[clever name goes here]

9/11

2011-09-10T21:26:00.001-04:00

I don't have anything deep to say or any amazing commentary on where we've gone as a nation in the past ten years. I just wanted to share a few pictures from the one and only time I visited Ground Zero, around 2006/2007. It felt kind of wrong taking them, yet I did.

I will always remember everything about that day. I will always remember the fear that I had during the three hours that I was unable to get through to my brother to find out that he was ok. And the hours more into evening before I found out that my sister-in-law, who worked near the towers and had to be evacuated, was definitely safe.

I will always remember the chaos of just not knowing what the hell was going on. Talking to my mother on the phone as she saw the plane hit the second tower live on tv. Then the Pentagon was hit. Then flight 93 crashing in PA, roughly 100 miles from where I live. There were false reports about planes being hijacked in California and Texas. What was going to happen next? What would the next target be?

And I will always, always, remember the 2977 people that were killed that day as well as those that survived the attacks. I will never be able to wrap my head around the absolute horror that they experienced that day, when your best option is jumping from one of the top floors of a 110-story building, or purposely crashing an airliner and giving your life to save the lives of potentially thousands more people. It is beyond comprehension.

Please share any stories or memories of your own in the comment section.

Update on "the incident"

2011-09-02T19:35:00.002-04:00

This afternoon I received a very sincere apology from one of the people involved in my confrontation about Chaz Bono the other day.

Due to the holiday, several people were either off or had left early, so there were only three people left in the front office and it was pretty quiet. Only one of them, "Mary" (I'm going to get all Dear Abby up in here and use assumed names), was there at the time of "the incident", as I call it, on Tuesday. I went out front to do something and Mary stopped me and said that she was very sorry for what happened on Tuesday. She said that she agreed with me on the point that a person should never be called it or a thing, and that she was sorry that she didn't speak up and say anything when it was all happening. Mary said it had been bothering her all week and she wanted to say something sooner, but it never seemed like the right time. As soon as she started talking I could see her eyes getting teary, so I believe she was completely sincere with this.

We had a short discussion about how everything happened. Apparently "Jessica" (remember, Dear Abby) felt bad that she upset me so much. (Which is lovely, but wouldn't it be a nice Christian thing to do to care about people that you don't know, too?) I liked it because I got to explain my side of things in a calm manner. I still wish I could have done that to begin with, but honestly, it probably would have ended pretty much the same way. The person I got into it with the hardest is probably the most narrow-minded person there and it's hard to have a rational discussion with her. I do hope there is a future opportunity to try, though.

So, that's it, really. No big, dramatic story this time. Just thought that since I shared when the shit went down, I should share when someone did good, too.

Are you ready for some football?

2011-09-01T00:56:00.000-04:00

Preseason football kind of bores me. I usually watch a quarter or two, then move on to something else. But, there's only one more game until the regular season starts. I thought that in the mean time I'd share this little picture that I found. Some people might like it. Not that I do. I mean, it's not as if it's the lock screen on my phone or anything...

People are always people, never things

2011-08-30T18:36:00.000-04:00

I had a little incident with my co-workers today. First thing this morning, I was alone in my back office and I could hear my co-workers in the front office talking about the new Dancing with the Stars cast. I needed to go out front to get something, but as I went to the door I could hear more clearly that they were talking about Chaz Bono. They were complaining that Chaz was going to be on the show, saying that DWTS had hit a new low. Then, of course, there was the usual derogatory crap you always hear.

Now, at this point I was just going to ignore it. I was just going to take to my Twitter and complain about them as I normally would do. And that being my plan wasn't because I didn't care enough to confront them. It was because I'm the lone liberal in an office full of mostly very conservative, religious people. I hear things almost every single day that anger me, but I can't voice my opinion about everything. I need to pick and choose my battles.

So, I intended to leave it alone...but then I heard one of my co-workers say "can you imagine being on that show and having to dance with that thing?" And that's when I lost it. That's when I knew I couldn't just ignore it.

I went to the front office and went to the person that said it and said "you know what, I don't care how you feel about transgender people, but HE is a person, not a thing." Of course, immediately I hear three of the four other people there saying things like "that's you're opinion," "you can't mess with God's canvas." The woman who called Chaz a thing said something along the lines of being sorry that she offended me, but she was allowed to believe what she believes. (Incidentally, this is the same woman who said a few years ago that she wouldn't go to my favorite restaurant because "a dyke works there." After I came out to her last year she apologized for anything she ever may have said that offended me. I thought maybe that would make her think before she spoke, but I guess not.)

