“I know,” I said, helping myself to more beef and broccoli. “I know.”

We were at a rundown restaurant in central Phoenix, the kind of place we aging, erudite hipsters love to frequent — a place the food critic I work with discovered last month, a place where you’ll typically be dining alongside large Chinese families. The food is terrific, the decor is not. So, so cool. (You better get there before everyone else discovers it and it’s suddenly not cool at all.)

I realize that not everyone likes to eat at a restaurant that smells like dirty laundry, where an old red leather booth is split down the middle and if you don’t watch it will catch the skin of your thigh, but where there is a stewed pumpkin dish on the menu that will change your life. I realize that, but as I sit here writing, I can’t really think of anyone I know who wouldn’t want to try New Hong Kong on Indian School and 24th Street. (You’re welcome.)

And yet there is, of course, the chance that the place will go out of business next week.

I call it the “My So-Called Life” syndrome. Remember that show, from years ago, with Claire Danes? You loved it, right? All your friends loved it. And then the network cancelled it, because no one watched it.

That is my fear about this election. Even in blood red Maricopa County, home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer, I have managed to surround myself with people just like me. We text and email, post on Facebook, go to each other’s debate parties and out to lunch. We make fun of Romney’s smirk, roll our eyes at his family, wish he’d make more gaffes.

I watch the polls, I listen to the analysis, but still — how could Obama lose? Everyone I know is voting for him. (Or not saying otherwise.)

The other night, a dinner guest at my home (two, actually) popped my bubble, announcing intentions to vote for Romney. They were as horrified at my decision as I was at theirs. Hey, folks, that’s politics. It’s America. And it was a reminder of how easy it would be for the nation to turn the channel, to cancel the show.

Don’t forget to vote, friends. Don’t forget to vote.

I do.

It was 1982 or so, and I was sitting in Mr. Kyl’s kitchen.

You know how growing up, you had two kinds of friends — the friends whose parents let you call them by their first name, and the latter? The Kyls were the latter.

Their daughter Kristy was a year ahead of me in high school, and we were both (nerd alert) on the debate team — our file cards, articles and legal pads spread out across the kitchen table. We were hotly arguing some topic, in preparation for a tournament. I don’t recall the exact subject (it could have been abortion, come to think of it), but I can assure you that I was taking the “liberal” position and Kristy the “conservative.”

(I was probably the one and only Democrat at Arcadia High School in the early 1980s, raised by a mother with socialist roots who volunteered for Common Cause. This was many years before he’d announce his candidacy for the House, but it was already clear that Kyl and his family were perched on the far end of the right wing.)

Kristy and I were going at it when I felt eyeballs on me, and turned to realize Mr. Kyl had entered the room and was standing there, listening. This part I’ll never forget — he was visibly shaking, clearly trying to control his anger. And then he spoke.

“I’d like to debate you sometime, Amy,” he practically spit, in a tone more appropriate for a colleague on the floor of the United States Senate than a kid sitting in his kitchen.

For the record, that story is entirely factual — to the best of my ability to remember something that happened nearly 30 years ago. In fact, I remember it like it was yesterday.

I caught up with some old friends that day, and met new folks, including Jackson Boelts, an art profressor at the University of Arizona who had been doing his own thinking about branding. He created our cover, and shared a series of his current work, which you can read about here.

Sophie’s got a gun….

I was interviewing a lawyer yesterday who does a lot of work on behalf of the mentally ill, and we were talking (because what else has anybody been talking about this week, in Arizona, anyway?) about gun control. And I asked him if he thought we should make people get mental evaluations before they can buy guns.

Good question, he said. He’s not so sure about that. But he does think the gun laws here are too lax. For example, he told me, you can’t get a gun if you’ve been committed, but plenty of very sick people have not been committed.

Maybe people with guardians shouldn’t be able to buy guns, he mused, then explained: Often the courts appoint guardians to protect seriously mentally ill and other vulnerable people; that means they can’t have a driver’s license in Arizona, he explained, but it doesn’t mean they are prohibited from buying a gun. 

Interesting, I replied, not making the connection right away, and asked, give me some examples of other people who have guardians.

Well, he said, someone with Alzheimer’s might have a guardian. Someone with developmental disabilites, and –.

A lightbulb went off over my head.

Wait a minute, I interrupted. You mean to tell me that a person with Down syndrome can buy a gun?

Well, yes, he said. Legally, they could.

I hung up feeling sick. Even my husband, the staunchest gun rights advocate I know (and yes, this has led to some ugly debates) has been heard to say (with love) that he’d never want to see Sophie holding a loaded gun.

HOW CAN THIS BE?

