Way too auld lang syne

Count me in as one who didn't find 2008 to be all that horrendous. I moved to a great small town in a gorgeous part of the country, I started school and love it and finally see a definite light at the end of the horrible Poverty Tunnel, I logged another year of a happy marriage, and met some cool new people. Sure, the economy went to shit, but we never had any money anyway. And sure, we're living with my parents, but only til next fall and they're actually pretty good roommates. Really, I don't have much to complain about. That being said, I'm always excited for the start of a new year. I know it's really just an arbitrary line, but it always seems like such potential--fresh start and all of that crap.

Our trip to Minneapolis last week was fine. We went to a show at the Triple Rock, which was okay, I guess, except I'm realizing that when I'm sitting at a punk show at 11:30, freezing and tired and fantasizing about my fleece pants, I'm probably too damn old to be there. I think someone needs to start putting on punk shows that start at 7 pm for all of the aging people who don't enjoy themselves when they're out past their bedtimes. God, how sad is that?

People Who Get Paid to Say Stupid Shit

So I was reading the paper today, minding my own business, when I came across this little editorial by Kathleen Parker. In case you don't want to bother with the link, she was essentially discussing the people who have their collective panties in a bunch over the prospect of Caroline Kennedy being named to the Senate because they think it's unfair that she might get that job while Sarah Palin, who does have actual government experience, was considered unqualified to be Vice President. As Parker (more diplomatically) points out, it's a stupid argument, and I highly doubt that anyone who supports Kennedy for the senate seat would claim that she had the background to be one metastasizing melanoma away from being President of the United States. Senator does not equal Vice President on the scale of importance, symbolic though it may be.

In any case, I don't really care all that much whether Caroline Kennedy gets Clinton's Senate seat, and I was reading along with only mild interest until I got to this:
Suffice to say, she (Palin) worked hard to get from Wasilla High to the governor's mansion.
Not so Kennedy, who, upon her marriage to Edwin Schlossberg, never changed her name. The girl-child of Camelot, Kennedy was to the political manner born and heiress to a famous brand.

Oh. I didn't realize that married women who don't change their names automatically have ulterior motives! Silly me! And here I thought I chose not to change my name because it was the name I grew up with, the name I had for close to thirty years, and I felt really uncomfortable with the idea of a new name. If Kathleen Parker hadn't informed me otherwise, I would have made the same assumptions about any woman who kept her "maiden name" (and gag to that phrase, by the way), Caroline Kennedy included. I wish I'd known it was such a subversive act at the time; I would have made a really big fucking deal about my radical street cred.

Going into town

We're going to Minneapolis today, and I'm excited. I may suffer some culture shock due to the reduced ratio of pickup trucks and encountering more than four stoplights, but it will be fun to be back in the city. See some friends and family, sit in traffic, get a little punk rock in.

I'm asking Santa for two things: 1., to make it without encountering any truly horrible weather, and 2., for the knot in my shoulder to go away so I can regain range of motion in my neck and not have to do an impression of Joan Cusack in 16 Candles every time I'm trying to look at someone. Having my head bent over books for the last two weeks paid off (straight As!), but I feel like a robot. And not a fembot, either. More like one of those robots with the square head and the wild slinky arms.

Holiday "Cooking" with Sandra Lee

I'm not much of a Food Network follower. When I watch TV, it's usually something like The Daily Show or Colbert Report, or else Man vs. Wild, because Bear Grylls has been showing an increasing tendency to strip down and that's just damn good TV. But I've been hearing about this Sandra Lee character and the hideous concoctions she tries to foist on the American public, and I just had to check out her website.

I give you Holiday Wreath Cupcakes, which feature store-bought chocolate cupcakes or muffins, cherry pie filling, peppermint frosting, and green fruit roll-up. They probably taste absolutely delicious after 6 or 7 Sugar Plum Fairies, presuming one hasn't choked on the gumdrop garnishes. "Nauseating" doesn't even begin to describe these abominations.

Sandra Lee recipes. When you want to tell your guests to get the hell out without saying a word.

It's a nice cut, but do you have something that says "I'm going to kill my date tonight?"

What the fuck, huh? I mean, what the fucking fuck? What kind of smug little wiener thought this would be a fine image to sell an ugly-ass suit?

