Nancy Sinatra Can Kiss My Ass

I have this pair of riding boots, which is to say that that is their style, not that I have ever worn them while riding a horse, or a motorcycle, or a lumberjack. These boots, I fear, were not made for walking. A few days ago, while walking to class, the heal of my boot got caught right around the sixth step from the ground. I would like to say that I caught myself on the railing. I would like to say that I, at least, took the guy I was walking with down with me. Alas, it was just me and my fat ass, tumbling towards humiliation, landing on the edge of the first step with all my weight on my left shin. I think it went, left shin, right shin, left knee, turn, ass before I finally hit the bottom, at which point I was facing the steps that I'd just gracefully descended. I ignored the pain, and immediately sprang up like a gymnast who's hoping that the judges won't notice she fucked up her landing. "Oh my God, are you all right," was the most popular question posed by the onlookers.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." It's just my pride.

Are you ever disappointed to discover that you haven't really hurt yourself as badly as you think you have? As I walked toward the bathroom to pull down my pants and assess the damage, I was semi-convinced that the only reason I was standing was that I was in shock. I was hesitant to look down, afraid that I would see blood seeping through my jeans, due to the fact that I'd almost certainly partially severed my leg at the spot on my shin that took all the impact. Imagine my dismay when I got into the bathroom stall and dropped trow only to find that I'd scraped a bit of skin off my shin and my knee. This was kid's stuff, really. The sort of thing my fourteen-year-old self would have done with an eraser if she felt that people weren't paying enough attention to her. Annoyed, I pulled up my pants, flushed the toilet (not because I'd used it, but because I didn't want the other ladies to think that I had and then hadn't flushed,) and walked to class, taking a moment to consider throwing myself down the stairs, this time on purpose, in hopes of more dramatic results.

Waxing Political Again

During tonight's Republican debate Mayor Giuliani said, "when the country was 7 out of 10 in favor of the war, Hilary supported it.  Now that the country is 6 out of 10 against it, so is she."  He says this to show that she's flip-flopping at the will of the people.  Here's the problem: we live in a republic.  We live in something called a representative democracy.  There are a couple reasons for this.  One, it's impractical for everyone in a country to vote every time a decision needs to be made, so we elect people who we think would vote the same way we would when it comes time to make one of these decisions.  I personally find it refreshing that there are people out there representing us who follow polls, who say, "well, my constituents don't like this, I better not vote for it, or they're going to assert the power that they have over me, and they're not going to re-elect me."  That's how this government works, if the people who represent us act in a way that we don't agree with, we get to fire them.  What is wrong with Senator Clinton voicing the will of the people she serves?  This brings us to the second (read real) reason that our government was set up the way it was.  The founding fathers, and apparently most of the people who currently represent, or wish to represent us, don't think we're smart enough to make informed decisions.  Now, I get that we don't have the resources at our fingertips that elected officials do.  I don't remember the last time a 5-star general sat down with me to talk military strategy or disclosed classified information to me.  But I do think that after 6 years of war in which nothing seems to be getting accomplished, in which we start to see people who have served in the Middle East saying that enough is enough, I think it is well within our right to say, we've had it.  Your time is up.  Let's put an end to this, or we'll fire you.  Whether Mayor Giuliani thinks we're smart enough to make this decision or not. 

Can't Sleep. Guilt Will Eat Me

I miss my grandfather. The man's been dead for over a year. One year one hundred and sixteen days, to be exact. Forgive the large chunks of exposition, but my grandfather's death and the impact it has had on my psyche are things I've written about before, so I'm not going into it here. What I will say is, I had a dream about him last night. In said dream, my grandfather calls me from his death bed. "Where the hell ya been?" he says, "I haven't seen you in a month. I don't think I've got much time left here." Let the record show, I saw my grandfather the day before he died. In his last hours of lucidity. I also saw him the day he died; he was in a coma, but I sat there with him. Stroking his hand. Running my fingers through his hair. Telling him I loved him. What I'm saying is, this dream was not a re-enactment of events that actually transpired. Well, next in my dream, I drive to my grandparents' house, but it's too late. My grandfather is already dead. Next the dream turned into one involving sex with someone who I will not mention. The kind of sex that I really desperately need to believe was something highly symbolic and not at all literal. (No, not with my grandfather, though that seems the obvious conclusion to be made here.)  I woke up feeling dirty and no further along in the grieving process than I was the day after my grandfather died. WHAT THE FUCK!? I'm not one for CAPS LOCK or dramatic use of punctuation, but for Christ's sake. My mother has dreams about my grandfather all the time. They're lovely dreams in which they're simply spending time together. She wakes up thankful for the impromptu visit. Why can't I have a dream like that. One where we're golfing, or playing gin? It's the kind of shit that makes me miss my insomnia.

