she's a stacy

Last week some folks I know were talking about Hilliary and her unwillingness to exit the race. The Tribune compared her to a cat that refuses to die after being run over. How she's alienating Dems right and left and may in fact be damaging the party wholesale.

Ouch. My comment was that instead of making the smart move and bowing out with some/any semblance of grace or stewardship, she seems bent on going out like that heinous stereotype of the clingy ex-girlfriend (re: Stacy from Wayne's World.) And I'm not the only one with that belief. She's become the psycho girlfriend who can't stop calling.

As much as it's a boon to women everywhere to have had a viable female candidate running for the White House, she's now (much like Bush trashed the world's support after 9-11) causing more and more damage and trashing the gains. After decades of listening to lame jokes of what a woman leader would be like [insert bit about menstruation, shopping, chocolate, etc.], she is truly injuring the perception of a woman in the presidency. Turning what could be a proud moment for American women into a throwaway joke for a stand up.

[in my best Ron Burgandy voice] Get classy, Hilliary. For the love of all that is right, class your shit up.

100 years war

Please excuse this small outburst. MUTHATRUCKA!! WE SWEPT THE DIAMONDBACKS!!! WOOT!!! A sweet, sweet victory - which puts us back up at the top, tied in first with St. Louis. It's silly how a ballgame can make you feel lousy or fantastic...but I'm glad we're on the right side of that coin! And to sweep a team that's been playing as well as the D-backs...and it IS the D-backs (after they booted us so unceremoniously from the playoffs)...I'm walking on muthafuckin' sunshine!

Not to say I told you so, but I totally told you they just needed some home games to reset that on the road bullshit. Word.

bruiser

Right in the middle of my forearm is a big purple bruise. It's nearly 1.5 inches in diameter (yeah, I measured it.) It must have happened over the weekend, but I just noticed it yesterday...when other people started pointing it out to me. It doesn't hurt, but it has an equal effect of both unsettling me and making me feel so very at home in my body.

See, I bruise like a peach. Always have. As a kid, I was a rough and tumble tomboy, with scraped knees and elbows, usually sporting at least two bandaids at any one time, happy to show you my scars and scabs with pride. To me, signs of wear and tear on my body showed off to folks that I was using it. Climbing trees, scavaging fields and empty lots, building forts and dams, trying to "burn rubber" with my banana-seat bike on a screeching stop/dismount onto a gravel driveway. It was the age of Evil Knievel, and I didn't want to be left on the sidelines when it was time to play kickball, if you follow me.

I can honestly say that I was pretty lucky for a kid. I never broke any limbs, never got any stitches, never had any operations or fell out of any trees. Which, looking back...how didn't I? (Worst I ever had was a badly sprained ankle my senior year caused by attempting to "surf" the ice on my driveway to a friend's car.) I played soccer for years where I was the only girl on the team and would strive to make the boys on the opposing team drop like a sack of flour when I tackled them (for some reason, none of the refs ever penalized me....they always thought the boy - even though he'd be sprawled on the grass and sucking wind - was playing too rough for me. It took me a while to catch onto the sexist favoritism, but somehow, my ten-year old brain figured, hell, the world's gonna pay me half as much as that yahoo writhing around on the ground someday, so I might as well take the break when it's handed to me. )

My all-time favorite bruise showed up at the doctor's office about 12 years ago. I'm pretty sure I was just in for a physical or maybe for an ear infection (I used to get those a lot in my 20's for some reason), but I was sitting in the paper gown, with my back to the door when the doctor walked in. She let out an audible gasp and immediately asked me if anything was wrong at home. If maybe, I was having problems with my boyfriend. If he ever...hit me. After I assured her that if a man ever laid a hand on me in an untoward fashion, he would promptly lose that hand..."Why do you ask?" She skeptically tells me about the unseen bruise and then holds up a mirror to the back of my upper arm.

There was a large, perfectly shaped, deep, deep purple rectangle - with four razor sharp, highly defined corners - not your normal raggedy-edge shaped mark. I immediately realised, that a few nights before at a rehearsal, I had quickly backed up into a dark corner of the backstage and hit my arm on the business end of a 2' x 4'. I really slammed into it and remember it smarted for about an hour...before I forgot all about it.

It took me at least 10 minutes to stop laughing and convince the doc that I wasn't covering for some abusive co-dependent relationship. When she finally left the room, I was positive that she was calling the po-po to report the incident. Looking back, I only wish I had taken a picture of it. In all my years, it was the most impressive injury I've ever given myself.

