No Really, Shut Up
Normally, I don’t talk politics. When I was on “The Daily Show” as a correspondent I had to practice how to say Kofi Annan’s name over and over for a joke that I didn’t even understand. My self-absorption level works well with writing poetry and drinky parties but it can get in the way of good political banter.
But the other day I thought I had a political insight.
Sitting on the beach eating tacos I read about how Winston Churchill loved war. Which I thought was sick and sad and wrong. And much like my personal life.
My friend Gay Jon had recently yelled at me over the phone that I was “addicted to drama”. Which I thought was ironic since he was the one screaming and who moments before was claiming to have lung cancer because he’d been feeling “oddly tired” all the time. He implied that I always create drama because I saw myself as a struggling artist and needed the striving and suffering to feed my work. He claimed that he was sick of me acting like I was a victim to it all and didn’t want to talk to me until I had more pleasant things to say about my life (we haven’t spoken since). I hung up the phone, took Gay Jon out of my contact list in my cell phone and went to Circuit City to buy a Tivo so I don’t have to suffer through the experience of missing another episode of “Intervention”.
Gay Jon was right, though…I like conflict. The tension and the drama. It keeps me feeling productive. I may not have “worked” today at an actual job…but I did spend 3 hours fighting with my boyfriend and getting angry at Sprint. And I may say that I’d like peace…but do I really? I’m sure Winston didn’t say, “God, I love war” out loud. And then there’s Bush.
President Bush and I have so much in common. First there’s the nose thing. I have one…he has one. There have also been moments that I thought I recognized our shared humanity. Like when they told him that we were under terrorist attack–he stopped reading to the kids and looked stunned. When I saw that moment I recognized it as a human moment–“wow, he looks pretty stunned and jolted. That’s how I looked when I found out. God, we’re just alike.” Then he kept reading to the kids–and I thought–“oh, there we go–I’m back to not recognizing him as ‘one of us’ anymore”.
So I thought about how Bush loves war. This sounds simplistic, but he must sadly and oddly love the full on, all-encompassing conflict that leaves room for nothing else. I could get out of my relationship–but why would I want to when I’d be left with such real and deeper issues that take a lot more effort to solve.
But in a war people are dying–so this is a bad comparison.
So for the last 3 days I’ve been living my milk toast liberal motto of “No More War” at home with the BF and have stopped all the conflicts. The sad thing is that once I created peace…the days seemed so long. Not fighting is so lonely.
Peace is so lonely. And how do you know that you’re getting anything done or going anywhere if someone isn’t sobbing on the bathroom floor in his or her underwear. Covered in whipped cream and throwing poker chips at their own face.