Awkwardly Social

Jezebel is one of my favorite sites, and after this headline “Meg Whitman is a Bad Mother,” I’m furious.  I don’t like Meg Whitman.  I don’t believe she is the right person to run California.   Let’s reinforce the patriarchy and attack a woman with grown children on her “mothering” skills.  Because if a woman is running for Governor of the State of California she better be a good mommy.  Maybe because she RAN eBay she’s a bad mom.  She should have stayed home with those kids!  Or, maybe it was when she was getting an advanced degree from HARVARD, maybe she should have forgotten about that silly MBA and raised her FAMILY.

Now, Jezebel is at fault here too.  They’re reprinting a sentiment - making a splashy headline - and while they’re questioning the motives behind the sentiment, they are still repeating the same  patriarchal bullshit their sibling sites publish.  It’s offensive.

She has two douchey sons running amok.  Let’s give those idiots no responsibility for their actions and blame it all on their mama.  Because she was too busy to raise them right.  Because she had the audacity to be a woman and have a career.  I am livid.

I don’t like her politics but she deserves a better headline than being a “Bad Mother.” Talk about her bad voting record.  Talk about her questionable antics while at Goldman Sachs.  Talk about her poorly run campaign.  But her being a bad mother?  What do you want America?  Do you need your mommy to tell you how to act when you’re in COLLEGE?

If you want to read where this “Bill of Goods” thing started.  Read my previous post.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”  George Bernard Shaw

One step forward for mankind, one step back for the men and women in California.  Californians voted Yes on Prop 8, proving men and women think we should legislate what happens between men and women in the bedroom.  Californians voted Yes on Prop 2, proving men and women believe chickens and cows have the right to stretch their legs before slaughter.  What is more important to Californians than equality for everyone?  Meat.

I’m a little scattered this morning.  On the one hand, hooray for hope.  On the other hand, fuck off California.  I’m so thrilled that Barak Obama has inspired this racist country full of religious freaks to put that all aside and say, “Get ‘er done.”  I made it no secret that I wanted Hillary in the White House, but these last few months Obama has been pretty classy, and run a campaign that Hillary probably couldn’t have run, and this is a new America.  It’s sour grapes to wonder when we’ll see a woman in the Oval Office, but it’s still fluttering around the back of my mind.

I’ll put it all aside for now and revel in the fact that it’s a new day, and Republicans are no longer running things.  I just can’t shake this dread caused by knowing that over 50% of California’s voting population are morons.

The first time I voted it was in a trailer out by a swap meet and I was the only person there besides my librarian who was the poll worker. I voted for Bill Clinton.

Then, things went down hill. I was in college, then grad school, and it wasn’t until this most recent primary election that I voted in California, and while I did a mail in ballot in the Bush/Kerry election, I hadn’t been to the polls in a National election since that time in the trailer next to the swap meet when I voted for Bill Clinton.

I pulled up to my polling place this morning and groaned. Long lines were in my future. I almost said, “Fuck it,” and kept on driving, but I knew that Prop 8 needed my vote, and while California is safely a blue state, I wanted to make sure I went on record, and that even though I didn’t vote for him in the primary, I am ready for him to be my President now.

So I lined up. A young Latina girl was standing in front of me. Then a young Latino dude walked up behind me in his Midway Auto dealership jacket. His employer was our polling place. He said, “Hey, Brenda, why are you voting? That’s so lame!” I started to bristle. “Come back here.” Brenda was all, “Nuh-uh, I have to vote.” And he was like, “No just come back here, it’s just one person back.” “What do you mean?” “Come stand by me, I have to vote too.” Then I stopped bristling. She moved behind me and I got to listen to their conversation for an hour.

Amidst talk about the kind of car Brenda should buy from him (he was a car salesman) and how she should come party with him, this gem popped out, “I’m gonna vote for those chickens. Prop 2. Those chickens gotta be able to walk around before I eat ‘em.” And then they talked about how the other dealership he worked at closed down, and how this dealership, once a Ford dealership, had just closed its service area and laid off 30 people. Then he said again, “God, I gotta vote for those chickens.”

It all started to strike me as something a speech writer would fabricate and put in a stump speech. But there I was, eavesdropping on an innocent conversation between a boy and a girl waiting in line to vote, getting progressively later for work, thinking about those birds in cages who never get to stretch their legs. And when it comes down to it, there’s no one here but us chickens.

Last night, I said there’s only one thing worse than losing the Presidential election, and that’s winning it. I said that because our country is in a hell of a spot. Massive recession, a war on two fronts, a nation divided down the middle on almost every single issue, and to be honest it’s exhausting just thinking about all the work our next President has to do. I also said, I don’t really know how my day to day life is going to be effected by having McCain vs. Obama in office. I know why I said it, I know that ultimately it isn’t entirely true. Believe me, I’m not naive when it comes to the man in the big chair and how his decisions effect my life. I just know that no matter what happens tonight, I’ll be able to snuggle up with my boyfriend and tell him some of my stories and hear him tell me some of his.

