Monday, April 14, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
Isn't this a lovely winter wonderland? Right. This picture was taken today from my front door. That's Tony out there shoveling the sidewalk. (He also shoveled the next-door neighbor's sidewalk although they have never, ever done anything like that for us. And they have a damn snow-blower. But, God Forbid they should ever go a centimeter past the lot line when they snowblow.) It's two days before Easter and we just got 7 inches of frickin' snow. What the hell? I think today was the official "First Day of Spring" too. And it's Good Friday. Usually on Good Friday morning, the people of my church do a 'cross-walk'. I mean that literally. We have a huge wooden cross in the church basement and every Good Friday morning the people in my church lug it through the streets of our town like Jesus did when He was going to be crucified. Now, when I say the "people of my church" I mean everyone but me. I have never been to the cross-walk, so I don't really know how it's done. I know that only one person carries the cross, but I don't know if it's the same person the whole time or if lots of people get the chance to take a shift or what. It's probably blasphemous to say this, but I just don't think it would be particularly meaningful to me. Unless we give the person dragging the cross 40 lashes and put a crown of thorns on their head I don't really think we are "reenacting" anything. I mean, the cross used has wheels on it for crying out loud, so you just kind of drag it along behind you like a scooter. Now, I'm not suggesting that we actually flog someone to make this a more meaningful experience. I get it...it's symbolic. However, I am just saying that it has never held any particular appeal for me. I don't think I would get anything out of it spiritually. I think it's swell that some people do.
However, this year my point is neither here nor there because....the cross walk was CANCELLED because of the snow! I bet this is the first time EVER that this event was cancelled. However, this year the cross couldn't be walked because it is a SNOW DAY! I'm telling you, I bet Pontius Pilate would have cancelled the entire crucifixion if he had been faced with this weather. Everyone would have just locked themselves up in their little houses and we would all be Jewish today.
So, I would like to just have it on the record that I hate the fucking snow. I am so tired of snow and slush and salt and snowplows and mittens and scarves that I could just scream. It's almost April and my neighbor has a 6 foot snowman in his front yard. I would like to just go over there and kick it over and then stomp on it and fucking smash all the pieces of coal he and his son used to make the smiley face on it and rip the jolly striped scarf they jauntily tied around it's neck into eight thousand little pieces and then have my dogs pee on it! However, I know this would be inappropriate and not just because this particular neighbor is a pastor.
My point is, if the sun doesn't come out soon I am going to take my friend Jim's suggestion and make a big snow hand in my front yard with the middle finger sticking straight up towards the wretched sky that keeps dumping all this stupid snow on us.
Next time I promise I will write about my fabulous St Patrick's Day party, but I just had to get this off my chest.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Come on, Vogue!
Look! It's the cover of Madonna's new album. There's only one word for it: CLASSY. Nothing says class like a nice crotch shot.
Now, I like Madonna. I went to her concert last year with my darling friend LL. It was so much fun. I have never seen so many freaks in all of my life (in the audience, I mean).
Madonna looked good, put on a stellar show (although I do think it was divine retribution when her microphone went dead when she was singing while being crucified on a mirrored cross. I was not amused by the imagery, especially since she was wearing a crown of thorns at the time...and I bet she was fit to be tied that her mic went out) and made every gay man in Chicago itch to buy one of her commemorative riding crops after she whipped her half-naked gay back-up dancer with one. It was a fun show, but I didn't go to it to be blown away by her extreme talent or anything like that. C'mon, her extreme talent is for marketing herself so that she is still a money-maker 25 years after she warbled "Like a Virgin". All in all, that's a good talent to have when you aren't that great a singer, actress or dancer. Britney Spears should have watched Madonna's career more closely and taken notes, because (except for the mental illness thing) they have a lot in common!!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Strangeways Here We Come
I very rarely have a night with nothing to do. There's always a class I want to take at the Y, or a church meeting, or a kid to be driven to some miscellaneous class or something. However, a couple of weeks ago I had a Saturday night where I literally had NOTHING to do. So, I thought it would be fun to lounge around and watch a movie with my kids and eat popcorn and Chex Mix. However, the cosmos always seems to find a way to tempt me out of the house when I have a free moment. This particular Saturday night I got a phone call at 5:30 from my friend. Okay, now I have to come up with a pseudonym for my friend because I know she probably doesn't want me to say who she is. Hmmm....let's call her Mandy. (Are you humming the fabulous Barry Manilow song by the same name now? How about now? Now? Did you know that he wrote that about his DOG? That's right. He wouldn't have written it about a girl because he is gay. I don't think he's ever admitted it, but he is. Totally.)
