Na na na, na na na, hey hey GOOD BYE

Today…is the last day of the Bush administration.

It has been a long 8 years.  I did consider going down to Washington just so I could sing “Na na na, na na na, hey hey GOOD BYE” as Bush left office.

But DC is going to be a mess of bodies—wall to wall people.  So I am staying in New York on this wonderful day.

Barack Obama is taking office.  We actually managed to elect someone smart.

And the thing about Obama, is that he is reflective.  He thinks things through.  He has grappled with the big questions– who he is, what his role is, what he believes.

I feel hope again.  If anything, I think Obama can restore civil liberties and respect to the country.

Oh, and Obama is black.  It is odd that in a country with the kind of diversity that the United States celebrates– we have had up until today, just a slim representation of the overall population leading us.  White men.  Nothing against them— but why are they always in charge? Have you seen what this country has to offer outside of the white male variety of American?

Like Barack Obama.  Right now he is our shaman– the good breast to Bush’s bad.

America revels in this momentary magic.  It won’t last– but enjoy the hope!

Pieces

I’ve been very busy since the new year.  Work, socializing, sleeping, etc.

I.  I am in the middle of a heated debate with a loved one over the situation in the Middle East.  He holds an extremist position different from my position– and I worry that he is becoming one of those.  You know…one of those?!?!!!  According to my mother, “Nuance has never been your brother’s strong suit.”  But it is nice to be reminded that one party has done all of the right things, and been shit upon by the other party in return.  Geo-politics made simple!

II.  I figured out how to make lentil soup in a crock pot.  The problem with making things in the slow cooker is that you have to wait 10 hours to taste your results.   You have to eat a non-crock pot food item to replenish calories lost during all of that chopping.   Anyway, I modified this recipe for the crock pot.   My hands smell like lime and onion.

III.  Sanjay Gupta is my current political crush.

IV.  12:02 am, January 1st— everyone at the NYE party I attended simultaneously realizes we cannot have another brownie or another glass of champagne– because it is the New Year, and that vow of eating healthier starts now.

We said if you don’t got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin

Has On Point hit an epic fail, when all I can take away from an hour program devoted to debating the merits of Caroline Kennedy’s senate candidacy* is the thought that I should download Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline from iTunes?

Neil Diamond, people!!!

*In case you’re interested:

Caroline Kennedy is not entitled to the seat!

No, she’s perfectly qualified!

But being a Kennedy does not make you a good senator!

They said the same thing about her uncle Ted and look how he turned out!

She doesn’t even vote!

She went to law school!

She doesn’t stand for anything!

Her father died, let her have the seat!

She can’t just take the seat, Fuck the Kennedys!

We need another woman to take Clinton’s seat!

What about other candidates!

Caroline really wants to be senator, and her brother died in a plane crash!

All New York politicians got where they are because of their families! America is a democracy, not an aristocracy!

All New York politicians got where they are because of their families! Bring back Camelot!

There’s wisdom and you’re sure

Just a quick observation:  Cary Tennis column or word salad; does there need to be a difference?

I read the things because I like over sharing.  Specifically, I like it when others over share…not to the level of Modern Love in the Sunday Times squickiness.

But I find a good old fashioned display of foibles is the spice of life.

Just as long as they aren’t my own.

I think the difference between Modern Love writers and those who write to Cary Tennis is that the former are writing about love in its most intimate form, whereas the latter are writing about the awkwardness that is tolerating other people, tolerating one’s family, and tolerating oneself.   Most of us live life with a cast of characters, each more irritating than then next.

You or I prefer to keep quiet,  but someone always snaps and writes to Since You Asked.

In return for baring your soul, Tennis throws run-on sentences at you, forgets that he is answering someone’s question.  But sometimes there is glimmer of insight in those columns.

But the words…Am I being talked at, or spoken to?  It’s time to find another pass time.

Pol Pot Campbell and Kaylee Ku Klux Klan Campbell Cordially invite you to

The other night, I got on the subway home and found every single seat taken, but for one.  The one next to a spreader, which for all intents and purposes sort of makes it occupied– but not really, because it was rush hour, and this is New York, and real men are confident enough in their masculinity to let perfect strangers see them sitting with their thighs less than 1 foot apart.

