Beatific

Every once in a while, people work together in a perfect symbiosis and my heart wants to burst, like the buds in a fistful of flowers that bloom all at once. Thanks, Humanity.

Weekend Plans

San Diego likes tourists. They share our sunshine and bring in money. The Village in La Jolla is always filled with Europeans, and Sea World attracts families from all over the country.

But I wish the Westboro Baptist Church would stay away this weekend.

I first had the pleasure of meeting Fred Phelps and his band of hatemongers in 2002, when his group protested the University of Maryland's performance of "The Laramie Project". (Which I recently blogged about.) The campus was treated to a mob screaming hate and wielding equally hateful signs, like pitchforks. These are the same people who disrupt the funerals of gay people who've died of AIDS, screaming and yelling at the deceased family members that their relative is in hell. The depths of their hate is completely unfathomable.

My lesbian co-worker at UMD filled me in on all about this Church's "work." She'd grown up in West Virginia--a place not exactly known for its open-mindedness--and yet the presence of this hate group (you can't honestly call them a "Church") on our campus made made her completely distraught.

Underneath

The bookstore at the junior college where I take my Spanish class was robbed this afternoon.

I was in there this evening returning a book, and after the cashier had adroitly dealt with a rude customer (who wanted to return a book without a receipt, and wasn't going to take no for an answer), she helped me. I felt compelled to apologize for the rude customer on behalf of all bookstore patrons. The cashier seemed to take it in stride, saying, with more than a twinge of sarcasm, "People like that make my day." Then she told me about the robbery. I was shocked and asked if she were okay. She said she was, but still shaken up. It was appalling that she was even still working. Shouldn't you get to take the rest of the day off, paid, when you've been held up?

Obviously, the rude, receipt-less customer had no idea what that cashier had been through earlier in the day when she was berating her. I lost my cool earlier this week when a neighbor's dog--running loose without a leash--was nearly hit by Bryan's car, and then ran into our garage and wouldn't leave. I shouldn't have yelled at the girl who owned the dog, and who was frozen on the street, refusing to come and get her dog. Maybe she had just been yelled at by her coarse father, maybe kids at school tease her for being chubby.