That’s Entertainment

The contractor came and busted down the Sheetrock above my back door because it had swelled and the door was rubbing against it. So I watched him while eating my own face because I tend to chew my lip when someone knocks part of my house down. It’s not all done yet – the new Sheetrock is up and some of the mudwork is done, but he has to come back tomorrow (allegedly) and finish the mudwork, so I can then repaint. Sigh. Add it to the To Do List.

Two trucks decided to smash into each other at the end of the block yesterday morning. They snapped a utility pole in half. I am now one of those people who lives in the city and comes out of her house to stand on the sidewalk somewhat aimlessly and gawk at things like this. But also I called 911. Partly because of the accident and partly because it knocked out power. And cable. Out entirely for eight hours. Then the internet and phone came back, but the TV is still all scrambly. I called the cable company four times about it. Now they have to come out tomorrow between 10 and noon to tell me there is nothing wrong from my end. Which will be tremendously helpful.

Oh, I hear a siren winding down outside. Standby.

I’m back. It’s a fire engine. Nothing’s on fire, though. They knocked on a door across the street and down a few houses. No one answered. So someone is dead, possibly.

My neighbor down the street, Miss Ella, cracks me up slash terrifies me. I think I’ve mentioned her before. She’s old but I can’t tell how old, and she has absolutely no brain left in her head, God love her. Yesterday after the accident knocked out the power, she came out and started yelling “Hello?” up the street. This is basically how she asks people for help, since she doesn’t remember who anyone is.  I went to see what was up and she said, “There’s ringing! There’s ringing in my house!” I figured it was her alarm system, which it was. I pushed a few buttons while she told me her mother wasn’t home (seeing as how she’s been dead for 40 years, I’m guessing) and I finally just hit CANCEL and the beeping stopped.

“So in other words, I have to hit CANCEL,” she observed.

Sure.

Two hours later: “Hello?” from down the block. She had a mantle-style plastic alarm clock in her hands. Extra-large buttons. The alarm was going off. She was scared to push any buttons to make it stop. So I switched it off and explained to her how to do it.

“So in other words, make sure the alarm is off.”

Oh, Miss Ella. Please don’t turn on the stove.

I wound up held hostage by Mr. Z a few doors down. My gaybor had asked me to knock on the door to see if they want a tree from the city in front of the house. They don’t. Establishing that took about a minute. Getting Mr. Z to stop talking about any and all other things took another 59. Apparently, he stays up all night and goes to bed when his wife goes to work. Then he sleeps all day. So when I knocked at 1:30pm, I woke him. He was in pajama pants and a t-shirt and clearly hadn’t shaved in days. Three hours later he knocked on my door to show me that he had taken a shower, brushed his hair, shaved and gotten dressed.

He reminds me of Fred Willard.

Also he says completely inappropriate things. Such as describing his next door neighbor as (hand flop) and saying my next door neighbors “don’t want the federales coming to get them. They must know I’m the neighborhood gringo watch.”

Dude.

He’s suspicious of my next door neighbors because they’re so nice.

I’m trying to finish a book that I’m not enjoying at all. If you’re ever tempted to read “The Tiger’s Wife,” don’t. It’s this fantastical thing set somewhere in Russia or the Czech Republic (not to be confused with Chechnya… looking at you, idiots on Twitter) or somewhere like that. Something about a deathless man and a tiger/human and The Jungle Book. I don’t understand it at all and I only have like 80 pages left. I feel like I should just finish it so I have a shot at understanding it. Like I think the 270 pages of whatever-the-hell is going to suddenly make all the sense in the world in the last 80.

And the other day I realized while I was peeing that I had my underwear on sideways.

Yup. Crotch at the hip.

I don’t even know.

Don’t Will Your Children To Me

My friend Meg recently told the rest of the Ohio 5 that, if she and her husband meet an untimely demise, she had assigned each of her children to one of us for safekeeping. She has four, so that works out, except it doesn’t work out at all because you can’t split four kids up in the event of their parents’ untimely demise.

And this past weekend confirmed that I’m not taking all four of them.

Meg and her family ventured out from Ohio to me for a Spring Break visit. And the kids, who are 5, 4, 2 and 7 months, were darling. But there are four of them. And they make noise. And one of them kept throwing up.

Seriously, though – I have lots of experience with and patience for kids. The kids were totally fine. They are very well-behaved and very well-mannered and they will eat anything (except “artificials,” because somehow my dear friend who I love has managed to feed her children nothing with artificial ingredients despite being on the dole because her boorish husband refuses to take up anything that provides steady pay…or any pay).

But, as parents everywhere but mostly who read this blog will understand, they wore my single, childless ass out.

Also, I inherited a nasty cold from my darling nephew on Easter Sunday that kicked into gear a few days ago and contributed to the exhaustion. Jesus is risen, but I’m down for the count.

The tribe arrived at my house Friday morning, bright and early, after spending the first part of their vacation somewhere else. They arrived from their hotel having not fed themselves. I wasn’t surprised; in fact, I had expected and prepared for this because one time they visited Joey (he gets the third kid) at his mom’s house in Ohio, having changed the plan from just Meg and one kid to the whole family descending, and the Boor sat on his duff and demanded lunch and dinner. But the Boor surprised me by making their breakfasts himself.

I had to go to work, of course, so they decided to make use of the day by being touristy. By the time they arrived back at my house, with keys and the alarm code, it was 10:45pm. I got home at 10:55. The kids were doing okay, but #3 was clearly in the early stages of Meltdown Mode despite having slept on the train, and #4 was getting very fussy. He has a terrible cold, too, and was hacking up a tiny little lung between wails. I knew how he felt.

