I had lunch with my dad today, about half an hour away, between Santa Cruz and Monterey. We went to this hole in the wall, known to the locals-only, fish place where my dad has gotten food for the family for years. The food was great, cheap, and the company was excellent. I get along with my parents really well sometimes, and it's amazing to see them. I think I may have grown up a bit recently where my parents are concerned. It's cheesy to say, sure, but I do see them as people now. I don't deify them, but I do show them the respect they have earned. And they have earned it sometimes. My adolescence was spent forgetting that simple fact, and I think I do well to remember that when I see them. It's a like my feelings about my brother. I love them, but I don't always like them. But I still love them in ways impossible to voice and put into words. They have been through a lot, and they deserve at least a little love and understanding from me. I love you, mom and dad, (and I know you will never read this). Sorry for the sentimentality, but I can't help it sometimes.

I will try to write more regularly. I have been oscillating between depression and glee, happiness and love and sadness and uncomprehensible fear. I'm hoping this bout of good feelings and hope sticks with me, and I feel like it might. I feel good, physically, for one of the first times in almost two months. I don't know quite what that's all about. Maybe I'm getting healthy, God forbid.

I have developed a keen interest in current events and the news. I don't know how much of this is normal, due to the events of the day and current politics. But my avid reading and listening spreads much further than just Afghanistan, and political rhetoric. I tend to find myself an extremely critical reader of political news. It's all bullshit, and I know it, but I still want to read read read.... It's a lost cause trying to do anything about public opinion, so I don't generally voice my opinions. But last night in bed I talked with Scott about something that sort of bugs me. Some people have been posting white power flyers on public statement boards at UCSC campus, and it really made Scott mad and sad that there was nothing the school could do about it, and that it was truly legal in every sense. The people are misguided, but the law doesn't prescribe stupidity. He thought they should be able to stop the students. I felt like an asshole, but I feel like I had to defend their right, if not their sentiment. I support the public airing of ideas. I defend the Nazi Party's right to hold a rally and parade in Skokie, Illinois. I hate Nazis. Personally I think they should all burn in fucking concentration camps, but as long as they aren't advocating anyone committing crimes, it is legal and they have just as much a right to post their flyers as I do to say that they are a bunch of misguided fascists that have no fucking clue about reality. They have just as much a right to scream at the top of their lungs the opposite of all that I have spent years screaming at the top of mine. And I support their desire to post on public statement boards. But Scott doesn't agree. And I felt like an asshole for telling him how I felt. Because the people are fucking idiots. But idiots should be able to speak too.