Category: political animal

hi, my name is sisyphus

hi, my name is sisyphus

Posted on by wrekehavoc

i have this problem, you see. it’s not as critical as world peace, or hunger, or the state of the planet. i recognize that. but it is something that bothers me, all the same.

let me tell you about today, for example.

today, after waking, getting hellboy dressed and fed and ready for school, i got BC showered (well, she does it herself, but i’m the prodder), fed, lunch made, and carted off to gymnastics. then, i ended up at three different supermarkets. HUH, you ask? well, giant didn’t have meat or chicken that we needed, nor did it have the particular bread that BS wanted (nothing exotic, but they were out of it). i stopped then into whole foods, which had lovely meat and poultry, but still not the bread. so, off to safeway for aforementioned bread.

after putting away the groceries, i literally peeled and chopped five pounds of carrots. (i bought the 5 pound organic bag instead of the two pounder. oops.) i put the whole chicken into the oven (after preparing it, of course), followed by some carrots; i made some really wonderful carrotty-chocolate cupcakes (which sound gross but which are actually really yummy), and a really, truly vile sweet carrot salad (make only if you require a homemade emetic). oh, and i washed and cut two pounds of strawberries, too.

then, i did dishes and proceeded to pick up.

[i’ve provided a musical interlude here. otherwise, you’d be bored if i described picking things up. this seems appropriate. although i’ll also include this one, just cos i like it.]

after all of this, i was left with 45 minutes to work on my novel. which i did. but then, i had to pick up BC.

long story short, the chicken wasn’t cooked enough, the carrot salad was, as mentioned before, nasty, and i ended up scrambling eggs for the kids and eating a bowl of cereal. kid bathed; kids read to; kids in bed. there are dishes everywhere, and i feel like whatever i did today meant a whole lot of nothing.

i push the rock up the hill. and down it comes.

don’t get me wrong. i am lucky as hell that i can do this. i kiss the ground that i can do this. but there are some days when, well, i wish i were doing more for the world. like all that education and all that oomph are sort of hiding themselves under a bushel. i want to be involved in my kids’ lives, but i fear that i will start to get over-involved because i lack much of a life of my own. and there’s not much worse than an over-involved mom.

so what to do?

i guess hope the rock doesn’t crash down on my head, for starters.

are these parents 4 real?

are these parents 4 real?

Posted on by wrekehavoc

…and then there’s the story about the New Zealand parents who are mad that they cannot name their kid 4 real. since the NZ registry office won’t let them register a name with a number in it, they’re naming him the highly rational name superman instead. but they’ll stick to their guns and call him 4 real in daily life. they have chosen this name, 4 real, because when they first saw his ultrasound, they knew he was … wait for it … 4 real.

now, people should be allowed to name their offspring whatever the hell they want. but i often marvel at the names people choose for their kids. as if there’s something meaningful and important in naming your child qwerty because you conceived him while laying on a keyboard. i’m still marvelling at the popularity of the name nevaeh, which is heaven spelled backwards. its especially popular among holy rollers. but isn’t the opposite of heaven hell? is your baby the new god of hellfire?

for me, naming my children was a cultural experience. in my culture, we name our children after beloved dead people. (or, at the very least, we use their initials.) but i wanted names that i thought were beautiful, names that wouldn’t get my kids’ asses kicked on the playground. i cannot imagine what some parents are thinking when they drop names on their kids that will surely land them in therapy one day.

and those parents in NZ? well, one day, i figure the kid will do what zowie bowie did.

when zowie was about 12, he asked people to start calling him joey.

the queen and the soldier

the queen and the soldier

Posted on by wrekehavoc

today, i’ve got suzanne vega on the brain. those who’ve known me for at least two decades have heard my “famous” percocet/suzanne vega story at least a zillion times. at some point, i’m sure i’ll write it down. but suffice to say, i *heart* vega and her lou reed-ish interpretive songs. like mitchell, she can paint stirring moments in song, and i’m hard-pressed to pick a one.

but since my leitmotif is women [subjects] of rock, i’ll choose the queen and the soldier. a battle-weary soldier confronts a queen, asking her why he and his comrades must fight this battle. the queen, normally imperious, informs him:

The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
She said, “You won’t understand, and you may as well not try”
But her face was a child’s, and he thought she would cry
But she closed herself up like a fan.

And she said, “I’ve swallowed a secret burning thread
It cuts me inside, and often I’ve bled”
He laid his hand then on top of her head
And he bowed her down to the ground.

all the soldier wants to do is return to his home, his love, his life, but he has the temerity to question authority. and the queen, apparently, is unable to comprehend and is threatened. she might dissolve if she is treated like a human and not like a diety. she tells him to wait; and while he waits, she orders his execution. he is killed, still waiting for her word.

i read this today in light of the Iraqi war. americans who have had the temerity to question the bush administration’s policies have been deemed unpatriotic and unamerican.  they have been crucified in the press, vilified in their communities.

and all we want to know is why.

one giant leap for feminism. not.

one giant leap for feminism. not.