Kids 1, 2 (that one’s mine) and 3 bedded down together in my basement, all in a row in the queen sized bed. #4 slept in a cushion on the floor in my room, which Meg and the Boor were using for the weekend. The grown-ups managed to toddle off to our respective beds around 1:30am. We were up at 7, with me in the kitchen making an egg bake full of veggies, because the kids love veggies.

Seriously.

I had used some professional capital to score a few free tickets to the children’s museum. I had never been there, but clearly I had to do something with these kids, and the museum wasn’t far away. So by 10:30am we were on our way to fun and adventure in the city’s largest Petri dish.

Honestly, all I could think, with my chest-rattling, throat-ripping cough and progressively stuffy head, was Germs. Germs germs germs. Snot. Poo. Germs.

I never used to think that way. But apparently in my stage of life, when I’m in a building full of howler-monkeys whose paws are all over everything, I can’t avoid it. Ironic, I know, considering I myself was a cesspool of infection. But I coughed into the crook of my arm, Purelled my hands every hour and tried not to touch anything. When I headed into a bathroom and saw myself in the mirror, a tired, watery red-eyed woman looked back. I washed my hands in hot water and used the paper towel to open the door.

When I wasn’t trying to track four kids at a time, I amused myself watching the other kids’ parents. Mostly the dads. They were all wandering around in running shoes or Tevas, high-end cameras around their necks, seemingly pretending to enjoy parental involvement on this early spring Saturday with their hover-mother wives. With newly-sprouted pot bellies and graying hair, they seemed to send up thought bubbles… “What has happened to my life? I used to sleep til noon. And then drink beer and watch basketball in my shorts.”

For a while, I sat in the tiny tot playroom with Meg and #s 3 and 4 while they ran or scooted about sock-footed and #4 gummed plush toys that I’m sure no other child had ever gummed before. Ick. Into our section came four hover mothers and their little ones. Their names were Phoenix, Mason, Morgan and Rain.

I tried not to bang my head against anything. No offense to any of you who may have kids with these names. It’s just that when they’re all in one place like that, it sort of makes me roll my eyes. I know trendy names have been cool since the 90s, but sometimes I think this generation’s parents compete with each other to find out who can fill a teacher’s classroom with the most pretentious set of monikers.

Soon Phoenix, Mason, Morgan, Rain and their hover mothers were joined by their camera-wielding fathers/husbands. Who looked at each other occasionally with glances that seemed to say, “Wanna go to the bar?”

After that, Meg and #3 and I went to another room meant for water play. Yep. Water play. #3 happily threw toys into a shallow table-pool full of pumps and sprinklers and the like, squealing and clapping and splashing around, and I obsessed over how many of the kids had put the toys in their mouths or grabbed them with grubby hands they’d just pulled out of their pants. I watched a baby nom on the edge of the table. Meg barely reacted when #3 suckled the top of a toy boat and soaked the front of her shirt. Another kid bent over and drank straight from the table’s 1.5″ of what I’m sure was super-clean and freshly filtered water.

Ew ew ew.

After hours of playing and picking up e. Coli and stuff, plus a walk around the touristy downtown spots and a very late lunch at which #3 whined until the Boor ordered her to lie down in the booth, at which time she promptly fell asleep, we piled back into the Volvo station wagon with the Jesus-related license plate. Upon approaching my neighborhood, the Boor parked the car at the park instead, and we all climbed out. The Boor ignored all hints, subtle and otherwise, about #1 needing a bathroom and me needing a couch, water and a chance to prep dinner. And this was six hours before I practically crawled upstairs to bed.

Up at 7. Pancakes and bacon. The Boor talking to me about democracy vs. fascism vs. oligarchy vs. something else I had no mental stamina to give a shit about at any time, let alone 7am. Lots and lots of questions from the kids. After eating, unable to breathe and completely lacking in energy, I sat on my couch while the Boor did the dishes and Meg repacked their bags. I did #1′s hair in a style like my own and answered more questions. Meg asked if I was tired of them yet.

The questions. Not her family.

They left at 9;30am. I had spent a total of about 39 hours with them. And I spent the next 13 on the couch, trying to recover. I reported to our friend Angie (she gets #1) on how things went with a single sentence.

“Dude, I could never hack parenthood.”

Flop.

ABC has a new show called “Splash.” Perhaps you saw it. I didn’t mean to, but it was happening right next to me and it was kind of like a car wreck.

Near as I could tell, what happens is, Louie Anderson does a slow free-fall off a diving platform, watched by a live audience who are in rapt attention and, in some cases, covering their mouths in fear. When he gets out of the pool, Joey Lawrence interviews him. (What the hell happened to Joey Lawrence, by the way?) Then Louie walks over somewhere a few feet away and Charissa Thompson (from ESPN2. Not ESPN… ESPN2) interviews him. This is all very serious, as if he just competed for a gold medal in the Olympics. Then he faces a former Olympic diver and a dive team instructor, and they give him scores. Totally seriously. And then a tweet pops up on the screen from a random person saying she’s glad diving is finally getting some attention because it’s so crazy hard to do.

And I believe that. I believe that actual diving, in which you point your toes and do a bunch of flips and twists and stuff, and you try to enter the water while creating as little splash as possible, is difficult to do.

