Note to self: The demons of sour conservatism cannot touch anything that truly matters. Just FYI

Go ahead, ya smirkin' Texas lug, stumble around all scrunched and blank eyed and pseudo-manly, shove this country into a bloody unwinnable war and lie about all the reasons why, gouge the economy and ruin the schools and embarrass the nation every single day as you mangle grammar and meaning and truth. It doesn't really matter.

Go ahead, toss those useless $400 rebate checks to the depressed and jobless populace as some sort of bogus humanitarian gesture as you quietly force an increase in their property taxes to pay for your record-breaking deficit brought on by the tax cut no one wants. Ha. You are so cute.

There is so much more going on than you know. There is so much deeper understanding and wider knowledge and higher winking and you can't touch any of it. Do you know this? You need to know this.

You and your brethren are like this sticky toxic mist. You will burn off in the sun of awareness and orgasm and breath. This is what makes it so fun to watch, so magical and visceral, such a divine circus, a rich tragicomic pageant. Do you sense it?

By all means, hack away at the Clean Air Act so it allows millions more pounds of pollutants into the air every year. Slam gays and women's rights and call everyone in the country a "sinner," cut funding for AmeriCorps and the arts and the poor and nature conservation. Wow. The universe is so very proud. Do you hear it laughing? You're not even making a dent.

See, you cannot touch us. We are inured. You are merely hollow and sad and quickly, effortlessly forgettable the minute we step outside or get into bed with our lovers or laugh with friends or scream to the sky the lyrics to "Ballroom Blitz," always, always striving to taste the intense flavors of the collective dream state.

What, too vague? Too namby-pamby new-age tofu-licking pro-sex liberal? Too bad.

Because there is more meaning and content and depth and significance in a lover's moan and in a drop of wine and in a dog's wag than in anything you can conjure in your homophobic faux-cowboy Lynne Cheney-thick dream, honey. Get over yourself. We are on to you. We know you are made of nothing but spin and frantic gesticulations and scowls. Poke a finger into you and out pours only sawdust and sighs.

We watch you spin and hype and rage and scrunch your face in intense bogus prayer aimed at your bitter and self-righteous and homophobic God as your testes wither and weep. Man, have you got gall.

But here's the thing: You affect only the surface of things. You are like the little swarm of gnats you have to pass through on the path to the cool summer lake. You are the tainted oyster in the vast ocean of time and sex and love. You are a jagged pothole on the highway to hell and the broken step on the stairway to heaven. But you are not real. You give no light. You contribute nothing. Not where it matters.