Posted on by wrekehavoc

i was playing online poker as i am wont to do some of these evenings once the kids are in bed. i only play on the free tournament tables, as i am still learning and lack the confidence to put my kids’ college funds in jeopardy, but i am getting pretty good. i prefer to play my hunches, though i have familiarized myself with the hands that statistically are better to play. in short, i am becoming a little scary with free games 😉

anywho, i was playing in a tournament when i finally ended up playing head-to-head with this other person. we were well-matched, and i was really enjoying the game. moreover, the person and i had begun to chat a little while we played, talking about where we were from, that sort of thing. anyway, when i told him that my husband grew up originally down the street from springsteen, he typed:

“you’re a chick?”

and

“i can’t believe i am being beaten so badly by a chick!”

a little ruffled, i typed:

“jennifer tilly is a chick.”

“annie duke is a chick.”

“jennifer harmon is a chick.”

and i could have continued.

he replied. “yes, they are. and fine-looking ones, too.”

grrrr.

a mother of a blogger

a mother of a blogger

Posted on by wrekehavoc

my friend kelly o discussed today a bit from punditmom (how’s that for a name check moment?) on what we women bloggers who happen to be moms should call ourselves. my knee-jerk moment was to applaud when kelly mentioned the concept of mother bloggers — anything that sounds like a nasty expletive (“you shut up, you effing motherblogger!”) works for me on most days.

i do find it a little disheartening to have to label myself a mommy blogger whenever someone asks me to categorize what i do. i am proud as all get-out to be a mom; i worked (and continue to work) very hard to become a mom and a somewhat decent one, though there are days when my kids would be better off raised by wolves than by me.

and yes, i do tend to talk about my kids when i write in this wonderful forum which apparently is read by plenty of people (and here’s a big hello to you folks out there who i don’t know — say hey in the comments section, if you ever have a minute. wish i could pour you some coffee, but what i have is probably too old or cold for decent folks like yourselves!)

but you know, the minute you call yourself a “mommy” anything in public, or even a mom, you get discounted. a favorite story concerns one of my best friends, who left a high powered career on the Hill to become a kick-ass, one-of-a-kind, stay at home mother (SAHM). i aspire to be as astonishing a human being as she is in every facet of her life. anyway, the father of a mutual friend passed away, and we were standing at his house during the shiva visit, chatting away. at the time, i was still working outside my home while she was firmly entrenched in the SAHM world. she was telling me how whenever she is introduced in certain DC circles as a SAHM, suddenly conversation ceases and people actually shun her. i couldn’t believe her, so she told me to just watch and learn.

i saw her approach a group of well-dressed women. she joined their group for a few moments. i watched the faces of the women when my friend was speaking. you could see a certain look of ohmygawd, phyllis schlafly has entered the building. (you should know that my friend is further left of center than i am.) then, for a few minutes, they seemed to talk around her until she excused herself wordlessly and returned to me.

when i asked her what happened, she indicated that they introduced themselves, and she did as well. when she said she was a SAHM, they didn’t know what to say. so they all started to talk around her like she wasn’t there. so she walked away.

so to be called a mommy anything is like being called a stuffed teddy bear, methinks. being labelled a mommy anything makes it seem like you never give a thought to anything else in the world. just pee and poo and soccer and baking cookies.

i’d like to think my world is a little bigger than that.

no one called one of my idols, erma bombeck, a mommy columnist. they call her an american humorist. i’d like to be called the same. at least, on days when i’m remotely funny.

or when i slip on a banana peel.

my obsession this memorial day weekend…

my obsession this memorial day weekend…

Posted on by wrekehavoc

… is partially with sugar-free, fat-free jello chocolate pudding, which is keeping me sane (well, my version of it) on weight watchers.

but my main obsession for the weekend concerns a bumper sticker we saw while driving west on 66. (lemme ‘splain, and then you can write me hate notes 😉

we saw rolling thunder rambling down I-66 eastbound toward the District, stopping miles of traffic as they forged ahead to DC. some people on the westbound side were flashing peace signs and honking their horns in support. motorcyclists had pretty much taken over our neck of the woods over the weekend; we couldn’t even go to the frozen dairy bar because the sheer numbers of the motorbike folks. it’s one of the hazards of living in/near Our Nation’s Capitol ™. everyone from anywhere thinks the place belongs to them. they pay taxes, ya see, so dammit, they own the place. every protester, every mom and pop bringing the family to see, every yahoo from paducah lays claim on this area. apparently, this land is your land doesn’t apply to those of us who have to live here.

