeks of me being a nonsmoker. Three weeks, 21 days, 504 hours. To some this may not seem like all that much of an accomplishment. I feel safe in assuming they also have never had a pack a day plus habit to battle out against no one but themselves. I can definitely say this is by far the longest I have ever made it in a stop smoking campaign and I am still finding it hard to believe that I'm almost to the 30-day mark. That whole 30 days to relearn a habit is a benchmark I have set for myself hoping that it works and I will have broken the habits of when I smoke and the random "I want a cigarette" moments will be fewer and further in between.
The Zyban has helped. A lot from what I can tell. It is somewhat hard to judge though; this is the honest to goodness first time that I have felt at peace with my decision to quit so that may also be playing a role. I havent had any adverse side effects that I can tell from taking the medication. Part of me wants to test it and stop taking them - I am not a huge fan of taking medication - but the other part feels that they wouldnt prescribe it for 12 weeks if it wasnt necessary to take it for 12 weeks so I should probably shut the fuck up and do as I was told...which is probably what I will do. Not worth risking falling off this wagon when Ive been on it for so long.
I am still having the random urges to smoke. Its strange because there is no pattern to why I have the craving, but it happens at least once a day that I have the overwhelming urge to find and inhale a cigarette. Doesnt help that I also have a really bad lil devil that likes to help me rationalize all kinds of bad decisions. The lil angel seems to be stronger than lil devil so I am still winning the battles and havent cheated. I wont consider the war as won until Im off the meds. Talking to a bunch of ex-smokers they tell it kind of similar to an alcoholic, I will just be a smoker who doesnt smoke. I sincerely hope this isnt true. But I can totally see that it may be. Kinda sucks...but if I never wanted to crave nicotine I should have never started smoking...so I cant be all that bitter, really. My choice, now I get to reap the rewards of being an amazingly dumb 17 year old. Lucky me :-)
My other big deal was the completion of the painting of the steps. The Mister & I are in week 3 of a major home improvement project - we are completely redoing the foyer & upstairs hallway. I decided, and whether this was smart or not will remain to be seen, to paint all of the wood work in those areas. This has been a major undertaking in that there is a metric fuck ton of wood in both of theses spots - an entire stair case, banisters & steps; the whole foyer which is one of those wicked leaded glass, side windows plus door; 3 bedroom doors, 2 closet doors, 1 bathroom door & a window frame to round it all out. Im doing it all in two colors so its not just as easy as tossing some paint on them and walking away.
I started with the hardest part first and yesterday afternoon I put the final touches on the staircase and all of its bullshit. I LOVE how it turned out, I did NOT love the sheer amount of tedious detail work involved with it. The doors upstairs are going to be a pain, but NOTHING compared to these steps with all the shit on them. They have been so bad that I have only been working on them a couple hours a time because I get so bored by the tediousness I get stabby, hence its taken this long. So when I got it done finally I did the happy girl dance. I see the light at the end of this project. Finally. Woooo!
Not a bad weekend, really. And finishing up that hard part means more motivation to complete the rest of it so the Mister can lay the new floor. Ahhhhh....the joys of home ownership. Tell me again why I dont just fucking rent?!? Oh yeah...because I decided to buy a house at 23 and didnt realize until I was 28 that 1) that was a horrible idea, 2) I got completely FUCKED on the deal and 3) buying a house isnt all its cracked up to be when you dont have kids & a school district to worry about. Moral of the story kids: when your much older parents try to tell you something, like not to buy an old house at 23, think twice before not listening. Some shit just isnt so easy to get out of...a mortgage on a house is a dying neighborhood is one of those things.
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