electric mist

you may all cease to shop now, because

I have single handedly killed Christmas, according to my oldest son. I know, I know, it's early yet, but just think of all the time and trouble I've saved you.

I would like to say in my own self-defense that it was an innocent offense which caused the entire demise of Christmas, but I would be lying. It was premeditated, planned and executed with all the stealth of James Bond in his latest BMW. The offense? We didn't buy a real tree this year.

Every single year of their lives, the kids have had a real tree. I was adamant that only a real tree truly meant "Christmas" was here, so I only have myself to blame, because I was never going to have a fake one. Never. Ever. And not just a real tree, but as big a tree as we could possibly afford. The smallest I think we ever had was seven feet tall, and since we've been in this house with the higher ceilings in the living room, they've been as much as ten feet tall. Except the one year a couple of years ago when we couldn't agree on any single tree anywhere on any lot in the entire city and then I turned around and spied the most perfect Christmas tree... which was fourteen feet tall. I didn't believe them that it was really fourteen feet though my husband kept assuring me I had lost my mind and there was no way that tree was ever going to fit into the door, much less be able to stand up in the living room, but I was so exhausted and we had all fought so much by that point, he bought the damned tree just to get it over with so we could quit and go home. When they started loading it into the back of my oldest son's pick-up truck, I suddenly had some perspective as to just how big that stupid tree was... more than half of it hung off the back of the truck. Not a good sign. When we got it home, Carl stood the tree up near the back door so that I could see the problem and it was higher than the roofline. Er. Oops. He had to cut four feet off the bottom of that tree just so it could stand up in the living room, and it was such a huge tree, we almost had to move everything out just to fit it inside. I'm not kidding, it had a nine foot diameter. Yes. Nine. No, that is not an exaggeration. It took me three days on a scaffold and my kids' entire college tuition for more ornaments to decorate that damned tree, but by God, I was going to decorate it because I wasn't about to admit that maybe, possibly, Carl had been right and it was a little too big.

Somewhere along the way in my childhood, I had this sort of Hallmark image of families who tra-la-la'd out to the real tree lot and cut their own tree, all smiles and hand-holding and hot chocolate when they got home, whereupon they would begin the decorating process with great joy and laughter and create wonderful memories of the holiday. Please, if anyone knows a family like this, point them out to me so I can beat them to death. This has never, ever, been our experience.

Oh, we tried. We'd always ...

...go the day after Thanksgiving, we'd pile into the truck and we'd head out to the various tree farms and the bickering started the moment we got there. Invariably, the kids would run off in different directions and choose completely different looking trees and start lobbying hard for the tree of their choice and man, I know how Sophie felt, because if I dared choose one child's pick over the other child? That meant I didn't love the non-pickee. At all. Might as well ship them off to an orphanage, for the drama we'd have. Even when we'd all talk about this ahead of time and come to an agreement (when they got old enough for things like that work), and it looked like it might be smooth sailing? Nope. It was genetically impossible for them to pick the same tree or agree that the other's choice might be better suited, and God forbid I find a third choice that might be a good compromise because then they each had to go find another choice to try to out-do my choice and it just would never end. I'd be standing in the middle of the Christmas tree farm wondering if anyone would notice if I just offed myself by the flocking station while they were running to and fro, and Carl was seriously off to the side of the place, sneezing already, because he's allergic.

Yes, the man is allergic to Christmas trees and yet he loves us so much, he insisted we have a real one every year because it meant so much to the kids.

So every year, I'd end up having to choose one and whichever child's wasn't selected, said child generally pouted and stewed and frowned and sighed heavily for the rest of the night. Or stomped off in a huff.

This was just so much fun, we did it every. single. year.

When the kids were little, they'd help with decorating the tree... for about fifteen minutes. They wanted to help. They planned to help. But a tree that size takes a little while and they'd get bored and wander off. I didn't mind so much because one of the few things I enjoyed was decorating the tree. I put hundreds of things on the tree, and not all traditional types of things. There are lacy white crocheted snowflakes my grandmother made me. Tiny red and white roses to represent my other grandmother. Bows for Carl's grandmother. Tiny white doves -- dozens -- on the tips of the limbs about to take flight to represent my Paw Paw (my mom's dad). (He fed doves every morning of his adult life -- he'd take a bit of feed outside and toss it to two or three pair of doves. The day before he died, he went outside to feed the doves and there were so many, probably more than a hundred. It filled him with such joy that he chuckled most of the day and planned on getting more feed in case they all came back. He died in his sleep the next morning, and I've always felt that the doves had come to say goodbye and thanks.) There are little wooden ornaments for my dad's dad, and several things representing the kids (teddy bears, drums, toys, etc.) All told, I put close to 700 ornaments on the tree, which can take as much as two days. It's always a beautiful tree, and I know that's why the boys kept insisting on the real tree -- they loved the meaning.

But I hated the way it would die by Christmas. (They hated waiting and we'd always end up with a lot of family functions every weekend in December, so the day after Thanksgiving became the default day, since everyone was home and generally off work.) (The trick to making a real one last is not only to water it daily, but to put about 20 aspirin in the water every day. The aspirin helps the tree wick the water up into the limbs and will keep it fresher, longer.) Still. We'd get it the day after Thanksgiving and by Christmas Day, the tree would always be dropping its needles and looking a bit grim. In addition, we throw a huge party on New Year's Day, and I couldn't leave the tree up for that -- no way would it make it -- so I had to take all 700 ornaments down and then all the lights (while completely identifying with the Little Red Hen), and then get the house ready for 100 guests. Not easy.

So, I wanted a good fake tree. Something that I could leave up. Something that I could leave the smaller ornaments which tie onto the limbs on... just the dangly ones would have to be removed. But every year I mentioned it, both boys had heart attacks, and I'd relent and we'd go back through the real tree process once again.

This year, though, I saw the tree I wanted. Pre-lit with 1200 lights, gorgeous, ten feet tall and when I stood in front of it in the store, I could not tell it wasn't a real tree. Seriously, could not tell. It was on sale. It came home with me. (I wish I had a picture of me and the sales guy trying to wedge that ten foot tree which was in a six foot box into the back seat of my very little car. I was determined not to have to go back.)

My youngest son, on hearing I'd bought a fake tree, said, "Awww, mom, don't do that!" And I said, "Too late, already did," and he said, "Bummer." That was the extent of his frustration. I did not tell the oldest son. The tree sat here for four weeks, in the box, waiting for today, but I didn't say anything. Neither son lives with us anymore, and the oldest is 22, and you'd think a 22-year-old would be able to let things go, but not this kid. He actually walked by the box a couple of times and didn't ask what was inside, so I neglected to mention it. Hey, I'm not a masochist.