Anyway, so Mandy calls me and asks me what I am doing. I told her the truth and she said that she had an extra ticket to this school fundraiser where there are skits and liquor. She had this ticket because her friend, for whom the ticket was intended, was blowing her off to go to her son's Guitar Hero championship round at his school. Sounds like the lamest made-up excuse in the world to me, but my friend Mandy bought it so who was I to say otherwise? In any case, at the time it didn't bother me to be the last minute stand-in who wasn't good enough to be invited in the first place...but now I'm wondering why I WASN'T invited in the first place. What the hell?
So, even though I thought it sounded like kind-of a stupid thing to do...I mean, a school fundraiser with skits? Sounds retarded. BUT, she did mention that there was going to be liquor so I figured I would give it a shot. So, I took a shower and drove over to her house at about 6:15 figuring that I would be home by 9:30 EASILY. Well, I was wrong. This particular fund raiser was at a Catholic high school and I guess it is pretty famous for this event which is called "Street Scenes". I knew it was a bigger deal than I had anticipated when I saw the traffic cops directing cars to auxiliary parking and school buses shuttling people from "remote parking". Apparently, this school has been doing this for 34 years and it is a really, really big deal. The tickets were $25 just to get in and then you had to buy a ticket book for drinks and food. When you walked in you got a booklet which told you about all the "lounges" and the attached room where a show would be staged. For example, there was a classroom/lounge (and don't picture your average classroom here, either. All the desks were cleared out, the walls and ceiling covered with fabric or Mylar or something and there was a stage in every room with a live band while at the back of the room was a bar. Seriously. Nobody parties like the Catholics. They advertised complimentary taxi rides home because they assumed folks were going to get shit faced...which they did. More on that later.) that was called Carmine's Hideaway which featured a martini bar
and band called "The Red Eye Express". Once you got in, you were given a ticket to the corresponding skit called "Bada Bing Bada Boom, The Sopranos Graduate" which was in a different room that was all tricked out too. Get this--there was a fucking LINE to get into Carmine's Hideaway. I looked at my friend Mandy and said, "You're kidding me. I'm too old to wait in line to get in a fake bar," so we moved on. The one lounge we did go into was called "The Poorhouse Lounge" and when we walked in the band was getting ready to play another song. A blond chick in her late 20's was holding the microphone and bopping around the stage in white go-go boots, black spandex pants and a back and white striped top that was long-ish and belted...but it was not long-ish enough because her fairly sizable ass was WAY too visible for me. In any case, I figured she had to be the band's singer in a get-up like that so I prepared myself to see what she could do. The band started to play "Dancing In The Streets" and she drunkenly sang/yelled the words, "DANCIN' IN THE STREETS..." upwards of 200 times. I don't think she knew any other words, although I do think she tried to sing some of them at one point. When the song was over she handed the microphone over to the actual singer for the band and returned to her group of equally dismally dressed drunken friends. Seriously, I think this was the pinnacle of her singing career. I can't believe the band let her get up and sing...I hope someone got laid out of it.
Anyway, I kid you not when I say there were about 15 or so different "lounges" with various rooms attached where parents and alumni put on skits. We wandered into the Margarita Lounge and listened to some Jimmy Buffet wannabe band. We went into the Irish Pub and heard some "Danny Boy" (not really, but they were playing Irish music) and we hit the Mardi Gras, which was the entire cafeteria with a whole bunch of tables, a bar as long as the entire back wall and a huge stage with a 8-10 piece band. It was here that I heard the funniest and saddest conversation of the night. Mandy went off to the bar to talk to someone she knew and I declined to join her because I loathe small talk with people I am never going to see again (unless it's a bartender or someone at a concert). So I sat down at a big table all by myself and pretended to listen to the band while I was actually waiting to overhear something really good. Well, I didn't have long to wait. This really skinny drunk blond girl came stumbling over with a not-so-drunk guy. He disgustedly plopped her down on a chair and she was whining about how he didn't love her and he was mad at her because she was drunk. He was obviously disgusted but he just said something like, "Don't worry about it. It's okay," and all those other things you say to emotional drunk people. Then she really pushed his buttons and said, "I bet you don't treat your wife like this when she's drunk," and he said, "Shut up!" At this point he sort-of nodded to this other guy who was loitering around us and said something like, "Hey, Paulie. Get this bitch a cab and make sure she gets home. "
Okay, the other guy's name wasn't really Paulie. I put that in for dramatic effect. However he did tell this guy to put the "bitch" in a cab etc. In the meantime, the "bitch" said something that really told me a lot about the whole situation...she said, "What are you going to do, go back upstairs to your wife?"
