Crazy Eyes Bachmann

Michelle Bachmann provides endless entertainment for Chris, David, Ed, Keith, and Rachel. But it is Keith Olbermann who knows how to make the most of her outrageousness. Between Bachmann and Palin we should have endless fun for years to come. Republicans seem bent on making themselves mockable lately, and mock them we will. Rave on Michelle. I know this is vintage, but it's fun none the less. And I hope Keith and I hook up again in my dream life tonight so I can comfort him properly. We were rudely interrupted this morning by my bladder.

A Day of Rest

I'm taking the day off doing nothing much. I woke up from a strange dream. I had to pee and I had a headache. I peed and pondered the dream. Keith Olbermann and I were talking about a problem he had. He was distraught. I had a headache. His problem was really serious and involved a child. I wanted to go back to sleep to help, but just when I fell asleep again, Roscoe wanted in. He comes here the moment Ms. M leaves for work. Then I got a phone call from some damned insurance company trying to insinuate themselves into my relationship with Medicare. So I woke up sort of screaming. The kid who called me finally said, "Mam, may I put my supervisor on?" I screamed, "Hell no! Just leave me alone!" Headache raging on. Then the supervisor was stupid enough to call me back. God are those folks dumb.


I haven't lifted any dumbbells or really much more than a finger today. YellowDogGranny always tells me either, "Tits out, chin up!" or "Chin up, tits out!" But I know what she means. I have to be strong and carry on. Yeah yeah, I know. And yet I slump against a pile of pillows, each dog at rest on the floor on either side of my bed. I feel like Cleopatra if she'd lived a real long time and grew sick of everybody but a very select few, and then by appointment only. The fridge is stocked. I'm hydrating.

I'm also thinking about all the things I'm pissed about and haven't written about for awhile. I'm furious at the religious right for being furious that state by state our gay citizens are getting their civil rights. I have yet to hear a reasoned, intelligent response for how a gay couples marriage threatens anyone. The problem for the religious right, those beloved, values voters is their ideology wants to limit my freedoms. My freedom to do something does not force a values voter to do it too. WTF? I think I'm working up a righteous blog against theocracy.

Anyway, I'm busy thinking and hydrating and listening to dogs snore.

I Think It's Going To Rain Today

Heal Thyself!

I'm back from the doctor's visit and running every possible errand I could fit into the pre-primetime news hours.

Here's the news from Chez Savage.

I got weighed and measured today. I've lost three pounds and haven't shrunk. It's my little Lenten Season Miracle.

I'm dehydrated. I told her that. She pressed on my forearm and said, "Yup. You are." I said, "I need to drink more water. She said, "Looks like it." We talked about the succession of symptoms I've had. She said, "There's a lot of that going around. Do you need to eat yogurt?" "No."

She poked me on the side of my ring-fingertip and we waited for the readout. I'm a bit too clotty. I need to increase my Warfarin. I bet anyone who knows me would say I'm way too warfarin' as it is, but so be it. A little Warfarin I will go. I talked about the lifestyle changes that come with Spring at my place. Since I got home I've dusted and moved the blue 8 lb. weights within eye sight of my bed. No reason I can't work on my Michelle Obama arms while watching the morning news, drinking my coffee and smoking my morning cigarettes. Oh yes, just one will not due. I need to smoke several to get my morning nicotine level up to par. And no, do not tell me to stop. Even my doctor knows better than that. The bronchitis has gone away.

I went to the bank, the post office, two grocery stores and Cahoots, the card shop by The Tower theater--Salt Lake's oldest art house movie theater. I only forgot one thing. And since I still can't remember what it was without searching for my list, which I probably left in the cart, it must not matter all that much.

I'll call Nick and tell him I'm ready to take him to lunch and a movie when he can fit me into his busy schedule. He really does have a very busy social life, unlike moi.

Off To The Doctor Again

Wish me luck, I'm off to see my doctor again. She will check me out and probably tell me I have a slow moving virus. She'll test my clotting factor and send me on my way.

My new symptom is a headache that never quite goes away. I know I'm starting to sound like a hypochondriac, but even if it's all in my head, it's real. You can't make me believe the days of diarrhea were all in my head.