Excuse me, do you have the time?

Something odd happened to me today. I was walking to class. Up ahead I saw two people canvassing. I knew who they were, because people just like them had been standing in the same spot on behalf of the same organization everyday for the last month. They were there for HRC or the Human Rights Campaign or the By Human Rights We Mean Gay Rights Campaign. "Hi, do you have a minute for gay rights?" they say when someone walks by.

"I actually just re-upped my HRC membership," I have said every time someone has asked. It's a lie, of course. I haven't had an HRC membership in years. When I did have one, it was unintentional. I bought a watch from the HRC catalog, and the next thing I knew, I was getting monthly newsletters. I've been meaning to renew my membership. Truly I have. It's just that, do you know how many Ramen Noodles you can buy with $50?

As I continued walking toward the canvasser, I was sure to make eye-contact with him. Certainly he'll recognize me in all my transparently homosexual glory, I thought. Then I can make his day 1) by knowing exactly what he's getting after and already knowing about HRC and 2) being enlightened enough and compassionate enough to already have a membership.

It all happened so quickly, I'm not sure I can adequately describe the experience. I walked past the man and veered to the right. At the same time, a blatantly straight girl walked past him and veered to the left. I'm not saying this girl was actively participating in heterosexual activities (like sex with a man, for example) as she walked by. I'm just saying that if you put the two of us in a line-up, 10 out of 10 people would pick me out as the 'mo'. "Hi, do you have a minute for gay rights?" he said to the straight girl. To the straight girl?

The way I see it, there are a couple explanations:

1. The canvasser was a breeder with bad gaydar.
2. The canvasser was a breeder with perfectly fine gaydar but was very much interested in
talking to this cute, straight girl, so that he could potentially engage in breeder-type
activities (like sex with a woman, for example).
3. I don't represent myself nearly as gay-ly as I think I do. Note to self: wear more flannel.

In any case, I feel discriminated against. I have just as much a right to lie to a do-gooder in an effort to make myself feel better about myself as anyone else does. Maybe it's time to invest in a new watch.

Setting the Women's Movement Back Thirty Years at a Time

I'm lonely.

Goin' Out In Style

I'm taking a fiction writing class, and though I love the class, it's making me want to scream. It's not that I can't tell a good story. It's not that I can't bullshit on just about anything and make people believe that I know what I'm talking about. It's just that I have to have some prompting. There's no fictional nugget dying to get out of my head right now. I suppose I could tell myself, I'm going to write a story about a boy who falls in love with his imaginary friend then gets institutionalized when his mom walks in on him and this imaginary friend in the throws of passion, because to her, it just looks like little Billy is humping the air. I could do that, but I'm not compelled to do that. I did have this one sentence that popped into my head as I was trying and failing to fall asleep last night. The sentence was, "dead is a strange way to describe your best friend." It's not brilliant. It's probably not even good, but I got to thinking about a character dealing with the sudden death of his best friend, and what that would be like. So, I'm sitting down to start writing, at this point any words on the page would feel like a victory, and I go to describe the casket only to realize that I have no idea what caskets are made of. I do the old blackle.com search for caskets, and stumble upon the most wonderful shit I have ever seen. If you'd like to check it out for yourself, here's the link http://www.casketstore.net/Special_Caskets.htm . You know how sometimes you'll be driving down the highway, and you'll come up to a van, and the whole rear windshield is some graphic of the Crucifixion? Or the American flag being raised at Iwo Jima? Or Sponge Bob? Well, that seems to be what they've done with these caskets. Friends, for the low, low price of $2863, you too can be buried in a steel box with the Last Supper Photoshopped onto it. Or a beautiful mountain scene. These, though novel, are not my favorites. My favorites are, "The Last Hole," complete with life-sized golf clubs and the 18th pin in the distance, this is the best way I can think of to honor a golfer; "The Race is Over," in this casket we have a side view of stock cars racing through the checkered flag; then there's my personal favorite, "Return to Sender," this classy casket is made to look like an ordinary package, wrapped in brown paper and held together with string, the words, "return to sender," printed in giant red ink across the lid.

Before I saw this website, I was emphatic about wanting to be cremated. Now I'm not so sure. Perhaps it would be better to go for one of these flashy custom jobs. If anyone asks, I'll take the one with the Simpsons couch, with a picture of me sitting right next to Homer. "Doh!"

