Flying My Freak Flag

Some days I am so awash with happy chemicals- all of them natural and self-produced, I assure you- that very little annoys me. Things are as the should be. The small things are the small things and I know it and I don't sweat them. It's all good.

On other days, however, when for whatever reason (and none that I can put my finger on) the chemicals flowing through my body are not made of sparkles and fairy dust but something more along the lines of oh, the black, sludgy stuff that sticks in the bottom of an oil barrel before it's refined.

But not as valuable.

And on those days, EVERYTHING annoys me, especially when people say things like "Don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff," and, my especial favorite, "It's all good."

First off, it's definitely NOT all good, and besides that, it's the small stuff that'll make you crazy.

Or make me crazy, anyway.

Every thing is making me crazy today. Even myself.

No, especially myself. Because I know that nothing is different today than it ever is. The dogs poop in the house when it's raining, drug companies are marketing cholesterol drugs to eight-year olds, the stock market keeps tanking, and darn it, my clothes that I started hanging on the line at seven-thirty this morning got soaking wet in the rain (which I am still unbelievably grateful for) because I went to town to do some work for my husband, requiring me to take them all down, haul their heavy asses in and put them BACK in the washing machine to spin and then put in the dryer.

Oh, big deal you big whiny baby.

But even if I am a big, whiny baby (and I am) things are still just fucked up every where.

I don't trust Obama. Okay? He's already going back on his word about things that may not seem real important, but sort of are. The financing thing? Whatever. But saying he'll support federal money going to faith-based initiatives is pissing me off. Can we please try to separate church and state? Huh? Or what about his reversal on the bill that would offer retroactive immunity to communications companies for letting the government use them to spy on our very own citizens without their knowledge?

Isn't that sort of big?

Or is that the small stuff?

McCain is saying that the surge worked. Yippie! And that he'll get rid of the deficit by guaranteeing victory in Iraq and Afganistan. Is this man on drugs?

If he isn't, he should be.

It goes on and on. And of course it's going on and on all the time and sometimes I can just ignore it and go blissfully on down the path of sweetness and light and some days, I just want to crawl in bed and pull the covers up and read Archie comic books with a flashlight.

Or cry myself to sleep.

All I know is, is that the guy down the road whom I have admired from afar for so long for having the bravery to display three flags every day- the American flag, the Florida state flag and the rainbow gay pride flag- is now down to ONE flag. And that would be the gay pride one.

Honey, I'd like to say to him, I know how you feel. Sometimes you gotta show what you know. You have to be who you are. You have to put away the symbols of the things you aren't real sure about and fly the symbols of the ones you are.

If I flew a flag today, it would probably have a vulture on it because that's what I feel like today- some old bad, ugly bird just waiting for the next thing to die so I can go pick at it.

Anyone know where I can get one of those babies? A tasteful flag with a vulture on it?

I'm sure my neighbors would appreciate that.

If they weren't sweating the small stuff, at least.