I'm not really sure what is up with people who find depictions of murdered, tortured, brutalized women sexy. What, exactly, are the douchebags over at duncan quinn trying to say here? That you too can put on a plaid suit and strangle a woman with your tie? Hey, you've got a date and you don't even have to buy her dinner or listen to her yapping! And you'll get to wear an expensive suit, which you will remember fondly later on, when your choices are limited to denim jumpsuits.

This shit pisses me off. What pisses me off even more is that when someone speaks up and says "That is a seriously fucked-up ad," we all have to listen to jackass ad executives and commentators defend it and call those of us who find it offensive a bunch of humorless feminists. Because if we just had a sense of humor, we'd see it was hip and edgy to sell clothing using images of murder.

Jeez, lighten up, ladies! They don't really want to kill you, they just think it's sexy when you look like you've died a violent death. What's your problem, anyway?

I'm thankful this is my blog and I can be late if I want to.

I actually worked on Thanksgiving Day, so I didn't spend much time thinking on gratitude, because my job kind of depresses me and it was just like another day. But here is what I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful for the people in nursing school with me, because they are funny and supportive and warm and it makes a full day of classes enjoyable.
I'm thankful for the return of the Jell-O Pudding Pop.
I'm thankful Em and Ike came up to visit, because I hadn't seen them for four months and it was great.
I'm thankful Ike is fun and happy now instead of a screamy bundle of torture.
I'm thankful for the opportunity to live in a small town in such a beautiful area.
I'm thankful for the awesome bakery in this small town and the fact that I can get the best bagels I've ever eaten in far northern Wisconsin.
I'm thankful for my family, who are awesome and help us out as much as they can without making us feel bad about it.
I'm thankful for our new president.
I'm thankful for my friends. I'm not one to collect large numbers of friends, and the ones I do have are really important to me.
I'm thankful to be almost a quarter of the way through nursing school, and I'm thankful that once Kevin and I graduate, we'll never be desperately poor again.
I'm thankful for Kevin, because he is cute and charming and makes me laugh every day and has a strange fascination with the show "Bridezillas" and I can't imagine my life right now without him.

Your stupid! No, you're stupid.

On a website I visit frequently, there are always little links or banner ads that say things like "3 people have a crush on you. Find out who!" Or "Paris Hilton/Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton has an IQ of 120. Bet you can't beat it!" Who knew Paris was just as smart as Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? Not me. Clearly, I can't beat that IQ.

The ad that's been up the most lately says "2 of your friends think your dumber than George Bush." Your. Your. Your. Seriously, if you're going to try and provoke someone into clicking on your spam by calling them stupid, proper spelling and grammar might help your case. Lazy, uneducated spammers are just the worst.

I Can't Believe It

I cried last night when they called it for Obama, and when they showed all the ecstatic people, and when he was giving his speech. I didn't think I would; I really wanted him to win, but I'm not one of the people who thinks he's The Chosen One. But I started thinking about the last eight years, and how the Constitution has been turned into toilet paper by those in charge, and how the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of ignorant bullies thanks to Bush and his Dr. Strangelovian Go Fuck Yourself foreign policy, and how depressing it was in 2004 to see that that seemed to be what a lot of Americans wanted, and I cried because I finally, finally saw that coming to an end.

Oh God.

I'm so nervous.

Boo, you sumbitch.

So a lot of people think redneck when they think northern Wisconsin. It's an unfair and unfortunate word association, and I know an awful lot of very awesome people here in town that do not have even the slightest redneck tendencies. However, you can always find someone in any demographic who is just chomping at the bit to confirm any negative stereotypes, and I have to say that while Ashland wouldn't qualify for the title of Home of the Good Ol' Boy, we're not exactly short on the Yeehaw People. Example: Kevin goes to school with someone who served in Iraq, who uses the very offensive term "hajji" at least twice a day, among other racist slurs, who thought it would be the height of comedy gold to dress up as a suicide bomber for Halloween. Even better, he won a prize, voted by other students, for that costume. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I'm a little cranky this morning.

