Monday, February 09, 2026

In solidarity.

You know how you go to a concert of 500, or 5,000, or 50,000 people, and the band plays a song that everyone knows the words to, and everyone sings along, and you get tears in your eyes because it's such a beautiful feeling? 

That's why I wanted to watch the Superbowl yesterday.

Our world is so divided right now, in a really nasty way. My community is divided and it shows. Most recent case in point: Saturday night, we went with friends to see Milk in the same theater that hosted a TPUSA event a few weeks ago. We expected the theater to be full given recent anti-Pride events at a county commission meeting, and the outpouring of community support that ensued. The TPUSA event was packed - sold out, I'm told. There were about 12 people in the theater for Milk. (OK, maybe that's not a fair example seeing as how we did walk out of Milk quite depressed, but... you get the point.)

I spent the weekend catching up on volunteer activities for a few service clubs I'm involved with, writing postcards, and hanging with some good people. That was necessary... But yesterday I wanted more.

So we signed up for a free trial of YouTube TV and watched the television event 125M other people were watching. We rooted for Seattle. We groaned at the AI commercials. We ate nachos. We got bored during the third quarter but got back into it during the fourth (that's normal, right?). We watched some of the Olympics afterward.

And yes, we loved the halftime show. 

It felt nice to be doing something nostalgic, something familiar, something communal.

Today I'll go back to raging against [gestures broadly at everything]. But at least I'll be able to talk about the game with folks at work...