have you been watching these debates? so much political rhetoric, it's sometimes hard to filter out what's actually going to get accomplished here. if anything, though, these debates have solidified my distaste for the current administration. cheney was smug and disdainful, and bush has been rattled and poorly composed (and almost angry-sounding). i've been fairly impressed with kerry, as he's been very... well, presidential. edwards has been showing some of his greenness, but i think he's holding up decently (especially against a guy like cheney, who, despite my distaste is a sharp guy). the next debate is tempe... i wonder if my brother will try to go, seeing as he's in arizona now.

random aside-- did anyone notice that bush called kerry "senator kennedy" at one point? i thought i'd just misheard him, since i tend to do that from time to time, but it's right there in black and white in the debate transcript. funny. (it's about halfway through, when they're talking about health care and tort reform.)

emotions are such a strange thing. we are intrinsically emotional beings, and those emotions define who we are, how we act and react, how we choose our paths and our associations. what's even more interesting is how difficult it is to control those emotions, even when we try so hard to do so. for me, i have a hard time telling people i care about just how much i care about them, for fear that it'll make me vulnerable. i don't want to cry in front of people because i have always needed to be the strong one. i'm used to taking care of myself, and it's so hard to pull out of that and let someone else care about me so i don't have to go it alone.

for a long time i used my writing to vent to myself, to put my emotions on paper when i couldn't put them into words. lately i haven't been doing much writing (except on here, which is somewhat tempered since it is, in fact, public domain), but the emotions still come hard and fast. do i talk about them more now? do i have a better way of allowing certain people in? maybe so... i hope i don't keep myself closed up to people because i'm afraid of how much i'll let them in. i tend to trust people until they give me a reason not to, but lately i've been doing less of that. i'm more guarded about how involved i get with people, because i've been burned by caring too much. i still lend a good listening ear or a shoulder to cry on, but... maybe i'm just more selective about who i care so much about. and i'm more selective about who sees the emotional side of me. most of the time i just resort to silly...