(Gilmore Girls episode “Love and War and Snow”, Season 1)

Lorelai: It was the snow. You know how I get, it’s like catnip.

Snow Angel

Snow Angel, photo by Jen Gray (www.jengray.com)

Lorelai: Wait, close your eyes and breathe. I smell snow.
Rory: Ah, it’s that time of year.
Lorelai: Can’t you smell it?
Rory: You know, it’s like dogs and high-pitched noises. I think it’s something only you can smell.
(Rory sits down next to Lorelai and pulls a blanket over the both of them)
Lorelai: I love snow.
Rory: Really, I had no idea.
Lorelai: Everything’s magical when it snows, everything looks pretty. The clothes are great. Coats, scarves, gloves, hats.
Rory: Thermal underwear, wool socks, ear flaps.

It’s a perfect snow today.  Fable snow.  Perfectly pretty, easy to clear off the car, the roads were fine.  I saw Jen’s photo that I posted above over the weekend – after a week of bitter cold and ice that was impossible to get rid of, this photo reminded me of the joy of snow.  And today, I’m lucky enough to experience it first hand.  Makes me wish I could go take photos rather than sit in the office!

The snow had me in a wonderful mood today.

I’m trying to stay in that happy moment, but cold harsh reality is pissing me off.  I want to rant about it, but it’s at the point where I can’t even form words to describe how I feel sick in the stomach.  If you are in a good mood and don’t want to read this entry further, I don’t blame you one bit.  So the rest is behind the cut.

I am not one for much news on TV or newspaper.  I try to check the google news page daily, and I have a section that pulls news stories for my town.

It’s how I found out about UFO’s being sighted in the area, an armed robbery at the gas station near my office which I use frequently, there’s the news about last night’s earthquake (I never felt it!), and today there is a link to an article on an armed robbery, very close to where my friends L and T live in town.

I know this town has it’s bad side, a family member was a police officer here for many years.  Stories of these crimes may make me look around more in parking lots and keep my keys in my hand, but I still feel pretty safe here and I still go to that gas station.  Incidents like this are not what upset me so much.

What is upsetting me are the comments on the online article about the events.  The hatred, narrow-mindedness, racist, ignorant vitriol that makes me lose faith in humanity.   The first comment I read (at the time the most recent one) stated “liberalism is a mental disorder”, and “diversity is perversity”.   Another intelligent (not) commenter is calling for armed vigilantes specifically for the “dangerous streets where BLACKS prowel”.

I was going to quote more, but I don’t want to perpetuate their words or have their hatred on my blog, which was started as a joyful entry.  It’s like a car wreck, I can’t look away but reading it makes me feel like vomiting.  I don’t even want to link there.  But if you want to find it, it was posted today on dailyrecord.com, and it’s title is about a pizza-carrying pedestrian being robbed.

We may have taken a step in the right direction with the recent election, but this article is proof of how far we have to go still.

Sigh.  Well I’m about to take a walk in the catnip snow to get lunch, and try to be in a more positive attitude.  Don’t get me wrong, the anger I feel has purpose.  It is fuel for being change in the world and not stopping the fight against injustices (against any group).  But in this moment I feel helpless, sad, and thinking very evil thoughts against certain internet commenters.  Which doesn’t really make me much better than them, does it?