I love being in a battleground state. That means, whenever I walk by a TV that is turned on, I hear one of three ads:

“I Rock. My name is George W. Bush, and I endorsed this message.”

“No, I Rock. My name is John Kerry, and I endorsed this message.”

“We’re not going to say ‘vote for X’ or ‘don’t vote for Y,’ but we thought you should know that George W. Bush sucks a big fat one.”

In other news, I was on hand for the start of the six o’clock news this evening. The anchor opened with “Move over, Multnomah County…”

At which point I said oh no. The anchor then continued, elaborating on how my beloved Benton County will begin offering same-sex marriage licenses beginning next Wednesday.

Actually, my only serious beef with this is that it’s going to make driving around town—during spring break, a usually quiet time—a living hell.

If you want my opinion, though, I think I’d let gay marriages lie low for a while—now that the issue has been brought to attention—and see what shakes out in the courts. Seems to me that, the more aggressively these marriages spread, the more likely a constitutional amendment (however stupid an idea that is) is to pass the test of the states. Better to lie low, see how the various courts react, let the amendment movement die out, and then progress again. But, then again, what do I know?

One potential answer to that question is: probability. (I am, dare I say, a master of the transition.) After many a painful hour chained to my desk, I have three solid answers, two far-too-easy-to-be-true answers, and one problem that continues to shoot me in the back. I plan to try and pry more information out of my professor tomorrow morning, after spending the rest of this evening making repeated attempts on this last problem’s life.