Another Disturbing Ripple in My Universe

My mother and I are planning a trip to Warsaw in mid-June. We will visit the Jewish cemetery and try to find my great-grandfather's grave. (He died before the war, so he probably is lucky enough to have a burial place unlike my grandfather's sisters and mother.) We will see the few remnants of the wall of the Warsaw ghetto. We will visit the Jewish Historical Institute. We will do a records search. We will pass by the address where my grandfather's family owned a butcher shop and/or lived.

We will also go to Treblinka.

I always assumed that my grandfather's family died in Auschwitz, if they even lived to be deported from the ghetto. But, one of the dangers of Holocaust hagiography is that the fame of Auschwitz dwarfs reality. Deportations began in 1942, and when Warsaw's ghetto was liquidated in the spring of 1943, everyone left was sent to Treblinka, 2 hours outside of Warsaw in an isolated forest. There was no work at Treblinka. People died within an hour of their arrival.

Husband has a friend who lives in Warsaw who is very kindly helping me arrange my trip. He sent me a link to the Treblinka Museum. One of the things that fascinated me when I first learned about the Treblinka site is how noncommercial it is. Auschwitz, to me, is tourist attraction at this point. Tour groups go, people gape at the convent built on site, they exclaim over the signs proclaiming how much the Poles suffered* because it was initially built for Polish political prisoners. Treblinka was completely destroyed by the Nazis, so there's nothing "fun" to see. It is a sober monument to the 800,000 Jews and thousands of Gypsies and Romani murdered there.

Anyway, as I read the museum's website, I was taken aback by this statement:

The memorial should be visited with due seriousness and respect.
Within the area of the museum it is forbidden to bring dogs, smoke or eat ice cream.

Damn, I can't eat ice cream there? Well, I guess I'll have to pack ham and cheese pierogies and chocolate kolacky.

I hope that this was a translation error and in Polish it says, "no eating." Otherwise, WHAT THE FUCK? How weird is the focus on ice cream? Even weirder, it reminds me of a fucked up Hasidic monument I visited in Israel:


I mean, they are not the same thing, but the utter randomness of what is forbidden strikes me as similar. (In case the photo does not appear, it is a sign that says that it is forbidden for women to dance at this site.)

Anyway, it is going to be an intense trip. I believe we will also take a trip to Krakow, as Husband's friend recommended.

*Oh yeah, and some Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals died there, too. But whatever. (This is written in the vein of signage at Auschwitz, so pardon my bitter glibness.)

The Tipping Point

One of my former bosses told me that she always knows who has had restaurant experience when she goes out with a group of people based on how much they tip. She said that people who've never worked in the food service industry generally give tips of up to 15%, but people who have worked tables give closer to 20%. I am fortunate enough to have been able to go through life thus far without waitressing (I guarantee that I would be awful*), but I tip 20% unless service was utterly abysmal (i.e. - the staff was actually rude to me). My ex-boss said I am an exception.

I find that in NYC, most people are calculate tips in one of two ways: they double the tax (which is 8.75%) or they give 20% of the subtotal. Either way seems right to me. The minimum wage in the restaurant industry in NYS is $4.60. In theory, if staff do not earn enough tips to average them out to $7.15 an hour, the restaurant must cough up the extra dough. But how likely is that? Not very.

I rant about this now because I have gone out with some people a few times who consistently refuse to acknowledge that they have to pay tax and tip. It is so bad that I've actually pulled out a calculator to show how their $15 entree is really over $19 when you add tax ($1.31) and tip ($3), so putting in $20 is fair. Even after this, people have argued with me that they overpaid.

Not everyone is good at math. I understand that. I'm no math genius myself. But when I fucking run through the numbers and explain them, and my co-diner still doesn't want to pay his fair share, I am going to be very angry. Because I'm not going to short restaurant staff because my companion is too fucking cheap to pay what he owes, I get stuck paying for it. And it adds up over time. Eventually I just focus on how the person is going to screw me or someone at the end of the meal, and I don't enjoy myself. It makes me not inclined to dine out with certain individuals any more.

*Maurice, the hamster who runs on the wheel that powers my brain, would never be able to keep up with all the orders and I'd always forget to bring people drinks or who ordered what and all that.

I Don't Even Know What to Title This

Granny is mostly OK. Sunday the cardiac doc came to discuss her options. Her blood work indicated that she had a very small heart attack, so he wanted to do an angiogram. Depending on what he saw, he would insert balloons or stents into her arteries. Everyone agreed that because she needs oral surgery soon, he would use nonmedicated stents because the medicated ones would basically cause her to bleed out if she had dental work.

On Monday morning, the doctor told us that the test went well. He said that her heart was strong and that there was no damage from the heart attack. Then he said he saw a lot of heart disease and inserted a balloon and two medicated stents.

My mom and I recoiled. "What do you mean medicated stents?" she asked.

"Oh. Ooops. I forgot. I even wrote it on the board and I forgot. Sorry about that."

Yes, that is actually what he said. "Ooops... sorry about that."

"What about the oral surgery?" my mom asked. She was trying not to punch him. (She later told me that she was more angry about his flippant tone than the fuck up, not that she condoned the fuck up.)

"Oh, she'll have to wait at least six months, but I really recommend a year," he said as if it's no big deal to have a mouth full of rotting teeth. "Maybe you can find a dentist who would be willing to do a procedure while she's on Plavix."

I pictured some back alley dentist ripping up my Granny mouth and leaving her to bleed out when things went awry. I wanted to slap the doctor. (Husband suggested slapping the doctor - with a lawsuit.) I know it could be worse, but this really, really sucks.

The Eyes Don't Have It

Decrepitude at the age of 33 (almost 34, and yes, I got my age right this time) is not good. In the few months that I was at my previous job earlier this year, vision in my left eye declined. It turns out that staring at a computer screen for hours a day made my eyeballs and their components really angry. The left eye went on partial strike.

My left eye continued to bother me after I left my hob, even though I no longer spent all day staring at a monitor. I had to get a stronger prescription lens. This fixed the situation. I could see! Hurray!

Now that I am staring at a computer screen all day again, my left eye has decided it is back to partial strike. I'm faster at responding to its demands, though. Lots of eye drops and a much more concerted attempt to look at other things every 15 minutes or so. And I bought computer glasses. Supposedly these will help because the coated lenses will reduce glare, and like reading glasses, they have a slight power. Unlike reading glasses (which made me ill when I tried them at my last job because they don't come in powers below 1.00), these new babies are only 0.25.

My fingers are crossed. I doubt disability insurance covers this type of problem...

It's No Accident that "Stupak" Looks a Lot Like "Stupid"

Two of my favorite organizations, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Planned Parenthood are holding a National Day of Action today to lobby the Senate for health care reform that ensures women’s access to reproductive health care. Right now, things are not looking good.

Basically, the House passed a horrible amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-choice douche bag. The amendment would prevent women who currently have health insurance plans that cover abortion from obtaining the same coverage if they buy it through an insurance exchange. This is a problem for me, but even worse is that private plans will likely drop abortion coverage in order to participate in the exchange. People who like imposing their religious beliefs on others are proposing the same thing in the Senate.

Planned Parenthood explains the situation (it's a long one):

The Bottom Line

• Under the Stupak amendment, millions of women would lose benefits that they currently have and millions more would be prohibited from getting the kind of private sector health care coverage that most women have today.


• Millions of women would lose private coverage for abortion services and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money.

The New Health Insurance Exchange

• The new health insurance exchange is intended to provide a new source of affordable, quality coverage for the roughly 46 million uninsured Americans and the millions more whose current coverage is unaffordable or inadequate.


• The House bill is expected to cover 96 percent of all uninsured Americans by offering subsidies for private coverage or the choice of a public plan. Depending on their income level and the final package approved by Congress, individuals would receive subsidies on a sliding scale to purchase private insurance through the exchange.


• Not everyone in the exchange would have subsidized coverage — a significant portion of people (for instance, those currently purchasing in the individual market and those working for small businesses) who would buy insurance in the exchange would not receive any subsidies, also known as affordability credits.

The Stupak Amendment

• The Stupak amendment prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion. It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.


• The Stupak amendment purports to allow women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but abortion riders don’t exist.


• Women are unlikely to think ahead to choose a plan that includes abortion coverage, since they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy.


• Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak amendment is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage.


• Example: Currently, a self-employed graphic designer or writer, buying coverage from Kaiser Permanente in the individual market, likely has abortion coverage. Under the health reform plan amended by Stupak, she would purchase that same plan from Kaiser Permanente in the exchange, but it would not include abortion coverage because it would be barred. This ban would be in effect even if she were paying the full premium. Similarly, a woman working for a small graphic design firm, who currently has abortion coverage through her company’s plan, would lose it under reform if the company decides to seek more affordable coverage in the exchange.

For more information on health care reform and the Stupak amendment, visit us at http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform.

End of Planned Parenthood info, and back to my ranting... If this pisses you off as much as it does me, call your Senator today. (Or email him or her, as I suspect the lines will be busy.) Perhaps yelling, "Stop the stupid Stupak amendment bullshit," is not the thing to say, but it does have alliteration, which is a good literary technique.

In all seriousness, something like this is NOT going to stop women from having abortions. Instead, it will force more women to wait longer for their procedure while they figure out how the hell to pay for it. If we want more late term abortions in this country, then by all means, support Stupak. But that would be stupid.

