I went and saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" on Saturday, June 26, 2004.  I was sick as a dog, but it was necessary for me to go out and see this "Fahrenheit 9/11" - It was time for me to learn regardless if the views be slanted, it was time for me to be motivated again in the scope of my political power, it was time for change.

As I sat through the movie at time brought to near tears, brought to laughter, brought to anger, my love of politics emerged.  My need to become proactive was sparked.  I have been sitting on the fence for a while disgusted by the state of OUR world - hopeless to the possibility of change.  But, I realized I may not enjoy all aspects of the key players but I need to work within the system to effect some desired change.  I need to get out there and fight for my truth, to fight for my rights and sitting on my ass refusing to budge wasn't going to help me or anyone else in the end. 

As I sat down watching TV yesterday eating my outside-in hamburger I started to think about things that occurred in my childhood.  I remember vividly one of my most embarrassing moments in middle school.  I was very much a loner and basically a social outcast because I had no desire to mingle with the crowd regardless if they were popular or not.  I enjoyed mindless conversation on the occasion but I would rather be myself then have to truly be apart of a crowd.  But, the teasing got to be out of control I felt "conform a little" and maybe the teasing would stop for a moment and I would pretend to be social and then I could easily slip back into loner-life.  So I followed the crowd and remembered all those conversations about nicknames and pet names and figured I would scribble all of those names all over my glorious blue and mustard colored gym shirt.  Now I didn't think this plan through because I am a horrible speller and I didn't realize that the word known is not spelt as nown.  So I scribbled all over my gym shirt Tamara a.n.a. Peaches, Patrick a.n.a. P.J. and so on and so on. 

I walked into gym the next day and no one noticed at first because we were all a rapid movement due to the horrid game dodge ball - damn rain.  But, three seconds into the game I am out and I have to sit down, more and more folks follow me and then out of nowhere I hear the snickers about how stupid I was - In my mind I was like what now...I am talking to these folks, what more could they need.  I later found out my spelling error was the cause of those snickers and I knew they would come for some time, but by the end of the next gym class I was free from torture to live my life in loner-land...well at least until the next school year started.

Who would have known that I would have been saved from further torture because of my lack of athletic ability!!!  Here we are learning the finer skills of flag football and our gym teacher is making each person throw him the football.  I refused because I just knew I wasn't going to be able to get that football near him.  I was stubborn and I wasn't going to do it to save my life.  So Mr. M parted the class like the Moses did the Red Sea and placed me square in the middle and demanded I throw him the ball.  Mr. M throws the ball at me and I couldn't catch it, but I pick it up hold on to the ball and Mr. M screams at me to throw it.  I submitted and with all of my might I hurl that ball with every ounce of energy in my poor un-athletic body and the ball lands square in Mr. M's groin.  He was hurt and mortified and I was mortified, the class tried to stifle their laughter but a few chuckles were released.  I didn't even have time to enjoy what happened until about 5 minutes later when I was in mid-lap running - which I had to do for the rest of gym class.  I swear Mr. M was trying to kill me for what just occurred, but it all worked out in the end.  Mr. M for the rest of the year rarely made me go outside of my box, I gained a reputation as being "a quiet one, got to watch out for those" - basically people thought I was crazy and I found out with practice I actually could throw a football and I had a nice spiral.

Oh, and an outside-in hamburger is a hamburger with the fixings on the inside.  So instead of blue cheese and bacon on top of the burger it's in the middle.  Yummy, tummy goodness!!!