Sergeant Myers Comes Home

This evening I saw the first casket of one of our servicemen arrive at Dover to be met by an Honor Gaurd. I can't stop crying. I have waited decades to see that honor bestowed on one of our fallen soldiers returning in a coffin from a war he or she was sent to fight in our name. It was so moving, so terribly sad. If it were my grandson coming back in a flag draped coffin, I'd want the world to feel my loss as if it belonged to us all.

Kindness and Generosity

If you've been following along, you might have noticed that I had painters in to repair a bit of a skylight leakage problem following the installation of new roofing on the little house. This is the interior ceiling of the little house with the small stain of a very slow drip over the winter. I know it's barely visible in this photo, but it's a faint light brown stain that starts narrow just at the bottom of the skylight and widens as it slowly makes its way down the ceiling toward the pipe that is my gas heater's chimney pipe.

The roofing company, Brady Roofing, sent the foreman of the roofing crew and a helper out to paint that one triangle of my ceiling. They did a lovely job, but I nearly killed myself getting ready for them to paint that wall. My two best and biggest bookcases are against that wall and they are both glass fronted. So to protect them I unloaded all the books and moved them into the greenhouse. Turned one bookcase's front to the wall and disassembled the other and moved it into the greenhouse. I took down art work from the wall below. It was a hard days work getting ready for them. And to make it harder I've been sick way too long, and am weakened by this illness and the emotional part of rejection of the novel has finally hit.

The surprise of this encounter with the foreman and his helper was the charm, intelligence and elegant English of the new guy. His name is Ricardo and I couldn't stop talking to him. It slowed things down and probably annoyed Omar, the foreman on the original job. What might have taken a couple of hours stretched into most of the day. I know it must baffle Omar and Brady Roofing that I won't agree to an 8 AM arrival time. I find it almost impossible to go to sleep before 2 AM, so getting up at 6 or 7 is a punishing call-time for me. If they were doing the whole ceiling I'd agree to the early time. But I knew it wouldn't take that long to do that one triangle. However, once I discovered that I had an intelligent man from Mexico working in my house, I wanted to learn something about Ricardo. He was willing to talk Mexican politics. Heaven. Hillary was in Mexico and telling us that the Mexican drug wars were our problems. This man, Ricardo, is a man who the Italians would have called "simpatico." I liked him immediately. And during the day of my asking prying questions I found out that he had been making his living as a handyman. I asked him what he specialized in and he said he could do it all--plumbing, electrical, you name it, he can do it. And based on the care he gave the painting I'm betting he can do it well. So I got his full name and phone number and planned to call him as soon as I get my property taxes paid.

Then I got a call for the charming man who owns Brady Roofing to tell me that Ricardo was offering to come back to paint the rest of the ceiling. I explained that I couldn't afford to pay him just yet. Mr. Brady said, "Ricardo wants to make you an offer you can't refuse. May I put him on the phone?" "Yes, of course."

Turns out Ricardo is willing to come back and paint at no charge to me. How is this possible? I could never let a working man come work for me and not pay him. That would be unthinkable. It goes against my sense of fairness and value for the skill and time of a working person. If you do hard work for someone else, unless they're family, you should get paid. But I'm not family. The weather has been bad here and the roofers are not working outside, so he says he has time and is ready to schedule the job. Still I put him off a couple of days. Then we schedule it.

I don't know why I thought Ricardo would only paint one triangle at a time. I thought he would be alone. I thought it wouldn't be too much to ask him to do the moving and lifting and draping. I just didn't have it in me to do that myself. I'm a ghost of my usual self. I made no effort at all.


Ricardo arrived promptly at 10 AM with another worker, a Mexican man who doesn't speak English. I was smoking and drinking my coffee and watching the morning news. And so they set about moving furniture, and taping and draping the walls, protecting the things that weren't essential to move.





And all the while I talked to Ricardo. And all the while I talked to him I schemed on how to make him part of my family. If I had a son I would want a son like this man. I feel kinship with him. I think this is part of the meaning of the word "simpatico." There is no English word that encompasses all that "simpatico" means. But kinship is part of it. We could talk about anything. I could wax lyrical about Ricardo and his lovely self, but I don't want to embarrass him. I told him I write a blog, and he just might see this. I tried to pay him. He said no. It's a really difficult ceiling to paint and in the past has required scaffolding. I argued with him, trying to explain why it was so important to me. How could I hire him to do other jobs if he wouldn't let me pay him? He still said no. When his back was turned I slipped a couple of hundred dollars in the pocket of his jacket. It wasn't a tenth enough. I was sitting at my computer when he left. He pulled the money out of his pocket and frowned at me. He handed it to me, smiled and shook my hand. I was starting to tear up when he left. This is how my ceiling looks now. More photos later.