What We Saw at a Bus Stop in the West Village

Warning: This is likely the most disgusting thing I've ever posted on CUSS...

As Steph and I strolled through the West Village this afternoon, she pointed out all the things that had changed since she moved. One of new arrivals is fancy bus shelters. We walked up to a glass and metal bus structure, and Steph gasped.

"Do you see what I see next to the bench?"

"Um, yes. Yes, I do."

"That's a dildo."

"With shit caked on it, yes."

No Justice. Again.

The House of Representatives passed a shitty excuse for a health care plan. It includes no public option. (Sorry, I misunderstood the newspaper this morning.) It also gave in to fundamentalist religious groups and barred abortion coverage for anyone obtaining health insurance with government subsidies.

Some might argue that it is wrong to use taxpayers' money for things that certain taxpayers might object to. But we do that every day, anyway. I object to the death penalty, but every execution that happens in my state (which fortunately has been none) would be partly subsidized with my tax money. I object to Halliburton receiving no bid contracts to do nothing in Iraq. I object to hiring private "security" (paramilitary) firms being paid to "guard" stuff in Iraq. I object to the ludicrous idea that companies that are contracted by the US to work in Iraq are not subject to following US laws, so that women are raped by their co-workers and fired, the company has no responsibility. I object to using taxpayer money to build sports stadiums. The list goes on and on.

The problem with democracy is that sometimes you are stuck monetarily supporting things that you find morally reprehensible. If a person doesn't like it, too fucking bad. He doesn't have the right to impose his religious beliefs on me or other people.

Of course, not all religious groups are obnoxious fucking hypocritical assholes who insist on religious freedom for themselves but them force their beliefs down the throats of others. I know this. That's why, even though I don't believe in a Judeo-Christian God, I support the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I think they do important work reminding people that religion does not have to oppress other people. I suppose it will be hard to continue supporting them when I live in my cave, hanging out with bats and shunning humanity, but as I said, there's no justice. I don't even know why I expect it every once in a while.

The Gonifs* Win

A few years ago, Rudy Giuliani, a mega Yankee fan and dictatorial mayor, put together a deal offering the Yankees a new stadium. This ballpark would be financed in part by New York City taxpayers. It would also require taking one of the few public parks in the South Bronx** and handing it over to the Yankees for the new structure. Boo! Hiss!

Then, thank to term limits (a concept I generally disagree with as it is not compatible with democratic elections, but that's another story), Giuliani could not run for mayor again. Whew! The new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced that the public was not in the business of building new stadiums for sports teams. Hurray! Rah rah rah!

Fast forward a few years, and Mayor Bloomberg inks a deal turning Macombs Dam Park over to the Yankees for their new stadium. There is lots of taxpayers supported financing, and a secret deal for a fancy luxury box for high ranking city officials, which somehow is called a public benefit. The Yankees also get a new MetroNorth stop, so that rich Republican assholes from Westchester need not set a foot in the surrounding neighborhood. In exchange, the Yankees agree to create a series of new little parks for the impoverished people of the South Bronx. Very generous of them, right? Boo! Hiss! Rotten tomatoes!!!

Now that the Yankees won the World Series, are the people who live in the shadows of the new stadium gathering in the newly built parks to celebrate? No, because there are no new parks. At best, there might be a park in 2011. But one of the lots promised to be a park is now actually going to be a parking lot. Sure, I understand that "parking" has the word "park" in it, but my dear Yankees, they are not one and the same.

So, go Yankees. Nice work. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich is considered an admirable American trait. You are exactly the American champions you set out to be.

*Gonif: Thief in Yiddish
**The Bronx, incidentally, is the poorest urban county in the US. The South Bronx is the poorest neighborhood in the Bronx. Clearly, these people have a lot to spare for a struggling sports team that has little revenue...

Richard Peck Made Me Cry Today

The day started out well. I woke up a bit before my alarm sounded, feeling refreshed. After feeding Tycho the rabbit and myself, I ran three miles at the gym. Then I scurried home to purchase U2 concert tickets for Husband. For a concert on Sept. 16, 2010.

Ticket purchasing is not as easy as it sounds. First, he had to subscribe to the band's fan site. This runs something like $50. Then he received an email with a secret code that could be used to purchase up to four tickets before they went on sale to the general public. Since Husband was at a Very Important Meeting when his special group of bribe givers was allowed to give U2 more of their money, he asked me to click on the magic link, enter the code, and secure the best tickets available, at whatever cost.

Fine. How hard can that be? Except that he already used the code he provided me for tickets for a concert this past September. And I had no access to his U2 account to find his new entree to U2 happiness. The man asked me to do a simple task, and it distressed me to no end. He works hard. All he wants are some fucking concert tickets, and I could not provide. Two frustrating hours later, I finally bought the tickets. Yay.

However, I was late for everything else I had to do today. Among other things that did not get done in a timely fashion, I missed a call from an organization offering me a job. Yay for the job offer, boo for missing the call. I left the woman an overly enthusiastic message on her voice mail at 5:30.

Blah, blah, blah. Fortunately, I arrived at school on time to hear my favorite author from when I was in 4th grade. Blossom Culp, the main character in Ghosts I Have Been, was a hero to me back then. I wanted to be her. So all semester, I'd been waiting to hear Richard Peck. During his talk about writing, he said, "I write for lonely people looking for friends in books."

Thank you, Mr. Peck.

Maurice Runs the Wheel Out of My Head

Earlier this year, I handed in a story in my lit class. I thought it was really good, so I was surprised when my instructor gave it back the next week with no comments. When I asked her why she didn't like it, she explained that she always looked forward to my work, so she was disappointed to read a story I had submitted before.

I was confused, as I was certain that I had been thinking about the story for weeks, so I didn't see how I could have handed it in already. But when I looked through my files, I discovered that I had written a story, turned it in, forgot, and then wrote almost word for word the exact same story and handed it in. It was scary.

Nine months later, I decided to write a story about my work with Haven Coalition. I knew I wrote a short piece about it first semester, so I re-read it, and used what worked. I thought I wrote a scene in which I was at my desk at work, the phone rang, and my first hosting night was arranged. But when I looked through my files (eerie music), I found a story I wrote almost exactly a year ago that, almost word for word, had the same opening.

Maurice, the hamster who runs the wheel that powers my brain, is scaring me. On one hand, if I wrote almost the exact same thing a year apart, I think it means that I had an important idea, and I'm glad that I did not forget. The fact that I have no memory of doing this is disturbing.

This Really Reeks

A friend asked how I felt about the renovation now that it's been complete for over a month. Because I am a cynical bitch who only looks at the downside of things, I told her it made me feel poorer after all the money we spent. Then I paused and realized how much I like some of the changes.

The new linen closet is amazing. The old one was narrow and deep, which made it impossible to find anything. The new one is in a strange location (the entry foyer), as that was the only place to put it, but it is amazing. It is wide and just the right depth. Everything is sorted semi-neatly. Every time I use it, I am happy.

The faucet in the new bathroom sink is perfect. It is just the right height and arc for me to use it as a drinking fountain. It makes me smile.

Best of all, the washer and dryer have made what was once a hugely stressful chore into something easy and almost even fun. I no longer have to schlep all my stuff down to the basement. The wait for the elevator (my stupid building has no stairs that go into the basement, a fire hazard if there ever was one) is eliminated. My battle to find an unused washer and a dryer that actually works has been won. What is not to love?

Oh, right - the smell of sewage. For the last week, something has gone terribly awry with the plumbing. I hear a surge of water in the pipes, then the smell emanates through the white doors that shutter the washer-dryer closet. Sometimes it is so strong it permeates the bedroom down the hall. Other times, it is just faintly noticeable as you pass the closet on the way into the bathroom. It smells like a cross between shit and rancid Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.

I've looked everywhere for a leak, but I don't see anything wet. I can't see behind the machines, but he smell dissipates within 30 minutes at most, so I know there isn't standing sewage water. It flush-smell-dissipation process repeats a few times a day. Oh, and did I mention that my super is on vacation? Even if he wasn't, I'm almost afraid to have him look into it, as tearing up walls at this point is my second worst nightmare. (The worst nightmare: there is a sewage leak and the washer-dryer must be permanently dismantled.)

My Subway Pervert

Usually after class, I join my classmates for drinks and bonding at a restaurant/bar near school. I happen to loathe the gathering spot, as the waiters seem to count the second from when we walk in the door to when we will leave. Nothing makes me feel more like socializing than an ancient waiter in a red coat throwing my overpriced Diet Pepsi at me and demanding payment the second the mini bottle hits the dirty reddish table cloth. The free snacks do not make up for the general nasty atmosphere.

On Monday, we went elsewhere, and while I now fear that I misled the waitress about my interest in her, at least no one yelled at us or forced us to keep ordering as we chatted into the wee hours. Despite our positive experience, the group headed back to the crappy restaurant bar. I decided to go to a wacky open mic event instead.

The event was still going strong when I slipped out at 12:30. I could barely keep my eyes open. Fortunately, I did not have to wait too long for the subway. I sat toward the front of the train, reading a magazine. A few stops into my journey, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone with grey-ish colored jeans walking rapidly toward me.

