After receiving a few e-mails of concern regarding my recent Clinton endorsement, I feel the need to say a few words. O.k., so almost anything leads to my need to say a few words hence the blog.

I am aware of some of the controversial aspects surrounding Clinton's candidacy. There's her Iraq vote. There's DOMA. There's Whitewater. There's Bill (good and bad). There's the Establishment. There's welfare reform. There's status quo. There's politics as usual. There's divisiveness. There's well-connected, political favoritism. There's: THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED.

This list of things makes me grumble and say, "what's the use?" until I shake myself and slap my cheeks and wake up. Even with the muck aplenty, I still believe it's useful to pay attention to politics and to vote and to try to have a say, not because my single vote can change things, but because having an opinion matters in the grander scheme of things. It's about thinking and mulling and talking. It's about conversations that I'll have with my mother-in-law or my husband or my friends at the bar or a dad at the bus stop or my children. It's about caring about, for better or for worse, the policies that shape our existence.

I'm not one for soapboxes (well, maybe just a little, cough, cough) and this isn't much of a political blog, but I know that when I sat and listened to those know-it-all guys in the coffee shop, I was appalled. And then I felt empathy. This is what Hillary's been up against her entire political life. These are the people saying that she's not masculine enough, she's not feminine enough, she cries, she doesn't cry. These are the people saying that there's no way for her to get it right--because she's a woman.

In the last few weeks she's proven (to me, anyway) to be scrappy and capable (if not a little underhanded) and commandeering and bright. I won't say that she's better than Obama because I don't see their platforms as radically different and I plan to support either Democratic nominee, but I will say that I'm proud to be voting for a woman who could become president for the first time in my life.