Then another one starts on me with the whole "we're entitled to our opinion" and "you can't get mad just because someone has an opinion different than yours", as if that's all it's about. I tried so hard to get through to them that it was the fact that they called a human being a THING that was upsetting me. I said that no matter what I thought about them, their family or friends, I'd never all them things. Although this one guy, who would be Jim Bob Duggar's bestie if he could, somehow tried to bring abortion into it, claiming that I (or all liberals, as I think he meant) call fetuses things? Or something. I don't know, it seemed like an odd thing to bring into the discussion.

Now, one of my least favorite qualities about myself is that I'm very emotional and I cry very easily. Not always about bad things. I cry at Hallmark commercials and whatever team wins the World Series. But rarely can I have a fight with someone where I don't end up crying. And, unfortunately, that happened today. I was so angry that I was shaking, and I couldn't even tell you a time when that's happened before. As I was passing the "I'm allowed to have my opinion and you can't get upset" woman repeating her same shit, I said, while crying, something along the lines of "you try being in a group that's hated for who you are and not get upset." Something to that extent. And she just stared at me and said that she never hated me. I just kept walking. She wasn't getting it.

Oh, I think that by saying that I also came out to Duggar man. I think he probably knew already, but I'm not sure. I guess he does now.

I don't like how it happened. I was confrontational, I was loud, I was not calm, I was too emotional. I would have had a better chance of getting my point across if I had handled it all differently, but I was overcome with emotion. You just cannot call a living person a THING. You just can't. That's not something that you can have differing opinions on. While I regret the way it went down, but I do not regret doing it.

Chaz, I wish you the best of luck on Dancing with the Stars. I hope that your participation enlightens some people. Oh, and tell your mom I said hey.

[Disclaimer: I DO have some co-workers that don't make my head explode on a daily basis. They were not part of this story.]

Gruesome baseball injury, anyone?

2011-08-08T01:12:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here tonight and out of the blue I think "Hey, what ever happened to Jason Kendall." Upon Googling him, I discover that he's playing for the Kansas City Royals. For now anyway; apparently he had a pretty bad shoulder injury that could end his career. Too bad. I always liked Kendall when he was with the Pirates.

As I'm scanning his Wikipedia page, something jumps out at me:

"In 1999, he suffered a season-ending injury when he dislocated his ankle while running to first base in a July 4 game against Milwaukee after attempting to beat out a bunt."

Dislocated? Really?! Dude, his bone was STICKING OUT OF HIS SKIN. I'd say that's slightly more than dislocated. I don't know if it's a compound fracture or what, but at the very least, it's broken. And it wasn't just Wikipedia. There were other articles where it was being called simply dislocated. I guess I'm just amazed by that because of the sheer nastiness of the injury.

Don't remember it (as if you could forget)? Never saw it? Take a gander for yourself:

Credit: bleacherreporter.com

That white you see in between the two areas of the black sock...bone. I can't even imagine.

I still think of it almost every July 4th. I think it's such a vivid memory for me because I had my own broken ankle situation at the time (though thankfully nothing as gruesome as Kendall's), and it was also just a few months after I started at my current job, so I think I remember the year and what I was doing more than I might normally. When I remember it, it is always in horror.

Whatever happens to Kendall from here on out, I wish him well. If his career is over, it's a shame he couldn't go out on a winning team.

What the world needs now, is blogs, more blogs...

2011-08-07T15:21:00.000-04:00

Well, after about a month of slacking, here’s my little blog.

So, the title of the blog might be leaving you scratching your head as to what the hell the purpose of the blog is. I'm awful at thinking up user names and titles and such, so everything in my life is either my name/initials and birthday or something kind of making fun of how I can't think of good names. So there's that.

As for purpose and content, it's going to be kind of a mixed bag of topics. I think that mainly I want a place to talk about the gajillion television shows that I watch. And I do watch a lot. When I really got serious about doing this blog a few weeks ago, I started making a list of everything that I watch. Right now the number of shows that I currently watch throughout the year stands at 46. And I know there are at least a couple that I’m missing. I know. You don’t have to say it.

I’ll be posting about a lot of different types of shows. I have a slight Bravo addiction, although I cannot get into those Real Housewives shows. I watch a few comedies and quite a bit of reality (see: Bravo addiction), but I mainly like dramas. Especially medical and cop shows. Especially cop shows with badass female leads wearing aviators and flak jackets and wielding guns...

Oh, yeah. I figure most of you reading at this point know me, but for those who don’t, I'm a lesbian. That means that not only will I sometimes (ok, maybe a lot) be talking about the women I find attractive in the shows I watch, but I'm sure there will also be posts on LGBT topics from time to time.

Throw in a little general entertainment, maybe a rare something or another about my personal life, more than likely occasional posts about my cats and I think you’ll have my blog. But who knows. This is my first stab at a blog, so I’ll have to see what works as I go along. However it ends up, I hope you find something that interests you enough to keep coming back.

Kate