Now, when she said "upstairs" she literally meant upstairs from where we were sitting because all the "lounges" were on the second floor of the school. I almost died laughing. That guy got so red in the face with anger I almost thought he was going to hit her. It made me wonder what transpired before this little conversation. I imagine this guy and his wife were hanging out in Carmine's Hideaway having a couple of cocktails and in staggers the drunk mistress. Before the wife figured out anything, the guy grabbed his friend Paulie and maneuvered the drunk mistress out into the hall where she proceeded to tell the guy she loved him and she just had to come and see him and how she didn't care about his wife being there, blah, blah, blah.
All this drama at a high school fund raiser!!
At one point Mandy and I were at a table right in the middle of the main thoroughfare and I saw more drunken people lookin' to get laid than I have since college. I'm telling you, there were hundreds and hundred of people there. I bet they raised $250,000 just that night alone. (Did I tell you that they do this for two nights in a row?)
The big question is....how did they clean all the puke out of the bathrooms in time for the second night?
Anyway, so Mandy calls me and asks me what I am doing. I told her the truth and she said that she had an extra ticket to this school fundraiser where there are skits and liquor. She had this ticket because her friend, for whom the ticket was intended, was blowing her off to go to her son's Guitar Hero championship round at his school. Sounds like the lamest made-up excuse in the world to me, but my friend Mandy bought it so who was I to say otherwise? In any case, at the time it didn't bother me to be the last minute stand-in who wasn't good enough to be invited in the first place...but now I'm wondering why I WASN'T invited in the first place. What the hell?So, even though I thought it sounded like kind-of a stupid thing to do...I mean, a school fundraiser with skits? Sounds retarded. BUT, she did mention that there was going to be liquor so I figured I would give it a shot. So, I took a shower and drove over to her house at about 6:15 figuring that I would be home by 9:30 EASILY. Well, I was wrong. This particular fund raiser was at a Catholic high school and I guess it is pretty famous for this event which is called "Street Scenes". I knew it was a bigger deal than I had anticipated when I saw the traffic cops directing cars to auxiliary parking and school buses shuttling people from "remote parking". Apparently, this school has been doing this for 34 years and it is a really, really big deal. The tickets were $25 just to get in and then you had to buy a ticket book for drinks and food. When you walked in you got a booklet which told you about all the "lounges" and the attached room where a show would be staged. For example, there was a classroom/lounge (and don't picture your average classroom here, either. All the desks were cleared out, the walls and ceiling covered with fabric or Mylar or something and there was a stage in every room with a live band while at the back of the room was a bar. Seriously. Nobody parties like the Catholics. They advertised complimentary taxi rides home because they assumed folks were going to get shit faced...which they did. More on that later.) that was called Carmine's Hideaway which featured a martini bar
and band called "The Red Eye Express". Once you got in, you were given a ticket to the corresponding skit called "Bada Bing Bada Boom, The Sopranos Graduate" which was in a different room that was all tricked out too. Get this--there was a fucking LINE to get into Carmine's Hideaway. I looked at my friend Mandy and said, "You're kidding me. I'm too old to wait in line to get in a fake bar," so we moved on. The one lounge we did go into was called "The Poorhouse Lounge" and when we walked in the band was getting ready to play another song. A blond chick in her late 20's was holding the microphone and bopping around the stage in white go-go boots, black spandex pants and a back and white striped top that was long-ish and belted...but it was not long-ish enough because her fairly sizable ass was WAY too visible for me. In any case, I figured she had to be the band's singer in a get-up like that so I prepared myself to see what she could do. The band started to play "Dancing In The Streets" and she drunkenly sang/yelled the words, "DANCIN' IN THE STREETS..." upwards of 200 times. I don't think she knew any other words, although I do think she tried to sing some of them at one point. When the song was over she handed the microphone over to the actual singer for the band and returned to her group of equally dismally dressed drunken friends. Seriously, I think this was the pinnacle of her singing career. I can't believe the band let her get up and sing...I hope someone got laid out of it.Anyway, I kid you not when I say there were about 15 or so different "lounges" with various rooms attached where parents and alumni put on skits. We