So I gently nudged the spreader’s leg and said “excuse me” while I took my seat (I justify my aggressive seat grabbing at rush hour because I ride nearly to the end of the line.  I live so far uptown that people my age are surprised my part of Manhattan exists.  People over 40 know where I live, and advise me not to leave my apartment after dark).

A little aside here– the spreader happened to be a young African American male.  His race is relevant to his story.

So I politely carve out an area for myself on the empty seat, not even taking the full seat.  The spreader’s left leg got something like 25% to itself.  I say “excuse me”, and make eye contact with the spreader, smiling slightly.

And the spreader proceeds to shout across the aisle to his friends about how white people have no manners.  Over and over again, “they have nooooooooo manners, at all. No manners.”

1.  I am practically sitting on top of you (well okay, technically the spreader was sitting on top of me.)  I can hear you.

2. Just because other people attempt to work around your bad manners does not mean that they themselves have bad manners.

2a. I said “excuse me.”  I did not resort to the ruder, but more direct “excuse you.”  Nor did I give your spread leg the hard shove you most definitely deserved for taking up 2 seats on a rush hour train.  I don’t care how big it is, it can survive a subway ride without full ventilation.

2a1.  It’s average at best.  Basic statistics.

3.  If anyone needs a white person to end up in their family, it’s you.

Chris Rock once pointed out that racism is a somewhat silly stance to take for the simple reason that whoever you hate will end up in your family.  Karma is a bitch and an efficient one at that.

Recently I was reading an entry on NPR’s Bryant Park blog (interesting that the city with the park that the show was named for’s NPR affiliate does not carry the show.  But WILL, Champaign Urbana’s NPR affiliate did not carry A Prairie Home Companion.  I guess when you live it, you don’t need the NPR show.) about transracial adoption.  A listener sent in his story about being a black man with an adopted white daughter.   One thing he and his black relatives had to do once his daughter joined the family was curtail their somewhat stereotypical chit-chat about white people:

For example, I hadn’t considered how often we talked about white people at home. I hadn’t realized that dinnertime stories were rarely told without referencing the race of the players. I was also oblivious how frequently I used racial stereotypes.

My long-winded point being, if the spreader had a white family member, he would not refer to white people as “them.”

Not that stereotypes or the culture hegemony of the other are that easy to overcome.  I have a friend applying for a job in Japan who commented on Facebook that she can’t help but sound like an Orientalist when she explains why she wants to live and work in Japan.

Sometimes it is hard not to “other” people who are different from you.  Or people whom you think are different from you in some significant way.  Or that is to say they are different from you in some way that you believe is significant, but really if you wrote it all down on paper, you’d realize that the difference is in fact superficial.

And yet here we are— not quite sure how racist we really are.

I could beat myself up about thinking negative things about a person who did something rude.  And that rude person happened to be black, which means I am complaining about a black person.  And aren’t I a racist?

I have to remember two things, however:

1.  I voted for Barack Obama.  In liberal progressive upper middle class college educated white speak, that is a get out of jail free card for all future infractions that appear to be racist.

2.  I am not the couple in New Jersey who raised a big stink when ShopRite refused to make a cake with their three-year-old’s name spelled out in icing.

The child’s name?

Adolf Hitler Campbell.

And before you get all het up about people naming their kid after the Adolf Hitler of Nazi dictators– his sister’s name is JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell.

Looks like Aryan Justice has playmates.

Now, I know that parents impart values on their children, whether they intend to or not.  Children pick up on these things.  So this whole hate thing…or more specifically, giving your children names that invoke hate focused political movements, or a genocidal dictator whose name is synonymous with all manner of irrational hate and destruction.   Think for a moment, if you will— are these really values you want to impart unto your children?

Or anyone who has the misfortune to read your child’s name?

I can understand why ShopRite chose not to invoke the name of a man responsible for 12 million deaths.  Celebrating hate, even in the somewhat twisted manner of being paid to make and decorate a cake for a three-year-old with the misfortune to end up with parents who are either bigots, or if the AP story is to believed, perniciously clueless, is immoral.

For now, there will be no cake with those crackers at little Adolf Hitler Campbell’s birthday party.

I do find it interesting that racists are the final frontier in hatred. We can’t hate people of different races, ethnicities, weights, sexualities, genders or species.  But guess what?  We can hate people that hate, and we can hate them specifically because they hate.