Yes, I realize that even in a place like this, a certain amount of self-policing goes on. Chances are that no one would ever sell Sophie a gun. But they might. And although the chances are even slimmer that she’d actually use it — both because she is a nice person and because I doubt she’ll ever have the strength in her fingers to pull the trigger — I could certainly see her buying a gun for a friend. A friend with a long rap list who wasn’t allowed to buy a gun. Not that I can really see Sophie making friends with a felon, but — you get the picture.

The picture (along with the tune) that I can’t get out of my head.

I’ve had so much food for thought over this past week that I need to go on a serious information diet. I wish Project Runway’s new season would start already. My head hurts.

Sophies’ got a gun….

Some of the responses were left on the blog, some on Facebook. Each gave me pause and made me think. I hope everyone’s ok that I’m sharing; I’ll use first names only, just in case.

Kate wrote:
Well, I’m not raising children here but I guess my [perspective] is a bit different. I feel that truly, no area in our country, or the world or that matter lacks people like “crazy” arizona people. AZ’s had a tragic round as of late, but as I grew up there was Columbine in Colorado, Matt Shepard in Wyoming, the Okla. city bombing, U of Montreal shooting, Reagan assasination attempt, Ruby Ridge, Rwanda, Northern Ireland bombings etc. Heck the KKK began in my homestate. A state now giving a homeless guy a second chance. There is so much good in AZ, and everywhere if you find it. I have to remind myself of that and your post helped me do that. Raising children can’t be easy in this day and age….but as a non parent I can’t help but ask “When was it ever easy?” You’re a terrifically smart individual. If there were a top 10 of amazing places to raise children homes like yours would have to one of them…..even if that is in AZ with all the happenings as of late. I bet many parents in AZ would agree as you seem to–as that’s why you stay here. The world is fragile indeed.

Betsy wrote:
Well I am raising kids here too and I think Arizona is different right now. I could give you a list. We can start with the gun laws and go down the list with the others. I’m angry today and not willing to say it could be anywhere. I lived in London and had regular walks over the places where the nail bomber placed his bombs but I had no sense that it was something essential about the culture that led to this. Its different here. Don’t get me wrong, I know there is good here and there are people and things I love deeply and this state has become a part of me more than I could have ever ever imagined. And I do get defensive when I fly to Massachusetts and sit by people flying from Berkeley to Cambridge with only a stop over in Phoenix ask me how anyone could live here. We aren’t all like that I tell them. But the truth is that I live in a State which no only has a law against gay marriage but also a constitutional amendment, a legislature that repealed partnership benefits and allows concelled weapons without a permit. We don’t even need to mention the need to pass a regressive tax so that the schools and hospitals can stay open or the flagship anti-immigrant law. Shall I go on. It wasn’t a coincidence that it happened here. Yes these things happen in other places but yesterday it happened in a Safeway that I have been to, in a city I regularly visit and one in which I have good friends, friends with nine year old children. I am sorry but today I hate that I am raising my children here.

Carol wrote:
When someone, no less a twenty-something with questionable mental stability can walk into a gun shop and purchase an assault weapon, a weapon intended to kill many and kill quickly, and no one takes the time or energy to wonder what this kids motives are — this is the at the center of the problem. There will always be delusional people out there operating in society, We give them the means to destroy life by allowing then easy access to arms.

Yolande wrote:
Amy, you’re right to answer your questions of ‘why are we raising our kids here’ and ‘why do I live here’ by saying that it’s home.

The questions I found myself asking yesterday are more general about what it means about being human and why am I here right now… not just in Arizona but on the planet. I came to a similar answer to your ‘it’s home’ and that is to quote Alanis Morisette, “I am a citizen of the planet”.

I believe that we are in chaotic times and as much as I sometimes want the chaos to be more predictable I know that change in any system can only happen when the system is in chaos. A stable system will fight change. And, the current system sucks and we need a transformation to take place.
With yesterday’s events, I struggled to be accepting of the chaos, I found myself sad and dumbfounded because it is closer to home than the madness in the rest of the world. A Safeway parking lot! Yesterday, I did the only thing I could do. I went out to dig a big hole for a new lemon tree. I had to; I couldn’t allow myself to get discouraged or caught up in the drama of the news. I needed to feel at a raw level the sadness. So I dug at the hard desert dirt and as I dug, I got to thinking about how the right environment gives the tree a greater chance to grow. The tree has to do the growing, all I can do is make the soil a bit friendlier and provide some supplement nutrients and the right amount of water.

And, despite my efforts, there’s a chance that the location may just not be right but that is where I was called to dig and that’s where I dug.

Here in Arizona on this planet is where I find myself and my family (kids) and now the bigger question of “why am I here” is taking me to a place of soul searching about what is my responsibility as a citizen of the planet. What type of work do I need to do? Digging gave me blisters on my hands, a sore back, and a release and a clarity to know that I must keep at it even as the darkness of night approached and the air around me grew colder. It became more difficult to work but I couldn’t stop because I knew that I couldn’t leave the bare roots of my new tree to the cold night and to the javelina.