The woman sat in the seat on the bench next to me. What the fuck? I thought. The entire car was empty. What was wrong with this asshole? Then she pressed her thigh against mine.

It took me a nanosecond to decide that this was bullshit. I didn't even look at her. Eye contact seemed like an invitation to chat. I got up, walked out of the car, and re-boarded the one behind it. I had just settled down to read again, when the jeans reappeared. Fuck fuck fuck!!! I knew I shouldn't wear a dress that was so low cut. Now I have stalker.

The woman sat down on the same bench on which my ass resided. I looked over at her. It was my friend T. from school. I burst out laughing, as did she.

Notes on the Economic "Recovery"

Several times in recent weeks, I read blurbs in newspapers about how the economy is recovering. It's not like economists are all gung-ho about it, but there are supposedly glimmers of a happy smiley sun peeking through the rain clouds of economic woe. Let's take a moment to sing:

Hey la, hey la Wall Street's back!
It's been gone for such a long time
Hey la, hey la Wall Street's back!
Now it's back and things'll be fine
Hey la, hey la Wall Street's back!

Didn't that feel good? No? Well, there's good reason for that. As the 99.9% of the time right on NY Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote last week, Wall Street may be be on the rise again, but so is unemployment.

When I resigned from my job at a nonprofit organization in May, I joined the ranks of jobseekers. I knew that the economy was bad when I decided to leave, but there were other considerations that were stronger. It was a scary and tough decision, but I noticed that the various places that advertised jobs in my field offered lots of interesting opportunities.

I saw many positions that interested me, and I cast my net far and wide. I went to interviews. I took consulting jobs. I worked on my thesis for my master's degree. It was difficult, but busy. Then mid-August hit. No one ever advertises on mid-August, so I only worried a little bit. Things did not pick up after Labor Day. I worried a lot. Classes started again, so I went to school and continued writing. I worried more.

I'm far luckier than most unemployed people - Husband works and we can live comfortably on his income. Still, I thought I'd contribute my anecdotal evidence that the overall economic situation is getting worse in some parts, not better.

Hey na, hey na - bring the job market back.

Oy Vey Iz Mir

Oy vey iz mir means "woe is me" in Yiddish. Things sound much better in Yiddish, don't they? I'm having some technical issues today, and it is making me feel slightly better yelling, "Oy vey iz mir," as I pull my hair out.

The Squirrelly and the Acorn

It's been a bad morning. I overslept, then while eating breakfast, read several depressing stories in the New York Times. The one that upset me most was about a "sting" operation enacted by two ultraconservatives who decided that they would bring about the right-wing wet dream of destroying the community organizing group Acorn.

Acorn is not perfect. It has had a series of scandals involving its officers over the last few years. But it also has done legitimate work to empower and engage disenfranchised, low income Americans in politics and economic growth. In New York City, Acorn has helped families frozen out of the housing market obtain places to live through shrewd credit counseling, homeownership classes, and technical assistance. People who participated in Acorn's programs here are not losing their homes to foreclosure.

Conservatives hate nothing more than when low income people ask for their fair (or I should say, fare) share of the heaping American apple pie. Actually, forget the "fair share" - they loathe when people who have been locked out of the mainstream systems that benefit white, middle- and upper-classes as for even a crumb or two of what they deserve. These groups and people, many of which have engaged in questionable activities themselves (remember Rush Limbaugh's illegal prescription addition and how he blamed his maid?), thus must bring down organizations like Acorn that are successful.

Today's New York Times article explains that two squirelly right-wingers dressed up as a prostitute and pimp, then went to Acorn offices and asked for help acquiring a home that they could use a brothel for under-age El Salvadorean girls. Two Acorn workers didn't blink an eye, explaining not only how to obtain the property, but also how to hide their illegal activity from the government.

There is nothing excusable or OK about what these Acorn employees did, and they have been fired. As a result of disgusting actions, Acorn is losing federal housing funds. But here's the problem with these incidents: they were isolated. And we don't find that out until deep in the article. See, the Times notes that the filmmakers "spent months visiting numerous Acorn offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for."

Why is no one demanding the rest of the tape? The evidence where almost everyone they came into contact to at Acorn did the right thing? It's like shutting down an entire hospital because of one awful doctor and a shitty nurse. Investigative journalism is NOT when you go out and do undercover investigations, find one thing that confirms wrongdoing, and then portray it as rampant corruption. YouTube may have made this video popular, but it certainly did not help tell the truth.

Between these squirrelly, unethical "truth seekers" and the fucking lunatics who protested in DC on Sept. 12, I really give up. Americans are not, as far as I can tell, interested in truth or justice. The sad part is this is what the real American way might be.

MMM (More Medical Mishaps)

Somehow, both of my little toes developed humps. I think they were initially blisters that turned into calluses, but whatever they are, they hurt like fuck. I need extra wide shoes so that the Hunchtoes of the Upper West Side don't rub against the shoe while I walk. The problem is that even my gym shoes are not wide enough to get me through a full day as a New Yorker, which requires a lot of walking, even though I've been sitting at a desk for hours while doing a consulting job. I'm trying my hiking shoes today. Bah.

After limping to Cosi for internet access, I called my ob/gyn to schedule an appointment for September. (I had to google her phone number.) When I saw her last year, I really liked her. I found her after reading an article she wrote for Glamour magazine about the dangers of Brazilian waxing. It was meant to be.

"Are you an existing patient of Dr. O'Connell's?" the receptionist asked me.

"Yes," I replied.

"Oh, well next week is her last week before she leaves here forever."

"WHAT?!?! May I ask where she is going?" I prayed quickly that I could just follow her to her next doctoring gig.

"Massachusetts."

It took everything I had in me not to scream motherfucker. When I first moved to New York, I retained my gyn in the suburbs of Chicago and made my yearly appointments when I was in town to visit my family. I loved that doctor. Then she moved to Champagne-Urbana, which is about four hours from Chicago, so I sucked it up and found a doc here. I hated her.

My co-worker then referred me to her doctor, who I adored. After two or three years, she completely fell off the planet. (Dr. Pollitz, if you are out there, I miss your care!) I saw my friend Sara's doctor. Sara swore by him, telling me that he always took lots of time to talk to her and answer her questions, but he was super late to my appointment and rushed me through a history while I was sitting on the exam table in a paper gown. I was not impressed.

A few months after that disappointment, I visited my friend Dr. P in Florida, where was doing a fellowship. Dr. P had a subscription to Glamour (good bathroom reading?), and that's when I found the article by Dr. O'Connell, whose byline noted that she worked at Columbia Medical Center in NYC. I decided that this was my future doctor. I waited another few months for my yearly cooter exam time to arrive, and had a very nice appointment with her. Which of course is inevitably why she is leaving.

Now I have painful toes and no snatch examiner to boot. Motherfucker.

Greetings from Pittsburgh, Part 3

Actually, the greetings are from Corapolis, PA in a hotel room about 10 minutes from the airport. The ground stop at LaGuardia was extended and extended and extended, so at 10:30, the plane unloaded its human cargo. We were given vouchers for a very clean Marriott near the airport.

The problem is that the hotel has only two shuttles, which run every 30 minutes. I need to be at the airport at 7 AM for my 8:25 flight. Since each shuttle only seats about 10 people, I am getting up at 4:30 to be sure to be there. If I miss it, there are no other flights available to New York until Tuesday. I really do not want to rent a car and drive home....

Speaking of missing things, I will not be back in time for my interview at 11:00.

Double Tongued

For dinner last night, Granny took Bubbe, Mom, Dad, and me to dinner at a Jewish deli called The Bagel. I sat sandwiched between the grandmothers, and found myself surrounded by tongue. Granny ordered the boiled tongue, while Bubbe opted for pickled tongue.

Before I departed for Chicago, I was supposed to buy a train ticket to visit my sister and nephew in Iowa. Shit hit the fan and splattered far and wide last week, though, so I didn't have a chance to do so until Friday night/Saturday morning at 12:30 AM. "Train sold out," flashed at my across the monitor when I put in my online request. Fuck - that left me with Greyhound.

My six hour Greyhound odyssey will begin at 11:45 am on Tuesday. I think I will try and dehydrate myself in advance so I won't need to use the on board facilities. I will also not have another mint milkshake (as I did with my friend and her four year old daughter when I arrived yesterday), as that left me with an angry digestive system.

The only plus side is that I'm curious what the Greyhound bus station in Chicago is like these days. My only reference point is from Adventures in Babysitting, when teenage Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) runs away from her lux suburban home and then changes her mind and calls her friend Kris (Chris? either way, Elisabeth Shue) to pick her up before her parents find out what she planned. Hijinx ensue, including a homeless woman stealing Brenda's glasses, leading Brenda to wander around with blurry vision and pick up a furry little beast that she thinks is a kitten but is actually a jumbo sewer rat. Oh, the hilarity!

At any rate, the Greyhound station featured in the film was torn down and a new one built on the Near West Side. I also have not been to the Near West Side in eons, and am curious what that formerly extremely crime-infested neighborhood is like these days. Yeah. I'll hope that my contact lenses don't pop out of my eyes, and if they do, I will avoid touching anything that looks furry. (Given how bad my vision is, that would be pretty much anything.)

