A Bad Week... and a Goodbye

Written: March 1, 2010

The week started out not so good for me. I was the victim of another "workforce reduction" on Monday... and it just seemed to slide downhill from there.

That same day, Rex crashed and totaled his beloved truck -- I am so grateful that he was okay, and please don't think I'm not aware that that single fact may have actually been an amazing stroke of luck that puts the rest of my whining to shame.... I couldn't bear to think of losing him. But the loss of that truck is a bad thing, not the least of which being that he and I both have a sentimental attachment to it.

Then last night, in the process of installing my birthday present -- a Roku gadget which allows me to download NetFlix directly to my television -- my Mac bit the dust. The" on" switch has been intermittently wigging out for months, but this time it's been 24 hours and I still can't get it to come back up. For me, the loss of the computer is a devastating loss.

It's not so much loss of files -- i had all the important stuff backed up but have lost some stuff that will be really annoying to replace -- as the fact that I am unemployed and broke and really, really don't want to go into the debt hole that I'd finally climbed out of when I don't know how I'm going to pay my mortgage, let alone a credit card bill -- to replace something so integral to my quality of life and a source of what little livlihood i have left.They will charge me $150 just to open the computer up.... it just makes me want to cry. (I am writing this now on Rex's NetBook. Blame any typos on my not being able to see the tiny screen very well.)

But then I got a phone call this morning that put everything in perspective, even as it proved a dismal ending to week that wasn't very good to begin with.

I have had a lot of "best friends" throughout my life, but the single most enduring friendship has been with Kelly Burch Cole. We met in college, lived as roommates for several years after my graduation, and -- as cliched as it sounds -- she is my sister more than just my friend. We've seen a lot less of each other in recent years -- she's a working mother with three children and I'm a single, often anticsocial person whose life has moved in far, far different directions.

But I always know she is there, and she - i hope -- has always known i was here.

And its not just Kelly who has become my family over the last 27 years -- her family has become mine as well. I dated her brother, Ray, on and off for a couple years; I lived with both her brother and her father in Huntsville for three years right after I graduated, working in their furniture store. (And I might add, I suffered all the same insantiy with Kelly's dad that his actual children did, and that alone bonded us in ways that can never be fully understood by anyone but us.)

Kelly introduced me to her mother, Elaina, while we were still in college. "Want to come with me to met my mom?" she asked one weekend. I was always ready for a road trip, so I packed a few things -- a dress, some heels, my hot curlers -- and off we went to Alabama.

Now, here is a point of continuing contention between myself and Kelly. I heard, "We're going to see Mom at the beach in Gulf Shores." Kelly swears she said: "We're going to see Mom CAMPING at the beach at Gulf Shores."

I still insist that I never heard the word "camping" because I would never have agreed to go camping, anywhere, anytime, with anybody. Imagine my chagrin to I find myself squatting around a campfire, ridiculously overpacked with nothing of any practical use but the jeans and t-shirt I was wearing. If I had not been able to borrow a sweat shirt from Elaina, I would have frozen to death. I'm not a camping kind of girl.

And yet, I had fun.(And I became addicted to Elaina's magnificent baked beans and ribs.... but I still do not camp.)

But Kelly's mom, Elaina, opened her arms and heart and home to me from that moment onward. During a long period when I was far from home, and my own family relationships were complicated, Elaina became my second mom, and I became a "yard kid."

When Elaina sent Kelly an easter basket at school, she sent one for me as well. When I spent my first Christmas away from home, Elaina included me in their family celebration -- an orgy of chili, homemade cookies and far too many generous gifts. I was blown away by the lengths at which she went to make me feel not just included, but as if I was a long-lost child.

When Kelly and I got our first apartment together, Elaina was there to help us move, to help us make it a home... and most importantly, she fed us when we were too broke to go to the grocery store.

Elaina was, even then, a "wise old lady" who listened to me through numerous crisis and heartbreaks. She truly taught me that sometimes you CAN choose your family, that blood is not always the most important thing that binds people together. She taught me what is is to have an open, generous heart.

A couple of years ago, Elaina was put on oxygen. A lifetime of smoking finally caught up with her. The last time I saw her, she couldn't walk four feet without gasping for air, and the sight scared the hell out of me.