But last night, while I was putting the tree together, he called. And his dad told him about the fake tree. He made his dad hand me the phone, and he said, "MOM! You're not serious! You didn't really buy a fake tree, did you?" To which I said, "Yes, Luke I really did."

He couldn't believe it. He so couldn't believe it that he kept asking me over and over again, as if the billionth time was going to get him the answer he wanted, and when I finally convinced him that yes, I had actually done the dastardly deed of buying a fake tree, he said, "You've KILLED CHRISTMAS!" He said it in the same tone a kid would say about discovering there's no Santa or Easter Bunny. And when he's that upset, he's hysterical. I end up cracking up at him because of the increduality in a twenty-two year-old at something like that is just damned funny. But he kept saying I'd killed Christmas, which kinda broke my heart.

I'm sure the real problem is that he has a new girlfriend and he was looking forward to including her in the family outing and that just got sliced away from him when he least expected it. And, too, he lives on his own now in a house and he hadn't (until now) put up his own tree, so our going to get one was the only Christmas tradition he had, which I did really feel terrible about. (I hadn't thought of that prior to getting the tree.) He and his girlfriend came over last night and saw the tree, which looks completely real, and he glared at it and wouldn't hardly acknowledge its presence. I pointed out that Christmas was about us and family and we could all get together and squabble over this tree as we go outside to "pick it out" of the storage shed and haul it in, but I don't think he liked my teasing.

I decorated it today, and it's gorgeous. It's one of the best trees I've ever done, and ultimately, neither of the boys live here... they'll come through here from time to time, but not terribly often, and they're old enough to start their own traditions... but I still feel conflicted. I love this tree -- it's beautiful, and next year, will be way easier since I won't have to put on all the little ornaments again (they're staying on). But I'm sad I've abruptly brought a tradition to an end (well, if "abruptly" can be described as discussing it for five years and then finally doing it). I know he's really bothered by it and I can't change it now. Of course, I console myself with the memory that he felt the exact same way about the Tooth Fairy, and he survived that knowledge, so he'll survive this one.

I think.

Here's the culprit:

and a close-up of my teddy bear "star"...

It's much prettier than the photos... the flash sort of undoes the magic of the lights, and it's difficult to get the detail in the photo. Anyway, I love it.

only at my house...

Sometimes, you answer the door, and there are people there. And sometimes, you go to the back door because you simply need to walk outside and get something, and everything is quite normal and fine. But if you live in my house, you will go to the back door, minding your own business, la la la, all is well with the world, and when you open the door, two... not one because that would be too easy, but two stray black dogs will come barrelling into your home with a frenzy that most evangelists would envy. And they will be so grateful to have finally found someone and so excited to have finally been allowed inside somewhere that they will run in circles, many many many circles, and you will curse the fact that it is a perfect circle going from your living room to your kitchen to your office and back to the living room, and they will suddenly discover your cat, who has never really seen any other dog than her own friendly housemate who has the energy of a snail, and said cat will climb down off her normal perch on your desk because she is a stupid, curious cat, and then you will stand there in complete and total shock at the lightning speed with which said cat will run in that same circle with two extremely excited stray dogs chasing after her and part of you knows you really have to catch them and the evil part of you notes it's the most exercise the cat has had all year, but you really absolutely must somehow tackle at least one of the dogs and try to read its collar. Which you will eventually do, although you have now taken out a couple of lamps, a sidetable, a few plants and various little niceties and when you finally tackle the dog (which smells a touch more like sweaty dog than you'd prefer) and call the owners, you will sound like you've been running a marathon and they will almost hang up on you because you're scaring them.

They will also think you're on crack because they just saw their dogs an hour or so ago and those dogs don't know how to get out of the fence. But they will start to believe you when they hear their pets barking at the poor (and now exhausted) cat in the background, who has taken to hiding behind an armoire.

When they finally get to your house and you open the door, they are so worried you're about to sue them for their dogs, they keep making you repeat that no, you won't sue, all you want is for them to take the little dynamos home.

And when they're gone (and you've febreezed the whole damned house) you make a mental note to turn on the outside light from now on, because at least it was two friendly puppies and not one of the neighborhood racoons living in the creek in the back of the house or one of the skunks we've smelled from time to time.

It's not your traditional way to get your exercise, but it'll do.

when you least expect it

Script / novel update. Normal entries back by Friday.

Last week, a producer in L.A. e-mailed me about trying once again to get the romantic comedy made. She had a new avenue she wanted to pursue, which was nice to hear, but I had to check on the producer here who had been telling me over and over that she wanted to make it. I understood why she hadn't progressed here... first, they had landed a bunch of films to be shot here, several were bigger budgets than their originally planned $3 to $5 million budgets, and several have pretty big-named stars attached... all of which means she's working like crazy to keep everything running. In addition, she was divorcing one partner and buying out a third. And signing an exclusive distribution deal and some other financing deal which would give her her own discretionary money to develop her own films. (The films she's shooting now are financed by an outside entity and she does all of the actual production work here; they do this because Louisiana has offered a tremendous number of incentives to bring films here, which seems to be working.)

At any rate, I didn't know if she was still going to want to make mine. I had heard through some of her employees that she still did, but it's not the same thing as hearing it from her directly. And then she called this morning, telling me about the above mentioned distribution deal and financing (I knew things because I have a friend on her staff) and telling me all the things she was now ready and able to do to get the film made. She called it a "slam dunk" which surprised me. She's going after the MOW market first because, believe it or not, for a film this size, that's the best scenario for us to make more money. However, should that not work, she believes she can now get it made as an indie.

What shocked me was that she also had been holding onto my big budget action / comedy and also wants to make it here. I'm fairly shocked, to tell you the truth, because it's going to have to be a really big budget, at least twice what she's currently doing, if not greater, but she seems to think that's not a problem. I'm not giving her free reign to make it -- she hasn't optioned it -- but I'm willing to let her run with it for a little while and see how far she gets. Which will help me, ironically, with the book.

The book is the novel version of that big action comedy. The best-selling author friend who read it, loved it, and only had minor notes. She was at a meeting with an editor from a big publishing house last weekend and pitched her the book and now the editor wants to see it. I'm supposed to be finishing a synopsis so she can give the chapters and the synopsis to her own agent so that he can be the one to submit it to the editor. Meanwhile, another author read it and was extremely positive about it (so far, she still has a couple of chapters to read), but she's a best-seller in the same genre, so if she continues to like what she reads, I think I can get a blurb from her... which would help also with the agent and how he represents it to editors.

I just have to finish the damned synopsis, which I hate writing. And get a letter from the producer. And keep the producer moving forward and not getting too side-tracked with other projects. And... and... and...

