Dear America

First, let me say this: I am American, and I love my country.

(I felt like I had to get that out of the way before I said anything else. Which means: It's probably going to get a little ugly up in here, y'all.)

Now, having said that: Dear America, could we please stop the freaking insanity?

Could we act in the best interest of ALL of the people here? Please? And when I say "ALL of the people" I mean -- ALL OF THE PEOPLE. Not the loudest people. Not the craziest people. Not small splinter groups. Not one single religious group. Not Industry. Not Corporations. PEOPLE. The people who live here and who need basic, small things like: jobs. Places to live. Health care.

I think the people part of "We, the people" has been forgotten for "Us, some of the people."

I don't want to hear about any Tea Party anymore, unless someone's actually serving a hot beverage made from brewing dried leaves in hot water and serving it with delicious slices of cake. I don't want to hear about Republicans or Democrats or the Right or the Left and I definitely don't want to hear any other polarizing idiocy from Fox News, if that's all right.

I DO want to hear about elected officials comporting themselves with dignity and class, and digging themselves out of the mindset that their allegiance is to industrial or corporate interests and remembering that they are SUPPOSED to work in the best interests of the citizens that voted them in.

Those citizens -- I, me, you -- need some stuff. Like clean air and water. Like jobs.Like not favoring one at the expense of the other. Like food that is safe to eat and the money to buy it..

Enough with the ridiculousness. Enough with the "He said/She said" and the finger pointing and the BS that wouldn't be allowed or tolerated in ANY other kind of business. (Honestly, if anyone I worked with was as ineffective as the majority of our politicians, I would let them go.) Also, enough of bad mouthing your boss in public. It's disrespectful, it's rude, and it's beneath you. I don't CARE if you didn't vote for the President. I don't give a damn if he's not from your party. He won the election. So hush your mush and cut the crap and work with him. And in the next election, if the other party wins, I expect the same thing from whoever loses.

Seriously.

You know what I think? I think that when we show the world that we're about infighting and failing to work together, that when we're so into being considered right that we can't be respectful and responsible, and that when we put dogma ahead of people?

I think the terrorists laugh. I think it shows them that we're weak. I think it makes them feel justified.

I want it to stop. Now would be good.

On The Road. Again.

Or at the very least, I'm about to be. I'm leaving next week for NC to see my youngest cousin get married (how is this possible? Wasn't he just born, like, yesterday? Egad!) and I'm trying to get my act together so that the stress levels can be as low as possible.

Please note that I said "trying".

My act is currently allllll apart.

I mean, I did sort of pack. I'm packed-ish. I know that some of you are thinking: Seriously? You're leaving next Wednesday and you're already packed and you're complaining that you're not prepared? Do you know that they make medication for that? To which I can only reply: Yes, sort of, and yes, I am aware of that, thanks.

I have to pack early because of the laundry situation. Is there anything worse than trying to pack, realizing that you need to wash some of the items you need to pack, and finding that you don't have the time to do it? Talk about throwing everything into a complete kerfluffle. (And there's nothing I hate like a kerfluffle, unless it's a snafu.) So I pack early. I have packed. I'm just ... I'm not sure I have actual outfits in there (if you're a man, your brain probably disengaged. That's cool. Skip down to the part where I start talking about gadgets, and you'll be fine.) Just random shirts and skirts. And some stuff to wear when I play golf (please, Lord, let there be golf). And -- oh yeah a dress for the wedding --but ... I'm probably going to need shoes, right? Something tells me shoes will be important. And maybe some kind of purse action. (And as I write this I'm thinking, Dammit, I'm also going to need socks to wear when I play golf and oh crap, I need to take everything out of the suitcase and figure out what I even put in there because seriously? This won't do at all -- but I can't do it tonight because my housesitter friend is coming over and I'm pretty sure that he already thinks I'm mildly psychotic and if he comes in and my clothes are all over the place and I'm sitting in the middle of the floor making lists he's REALLY going to wish he reconsidered agreeing to Beansie sit -- except I think that he reads my blog and now he'll have a mental picture of that scene and oh hell with it, I need to stop now. BREATHING. Okay.)

So yeah, also? Housesitter. Coming today to get keys. I've never actually had a housesitter before and it mildly weirds me out. Do I need to make lists? (Like, where stuff lives?) What's the protocol for basically hiring a temporary nanny for a differently abled cat? Anyone? (I actually think he's got this down. I think the only person who's crazily obsessing is me. Big surprise.)

I also need to figure out what gadgets are coming with me. Do I want to bring my netbook? I definitely want to bring my kindle. And my ipod. And my phone. (Yet another reason to wish I had an iphone ... it would eliminate the need for the last three gadgets, because it would essentially be all of them. Oh iphone, how I long for you ...). And then I need to find the chargers for all of those things, which could be a challenge because -- well, because chargers  like to escape and hide, don't they? (Oh, and headphones. Do I bring my awesome but bulky headphones which are super comfy, or do I suck it up on a short flight and use my earbuds, which I sort of hate but which take up no space?)

