Xiao chiot

I am finding that taking the dog to the park is one of the most therapeutic things I can do.

My down time at home always seems to involve engaging my brain -- reading, blogging, planning, fretting (fretting is a great leisure activity, eh?). Going to the dog park is just about fresh air, moving my muscles, laughing at the pup's antics and vicariously experiencing his pure joy at being alive. This is the unspoken message passed between the dog owners at the park while, outloud, we chat about the weather and dog stories.

This is why we only know the names of everybody's dogs, and human names are never exchanged. When we're in the park, we leave our problems at home and it's a dog's life. I'm grateful for it.

Same Old Same Old Same Sex Marriage

The news is full of it again (all together now: har har har).

With the Conservative Party policy convention and the upcoming vote on same-sex marriage in the House, the issue with all its ignorant hand-wringing is filling the airwaves again. Somehow the debate has been framed in the most ridiculous of terms: will religious institutions be forced to marry queers? Of course not, you dolts! No one is now forcing the Catholic church to marry divorced people or rabbis to marry a Jew and non-Jew.

But I am going to stop the politics right here and right now and let you know what really goes through my heart when I hear these debates and the rhetoric of hate they engender:

I see vivid pictures in my head of my windows being broken by rock-throwing kids. I see myself and my family losing our jobs and our homes. I see people who respected me distancing themselves from me. I see people I loved being beaten to death in the streets or jailed to protect public morality. I see forced psychotherapy including shock and sedation. I see concentration camps.

And I know that some of the above is unlikely, is hyperbolic, is inconsistent with keeping an open heart and believing in positive change. But the images are inside me and they're scary and they can fill and obscure my vision.

And that's why I shout so loudly sometimes.