I don’t have the answers. Thank you for the questions.

Actually, I made her listen. She’s not one of those kids who begs for that kind of adult privilege, in fact she’s more likely to tell you to turn it off so she can listen to music. But she got that this was important.

“Wait,” she said from the back seat. “That lady they’re talking about on the radio, that’s the one you were just talking about with the other moms at ballet?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

No, not really, though I get where she was coming from. I suppose that if I’m going to raise my kids in Arizona, they’re going to have to get used to this kind of thing.

Annabelle was an infant in 2001 —  I was feeding her and watching a rerun of E.R. when the news cut in on the tiny old TV in her nursery and suddenly, a huge tower was falling. I held the baby close and called for Ray, who was still asleep in the next room. 9/11 defines her life the way it defines all our lives, but it wasn’t the same as yesterday. Yesterday she was 9 years old, the same age as the little girl who got caught in an obviously crazy man’s crossfire. Or maybe he meant that bullet for that girl. I just read that her birthday was September 11, 2001.

I didn’t let Annabelle hear that part, about the 9 year old girl.

But she listened to the radio as an old friend of mine, a journalist in Tucson, talked about Gabby Giffords. None of this is about me, of course, but the whole thing hits a little too close for home. Giffords and I aren’t friends — we had lunch just once years ago while she was still in the state legislature — and I left thinking, “Wow, that woman is too hard a charger even for me” — but we have a lot in common. She is Jewish, she grew up a Democrat in Arizona, we even went to the same tiny college in southern California, missing each other there by a year. She’s way cooler (or dumber) than I am — believes in riding motorcycles without helmets and the Second Amendment — but still, the similarities.

And the hate. There is a lot of hate in this state. I know, I know, in the country, in the world, it’s seeping in and out of every crevice, everywhere. But trust me, it’s particularly bad here. And so the fact that a crazy man showed up at a Safeway in Tucson and shot this quirky, well-meaning, hard-charging, wicked smart woman is no coincidence, not to us here.

Yeah, he’s crazy. Crazy like an Arizonan.

Why do I live here? Why are we raising our kids here? I don’t have a good answer, except this: Because it’s  home. I’ve always said that Arizona is a great place to be a journalist and a lousy place to be a person, and that was never more true than yesterday.

Trying to fall asleep last night, I thought of Harry Mitchell, the sweet man who lost his first election ever last fall. He’d been mayor of Tempe forever and then served a few terms in Congress, losing in November to a creepy guy who’s been running for years and finally lucked out.

But it occurred to me, as I tossed and turned, that Harry Mitchell — a Democrat, another target — is the lucky one. It could have been him yesterday. And then the conversation would really have hit our dinner table, since Annabelle and Mitchell’s granddaughter are good friends at school.

It’s a small world. If it happened in  your state, chances are you’d have the same uncomfortably close connections, the ones that got me up at 3 this morning.

I am so sad, and mad, as my friend Deborah put it yesterday on Facebook. And shaky. The world is very fragile.

Ray and Annabelle got busy with the iPhone last night, and look what landed in my email.

There, amidst the cafeteria menu and the spelling list, was a sheet informing me that, according to Arizona law, fourth, fifth and sixth graders in public school will be required as of August 23 to recite a paragraph from the Declaration of Independence every morning.

Funny, before I had kids, I knew all about the laws our legislature was passing. Remember that line from Broadcast News, where Holly Hunter’s character is horrified that some guy she wants to date (or maybe it’s Albert Brooks’ character who wants to date some woman) doesn’t know all the members of the cabinet? That used to be me.

These days, I’m lucky I can name the vice president. I had kids, and brain cells cascaded from every orifice. And really, that’s not funny at all, because now’s the time I should be most aware of what sorts of horrors our incredibly backward state legislators are bestowing upon my kids.

This new law, of course, is far from the worst thing these (and here I’d like to use the term “mouth breathers” but I fear that’s almost as bad as saying “retards” so I’ll just say “elected officials”) elected (not by me!) officials did this year. But consider, in the wake of Arizona’s new but not yet (and maybe not ever to be) fully enacted anti-immigration law, the fact that kids in public school are now required to recite each morning:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Created equal? Endowed with the right to the pursuit of happiness? Um, yeah, not exactly, not for everyone in Arizona, not these days. Not everyone has rights. Not if our legislature and governor can help it.

I thought about refusing to allow Annabelle to participate in the daily droning — er, I mean, reciting — but realized quickly that would just open her to being ostracized, and while I open myself to that all the time, I’m not going to do it to my kid.

This will be like the Pledge was for me when I was in school — she’ll say it quickly each morning, thinking not about the intentions of the Founding Fathers but instead about what might be in her lunch box, or whether there’s going to be a math pop quiz. The whole thing will totally lose meaning for her, and that’s not good, but I suppose it’s not the worst thing that can happen.