Things that irk me:
1. People who lecture others on subjects they have only the thinnest understanding of. Please, know your subject matter before you start expounding. Or at least admit that you only know a little bit about it and be willing to recognize you may be wrong. And no, I'm not just talking about Sarah Palin this time, although she could use someone with her at all times to whisper "Psst, shut the fuck up, you sound like a moron," when, say, she starts telling third graders that the vice president is in charge of the Senate and gets to make policy. For example.

2. Similar vein, different approach, people who act all snippy and annoyed when working with or training in someone who has no prior experience in whatever it is they're doing, because the trainee does not have an inherent expertise. Thursday night, my second night at work, I had a woman, we'll call her Broomhilda, training me. She seemed to think that "training" consists of rolling her eyes when told I had never done this kind of work before, telling me she did not have time to explain why she did certain things (then, later, saying "Ask if you have a question, I'm not going to bite your head off." I composed a lengthy and expletive-laden response to this obvious lie, but bit my tongue), talking to me like I was a drooling idiot, and essentially treating me like shit for eight hours. It was a lot of fun and excellent for my self-confidence. When, against every instinct and desire in my body, I dragged myself back to work last night, I was told that this is how Broomhilda treats almost everyone, which made me feel slightly better.

3. Tom Brokaw. I just can't stand his voice or his tiny, tiny eyes.

4. Undecided voters. If you can't make a decision between Obama and McCain, two people who are VERY VERY different, 9 days before the election, I kind of have to wonder who holds your gum for you while you walk.

I started a new part-time job at a nursing home last night. It's a really great facility and the staff is excellent and everyone there is very well cared for. But I still hope I, and everyone I love, is healthy and fit and independent until they just drop dead at ninety or so. Being confronted with your own mortality isn't hard at all in comparison to being confronted with the possibility of your total dependence and loss of everything you are. It's one of my biggest fears.

Rescue 911

One of my favorite things about living here is the police report printed nearly every day in the local paper. It is awesome. A sampling from the past week:

Thursday, 11:23 am Report of horses loose on golf course, causing damage 12:43 pm Report of a patron who entered a restaurant, had two cocktails and then "went crazy." 4:00 pm Seven 911 calls received from a coin phone - kids at a hunter's safety course were making crank calls.
Friday, 9:42 am Report of horses at golf course again 3:31 pm Caller states someone threw spoiled meat into the fenced-in yard 6:08 pm Cell phone call received regarding three large pigs and a goat heading down the road toward Washburn 7:58 pm Report of females fighting at carnival
Saturday 10:40 pm Vehicle collision with bear
Sunday 5:50 pm Caller states neighbor has again thrown rotten meat on his fence.

So to sum up, around here, some people can't control their livestock (unless they're sending it in to town on errands, which I suppose is always a possibility), dispose of their rotten meat by chucking it onto the neighbors property, can't hold their liquor without going crazy or fighting next to the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the kids spend the time they should be learning about the safe handling of firearms making crank 911 calls.

The police reports are a highlight of my day.

A Few Things for Your Monday

1. My current profile picture is of a truck that was parked at the County Market the other day. It takes all kinds.

2. We went hiking on Saturday and did not see a bear. We saw bear poop, though, which is better because it can't maul you to death. We also heard something big moving in the woods but did not stick around to see what it was.

3. Things are getting all Depression-y and scary. If we had any money, we'd be keeping it under the floorboards. But apparently, what we really need to be worried about is a former sixties-radical-turned-law-professor and the fact that Barack Obama met him/spoke to him once or twice a decade or so ago. Cause that's the real threat to the American way of life, doncha know.

4. Relative to #3, I registered to vote today. If you haven't already done so, you should do it now. And remember, you're not voting for the PTA president or a new member of your book club, you're voting for the President of the United States, and it's okay, in fact it's more than okay, if the President of the United States is highly educated and intellectual and maybe even a bit of an elitist, as long as they still understand what the middle class and those living in poverty need. You don't have to sit next to the President at a dinner party, this isn't a vote for Homecoming Queen. It's not okay if the President of the United States is a smug, smirking ignoramus whose best argument for election is that "She's just like you!" And yeah, yeah, yeah, she's only the VP candidate. I hate to get all morbid, and I certainly don't wish anyone ill, but google the statistics on melanoma. If they're elected, the odds are very good that Palin will wind up as President, the thought of which is enough to keep a body up nights. Thought Bush was bad? Meet Bush Light.