So Burn Me at the Stake Already, You Fascists

During the last presidential election, Husband regularly received mailings from the McCain campaign requesting donations. (He regularly gives to Democratic candidates around the country.) After the election, issues of The National Review mysteriously appeared every month in our mailbox. On Friday, when I retrieved our mail, I discovered the scariest sacrilege yet: an envelope depicting black cloaked priests lying face down in the aisle of a crowded church, next to a picture of priests holding a "Dominicans Friars for Life" banner at a march. In the upper left corner, the envelope read, "God is calling new men to the battle. And the Dominicans are answering - again. (Battle plan enclosed.)"

Inside, a six page letter read:

Dear fellow Catholic:

About 800 years ago, a poisonous heresy arose in southern France. Left unchecked, it could have threatened the very existence of the human race.

Its adherents saw the human body as a prison for the soul, and thus adopted an anti-life philosophy. They forbade procreation, applauded divorce, and openly encouraged suicide.

The Church called these beliefs Albigensianism.

Seeking good men to fight the Albigensian heresy, Pope Honorious III approved the founding of the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans.

St. Dominic and his preachers rose to the Pope's challenge, using Truth to blot out heresy. They did their job so well that, nowadays, you'll never meet an Albigensian.

I interrupt this letter for a moment to point out that we would never meet an Albigensian regardless of the Dominicans because they all would have killed themselves or died through lack of reproduction. Also, Husband is not a "fellow Catholic," so "God" is apparently not very good at dictating "Truth" in mailing lists. But back to the scariness:

Today, the Dominicans are rising again - to defend Christian morality against an attack that is even more widespread, vicious, and uncompromising.

Yeah, that first part of the sentence scares the fucking shit out of me.

What is this latest, most ferocious attack on Christian truth and morality? Pope Benedict XVI calls it the Dictatorship of Relativism. Relativism is the "universal heresy" because it dissolves all truth and eliminates all categories of good and evil. This deranges the mind and morals of modern man to a dangerous - indeed frightening - degree.

Fore example, relativism not only dictates that abortion is merely a personal choice, but also dictates that the government muse guarantee the "right" to this choice... Relativism can also cause people to take a good thing - such as holy matrimony - and tamper with its very definition to fulfill their own selfish purposes.

Right. I forgot that love is selfish. Of course, I also think that abortion is "merely a personal choice," and my people killed Jesus according to this institution's "Truth," so what do I know? I'll cite one more line:

Relativism is profoundly irrational - anything that denies objective truth denies reason.

Am I the only one whose eyes are bleeding? That is the most fucked up twisted "logic" I've read since Husband's free issues of The New Republic stopped arriving last month.

But on a serious note, the remaining four pages of this toilet paper screed boast about the increase in enrollments at their vocational school, and how their latest crop of 54 trainees are going to stamp out my irrational belief in religious freedom and my vile heresy against the One Truest True Truth. It is pretty damn terrifying to think about these people and what they would do to me in order to "save" me. Shudder.

Ironically, I also pulled out a receipt for a donation I made in late May (right before Dr. Tiller was killed by a psychopath who believed he had to stop abortion) to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I very well might send them more money. Because now I've seen the enemy's battle plan - the Truth - and it is chilling.

Back at the Ranch...

Upon our return from Chicago, we found the apartment covered with dust and the following:

The copper pipe sticking out of the wall in front of the tub? That's where the toilet goes...


The blank wall under the window? Usually taken up by a sink.

We knew that the bathroom would not be back online when we returned, but it is delayed a day further than anticipated. We are literally shit out of luck until Friday. Last night, we used Husband's hotel points to stay in a hotel. From now until Friday, he's staying in a hotel by his office in Connecticut. Tonight I'm borrowing a friend's couch, and then playing it by ear. I'll probably head up to his hotel tomorrow night.

It's not all bad news, though. We got a sneak peek at the new floor:

I love it!

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

I remember very clearly in 1984 worrying about Reagan being re-elected. Although the Gipper managed to fool a large number of working-class families into thinking he was helping them when in reality he was a reverse Robin Hood, my seven year old self knew that bad shit was going down. I was a Democrat through and through.

I survived the past eight years. I was excited to see things change in federal policy. And I am more disappointed than ever. First, the Democrats proved that they like being treated like shit. Lieberman can campaign for fucking McCain, and when his candidate loses, all he has to do is say that he was just kidding and everyone is like, that's cool. Now Arlen Specter changes parties to continue to work against progressive policies, and the Democrats are like, you said you want that conservative psychopath Norm Coleman to win and you joined other shithead Democrats and all the Republicans in voting down fair change in bankruptcy laws so that people with one house get treated the same as people with vacation homes and yachts? That's cool. Welcome to the party.

I am tired of this bullshit. If the Democrats are going to continue to suck the shit out of Republicans assholes and leave me with brown stains on my teeth, I am done. Forget it - that's not cool. I don't think I've ever been so disheartened by the possibilities or lack thereof.

To the caves!!!

Maybe the Childhood Concussions Did Have an Effect...

A surge of excitement ran through me as my lit professor handed back our papers from the previous class. I had worked extra hard on mine, and thought that it was one of the best things I had written in a while. In addition to telling the story of my best friend from 4th grade and exploring racism in my hometown, it had metaphors!

The professor generally keeps the papers she likes best at the top of the pile, so I was a bit disconcerted when mine came in the middle of the stack. Looking it over, I was struck by the lack of comments on it. "Oh my God," I fretted. "She hated it!" In the following nanoseconds, I realized that I was a talentless hack who should drop out of school and never show my face again. Then I decided that it might be more productive to ask her why she didn't like it.

"Oh, I always look forward to reading your work," she replied. "But I read this one already, so I was disappointed that it wasn't anything new."

"What? You did?" I urged the hamster to run more quickly on the wheel that powers my brain so that I could figure out how this was possible. Maurice grunted at me before reluctantly picking up the pace.

"Yes, this is a nice expansion of something you handed in earlier in the semester."

I frowned. I knew that I had been thinking about this particular story for a few weeks, but I was pretty sure that it hadn't left my head until I wrote the paper I now clutched in my bony hand. Finally, Maurice got his furry ass in gear and I realized that I had, in fact, handed in the same basic story my second week of class. Worse, I had just looked at that first story again on Monday night, and thought about where I wanted to go with it, making no connection to the fleshed out version that I eagerly anticipated receiving back on Wednesday night.

Very, very scary. I would think that I completely have lost it, except that I think that Maurice threw some information out of the mental filing cabinet to make room for all the details I learned about the Obama administration's mortgage refinancing and loan modification program. (I am a very good resource on this!) Still, not good.

Lord, I Was Born a Rumbling Man

The less pleasant symptoms of my undiagnosed mysterious digestive ailment returned last week, making my life stink. These include:

• Gas that could kill infants, toddlers, and small animals;


• Explosive bowel movements that fill a toilet bowl; and


• Acid reflux.

Thus far I have been spared the once a month, wake up in the middle of the night vomiting that is so violent it comes through my nose. Unfortunately, I also have not experienced the only upside of this misery: weight loss!* Even more disappointing, my ailment strikes hardest during my free time. So while my evenings and weekends are spent groaning and trying not to smoke Husband out of the apartment with my toxic fumes, the stupid condition doesn't lead me to miss work. It's bullshit.

Still, the other odors in the air at the Allman Brothers concert that I attended on Friday night were far stronger than my noxious gases, so I didn't feel too self-conscious in that regard. The show did remind me how conservative I am at heart. Not only is smoking not permitted in public places in New York City, but the historic theater that the show was at was recently restored, so I was seething from the second the envelope of various smokes enrobed my head when when I walked through the lobby. People were also spilling their beers everywhere. Between the ashes and the beverage, I fumed about the useless of restoring the building. Plus, all the smoke gave me a headache and made my throat itch. Later, I fell asleep during one of the many jam sessions. I did groove to special guest Bruce Willis's harmonious harmonica, though. That was exciting.

Rumble, rumble.

*No need to worry, though, I'm just trying to look on the bright side of a bad situation; every cloud has it's silver lining; etc.; etc.)

The Month

Man, March took forever to end. It was like the longest month in the history of recorded time. It's so great that it's finally ove...

What? It's only been a week?

Shit.

The More You Know

Back in the days when Saved by the Bell starred a young Mark-Paul Gosselaar, a fresh faced innocent girl by the name of Elizabeth Berkely, and a pre-Dancing with the Stars Mario Whateverhislastnameis,I'mtoolazytolookituprightnow, NBC ran public service announcements with featuring a celebrity who imparted wisdom about things like the evils of letting friends drive drunk, which concluded with the graphic of a star and the words, "The More You Know." I got the impression that "The More You Know" is a good thing. This was a bald faced lie.

See, The More I Know, the more I realize what scumbags people are. Take two cover stories from yesterday's New York Times. The first one was about how the guy who ushered in exploding loans during his tenure at Countrywide now is making bazillions of dollars by buying those exact same loans for pennies now that they have gone bad. His new company, nicknamed "PennyMac" (seriously, is it possible to more directly spit in people's faces?), is reaching out to borrowers to modify the loans. What seemed very possible is that he is giving people temporary modifications that will explode again in a few years, so he can duck out and find new ways to profit. Fists clenching, fists unclenching...