wandered into the Margarita Lounge and listened to some Jimmy Buffet wannabe band. We went into the Irish Pub and heard some "Danny Boy" (not really, but they were playing Irish music) and we hit the Mardi Gras, which was the entire cafeteria with a whole bunch of tables, a bar as long as the entire back wall and a huge stage with a 8-10 piece band. It was here that I heard the funniest and saddest conversation of the night. Mandy went off to the bar to talk to someone she knew and I declined to join her because I loathe small talk with people I am never going to see again (unless it's a bartender or someone at a concert). So I sat down at a big table all by myself and pretended to listen to the band while I was actually waiting to overhear something really good. Well, I didn't have long to wait. This really skinny drunk blond girl came stumbling over with a not-so-drunk guy. He disgustedly plopped her down on a chair and she was whining about how he didn't love her and he was mad at her because she was drunk. He was obviously disgusted but he just said something like, "Don't worry about it. It's okay," and all those other things you say to emotional drunk people. Then she really pushed his buttons and said, "I bet you don't treat your wife like this when she's drunk," and he said, "Shut up!" At this point he sort-of nodded to this other guy who was loitering around us and said something like, "Hey, Paulie. Get this bitch a cab and make sure she gets home. "
Okay, the other guy's name wasn't really Paulie. I put that in for dramatic effect. However he did tell this guy to put the "bitch" in a cab etc. In the meantime, the "bitch" said something that really told me a lot about the whole situation...she said, "What are you going to do, go back upstairs to your wife?"
Now, when she said "upstairs" she literally meant upstairs from where we were sitting because all the "lounges" were on the second floor of the school. I almost died laughing. That guy got so red in the face with anger I almost thought he was going to hit her. It made me wonder what transpired before this little conversation. I imagine this guy and his wife were hanging out in Carmine's Hideaway having a couple of cocktails and in staggers the drunk mistress. Before the wife figured out anything, the guy grabbed his friend Paulie and maneuvered the drunk mistress out into the hall where she proceeded to tell the guy she loved him and she just had to come and see him and how she didn't care about his wife being there, blah, blah, blah.
All this drama at a high school fund raiser!!
At one point Mandy and I were at a table right in the middle of the main thoroughfare and I saw more drunken people lookin' to get laid than I have since college. I'm telling you, there were hundreds and hundred of people there. I bet they raised $250,000 just that night alone. (Did I tell you that they do this for two nights in a row?)
The big question is....how did they clean all the puke out of the bathrooms in time for the second night?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
You've Got Everything Now
Look at my new Playlist thingy! Now you can hear all the fabulous songs by Morrissey and others that I love, love, love!!
I can't figure out how to make it so that you can scroll down and see other songs on the playlist, but if you click on a song title at the bottom of the list it will appear at the top and more songs will appear. If anyone can figure out how to make the thing scroll, let me know. I am guessing it is just a poor design, but it could be that I am an idiot and just can't figure it out. (It's probably the second option...I mean, look at how long it took me to figure out how to put pictures on my blog.)
Speaking of pictures, did you see that I put a picture of myself on here too?? I am inordinately impressed with myself. Brenna took that picture with her digital camera and I figured out how to make it show up on my blog! So, guess what? I WANT A DIGITAL CAMERA! Wait until Tony reads that. He is going to fucking kill me because he bought me a fabulous digital camera for Christmas 2006 and I said, "I'll never figure this stupid thing out. Send it back to Amazon and get me a REGULAR camera." I bet he wishes he still had that expensive digital camera right now so he could shove it right up my ass.
So, back to the playlist...I think I will suggest a song to listen to at the beginning of every blog entry so that you, my precious reader, can have a soundtrack to go along with whatever I am writing about. I realize that it sounds like I am being incredibly anal, but I prefer to see my intentions as purely altruistic...I don't want you to miss out on any one of my carefully chosen songs.
I must also add that I included a couple of songs for my friend Jim. (4 songs, actually) I hope that he can figure out which ones they are. I would have included some Rick Springfield for my anonymous friend (Vicki), but I didn't want to take the chance that someone might actually think that I LIKED Rick Springfield...because he sucks.