It could all still be air. It's kinda nice air today and I'm glad it's good and I'm going to enjoy it for a few minutes, but mostly, I'm tired of being "almost" there. I've been doing the almost thing now for too too long, and hopefully, it'll move on into actual thereness very soon. (Of course, nothing will happen during the holdiays, so expect nothing else until spring, probably.)

Thus endeth the update. Funny will be back here tomorrow. If it can waddle this direction again.

my brother's on Monster House -- tonight

Edited later to add:

I thought he did pretty well, and while I'm frustrated about a couple of things, the fact that he got to have a clip with him teaching the boys how to break a board is really terrific, since he owns his own Karate school. The one small thing that annoyed me was that small slab for the bottom of the stairs -- what you saw on TV was nothing like what happened. First, the architect was there and he and Steve (the host) measured and indicated off camera where that slab was to go, then handed Mike the tape measure and told him to "act" like he'd just measured it. Mike suspected it was wrong, but trusted the host, and once he'd "acted" like he'd put it there, he wasn't going to whine about it later. Which all was okay, except for them to say that it was his mistake in voice-over... kinda a cheap shot.

There had been a lot of arguing (some of which you saw) and I was glad they showed that Mike knew how to do the boards for the side of the building (ripping them was what he was suggesting) and the other guy kept acting like an ass, and then they ultimately did Mike's suggestion.

(I sound like an over-protective big sister, don't I? I guess you never really leave that behind.)

At any rate, there were also a lot of funny times and laughter that didn't make it onto the show, particularly with that really muscled guy, Trebor. He did a lot of impressions of famous people and had the entire crew (and TV crew) rolling with laughter several times.

But overall, I thought it was great and that Mike looked good. Thanks for watching and commenting here.

Hey -- y'all watch Monster House tonight and see my brother, Mike McGee help to build the clubhouse for a local boy with leukemia. They had a blast on the build. I meant to post this earlier and almost forgot! Yikes!

Discovery Channel, by the way.

sooo

In my pursuit of breaking all things computery, my new computer froze up this morning and once I re-booted, it refused to recognize the mouse. They weren't speaking to each other. (I'm not sure , maybe they were arguing over who flirted with the keyboard last.) I pull out the troubleshooting guide....

(okay, my friend Cor, who usually gets these frantic computer-woes e-mails, knows that means I frantically freaked out, went through about three dozen places where I thought I might have left said troubleshooting guide, contemplated sacrificing small appliances if it would just appear, found it, [those small appliances have a real survival instinct, I'm telling ya], tried everything in it, improvised a bit, and then threw said trouble-shooting guide across the room for all the good it does me)...

So I break down and call the Dell help line. Wherein, after all the typical intro, what is your problem sort of stuff, the conversation went like this:

Dell Guy (DG): Is this a Dell mouse, or another brand?
Me: Another brand. Logitech.
DG: Did you purchase this one from Dell?
Me: Nope, I already had it.
DG: Okay. (he walks me through several trouble-shooting things... none work)
DG: I believe the problem is your mouse. Since you're under warranty, we can have one shipped out to you in 24 hours.
Me: But I didn't buy the mouse from you.
DG: Yes, in 24 hours, we will ship it.
Me: Even if I didn't buy it from you?
DG: It will be there in about two days.
Me: Wow, that's some warranty. My car isn't working so great. I didn't get that from Dell either. Can I have one of those, too?
DG: 24 hours ma'am... just a moment, let me check on your address.
...........
DG: Ah. Okay, I need a moment to put in all your information for the order.
Me: But you don't know what kind of car I want.
DG: What color would you like?
Me: Is it fast? Because if it's fast, I want a red one.
DG: Yes it's the normal mouse speed.
Me: That's not very fast. I'd have to go at least Jaguar speed. Something XL would do.
DG: Just a moment ma'am. Oh. I see here that you didn't buy your mouse from Dell.
Me: Damn. You're quick.
DG: I'm sorry, ma'am, but we can ship you another Dell mouse only.
Me: So does this mean I'm not getting the car?

I'll let you know if a Jag shows up in the driveway. Meanwhile, I got a new mouse from the local Office Depot and it works. (Well, until it flirts with the keyboard, I suspect.)

argggggggggghhhh

I was having DSL problems yesterday and today, and somewhere in the process of fixing it tonight, I had to reboot. It zapped all of the e-mail in the in-box from May 14th until now. I don't know why May 14th. Apparently that was a magical non-e-mail-zapping date. Everything that had come into the general mail-box is gone, so if you sent something direct to me that needed a response (not to the address on this site, but the other addresses I have that those of you who know me have)... it's gone. Please re-send. Luckily all of the e-mail generated from this site is still in its folder. Whew.

Back to your regularly scheduled internet.

pieces and parts

You know how when some people put things together, there are always a few parts left over? But the thing seems to work just fine? (Which would never happen for me. I could use all of the parts and follow the directions exactly, and it's still up in the air whether or not it would work.) Well Carl is one of those people. He does occasionally resort to reading the instructions (very rarely) and there are always an alarming number of parts left over, but whatever it is that he's building / assembling works.

It is very annoying.

He was telling me about having to assemble an elaborate exterior door handle / lock set yesterday and there were parts included which were needed, but which didn't fit right, so he had to go "unstupid" them. Which meant he went to his grinder and ground the part into the right shape.

You mean grinding parts straight out of a package isn't the first thing you would have thought to do? Yeah, me either. I would have fought with the damned thing for several hours, wallowed around with it until I looked like I'd just come from Insanity-R-Us, and then -- fighting the urge to take out a bat and smash it -- I would have gone to the store, exchanged the package because I would have assumed something was missing, gotten home and had the same exact parts to deal with all over again, at which point I would have probably kicked something and scared the neighbors and seriously considered dynamite. This is why Carl is the actual contractor part of our construction company and I do the office stuff.

The world is safer that way.

You are welcome.

two t-shirts...

I really must get. Or better, I'll put the first saying on the front and the second on the back:

"Crap. You're going to try to cheer me up, aren't you?"

"I like you. When I rule the world, your death will be quick and painless."

you know you're in trouble when

Your dentist (who has graciously worked you in because your toothache is making you seriously contemplate whether you really need the right side of your head)... takes one look at the side in question and says, "Yikes! How are you not screaming?"

Um, yeah. Not good.

I had no idea that I had anything wrong prior to last night, because I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. But apparently, something has been wrong for a very long time and it decided to get my attention. Turns out that the root canal / crown -- which, she says, are some of the best work she's seen -- mysteriously created a cavity that does not show up on x-rays or to normal examination. And this became extremely infected (no one knows how).