My Ass Is Chapped

Robert Johnson (as in the founder of BET, not the blues guitarist who famously sold his soul to the devil) alluded to Barack Obama's drug use when he introduced Hilary Clinton at a stump speech last week. Fine. It lacks tact. If the media wants to point that out, okay. I personally don't give a shit if Obama wants to snort blow off his desk in the Oval Office, should he get there. Maybe he does his best thinking when his pupils are the size of dimes. Here's my issue. Everyone is taking this enlightened stance, saying that no one should care what the candidates did in their youth. I agree with that. The thing that pisses me off is this. Anyone remember the 1992 campaign and the way these same pundits wanted to crucify Bill Clinton over the fact that he smoked pot in the '60s? Could the media please just point out and embrace its own hypocrisy? If Obama is willing to own up to his own mistakes, so should they. Maybe the fact that we no longer care whether or not the candidates led exemplary lives before they entered the public arena is a good thing. It shows we're growing as a nation. I'm not sure where we should draw the line, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Plugging Away

I told myself I was going to sit down and write here everyday. Now I'm sitting here a couple drinks in resenting this whole process. It's not like the words aren't constantly streaming through my skillet. It's just that when I try to get them out, it all sounds like shite. So here I am, holding up my end of the bargain with myself. Who's holding up the other end, you might ask. Well, that's me too. No one to blame but myself, really. People ask me why I write, and I say something rehearsed like, "because I don't know how not to." Well, that's not entirely untrue. When an idea pops into my head, it has to come out. Problem is the days, weeks, months between worthwhile ideas. When it comes, it's normally in the form or a perfect sentence. I rarely change first sentences. Seriously, they stay exactly like they first appear in my head. Almost as if Little Baby Jesus Himself has crept into my consciousness and hand delivered them. That's a strange thing for an atheist to say, don't you think. Even when the words come, it's an excruciating process. Sitting and toiling over every word. Is there a synonym for drunk that doesn't sound like I got it from a thesaurus, for example. No one wants his/her writing to sound contrived. It should flow. It should be conversational. People who know you should hear your voice in their head, narrating along as they read. Better yet, they should have you over for dinner so that you can read it to them. I'm tired of Ramen Noodles.

I just read this piece in The New Yorker about Raymond Carver and his rather tumultuous relationship with his editor. I found myself reading Carver's letters to Lish (said editor) and thinking, I don't care how long this guy has been sober. He's either on a bender or he's fucking nuts. His letter insisting that Lish stop the publication of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, a collection that I've never read, sounds panicked and desperate and slightly psychotic. The way a person might sound when they're pleading with a person standing on the edge of a bridge, moments from jumping off, begging him to reconsider. It's pathetic in a way that I can relate to.

Drivel.

Energy Equals Mass Times the Speed of Light Squared

My father looks like Albert Einstein. It's a strange thing to be reminded of every time I'm browsing the science section at a bookstore. They both have permanently sad eyes. And a Magnum P.I. mustache. Once, I took a sharpie to my fourth-grade basketball picture. I drew a thick black mustache across my upper lip and scared myself half to death when I looked down at the picture and saw my father staring back at me. There's no getting that sharpie ink off the picture either. I rubbed my whole face, sad eyes and all, away in the attempt.

An Old Friend's Smell

It's strange the way you don't notice how good a person smells until it's 15 seconds after you've hugged her good-bye, her scent hanging in the air around you, as you watch her shrink away in your rearview mirror.

Taking Things Four Years at a Time

The day of the 1988 Presidential Election, all the second graders gathered in the common space between our four classrooms, and Mrs. Shirley took us through a simple process. “Okay, raise your hand if you want to vote for Michael Dukakis?” After a quick glance through the crowd during which she counted myself and the others who didn’t care or didn’t know about Dukakis’ wife’s alcoholism, she continued, “now which of you would like to vote for George Bush?” She counted, not because it was close, but because she wanted to get it right. She then went to the board and wrote:

Dukakis--3
Bush -- 96

I imagine the thought was that the students’ opinions were likely to mirror those of their parents. I can’t speak for the results specific to my hometown, but I do know that nationally things were bad for Dukakis, but they weren’t that bad. The popular vote went:

Dukakis--45.65%
Bush --53.37%

This margin of defeat isn’t terribly embarrassing. The problem, as is typically the case, was with the Electoral College:

Dukakis--20.6%
Bush --79.2%

Thus Dukakis has served as a worthy political punch-line for the last twenty years.

In January 1989, the four classes gathered again, this time to watch the inauguration. I sat as close to the television as I could get and listened to the banter from the news team. As a still lucid President Reagan got out of his town car one of the reporters said, “Every president who was elected in a year ending in zero, going as far back as Lincoln has died in office. President Reagan is the first president in 120 years to break that pattern”

“Well, there’s still time,” Mrs. Young said. An odd comment coming from an obvious republican, I thought. Looking back, I’m not sure I was meant to hear her say it, and I’m certain I wasn’t meant to get it. Still, that comment is the thing I remember most about the second grade.