So after that, Katherine Webb comes out. I immediately have my doubts because she’s wearing a bathing suit that would definitely, definitely come off if I wore it and dove from a 10-meter platform. Who is Katherine Webb? you wonder quietly to yourself. She’s the girlfriend of a college quarterback, and also Miss Alabama, made more famous by Bret Musberger’s compliment of her looks on live TV as she sat in the stands at her boyfriend’s bowl game than by her crowning as Miss Alabama.

Anyway, so she dives, which is kind of impressive because she does a backflip. And keeps the bathing suit on. But her score for that is somehow lower than Louie Anderson’s freefall.

They interview her. Somehow her makeup has not run down her face. Her conversation with Charissa Thompson is like Hot Brunette With Wet Hair Talks To Hot Blonde With Dry Hair. Ratings gold in the male 14-Dead demographic.

Then some guy who’s a trick skier or something comes out in trunks and he’s all cut and muscley, and he does a dive with a couple flips and a couple twists and somehow his score is only a little higher than Louie Anderson’s.

Then out comes – are you ready for this? – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He’s wearing a purple robe and he looks, I swear, like some kind of wizard. For some reason he is not wearing his goggles, which is weird because he wore them to play ball but apparently does not think he needs them to swim. He dives off the kind of diving board we’re all familiar with – the bouncy kind that’s not high off the water. And he totally belly-flops.

Admittedly, I crack up laughing.

But I cannot believe this is where we’ve gone as a society. This is entertainment now? Watching Louie Anderson plummet off a slab into a pool in (thank God) a full body bathing suit?

Look, we’re writers. We all know “reality” television sucks ass. It started more than 20 years ago (gah) with the first Real World on MTV and it’s been a long, steady progression into hell since. But now we are seriously entertaining ourselves watching a fat guy and a midget (a midget, people) do dives?

And yes, I totally resorted to assholery in my description in the previous sentence, but do you know why? Because that’s what ABC did in casting them. You put Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Louie Anderson and Chuy Bravo in a diving “competition” with Katherine Webb and Rory Bushfield (the extreme skier), you’re totally going for the Some Of These Folks Are Not Like the Others vibe. Unabashedly.

So if you watch the show and enjoy the spectacle of the comparative figures… you’re an asshole, too.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there’s no charity fundraising involved or anything. It’s really just like watching the folks at your community pool try to dive, but with cameras and lights.

Who came up with this idea? Who sat in a board room and said, “Okay, here it is. Ready? So great. Okay. So. We take these D-list celebrities, right? I mean people you haven’t seen in decades. Sometimes people you’ve never even heard of, right? And we have them dive into a pool.”

And the exec said, “…And?”

And the idea guy said, “…Isn’t it awesome?”

And then they made the show.

In other news, ABC has announced that its next show will feature camera crews watching me get out of bed every morning, just in case I fall down.

Go ‘Merica.

 

Turns Out I Don’t Like Most People

Every so often, I get salty about stupid people. Or selfish people. Or ignorant people. And I know that I can sometimes be one or two or all of those things as well. But when I see it on prominent display, it frosts my cookies.

Stupid
Sunday:
A girl of indistinguishable age walks across a gas station – a gas station, I say – with a lit cigarette in her hand. When she arrives at the door to the convenience store, she stops and thinks twice about taking the cigarette inside. Then she puts it down on the sidewalk, carefully. When she comes out a moment later, she picks it back up and puts it back in her mouth.

That’s like five kinds of stupid right there.

Selfish
Congress. There. I’m done.

Ignorant
Beware this most of all, said the Ghost of Christmas Future. I have actually found lately that ignorance is often combined with selfishness. It’s a handy formula for maintaining one’s willfully narrow-minded way of thinking. Today’s mental rant was touched off by a guy on Facebook saying that there are too many people claiming they have emotional and mental illness, and they should just realize that: 1. they’re not in danger unless they’re in grave danger and 2. that worrying doesn’t help anything. (Yes, he numbered them.)

Well, asshole, let’s explore the ways that comment is insensitive and clueless.

Yet when some people tried to do that, he refused to budge. He even said his statement was merely an observation, not a judgment. I think that’s part of the problem. We know Americans are not so good with the English. Grammar, spelling, and definitions are often lost. Maybe it’s a problem of just not understanding definitions.

I choose my battles. I argued with my mother when she insisted that most of the people on welfare are black, because it’s flatly false, and she asked if I declared it false because I say so. “No, Mom, it’s wrong because the US Census Bureau and Department of Labor say it’s wrong.” She didn’t believe me, because she didn’t want to. It was inconvenient to her narrative. It was also amazingly ironic that “most of the people on welfare are black” because she says so.

That’s the kind of stuff that’s really been bugging me lately: people who refuse to hear all the facts because doing so would ruin their personal narrative on how things are. They’d rather justify their ignorance than be informed, justify their hatred than be open. They think other people are foolish for buying into the “myth” that the “media” espouse. They’ll take one singular fact and just hang on tight, while ignoring all the other facts that put theirs in context.

So I’ve decided to forcibly maintain some ignorance of my own.

I will insist that the invention of fire was a)  not an invention, but more of a discovery, and 2) not that big a deal.

I will deface any vehicle with one of those fish-with-feet decals on it because it so blatantly disrespects Jesus.

If I see someone walk into a door, I will blame the door manufacturers because they were union workers and therefore were probably lazy and didn’t do their jobs right and caused the incident.

I will unflinchingly believe that John Grisham is the best legal thriller writer out there.

I will refuse any assertion that there’s even one single doctor who’s not trying to make a buck from the pharmaceutical companies, and I will therefore refuse all medication until I’m on my death bed, at which point I’ll blame the doctors for not diagnosing me properly.