And it is not so much that I hate racists– I just don’t really respect their lack of respect.

On the other hand, why am I basing my disdain  for members a particular group based on one characteristic of that group?

I am prejudiced in that way.  It has got to stop.

In my fantasy, Adolf Hitler Campbell keeps his head down, doesn’t make trouble, and gets out of that crazy family as soon as possible.  Once away from his family, Campbell will change his name to something refreshingly generic, like “Don” (a little Sedaris reference).  He will then decamp at a Small Liberal Arts College for four years of deprogramming.  Following college, he will meet and fall in love with someone from a different race.  They will get married (if that sort of thing is allowed where they live.  If not, then a civil union) and proceed to adopt children of all different races.  Don and his family will visit his parents every Christmas (or as Don’s family calls it “Festivus”) because while Don could have walked away from his parents for good, he knows that the best revenge for being forced to go through childhood named “Adolf Hitler Campbell” is to grow-up and  show genuine respect for people of all different races, ethnicities and creeds.  And then do whatever he can to rub that respect in his nutty parents’ faces.

And that, I think, is the true meaning of the season.

Do dee do Mound

Nuggets from around teh Internets:

Getting Arrested is Always Funnier in Costume (holytaco)

The one thing sadder than a drunk clown with a wrecked life?  A drunk clown with a wrecked life being pushed into a squad car.

Stuff White People Like: Political Prisoners

“In fact, most white people would love to be locked up for their beliefs provided that they could go to a jail with private toilets, plenty of books and no rape.”

I could still be a vegetarian in jail, right?

Product of the Day: “You Are a Douche” Cards (gigglesugar)

I’m still looking for “Your Cologne Smells” cards.

A conversation between some younger version of myself and the ghost of Ray Charles

Why we love the recession:

1.  Anal retentive frugality no longer considered weird by friends.

2.  Now know enough to impersonate an economist at dinner parties.

3.  Everything on sale!!!

4.  Less chance to catch the “I’m in the money” ear-worm when listening to Marketplace.

5.  People have finally stopped talking about real estate.

Help me find the F train

Filene’s Basement needs to ban all non-bra wearers from its bra section.   Sorry, the space is too small for your non-bra wearing five year old, purse holding husband, or the huge ass strollers that all New York parents are required to have on hand at all times.

Nope, only those of us who can use a bra can enter the bra section.

Filene’s was a big disappointment.  They had Theory, but only the ugly stuff.   I weep for the taste of the average Filene’s Basement shopper.  Polyester suits farther than the eye could see, Dana Buchman and Jones  NY Mom-Jeans suits, Betsey “Acid Trip” Johnson accessories.  This is where sartorial taste comes to die.   I did manage to find a cashmere cardigan way marked down.  And a bra to keep the girls in place under the cardigan.  The store was offering 20% off the lowest market price, so I did manage to replenish my sock and underwear supply for under $30.

But the clothes–I must be the only woman who actually wants to be taken seriously.  Everyone else is dead set on dressing like 19 year-old sorority skank.  I saw a 50 something woman wearing uggs on the subway this morning.  Cleavage, bright colors, unflattering smocks, cheap fabric, low rises.

I’m not asking for much–I want to look put together, wear items that flatter my figure and coloring.  I don’t want to show my underwear.  I don’t want to have to lotion up my muffin top to protect it against the elements it will inevitably be exposed to when I wear jeans.

I am not 60 years old.  I am not a Mormon.  I am an adult woman with several graduate degrees, a modicum of taste, and professional job where it is to my detriment to dress young.

My friends mock me relentlessly for this– but I tend to find what I’m looking for at J.Crew.  Their pants fit, their suits are wool, their sweaters and shirts fit my torso.  Oh, and along with the trendy colors, J.Crew sells items in classic colors.

Now, J.Crew is not without its flaws.  Every holiday season, the company tries to convince consumers that it won’t be Christmas without a $500 silver bugle beaded cashmere tank top and matching tuxedo pants.  And the Crew Cuts models are just miniaturized J.Crew models.  In other words, the stuff of nightmares.

But did I mention that their pants fit me?  And flatter my figure?  Most of my suits are from J.Crew.  And if you know how to sew on loose button, their shirts hold up amazingly well.