I Don't Know What It Means But I like It

I think it was Tengrain who introduced me to Jane. In certain light I see a bit of Jane in Ms. M.

I was listening to the radio today and heard Jane Monheit singing "Like A Star." I had to stop what I was doing to listen. It was gorgeous and "Like A Star" was what I was looking for. I found this instead. I don't know what the Spanish means, but I like it.

I Apologize

Please forgive my inattentiveness. I have been sick. In the midst of being sick, the painting on one of the soaring triangles of my ceiling was scheduled. I over did it moving books and bookcases. Then I over did it after the painting was finished, cleaning things before putting them back. I mopped floors. All of this you know, but I have neglected you. I haven't visited. I haven't left you the love notes disguised as comments that you so richly deserve. Please forgive me.

The weather has been dreadful, either snowing or raining. Yes we need the water, but just when my pear tree budded the weather turned treacherous and we've had hard freezes at night. So much for a nice crop of pears.

And I have amazing things to tell you. Oh yes, even sick life swirls around me, and offers come I can't refuse. I should be confined to my bed, but my Imac is not in my bed. So commenting will be sparse for a few more days.

And then I must tell you all about Ricardo. I'm hoping he'll be my future son in law. Oh if only your daughters would let you arrange their marriages they wouldn't marry schmucks. Ms. M says, "Would you have dated a man your mother picked out for you?" And I say, "You wouldn't ask that question if you'd known my mother. She was a crazy bitch." Ms. M smiles and cocks an eyebrow in my direction and says nothing more on the subject. This is just the beginning of a very long story.

Now I have to get my orange juice and crawl back in bed. I've heated the newest sleep mask Ms M gave me at Christmas time. This is the first time I've had sinus pain in a very long time. But I'm so glad to have the comfort of this new sleep mask. Sky lights make it impossible to get this place dark in the daytime. Light is hurting my head. Every muscle and joint aches, and I'm running a low grade fever. Thankfully the mad dashes for the crapper have ceased. But now I'm either drenched in sweat or shivering. And I hate being sick. I still owe Nick a birthday celebration.

But don't be mad at me for not visiting you. If I had a laptop I could drag into bed with me. I'd be blog hopping like mad.

Buffalo Bill's

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
      who used to
      ride a watersmooth-silver
                                stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                Jesus

he was a handsome man
                    and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death


e e cummings


I awoke this morning with the last two lines of this poem running through my mind.

My Friday Poem

Running The Maze

Daddy was an expert at driving the lab animals mad
It was his job, it was his passion. Daddy had talent for it.
Daddy married a woman with a pretty child and no maternal
Instinct drove them to it. Unhinge that child Daddy, see what
She can take. The little whore becomes your slave until she is
Too old. Unhinge that child. What is she but a ticking time bomb?
Call her a liar and she becomes one, threaten the cage again, bind her
Mind with fear like Chinese women’s feet. Women are used to torture
The women her mother hates so much, apron wearing women, domesticated
Dumb cows. The girl will run the hamster wheel of repetition repetition repetition
Until she is the only one left alive. Alone at last. Talks about it like normal life, like
Normal life
Like Normal life.

2006, Peggy Pendleton

The Reviews On the Novel Are In

ABNA Expert Reviewer

Judy's narration that begins the excerpt is engaging and wry. However, as soon as she mentions suicide, plus psychiatric treatment, the tone turns abruptly somber. Since the narrator describes what sounds like severe depression, other details would be helpful. Does Judy live alone, and if so, how does she make her living? Or, as it's implied, her relationship with her mom, is causing her major problems, does she have any one besides the dog to take care of her?

The question raised is obviously why the daughter and mom have a strained relationship, which gets answered in the next chapter. It's hard to predict where the novel is going after that.