I will make no exception to my general rule that a dog is better than a cat at all times. Even though I have a cat, but not a dog.

I will swear Attila the Hun was railroaded.

It’s gonna be great. I can’t wait to spout off stupid, inane, thoughtless drivel that I can vehemently defend with arguments such as, “F— you.”

******

I strike.

Or rather, my blog does.

At some people, at least.

Fransi at weinstein365 has very graciously called my blog worthy of the Very Inspiring Blogger Award and gifted me with a logo I will display, as required, on my blog, as soon as I figure out how the hell to do it. I would like to note that my blog is not merely inspiring. It is, as Fransi has declared, very inspiring. Are you inspired? You totally should be inspired. Can I get some fanfare music over here?

One of the rules of the award is to state seven things about myself. So, little by little, my blog reading friends, you are learning more and more about me. The next seven things I release unto you are as follows:

1. When I was six years old, I was nearly kidnapped, but my friend Lori and I ran away from the guy in the truck who had been reported to be following children in the area after he slowed down and said something to us.*

2. I have a disturbing weakness for Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies despite my avowed loyalty to Tastykake products.

3. I find the ocean to be the most accurate metaphor for the human soul – turbulent, dark, powerful, placid, soothing, raging, dancing, warm, cold, life-sustaining, life-ending, drawing forward and then pulling back, rocking and lulling and easily moved by forces beyond its own control.

4. I used to have a recurring nightmare that I was in my kitchen and all the cabinet doors stood open, and the knobs on the stove all turned by themselves. I would close the cabinets and turn off the stove burners and they would all fly open and turn on again. It was terrifying.

5. I have been to two psychics in my life. One of them was freakishly right about everything he said and has increased his fee by 800% since I saw him. The other one was either way off or I’m in big trouble.

6. I am so boring that I have been struggling to come up with seven interesting things about myself for like 20 minutes.

7. Since my previous Seven Things, in which I said I wanted a black or chocolate lab or a Rhodesian Ridgeback, I have expanded my selection of dogs to include boxers. And I  like the name Oscar for a dog, but if it’s a boxer that might be a little too obvious. Especially since a hoya is a dog and Oscar de la Hoya is a boxer. In which case I might have to go with an American Staffordshire Terrier. Imaginary dog owning is hard.

*Totally possible that I dreamed this.

A Post Having Zero To Do With Politics. You’re Welcome.

I am sitting in my fort made of boxes, with my scarf and coat on, like a seven-year-old on a miserable weather day, all by herself, waiting for something. For the ninth day in a row, I am not closing on my house. This time, after getting home at 2am from a mind-melting twelve hours at work and a few cobbled-together hours of something like sleep, I found during the (allegedly) final walk-through that the back bedroom’s wall had suddenly grown stripes. Either the house was painting itself in decorator fashion, or there was water damage.

Sandy. Sandy and the roof, or a joint, or a chimney or some other such insidious flaw.

I am so, so tired. Work, work stress, house stress, this godforsaken obstacle course of an apartment that can’t be cleaned for all the piles of boxes, the mental gymnastics of scheduling between an unforgiving job and blessedly flexible movers and helpers I feel guilty for putting out… a hurricane, a nor’easter (meaning more work)… oh, and did you know there was an earthquake in New Jersey the other day? Really? That wasn’t just a tad over the line?

*Whistle blown*  *Flag thrown*  Unnecessary roughness – Offense. Penalty: um… I’ll work on that.

And so I flopped on my couch in my coat and scarf. Might as well keep it on. It’s a little chilly and now I’ve got to go to work in an hour.

Yes, yes, I’m glad the wall grew stripes before I owned the house. But I would much prefer it not having grown them at all. Now I’m not at all sure I trust the guy who’s selling me the house to get the problem fixed correctly, and the lock on the loan is up Friday, which means if we don’t close Friday, I’m at the theoretical mercy of new interest rates and the paperwork has to be redrawn, stuff has to go back to the underwriter, blah… blah…

…blah.

I have trust issues. Did we not go over this?

I already had to have a fight with the loan processor yesterday because I found $720 in three separate appraisal fees to be a tad… um… what’s the word?… completely unacceptable. Turns out the second and third charges were levied because the work wasn’t done on the house when the appraiser was there the first time (um, seller’s problem, not mine) and because they went back after the storm (the appraiser, mind you… not the inspector… at the bank’s demand, not in an area required for a re-check, and definitely not worth the charge). Talk about assessing value. Tip: rain does not shrink a house. It’s not made out of wool. And if I charged $175 every time I walked through a house all blase’-blase’ I’d be a damned millionaire.

I won the fight, by the way. Neener neener neener. And Hottie McHousehunter may be nice to look at, but I am covering my own ass in this purchase and I will cut a bitch if I have to.

And I think you should know that it’s getting very Lord of the Flies in my apartment these days. I mean I wouldn’t be shocked to discover a boy with a bayonet and facepaint jump out from behind a pile of boxes any minute now and spear the cat because there’s no food in this place. I wouldn’t be shocked if the cat jumped out wielding a bayonet and facepaint, for that matter.

Oh, and… AND… take a wild guess who decided to poke me with a stick in the cyber-universe.

Thaaat’s right. Jack.

I had posted my usual stirring and rousing-in-the-chestal-region words about election day on the Zuckerberg page, written with cadence and rhythm of which Sam Seaborn would be proud, casting the shadow of history in favor of taking responsibility and being grateful for opportunity, urging my friends to go vote. Right? And who cares if people like it or comment or don’t. But Jack, with whom there is a stark and tense silence on all levels of communication, real or electronic, decides to comment that an uninformed or coerced vote is worse than no vote at all and yadda yadda yadda.