So after not finding slacks at Filene’s, I hoofed it to J.Crew and found a pair of slate grey chinos in a winter weight fabric.   Sure I had to pay retail.  I know waiting for sales means I don’t get my preferred pants length (i.e. not dragging on the ground).  This season, however, these were the one pair of perfect pants.  So I can justify shelling out an extra $30 to save myself another three weeks stuck in dressing rooms looking at my butt.

I don’t know why men hate shopping for clothes.  Their pants come in 16 different lengths.  Women, on the other hand are assumed to either be under 5′3″ or over 5′10″.   Those of us in the middle better invest in a good tailor, or resign ourselves to never wearing flats.

Men’s waist sizes are measuring in actual inches, instead of the the Zen Koan that is women’s sizing.  What is a true size 6?  Some sixes swim on me.  Others I cannot get over my hips.  To be a six, I must be one with the size six item.

Women often have to pick through racks of brightly colored polyester items to find something that is well made and in a neutral color.  Men have stores full of wool suits in dignified greys and blues.  Do you know why so many women show up to court in the default black suit?  Because our alternatives were teal with big tweed flowers sewn to the lapels.

Men get to select shirts that not only have sleeves that match their arm-span, but they can find shirts made for their neck size, down to a quarter of an inch.  Women are lucky if they can find a shirt that only has minimal gaping at the bust.

If I had access to the clothing that men have access to, shopping would be a breeze.  Shopping would be done quickly and efficiently.  Compromises would not be made.

So yeah, men should shut up.

Now I got the world swingin’ from my nuts

President Barack Obama.   Just say it and feel the endorphins rush in.

And Rahm Emanuel is Chief of Staff.   Jan Schakowsky’s name has been floated to replace Obama in the senate.    It is all very Chicago centric, and so nice and liberal.  And sure I will flaunt my tolerance for those different than me by talking about all the republicans I know.

But seriously– I recognize my government again.  We are going to respect human rights, sign international treaties, rebuild infrastructure…and there is not a god damn thing the free market/intolerant douchebags can do.

My friend Ari and I were discussing how many of us really did think that the majority of American voters were too racist to vote for a black man.  The last eight months have been a crash course in the Bradley Effect.

And it is not so much that we ourselves were racist.  It’s just that we had been taught from birth that those (the majority of ‘mericans) were not as enlightened as us–this minority of urbane liberals.  Life outside the big city was just a big Klan rally.

Ooooh, hey here is another cool thing about Barack Obama’s victory: pissed off white supremacists.  Little Aryan Justice’s parents must be seething.

But here we are…ebullient.

Or as The Onion put it:
Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress.

McCain’s flying turd of a campaign didn’t hurt either.  Thank you for attack ads, and not finding a message, and nominating a bimbo to be your running mate–thank you John McCain for making things just a little bit easier for Barack Obama.  Because he’s taking on a hard job come January.

11/4/08

Because we can! That’s why!

My day,

7:30am–print out ACLU worst case scenero sheet (lots of numbers to call if I get to the polling place and find out my name is on a list of convicted felons).

7:45–dress in special election day outfit: layers for warmth, chucks for comfort while standing in those long, long lines.

8:00– leave apartment.

8:04–face-plant onto sidewalk.  I’m okay!  Burly guy helps me up, asks me,  “are you okay, mami?”  Continue walking to polling place.

8:10– arrive at local public school, follow the trail of white people to the room with the voting booths. Seriously, lots of white people (and Latinos.)  More white people that I thought lived in Inwood.  It’s like a farmers market.   But without apple cider (or the “I voted” stickers).   Find the table for my election district.  No line.  They find my name, take my signature and usher me into a booth.

8:11-8:13– I flick the lever for Obama.  I feel good.  A little apprehensive, but good.

8:13– leave voting booth, notice that 10 people have lined up at my district’s table.  I have to be the only person in the country who did not have to wait in line to vote.  I win at timing.

Interlude of non-election day stuff (like work).

7:30pm– arrive at the Takeaway’s election night party, buy the first of several drinks.  Watch returns.

11pm– CNN calls it for Obama.  We cheer, dance and repair all the property that we destroyed eight years ago when they called it for W.

Yawn

Election fatigue…want it to be Tuesday so I can just vote already…