Now, those of you who are clever can listen to some of the songs that you now realize I titled my blog posts with. (Yikes! I ended that sentence with a preposition! That is an impertinence up with which I will not put!) Let me re-phrase; Some of the song titles that I used to name various posts are on my playlist for your listening pleasure. (Whew! Much better.)
So, prepare yourself for a lot more photos of my actual reality and not just appropriate pictures I stole off someone else's website.
I can't figure out how to make it so that you can scroll down and see other songs on the playlist, but if you click on a song title at the bottom of the list it will appear at the top and more songs will appear. If anyone can figure out how to make the thing scroll, let me know. I am guessing it is just a poor design, but it could be that I am an idiot and just can't figure it out. (It's probably the second option...I mean, look at how long it took me to figure out how to put pictures on my blog.)Speaking of pictures, did you see that I put a picture of myself on here too?? I am inordinately impressed with myself. Brenna took that picture with her digital camera and I figured out how to make it show up on my blog! So, guess what? I WANT A DIGITAL CAMERA! Wait until Tony reads that. He is going to fucking kill me because he bought me a fabulous digital camera for Christmas 2006 and I said, "I'll never figure this stupid thing out. Send it back to Amazon and get me a REGULAR camera." I bet he wishes he still had that expensive digital camera right now so he could shove it right up my ass.
So, back to the playlist...I think I will suggest a song to listen to at the beginning of every blog entry so that you, my precious reader, can have a soundtrack to go along with whatever I am writing about. I realize that it sounds like I am being incredibly anal, but I prefer to see my intentions as purely altruistic...I don't want you to miss out on any one of my carefully chosen songs.
I must also add that I included a couple of songs for my friend Jim. (4 songs, actually) I hope that he can figure out which ones they are. I would have included some Rick Springfield for my anonymous friend (Vicki), but I didn't want to take the chance that someone might actually think that I LIKED Rick Springfield...because he sucks.
Now, those of you who are clever can listen to some of the songs that you now realize I titled my blog posts with. (Yikes! I ended that sentence with a preposition! That is an impertinence up with which I will not put!) Let me re-phrase; Some of the song titles that I used to name various posts are on my playlist for your listening pleasure. (Whew! Much better.)
So, prepare yourself for a lot more photos of my actual reality and not just appropriate pictures I stole off someone else's website.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
My Hero
I went to see the Foo Fighters on Monday night. To say that the show rocked would be an understatement. Dave Grohl spent so much time whipping his hair around I was amazed that he didn't fall off the stage.
He also says "fucking" a lot. I didn't know you could effectively use the word "fucking" in a sentence 5 times, but he did. Makes him sound like a fucking rock star, I guess. Or, as I am sure Dave would correct me, a fucking GRAMMY WINNING rock star.I loved the show. It was a riot. I will tell more later, but I did want to give a quick shout out to my husband who bought me a fabulous Foo Fighters hoodie at the concert. It was the coolest thing at the rock 'n roll show souvenir stand and I got one!! Tony is THE BOMB.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Well, I voted today. I went over to our polling place (which is the Catholic nursing home) parked in the employee lot, went in the employee entrance and through the employee breakroom and made my way to the polling place. The reason I parked in the employee lot is because there wasn't any parking in the front of the building because of all the voters, so I went to the back of the building and found the employee lot half empty so I parked there. Since it is sleeting/snowing I opted to go in the employee entrance as well. I brought Brenna with me to vote because I think it is important that she sees how serious a responsibility it is to vote...but she was very tense about going in the employee entrance (which was clearly marked with an "Employees Only" sign). 
She was afraid we were going to "get in trouble". I asked her, "What are they going to do to us? Arrest us?" and she said, "Well, what if they don't let you vote?" I told her not to worry so much and just confidently walk in like she belonged there.
Considering the nursing home is entirely staffed by Filapino nuns in full habit, the odds of us blending in were pretty slim but Brenna didn't know that. Either way, I wasn't going to walk all the way around the building in the freezing cold when there was a perfectly servicable door right in front of me. Luckily the breakroom was empty so we didn't have to answer any questions
We made our way down to the polling place and I decided to try the electronic voting booth for the first time, even though Tony told me he doesn't trust them.