***

My mom took me to the Darke County Fair. While we were there, we came across a booth where they were selling shirts with, “Clinton/Gore ’92” printed in patriotic red and blue. I begged my mother for one of those shirts. Months earlier, I had seen Clinton at a debate. At the time he was still polling in the single-digits. I didn’t care how Paul Tsongas was doing or whether Mario Cuomo was going to enter the race. I just knew, as I sat there watching the debate, that that governor from Arkansas was going to be the next president. “We just got to the fair,” my mom said, “why don’t you wait and see if there’s anything else you want to buy.”

“No. This is what I want.”

That November, I was proud to wear my Clinton/Gore shirt to school. It was election day and my school was one of the polling stations. My sixth grade science teacher, Mrs. Crompton, and I sat outside at recess, and while the other kids played basketball or swung or did whatever normal kids do when they’re at recess, Mrs. Crompton and I talked politics. “That’s who I voted for,” she said. I just smiled.

That afternoon I went into the chorus/band room where the voting booths and old lady volunteers were set up, and I participated in the kids’ voting. Mr. Alexander, a fifth grade teacher and transparent sexist made fun of my shirt or was he making fun of me? I don’t really remember. I just remember lowering my opinion of him. Then this old woman with nothing better to do than embarrass an 11-year-old kid said, “you know, you’re not really allowed in here with that shirt.” I thought she was joking, so I laughed. “I’m going to have to ask you zip up your jacket while you’re in here. What you’re doing is illegal.” I know she was just trying to do her civic duty, but at the time, I didn’t get it. I cried the whole way home, humiliated that I wasn’t more familiar with the legal system as it pertained to elections. The woman had single-handedly ruined Clinton’s victory for me.

***

Forgive me. I voted for Nader.


***

I have never been less excited to vote for a man as I was to vote for John Kerry. Still, I stood in line for 3 hours to do so. I would have stood there for six.

***

Yesterday, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico ended his campaign for the presidency. For months I’ve been telling anyone who would listen about this guy. Four time Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Second term governor. “No sitting senator since Kennedy has been elected president. Clinton and Obama might not be electable,” I would say. Energy Secretary under President Clinton. Hostage negotiator. He’s done amazing things with North Korea and Iraq. Name a bad guy. Richardson has had him by the balls. I’m just saying, the man was clearly more qualified for the job than just about anyone who has ever applied for the position.

Richardson did one smart thing for himself after he bowed out. He declined the opportunity to back one of the three remaining democratic candidates. I would be very surprised if Bill Richardson isn’t at the top of everyone’s list of possible running mates. If Obama wins the nomination, he’s going to have to attach someone with experience to his campaign, whether he likes it or not. Having been Bill Clinton’s Energy Secretary, it would make sense that Hilary Clinton would try to get him on board. Edwards might just need some help in the West, where Richardson is strong. The biggest thing though, the thing that all three remaining candidates should be thinking about--Bill Richardson is half Mexican. Though it doesn’t make a lot of sense, the Latino vote almost always goes to the Republicans. Maybe it’s something to do with conservative, Catholic values. Maybe it’s something to do with the way conservatives have attached themselves with the concept of the American Dream. Probably it’s a combination of both. If Governor Richardson can help get the Latino vote, and I think he can, that’s going to be the difference between the Dems winning in a landslide and waiting 48 hours after the polls close in November to see which way Ohio goes. None of us wants to do that again.

I think Keith Olbermann said it best. At the end of his interview with Governor Richardson on last nights, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” the pundit said, “I know it’s not of great practical use right now, but you’ll understand why I couldn’t have said something like this earlier, I think you would have made a fine president.”

Nobody is Safe

It isn't that I'm not interested in what's being said in class. It's just that I'm more interested in the 2-inch-wide, black, leather band clasped noticeably too tightly around my instructor's right wrist. While he's talking about a famous criticism of Proust, I'm imagining the cool damp moistness that's undoubtedly collecting beneath the band. I rub my thumb over my wrist and feel sorry for how red and irritated my professors must be by this point in the afternoon, and I start asking myself why he would put himself through that. This line of questioning can't end well, and in fact, it doesn't. To be more specific, it ends with the assumption that my professor is some sort of bondage/s&m fetishist who is almost certainly wearing his wife's underwear beneath his loose-fitting cotton pants. As he turns around to write, "epistemology," on the board, I can't help but notice the not-so-subtle indication of a wedgie, and my suspicions are confirmed.

I took my friend to a psychic once. The psychic took a moment away from my friend's reading to tell me that I'm, "the kind of person who can size people up instantly, and [I'm] not often wrong." While I take the assessment as a compliment, and as a way to boost my already out of control ego, I hope, in the instance of this professor, that the psychic is wrong.