People. You’ve been reading my political stuff for ages. Do I go in for uninformed or coerced votes?

I think I heard a “no.”

And Jack knows that. But Jack uses “I’m not informed enough” as an excuse not to vote, despite the fact that he is very, very well disposed to information that he simply refuses to consume. In the ten years before the most recent shananigans, it was, believe it or not, the only thing we have ever argued about. And now he’s going to say it under my patriotically chest-stirring words of inspiration and profundity? To irk me, under the guise of reasoned discourse?

The man’s fear of commitment, unbelievably, extends even to political races, and his cowardice in conversation, to the internet.

Amazing.

Being strong and smart is so damned exhausting. I know that sounds gross, but it’s true. I’m tired. Someone carry me? Please?

Empowerment ahead. Somewhere. No, really, I’m sure of it. I might even take my coat off when I get there.
******
Say, I’m on Twitter now. Follow over yonder on the right. The bird button. Do it. I’m lonely.

Early Voting: My First Experience

I suppose the second cup of coffee was ill-advised.

I still haven’t closed on the house. To recap: it was set for Tuesday. Then the Atlantic Ocean got all pissed off and the lending banks were like, “Whoa.” Then it was going to be Wednesday. Then it was going to be Thursday. Then it was “looking like” Friday. Then  they said, “it’ll almost definitely be Monday.” Now I’ve just gotten a call saying it’ll probably be Wednesday, because the appraiser insisted on a second look after the storm. Which doesn’t make sense, because shouldn’t that be the inspector?

Fine. Whatever. I just need to lie down.

I had a therapy session with Ali Velshi today, appropriately. I have realized in the last two visits with him that one of the tells of my anxious highs is that I talk a freaking mile a minute. I already talk fast, but whew. My previous therapist (Ali Velshi is my second) used to point it out to me when I was “zooming.” Ali Velshi hasn’t really taken that tack yet, though I did catch him eyeing my foot as I twirled it around and around and around while I talked to him. Unfortunately, what I do for a living and the people I work for are very unforgiving, and that is actually the greater part of the stress. Everyone gets stressed buying a house, and plenty of people have had far worse setbacks than I have. Hell, I could have closed on a house at the Jersey Shore on Friday. It’s work that compounds the problem for me.

Yesterday, after I ran out of boxes and bubble wrap, I turned around in circles in my living room a couple of times before I told myself aloud that I could go vote. And so I did.

What an entertaining hour that was.

It bears noting that this is my first time voting in my particular area, where I’ve only lived for two years. Sadly, this means I have nothing with which to compare the amusement of yesterday’s outing. Usually, I walk in on election day around 9am and it takes all of 15 minutes. Early voting isn’t really my thing – I prefer the patriotic, Sorkinesque rush of the shared First Tuesday In November experience to the wah-wah that it becomes after people have already done their civic duty days or weeks in advance. But alas, since the bank, work, Mother Nature and the universe are conspiring to kill me on or before November 6th, off I went.

If the signage can’t properly direct me to the where I should park for early voting, we’re off to a bad start. Just sayin’.

Eventually, though, I found the appropriate lot, and entered what used to be a school building and is now used for police and fire training to find an environment not unlike what I imagine Soviet Russia to be. Which, you have to grant, is ironic.

Don’t get me wrong. It actually went very smoothly. But first, we were corralled into a former gymnasium full of rows of chairs. Everything was painted cinderblock. Colors were drab. The chairs were Machiavellian. (I’m mixing metaphors. Deal with it.) We all had to sit next to each other – no empty chairs between voters, for the sake of the republic. And I’m fine with that, but not everyone else was. The election officials kept asking, “Is this an empty seat?” as if it were some sort of outrage.

Every so often, they’d take the first row of congregants. The rest of us didn’t know where those people went. It was kind of scary. But when they’d take the first row, then everybody had to get up and move exactly one row up from their previous seated position.

Can I tell you something? It’s troubling that not everyone can handle this kind of “upset.”

The woman next to me was one of those people.

“What?! Oh, hell naw. No. Why it have to be like this?” she wanted to know.

Lady, just effing move up one seat. This is not hard. Do it.

While a small child wailed behind me and her mother continued a conversation on her cell phone, we played the musical chairs game. Sans music. I will admit that my eyes were directed almost entirely upon my phone during this wait, but only because I forgot to bring a book. Then I heard someone saying, “Take care, now,” while the click-clack of her heels reverberated through the room. I looked up.

It was the mayor.

Meh. Back to my phone. Interestingly, though she’s popular and has done a very good job (and is not up for re-election this year), no one jumped up to talk to her or shake her hand. She just walked on through.

She looks good, though. Lost a lot of weight. G’ahead, girl.

Some couple who might have come from an Eastern Bloc country kept trying to jump the line. This nearly caused bedlam. I don’t know if they genuinely didn’t understand the process or what, but I found myself mildly irritated with the people who were unhappy about it. We still all get to vote. Who the hell cares if they vote before you? 

It’s interesting to see the passions ignited at a polling place. Apparently, not only is it essential that we are given our right to vote; it is also essential that we are given our right to vote in the precise order of which we entered the building.

Settle down, y’all. Russia ain’t near closed yet.

Eventually, I was in the front row. When it was time to move me and my compatriots, we went to another holding cell, where a few people got upset about the order in which we were lined up and I remembered that I should probably just sit quietly and not try to fix anything. This is the part where random people started trying to tell the election officials how to do their jobs.

