All I wanted was a little amusement

Why am I always so confused? Really. I need to know, especially since it’s just gotten worse in the last year and a half or so. I’m so discombobulated that I may have already posted this blog. If I did and you happened to have read it, please be so kind as to keep it to yourself. Everything below is ongoing, people. It’s never going to disappear.

For instance, everybody knows about the alleged separation between church and state, right? Well, why do the House and the Senate have chaplains, paid for with government money, who open each session with a prayer? Christian chaplains, I might add. I’ve read up on it, and I don’t think the fact that prayer is “rooted in tradition” is much of a defense. Racism, sexism, and about a dozen other isms are also “rooted in tradition.” So tell me. What’s up with that?

And while we’re on the subject, why do people keep saying kids can’t pray in schools? And by people, I mean politicians, who are really only pseudo-people, but still. Do they just count on us all being confused about the distinction between government-sponsored prayer and student-led prayer? Even I know the difference.

But surely school officials understand that distinction clearly enough to support student-led prayer but not organize or lead it themselves. I’ve seen that in practice. So, if they get that, why can’t they understand that ending such prayer with “we ask these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” tells every student who isn’t Christian that his or her god doesn’t matter? Do they realize it but don’t care? Are they stupid? Do they feign stupidity so as not to have to deal with the inequality? I mean, what is it with these knuckleheads?

Another thing. Why is teXas still here? Except for giving my son and his wife and girls a place to live (which they could find right here in Oklahoma if they wanted to because they are all handsome and beautiful and smart and an asset to any place they go), the only real purpose teXas serves is to keep Oklahoma from falling into the ocean. Really, though, if it did disappear and Oklahoma did fall into the ocean, could we be any worse off than we are now? At least we’d be drowning in cleaner crap than we’re covered in now.

And then there’s this. What’s with all this Pluto-shaming? One day it’s a planet. The next day it’s not. Why? So what if its orbit is erratic and elliptical, and it tends to swerve into another planet’s lane, so to speak? It’s acting like it’s always acted, and all of a sudden it’s not a planet? WTF? Of course, it may have regained its planet papers, or however they do that, but nobody bothered to tell me. That’s another mystery. Why am I always left out of the loop? It’s like you people aren’t even trying.

Here’s something I’ll bet someone can answer, if anyone is still speaking to me after they read it. Why do we keep adding letters to things? Like, I have no problem whatsoever with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, although I’m still not sure of the difference between “lesbian” and “gay.” I don’t have to understand to respect the terms people use to identify themselves, but damn it. I just got the LGBT down when they added “Q.” I thought it stood for “queer,” which I was taught never to say. I still don’t think I’m supposed to. I think you can only say it if you are it. That’s okay. But then somebody said it didn’t stand for “queer,” but “questioning.” I don’t know what that means. I’m always questioning something, but I don’t think I get to claim the “Q” in LGBTQ, because how weird would that be? I mean, it would make no sense at all. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Carol. See? Weird.

But, just like I’m not sure of the difference between L and G, I’m not sure how LG and B are different from Q, if Q stands for “queer.” I figured it didn’t matter if I knew or not, and I got used to LGBTQ. AND THEN THEY ADDED MORE LETTERS! LGBTQIA. I’m not even going to go look up that “I” and “A.” It will only confuse me further. I’m just going to trust that there’s a reason for those added letters, and it’s none of my business. Just please don’t judge me when I screw it up. And I will screw it up.

And why, oh why, do people persist in saying that because we once elected a black president racism is dead? That’s insane. Racism isn’t dead. It’s not even sick. Do they not understand institutionalized, culturally-embedded discrimination? I’m not smarter than everybody else, but I can see it.

And look at what we got this time around. A president who had already proven one thing if he never proves another: that regardless of how reprehensible a white man might be, he can get away with a hell of a lot more than a black man, even when that black man is the POTUS.

I mean, if Barack Obama ever told a woman he thought she’d “look pretty on her knees” or said a woman was “schlonged”—any woman, much less the Secretary of State—or God forbid confessed to groping women’s privates, the hue and cry would be never-ending. Seriously. Remember that time Obama used the word “folks”? I thought they were going to lynch him.

Crap. I just had to go there, didn’t I? To that place where I remind myself of what we’ve lost and what a sorry replacement we gained and how the country has just gone to hell in a handcart and how a monosyllabic Cretin has made us the laughingstock of the entire civilized world and how no person of color and no one with a vagina and no one born without a silver spoon and a forked tongue will ever walk safely again. All I wanted to do was amuse myself with my own befuddlement.

Now I’m going to have to go lie down with a wet cloth on my forehead. I don’t know if I’ll get up again or not.