anywho, i’m trying to explain to my kids that some of the folks in rolling thunder are veterans, and we are celebrating a day that commemorates the sacrifices that these veterans have made for the US. (and no, i don’t use the word commemorates; that would sail over jools’ head.) i explain that both their granddads and two of their uncles served in the armed forces as well. even so, i get really irritated by rolling thunder every year. nearly half the folks in it aren’t veterans. they do good work, according to their website. they champion POWs and MIAs, which isn’t really as relevant now since sadly, i suspect the vietnam-era missing, their original cause, are likely dead; and the iraqi war MIAs are usuallly found floating in the euphrates these days.

like most visitors, they don’t always behave the way they would if it really was their town. and since there are more of them, the problem magnifies; they take over roads, they take up time, they make messes. but we natives, we deal with it. some even make them welcome, i daresay. we get over ourselves. we have to.

which brings me back to my original obsession: a bumpersticker i saw. and it read:

YOU’RE IN AMERICA. SPEAK AMERICAN.

what exactly does that mean? use bad grammar? end sentences with prepositional phrases? last time i checked, the language was called english. and yes, it would be helpful if people could speak it. but to be technical about it, the country is the united states of america. the continents are the americas. and so it isn’t like “american” is the only language of the americas.

maybe someone needs to roll their thunder across the border to see what the rest of the americas is like.

keeping the wolfowitz from the door

keeping the wolfowitz from the door

Posted on by wrekehavoc

apparently, paul wolfowitz is now negotiating the terms under which he’ll resign. must be nice. admittedly, no one has ever tried to oust me from a job (at least, not that i know of) since i’m not a morally-bankrupt ass-hat; but usually, people are permitted to create terms when they’ve decided to leave on positive terms. i don’t think there’s much that’s positive about what paul wolfowitz did; and if he didn’t have ties to the Administration (motto: Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, and Wartime Instability, too!), he’d not only be out on his ass, but he’d probably be prosecuted.

now, since i usually talk about parenthood — you know, those amusing anecdotes that help me understand my world and my role — you might wonder just what the hell paul wolfowitz has to do with my children (or me, for that matter), beyond helping to make the world incredibly unstable due to his earlier foreign policy dilettantism. the world has never been a perfect place — not when i was a child, not when my parents were children, etc. but at the risk of sounding like a nutball, right-wing moral majority member (and i won’t even start on my feelings for jerry falwell other than to say that tinky-winky would be better suited as a leader of a major movement, in my book — but what do i know, since the reverend last month pointed out that i, a jew, am damned to never enter heaven), it really, really pisses me off when public figures are rewarded for their morally-suspect actions. it results in a nation of kids who think that there shouldn’t be consequences for their actions — after all, if the people in charge aren’t held accountable, then why should they be, either? look at paris hilton. they’re cutting HER sentence down because she’s such a paragon of virtue. and all the while, she was indignantly pleading that she shouldn’t have to serve. boo fucking hoo.

so we seem to have a culture that permits famous people to act with relative impunity, as long as they have the money, fame, or connections. i was hoping that with a more transparent society, this would happen less and less. boy, i clearly don’t know shit.

as for you, paul wolfowitz, don’t let the door smack you on the ass as you go.

self-medication

self-medication

Posted on by wrekehavoc

i’m sitting here with a wee bit of ben and jerry’s light phish food (here’s the phull phat version, my medication of choice during my pregnancy with hellboy), freaking out quietly. while i’m still chagrined that this stuff goes for $4 a pint (MAYBE $2.99 on sale on a cold day in hell), it’s WAAAAY cheaper than what i found out i would be paying for the IVIG if i *didn’t* have health insurance.

see, i got an interesting letter today informing me of my benefits. the IVIG alone — and we’re not talking any of the tubes or IV apparatus, we’re not talking about the nurse who has to hook me up and take me off and monitor me, and we’re not even talking about the freaking doctor visit, which of course, i would get charged above and beyond all of it — would cost a couple thousand. each time. and i have to go every 4-6 weeks. ad infinitem.

now, as my friend suzanne likes to say, we (she and i, not the Royal We) have the mathematical ability of raccoons. (okay, so now she’s in a position of serious responsibility that requires mathematical ability, and i’ve proven that i can make it through graduate level courses which require things like the application of quantitative techniques. but old fears die hard.) but even so. i can do the math and figure out that, at a rate of every 6 weeks, this would cost over $30,000. A YEAR.

i could kiss the feet of the people at my insurance company. i could kiss the cheeks of the people who are coordinating this life-saving stuff for me. and i should probably kiss anything BS wants for having health insurance and for providing this life-saving paper for us all. but it does make me wonder heavily about all the people out there who don’t have good health insurance, or health insurance at all. and it makes me wonder about all the people who don’t seem to want to have any sort of national health program beyond medicaid and medicare.

i may yet become an activist on this frontier. i find it so frightening that i get access to quality care simply because i can afford the insurance, the co-pays, the out-of-pocket expenses. what if i couldn’t? where would i go? should i simply die? i shudder to think about that; i have a feeling that is the case for a lot of people.

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Cape Town, South Africa