Story #2 was about a debt collection agency that uses grief counseling to trick grieving family members into paying off their dead relatives' debts, even though they are not legally liable for them. The company has the balls to say that they are helping people through their grief by giving them the opportunity to rectify their loved ones' debits. FUCK YOU. Am I the only person who has the urge to kill someone close to the executives of the company, then start calling them and asking them to heal their wounds by paying for their sister's credit card bill?

The More I Know about the world, the more I like my imaginary cave hermit life.

Mini Disasters that Add Up to Laughs

Witness arrived in movie theaters when I was nine years old. I thought it looked like one of the scariest movies ever. If memory serves me correctly (and it usually doesn't), it also received complementary reviews as a suspenseful film.

Husband and I watched it on Saturday night. Let me just throw this aphorism out there: Any time there is a 20+ year build up to something, the odds are high that it will disappoint. Damn, that was one crappy movie. The plot makes almost no sense, the action is limited, the score involves some weird synth/organ droning, and there is about as much suspense as watching Jell-O set. Still, Harrison Ford is smoking hot in it. Holy shit, that made the movie almost worth it. (So as not to be sexist, I noticed that Kelly McGillis is gorgeous.)

Then on Sunday, Husband, my friend Sara #1, and I loaded ourselves into Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser, and headed to New Jersey. My goal was to return two shirts that I purchased on Nordstrom online to an actual store so that I could find replacements that fit. As we neared the luxury mall in Paramus, I thought it odd that the parking lot was empty. It was almost 2:00 in the afternoon - prime weekend shopping time. Was the recession really so bad that people didn't even hang out in malls in Jersey any more? Terrifying thought.

My economic fears were soon replaced by annoyance. Husband drove around some orange cones that blocked parts of the parking lot and pulled up to the doors of Nordstrom. "Sundays: Closed," I read aloud. So the whole freaking mall was closed. How fucking un-American is it to close a mall on Sunday? Seriously! We tried another nearby mall, only to find it closed as well. That's when we realized that Paramus, NJ is the most unpatriotic town in the US: no retail stores are open on Sundays, which we assumed is by law. The horror! The horror!

Note to Self: Listen toBlog Readers,* Not Allergist

There's a first for everything. Once I had a sinus infection that was so bad I developed pink eye and laryngitis before it was properly diagnosed.** Another time in college I had a urinary tract infection that I somehow did not notice until it became so bad that it made me vomit.*** Today, I discovered that a sinus infection can get so bad that it gives a person a toothache.

On Saturday, I called my allergist to tell him that I had a lot of yellow mucus that reminded me of the slime that they used to dump on the kids on You Can't Do that on Television. He told me that I should wait until I was sick for a week before he would consider antibiotics. Now, although this is the same doctor who insisted that I take Singular pills (I do not and never have) when I called him to get a refill for my inhaler, this sounded OK to me since I worry about the overuse of antibiotics and the super bugs they create. I want to be part of the solution, not the problem, dammit, so I went about my business.

I swear I even started to feel better. "I see the light at the end of the tunnel," I told a co-worker today at lunchtime after hacking up four pounds of neon mucus into a Kleenex at my desk. She looked a bit skeptical, but said that was great. Then around 3:00, I noticed a dull throbbing in my upper left molar. This eventually spread to my lower left molar. By the time I got out of class at 10:20, I had to hold my face in my hand.

Fortunately, the 24 hour walk-in clinic is not far from school, so I headed over there. I won't go into the hour long wait I experienced although I was the only person there (the doctor apologized profusely and said that no one should have to wait when she's sick; I am easy to mollify), but when she asked me if I had tooth pain, I felt a little less insane. "How did you know?" I asked. "Oh, it means that there's an infection," she smiled. As an experienced sinus infection sufferer, I've never had this before, but hey, first time for everything.

Now I am on some sort of super antibiotic which will hopefully clear up my head infection, but also wreak havoc on the rest of me. (Other good reasons to steer clear of antibiotics if they are unnecessary: 1. disruption of birth control pill; 2. potential for explosive diarrhea; 3. potential for massive vaginal yeast infection. When the doctor said that I had to use condoms for six week and then mentioned the diarrhea and yeast infection, I asked her who would want to have sex under those conditions any way?)

Time for a new allergist. And thanks everyone for wishing me well! Now I am finally on the way. I hope.

*Especially when one reader is an excellent ass surgeon.
**Thank you, NYU student health center for administering pregnancy tests and insisting that I did not have a sinus infection every time I went in to get help for my congestion.
***Seriously, I'm not sure how the fiery burn when I pissed - and constant need to go - didn't tip me off.

The Great Bathroom Wall of Tile

The bathroom wall saga continues. Quick recap: while Husband and I were away at the end of the year, the super of our building asked permission to enter our apartment and tear up the bathroom wall to repair a pipe that was leaking. We were promised that the wall would be returned to the condition in which it was found. Uh huh...

For reasons I cannot possibly fathom, the super refused to allow the management company to hire a professional tiler to fix the enormous holes that were ripped in the wall. (The management company was perfectly willing to do this.) Instead, he had his handyman do it, but the tiles were cut to the wrong size, pasted in so that the insulation was still exposed, and fell out when I looked at it closely. The next day, Husband asked the super to stop the work until a professional could come in. When we arrived home that night, the outrageously crappy tiling job was ripped out, and a new job was done. It was not as horrifying as the first job, but did contain problems like this:



Yes, that is a small hole next to the faucet into which water drips, probably causing a mold problem to fester. This is in addition to all the old tiles that were cracked or chipped during the work and not replaced, but left there to look like shit. And the corner, which was originally a curved tile, that is now two glued together at a 90 degree angle with exposed ceramic. Not to mention that the new tiles are a different shade of white than the old ones. Furious, Husband called the management company, which agreed to order appropriate tiles and have them professionally installed.

Today the super told Husband that he refuses to accept that his work is not as good as a professional. When he arrives here at 7:00, I would like to ask him to return the $130 holiday gift we gave him in December, as he obviously enjoys shitting in my bathroom and telling me I should be grateful it isn't diarrhea and that he left me a mop. I would also like to break into his apartment and shatter all the tiles in his shower and tell him that it is perfectly fine. And really, why is he fighting this? The repairs are not fucking coming out of his personal pocket. I trusted him to come into my home when I wasn't there and do what needed to be done to save the building from extensive damage. His repayment is to take my old shower, which was rather ugly, and make it worse.

We all know where this leads: he better hope that he doesn't need access to make repairs ever again if no one is home, as I will now let the whole fucking building collapse before he ever touches a fucking thing in here. Hey, I have homeowner's insurance.

Update: The super did not show up or call us to cancel.

Yin & Yang

Good news: I had a good 2nd day.

Bad news: I came home to find the progress on my bathroom to be unacceptable. It seems that the building staff is attempting to replace the tile in the shower and bathroom walls themselves rather than hire a contractor. (I suspect that this is because the managing agent balked at the quoted prices.) The upshot is that it looks like shit, with the wrong size tile used on some places and other tiles already are cracked. The new tiles don't look anything like the old ones. I would rather have had them put in a funky color and at least have a cool stripe than two different shades of white. Worse, Husband touched a tile and it fell off the wall.

Good news: I won't be home to deal with it.

Two Words Starting with E, Different Meanings: A Review

In a previous post, I discussed the difference between earned and entitled. (Quick recap: to earn something means that one worked for it and deserves to be compensated for the effort and results; to be entitled means that one did nothing productive or positive but for some reason believes that they should be compensated anyway.) It seems that the same people who caused the global financial collapse still do not understand this important distinctions between the two words.

A headline in yesterday's New York Times Business Section read, "Bonus Season Afoot, Wall Street Tries for a Little Restraint. Tries? Well, par-done-ay moi, aren't you the same assholes who paid yourselves billions of dollars in bonuses over the last few years? You shitheads are lucky there aren't mobs with pitchforks outside your mansions, calling for your heads. You are going to have to "try" a little harder.

The article does note that the top echelons of executives are foregoing bonuses this year, even though they worked very hard all year. Now, here is a prime example of the difference between "earned" and "entitled." At least, in theory, the honchos who destroyed the nation and assisted in rendering people homeless through the sale of shitty mortgages earned their salaries through hard work. To insist that one also gets a bonus for such poor performance is a demonstration that one feels entitled to wealth that one did not earn. In fact, all these fucks should be fired. Their assets should be seized to repay as much of the taxpayers' cost of bailing out their banks as possible.

One line in the article cracked me up:

“Clearly they’re trying to spread the pain out a little bit,” said John Pierson, president of 10X Partners, a finance recruiting firm in New York. “But if I worked at Morgan Stanley and was looking at this, I would not be happy.”

Oh, poor executives who earned billions of dollars over the last few years! It brings a fucking tear to my eye to think about how you'll just have to live on your six or seven figure salaries alone this year, and even in future years, now that bonuses will be stingily parceled out over a longer term to match it to performance, forcing you to demonstrate that you earned your compensation! Such sacrifice!

Spam

One museum that I long harbored dreams of visiting is the Spam Museum in Minnesota. That said, I do not appreciate the amount of spam that CUSS has accumulated in the past few weeks. While I hate to do it, I see no other option but to enable comment moderation for a little while. For the less tech savvy (i.e. - Mom), this means that you will not see any comments you leave until I approve them.

My hope is that this will discuorage the many tentacled spammers and then I can go back to free posting. I leave all non-spam comments up, even when they suggest that the world would be better off if my mom had aborted me. I believe in free speech, and I figure that these types of comments reflect more poorly on the anonymous pieces of shit who leave such hateful comments than it does on me.