She kept offering me a script for pain killers when I was leaving, and I was like, "Oh, no, I'm fine. Ibuprofen will be enough." And about the time the deadening wore off and the right side of my face felt like a wrecking ball had been using it for practice, I realized why she was being so insistent. Of course, it was too late to call her for it then. I am so smart, sometimes. ugh.

Go eat something crunchy for me.

gilmore girls

I am here, but I have had a ton of work to do, and family all over here, and another headache from hell (one day I will post about the cluster headaches, but I like you all too much to subject you to that right now). And there has been some Gilmore Girls.

For the longest time, I have heard about the Gilmore Girls show, and I hadn't watched it. I watch very little TV in the evenings, and that whole not-TiVo thing and bad memory meant never remembering to watch it, but I somehow managed to catch it from the beginning for the last couple of weeks. Now I see why a lot of people were telling me to watch it; on top of it being funny and extremely well written, it's similar in tone and style to some things I've written, and I like the characters.

I've managed to watch (borrowing taped versions) most of the episodes through season four, though no one seems to have the finale. I've found a great fan site online with the transcripts (which also have the transcripts up through episode 8 of this year, which has only aired episode one or two, I think,) so I know where the show is going and I'm happy. But I really really want to see that finale episode from season four -- the transcripts are good, but not as good as seeing. So if you have the finale on season four and would be willing to make me a copy, I promise to LOVE YOU FOREVER and name a character after you in my book. And if you have all of season four in decent quality and are willing to make me a copy? Wow. I'll have to come up with something. I would of course pay for copying costs / shipping, etc. Just leave a note in my comments and I'll e-mail you.

I must go get some work done now.

crazy thoughts...

Does anyone else think that maybe Liza and Burt are maybe meant for each other?

overheard

Her: I think I'm going to go take a nap now.
Him: A nap? But you slept late this morning.
Her: I hear it's easier to die when you're horizontal. A lot less of that pesky falling over.

morbid fascination

There's a question for you at the end of this one...

I'm not a big watcher of reality shows; I can't get into the whole competition thing of trying to kick each other off some island or out of some race. I think part of the problem is that I know a lot of it is edited and manipulated behind-the-scenes. But the one show that sort of morbidly fascinates me is the TLC show, What Not To Wear. This is the show where actual friends and family will apply to the show for someone to get a makeover and a $5000 wardrobe. The friends record the victim for two weeks when the person doesn't even know they're being taped, in their worst outfits... and then on national TV, the hosts of the show appear at a function the unsuspecting victim is attending in order to ambush them and disclose exactly how badly their friends and family think they've been dressing.

I'm not sure about you, but if my friends thought I looked terrible and dressed so horribly that they would not tell me in person, or hint, or hell, kidnap me for a friendly intervention and opted for national humiliation? I'd have to find new friends. It would be different if we were sitting around and decided to apply because it would be cool to have a makeover or new wardrobe, but the public humiliation factor? I'd be drop-kicking people to the other side of the room if they pulled that one.

And yet. I have a morbid fascination with the show. People are embarrassed and humiliated and most of them are convinced they are perfectly fine the way they are, that they're just expressing their personal style. And some of their styles are way-the-hell-out-there.

The makeovers have been nice... in fact, some have been downright dramatic and amazing. The victim records their emotional responses to the events as they unfold (starting immediately after the ambush), and it usually starts out with them being pretty damned mystified as to why their friends think they don't look nice and why they'd apply to a TV show, but they generally try to be decent sports about it (probably because they know that these recordings will go on TV), and sometimes, they're obviously very hurt but trying to hide it.

Now, to give the hosts credit, they aren't trying to make everyone into cookie-cutter copies of something that's trendy. They seem to work really hard to help the people find their own style that reflects their own life choices and show their personality even more. Lots of times, the people have such a low self-esteem, they're hiding in sacks of clothes or buying all of the wrong sizes because they hate shopping so much (or don't have the money, in the case of one mom who shopped at thrift stores), and they're afraid to try new things. Through the middle of the show, there's a lot of disbelief that whatever it is the hosts are telling them will work for them, and there's a lot of suppressed anger, and even tears (when the hair stylists steps in). But always by the end, the people are thrilled with their new look, they agree that their old style sucked and now they're going to be able to be a whole new them.

Sometimes, that's really nice, because they just needed a self-esteem boost. But a lot of times, it makes me cringe, because it's such a public humiliation sort of thing, a "You're not good enough right now the way you are," sort of thing (in some of the cases)... and sometimes, it isn't so much about the person not having self-esteem but simply really liking freakish choices. The makeover mellows that out, finds a more neutral way of them expressing it. Which works...

But I wonder sometimes. There are so many messages there. Some of them are positive -- the person really is way more attractive than they've been giving themselves credit for and now that they're dressing accordingly, they feel great. The opposite, though, is that idiosyncracies have to be buffed down to neutralize the extremes, which mutes that person's persona. The public humiliation aspect bothers me. And yet I watch. Constantly.

What do you think? If you found yourself suddenly in the midst of an ambush where they were telling you that you looked terrible and they were going to offer you $5000 for a wardrobe and you'd have to go there and do what they said and be made over... would you? Would you be embarrassed? Not care? I'm really very curious.

why kerry lost -- a writer's analysis...

... or flawed characters and why they win.

[It is very long. Very. Non-partisan, and no bashing and strictly using a writer's analysis, but it is long.]

[I'm breaking from the short fun posts or story posts for one day because I have an analysis that I haven't seen anywhere else which, I think, starts addressing the "why" of this election outcome. There will be funny back here tomorrow.]

For a moment, I'm setting issues aside. I don't think this election was won or lost on issues, anyway. I think it was won and lost on how much or little people identified with a candidate. You may wholly disagree, and that's fine. There is no one finite explanation which, posted on a blog, would encompass all of the vast variety that is the American political process. This is simply a different way to look at the problem, one I haven't seen analyzed quite like this.

Whenever a writer develops a character for a story, they often (even after years of experience), want to make that character an "every man" or "every woman" so that anyone who happened to read it could identify with that character. You see this especially when they're writing an archetypal hero who does everything right and nothing wrong except maybe by accident.

It almost never works.

What ends up happening is that the author doesn't fully commit to any peculiarities or questionable qualities because they're afraid of offending this group or that group and what they end up with is mostly bland and basic (at best) and generally vague and confusing and theoretical (at worst). Readers won't follow a character like that through a story. They can't identify with anything in the character, and so their attention wanders and they feel disconnected.

Disconnection with the character is generally a sign that the story won't sell.