International Relations 101,

Or, I have to put my very expensive education to some use, even if it's only in a blog read by approximately no one.

Ahem. Diplomacy is a political tool, used for centuries, involving talking to people with whom you disagree. If you agree with them, you don't need to have diplomatic negotiations. You can just have a state dinner and call it a day. This whole idea that it's the height of absurdity to suggest sitting down for talks with Iran or North Korea or Syria because they're just so hard to get along with is the most ignorant thing I have heard in a long time. I'm not quite sure how it came to be accepted as God's truth by so many people.

Apple Polisher

When we started this semester, there was a huge amount of information, foreign to just about all of us new students, being thrown at us. Everyone in my class had a pretty much continuous slightly glazed, panicked expression. The instructor assured us it would all start to drop into place, and damn if she wasn't right. Now, six weeks in, it's starting to fit together and it's a really good feeling. I've always enjoyed school and this is no exception. Plus I've discovered that I really really like pharmacology--I had no idea it was so interesting. Wow, I'm getting even dorkier as I get older.

This weekend is Apple Fest in Bayfield, but I don't think I can take the crowds. 75,000 people packed into a town with a population of under 1000 is ridiculous. I'm not going unless they allow cattle prods.

The ads do say he doesn't have much else to do...

Our dryer stopped working last week. It was brand new, never-been-used before we moved in, so we called Maytag, they of the commercials featuring the repairman who is so bored because Maytag makes such a top-notch dryer, thus removing the need for his services. As it turned out, in our case they were right, because it was our wiring, which may or may not have been done by a meth-addled capuchin monkey.

In any case, because we first thought it was the dryer, we called in a repairman, who, at some point in his examination Friday morning, inadvertently dropped a roach on our kitchen floor. Kevin found it Friday night and we all had a good laugh imagining his panic when he went to light up his tiny amount of remaining weed and realized he had probably dropped it in a customer's house.

So PSA for the weekend: if you're going to be that careful about hoarding the miniscule amount of pot left in a joint too small to hold with anything other than the finest of needle-nose pliers, you ought to be just as careful about making sure it stays in your pocket.

"Bush Doctrine"? Like anyone knows what that is.

Due to the spiking effect she has on my already-elevated blood pressure, Kevin would like me to avoid all things related to Sarah Palin. However, I would like it to be known that for the near future, I plan to answer all questions with a snotty and slightly panicked "In what respect, Charlie?"

Pleasantly confused

My first day of clinicals went okay. There's a lot of paperwork we have to do, and I don't know that I'll ever be fast enough at doing the various cares, though that's not a huge problem as I don't plan to be working in a field that would require me to give bed baths; giving a laboring woman a bed bath is generally a waste of time, not to mention probably a good way to get punched.

It wasn't complicated, but it was hard work. Speaking of which, a word about natural deodorants: they are insufficient when one is doing anything that breaks the slightest sweat. I apologize to everyone who was subjected to my rankness yesterday. After a lifetime of using Degree and its ilk, I had no idea I could produce that kind of smell.

As per usual, I'm worried about money. I'm applying for part-time jobs this afternoon, but Kevin will have to wait until we're done building the new garage and deck before he starts looking. The lack of student loans for either of us has been a problem. I think this classy lady is on to something. I don't know why neither Kevin nor I thought of exchanging sex for tuition money! I mean, no, we're not virgins, which obviously drives the price down, but then again it's only tech school.

I See a Stroke in Someone's Future!

We checked each others' blood pressures in our nursing skills class yesterday. Mine is 30 points higher than normal. I think I might be a little bit stressed.

Devil in a bouffant

So it would seem that I, along with many many other people, underestimated Sarah Palin. Don't get me wrong, I still think she's grossly unqualified, knows nothing about foreign policy, and has no business being second in line for leader of the United States, behind a 72-year-old man who has had malignant tumors removed from his face three times in the last dozen or so years, the last of which was an invasive melanoma that was removed from his temple.