The anecdotes and descriptions used in the flashbacks are enough (to me) to illustrate the problems between mother and daughter. The part about the Dobermans appearing in Judy's Baby Book, nicely illustrates their friction, just as well as all Judy's explanation of why she hates/loves Maggy in the first chapter.

It seemed a little unbelievable that Judy would describe her sexual assault so dryly and then tell how she was suddenly hysterical. The aftermath rang true, but I didn't get a sense of how the child really felt as it was occuring. In other scenes the "child's eye view" was believable.

I'd either use "Chuck" or "Daddy" not go back and forth. The fight between him and Maggy is awfully ugly, especially coming right after the rape scene, and then the flight of Maggy and Judy. It's a lot of drama to give the reader so early in the book.

ABNA Expert Reviewer

"Maggy" is a story of a woman (Judy) and her narcissistic mother (Maggy). After the opening scene establishes the unhealthy releationship between Judy and Maggy (after a visit from her mother, Judy spends a month in bed recovering), we go to flashbacks of Judy's messed-up childhood. Some of the details are confusing: Judy first says she was set to live with grandparents at a very early age, but then goes on to give details of living with her parents from toddlerhood on. There's a pretty upsetting scene in which a stranger (whom Maggy stupidly trusts) sexually abuses a four-year-old Judy. Judy's father abuses her mother; there's no love in her family. This excerpt was compelling, though Judy is more pitiable than likeable. (She says she's had therapy. She needs more. A lot more.) I would probably keep reading, because I'm curious where the story is going.

Well, it's back to the drawing board. I have MRMacrum's edit, and these "reviews" of my first three chapters. I will soon start working on them again. For now, I'm a limp rag.

A Letter From Howard Dean

Among the disastrous policies of our government since Ronald Reagan pushed for it is the privatization and deregulation of everything designed to protect workers, their families, and the poor and disabled. This lack of care for the least among us places us firmly in the ranks of the rest of the worlds most repressive and poorest governments. It is not Socialism to care for the poor. It is not Socialism to provide health care for those whose health care provider has failed them in times of greatest need despite years of paying inflated premiums.

I wake up each day to a packed email box and 90% of my email is from various news and political sites. This was the email that I found needed immediate action. I post it here hoping you will sign this petition and add your own comments:

Dear MoveOn member,
I have an announcement. After four exciting years in Washington, I'm hitting the campaign trail again! Only this time, I'm campaigning to help President Obama win health care for all.

During the election, President Obama proposed a health care plan that would give every American the freedom to choose between keeping their private insurance—if they have any—and choosing a universally available public health insurance option like Medicare.

But for-profit insurance companies and HMOs are already working hard to strip this public health insurance option from any upcoming health care bill. They don't want us to have a choice, and they'll stop at nothing to kill real reform. Trouble is, some in Congress are siding with the insurance companies—and against what's best for the rest of us.

Today, we draw a line in the sand. A public health insurance option is the only way to guarantee health care for all Americans. And to show that we mean business, we all need to tell Congress we won't settle for less.

If 250,000 of you sign this petition, I will personally deliver it to Congress. Clicking here will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/standwithdrdean/o.pl?id=15863-8978383-8TyWzxx&t=1
Here's our message to Congress: "Give America a choice. We support health care reform that allows individual Americans to choose either a universally available public health care option like Medicare or for-profit private insurance. A public option is the only way to guarantee health care for all Americans and its inclusion is non-negotiable. Any legislation without the choice of a public option is only insurance reform and not the health care reform America needs."

The fight is heating up over whether or not to include the public health insurance option. This is going to be the biggest fight in the debate over health care reform. It would take the power away from the private insurance companies that have driven up costs and denied coverage for years—and they're dead set against it.

But I've seen firsthand what people power can accomplish. And I know I can count on MoveOn members to help lead the charge.
Now is our moment to stand up. Together, we can generate broad-based support for a public health insurance option. We will need to canvass our neighborhoods, call our elected leaders, and arrange meetings with members of Congress in the coming months.

Our goal today is to show Congress that we are many and ready to fight. Can you click here to stand with me?

http://pol.moveon.org/standwithdrdean/o.pl?id=15863-8978383-8TyWzxx&t=2

After you add your name, spread the word to your friends, family, and co-workers. Send a personal email and include a link to the website, update your Facebook status to tell people about the campaign, write a blog post about why you support this campaign—we need all hands on deck to win this fight.