The doctors didn't expect her to last as long as she did. Kelly called me Friday night, and the fear and sorrow in her voice was terrible. Elaina had fallen and broken her arm, and Kelly was certain that the end was near. Elaina seemed, finally, too tired to keep on fighting.

On Saturday night, the end came peacefully for Elaina, and Kelly was there with her. I thank God for both of those things.

I do have one regret... that I did not return Elaina's last phone call. She called me at Christmas and left a message to tell me that she loved me, and that she was grateful to have had me in her life. She knew her time was almost over, and it is typical of her generous spirit to want to share just a little more love with people she cared about.

I don't really know why I didn't call her back. I was probably caught up in my own petty, personal crap and just never got around to it. I know that she knew -- knows -- that she was special to me, that I was the one who gained so much by being a part of her life - but I wish I had told her that one last time.

Life is short. Tell the people you love what they mean to you.

Day Four

I just finished rewatching "Witness for the Prosecution" -- the old black and white classic, with Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich. What a great old movie but provoked a couple of random thoughts:

First, Laughton is an amazing actor but lordy, lordy... he is a seriously unattractive man. Even without the makeup, he still looks like Quasimodo's only slightly more attractive brother, bless his heart. That he managed a career in Hollywood at all is an achievement. But the sheer presence of the man has to be part of the reason. I shall have to look for more Laughon in other films.

What amazed me this time around about WFTP-- I saw it years and years ago -- was seeing just how much of Marlene's performance inspired Madeline Kahn in "Blazing Saddles." I mean, I knew that Lilli Von Stupp was based on Marlene but really "seeing" it -- now that I've seen BS about a dozen times -- was fun.

Dietrich DOES sound like a German Elmer Fudd when it comes to pronouncing the letter "R." (It's twue, it's twue!) Even the scene in the club where Dietrich was singing was so much like Lill's stage show -- right down to the drunks storming the stage -- it was a hoot! And at the end, when Marlene is clutching at Tyrone Power crying, "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" all I could see was Kahn hanging onto Sheriff Bart, saying the same thing before bursting into hysterical German. (Something really hysterical, though, was hearing Dietrich attempt a cockney accent. She just about nails it until an "R" comes along....)

Anyway.... i watched that while sewing a monkey (yes, I have monkeys all over the place), Then called Centennial and my doctor and my bank trying to figure out which medical bills got paid twice, once by me, once by my insurance... and now checking my online life.

Next on the agenda: ordering more socks, then adding embellishments to a couple of treasure boxes in the finishing stages of production, and finishing (hopefully) another monkey while watching "Frost/Nixon" later this evening.

Though I may opt for my NetFlix of "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

Or maybe seeing if Season 2 of "Breaking Bad" is available on InDemand. I've finished Season 1 and am loving it. Mr White is like a combination of Mr. Wizard and McGyver. Mercury fluminate, indeed. What a hoot. Though this series has shown me how very unlikely it is I would ever succeed as a meth dealer. I'm a lousy chemist.

The Last of the Oreos

Written: February 25, 2010.

Three days into unemployment... again.... and I'm having difficulty relaxing. Hmm.

Let me be clear about this. I am upset about losing another job -- demoralized, worried and a tad humiliated. I shouldn't say I lost it, because that just reminds me of an old Bobcat Goldthwait joke: "I didn't lose my job. I know where it is. It's just that when I go there, there's some other guy doing it."

But let's be honest. You all knew I hated that job, and on some level, I feel like one of the children of Israel, skipping into the desert after Moses and not even bothering to whine, "Are we there yet? Yes, the Pharaoh finally let my people go.

(Of course, you know what happened to them. They went a little nuts, started worshiping golden cows and really pissed God off. Jehovah gave them the longest time-out in history: forty years, just wandering around the desert. No pudding for them, either.)

So I have really mixed feelings at this point. If it weren't for the money thing -- and the health insurance thing -- I would be deliriously happy to never work outside my home again. I say "outside my home" because I do stay busy.

But right now i'm having trouble shifting gears. I'm so used to watching that clock in my head, the one that says in ticks of utter dread, "You have to go to bed now because you have to get up at 6 am.... you have to get off the computer now and make dinner...." The one that says, "Hurry, hurry, HURRY!"

