Oh…Ohio….

Just yesterday I had suggested I yearned for hand written letters and mixed tapes. Imagine my surprise when I arrived home yesterday to find a letter from Octavio Ecuador and none other than from my kindred big brother, Alan. The universe has strange ways of revealing gifts. 

I’m listening to the classical guitarist John Williams. At the moment Prelude from Suite for Lute No. 4 in E Major by Johann Sebastian Bach is on. I heard Suite espanola, Op. 47: No. 5 Asturias by Isaac Albeniz for the first time this morning and love it. If only I knew how to play guitar. I have one now but I honestly don’t know what to do with it. I’ve never learned a string instrument before and come January, I doubt I’ll have time to commit to it. But on the bucket list it goes!  At the end of the month, I get my bonus and a portion of that is going to a piano. I’m so ecstatic that I can’t even put down on paper how I feel about that.

I’m a speaker for an event tomorrow  on Active Directory and I should be preparing what I’m going to talk about but I’ve delayed it. I tend to work best under pressure but the time I’ve reserved to do that is now and yet I’m here. I think it’s important to take the time out and invest in yourself when the moment calls. Fortunately, I’m in a position that I’m able to do that and still get my work done. I can’t ignore or deprive myself of writing…even if I’m only journaling at the moment.  I benefit from it and the end result of my work usually benefits as well.

So here’s another random spiel … I’m ready for the election to be over. I forgot what living in a battleground state was like. I’ve been avoiding TV with attack ads after attack ads after attack ads. And just recently, I decided that instead of being the opinionated stubborn person I can be, that it’s best to just perhaps leave politics out of time with friends and family and just treat it as I do work. There are a lot of deep divides here and few independent voters willing to listen to both sides. What can start out as a nice get together over the dinner table can quickly turn into something much uglier than it needs to be. Case in point: I was at dinner with friends. One guy is deeply Republican and I respect his views…I come from a Republican family, myself. When he asked who I’m for I told him Obama and that I’ll be voting for him and that I’m politically active in my community. He started to berate me, asking me to come up with 20 reasons why I think the Democrats are better than Republicans. I tried to joke with him and said I doubt he’d like my responses and lets just agree to disagree but he kept pushing and kept asking. It got to the point where he said “fine, top 3…what are they!” I could hardly get a word in as he continued, trying to state Obama is “for the muslims” and that his birth certificate was never truly ruled legit, etc. Just a bunch of insane stuff gathered from Fox news, no doubt. I knew at that point that I should engage in conversation anymore and was starting to feel uncomfortable. He then pretty much demanded I give him at least one reason and I said “okay, for me this is a very personal issue but Obama is supportive of gay marriage and equality.” And then he went off on me. I tried to tell him just how unequal gays and lesbians are in this country…not just on the issue of marriage but more and his wife seemed surprised and was interested in hearing more but he wanted nothing of it and told me it will never happen in this country and that it’s because Republicans have morals and those morals are founded on the bible. I was willing to listen to his argument and gave him all the time needed to speak. I then suggested he watch a documentary on Netflix called Fish out of Water and that the passages and translations from the bible have been taken out of context – that there are theologians and priests that have studied the bible that appear on this documentary, etc but he got so mad at me that he walked out of the restaurant. His wife apologized to me and said he had brought this on himself considering he kept pressuring me to give him an answer and I tried as long as I could to derail the conversation.  Later that night I found myself second guessing if moving back to Ohio was the right thing to do. I’ve lived in a country where this is NOT an issue and I’ve lived in heavily democrat cities. I haven’t been challenged in quite some time and I found myself doubting how strong I am. But then I thought over it some more…if I want to make a difference, I’m in the right state after all. This is my home state and I’m where the battle is. If we want a better life, we need to be part of the collective effort to make it so.