Point being, I'm used to toting a bruise around. But, when I see this bruise on my arm - most likely a result from our hectic tech rehearsal on Sunday - this isn't a mark I earned. There was no tree scaled. No bike screeched to a dusty stop. I wasn't necessarily "using" my body. I just bumped some random object that didn't register as even momentarily painful. (re: peach)

What's starting to unsettle me is that upon further inspection, it reminds me eerily of my great-grandmother's arms. She had that papery fine skin and it was always bruised in my memory. It's a dual feeling of connection to her - her arms are becoming my arms....and the thought of, "Dude, I'm getting old, but I ain't that old! "

I guess what I'm getting at is mayhaps I should step up and start earning some bruises while I'm still young enough to heal from them. Save the granny bruises for another time



100 years war

While we've eased off to 19-15, it's been a bumpy coupla weeks. We've only won 4 out of the last 13 games - dropped to 2nd in the division by what 3 or 4 games? (with Houston breathing down our necks.) Watching Leiber pitch yesterday - after giving up 4 homers in an inning, I wanted to shout out, "Ack! Mein Leiben!" (a sad, lame reference to a time when I once played Castle Wolfenstein...for 6 hours straight.)

Starting tomorrow we have home field stand for the next 10 games. Hopefully, getting off the road will help hit the re-set button.


As for this the brou-ha-ha with the Sox and their blow-up dolls. Some call it a case of boys being boys...I see it more of a case of boys being enraptured by the circle jerk. If you ever fail to recall that men are eternally 14 yr old, this should snap you back to reality. Still, if an inflatable doll somehow raises their collective ire and fires them up (seriously?), whatever...any female sports reporter worth her salt can handle a stupid blow up doll. Now, if some idiot mouthbreather ballplayer makes some remark refering to a reporter in terms of that blow up doll...then I've got a completely different response.

I will say that a bat in the anus is a bit over the line of demarcation. Although, I think the Sun Times had their priorities mixed up since that was the lead story on Tuesday, trumping the ongoing battle in the Dem's primary election. Sorry IN and NC voters...the blow up doll scandal trumps your attempts to effect the outcome of this historic election. Too bad. So sad.

As Pat Tomasulo said, "What ever happened to the rally cap?"

Indeed.

file under: wtf




I love kids. I do, man. I love them. But, I see stuff like this, and even talking to my 12 yr old nephew - I wonder...what kind of generation of unfeeling automatrons we are raising? Yeah...we. Because no matter if you sired them/have a hand in rearing the rugrats of today or no, they're a'comin. And we're all responsible in part for them.

All the things that make me raise my eyebrow, shake my head in disbelief and then curl up into a ball include:

1) The fact that this kid wants to do bad things, I get. Breaking rules is always a temptation, even as an adult...but the idea that's it's fun to be a "hood rat"? Isn't the hip thing these days being a nerd? Nerds fucking rule. I thought we all agreed on that for 2008...?

2) That his friend (possibly the 7 yr old that joined in on the joyride), but at the very least an underaged kid, smokes cigarrettes - Man. I tried smoking in junior high. DUDE. 14 yrs old. THAT's when you take up the tabackie! Unfortunately for me, between the burnouts at the train tracks yelling at me that I wasn't inhaling, my lockermate putting up "Smoking Makes You Beautiful" posters in our locker to show her disapproval and with the constant fear that my father would find out and come at me with a Sam Jackson style whooping, my time as a smoker lasted all of about a week.

3) His logical conclusion to the thought, "Mom's pissing me off!" is, "I should...drive the car!" Whatever happened to slamming doors, going to your room, throwing yourself on your bed and then thinking of horrible ways that you might be killed and/or murdered, thusly putting your mother through the worst agony for yelling at/punishing you? Screaming silently in your mind, "They'll be sorry when I'm dead!" Then you roll over, wipe the tears from your cheeks, turn on the AM clock radio and lip sych to Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger." Isn't THAT the way to truly payback your mom?

4) He hit a total of 4 cars and two mailboxes - if that kid isn't playing some version of GTA, I'm a fucking goat.

5) That the ADULTS shooting this "news story" thought it would be a sound journalistic choice to "recreate" the joyride in quicktime. I'm sorry...I guess the war's over, the economy's great, the election has been resolved, and there's a lot of time to fill in the newscast now.

6) I can't tolerate child abuse, but I'm in the camp that there is a very wide chasm between abuse and swatting your kid on the ass when he's acting a fool. I'm all for grandma whipping his behind - stealing/smashing up the family car, putting himself and other folks in danger, causing thousands of dollars in damages...AND HAVING ZERO REMORSE ABOUT IT. Yeah, this kid needs some fucking disipline. He needs to get scared straight, hit the morgue, and put that little kid to work to help pay for all the damage he did. For the next 18 years. Whatever it takes to snap the "hood rat" fixation out of his 7 yr old body. The fact that he feels the appropriate punishment for all of thise is a weekend with no Playstation...I want to put this kid over my knee and explain why this is gonna hurt me more than it will hurt him.


Although, I have to say, the best part of this kid's complete unwillingness to absorb any gravity of the situation, is when the cop tries to make the kid understand that he just screwed over his grandma for thousands of dollars, the kid's response is, "Can my mom help out?"

I can't help but laugh...while I rock back and forth in my fetal position.