The Words of Another Speak To Me.

Read a friend's blog today -- and it spoke to me.  Not in a whisper, but in a shout, from which I am just beginning to recover.

The blog isn't on the bloglist, as he prefers his privacy (and I can't blame him) but My Oh My, I wish I could share his words with the world.  I'll steal a passage for you (you'll forgive me, dear author. Right?  right?) so you know what is is that spoke to me so eloquently.

"Or, for example, if you are my rednecked Welfare-scamming relatives and you drive a gleaming wheeled phallus of a bitchin’ Camaro, with chrome shit sticking out of the hood, and the catalytic convertor cut off – because it’s too much trouble to repeat yourself to everyone you meet: “Hi, I’m a douchebag. Hi, I’m a douchebag. Hi, I’m an asshat, and my name is…” well, that sweet-ass ride needs 102 octane fuel. 102 octane fuel, as every crank yankin’ boy-racer who never really left high school could readily tell you, is “Racin’ Gas.” Racing Gas is fabulously expensive. Who can afford crap that is Fabulously Expensive? Only those in The Big Time. Those who are just a little superior to the rest of us. Those who, even at the tender age of 40 (yeah, forty!) have never needed to get real jobs, because their mommies subsidize their flashily idiotic lifestyles, their multiple wives (and the wives’ legal issues, to boot), all the toys they need to paste shiny High Roller veneers of success over a pasty, slimy, reality pocked and besmottred with alcoholism, mental illness, unresolved Oedipal complexes, and (that’s right-fuck you!) double-digit IQs."

Now if you are like me and have relatives like this, it hits home.  Like smack-between-the-eyes home.  Unrelenting truth about relatives that I try to avoid thinking about.  It is these very relatives (of mine, mind you) that keep me pushing, pushing, PUSHING for more in my own life.  I don't want to settle for a life of dedicated ignorance, criminal activity and one-channel-news-only when the whole big world out there is asking me to explore it. 

Maybe that's my bias. In fact, I know that is my bias. I wear that with a badge of honor much like I wore my Girl Scout sash so long ago -- with a mixture of pride and nerdiness, wrapped in the mantle of personal responsibility.  I am dedicated to learning more, doing more, exploring more, thinking more ... and trying to fit the whole big world into what makes me, well, me.

What makes me, me?  A few things that come to mind, perhaps you, dear reader, could add to it.

*unrelenting sarcasm
*a belief that I can positively impact the world through my existence
*there will never be enough hours for me to read all the books I want to read
*believe that homosexuals should be afforded the same rights in marriage/property/estates as hetrosexuals.
*napping as an art form
*art perplexes me, but I remain endlessly fascinated by it
*willingness to sing in the shower or in the car -- but only alone. 
*that being called a 'nerd' has positively impacted my life more than ever being called 'beautiful'
*an understanding that I am not the least bit perfect and nor do I strive to be.  In Anything.
*pedicures and massages
*trying to find the bright side, even when it all seems so hopelessly dim.
*travel -- new places, new people, alternative lives.
* ?