Anyway, sorry for the inconvenience, and I hope it does not encourage people from leaving comments. Especially on my request for what gifts are good for feminists.

The Road to Hell is Paved with Spontaneity

In a burst of sentimentality this past weekend, I decided that I should search for bargain airfares and visit Dr. P this weekend in Florida. Given the price of fuel and other cost issues with airlines, I did not expect to find anything. I was shocked when US Airways offered me something for less than I would spend on an advance purchase from New York to Chicago. Remember, just because something doesn't cost a lot in terms of money, it can really add up in other ways. Yes, there are connecting flights in my travel plan.

"Big deal," I thought to myself. "An hour and change should be more than enough."

Silly me! When US Airways informed travels at the exact time that our plane was supposed to land at LaGuardia for my first flight to Philadelphia that it had just left North Carolina, I was screwed. Had someone mentioned the delay earlier, I could have switched to another flight. But it was too late. Long story short, the plane touched down in Philly five hours after I left my apartment that morning, just as my connection left on time for Ft. Lauderdale. Then I learned that the next flight was not for 2.5 more hours. And of course that one was already delayed.

Had I thought about this, I would have booked the ticket from Philly in the first place. (It takes, at most, 2.5 hours on public transportation to get to the Philly airport from NYC.) All the delays meant that I missed the fucking debate last night, which I had been looking forward to viewing for weeks. Argh! I'm hoping to catch it online while Dr. P is at work today. What did people think of it?

The World is Ending!

For years, I've said that a Cubs victory in the World Series is a sign of the apocalypse. We have a potential global financial meltdown just over the horizon. The Cubs are about to begin the first round of playoffs...

I'm conflicted. I so want to the Cubs to win, although I wouldn't mind an end to the horrific acid reflux that torments me at this moment, maybe the end of the world is overkill. Seriously folks, I'm not ready for the world to end. I've got a few books opportunities in the pipeline, I want to savor another Mars bar, and I have never visited Spain.

Yipes.

Good-Bye, Shea Stadium. Hello, Wrigley Field - Go Cubs!

With three outs left until the sad end of the Mets 2008 season, I am not very hopeful that there will be a post season. Husband says that if this leads to the dismissal of horrific team general manager Omar Minaya, he can live with yet another year in which the Mets crumple in September. Plus I will need not be conflicted about my desire to see the Cubs win the World Series for the first time in 100 years with my status as a committed Mets fan. (Had the Mets won the wild card, they would face the Cubs in the first round of playoffs.)

That said, I look forward to watching the Cubs crush the Phillies in the second round of post season play. To repeat one of my favorite childhood ditties, "Go Cubs go!/Go Cubs go!/Hey, Chicago, whaddya say?/The Cubs are gonna win today!/Go Cubs go!"

Un-Conventional

I was just starting to recover this morning from my post Democratic Convention hang over (I ate 2.5 many cupcakes in a pathetic attempt to savor the sweet taste of victory) when I read that McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. She's about as qualified as I am for high office (OK, she's slightly more qualified in that she is Constitutionally old enough and I am not) except that she has more scandals. But I find it depressing.

I'm scared for the future. Good thing I ate another 1.25 cupcakes for breakfast before I read the news.

Update, 7:23 PM EST: I feel a little bit better about the situation now. I saw her speak, and she was as inspiring as a dead salmon pulled from a river polluted by oil drilling. Further, some of the arguments of her supporters are cracking me up. Someone actually suggested that she has a lot of foreign policy expertise because she shares a border with Canada. Not to dis Canada, which I am sure if a tough negotiator on road access or whatever, but that just makes me laugh. I'm taking a deep breath, and waiting to see what happens.

Goodbye, Marylebone Road...

For a variety of reasons, the London move is 99.9% dead. I am bummed. My visions of life in London were rather exciting. Husband and I spent hours scouring the internet looking at neighborhoods, and we loved Marylebone. I pictured the delicious candy bars I would consume every day. Unlike in the US, the community development field is growing in London. (I think.) Plus, I could use the time to write Off the Beaten (Tube) Track. How much fun that would be!

At the same time, it certainly makes life easier. I won't have to live apart from Husband at all in 2009, which is very good. Not eating delicious candy bars every day is much better for my health. Finding employment in New York when I plan to live here year round will be easier than when I planned to spend my winter and summer breaks in London. Another big plus is that we won't go broke.

Still, dreams die hard. I'm hoping that Husband will get another opportunity to work in London in the near future. Until then, Elton John's lament plays in my head. Oooooh ooooh oooooh...

It Was Smashing

On Friday afternoon, I took the train up to Stamford, CT, where Husband works. He picked me up at the train station in Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser, and we motored up to Massachusetts for our godson's 2nd birthday celebration extravaganza. Since we took off around 2 pm, we beat most of the traffic, and were able to enjoy a delightful evening with my friend Alex, her husband Big Giraffe, and their two kids.

The party was set to begin at 11 am on Sat., so we offered to help out and pick up a few last minute items. First on our list was balloons. Around 9:30, Husband and I headed over to the local party store, parked Fred, and picked out a ginormous Winnie the Pooh mylar balloon and a dozen regular ones. The party store was a bit of a madhouse, so it took a few minutes for them to take our order, and we were told to return around 10:15. We paid and headed out for our next item, which was ice.

When I approached the passenger door of Fred, I thought, "Hmmm... that's odd. Why is there glass all over the front seat?" Just as my brain was slowly processing the message my eyeballs sent in, Husband said, "SHIT! Someone fucking smashed my window and stole the GPS."


Indeed, it was true. Clearly, we would not be bringing the balloons and ice to the party.

Cutting a long story short, we filed a police report and drove Fred to an auto glass repair shop. Fortunately, the good folks there were able to fix Fred that day, and 10 hours later as we drove back to NYC in the pouring rain, we were nice and dry in the car.

Why Am I Flying Off this Treadmill?

One of my many (albeit minor) fears is that as I run on the treadmill, I will slip and somehow get sucked off. I could only imagine how incredibly painful, not to mention embarrassing, it would be as I landed on my head, knee, arm or whatever while all the pretty people at my gym just continued jogging away, pretending not to notice the klutz in the shlubby outfit. Until last night.

As usual, I approached the treadmill from slightly to the side. I looked over my shoulder to tell Husband something as I stepped onto the belt, and then I was confused. Why was I falling? Why did I fall on my arm and leg again as I tried to stand up? And damn, where was the skin that used to cover my elbow? Help! I made some sort of pathetic noises and the treadmill sucked me down. The woman on the treadmill in front of me turned around as Husband ran over and turned the treadmill off.

No, I didn't turn it on. Some motherfucker just left it running. Of course, I should have looked before I got on it, but generally I don't expect the machine to be going. "Who the fuck left this one?" I muttered. (OK, it wasn't a mutter, but more of a loud growl that everyone around me could hear.) The woman on the treadmill in front of me turned back to her machine very quickly. Uh huh. I got your number, lady.

For the record, it hurts like fuck when you fall over and over again on a treadmill. I think this must have been worse than a regular fall, since I probably would not have tried to stand up again if I knew the damn thing was on and would just throw me back down. And yes, from now on I will make very certain that the machine I step on it not already in motion. My new bruises from the incident are shaping up nicely, though.

Shit that Pisses Me Off

A quick list of shit that is vexing me:

Al Qaeda Warrior Uses Internet to Rally Women - According to the NY Times, a woman who benefits from the freedom's the west offers her - and who absorbed the lessons of feminism and demands to be heard - is blogging for jihad against the hand that feeds her. My favorite part is how she refuses to believe women in Afghanistan that the Taliban regime discriminated against them. When I read things like this, I just despair for humanity. Dealing with ignorance is one thing. Dealing with willful, crazy ignorance is another, and impossible. You can't reason with people like this.

People still are using interest-only mortgages to buy homes that they clearly cannot afford. In the past two weeks, I reviewed two applications to buy apartments in my co-op that were so far out of the buyers' budgets that I could only laugh hysterically. Yet there they were, acting as if there is no mortgage gimmick crisis going on in the nation. In fact, why shouldn't they get to live in places that are completely above their means? Waiting until you can actually afford something is so old-fashioned. You only live once, so who cares if you take down the responsible fuddy-duddies like me when you default?

The Minnesota Supreme Court screwed the child care industry by redefining what it means to be a nonprofit organization. Of course, their reason was faulty and lacked any knowledge of the economics of child care, which is a classic example of a market failure. Anyone who wants to be depressed can read my explanation of the pathetic situation ("Why Child Care is a Non-Profit Enterprise, Sliding Fee Scales Be Damned") at Just Cause.

Bah. Later I'll write about how I eyed a puddle of vomit on the subway platform like vomit.

Get Your Popemobile Off My Highway!

Important things are occurring tomorrow. Passover begins at sundown, and we'll be heading to Husband's parents' house for what counts as a Seder in our lax Haggadahs: recite the Four Questions, sing Dayanu, then chow down. Mother-in-Law doesn't even bother getting desserts that are kosher for Passover. Wisely, she believes that if you are going to eat dessert, it should taste good.