If you sacrifice eight hours a day (more if you count prep and travel time) to the Almighty Dollar -- and if, like me, you count your "real" life only as the stuff you can cram into those other hours, and resent things like sleep and even showering because they take away precious moments you could be painting or making boxes or writing or stuffing monkeys while watching reruns of Law & Order -- you know what I mean. "Gotta" seems to rule your life, as in "I gotta get this done." "Should" comes in a close second: "I should clean the oven/vacuum the carpet/scour the tub/organize my tupperware/wash the walls/clean out the litter box/take out the garbage/chop the everlasting carrots and celery...."

You feel like you're running a race against the clock. Gotta, gotta, gotta. Should, should, should.

Luckily for me, the "gotta's" are the things I want to be doing. And I am never happier than when I'm at home, getting all that fun stuff done. It's just that ever-present, free-floating pressure that bothers me. Even on the weekends, I'm so damned aware of the sands running through the hour glass that I feel like I rush, rush, rush.

Now the pressure is off. Or is it? Because I know that the clock is still running, even if on a different level entirely. I've got sixty days (actually fifty-seven now) to enjoy the freedom of getting a paycheck -- meager though it is -- without having to do a damn thing I don't want to do for 24 hours a day. At some point, I will have to do something about my future in the workforce of America.

But I haven't been able to relax yet. And that's what I loved about being unemployed for such a long stretch before. The sheer joy of not feeling pressured to be doing something productive as efficiently as possible every waking moment. The freedom to nap at three in the afternoon without worrying that I won't be able to sleep that night.

During my last unemployment, I spent a solid hour at my kitchen window watching the guys across the street cut down a tree that must have been at least three stories high. I was riveted to that window. I thought they just cut the base and yelled Timber, getting the hell out of the way. But they don't.

They cut most of the branches off first. Then one guy in a safety harness climbed to the very top, and sawed off the first four or five feet. He then tied a rope around it, and he and the other guys standing around below carefully lowered the section to the ground. Then the process repeated itself, until the whole tree was horizontal. The most interesting part was when the top guy got to the bigger thickness of the trunk, and had to use a chain saw.

How often do you get to watch a man tied to a tree, twenty feet in the air, wielding a chain saw?

(Truthfully, I don't know how much of my fascination was in waiting to see if the tree-hugger would fall, or if a section would come crashing down onto the roof of the house a mere five feet away. It's the same lurid fascination that makes us watch NASCAR races, police chases and America's Funniest Home Videos. We wanna see that guy belly flop off the trampoline into the swing set.)

My point, however, is that having the luxury of time, I could enjoy the death and removal of a big honkin' tree. And now I know how they do it without crushing a car. Learning is fun, you know.

I'm trying to get back that relaxed pace of simply being, and not constantly doing. I sleep as late as I want. I get up and eat my Cheerios while I scour the tv offerings for the day. Yesterday I found "Reality Bites" on HBO and watched it again while stuffing a monkey. I had forgotten how clever that movie was, though at the old age of 47, that twenty-something angst is funny to me now in ways they never intended, and bittersweetly nostalgic as well.

I have been indulging in old episodes of "No Reservations" on In Demand. (I think In Demand programming is the bee's knees, perhaps second only to the iPod and Netflix as the top societal advances of the last 50 years.)

I would kill Anthony Bourdain, the host, if I knew I would get his job. I wouldn't even quibble about eating the disgusting things, too, if it meant I got to see as much of the world as he does, always working in a dinner or two at some fabulous four-star restaurant where he gets to sample everything on the menu. I'd have to go into serious training, though, to drink as much as Tony does. I assume they turn the camera off when he starts to slur his words.

But I do enjoy watching Tony eat a whole pig with drunken Greeks -- or Italians, or Czechs or Phillipinos, cause where ever in the world Tony goes, it seems someone is always slaughtering a hog for him, as if he's a traveling minor deity. How cool is that?

He's funny, too, in slyly confidential way. I have to admire a man who can eat bratwurst while managing to work in a Rocco Siffredi Love Bus reference, or slip in an off-hand joke about three-ways and reach-arounds while eating tiny lamb chops from a sheep that was walking around just minutes before.