The whole thing just creeps me out. And if someone asked me, I’d say let’s have a daily recitation, sure. But let’s make it something different every day. How about a proverb, or a quote, something the class can spend a few minutes chewing on — and the teacher can send a list home every week so the family can continue the discussion. You could even include some wisdom from Arizona politicians, like Barry Goldwater, who once said, “To disagree, one doesn’t have to be disagreeable.” Or a quip from my favorite Mo Udall: “If you can find something everyone agrees on, it’s wrong.”

I’d love to see a group of nine-year-olds hash those over. Let the Arizona Legislature recite the Declaration of Independence if they’re so into the idea. They’re the ones who could use a daily reminder of our supposed rights.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know all about Arizona’s incredibly onerous anti-immigration law, signed this spring by our lovely governor. When she did it, I — along with most everyone I know (with some notable exceptions I’ll leave out so you don’t start hating people I love) was beyond horrified.

Me, too. I posted my concerns in a piece about a dear friend’s adopted daughter. That blog post got more hits in a day than any piece I’ve written about Sophie in more than two years of Girl in a Party Hat.

But as the weeks dragged on, even I found myself sick of the endless media coverage. Enough already, okay? I get it.

Do I?

Yesterday, a pal stopped by my office to talk about something work-related, and we got to chatting instead about SB 1070, which takes effect tomorrow. My friend, who’s about as white as I am (which is pretty darn white) told me a story about a friend of hers. This friend-of-a-friend is middle upper class and Latino. She drives a high-end car, my friend couldn’t recall what kind, maybe an Escalade.

“She’s been stopped by the cops 25 times in the last year,” my friend told me.

The Latino woman is no shrinking violet; she tells the cops to leave her alone or she’ll “go El Cajon on your ass” and so far, they’ve left her alone.

“I’ve probably been stopped five times in my life,” my friend mused, “and trust me, each time I more than deserved it.”

We both shook our heads, and I haven’t been able to shake the conversation since.

SB1070 is a big fucking deal, even though this morning word came down that a U.S. District Court judge largely neutered it — for the time being.

From now on, I promise, I’m going to try to stay awake.

Rose is 11. She’s in sixth grade. She’s a totally kick-ass kid — I’ve had the privilege of watching her grow since she was in third grade, and so shy she wouldn’t look you in the eye. Now she’s a world-class eavesdropper and question-asker, a future journalist for sure. She’s cut her long, thick hair to her shoulders and although there’s still a good bit of tomboy in her, she’s started wearing necklaces with her Converse.

Her future is bright. (And don’t get me started on her parents, and how truly amazing they are, or I’ll be crying for sure.)

But dark clouds arrived last week, in the form of our governor’s signature on that immigration bill you’ve no doubt heard of, even if you reside on the moon.

Welcome to Arizona, folks. This place sucks. No amount of efforts at government reform over the last decade and a half (from term limits to campaign finance reform to redistricting) has been able to turn our absolutely off-the-far-edge-of-the-right-wing Legislature normal. You already know about our crazy (and I mean that literally) sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Now you are meeting the rest of the state on CNN. Feel my pain.

And feel Rose’s pain. Rose is an American citizen, but if you were a law enforcement officer in Arizona, you might just assume from the color of her skin that she’s an illegal immigrant. Rose is adopted; she’s Mexican by birth. Now her parents might have to pack her passport with her lunch box. And last week, they had to tell her about the law and prepare her in case someone pulls her aside.

That really does make me cry.

There’s much to debate over this immigration legislation — sure, much of it is what the federal government was already supposed to be doing. Yes, there is crime — the death of the rancher that prompted this whole thing is tragic — and I suppose there would be economic implications of illegal immigration if there were actually jobs to “steal” in this country anymore. I know, something needs to be done. And by signing that bill into law (a law I personally doubt will ever actually be enacted — I think the courts will nab it before it goes into effect) perhaps our ill-informed, plastic-surgery-preoccupied (have you seen pictures of the much different looking Jan Brewer from the 1980s?) governor will prompt Congress to do something smart.

But for now, this whole thing is dumb dumb dumb. Hurtful and divisive and sad.

So I can’t stop thinking about Rose, and her family, and how unfair it is that this girl is just as much a citizen of the United States of America as my daughters — yet somehow, after Friday, has been relegated to a different class.

Even if Rose wasn’t technically a citizen, but instead was simply a little girl whose family had managed to get her here, looking for a better life, would she deserve to be in a different class, to be given a different status as a human being? She’d still be an 11 year old girl in a necklace and Cons, watching the world very carefully.

I wonder what she thinks about all this.

NOTE: I don’t pretend to have any answers about immigration, only questions. But if you are looking for a smart authority on the subject, be sure to check in with my dear friend/mentor/former colleague Terry Greene Sterling.