Prior to my Passover eating fest, I will attend a baby shower in Yonkers. Yonkers is a city just north of the City. It is the 4th largest city in New York State, but since it lives in the shadow of New York City, it gets shit on a lot as a suburb. (Sort of like Newark, but Newark is even more screwed because it is in New Jersey, but that's another story.) Most likely I will eat a lot of yummy foods at the shower.

The problem is that two leaders of institutions of evil will make it difficult to get to the baby shower, and then to Long Island. It seems that the Pope and Dick Cheney will be visiting some seminary that is just off the Cross County Parkway, thus forcing the highway to possibly close. We need this highway to get there. There is one alternative, but no one wants to read my rants about the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was built by Robert Moses and killed communities in the Bronx. (Cheney and the Pope belong on the Cross Bronx, believe me.)

Hopefully, we'll get where we need to go. (By "we," I mean Husband, who is going to drive me to shower and run amok at Costco for about an hour, then pick me up again.) What also concerns me is how low energy Tycho, my 13 lb. rabbit, is today. I think he is depressed that the Pope is in town. He heard a rumor that a distant relative of his, the Easter Bunny (perhaps you heard of him?), was molested by a priest. He's not down with the excuses that the Pope made that these incidents are the fault of a permissive American culture. Can't say I blame him.

April Fool's: One Day Late or Just a Shitty Morning?

I am supposed to be having a meeting this very second. However, the guy who is supposed to meet with me is not here. Where can he be?

The phone on my desk says, "Message for you." Perhaps he left me a message about the meeting? If that is the case, though, I'll not know, as no one in this office knows the voicemail password to my extension or how to reset it.

Maybe he emailed me. That would be rational, except that as of last week, I was still using my predecessor's email and that is what he would email me at. This week, the account was disabled, but I have no access to my email account because my computer, which appears to be circa 1999 (sorry Prince - no partying like it is), resets its setting every day, so until the guy who can put me back on the networks shows up, I can't check my email. Not that my meetee would email me there, anyway.

Also, it might be good that he isn't here. Since I lose my network settings every time I log off, I have no access to the shared drive, which is where the material we are to meet about is stored.

Happiness is a grassroots organization.

The Thorn is Out

When I applied to law school in 1996, the process was pretty straight forward. If you did well on the LSAT, had a decent GPA, and proved to be the slightest bit interesting, you were getting in somewhere. I applied to four schools, and was accepted to two second tier programs with scholarships, and waitlisted at two top tier schools. At the end of the day, I was glad that I did not get into my top choice program, as I suspect I would have felt compelled to finish law school and begin a miserable career as an attorney.

In 1997, when I applied to public administration programs, I knew that schools preferred people with some work experience. I hoped that my single year would be enough to get me through the doors of the two programs to which I applied. Immediately, I was accepted at one school and given a scholarship. The program I preferred to go to waitlisted me. Although I ultimately was accepted, I hated that the program was more business-focused than public service oriented, which struck me as odd for a public administration and policy school. I worked while I schooled, finished my two years there, and began a miserable career as a child care policy expert.

Given my history with graduate education, I am not sure why I expected it to be different this time. If anything, the admissions qualifications are even murkier: demonstrate talent. What the fuck does that mean? I tried my best, and sent my writing sample to two programs, knowing that only six people are admitted at one of them.

I knew that I didn't make the cut at Hunter when I didn't get a call in February (hence all my blather about silent bad news), but I didn't have an official rejection, either. At first, I just wanted it to be over with. The longer I lived in limbo, the more I knew that rejection would hurt. This morning, I sent an email to the program director, noting that I understood that the six spots were filled, but if something opened up in the late spring or summer, I would love it if they would consider me. She emailed me back a few hours later and said that she would keep me in mind.

Imagine my surprise when I found my rejection letter from the program in the mail when I got home from work. I realize that suggesting that they eat shit is inappropriate, but I sort of can't help but think it anyway. Fuckers.

Hippos Lurk, But So Does Happiness

After my trip to the Bung Hole wine bar yesterday, I figured that I was due for some good news today. Initially, I was disappointed. Returning to work, I discovered that my the grant that my new employer uses to fund my position was revoked while I was gone last week. There's a chance that the funder will be convinced to give it back to them, but I won't know until tomorrow or Thursday. Cool.

When I got home from work this evening, there was still no word from either graduate program that I applied to. However, my answering machine did contain the best news possible: Monkey Girl said that Count Mockula had her baby in the wee hours of the morning! Both mom and baby are doing well. (And MG: I can't find your number, so can you email it to me or call me back?) Yay!

My advice to Zadie is to stay away from hippos. Although they look very peaceful lying around in pools of mud, they can suddenly creep up and tip your canoe. Or at the very last, scare the crap out of you with their bad teeth, which makes me think of that hilarious shark from the Strange Wilderness commercial.

The Picture Says It All

After losing my planned post for BlogHer yesterday, which was infuriating (I re-wrote it and posted it today), my fucking piece of shit laptop lost an article that I worked on for almost four hours this most delightful afternoon. This was partially my fault, as I forgot to save it as another document after I downloaded it, but I did save it about 400 times while I worked on it, so I'm not sure why it never showed up in the temp file.


That pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. As for the restaurant, I am curious who would eat at a place with such a name. Fascinating.

If the Bra Doesn't Fit, Don't Buy It

My faith in the ancient cult of bra fitting saleswomen is shattered. The sole reason I went to the Town Shop is because it reminded me of Schwartz's lingerie shop. My mom always took me to buy bras at Schwartz's because the salesladies there are trained in the art of fitting bras. The Town Shop has the same set up as Schwartz, in which some woman measures the customer, shows her some bras from the boxes behind the counter in which they are kept, then brings stuff to her in a fitting room, and finally adjusts and tugs the products once they are donned in a final fit test.

I went through the process (minus the measuring) when buying two bras to replace two of mine that were branapped. I thought one of he bras was too tight, but the saleswoman, who was my age, insisted that there was plenty of room.

"If you can stick your hand under the back, it's too big," she said, criticizing me for wearing bras that were too loose.

I figured that she was a bra expert, and that the bra would stretch a bit, so I purchased it. However, when I wore it yesterday, it was so tight that it left red marks all over my back in the shape of the bra. The receipt clearly states that bras must be unworn and have the tags on to be returned, but since I bought mine based on the recommendation of their staff and could only tell by wearing it that it was wrong, I am hoping that they will exchange it for a product that actually supports and uplifts without also squeezing my rib cage like an angry octopus.

Either way, the age of the wise bra fitter is over for me, although I did watch two episodes of How to Look Good Naked on Lifetime (yes, I am admitting that I stooped low enough to watch that crap channel, although this show is awesome and worth it), and the show has a "bra whisperer" who helps women find their best tit supporting garment. It almost restored my faith.

Tits are Expensive

Back in November, I discovered that one of my bras went missing. It was very disconcerting, and not in the least because replacing it would cost me $68. I grit my teeth, chalked up my loss, and vowed to guard its fraternal twin (the missing bra was white; the remaining one beige) carefully.

So it was with enormous regret that I realized this week that my remaining fancy bra also disappeared. What the fuck? Where are these bras going? I looked everywhere: in the laundry, under my bed, on my rocking chair, in suitcases, in my undies drawer, and it was the same damn thing. The bra was gone without a trace. (Man, that would be a good episode of Without a Trace, watching Anthony LaPaglia and co. chase down missing items of clothing.)

Now that I lost another good bra, I had to buy replacements. I moseyed over to the old lady bra shop near my apartment. The type of place where the salespeople have been measuring women for bras since the bra was invented. Not only did I nearly faint from the sticker price - $142!!!!! - but I also was displeased to learn that I required a larger cup size.* Breasts certainly come at a high price, my friends.

*Interestingly, the bra I wore while shopping was deemed to fit perfectly, and I bought that one around the same time as the ones gone missing. It seems the manufacturer is making their boobie supports smaller rather than "Leon getting larger."**

**A hilarious quote from Airplane. I do not actually refer to my boobs as Leon, although now that I made this joke, I may begin to do so.

Suzanne on the Verge

When it comes to applying to school, I am very organized and I start early. Thus way back in October, I requested transcripts from my undergraduate school and my graduate school be sent to the MFA programs I decided to apply to. Much to my surprise, my undergraduate school - which was/is notorious for not giving a shit about students - had a very convenient online form to fill out to request a transcript. I then printed a copy and faxed in my signature. At every step along the way, I received an email confirming they received my request. Very nice!

My snooty Ivy League grad school, however, will only allow alumni to mail transcript requests or ask for them in person. I trekked up to their office, and while not exactly convenient, they seemed to take care of it immediately. Still, I was a little nervous because the chick processed my form without a date on it, so I called back a few weeks later. The guy on the phone confirmed that the transcripts were sent. Excellent.

It took me a few weeks longer to finish the rest of the applications, as I had to submit a writing sample and personal statement, and I wanted to send in the best work I could. By mid-December, I had a portfolio that I felt proud of, and I sent the rest of the application in. Then I heard nothing from wither school. You see where this is going...

Yesterday was the deadline for one of the programs. I called the admissions office in early January upon my return from Hawaii to verify that the application was complete. The woman told me that she could not check, but that I would get something in the mail indicating if anything was missing. Days went by and I heard nothing. Then on Sat., Jan 12 - a whopping three days before the fucking deadline - I get a letter in the mail. The letter is dated Jan. 7 and the envelop postmarked Jan. 11. Said letter tells me to look up my application online, so I do. And guess what is missing? That's right - my motherfucking grad school transcript.