Anyway.... it's now three a.m. and I'm not yet in bed. Maybe I am finally beginning to lose that inner time bomb.

But tomorrow, I really gotta take a shower

Suicide by Oreo

Written: February 22, 2010.

Tonight, George and I sat down with an entire package of Oreo cookies and a big freakin' glass of whole milk. That's right. Whole milk and a shitload of America's favorite cookie. I'm dunking George and holding that little muther under till he stops thrashing around.

I'm not really trying to commit suicide by sugar overdose. It takes too long and besides, I really wanna know how LOST turns out. And I didn't eat the whole package. Just ten or fifteen of those creme-filled sandwiches of death.

So what am I doing? Well, I'm either drowning my sorrows in an orgy of lard and sugar, or celebrating the fact that I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that.

Yes, friends, neighbors and people who barely know me -- I am unemployed. Again. "Workforce reduction" is the term they used. Does it really mean that Hewlett Packard is tightening its belt, or is "workforce reduction" just a code word for "we don't want you anymore but we're afraid of wrongful termination lawsuits" ??

The Invisible Man (aka my boss) assured me it was no reflection on my workplace contributions, and so far I know at least one other person who got the ax today. But still..... I've been terminated more than Sarah Conner in all four movies, and I'm pretty freakin' sick of having authorized personnel escort me from the building with a box of my belongings.

It's humiliating to be let go even from a job you loathe. I mean, hell, they could teach a monkey to do what I did, but they'd have to pay the monkey more.

No more WTF Names of the Day. No more Quickie Cubicle Lunch Reviews. On the other hand, I can spend all day posting every whining pathetic thought that passes through my brain, and annoy the shit out of all of you by posting lyrics to whatever song happens to be playing on my iPod at any given moment. ("You Don't Know Me" by Ray Charles.) I can take every stupid quiz and challenge you to do the same, find out what my hip-hop name should be (and invite you to do the same), and send you a million invites to play "My Town" until you unfriend me.

The good news is that I will be paid my regular salary until April 23. That's sixty days of a paycheck until I'm living on peanut butter and jelly. Again. Sixty days until George and I are on our own, alone in a world without health insurance. If diabetes doesn't get me, my bipolar monkey probably will.

Sigh.... I do apologize for the sarcasm and misanthropy of this note. Blame it on George, who's swinging from the ceiling fan at the moment.

I'll be better tomorrow. Probably. Maybe. Oh, who the hell knows. I may just decide to devote the rest of the week to self-pity, misplaced anger and random around-the-clock napping. Next week will be soon enough to launch into abject terror about the future: just in time for my birthday.

Mole-Kitty

You've probably heard me talk about my cat, Doolittle. He's the second cat I've ever owned... er, i mean, cohabitated with, because no one really owns a cat, do they? Dogs have owners; cats have support staff.

My first cat, Luci, was a beautiful tortie I adopted through PetSmart. She was only about six months old, playful and energetic and a total shock to me, a lifelong dog person.

She had to go everywhere -- climb everywhere -- and stick her nose in everything. I finally understood why they say, "Curiosity killed the cat." She made me laugh as much as she exasperated me. If I painted, Luci would chase the brush. If I got on the computer, Luci would try to catch the cursor. If I wore earrings that dangled, she seemed sure that they were play toys for her amusement. (Having a cat's claw stuck in your earrings is NOT fun. I don't recommend it.)

I named her Luci because I liked the idea of coming home each day and calling, "Lu-ci! I'm home!" in my best Ricky Ricardo voice. (And more often than not: "Luci, you got some 'splaing to do!"... and yes, the disparity in the spelling was deliberate.)

Luci simply could not be kept in the house -- every time I opened the door, I felt like a bush league hockey goalie competing with Wayne Grestsky.

Once a cat gets out, well, you can pretty much give up on ever catching them. I mean, dogs will lead you on a chase, but you can outsmart them eventually. Cats can climb trees and leap tall fences with a single bound. They are... Super Kitty!

I chased Luci around the neighborhood time and time again. Finally one day, winded and out of patience, I just said "Fine, stay out if you want!"

For several months, Luci would go out -- never intentionally, as I really did not want her outdoors -- and come back after an hour or so.

Then one day, she didn't. I was devastated, searched for her everywhere, by car and on foot. Posted signs. Went to the pounds and shelters. Knocked on my neighbors doors.