But I failed to anticipate the popular appeal of a former beauty queen who displays a high level of smug ignorance, a deep mean streak, and an abiding love for shooting and/or consuming moose and moose products. My bad. I also did not anticipate the level of idiocy that would be on display as her supporters grasped at fragile straws to argue for her readiness. Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her international affairs credentials? I guess living four blocks from Lake Superior makes me a freshwater biologist and expert on the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

So yes, Democrats should be concerned about Sarah Palin, despite her many flaws and her ethics problems and her flat-out lies about her own policies as small-town mayor and governor of the state with the smallest population in the union. But there is a bright side! The last week of seeing this awful, awful woman all over the news has galvanized the Democrats and driven a large number of moderates away from McCain, and her snarkiness and attacking have opened the door for Biden to let her have it in the VP debate, which will be wildly entertaining. By the time the election rolls around, we'll all be sick of it, but for now, I'm in a state of gleeful anticipation.

Photo taken from Wonkette

Ugh

I don't know why I forget what a crappy time this 2-3 week period is for me every year. All of a sudden I'm anxious and down and kind of bitchy, if I'm being honest, and it always takes me a while to remember why. It's odd how the little seasonal cues trigger that stuff when you're not even conscious of it.

Lesson 1: "Stethoscope" does not have an "a" in it

Wow, nursing school is hard. It may just be an associate degree, but I'm already putting in waaaay more work than I was while in school for a PhD, even before I abandoned it. I do like it, which is a good thing because I wouldn't have a lot of options if I hated it. Clinicals start next week and I'm nervous. I don't have to walk in there Thursday morning and start an IV or anything, but it's still nervewracking.

Kevin started school too, for the only marine repair program in the state, and it's kind of nice for both of us to be in school at the same time. We have similar schedules and can encourage each other instead of getting resentful that someone always has to be studying when the other person wants to go out or something. Not that we can afford to go out.

Living with my parents has been an adjustment and it's not always easy, but we wouldn't be able to do any of this otherwise. They've helped us out enormously, and although I would really really rather not have to be relying on my parents at the age of 32, it is what it is. We're extremely lucky to have their help.

And, yeah, I love Ashland. It's great living up here. There are some really nice beaches and we've been swimming several times since we got here, though I think the beach weather might be over for the year. Lake Superior isn't what you'd call warm even in the height of summer. We've also been blueberry picking and went to the Bayfield County fair, so I feel fairly confident that we're getting the full northern Wisconsin small-town experience.

Gimme

Sarah Palin?

Really?

MWAHAHAHAHAHA.

Because all those disgruntled Hillary supporters, generally pro-choice and liberal, really want is boobies in the White House. Even if the boobies belong to someone who's super-conservative, has zero foreign policy background, cancels out the argument re: Obama's lack of experience with her whole 2 years in state office AND is being investigated for ethics violations.

Oh, I can't wait to see the Biden-Palin debate. Get the popcorn ready.

A Stellar Sales Pitch

The title of an email in my spam folder this morning:

"Dumb and poor? Here's a simple way to make money"

Nope, just poor, thanks. I wonder how many people see that pitch and think "Hey, that's me! Finally, the answer to my prayers!"

4 Blocks Down the Street

The sunsets up here are nice.

Arriving

Moving blows. My expectations of gross incompetence from the U-Haul corporation were more than realized, my knee feels like it's facing backward, everything took much longer and was more grueling than expected.

However.

We now live in an extremely cool great big old house with sunlight and air movement and everything, the weather is gorgeous, the lake is stunning and it's a five-minute walk down to the shore, and we've already gotten to watch two amazing sunsets over Lake Superior. All in all, we're coming out ahead so far.

Leaving

Eight days until we move. I guess the insomnia portion of the stress must be setting in, as I've been awake for an hour and yawning like crazy, but as soon as I lay (lie? that particular word's never been one of my strong points) down I'm wide awake.