Thank you for all you do.

Protest In London Over Banking Crisis

When are we going to get out and let Wall Street know what we think of them? The Brits are way ahead of us in showing their displeasure with the greed and mismanagement of our money. What are we doing? Well... I'm sick and I'm blogging. What are you doing?



This is last years protest. Today's was even better, and no one got shot by the cops or tased or had their skulls fractured by billy-clubs. I bet that would never happen here without a few dozen fatalities.

Down and Out, But Not IN London And Paris

I've hit bottom. Into my gut it has struck. I have a gastrointestinal disturbance. See I can talk nicely about these things. "These things" may be funny in their way, what with the sounds and smells and all, but not at a fancy restaurant, and not attempting to sit through a movie--I almost said "shit through a movie." So far I've spent some close personal time with my toilet. No vomiting yet, but I'm told by two girlfriends who visited in the last week, that vomiting is a component of this particular bug. So I will keep the puke pan next to the bed.

I was going to try to tough it out and go on my scheduled late birthday celebration for Nick. Since I was late to begin with, I'm now on the hook for making it real special. Well nothing says special like having your lunch date farting at the table and running to the crapper. That wasn't so nicely said, but some things require plain talk. And a movie is out of the question today.

I should just buy him a first class ticket to Paris. He speaks French.

Over Scheduling

Since last Tuesday I have been over scheduling and my body is paying for it. I ache everywhere. On Thursday painters were coming to repaint the ceiling. The interior of the little house is basically a square and the ceiling is basically the inside of a pyramid with two porthole skylights. On the west facing side is a large round glass skylight and on the west facing side is a small recessed glass skylight. When the roof was replaced a year and a half ago, the roofers left a tiny pin prick hole at the base of the larger of the two skylights. So the slow seep from that hole left a line on the inside of the steeply sloping panel of the west side.


The owner of the roofing company came by to check out the damage and then we scheduled the painting of one of the four sides of the ceiling. (Now the other three are slightly less brightly white). At the base of that portion of the ceiling is a camel colored wall that is twenty feet long. Against that wall was a a lot of art work and one very valuable single piece of hand crafted Stickley furniture--a hall chair, tall backed with a beveled mirror top center of the back and hooks on either side. The chair seat lifts up and could contain a chamber pot. But I keep winter hats and gloves in it. In the Winter I use it for coats, scarves and hats, as well as tucking winter boots under it. I have kept it in the little house for sentimental reasons, but it's too crowded in here as it is, and there is no way to appreciate its beauty when it's hidden under coats and dripping scarves. So I finally got smart enough to let Ms M use it in the main house. She has always coveted it anyway. Now it's back where it looks best. But it is oddly heavy. So I started the moving with that piece of furniture.


My two favorite book cases are also on that wall filled with a few hundred of my favorite books. The taller of the two book cases has a glass door with a lock. But I wanted to turn the glass to the wall to protect it from accidental bumping. And in order to turn it, I had to empty it and move all the books into the greenhouse. The other bookcase is also glass fronted but can be moved in four pieces. As one solid piece of furniture I would not be able to turn it. So I remove the top--a lovely lid of oak, and then empty the top glass fronted piece of its books move them to the greenhouse and lift that section and move it to the greenhouse. And so on. I have no idea how many pounds of books I moved on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday I had to move my two ton couch. I wanted to get the Persian rugs up and out of the room. This involved a lot of vacuuming and the lifting furniture to uncover every inch of rug. I stacked all the rugs, rolled them up together and leaned the round tower of rugs against a corner of the greenhouse. Now the greenhouse is completely filled. There are more books than I can pack into the space in the greenhouse so I start putting them on the couch. And once all this is done, I have to drape most everything with plastic, including the red leather club chair I got from my grandfather's office in the Judge building. It was built locally in the 1920's by a local furniture company. It's the only thing I own from my father's side of the family. I move it and drape it.

It's tricky, but I manage to move the TV to my bedside chest of drawers. I have to tent it in plastic, but I cannot go an entire day with no TV. It's on MSNBC all day and I'm taping news programs I can't watch all at the same time. Then there is Cyrus, who thinks the space between my bed and the closet is a fancy kennel. He has a very large dog bed and another smaller round dog bed rolled up as a barricading pillow. He's fine with the guys, but the taping of plastic on the walls to protect the camel colored wall beneath the ceiling unnerves him a little. A portion of my bed is draped in plastic.