Well, I got my little charged up electronic voting card and proceeded to stick it in the machine and the screen went totally blank. Great. So, I called over the Election Judge and he asked me if I stuck it in all the way, and did I do it like the picture showed, etc. etc. I tried really hard not to be offended but I was pretty annoyed when he asked me if I was sure I stuck it in according to the picture. I just looked at him for a couple of seconds and then I said, "Just as sure as I was when you asked me the first time." He paused and then said, "I'll be right back."
When he came back he had the "Head" Election Judge who just pulled the stupid card out of the machine, hit a re-set button and then told me to put my card in again. At this point I was ready to insist on a paper ballot because I figured my vote was screwed as far as the electronic thing goes. But then I remembered that I live in Chicago and all the elections here are corrupt anyway so I might as well see this electronic thing out. (Voter's motto in Chicago...Vote Early and Vote Often. Dead people have been known to vote in Chicago.)
So, I proceeded to vote very gravely and seriously. Once I voted for the Presidential candidate of my choice and the State Rep and all the people I actually had opinions on I moved on to the Circuit Court judges and Water Reclaimation people, etc. etc. I didn't want Brenna to realize that I had no idea who I was voting for, so I carefully read the names and chose. I voted mostly for women, unless they had a stupid nickname in quotes (like Susan "Suzi" Bassi. That's just stupid. I can't respect someone who puts a stupid nickname on a ballot.) or if they put in their middle initial. I mean, why not just use your middle name? Too shifty for me. I can't trust someone who won't tell me their middle name.When Brenna asked me why I voted for one candidate over another I would just say, "Because she's a woman," or "Because he's Irish," or whatever. Then when she asked, "Ok...but who are they?" I would answer, "He's that Irish guy, for crying out loud," or "She's that woman," and then I would roll my eyes. Serves her right...she rolls her damn eyes at me all the time.
In any case, I finished voting and we got our "I VOTED" stickers and we left through the employee door again. Brenna was less nervous this time, but she did tell me to hurry.
I hope everyone I know voted today. I know most of the people in my office did. There was a whole group of us standing around today talking about voting and this woman from the office next to ours (who happens to be a very pretty, but slightly masculine, tall Hispanic woman) said she was going to vote for Hillary. I did a double-take and said, "WHAT? Why?" And she told me (in all seriousness--and keep in mind that I think this woman is generally very intellegent), "Because she's a woman." I blinked really, really hard and said, "You're kidding, right?" and this woman says, "No. I'm voting for her because she's a woman...even if she does have thick ankles." Okay, that was the LAST thing I expected to hear from this gorgeous, bright, might-be-a-lesbian, Hispanic woman, so I said, "I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the most compelling reason to vote for anyone. But if I follow your reasoning, I would think you would be more inclined to vote for Obama. After all, he's a minority...you're a minority..." and she butted in with, "Not any more we're not!"
Hmmm....
Anyway, it led into a whole discussion about how Hillary should always wear pantsuits because her ankles are so fat, and how the proper term for her ankles is really "cankles" (a cross between calves and ankles) and her horrible hairstyle, etc. etc. Yep. No politics for me, thank you. Let's just rip on her appearance. I mentioned that Tony had worked for the Clinton administration and had actually met Hillary and he wasn't overly fond of her, thinking that might turn the conversation back to politics, but NOOOO. What everyone wanted to know was...Is Hillary as fat in person as she looks on T.V?
So, I decided that if I couldn't beat them, I would join them. I said, "Well how about John McCain?
I can hardly stand to look at him with that big lump on the side of his face. It looks like a tumor." You know what the response was??? Everyone started talking about his stance on abortion! That's right. Political talk for the male candidate and "cankle" chat for the woman. What the hell? The thing that really pissed me off was that I was standing around with a bunch of self-proclaimed Democrats who had nothing more to say about their chosen candidate than that she looked like shit in a skirt but could actually tell me McCain's views on abortion rights! No wonder women have such crappy body images.
Now, I agree that Hillary Clinton is an unattractive woman who is cursed with tree-trunk legs; but I can say that because I didn't vote for the bitch.
She was afraid we were going to "get in trouble". I asked her, "What are they going to do to us? Arrest us?" and she said, "Well, what if they don't let you vote?" I told her not to worry so much and just confidently walk in like she belonged there.Considering the nursing home is entirely staffed by Filapino nuns in full habit, the odds of us blending in were pretty slim but Brenna didn't know that. Either way, I wasn't going to walk all the way around the building in the freezing cold when there was a perfectly servicable door right in front of me. Luckily the breakroom was empty so we didn't have to answer any questions
We made our way down to the polling place and I decided to try the electronic voting booth for the first time, even though Tony told me he doesn't trust them.