Now I am an anxious basket case. Monday morning rolls and I call the admissions office, offering to personally bring in the transcripts in an envelop that afternoon. She says that's fine and that I have until the end of the week, but the director of the program emphasized that they cannot look at your application until the admissions office deems it complete, so I want it complete. In fact, I wanted it complete three fucking weeks ago, which is why I finished it and submitted it a month early.

Anyway, then I get a call for a good week-long gig, which I have to leave early so I can run around for the fucking transcript. I deliver it to the receptionist at 4:15 pm. She opens the envelop and stamps the materials as received. I hover around, waiting for her to enter the fucking things into the system, but she does not. I stammer things nervously and leave. I toss and turn last night, keeping Husband awake until I evacuate for the couch. I cross my fingers.

Two days later, the information has not been recorded and my application is still incomplete. I decided to email the program director and explain what happened, and hope like hell that they will evaluate my application. If this does not work, you can all visit me in prison because I am going to fucking kill someone in that admissions office.

I See Eye Fungus

On Thursday at my new eye doctor's office, I noticed a sign taped onto the paper towel dispenser as I was washing my hands in the bathroom. It said in large bold print to discontinue using Bausch & Lomb ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens solution immediately as it can cause eye fungus and thus was recalled. "Hmmmm," I thought to myself. "I wonder what I use." I made a mental note to check when I got home, then promptly forgot about it because that's what happens with 97% of my mental notes.

As I was putting in my lenses yesterday morning, the note resurface on my mind's desk top. I took a gander at the 4 oz. bottle sitting on my nightstand. ReNu with MoistureLoc. Same with an unopened travel-size bottle. Shit. (Incidentally, both also expired in Jan. 2007. Oops.) I rummaged through the other free travel-size bottles of solution provided by my former eye doctor. The remaining four were other brands, although one expired in April 2007.

Two things scare me about this discovery. The first is that the products were apparently recalled in May 2006, and this was the first I heard anything about it. (Thanks, former eye doctor, for looking out for your patients.) The second thing that scares me is that I actually sat there for a few minutes debating whether I should throw the recalled products out. My internal debate:

Me: Damn, these are recalled! I'm lucky that I didn't get an eye fungus! I better throw the two bottles out ASAP.
Cheap Bastard Me: What? One of those bottles is half full and the other one isn't even opened! How can you waste this stuff!?!? Sure, you have another 4.5 more travel-sized bottles of perfectly good other contact lens solution, but you might actually need to go buy more since the new eye doc doesn't give out free bottles!
Me: (Hesitates.) Good point, but these expired last year anyway and I'm not pushing my luck. (Reaches for bad bottles.)
CBM: Nooooooo!

Anyway, I battled CBM and won. The recalled products are in the trash. I am proud to announce that I am now using the bottle of contact lens solution that expired in April 2007.

Don't Worry. Be Happy.

While in the cab back to my apartment from the airport, I noticed that I unconsciously began picking my cuticles. It took less than an hour for me to be back to "real" life before my anxiety set in. What kind of new job could I get this year? Will I ever find a job that I will like again? Would I be accepted into an MFA program? When am I going to get cracking on developing a curriculum for two classes on budgeting that I am teaching in January and February and why didn't I start before I left? It didn't help that when I turned my cell phone on after debarking, I found a voicemail from a small local policy magazine waiting for me. What did I think of all the closures of publicly funded child care centers that had been announced recently? This is what I worked on over the summer as a consultant, but the last thing I want to do right now is think about it.

It seems that my "real" life stresses me the fuck out. Contrast this to my last two weeks away. None of my fingers were bloody from my anxious cuticle shredding. I barely thought about whether I would get into an MFA program or not, and while I did fret a little bit about planning a curriculum and getting a job, it wasn't nearly as intense as it is now. It's hard to stress when there are giant sea turtles swimming near me or when I'm concentrating on climbing to the top of Diamond Head Crater and soaking in the majestic views.

Husband and I spent our last day of vacation freedom in Hawaii with a snorkel trip and a visit to the 'Iolani Palace. The snorkel trip was fantastic. We climbed onto a catamaran from a sandy beach (no rocks to slip on or sea urchins to worry about, although we heard some jelly fish washed up onto a different section of the beach), then rode out for ten minutes to a section known as turtle canyon. Armed with floatation devices, we climbed down the boat ladder into warm enough water and had an amazing view of tons of schools of fish as we swam among them. ("Swim" is a very strong word in my case. It was more like dog paddled and splashed around to propel myself in a direction.) For the last 15 minutes of the hour in the water, big and bigger sea turtles swam both below us and on the surface. We emerged exhilarated.

The Palace was fascinating. We learned about the last Hawaiian monarchs work to modernize the country while preserving the unique Hawaiian culture. Unfortunately, an evil cabal of US businessmen overthrew the popularly supported rulers, and from then on, Hawaii lost its independent status. It was incredibly moving to stand in the Palace room used to imprison Queen Lili'uokalani for years. Like at Pearl Harbor, I was reminded of the fallacy of the American myth: justice and fairness only triumph sometimes.

Back at home, Husband and I watched Barak Obama win the Democratic Iowa Caucus. Maybe, like the sea turtles, fairness and justice will persevere in the sea of history. (OK, that was hokey, but I'm trying to find a way to tie everything together and wrap it up.)

Suzanne, the Snowperson

Motherfucker, it is cold in Chicago. In fact, I'm not a snowperson, although there is snow all over the place. (Apparantly, it snowed about 6-9 inches yesterday and last night. Somehow I missed this and neglected to bring snow boots. Sigh.) It is so damn cold here that I am an icicle person. Now my outside matches my cold heart. Ha! I kid. But seriously, folks, it's damn cold.

Tomorrow is a jam-packed day, so I suspect that I will not be able to blog until later at night. In addition to bringing you a detailed report of the first bris I am attending in my 31 11/12th years, I will also carry the humanism/feminism conversation over to BlogHer. Does the excitement never end? I thought not.

A Taxing Situation

Someone's gotta pay for the Iraq War, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the uber-wealthy. Instead, they get special tax cuts for being so special. I mean, everyone knows that God shows His favorites by making them rich, so it would just be totally wrong to make them pay for God's blessings. It would be punishing them for things that weren't their fault, you know?

The working poor can only pay through indirect means, like cutting programs that help them make ends meet. Check. Still, we need more money to pay for the Goldy tax cuts and Iraq War. OK, squeezing the middle class will shake out a few more pennies. Who does that leave? Oh, the self-employed! Yay!

Seriously, I don't mind paying my fair share in taxes. As a person who has seen the benefits of an excellent public education, tax write-offs on owning a home, and other general good fortune, I believe it is my responsibility to support the same opportunities for other people. My commitment extends, however, to all classes. It strikes me as insanely unfair that I am for some reason paying a higher share of my earnings than people who made 10 or even 100 times more than I did. Last night I calculated how much I managed to eke out this year (and was impressed that my high priced consulting gigs yielded about 30G! Go me!) and then Husband informed me that 60% of that is going to taxes because of FICA.*

I understand that people like Paris Hilton need their hard earned money in ways that I don't, and that their valuable contributions to society's entertainment via porn tapes leaked to the internet completely dwarf anything I might be doing. But is it not a little fucked up that their tax rate is about half of mine? I guess I'll need to screw some little people over so that I may earn God's favor and exempt myself from taxes. Better luck to us all next year.

*Our income disparity does not help my situation. Hello, marriage tax penalty, which gives me a double whammy!

Sweet December

I'm finishing out 2007 at home in New York, at my parents' house (get ready for grandmother stories next week), back home in New York, and then in Hawaii and Oahu. In that time I will also finish my grad school applications, take the GRE, and watch hours and hours of Hunter on DVD. (Man, the guest stars from season one - Frances McDormand, Drian Dennehy, Ed O'Neil, and Dennis Franz, for example - rock my world.)

Not only am I fortunate enough to have a semi-easy end to my year, but I am lucky to see December 1st at all. As I have complained many times, drivers in the city seem to believe that red lights do not require them to stop their vehicles. They just cruise right through, even after pedestrians get the cheerful "walk" light and venture into the crosswalk. As I mentioned on Ev's post about hitting a deer (excerpt: "As I was standing on the brake, fishtailing towards a ditch, watching the deer's head and neck fly over the roof of my truck while the front half and the back half of the torso broke apart at the ribs, and I was thinking, 'Huh! I never would have expected it to do that!'"), I was nearly run down by a shiny new BMW that neglected to follow traffic laws. I was eating a Trader Joe's 100 Calorie pack of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I hurled one at the car as he narrowly missed my toes. I smashed against the front passenger side window with a satisfying, if small, noise and shattered into a million pieces. (That's when I realized I should carry little paintballs in my pocket with me from now on...) The other guy crossing the street while I was agreed with me that drivers are fucking maniacs.

Another disturbance in the balance of the world happened when I read that The Red Balloon is being re-released. I cannot explain why that fucking movie vexes me so much, but it was always 34 minutes of hell when they forced us to watch it in grammar school. Every damn year. For reasons that are beyond me, my beloved Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of A. Tarnation!