I hope that because she was such a friendly cat, someone took her in and simply kept her. But that's the story of my first cat.

I wasn't sure I was ready for another, but a friend of mine, whose home has become a sort of feline Mecca for strays, asked me to take Doolittle in. He'd been hanging out in her back yard for months, and she was afraid that the coming winter would be the end of him.

So, I took Doolittle home with me. He was already a big, fat cat, and living with me has not changed that. I have no idea how old he is, but he's definitely a ways from kittenhood. He earned his name honestly, by doing very little. He's not quite as entertaining as Luci was, but he will let me paint in peace.

When I first got him, Doolittle had a serious problem with bare ankles. He couldn't resist pouncing on them. Legs with socks and pants and shoes didn't interest him. Only bare flesh sang to him with a siren's song. Doolittle wrapped both front legs around the aforementioned ankle and sank little cat fangs into the lower calf. Even at five in the morning, making a groggy trip to the bathroom, I would find myself dragging a fifteen pound cat across the floor. He was like a Ninja kitty, streaking out of the shadows and latching onto my ankle.

He's gotten a lot better about this. I think that a few months of my screams and curses finally got it through his pea-sized brain that I didn't enjoy the game as much as he did. He will still pounce once in a while, but more gently. He hardly ever draws blood anymore.

Doolittle will occasionally get past me out into the big, bad world. But he always goes to the same bushes by the front door, and sits there meowing miserably as if already regretting his dash for freedom. Of course, he will retreat further into the bushes when I try to retrieve him, eventually leading me through the neighbor's rose bushes. But I always manage to drag him out, usually with a final howl of outrage at being pried out of a rose bush. I don't know why he's whining; I'm the one bleeding.

But today we played one of Doo's favorite games. Mole-kitty. Whenever I change the bed sheets, Doo gets on the bed and stubbornly refuses to move. So I just throw the sheets over him and go about making up the bed.

He will sit there for several moments, just this large lump under the sheets. Then he moves from one side to the other; from the top to the bottom. Finally, after about five minutes, he will poke his head out and jump to freedom.

So, for your consideration... photos of Doolittle playing Mole-Kitty.

Ah, Valentine's Day. It's all about love... real, genuine love. Love that lasts until the end of time. Love, deeper than the ocean and higher than the heavens. Love that binds two souls together and lifts them up on the wings of a snow white dove.....

Screw that. We all know it's about the chocolate. That's real love that stands the test of time. In my 47 years, the men have changed, but the chocolate remains the same.

I can't eat any chocolate this year and it's pissing me off. So if the following thoughts make you want to tell me what a miserable cynic I am, please keep my chocolate deprivation in mind. I had to go to the drugstore twice today, and walk past aisles of screaming red hearts that are off-limits to me.

I swear, I could smell all that sugar and cocoa and sweet, delicious carb-laden death right through the beribboned and laced boxes. For a the briefest of moments, I wanted to cry. Because I love those heart-shaped boxes full of little bite-sized surprises. A box of chocolates combines the pursuit of rich, creamy bliss with the fun of a slot machine. Selecting each piece is a serious business; you hold your breath as you bite into the chocolate shell. Will it be the wonderful coconut filling? Or that disgusting orange cream? Mmmm... caramel!

Even if you do get that orange cream, you know that you can spit it out and try again. And again.

Generally, I'm not such a sourpuss about VD. But like most of us, how I feel about Valentine's depends entirely upon whether I'm in a relationship or not, and the state of that relationship. If your relationship sucks, then a truckload of roses isn't going to change that. (Unless, of course, you find that he paid for them with your credit card; in that case, it will probably change his home address.)

I'm in a very good place this year. Except for the chocolate thing, of course. But standing in the card aisle, it occurs to me that Valentine’s day cards should be categorized differently.

They have sections for mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, platonic friends and even 4-year grandchildren who can’t even read yet. But they need to break down the whole spouse/lover categories down to more efficient divisions.

Like how long you’ve been together.