For a character to feel real and wholly three dimensional, the author has to find a way to do two things: make the character unique and yet make the character appeal to (hopefully) a large audience. Writers who know their craft well enough know the secret: it's all in the flaws.

Everybody has flaws. What happens when we read about a character's flaws is an interesting phenomenon, because while we might be really put off that person in real life, (because we are on the outside looking in to the repercussions), when we read (or watch a movie), we see what the character is going through, what they're faced with, and we empathize. And through that process, we recognize ourselves and our own flaws. It's a reciprocal process, and it's hard to say exactly which comes first -- recognizing the flaws in others and their struggle and then empathizing because we have the same sort of struggle, just maybe a slightly different problem... or realizing we have problems with certain things and seek out characters who walk down similar paths because we can identify with them.

Here's the irony: even if someone is seriously flawed, even if we really abhor their actions because they create difficulties for the people around them or have extreme negative consequences for innocent bystanders, if we have already identified with them, we keep identifying with them, because most of us have been through rough times, most of us have made at least one bone-headed choice or done something which was so patently stupid, they should sing songs about it, and we generally did that thing either through simply being oblivious or believing in it, however misguided that may be.

Think about what "identifying with" a character means... seeing oneself as that person or seeing something of that person in oneself. It's hard to make people turn against "themselves" once they see themselves in the character.

The same is true of politics.

There will be a raging debate as to what all went wrong with this election for the Democrats; CNN just had a discussion about how the Democrats have moved away from the hard-core liberals which give its party its focus, so to speak, because they were trying to court the center / moderates of both parties, and that's probably true. Laura over at 11D posted this entry about what went wrong, and she mentions a piece in the Times by Kristof who quotes Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, "What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that."

Earlier in his piece, Kristof quotes Thomas Frank, author of the best political book of the year, "What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," when he says:

I think this misses the mark. It's a specious argument, to be certain, and there is some truth in it, but it misses the fundamental problem with the election, and that was that a huge portion of America didn't really understand who Kerry was or how what he was going to do was going to help them. They didn't feel like they knew him or understood him or, worst offense of all, could identify with him. (Before your head blows up, just allow me a moment here...)

Bush is flawed. He is all kinds of flawed. Attacking those flaws seemed to be the fundamental strategy of the Kerry campaign from the beginning. The problem with that strategy is that a lot of ordinary Americans perceive themselves as having those same flaws. So let's look at a couple just as an example:

Bush can't pronounce words well. Do you know how many Americans suffer from dylexia, ADD, Autism, Asperger's, or other learning disabilities and don't pronounce words well? Clear and articulate annunciation is not a sign of someone's intelligence, yet it was clear from blog entries all over the internet that people thought Bush was stupid. (I'm not saying he isn't; I'm saying the use of annunciation as a benchmark was a bad choice.) Because what happens is that there are millions of Americans for whom college (some, all or grad school) is not an option, whether through finances or simply because that's not what they excel in. If there is wholesale ridicule of a flaw that many Americans can identify with... where do you think that's going to put that group of Americans? On the side of the person being ridiculed, because they can identify with him.

Bush is a "right wing nutjob." Some of this criticism is due to his politics, some to his religion, most to his insistence on dragging his religion into the nation's politics, and all of it probably justified. Here's the problem: Kristof states that:

I agree with most of what he says except the "take revenge" part. I think what it really boils down to is feeling defensive... feeling attacked themselves. They may not share much of Bush's religious philosophy, but they shared some of it, and when the vitriol spewed against everything remotely religious, they, too, felt persecuted.

You generally don't vote for the side you feel is making fun of you or persecuting you or thinks that, if you have certain values, you're stupid.

And so on and so forth... more and more flaws. But as much as many people who voted for him did not like many of his policies, they felt like he was someone they at least knew or understood. Is that a manufactured perception? Probably so. (What in politics isn't manufactured?)

Right now, the so called exit polls are saying that "morality" is what so many people picked out of four possible reasons when asked what made them choose the person they chose. But let's look at that for a minute. If I asked you, "Would you rather step in dog poop, or would you rather wade across this sewage canal?" you might say, "Er, the dog poop, I guess," and that answer could be interpreted as, "People want to step in dog poop." The number of questions which are asked and the way they're asked and whether there are any other choices that remotely come close to what a voter's really feeling would all affect those exit polls, but those polls aren't designed for that sort of detailed introspection. A lot of those "moral" people probably only agreed with one angle of Bush's thought, or maybe they were just afraid of Kerry, or maybe they felt like so many of the Democrats think they're stupid, they with the religious affiliation, that they'll be run roughshod over if Kerry gets in, and who could blame them? Or maybe they really just hated both men, and didn't know who to choose, and chose the devil they knew and when asked, just answered something that sounded the least specific.

When Kerry came on board, I doubt most of the nation knew him or understood him, other than his wealth and a little bit about his voting background. Most of the undecideds did know something though -- that the Democrats weren't terribly enthusiastic about Kerry per se, but just as someone who was an alternative, which isn't enough. That, by itself, isn't a message. And whatever Kerry's message was, it was never clear-cut enough.

Let's look at that a moment. (Yes, this will all tie in later.)

1. It's not the economy.

Case in point -- Ohio. Has lost more jobs under Bush's reign than ever, but still went for Bush in the end. Why? Because most people do not understand the way the economy works, most people aren't able to tell which candidates' promises are going to help them in the long run. Hell, for every expert economist certain their theory of what will work you show me, we could probably find another equally qualified person who believes the exact opposite. Secondly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, a country does not stop on a dime and turn around and race off, 0 to 60 in just a couple of months. It can take a couple of years or more for good or bad things to work down through to the general public. How do I know that? 22 years of business experience.

We run a business and we happen to work for several clients that end up being what I call "leading indicators" of what the economy is going to be doing. If things are good for us -- lots of work, good prices -- then the country is going to be following in about a year to a year-and-a-half. If they're bad for us -- scrounging for work, having to lower our prices because there's just not enough work to go around -- we'll start seeing big layoffs and a bad economy in general about a year after it affected us. The last of the Clinton years were terrible for us (though the country was doing pretty well). The country started following behind us about the time Bush got into office. After that, though, things were improving for us -- quite a lot, actually, and if 9/11 had not happened, I think the economy would have kept growing at that point. But it did happen, and things got extremely tight for us -- finding work, getting it for the right price, etc. -- very difficult. And of course, the rest of the country followed pretty rapidly, due to the nature of the event. However, things picked up for us about a year ago with a sudden force. Seriously, Februrary, 2003, sucked pretty much, but all of a sudden in March, it picked up. Lots of things to bid, getting better prices... and it has steadily grown. And grown and grown. We now have more work than we can do, we've raised our prices nicely to a very comfortable level and our only real downside is that we can't find enough qualified people to fill the jobs we have. The country is following, and within a year or so, I believe it's going to be booming, barring another large terroist action.