I love to travel. I really do. It's going to be a great trip. If, you know, I survive the planning bit.

What About Bob?

Several people have asked me about the current status of the stray (and very fancy) Himalayan cat that I tried (and failed) to rescue earlier this summer.

Well.

I don't know the gender of said swanky breed cat, but I have named it Bob. (And so, in an effort to be equal opportunity genderriffic, I will further confuse the issue by referring to Bob as a "she". Why? Why not?)

Bob is still hanging around. She won't let me get too close to her -- I think that she is still a little bitter about the humans trying to nab her in the parking lot incident. (Well, "bitter" might be an understatement. "Exceptionally pissed" might be a more accurate way to say it.) I have not found her in the dumpster again, but instead see her laying in the shade by the river that runs behind my house.

Bob is not super skinny, but she is VERY dirty and matted. It makes me sad.

Last weekend, when it was RIDICULOUSLY hot in the Northeast, I saw Bob trying to find someplace cool to curl up, and decided to leave some food and water in the shade near my building for her. So I did, and continue to do so (because now that I've started, I feel like stopping would just be mean... I don't want Bob to be counting on the food and then have it disappear on her. I think her life is hard enough already, you know?) and someone -- hopefully Bob -- is eating the food.

I'd like to say that I have some kind of great plan for Bob, that I'm going to eventually lure her in and that she'll realize I'm her friend and then I can get her to the shelter and it will all end happily, like a Disney movie. (Well, maybe not "Bambi" -- a different Disney movie.)

The truth is, though, that this is one of those times where all I can do is wing it and keep trying. Every morning I go out and hope that I'll see Bob staring at me from the patch of ferns where she likes to nap. I don't try to get too close to her, because if I do, she gets stressed and takes off. Instead, I talk to her and shake the food dish gently. "Hey, Bob, hey, pretty girl, are you hungry today? Here you go," I say, and put the dish down. The neighbors look at me like I'm crazy. Bob kind of looks at me like I'm crazy.

But not doing the best you can? That strikes me as being the crazy thing. So I keep feeding Bob, and hoping for that happy ending.

Your Own Personal Severus (Snape, that is ...)

I'm having a bit of a difficult time at the moment, because I'm having the experience of someone thinking that I did the absolutely, completely wrong thing and, frankly, really loathing me for it.

Part of me is okay with this, because a) this person loathes me nearly all of the time (think Harry Potter and his relationship to Snape) and b) I am 95% sure that I did not do the wrong thing. In fact, I was very careful to check in and ask questions and make sure that I was doing the right thing because I really wanted to avoid this whole situation. (Clearly, I have failed.)

Also, the person who most matters here seems to believe that I didn't do anything wrong, which is important.

The other 5% of my brain, however, is going completely nuts, wondering if I should have done something better, or differently, or stepped back and let other people take over. I could have. It would have been simple, and then there would be no discord or unhappiness, I don't think.

Well, actually, I might have been made slightly unhappy. But I could have lived with it.

The problem with this -- with anything like this, I think -- is that, as time travel is not widely available at this juncture, it's not like I can go back and change or fix the situation. This is how life is: we muck it up. We do things and other people get angry. We laugh and we cry and we fall down (some of us more often than others) and we stand up and we do things. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. We're imperfectly human and we do imperfect things. Sometimes they're well intended. Sometimes, they're not.

And sometimes, we can't get out of our own way long enough to see the difference. I've spent a lot of time sitting with this particular mess, and I think -- no, I know -- that the role I played in this most recent messy drama was not the one that my personal Snape thinks I played.  I also realize that she does not believe it, and that there's a solid chance that she never will.

So I have to learn to be okay with that.

Because unlike time travel, love is widely available, isn't it? And since we can't use time travel to go back and change things, maybe we have to use love to move forward and change them in the now and in the future, so that what is currently a bunged up mess can become something better. So that while you move forward, you do it with the certainty that you're still doing the best you can because you're allowing your actions to be dictated by love and not spite or anger. You put your grudges down because they're a burden, and because carrying them means that your hands are too full to reach out to other people, which is all we can really do, isn't it? Reach out.

Even Snape did it at the end.

Helpless

I had to run to the grocery store last week for peanut butter, orange soda, and blueberry muffins (yes, I know, random). I went in, found my items, paid for them, and headed out the door with time to spare on my "I have stuff to do and going to the store is a chafe" schedule. All was well.

In theory, anyway, all was well.

In reality, all was not even close to well.

Here's why: after I paid, I found myself walking behind an older couple. He was pushing their grocery carriage, and she was walking beside him. She had a really cool purse and I was about to compliment her when I realized that she wouldn't hear me because she was too busy being berated for having forgotten to pick up granola bars during their shopping.

Perhaps "berated" isn't a strong enough word.