On your first valentine’s day together you spent an hour considering all the romantic cards. The ones that say things like: “I’ve been looking for you all my life, you are my world, my soulmate, I’d drink your bathwater and lick the ground you walk on.” And you want the biggest, most elaborate card you can find, in the shape of a giant heart, trimmed in real lace and satin ribbon. Or the mutant cards that are 2’ x 3’ and not only take extra postage, but the postage costs as much as the card itself.

The first Valentine's Day is also the one where the man not only buys an embarrassingly mushy card that says things that would never in a million years come out of his mouth, but a dozen red roses, a box of Godiva chocolates and/or a stuffed gorilla who dances to “Wild Thing.” He takes you to an expensive, special restaurant and orders wine. That night you put on the sexy lingerie you paid too much money for and you have acrobatic sex all night long.

By the second or third valentine’s day, you’re both looking cards that say things like: “You’re still the light of my life.” And neither of you bother to write a poem on it. You just sign it, “Love, Cindy.” In bed that night, you surprise each other with oral sex.

By the fourth Valentine’s – if you’re still together – you’re sending the funny cards with cats wearing clothes and a caption that says “You are the cat’s meow, baby!” You give him a blow job, but you’re doing it with all the enthusiasm of ironing. He makes a gesture at going down on you, but moves on to the missionary position before you reach an orgasm.

A dozen red roses have changed to a nice potted plant; the chocolates are now Russell Stover or Whitman’s; and if he grabs a stuffed animal, it’s small enough to get tossed into the back of the closet without attracting much attention. And yet you’re beginning to look at the cross-eyed teddy bear and thinking you’d rather have had the money he spent on it.

If you make it to the sixth or seventh valentine’s day, you’re sending a card that says something equivalent to “Thanks for still letting me live here.” You might have sex for the first time in months that evening.

By the ninth or tenth Valentine’s Day, you find a card in his sock drawer meant for his girlfriend, not for you. He sleeps on the couch, or at the Holiday Inn. The next day you go out and buy 1 lb box of chocolate that’s been marked down to half price, and eat every damn piece in the box except for the ones with the weird orange jelly centers and try to decide whether or not to just to have done with him and love and all the crap that goes with it.

(Kisses change too, of course, In the first year, you’re sucking face with wet sloppy kisses and tongues that writhe like eels in a barrel.

By the fifth year, you’re not opening your mouth anymore. And by the ninth year -- when you find the card for his girlfriend in his sock drawer -- the only thing you want him to kiss is your ass. )

Understand, those are just some generalizations I've learned from past relationships. My guy and I are in the eighth year, and while there have been some ups and downs, we've gotten to a place that is comfortable but not totally bereft of passion. The card I've picked out for him is actually a rather romantic one, but not too over the top. Maybe it's because we went through the kiss-my-ass phase and now have started over. And he's never given me a potted plant, bless his heart.

But I do have a bone to pick with Doo. He's never bought me a card, not even for Mother's Day. I know, you're saying: where would Doo get the four bucks? He hasn't got any pockets for change, nor does he have a check card. I don't think he can drive, but then again, how do i know what he gets up to while I'm asleep? There is a suspicious amount of cat hair in the drivers seat.

Sarah Palin Sips Tea

She’s out there right now, at the Opryland Hotel, just across the street from me. I can almost see her from my front door. You know the one I mean: Caribou Barbie. Sarah Palin. They’ve been having a tea party over there all day long. And at $549 for a ticket, I’m fairly sure those mad hatters over there are several rungs above me on the financial ladder. The price tag says something fundamentally wrong about a supposed grass-roots movement. It’s hard to come up with that kinda cheddar when you’re unemployed. I guess the less affluent will have to let the rich folks make all the decisions. In other words, politics as usual. Let me tell you how I feel about Palin for those who never saw my bumper sticker that said: SARAH PALIN JUST MADE ME THROW UP A LITTLE. That’s not just a pithy little joke, it’s the actual truth. (And it got me some irate fist shaking from a woman at a craft fair.) Just when I thought politicians could come no dumber than George W. Bush, along comes Sarah Palin. If you wanna argue with me about Bush’s intellect, consider that when Hollywood set out to make a satire about “W”, they didn’t have to do much but quote him:

They misunderestimated me.”

We've got a lot of relations with countries in our neighborhood.”

And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq."