Hold up. You couldn’t handle moving up ah row. You think you can tell an election official how to keep an orderly line? You still get to vote. Even though I’m pretty sure at this point that you probably shouldn’t.

After another waiting period, we got to move into the actual voting area. There: more line issues. Apparently it’s difficult to form a line. This is the part where I started worrying about the entire voting process and wondering if dictatorship wasn’t really the best way to go. But the election official easily found me in the list of city residents and handed me my electronic card. Then I joined another line (all lines were marked by – of course- gray tape) and waited for a Trapper-Keepered voting machine to become available.

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve done my homework, so actually voting didn’t take long. There were no glitches with technology. All went well. I handed in my electronic card and left the building.

Some people in the parking lot tried to drive out the wrong way. I briefly pondered whether the police directing traffic should find out their names, go back inside, find their voting cards and pull them due to a total lack of intelligence.

But no. That’s not how this country works. Never has. It does not matter whether you are smart or not. Frankly, not everyone is blessed with the same degree of sense, common or otherwise. But everyone is granted the right to vote.

God bless America.

And I mean that.

******
PS. Know what I did while I waited to vote? Joined Twitter. Grudgingly. Follow me over on the right where you see the little birdie.

 

Me To Internet: Why Can’t You Be More Organized? Gah.

The internet is starting to annoy me.

Here’s the thing: I’ve learned on my new phone how to sort apps into helpful little folders, which I can keep on my phone’s screen to provide easy access to the stuff I want to see instead of going searching through my apps to find it. I have a news folder, which has tons of news outlet apps in it. I have a media folder, which has stuff like Amazon Kindle (it came free with the phone – I haven’t used it) and the music player and Pandora. And I have a shopping folder, with stuff like Amazon.com and Groupon and LivingSocial.

I want the internet to have folders.

I’m not talking about bookmarks and favorite sites and shortcuts on your start screen. I’m talking about what happens when you search the web for something quite precise and get back an awful lot of really quite imprecise things.

The great thing about the internet in the United States is that it’s basically the vomiting of a capitalist democracy. Everything one could possibly want or need, right there for the asking, at negotiable prices or from whichever provider you choose. Nothing is screened, nothing is filtered or blocked, unless you set a filter to keep your kids from looking at porn, or your workplace sets a filter to keep you from looking at porn. Everything is provided, no judgment, just thrown at you with all the force of the cyber-universe. You even get to pick who tells you what about what’s happening in the world. (I actually find this terribly, terribly dangerous, but it’s the freedom we have in America.)

But it totally sucks when all that heap of stuff gets thrown at you and you have to go searching for a needle in an internet haystack of pages and pages and pages of search results because some smartypants put in a bunch of BS SEO coding to make their site pop up when it is in fact not at all what you want. What I need is a set of folders, so I can search for something and the internet can automatically sort the results into them so I don’t waste my time clicking on something that turns out to be a retail site when I’m looking for a literary reference. A Sorting Hat for my internet searches. Wouldn’t it be nice to have these things?:

The News Folder
Obvious explanation. Not to be confused with…

The Folder For News With Which You Agree
Calibrate it to include Fox News, MSNBC, Drudge, etc.

The Folder For Things That Will Only Annoy You
Featuring stuff like World Net Daily, Gloria Allred’s press conferences, political ads, all other types of ads, as well as a subfolder for News With Which You Disagree, to contain that which is opposite to the Folder For News With Which You Agree.

The People You Like To Mock Folder
Featuring Snooki, Rep. Todd Akin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.

The People You Love To Hate Folder
Ann Coulter’s Twitter feed, Rep. Todd Akin’s website, Kelly Osbourne, Joan Rivers, as well as any racist or elitist proclivities you may personally have.

The Folder For Stuff That Cracks You Up
Texts From Dog, Someecards, Sh*t My Dad Says, Rep. Todd Akin again.

The Folder For How To Do Stuff
Subcategories for home improvement, automotive, rocket science and working your blessed phone.

The Folder For Stuff That Keeps You Alive
Important information on your doctors, medication refill schedules, etc.

The Folder For That Thing You Saw the Other Day That You Can’t Find Now Even Though You’re Using the Exact Same Words In the Search Bar, Dammit
Yes, please.

The Folder For Stuff You Actually Want To Waste Time On When You’re Bored
Because nothing is more irritating than searching for something to do online, only to have to sort through thousands of search results, by the end of which time you’ve wasted your boredom just looking for something to soothe it, and now you’re both behind schedule and annoyed.

and perhaps most importantly…

The Folder Containing the Exact Thing You Need, Despite Not Really Knowing How To Word Your Search
So you don’t feel like an idiot. Predictive search, my ass.

Is there something that does these things already and I just don’t know about it?

I’d do a search for it, but…

In Which I Have (Almost) No Real New Things To Say

Plant Matter
Update: I got a call from my stupid apartment management company’s property manager, who was very nice and I think believed me when I said I hadn’t received a letter from her because I don’t get my mail at my address. (It’s true, I don’t. But I did get the letter. I just ignored it.) Anyway, she said she hated to make the call and she herself thinks it’s dumb, and then, sotto voce, “can you go buy some tables and bring me the receipt and I’ll take care of it?”

Well. That’s hard to argue.

She set a limit of $30. My plants are now sitting on overturned storage cubes stacked three-high. I don’t like them, but whatever. I can use them for other stuff later, or give them away. They’re also about four inches too short, so I still need a way to boost the plants to exactly the height of the railing and thumb my nose.