Perhaps "verbally assaulted" is a better word.

As though she was the only one in charge of knowing what food to buy. As if he was only there to push the cart. As if they weren't still in the store and couldn't just turn around and get some. They weren't even out the door yet.

And also, as if she was a child in need of correction -- although, even though I don't have children, I don't believe that anything that he said would be remotely close to appropriate for correcting a child. "I can't believe you're so fucking stupid," he said. He didn't bother to keep his voice down. "We walked right by them and you couldn't just pick them up? Didn't I ASK you if we had everything? DIDN'T I?"

She said nothing, but I had a good idea of what she was doing. She was answering him furiously, but only in her head, where it would be safe.

That's what I used to do.

It made me feel ill. I wanted to be anywhere else in the world but right there. Unfortunately, because of the way that the store is set up, I couldn't go around them until we got outside. I finally passed them and could still hear him all the way to my car. When I finally got there, I sat down, put my head on the steering wheel, and cried for a few minutes.

I wept for her, because she deserved more than that. Everyone -- every single person on this planet -- deserves more than that.

I also cried for him, because he doesn't know -- or maybe just doesn't care -- that you CANNOT under any circumstances treat someone so horribly.

And finally, I cried some selfish tears for me, because I wanted to help her and didn't have any idea how. I wanted to say something but I also didn't want to make it worse for her. She looked so tired and defeated, and he was so ... revved, as though taking his rage out on her made his day even as it ruined hers.

I wish I had said something, anything, that could have helped her.

Even if it had been something as stupid as "I really like your purse."

Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy

I  think I'm becoming nocturnal, which, having typed that, should surprise me not at all given the insomnia and the "so pale I sparkle like a Twilight vampire"* tendencies that I've been known to exhibit.

The thing is, I used to be a morning person. One of those annoying sorts who would leap out of bed at the crack of dawn and be raring to go, wide awake and alert. These days, I don't leap. I stumble. And neither "wide awake" or "alert" would be words used to describe the zombie shuffle I do from my bedroom into the kitchen, where I hope against hope that the smell of coffee will somehow activate the portion of my brain that is responsible for things like "functioning" and "earning a living".

It's sort of like this: Ever turn the key in a car ignition and have the engine not turn over but instead make that "I'm so on this ... any minute now ... oh screw it I quit" noise? That's the aural version of how I feel in the morning.

The problem with gradually becoming a night loving person is this: I HAVE to work during the day. If blogging and writing were my job, it wouldn't matter because I could write at any time but, sadly, blogging and writing are not my primary source of income, so the brains need to WORK during the daylight hours. (And they also need to learn how to REST in the evening ones!)

It's a problem. I realized it was a problem last night when the cat was giving me looks that could only be interpreted as "The fact that you're awake and up right now is SUPER ANNOYING PLEASE GO TO SLEEP AAAGHHH". (Or something like that.)

What to do?

Maybe I'll get it sorted out during my mini vacation. I'll let you know.


*I actually have a bit of a tan right now. Which I didn't even think was POSSIBLE, y'all. It's FUN not to look like the undead!

Second Chances

Sometimes you meet someone and totally get off on the wrong foot. And sometimes, you meet someone and get off on the right foot, but then because you're a completely graceless klutz you trip over the right foot and then find that all of a sudden you are on the wrong foot and all you've got, to quote Erin Brockovitch, are two wrong feet in fucking ugly shoes.

It's happened to me. Perhaps it has also happened to you.

Being wrong-footed is a surefire way to have a bad junior high flashback because it makes you feel completely awkward (like a platypus. As my friend Sarah says "Fur AND fins? For real?") and as though you're standing against the wall in a gymnasium while "When I See You Smile" plays through a set of poorly rigged speakers and everyone else is dancing (assuming, of course, that you attended junior high in the late eighties. If not, insert the appropriate "makes you feel like a loser, arbitrary slow dance song" there and the feeling will be similar).  Once you're on the wrong foot -- for whatever reason -- it's nearly impossible to stop with the awkward, too. That's the worst part, I think. You can't lose it. Whatever caused the moment of "Oh crap, did that just happen?" is going to stick to and try to ruin any further interaction with the person with whom, up until that point,  you were doing quite well.

Obviously, I am familiar with this phenomenon.   I'm actually so familar with it that I have learned -- finally -- to be a little more forgiving when someone says something that puts them into "perhaps this is wrong foot territory" with me.  Lord knows, being the Queen of All Blunders has very few perks, but one of them is this: I have learned to put things in a bubble and blow them away. Which, of course, means that I have learned that no one should be condemned to a lifetime of wrong feet and bad shoes.

I have learned to give second chances. I have also learned to take them when they're offered to me. And let me tell you, when someone has the grace to acknowledge that it's time you stood on BOTH your feet, the wrong one and the right one too, and that they can accept who you are and you can accept who they are and you can both then be cool with the fabulousness that you both possess?

There's not much better than that.