I won’t mention his frequent subject-verb disagreement, or his inability to pronounce the word “nuclear.” In one of the debates, I noticed that Palin mangled it the same way. Maybe they thought if all the Republicans mispronounced it, they could actually convince people the word was supposed to be “nucular.” Bad enough, from my perspective, that here was a Pro-Life woman who shot wolves from helicopters, a former beauty queen whose political resume pretty much began and ended with being the governor of Alaska. (Alaska? Seriously? Alaska comes in as the 48th least populated state of the country. True, she was mayor of Wasilla, a thriving metropolis of 10,256, but my own stagnant little home town boasts 128,000.) As soon as Palin began talking, stupid things starting falling from her lips: When asked if she knew what the duties of a vice president entailed:

They're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.”

Uh, not really. Thank goodness she didn’t get the job; I can only imagine her disillusionment upon showing up for work the first day and finding she was only leader of the senate in the most nominal way. She was relentlessly cheerful, choosing not to watch the news because it made her sad. For me, the confirmed and relentless cynic and general misanthrope, her cheerfulness only made me want to smack her; only game show hosts should be that relentlessly upbeat, and then only with chemical assistance. Her little attack on Obama wasn’t just stupid, it stooped to the lowest level of fear-mongering propaganda:

Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Maybe she didn’t know that the US has been playing musical dictators for years, supporting then opposing some of the same people they’d trained and given weapons to. She should have watched the news. Her interview with Katie Couric was one of the most painful things I’ve ever seen. It was a traffic accident; you didn’t wanna look, you just couldn’t stop.

: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this -- to stay informed and to understand the world?

: I've read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media --

: But what [sic] ones specifically? I'm curious.

: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

: Can you name any of them?

: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

I actually hurt for her. It was like watching a fish flopping around on the bottom of the boat. Sometimes her stupidity also showed a frightening ignorance:

"One of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay and I love her dearly, and she is not my "gay" friend, she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice that I have made, but ... I'm not gonna judge people.”

Homosexuality is not a choice. Now, choosing to have a child with Down’s Syndrome, that’s a choice. (Not a choice I would have made, but hey, I support her right to do so.) Coming out against the rights of rape and incest victims to abortions or even the morning-after pill: that’s a choice Palin wants to make, to take away the choices of even the most victimized of women. But the straw that breaks my camel’s back was not really Palin’s lack of experience, or her lack of understanding of the job she was running for, or her stance on a woman’s right to control her own body…. Listening to her views, I briefly wondered if she was really a man in drag. No, it was the timing of the Republican Party’s decision to finally put a woman on the presidential ticket, and what their choice of Palin said about their motives. If Hillary Clinton hadn’t been a serious contender for president, a woman wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance of being tapped as a Republican VP candidate. They saw a potential for division in the Democratic Party, a hope that Clinton supporters would be such sore losers they would withhold their support from Obama. I can easily imagine the Republicans behind closed doors, discussing how in the hell they could compete with a black candidate. Smear tactics could so easily backfire with the appearance—if not actuality—of racism. Worse, women really liked how Obama looked with his shirt off, as opposed to McCain, not just pale and paunchy, but alarmingly close to senile dementia. And then, bingo, someone suggested they could offer women a female candidate. Not as president, of course; more like a little lady who could bring the baked beans to the tailgate party. No, the real final straw was the sheer arrogance and gall of the Republicans to even suggest that Palin was a worthy answer to Hillary. Whether you love Clinton or loathe her, you can’t say she wasn’t qualified. She has experience, a first-hand knowledge of how the government works, and a razor-sharp brain. She watches the news, you betcha. One of the most astute bumper stickers I’ve ever read said:

"Sarah Palin is the hood ornament on the truck American is about to be thrown under."

I was insulted, as a woman, a feminist and a participant in the political process. Sarah Palin? Seriously? She was the best they could do? Google “Partial List of Republican women more qualified than Sarah Palin.” It’s a long list, a veritable smorgasbord of smart, informed and experienced women. I can only come up with one reason that the Republican powers chose Palin as their ace in the hole. That women would be stupid enough to vote for her just because she happens to have two X chromosomes. Men would vote for her because she’s a MILF with a gun. That’s an insult to voters of either sex. Thank God their evil plan didn’t succeed. The good news is that maybe, just maybe, Tina Fey has a career in politics.