All things considered, we're actually in pretty good shape for the move. We're probably about 80-85% packed, the house in Ashland is ready for us, and we've got the next week pretty well planned out. But because I am a congenital worrier, I'm not relaxing. For one thing, I'm afraid there won't be a truck for us when we go to pick it up. We're renting a U-Haul, because we don't really have any other decent options, and they tend to do their U-Haul thing, which is to not have the truck you reserved and then just kind of shrug and pretty much tell you to go pound sand when you ask why the hell they bother with reservations and do they think people just rent these things on a whim, like "Oh, let's rent a U-Haul and circle Madison 6 times on Sunday; it's supposed to be a beautiful day," and what the fuck do they expect you to do now? I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

Also, I'm thinking about how different it will be to live up there. We're going from a city with a population of about 220,000 to a town of 8000, in close proximity to bears and wolves and fishing boats and a lot of forest. Kevin doesn't like it here in Madison, but I kind of do. Not enough to talk him into staying, or even necessarily to want to stay here permanently myself, but it's a nice place to live.

I'll miss the farmer's market, which is the best of any I've ever seen. I'll miss Glass Nickel pizza and Lazy Jane's scones, and the Tex Tubb's taco palace, and sushi, just in general. I'll miss Mickey's Tavern, the Crystal Corner, the Paradise. I'll really miss Em and Corey and Ike.

I will not miss the co-op, where everything tastes like self-righteousness. I won't miss traffic or spending 20 minutes in the car to get halfway across town--20 minutes in the car in Ashland will put you 2 towns over. I won't miss the crowds at the farmer's market, which make it like a weekly excursion to a Ukrainian bread line. I won't miss the undergrads, or the freaking Badger games in the fall. I really won't miss the heat and humidity.

I have high hopes for Ashland. I wonder if moving somewhere with the idea of permanence makes a difference in how well it turns out. I guess we'll find out.

Ow.

You know what I hate? I hate it when you're in some crappy, dimly lit bar and as you're walking to the door to go home, you trip over the completely unmarked, dark-carpeted four-inch step that visually stands out from the rest of the floor in no way, and you completely bite it, going down hard and sending your purse flying, and the nice gay man who helps you up has that "Oh, you poor drunk" look in his eyes, and you know that everyone is thinking "Hey, have another!", and you want to put on a big flashing sign that says "I'm not even close to drunk, this is a poorly constructed floor!"

But there are no such signs, and it doesn't matter now anyway because the end result is the same--an Ace bandage and ice on my swollen, jacked-up knee. If the pain is equivalent to the level of damage done, moving in two weeks will be lots of fun.

Oh, Rush, you appalling specimen, you.

Rush Limbaugh, who just signed a 400 million dollar eight-year contract, refers to himself as "talent on loan from God."


Really.


If God exists, I desperately wish he would do something about all of his douchebag hangers-on. I highly doubt that any deity worth his or her salt would want an angry fat man in his third marriage, with a penchant for hollering about declining morals while popping illegal OxyContin, serving as his or her PR guy.

Dear honored sir (or lady)

In the last month or so, my email account has suddenly been flooded with spam. It's kind of funny to see what exactly is being targeted to me and speculate on where they got the notion that I'm interested in the things they're selling. To date, I apparently:

-shop extensively at Wal-Mart
-have won several lotteries in various African nations
-am the last hope of Nigerian royalty looking to safely transfer their ancestral treasure out of the country
-am single and solely interested in an interracial relationship, with either Asian men, black singles, black men, and black women; I am evidently feeling experimental these days.
-have already finished nursing school and am looking for jobs in Oklahoma
-might be stupid enough to click on a link sent to me by persons unknown to divulge my personal information in order to "FIND OUT NEWEST CREDIT SCORE!"

It's quite a combo platter, and if all of these pitches were applicable, I would actually make a very fascinating dinner party guest.

Adopting A Better Attitude

So, if you go to the blogs on my MySpace page, you'll see a few that mention that we can't have kids. We don't have a final, word-of-god statement on this yet, but as far as we know, right now that's the situation. For the most part, both Kevin and I are pretty okay with this, at least insofar as we're not upset that we can't have "our own" baby. Adoption is not a lesser choice for us, and we just want to be parents. There are definitely downfalls, like that it's a pain in the ass, and it's really expensive, and we wanted to have a baby by now and it will be several more years, but you know, we'll deal.

So I really haven't been one of those infertile women who hate all pregnant ladies. But...it's still kind of hard sometimes. I watched The Business of Being Born the other night, and, propaganda aside, it made me kind of sad that I won't have that birth experience. Another friend just told me she's pregnant, and I'm absolutely thrilled for her, she's a wonderful person and will be an amazing mom. But I can't say I didn't feel a little twinge of envy.