I had a great time with the two hispanic painters. Omar is the crew boss for the roofers and the fix-up boss for repairs. I thought Omar would be alone on Thursday but he has a helper named Ricardo. They are careful taping and draping. While they work I'm watching Hillary in Mexico talk about the drug wars. She talks about our responsibility for this war--our insatiable apatite for drugs, and our assault weapons going to the drug cartels. So now I want to talk to the Mexicans who are working in my house. It is a fascinating conversation. What would have been a couple of hours work max, turns into four plus. I especially like the new guy, Ricardo. And in talking with him I discover that he is a handyman. I ask him what he can fix. His answer is "everything." I like him even more. And he's so obviously smart. He's thirty one or two and very nice looking. His manners are lovely as is his English. By the time they're through I have his phone number. I have many things that need fixing between this house and the main house.

After the guys are gone, I have a large expanse of painted concrete floor and it needs mopping. So the mopping begins. Once dried, I shift furniture from the north side of the house to the west side of the house. Oh my aching back. I know from past experience with a year of sciatica, that I'm getting close to doing more serious damage to my lower back. Two things are verboten for those with sciatica or even a propensity for sciatica--vacuuming and mopping. Once the floor is dry I begin the rearranging of my big room. And back come the books, now in need of alphabetizing by author's last name. There is nothing worse than wanting to find a book and not being able to locate it. Well obviously that's a bit of hyperbole, but you librarians know what I mean.

And so it goes with the rehanging of paintings, the rearranging of furniture, the filling of the two big bookcases. I'm exhausted just writing about it.

Friday I start preparing for dinner with L. And you know all about that. I do one nice thing and seem to have to negate it with nit picking about literature. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Saturday, I am nearly paralyzed with muscle pain and fatigue and too much guilt. Do I call him and apologize? No. I do not. Why? I'm not sure. At least I didn't poison him.

Sunday I'm worse than exhausted. Due to the Warfarin I take to keep my blood from being too thick and therefore too clotty, I'm covered in bruises.

Monday I get a call from the owner of the roofing country. He says Ricardo wants to paint the other three sides of the ceiling. I say I can't spend money on anything until I finish paying my property taxes. He says, "He's making you an offer you can't refuse. Can I put him on? " "Sure, why not?" Turns out he likes my company and wants to be my handyman. But first he plans to paint the other three sides of the ceiling for free. Can't beat that. But I will pay him something. It won't be what he's worth, but it will be more than he planned on getting. Is it me or is it the glimpse of Ms M, when she came home from school on Thursday? It is Ms M. And if he hopes to court Ms M, he will need my advise. And only I know how long he will have to work here before they can first become respectful friends. It may take a decade for her to find out he is the love of her life, or not. But I will enjoy the story no matter how it turns out, and now I have a handyman. And he has a fantasy future grandmother-in-law to talk politics with.

Tomorrow I had a doctor appointment, vet visit for Cyrus, and the belated birthday date with Nick. I rescheduled the doctor appointment, but Cyrus is almost out of pain meds and needs to have blood drawn for another liver check. And Nick will wait until we're through here. Then it's lunch in a nice restaurant and the movie of his choice.

The next round of painting starts Friday, mid-morning. Thank god I only have twenty cook books or so.

I Feel A Depression Coming On

I've been hearing and watching a lot of hand wringing over Obama's firing of Richard Wagoner on Monday. It seems it's a fine idea to call for blue collar workers to take cuts in wages and benefits, but to hold the man at the top responsible for the failed policies of the company he heads? Well that is... well... It's just Un-American. Why it's fascism! My god, it's communism!!! No, even worse, it's a dictatorship!!!? WTF???

In my humble opinion the CEO's and other top executives of every financial institution in need of public tax payer money should be asked to resign without compensation. Do not start at the bottom and start cutting salaries. Since when were the workers responsible for the direction a company takes and for all the bad mistakes it's made over the last eight or ten or thirty years? No, it's the rot at the top that got us here. And nothing Rush or Bill O, or Coultergist or Rupert or any right wing politician says can make that come out differently. But what really baffles me is the oodles of time they're given to make that case on any network news show on any channel other than Fox. Why must we always give the Republicans and their right wing operatives the time of day to frame that failed argument? They have the entire Murdock empire to do that.

