Ronald Reagan
2004-06-09, 2:58 p.m.

I�ve had another ADD moment today. And I�m *taking* my damned medication. It�s so time to change back to Ritalin from Strattera. I�m completely tired of this lack of focus and memory loss thing. Can�t see the doctor til 7/19 but then I�m switching back.

I wrote an entry earlier today. I got online, I highlighted it, I copied it, I got to Diaryland and promptly forgot it entirely. But I thought I�d done it, so I closed the Word document and didn�t save it. Crap. And it was a good one too. I�ll try to reconstruct it.

Did any of you read Cubiclegirl? She now has a new site. And she referenced this article.

I sometimes wonder how the world would have been different if Ronald Reagan had not been President? Who would have been? Would he have been better? Because we know it would have been a he. Would the AIDS crisis have been handled any better? Is it fair to place the blame entirely on President Reagan?

There are those who say that President Reagan was a good and kind man and that his public persona was not who he was. There are even those who say that he and Mrs. Reagan had gay friends. But it that�s true, if either of those things are true, then doesn�t that make what he did even worse? Because surely he knew better. How could he live with himself with knowing that what he did was wrong?

I�m an odd sort of Christian. I don�t believe that there really is a hell. I think that hell is separation from God and we�re already there. But. I do think that wherever the souls of the people who pass on go, they are wiser and more knowing. I think that President Reagan now knows what his mistakes were, I think he knows what he did well and I think that he knows how he could have made it different. But I also think that the souls of those who died are forgiving, even if those of us here on Earth can�t be. I think that they know that most people truly believe they are doing the right thing. They don�t hold a grudge. They, too, can see the good and the bad and they gain the wisdom.

I�m not that kind or forgiving, actually. I�m still pretty mad about it. I�m angry that even still people of color, gay people, women are still �less than� and that the environment is an after thought, at best. I�m still angry that I can�t marry PJH and that we can�t *both* be the adoptive parents of our boys. I am trying to let it go, to not hold a grudge, but I can�t.

I came of age and came out in the Reagan Years. And then with Bush in the four years following. My adulthood has been shaped by challenges to Roe v. Wade, by the AIDS epidemic and by the more and more conservative conservatives who seem to use their political office to further their religious convictions rather than to serve the public. The entire public. Not just those who look like them, who act like them, who think like them. Those who seem to have forgotten that this country was built on the premise of freedom and on immigrants.

Frankly, I�m sick of it. I�m sick of being an American. Yet, wherever I go, I�ll be an American. I can move to Canada, England, Brazil, Mars and I�ll still be an American. Even if I get citizenship elsewhere, I will still be an American. It�s an inescapable as the fact that I�m female and that I�m queer. Because it�s more than a place where we live.