Well, I got my little charged up electronic voting card and proceeded to stick it in the machine and the screen went totally blank. Great. So, I called over the Election Judge and he asked me if I stuck it in all the way, and did I do it like the picture showed, etc. etc. I tried really hard not to be offended but I was pretty annoyed when he asked me if I was sure I stuck it in according to the picture. I just looked at him for a couple of seconds and then I said, "Just as sure as I was when you asked me the first time." He paused and then said, "I'll be right back."When he came back he had the "Head" Election Judge who just pulled the stupid card out of the machine, hit a re-set button and then told me to put my card in again. At this point I was ready to insist on a paper ballot because I figured my vote was screwed as far as the electronic thing goes. But then I remembered that I live in Chicago and all the elections here are corrupt anyway so I might as well see this electronic thing out. (Voter's motto in Chicago...Vote Early and Vote Often. Dead people have been known to vote in Chicago.)
So, I proceeded to vote very gravely and seriously. Once I voted for the Presidential candidate of my choice and the State Rep and all the people I actually had opinions on I moved on to the Circuit Court judges and Water Reclaimation people, etc. etc. I didn't want Brenna to realize that I had no idea who I was voting for, so I carefully read the names and chose. I voted mostly for women, unless they had a stupid nickname in quotes (like Susan "Suzi" Bassi. That's just stupid. I can't respect someone who puts a stupid nickname on a ballot.) or if they put in their middle initial. I mean, why not just use your middle name? Too shifty for me. I can't trust someone who won't tell me their middle name.When Brenna asked me why I voted for one candidate over another I would just say, "Because she's a woman," or "Because he's Irish," or whatever. Then when she asked, "Ok...but who are they?" I would answer, "He's that Irish guy, for crying out loud," or "She's that woman," and then I would roll my eyes. Serves her right...she rolls her damn eyes at me all the time.
In any case, I finished voting and we got our "I VOTED" stickers and we left through the employee door again. Brenna was less nervous this time, but she did tell me to hurry.
I hope everyone I know voted today. I know most of the people in my office did. There was a whole group of us standing around today talking about voting and this woman from the office next to ours (who happens to be a very pretty, but slightly masculine, tall Hispanic woman) said she was going to vote for Hillary. I did a double-take and said, "WHAT? Why?" And she told me (in all seriousness--and keep in mind that I think this woman is generally very intellegent), "Because she's a woman." I blinked really, really hard and said, "You're kidding, right?" and this woman says, "No. I'm voting for her because she's a woman...even if she does have thick ankles." Okay, that was the LAST thing I expected to hear from this gorgeous, bright, might-be-a-lesbian, Hispanic woman, so I said, "I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the most compelling reason to vote for anyone. But if I follow your reasoning, I would think you would be more inclined to vote for Obama. After all, he's a minority...you're a minority..." and she butted in with, "Not any more we're not!"
Hmmm....
Anyway, it led into a whole discussion about how Hillary should always wear pantsuits because her ankles are so fat, and how the proper term for her ankles is really "cankles" (a cross between calves and ankles) and her horrible hairstyle, etc. etc. Yep. No politics for me, thank you. Let's just rip on her appearance. I mentioned that Tony had worked for the Clinton administration and had actually met Hillary and he wasn't overly fond of her, thinking that might turn the conversation back to politics, but NOOOO. What everyone wanted to know was...Is Hillary as fat in person as she looks on T.V?So, I decided that if I couldn't beat them, I would join them. I said, "Well how about John McCain?
I can hardly stand to look at him with that big lump on the side of his face. It looks like a tumor." You know what the response was??? Everyone started talking about his stance on abortion! That's right. Political talk for the male candidate and "cankle" chat for the woman. What the hell? The thing that really pissed me off was that I was standing around with a bunch of self-proclaimed Democrats who had nothing more to say about their chosen candidate than that she looked like shit in a skirt but could actually tell me McCain's views on abortion rights! No wonder women have such crappy body images.Now, I agree that Hillary Clinton is an unattractive woman who is cursed with tree-trunk legs; but I can say that because I didn't vote for the bitch.
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