Most people don't work in the kind of field we do, and don't have that kind of perception. So trying to get them to vote for or against a candidate based on the economy isn't always going to work.

2. It's not Iraq, or Terrorism.

Because while most of the country, including a large share of Republicans who voted for Bush, do not believe we should have gone into Iraq, the problem is, we're there. Someone's got to finish what got started.

Is it confusing about whether or not we should have been there? Even Kerry voted to go in based on the information he had at the time. Was it wrong. Yes. Fallible? Yes. Bush's fault? Possibly. But here's the thing that ties back to the flawed character aspect: I don't think the majority of Americans believe that any human being can be without flaw, even one that is the President. I'm pretty sure they know that Presidents in the past have made huge mistakes. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. The part that most people forget is that people tend to forgive others (characters) if they think they understand the motives. The people who had already been supportive of Bush going into the war didn't want to backtrack on that support wholly. This is a crticial thing to understand. They had identified with him, that President who was flawed but who appeared to be rising to the occasion. That identification process means that they have to also rethink themselves in order to separate from their support of Bush.

Notice I'm not commenting on the right or wrong of that... that is just human nature. If the Dems want to sway human nature, sway that group of people who may have been having doubts, then calling them all stupid for supporting Bush isn't the way to do that. In fact, they pretty much guaranteed the antagonism from a bunch of moderate Republicans who probably would have switched over, because nobody likes being called an idiot and most people aren't going to say, "Well, you're totally right, you know, what on earth was I thinking? Of course I'm an idiot, let me let you lead me now that you've shown me the error of my ways." Doesn't exactly work like that.

3. It's not "morality."

I don't think the Republicans have a corner on "moral" and I'm pretty sure most of them don't think so, either. I think that particular exit poll answer just summed up their fears, because the Democrats have worked hard in the last few years to divorce any sense of spirituality from their politics. In spite of the fact that many are quite spiritual. And they will fight to the death for everyone's right to choose or to not choose to worship. Which is a very important spiritual aspect that the majority of Christians can respect.

And here's the thing, and I swear, this is the one thing that really ticks me off. Not everyone who voted Republican is a right-wing Christian nutjob. Seriously, there were quite of lot of sites which pretty much assumed that for anyone to be Christian meant they were radical right-wingers, foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalists who had been brainwashed and, can we say it all together... stupid.

Most Christians that I know abhor that subset of people. They don't believe in those radical right-wing things, they're way way more moderate than the general public would understand, but also? They're human. If there is one party which ridicules them (and they read the web) and there is one party which embraces them... which are they going to choose?

And the second thing about that? I could never in my life imagine a dedicated Democrat spewing the same kind of vile abusive statements towards other religions (Jewish, etc.). Making it okay to completely ridicule millions of people with a generalization doesn't win more people to a cause -- it risks making the generalizing side look narrow-minded and uneducated... because if you're dealing in generalizations, you've already missed the point as well as alienated millions of people who already weren't happy being associated with the radical right, but who don't feel that being completely condescended against is a better choice, particularly if you're not understanding what is important to them and looking for ways to find common ground.

4. Kerry's message, whatever it was, was too confusing.

Yes, he definitely contradicted himself. Several times. You might think Bush's positions and statements were utter nonsense or dangerous to the country, but they were clear-cut and on target and simple. A lot of people might try to take the time to research the different positions, but mostly they base it on the character of the person running and does that man's character have some aspects to it that they can identify with. In Kerry's case, I don't think he won people over on the basis of who he was as a person or as a candidate. I think a huge majority of Kerry supporters believed in the issues that are fundamental to the Democratic party and knew they had to support Kerry to try to get a Democrat in office, but I never saw a groundswell of enthusiasm for the man or his past. And without that, and without a clear-cut message, there was nothing "there" to convince the undecideds or the moderate Repbulicans to cross the aisle.

And to win, the Dems need them to cross.

Did you know that Kerry had a lot to do with bringing down the banking entity that financed a lot of Noreiga's (sp?) infrastructure? ( Here's one link.) I had been researching Kerry and didn't learn that until the BBC had a radio program and a friend told me about it. After the election. There are a lot of positive things Kerry did that didn't get across to the voters, and there are no excuses from the Dems for that. They spent upwards of $300 million to get their message across, but they didn't have a clear-cut message. Just mostly "not Bush" which is like sticking your tongue out at the bully in the playground. It shows you don't like him but doesn't really show what you're made of.

Tieing this all back in...

Now in writing, if you're going to have two characters compete and give them equal chance to win the reader over, you have to do more than make one "not" the other character. There has to be more than hurled accusations. The second character has to step out so uniquely that the reader can say, "Oh, I get it. He likes X. Or he really hates Y. Just like me." And start the identification process. I don't think Kerry pulled that off -- witness his last minute attempts to lure the blue-collar workers in middle America by going goose hunting. (First of all, the blue collar / hunter types may not have a college education, but they can tell when they're being pandered to and they can spot condescension a mile away. Kerry going goose hunting was the equivalent of an author giving a character a funny "quirk" in the hopes of convincing readers the character was really "funny"... when they've only delivered flat lines up to that point. It's a band-aid approach and superficial and ends up turning off the very people targeted.)

What it said to me, though, right there at the end of the campaign, was that Kerry understood (too late) that he had failed to get the voters to identify with him as a person. He had been arguing theories (for every campaign promise is simply an unproven theory based on a lot of conjecture), and he had been arguing for "anti" anything Bush (wherein a lot of people felt attacked) and he hadn't quite found a way for people to feel like they knew him and feel enthusiasm for him. Around the blogosphere, there was a lot of tepid endorsements for Kerry, particularly after the charismatic Dean lost the nomination... it wasn't that the general Democratic contingent wanted Kerry... it was that they just didn't want Bush. And in a nation where the polls were showing a 50/50 split up until the last minute, that notion of just "not" the other guy isn't enough to sway a voter because they haven't identified with the "other" choice.

It's why Clinton was so popular. He made it about him, the Comeback Kid, with the smile and easy-going nature and every-man personality and while he understood the nature of the national problems we had to face and had the education to confront them (whatever you feel about his politics, you would agree he was well-educated and intelligent)... he still came off to the voting public as someone unique, flawed but approachable. Kerry lacked that.

