Politics Spurs Sprinting

The Dixie Chicks or Yankee Chicks as I like to call them aren't the only rock stars that attract a mix of red state-blue state personalities. At the opening of Albany's free summer concert series at the Empire State Plaza yesterday, unbeknownst to me I was whooping it up with a Iraq War supporter! Yikes! Onstage were the Burners UK, the Capital Regions most popular cover band with a big horn section and ever-charismatic lead singer.

I've been denouncing the war and the instability it's caused our country since it started. I've polarized few friends with my views because nearly everyone I know agrees with me, including a stepbrother who's fighting in Bagdad with the 101st. So, when confronted with narrowmindnesses and inherently dangerous thinking I, understandably, get a little defensive. "We should just blow up the whole country! It's survival of the fittest"! my dance partner yelled. I would have threw my drink in his face but it had already landed on my friend's shirt earlier. Sorry Denise.

What do you say to an idiot, a drunk one at that, with such absurdity in his thinking? There was nothing I could say. He was alienating me and my friends and we decided to leave before the scene got real ugly. In my angst, I drove home and did something productive with my pent-up anger. I ran like I've never run before. Full board in the middle of a pitch dark night I worked off 1000 calories of beer and a 1000 pounds of frustration. In the morning, I was back to my old self again and blogged about it.