And I don't think that's such a bad thing. I know some people dealing with infertility who are so angry and bitter that they become the self-designated arbiters of who "deserves" a baby. Someone who's had a miscarriage deserves a baby more than someone who got pregnant easily with no problems. That kind of shit. Honestly, it's incredibly sad to see. Infertility sucks, and it isn't fair that some people get to be parents a lot easier than others. But if it takes someone until their twenties or thirties to see that life can be horribly unfair, I would be willing to bet all of my Tom Waits albums that they have an awful lot of other things to be thankful for. I'm sad that we won't have a kid for several more years. But not sad enough to lose sight of everything else. Not sad enough to forget that I have an incredible husband. Not sad enough that I can't be happy for my friends who are getting pregnant and having kids. Not sad enough that I believe that I deserve a baby more than anyone else who wants one.

Vewy Scawy

The other night, Kevin and I were sitting out on our balcony when we heard the sound of wind in the trees by the railroad tracks, about 500 yards from us. It came toward us like the demonic force in the woods in “Evil Dead”, getting louder and louder, until it was roaring, sounding like hail hitting the ground. Then it got silent, Kevin and I looked at each other, and next thing we knew, the tree in front of us was bent almost to the ground and we were getting blasted with an enormous gust of wind. There was no storm, no severe weather alert, although we were both half-expecting to see a funnel cloud off to the side. It was extremely disconcerting.

We probably won’t be spending much time out there after this coming weekend, not because of the Straight-Line Winds Of The Undead, but because of what our last few weeks in Madison will entail. Kevin switches his work schedule to the opposite end of the week and my job ends after this week and (surprise surprise) the temp agency is very un-encouraging about my prospects of short-term work for the next four weeks. This unfortunately means that my stellar husband will have to pick up extra shifts to cover the loss of my paycheck, which means that he’ll be at work or sleeping for most of July, which means I will be handling all things moving-related. Sucky all around, but it’s temporary and before we know it, we’ll be in our new house, running out to the sidewalk to catch a glimpse of Lake Superior any time we want. Good stuff.

Just sit there and look pretty

So I just read this piece in one of my favorite lefty news websites about “nerdy” women becoming sex symbols in these new, enlightened times. Fucking great, except, well, it isn’t.

While the author of this piece does a pretty good job of picking out the problems with this trend, she doesn’t mention that pop culture media seems to conflate “nerdy” with “smart/clever/witty”. They’re not the same thing. A nerd is, by definition, someone “who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests that are age inappropriate rather than engaging in more social or popular activities” (thanks, wikipedia!). This means that someone like their prime example, Tina Fey, who is smart as hell AND hot, is not really a nerd. In fact, none of the women they mentioned can really be called a nerd. They’re incredibly awesome and their intellect is a boost to their hotness, which is a great thing. But calling them “nerds” kind of defeats the whole “yay, smart ladies” thing—why does a woman who knows her shit automatically become a nerd? Why can’t she just be smart?

Don’t get me wrong, this is a step in the right direction. However, as the author points out, the “sex symbol” aspect comes with some very tired definitions of what sexiness requires. One example given of the New Sexy Nerd is Danica McKellar, mathematics genius and portrayer of Kevin Arnold’s object of affection, posing in a bikini for “Stuff” magazine. Millions of men in their late twenties and early thirties would agree, Winnie Cooper was sexy before she posed in a bikini, and a lot of them find the fact that she’s crazy-smart to be even better. Pin-ups are great and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cheesecake, it just doesn’t need to be held up as evidence of hotness, like, “See, smart girls have nice tits too!”

So, basically it seems like it’s not that we’re recognizing the inherent sexiness in a smart, funny woman who can carry on a conversation, it’s that they’ve started wearing lipstick! So now they’re sexy! Isn’t that great?