And what do we expect President Obama to have done by now to fix it all? How many days has he been in office? How hard has he worked? Seems to me it's night and day. He is reaching out to us, he is taking questions and making an effort to inform us directly about what he's doing. He is taking questions from us. I know how much that must piss off all the pundits, but I like it.

What I don't like is to read the same kind of criticism from the progressive bloggers out there. Patience people, please. Yes, I'd like him to legalize pot. But I'm not yet ready to crucify him because he has more pressing problems to deal with in this first six months. Maybe next year.

In the meantime I'm getting depressed. I may take a day or two or three off. I have been avoiding the political because there is just too much of it to focus on one thing. So I talk about the personal instead. I'm always paying attention to the political. Obama laughs at the overwhelming number of crisis situations he's dealing with on a daily basis, and the pundits fall all over themselves criticizing him for the inappropriate laughter. Oh get a grip you morons. If he can't laugh now and then when the sky is falling, then the rest of us just might as well kill ourselves now, and get it over with.

I'm Through With Love

Why Can't All Mothers be Like Jasmine

I have tried to post about this three times today and have now resorted to simply posting the link to the original.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I have spent my life trying to avoid being like my mother. I know that somewhere in the world there are good mothers whose children do not have nervous breakdowns at the thought that they might have to spend time with their mothers. I know not all mothers are as abusive as mine was. But I have done an informal survey of my adult friends, and though they preface their comments with this--"I love my mother, but..." What they end up saying is "I'd rather not have her visit me--she cleans my house as if I can do nothing right. I know she means well, but she makes me feel like a failure at everything I do."

My mother was many things. She was foul mouthed and confrontational. But of course she kept her abuse of me a secret from her friends. To her friends she claimed to love me, but was baffled at what a mess I'd made of my life. To my mother's friends I was a fuck-up and her cross to bear. To her friends she was a fabulous creature. She was beautiful and fierce. She was a pioneering feminist. She was unafraid of power and willing to stand and face the powerful and in a full throated blast call the powerful out as the frauds she believed them to be. She started the Utah Chapter of the National Organization for Women. She started the Utah Chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus. She won awards for her contributions on behalf of women. She was fearless and shocking in her confrontations with Utah politicians running for state or national office. She was a fierce advocate and champion for the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution. What she could not see was that I was a woman too.

Though I was proud of her stature, and supported her causes, I kept my distance. She was on the board of directors of the ACLU. I was always a supporter of the ACLU, but avoided the board meetings, and tried to keep out of her way, which made me seem like a woman without a strong commitment to social justice and civil rights. Some of her friends tried to befriend me, but from past experience, I knew that my mother would see that as competition and betrayal, so I kept my distance.

It's easy to admire a parent with such stature, but hard to love one who claimed to have never had a maternal feeling and believed the concept of maternal instinct to be one more oppressive way men kept women down. I knew too well the way a child feels to hear her mother claim to feel no maternal feeling. It is devastating. It makes you feel profoundly unlovable, for if your own mother never loved you the way a mother loves her child, you feel responsible and internalize her assessment that you are not a child worth loving.

My mother always had me call her Maggy. To her the word mother was a diminishment, an insult. So she was always Maggy to me. And with my close friends, especially the friends I grew up with, she was a cold and dismissive bitch or she was competitive with them as well as me.

You would think my history with a mother I thought of as a political powerhouse and a bitch I'd do almost anything to avoid, would make me a sweet and gentle woman, uninterested in the political. But it hasn't. There are moments I fear I've been possessed by her malignant spirit. I am not gentle, nor sweet. I am not soft, I'm fierce. I do not treat the few men in my life well, though I'm glad I know a man or two who still speak to me, but I don't think I really deserve their attention.

I looked forward to L's visit and worked hard enough the week before to make every muscle and joint sore from the exertion. It was important to me to feed him a nice meal. He is a man who had a friendship with Maggy independent of his relationship with me. I think I still hold that against him a little. But one on one, I'm truly not much gentler or kinder or nicer than Maggy. My mother was competitive. Well so am I. My only saving grace was that I did not have children.