“Don’t tell your neighbor we’re doing this,” she said to me.

Oh, I’m totally telling the neighbor.

The Proper Way To Have A Car Accident
Update: The car has been repaired without argument of any kind from anybody. I continue to be amazed at this. Oh, except for one quibble…

Me to car shop guy: “Everything looks great. Just one thing: there’s a V6 decal on the bumper, and my car’s not a V6.”

Car shop guy: “But we got that off your car.”

Me: “No, my car’s not a V6.”

Car shop guy: “We got that off your car!”

Me: “Nnnnooo, you got that off someone else’s car.”

Car shop guy: “That decal came off your car. I have pictures. Pictures never lie.”

Me (getting testy): Sir, I’ve had the car for six and a half years. It’s not a V6.”

Car shop guy (looking at pictures): “…Well this is embarrassing.”

They fixed it.

Paradox
Update: Still pissed at Jack.

That is all.

Awe-Inspiring. Not In A Good Way
Update: Still pissed at Rep. Akin for being a fucktard who doesn’t know A) where babies come from, and 2) that there is no distinction between “legitimate” rape and any other kind. Except now actually more pissed, because he got defensive about four hours after his allegedly heartfelt apology and insisted he had only used one wrong word in one sentence, one time. When in reality, he used bunches of wrong words in three sentences, all strung together, which he continues to mostly defend except for the part about rape maybe not totally sucking. Which he’s still, frankly, a little dodgy on. Meanwhile…

Theater of the Absurd
Update: …the election conversation has gotten caught up in the debate over abortion and rape, and there are people who find this “distracting.” Well, I find that insulting. Because there are, in fact, other issues in the country than the economy, and those issues must be dealt with as well, and when lawmakers are arguably closer than ever to repealing Roe v. Wade (which I don’t think will actually happen for all sorts of reasons, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try really hard) and they’d staked their hopes of regaining control of the Senate in large part on Rep. Akin’s presumed win over Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, the country needs to talk about abortion and rape. Especially since Rep. Akin co-sponsored a bill with Rep. Paul Ryan and — wait for it — more than 100 other congressional representatives (list below if you’re curious) that used the phrase “forcible rape” as an exception to abortion law. The bill never defines what “forcible” means.

I do not make my position on abortion clear, one way or another, on this blog. But the reason I find this important to talk about is that implying that a rape need be “forcible” in order to validate a woman’s desire for an abortion throws the burden of responsibility for the rape back on the woman. She must now prove her attack was forcible in order for it to “count.” Well, by definition, rape is the act of sexual penetration against the victim’s will. Pretty much means they were forced. What qualifies as “forcible?” Weapons? What about bare hands around her throat? What if there are no weapons but the guy says he’ll kill her if she doesn’t comply? What if she freezes? What if she can’t scream? What if her boyfriend does it? What if it was her husband?

Telling women what they can and can’t do with their own bodies is one thing. Telling them what men can and can’t do to their bodies is another.

I’ve never been raped. Thank God. But I did have a stalker, who I couldn’t identify, and who had access to my building. And I can tell you this: every night, when I came home, I knew he might be inside the building, waiting for me. And I thought about what would happen if he came up from behind and shoved me inside when I opened my apartment door. I thought about what might be the best ways to get away. I thought about how I might be able to fight him off. I thought about whether I should take a different tack if he had a gun, or a knife, or if he tried to strangle me, or if he just said he’d kill me. Or even if he didn’t threaten my life at all.

No one should ever have to explain to the government why her rape was “forcible.”

And no lawmaker should ever think she should.

********
Co-sponsors of the original version of H.R. 3, in which “forcible” rape is required:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3

Note: at the bottom are listed those who joined the bill after its first version. The word “forcible” was removed after the first version. Also note: this bill deals with federal funding for abortion, which may explain some representatives’ reasons for signing on.

 

Awe-Inspiring. Not In A Good Way.

Sometimes I ask myself, “Self, how much stupidity can one fit into three sentences?”

I think I have the answer. Check out what a congressman said when an interviewer asked him whether abortion should be legal if a woman’s pregnancy was caused by rape.

“It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something.”

~Rep. Todd Akin
(R) Missouri 2nd District

Wwwwwwow.

I don’t…

I don’t even…

I can’t…

Sigh.

Okay.

Okay, here I go.

The first time I read this quote, I was outraged. Well, alright, first I had a fit of apoplexy. Then I was outraged. Then I re-read it a few times to make sure I didn’t misunderstand because, I mean, obviously this is a completely fantastical thing to say, so there’s no way that a member of the US House of Representatives could actually say it, right? And then I saw the interview clip (because I went looking for it) and there it was, right there in color on my computer. He really said it. Those words. In that order. Aloud. On television. Not taken even a teensy bit out of context, though possibly in the form of two sentences rather than three, depending on how it’s punctuated.

By the way, this guy? This guy is a six-term congressman in the House, currently serving as a lawmaker on Capitol Hill, and presently leading polls to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill for an office on the other side of the big white building that’s not the White House or the Treasury Department or – thank God – the Supreme Court.

And I’m putting aside his actual answer about whether abortion should be legal in cases of rape, because that’s not even the point in the situation we have here.

“From doctors?” What the hell doctors are you talking to? Dr. Seuss knows that’s the most ridiculous thing anybody has ever said out loud. Dr. Dre knows it’s asinine. Dr. Pepper knows you’re a moron. You’re, like, 23 flavors of moron. You actually are the Dr. Pepper of Morons.