Four years ago when Gore lost, I postulated that the rising popularity of The West Wing influenced that race way more than the Democrats would want to admit. In The West Wing, the President, Jed Bartlett is a liberal who's constantly pulled toward the center by his chief of staff, and he's flawed, and ornery and quirky and very smart, but he's big on family, he's unapologetic about his religion, about his values and his own flaws. And it's a hugely popular show. He comes across as funny and charismatic and someone who can identify with the blue collar workers as much as with an Ivy League graduate.

Of course, he's fictional, but he's contributed to the gestalt of what most people want in a president. Worse for the Dems? Bartlett is the "ideal" Democratic candidate, one that Gore (very stiff)... and later, Kerry, didn't measure up to. Of course, in a fictional world, the writers have time to talk about issues and show the pros and cons of their side and to hammer out compromises that a candidate doesn't have the air time to do. Still, the issues of character (where I started this long and winding journey) are the primary issue, the ones that pull both Republicans and Democrats alike into the audience.

There's a lesson there for the real candidates. Yes, issues are critical. They are, honestly, far more important than whether someone is as charismatic or down-to-earth than the other person. But to get to the message of issues and choices and consequences? The voters have to not feel attacked, they have to not feel disenfranchised by an entire political party if they don't have a college degree, and they need to feel like they know the candidate -- and can identify with him. It's the only way they're going to start hearing the messages on the issues.

Now, you may think I'm totally baked. That's okay. Before you send me all sorts of comments on Bush or Kerry's evils, I've probably already seen them. I wanted to do this sort of in-depth analysis as much for myself as it was for the fact that I haven't seen any sort of analysis like this (yet).

Oh. And if you made it this far? You should get bonus points. I kept meaning to get back here and edit it down to something more succinct, but I haven't had the time in the last couple of days. Sorry about the long-winded-ness.

the so-called "two" Americas

I saw this map of the 2004 Election Results and thought it was extremely important. I have a post on why I thought Kerry lost, which is not partisan and has no bashing. It'll go up in a bit.

sweet nothings

Earlier tonight, I was sound asleep, as was Carl, when:

Carl: That thing. You got that thing?
Me: hmph? Wha... huh?
Carl: That thing. With the engine. And the parts?
Me: The whadahuh?
Carl: The one you got on e-Bay.
Me: Oh. You're talking in your sleep.
Carl: It's gonna look good on you. With the engine. And those things. You know.
Me: Engine? Things?
Carl: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Me: !!!!

Usually I can decipher what he's dreaming and talking about, and it's no big deal. But then I was just awake enough to start wondering what thing with an engine he could be thinking about that I might wear. Which just woke me right-the-hell up. Now I can't fall back to sleep. And the worst part is, he'll never remember what it was all about in the morning. grrrrrrrrrr.

D

So, we were in the mall last night. We're so rarely in the mall, I feel like I'm visiting some other planet, and I'm worried that they're secretly emitting some kind of "shop-til-you-drop" ray that will fry my brains and make me veer into the Bebe store and start buying frilly half-shirts and jeans so low, I'm not entirely sure I'd have to remove them to pee. Our original mission was to replace the treadmill which had given up the ghost about a month ago, and we'd kept saying every night, "You know, we'd really use that treadmill right now because it's just too hot to walk outside," and so of course we waited until the first cool snap of the year to go buy it. We're logical like that.

Selecting the treadmill was fairly simple... it has a built-in fan which probably won't last three days, but otherwise, it's pretty basic. There was minor discussion about how to get it home because in our brilliance, we went to the mall in our small car, not the truck. Carl suggested strapping it to the top of the car, which gave me the immediate mental image of a mouse crawling home with a piano on its head, which I flat refused to do. He opted to go get his truck (it's pathologically impossible for a man in the south to allow someone else to deliver something if they have their own truck), which meant I had to roam the mall. For 45 whole minutes. By myself.

Just five minutes in a mall can bring on images of wandering for years in the desert, and I did that thing that I had avoided for years... I wandered into Victoria's Secrets.

That is one scary place.

The woman came up to me and asked if she could help, and I told her I thought so, that I needed a new bra. She asked my size, and I said I couldn't really remember. I thought maybe a 36B or maybe it was a C cup. She appraised my boobage, and said, "No... no honey, I think you're probably a D cup."

I said, "No way. I have never ever had big breasts. And Ds are big. They're a B or a C, tops." (When I was 18, I was so flat-chested, if you'd have told me that sacrificing chickens would have made them grow? I'd have been raiding the local farms. I don't know what happened, but somewhere between 18 and 19, boobs showed up. Not big ones, but hey, beggars can't be choosey, you know? I was just grateful I wasn't going to keep being mistaken for a ten-year-old boy.)

The clerk said, "Nope, I'm pretty sure you're a D. Raise your arms." Which I did. (It's weird... how often have strangers walked up to you and proclaimed you had a bigger breasts / penis and asked you to raise your arms so they can see exactly how big, just like that, no first date or anything, and you just do it, right there. I felt so cheap and easy.) Anyway, she measured and said, "Yes, you're definitely a D. A 34 D."

Since I patently did not believe her, she gave me one of each size, and I went to the dressing room, trying on the C first, because of course it would fit. I know my last bras were never a D. And I've lost weight recently. So I put the C on and the damned thing was so tight, my boobs were resting on my chin. Then I tried the D on and looked in the mirror and said, "Holy FUCK, it FITS!"

So much for being couth in Victoria's Secrets.

(Yes, I bought several. I have lived for this day. There should be a national celebration or something.)

(I wonder if I go back to the mall to buy a home gym, will I find out I'm several inches taller, too?)

(pretty please?)

on heredity and saw disasters...

My dad called me yesterday when I was in line at the bank. He was working on putting up crown molding in his kitchen and had hit a snag. For reasons beyond his understanding, when he cut a piece which had to butt up against the first piece he'd installed, the angle didn't match and it wasn't working. He had made one cut and he hadn't wanted to screw up that long stick of molding (because he wanted the piece along that prominent wall to be without a splice), and so he'd come to the quick solution that he would use one of the smaller "drops" or "leftover" pieces, hold it up to the place where the crown had to butt up against the other crown and draw a pattern. Once he was able to match that angle, he would transfer the pattern onto the longer piece and cut it.

Now, this was a good idea, and logical, except that it didn't work. And he couldn't figure out why, so he kept trying over and over and over. He wanted Carl to come out there right then and figure out what he was doing wrong. (We're all about the patience, my family.)

Me: Well, it should be easy enough to do it with a pattern, right?
Dad: When I started, this damned molding was four feet long.
Me: And?
Dad: It's now six damned inches long. I'm about to throw that damned miter saw through the window.
Me: I'll call Carl. Right now. Step away from the saw.
Dad: Why are you laughing?

I am my father's daughter.

What he had forgotten about was my own little run-in with a saw and measuring fiasco.