Um, not really, no. I mean, I like makeup and everything, and I guess I’m all for anything that starts to shift the Sexy Ideal away from the Jessica Simpson/Tara Reid/Jessica Alba template, where it doesn’t really matter what, if anything, they have to say as long as they look good in a tube top. But you know, regardless of what she’s wearing, Tina Fey is sexy because of, not in spite of, her intelligence, and I think that’s what the media, in rushing to declare the newest definition of what makes a Hot Lady, seems to be missing.

The pre-crack Whitney was right, children ARE the future

I used to think that my outspokenly liberal nature was, while always a part of me, something that really took off in my late teens and early twenties. But the other day I remembered something from my childhood.

When I was 8, Ronald Reagan was in office, and I did not like him. Granted, when you're that age, if you have any thoughts on politics, they come from your parents. Still, I watched the news. I knew nuclear war was scary and bad. And even at that tender age, I could see that Reagan was kind of a joke, an affable old fart with a penchant for illegal weapons sales and rambling speeches about Evil Empires. Side note: who decided he was one of our greatest presidents? Cause I don't think the historical record bears that out.

Anyway, I started hearing about this "Star Wars" program, and at first I didn't understand why people were getting so upset about Star Wars. I liked it, especially Han Solo. When it was explained to me that, no, it was actually a nickname for a nuclear weapons program called SDI, or Strategic Defense Initiative, and it would make the Soviet Union angry and cost lots and lots of money, I thought that was a bad idea. Actually, as soon as I heard "nuclear weapon" I thought about how a nuclear war would destroy the world, which I had read somewhere ("somewhere" being closer to Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing than The Economist), and I worked myself up into quite a state of righteous indignation, if memory serves. I got so angry I decided i was going to write the president A LETTER.

So I sat at our dining room table and wrote something along the lines of "Please don't start a nuclear war with Star Wars. Nuclear weapons are bad and we should be friends with the Soviet Union." I think it was a little more fleshed out than that, but you get the drift. I also drew mushroom clouds with sienna crayons to illustrate my point to dramatic effect. My mom mailed it for me and I waited for my response. I was certain I would receive a tear-stained letter from Ronnie, telling me that I had made him see the error of his war-mongering ways, and he was convening a diplomatic envoy to Moscow; would I please serve as Junior Ambassador?

Weeks went by and I started to get a little annoyed that he hadn't responded yet; after all, how many articulate (and illustrated!) pleas for peace could the president be receiving from precocious children? I couldn't imagine very many children wrote to the president.

Finally, I came home from school to find an envelope from the White House waiting for me. I tore it open, read it eagerly, then cried "What the hell is this shit?" (That's not a verbatim quote. My truck driver vocabulary has been developed over many many years and was still in the incubation stage when I was 8). In response to my impassioned letter, I had received a picture of Ron and Nancy, a "Just Say No" sticker, and an incredibly lame brochure, printed on cardstock, about the Youth of America being The Future.

I was not pleased. I promptly threw it all in the trash and declared that I would wash my hands of this bozo president of ours. If he wasn't going to listen to an 8-year-old girl from Minnesota, who on earth could get through to him? My cynicism began to develop that day, and the following year in school, when we talked about satire and put together a silly little magazine, I drew a scathing cartoon that depicted Reagan freaking out about running out of jellybeans while weapons (including arrows, which I could never really explain, but they were easy to draw) flew past his head in the Oval Office. It was the sort of thing that almost certainly could have brought the government to its knees had it received distribution beyond the parents of the ten kids who worked on it. I'm a grudge-holder, what can I say?

After a 16-month flirtation with MySpace (I don't know why), I'm coming back to my abandoned blogger account. I promise never to leave again.

I need to stop reading the comments on CNN's "Political Ticker" section. The illiterate rants that make up the bulk of the comments paint a vivid mental image, and that image is "Red-Faced Idiot". In a recent post about Obama, one person actually said that Obama was a crazy liberal who wanted to destroy the economy in the name of the environment, specifically, to save polar bears, and don't you know that polar bears are dangerous and if you came face-to-face with a polar bear, it would kill you? You can't even have a reasonable discussion with someone who says something so insanely stupid. Just reading that made me a little dumber.

This is one of the downfalls of the Internet, that it gives an anonymous platform for those who have absolutely no qualms about letting the whole wide world know what moronic, racist, misogynistic, or all-around hateful assholish thoughts are rolling around in their big empty heads.