Give A Damn

 I have this friend, Andrea, that's so different than me that it's funny that we even like each other, but we do. She's awesome and a pretty damned good blogger. I asked her to guest post for me tonight and I think that this post will amaze you and certainly leave you thinking. I think you'll love her no matter what your political persuasion is.

Andrea has a great blog called throughbrowneyes. Go visit her, she's kinda new at this whole bloggy thing, and subscribe to her VIA email if you like. She doesn't have Google Friend Connect but does have an email option. Don't worry, she's not going to overwhelm your email and you'll enjoy her posts. Like I said she's awesome!  Please be sure to read her post "I Miss You To The Bone." You'll be glad you did. Also, please leave her a comment. Tell her I sent you  :)

Now here's Andrea!


I am really fucking cranky tonight.

So I’m going to write about guns.

For those of you who have ready ANY of my previous blogs, you have probably inferred at least the following about me:

1. I am a viscous liberal (not the hairy armpit, tie-myself-to-a-tree kind, but more the anti-FOX, pro-Obama, “let men marry men and women marry women for goddamn sakes” kind).
2. I love Peeps.
3. I fucking love to swear. I’ve tried to tame it, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job so far. Until now. Sorry.
4. I am loyal. To a fault.
5. I am a mischievous, melodramatic pleaser.
6. I cry at the random memory of my grandmother.
7. I hate guns.


Let’s focus on the latter, here, for just a second.

Because see, I have this friend. I swear, she probably should not be my friend, in the natural order of things, because we are so damn opposite, it’s stupid.

_She drives a wicked new Harley Davidson, I drive a 1988 Porsche 911.
_She a Texan who has raised 8 children. I’m a Utahan that could barely hold onto myself raising one.
_She is bipolar, I’m… well, I don’t know what the hell I am, but she had the guts to figure it out.
_Her husband can build anything with his hands. My husband can sway anyone with his mind.
_Her drink is a Tanqueray and Tonic. Mine, a Coors Light.
_She’s got some serious… ummm… well let’s just say she’s got a figure to die for. I’m flat and ill-proportioned.

You get the damn point. We are different.

And Teri, her name is Teri, she loves guns.

And I hate guns. I think.

I don’t know. I have this weird thing with guns.

Was in Arizona this Fall, on an offsite with my team, and we did this 4 wheeling Hummer deal out in the desert (I was assured by the bumper sticker on the vehicle it was running on biodiesel, and it better have been the truth, goddamnit).


Some kind of ex-ranger dude was running the operation. He was packing heat (can I say that? Can I say “packing heat?” or is that some really lame-ass totally juvenile expression one doesn’t use anymore, I don’t know, I DON’T KNOW!!!).

Anyway, it was all I could do not to stare at that thing. It was like this uber-masculine metal machine that I at the same time totally feared and revered.

So after all the boys went for their 4-wheeling joy ride in the desert, he was driving us back and I asked him if I could fire it. Me. Miss anti-gun, fuck the NRA, girl.

I couldn’t help it. I really, really, really wanted to fire that thing.

And he was totally into letting my try, even though it could have cost him his job, but then my love for “keeping him employed” got the best of me and I didn’t take him up on the offer.

Back to my point.

Here I am, friends with this woman who writes about her love of guns and firing guns and the smell of gunfire all the time and I get stupid pissed.

But what I have realized, now, is that I’m not pissed at her. I think I’m pissed at myself because I have this internal conflict about guns.

I am obsessed with the power in them, but at the same time hate the thought of one even NEAR my family.

So for all of you reading this that stand on whatever moral issue it is that you stand on… ask yourself, do you stand on it because you’re supposed to, or because you really do???

I’m telling you. I WANT to hate guns. It is in my half of my DNA to hate guns (father excluded… wait… is that why???). I want to get really goddamn angry at Teri for her passion with guns, for taking her KIDS to the shooting range. It seems, it feels, it TASTES like blasphemy.

Yet I can’t. For several (ok, four) reasons.

First. I think I love guns. I’ll NEVER EVER EVER own one or have one in my home. I know that with absolute certainty. Don’t question me on that because you will be wrong and I will lose all the crazy mad respect for you I have right now.

Second. I love that Teri and I can be completely different women from a totally different background and have entirely different values and I can still love everything about what she stands for.

Third, I trust that anyone reading this, from her social circle to mine, can judge us equally and respect both our sides. Better yet, those of you that don’t judge but rather embrace our differences, I adore you even more.


And finally, I’ll just say this.

I’m going to shoot a motherfucking gun someday, and when I do, I’ll be channeling the Teri Worley vibe the entire ride.



embrace your differences with your friends.

They may be the most solid foundation on which you stand.

Give a damn.

AC.