When I was twenty and pregnant with Luke and we moved into the haunted house (see the ghost story below), the kitchen was shockingly antiquated. There were only two cupboards, no drawers at all, (no pantry), and no place to keep things like cutlery. Nor was there free wall space for a piece of furniture. The sink was one of those humongous cast iron jobs that have a long, shallow bowl section flanked by draining areas on each side. There were no cabinents below, where perfectly functional space went to waste.

This bugged the living crap out of me.

Carl went to his dad's antique store, rummaged around, came home and proudly showed me a little chest sort of thing he'd discovered. It looked like a piano stool with pretensions. Slightly taller than that sort of stool, it was too low to comfortably use as a work surface (and I'm only 5'3", so you know that had to be short), but too tall to sit on. Its only saving grace was that there were two drawers side-by-side which Carl had surmised would solve all of the kitchen's problems. (I'm going with "optimist" here.)(Bonus points if you know what I was really thinkikng.)

Anyway.

He placed it in the center of the kitchen as an island. As I was growing gargantuan in size with the pregnancy, I would move into the kitchen and forget the damned little table thing was there and impale my thigh on the sharp corners, multiple times a day. You'd think I'd remember it was there, but no, my hormone addled brain refused to accept the existance of such an awkward piece of furniture in the middle of the room.

And then I had a brilliant idea. I'm telling you, the genius of it made me feel like there should be announcements in the paper the next day, saying "GENIUS WOMAN SOLVES KITCHEN PROBLEM, WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE."

The kitchen sink had empty space beneath it. The table thingy was kinda short. Why not shove table thingy under the kitchen sink, therefore keeping usable drawer space and getting rid of nasty stabby table corners (which I was starting to suspect were leaping out and doing the stabby thing on purpose after the table heard me call it ugly.) See? Brilliant.

Only, table thingy didn't ~quite~ fit. It hit the outer rim of the cast-iron sink and needed to be about 1/4th of an inch shorter. No problemo. I figured that since Carl was a contractor, he must have construction-type tools outside somewhere, and I would just go find something that looked saw-like. So I marched (waddled) my pregnant self out to the garage and started rummaging around and found only one thing that sort of looked like a saw, though it was bow-shaped across the back of the saw with a large-toothed saw blade that wiggled. I wasn't sure what it was a saw for, but hey, it was a saw, it would do.

(I later learned it was the kind of saw that you use to cut small limbs from trees. It never got to live long enough to have that joy, I am sorry to say.)

So. Had saw. Had table. Had space. Easy peasy. Lay the table on its side, oops, remove drawers which are now completely jumbled. Start cutting about 1/4th of an inch off one of the legs.

The saw was hard to control in a straight line -- the blade quivered and jumped out of the groove more times than not. I felt like the table was putting up a fight. No problemo, just keep sawing. 1/4th of an inch is easy right?

Um, no. Not so much. Finish cutting all four legs, stand the table up and it wobbled. Badly. I must've cut a little more off one leg than the three others. I figure no one will notice, so I try to push it under the sink... and it hits something. I bend down to see that the "shallow" bowl part of the sink is ever-so-slightly lower than the lip, so now I have to cut all of the legs again so that the table will fit under the sink bowl part.

Lay the table on its side, saw about 1/2 inch off each leg, eye-balling it, because really, how much of a fluke was it that I didn't get it right the first time, and I'm sure I'm doing it about the same each time now, so no worries. Hand is hurting like hell, baby is kicking full-out, table keeps scootching on the kitchen floor, sawdust is in eyes, face, hair, nose and mouth, but this is NO problem, because am almost done and will have table thingy under sink and no more stabby corners.

Stand table up. Table wobbles like a motherfucker. Am seriously not happy. Figure fuck it, doesn't matter, just going to go under the sink, so start to shove it under.

Doesn't fit. Don't know what happened, but the lowest portion of the shallow bowl was not so fucking shallow after all.

Table is laughing at me.

Lay table on its side. Saw table legs. Blister on hand bursts. Sawdust now in everything, including uterus. Baby punting it back out. Stand table up. Wobbles way worse than before. Now it's really noticeable, and even though it now fits under the sink, it's extremely lopsided, so much so that anything inside will all roll to the right. Looks like a drunk built it.

Lay motherfucking table on its motherfucking side. Get the saw from hell. Try measuring. Hands hurt so much when sawing, realize that I can't hold it steady on a straight line. Realize it's already crooked, even with the measuring.

Decide that no stupid stabby table is going to beat me. Nosirreebob. Take saw, cut all the motherfucking legs completely off. Table now sits flat on kitchen floor. Drawers are one inch above floor, too low for big ass pregnant self to bend down to open to get anything out of them anyway. Kick table half-ass under the sink, throw the saw down in the middle of the pile of leg parts and saw dust and storm off to the other room to see what other furniture I can mangle before Carl gets home.

Carl walks in the door. Takes one look at the table (now on floor), the parts and the sawdust and said, "Would you like to go out and get some ice cream?"

I married a very very smart man.

turnout

Wow, just got back from voting. There were very long lines this morning in spite of the downpour.

Our precinct is a little different, in that there's one for residents of this area at the Louisiana School for the Deaf, but right next door to it is the Fire Station, which is the voting precinct for many (all?) of the LSU residents / students. (Since I'm not a student, not quite sure how that works; we went there by accident the first year we moved here when the signs weren't up on the La School for the Deaf showing where to go.) At any rate, even in 2000 when there was the sense that everyone needed to vote, there were very few people who showed up at the Fire Station -- the college generation.

This year? So many cars, they've overflowed the parking lot and they're lining the street a block each direction. Others who've voted say it's been like that all morning.

(Oh, if only we were in a swing state.)

But it's very cool to see the turnout, especially in spite of the torrential rain we're having.

dancing drunk video?

If you're surfing in from Blog Explosion and you have (or know who has) the link on your site to the COPS-style video where the woman cop was giving a sobriety test to a tall, lanky drunk who could dance... it was hysterical. And I thought I blogmarked you, but apparently, I am a dunce, because I didn't and haven't been able to surf back.

Could you please post the address to your site and a link to that video in the comments section? Much appreciated.

In other news, thanks for all the well-wishes! I live. Was kinda debatable around six a.m. this morning, as I was pretty sure the gremlins with the pick-axes in my head were doing a fine job of demolition, but I live. God bless Zomig. Or however you spell it.

fever

Tonight I have a headache from hell and a fever. The only thing that tastes good on my throat is the cold chocoalte ice cream, which Carl served up. I didn't even have to get up to go get it.

:::::hmmmmmmm:::::

I may be sick for a really really long time.