“If it’s a legitimate rape…?” These five words alone blow my mind. If…legitimate… Congressman, can you please define “illegitimate” rape? I honestly don’t know his answer, but I’d guess – and it’s just a guess – he might go beyond the deplorable false accusations that some people make. I’m guessing -only guessing – he doesn’t think there’s really such a thing as marital rape, or date rape. So, ipso facto, if a woman is pregnant, and says she was raped… she’s lying.

Or she liked it.

Because, according to the doctors this guy’s been talking to, there’s some sort of magical force-field that goes up in a woman’s body when she doesn’t… what?… at least marginally tolerate what’s happening to her.

“But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something.” Oh, yes, let’s. Let’s assume, you know, for the sake of argument, just to play devil’s advocate, that the magical force-field of conception prevention in the case of legitimate rape is on the fritz. That the flux capacitor has stopped fluxing. Let’s assume that for now.

I’m just going to say it. Normally I’m all about showing respect for elected leaders whether we agree with them or not, but in this case, I don’t think that personal rule need apply, so I’m going to say it: You, sir, are a fucktard.

There’s really not a better word for it. No, really. Think about it for a few minutes. I thought about it for hours, and I couldn’t come up with a better word for it.

And why do you suppose this 65-year-old man thinks this is how reproduction works? Because babies can only come from love? Because his mommy told him that, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they share a special hug, and that’s where babies come from?

Clearly that’s it.

Hours after the interview was released, Rep. Akin issued a statement.

Ready?

“In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview, and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year.”

He misspoke. In his off-the-cuff remarks. Because his idiocy is merely the result of extemporaneous speech.

And clearly he holds very deep empathy for rape victims. If it’s legitimate.

And what he really meant to say was “Please pass the salt.”

I know how he feels. I hate it when I misspeak and say, “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, if you have a heart attack but you don’t really want to die, it’ll go away,” when what I really mean is, “Heart attack symptoms are very serious and require immediate medical attention.”

Hey, Missourians. Is this a “legitimate” candidate?

Plant Matter

I’m in a fight with the apartment management company about plants.

Well, right now it’s sort of a polite quibble. It could escalate to a bit of a pissing match, after which it might become a fight.

In May, I went out and dropped $90 on some lovely flowering, cascading plants for my balcony. I have managed to keep them alive regularly salvage them from death thus far in the season, despite numerous days in the 100-degree range. I feel I should be commended for this. In the spirit of the current sporting events, a medal of some kind might be appropriate.

Setting that aside, a few weeks ago my neighbors found flyers in front of their doors asking them to please take their beautiful flowering plants off the balcony railings for fear that they might fall off and hit someone. Seriously, that’s what they said.

I didn’t get a notice.

Neener, neener, neener.

Eventually, though, I did, and I promptly ignored it, and so did my neighbors, because it’s dumb. But as “it’s dumb” is not a strong legal argument, I do have several others: there is nothing in the lease conditions or terms that says I can’t have the plants; I had them last year without a complaint from the managers; I have quintuple the liability coverage of the amount recently required for renter’s insurance; the likelihood that the damned 10-lb. plants are going to fall off the 5″ wide railing and hit David or Phyllis below as they just happen to walk out to attend shul on a Friday night are tremendously long; as is happenstance, this is exactly the sort of thing liability insurance is for; I paid $90 for the plants and the company is not willing to compensate me, nor is the company willing to compensate me for the tables or stands they’ve suggested I purchase in order not to put the plants to waste.

Also? It’s dumb.

I admit that some of the above arguments are stronger than others, and I admit that I’m being a bit cantankerous about the whole thing, really just for my personal amusement.  I’ll probably comply eventually. But taken as a whole, it’s difficult to argue against me. I mean what exactly is the purpose of having a suddenly-required minimum of $100,000 in renter’s liability insurance (I have $500K) if you’re not allowed to do anything that might one day freakishly result in someone getting a bump on the noggin?

You know where this all comes from, don’t you?

The derecho.

A storm so freakish that no one had ever heard of it before came plowing through nine states at the end of June and, if we follow the apparently immutable logic of apartment rental companies, somebody somewhere got hit by a falling plant, and therefore everyone must immediately surrender their lovely foliage in favor of stark, barren surfaces.

What is this, Russia?

No! This is America! And in this country, we have plants, dammit! We have plants and we have insurance, and we pay for both, and you can’t take them away! Not from our cold, dead hands!

Clinging to guns and vegetation. Say, Mr. Heston actually is cold and dead these days. Anybody tried to take that rifle out of his hands? 

Interestingly, do you know what derecho means in Spanish?

It means right. As in, it is my derecho to have plants on my balcony railing since you people just made up this new policy like five minutes ago because you’re a bunch of scaredy-cats.

But seriously, I ask you: what’s next? If you want to come around after a freak windstorm and say nobody can have plants on their balcony railings anymore, what comes next? Somebody fell asleep and now nobody can have candles? Somebody’s lights went haywire and now nobody can have Christmas trees anymore? Somebody sneezed on their balcony and inadvertently spit on someone and now nobody can have allergies anymore? Somebody’s flamethrower misfired and now nobody can have flamethrowers anymore?

You see what I’m saying.

So, while I look for tables that are exactly the same height as my balcony railing so as to allow myself and passersby to enjoy my lovely flowering cascading plants (and so as to thumb my nose at the management company a tiny bit), available for  free or close to it, the quibble continues.  My neighbors are apparently in silent allegiance. The vigil goes on. Operation Petunia is in full effect. Next mission: cocktail hour on the balcony. Where I can enjoy my plants.