So many parallels I could draw between what was happening to me four years ago and what is happening to me today.  The truth is, even if John Kerry had been elected President all those distant years ago, I still would probably be here on this same path.

I wonder if it’s true what they say about the butterfly’s wings stirring the wind that causes the hurricane, and if it matters - the hurricane, that is.

What part of history’s big sweeping changes really effect you?  We are all  just down here on the day to day, living our lives and trying to find furniture and looking for our dog and talking to our neighbors who secretly wonder who we really are.  And I don’t know why she swallowed the fly, I guess she’ll die.

I hope tomorrow brings change for this country, but I don’t know that the change it will bring will really cause the kind of ripples that I’ll feel in any meaningful way.  Maybe that’s because I’m a privileged white girl with a steady job and too much education, or maybe it’s because I’m in love.

There’s one thing for certain, I’m really glad I’m not running for President tonight, the only worse thing to losing, would be winning.  What a sorry prize.

Saying yes on Prop 8 won’t protect your marriage. Your marriage is as safe as you want it to be.

This proposition is not about protecting the world from the slippery slope of humans marrying animals. Your crazy dog-lady neighbor will probably still try to marry her dog one day, and I still don’t see how that makes your marriage any less. Your marriage is as safe as you want it to be.

Saying yes on Prop 8 won’t protect girls from learning how to go down on girls and boys from wanting to go down on boys. They will discover that all on their own. Thinking any differently is retarded.

Pay attention. It’s very simple, Proposition 8 is about about stripping the basic civil rights of consenting adult humans to enter into a legal and binding contract called marriage.

And let’s get this straight, once and for all. Marriage is a contract. Nothing more. It’s got nothing to do with your god, or their god, or even my lack of a god. Saying your marriage will mean less if it’s lumped in with gay marriage is like saying my will means less if it’s lumped in with your will. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s a piece of paper. You deserve your piece of paper. I deserve my piece of paper. My neighbor who has sex with men deserves his piece of paper. All of our collective yet separate pieces of paper have nothing to do with each other. Are you understanding this yet?

Let me make it more clear.

You are a moron if you don’t vote No on Prop 8.

Now is the time to donate. Let your support be known.

And go to Looky, Daddy for more photos, because he’s right, everyone should have the right to be awesome.

My mom sent me an essay this morning that perfectly sums up my feelings on the media today. Please have a read.

Goodbye to All That (#2) by Robin Morgan

I support Hillary Clinton. I have heard all of the reasons why you don’t. Spare me your hope. Spare me your worries about her electability. Spare me your concerns about her being part of the political machine. Think about why you really don’t like her. And then wonder why you have to want to hang out with your President in order to vote for her.

I’m not sure if it was the church I was voting in, or the ladies running the polls, but it smelled like old lady vagina in there. Big time.

Today was the first time I’ve ever voted in a primary. I have no excuse for my lack of primary voting, except for the fact that for the last 14 years I’ve been a woman without a state. The last time I actually voted in a polling place as opposed to mailing in an absentee ballot was when I voted for Bill Clinton in 1994. [Wait… that can’t be right, I just checked my time line and he was elected in 1993… then again in 1997, so when did I vote for him?  1996?  I shouldn’t drink so much.  Either way, I voted for him for his second term.]

So it’s fitting that today I also cast a vote for a Clinton. I didn’t think I would vote for Hillary a year ago. I was swept up with the Obama fever, but then I started to listen to what he was saying and it was the same thing over and over. Beautifully orated speeches, with no substance that I could see. I want a change, too. I want hope, too. But I want someone who actually seems to have a plan. For me, that’s Hillary. The fact that she’s a woman who seems to be able to play the game is a total bonus.

I love our democracy, as flawed and bureaucratic and mis-managed as it is. I still love living here. And it’s about time our candidates reflected the faces of the other 50% of our voters. Four years ago, I wrote this. It’s actually one of the pieces of my writing that I’m still proud of. It’s worth a re-read if you’re into that sort of thing.

Happy primary day.

First of all, whether or not Britney Spears is actually very troubled shouldn’t be in doubt.  It can be seen in the poor choices she’s been making since she decided she was ready to be a mother to Kevin Federline’s kids.  From her horribly embarassing reality series, her ill-advised interview with Matt Lauer, her re-emergence into the club scene on the arm of publicity whore Paris Hilton, and the inability to get her publicist to stop telling news crews where she is at any given moment - all point to the fact that Britney needs a break or she’s going to end up like Anna Nicole, dead.

My problem isn’t that we care about Britney, of course we do, we’ve been programmed to believe that what she does is interesting.  But please, let’s take a closer look at what we’re saying about the latest incident of head shaving debauchery.  It all is starting to sound like something out of day one’s reading in Feminist Studies 101:  Your Hair Makes You a Woman, (unless it’s on your Vagina then it makes you a dirty filthy pig whore).  Let’s check our Western values at the door and get real.  Her hair doesn’t make her a good person, a good mother, a good performer, or even a good woman, her actions do.

I completely understand the reaction to it, because I was raised in the United States and I know that women are expected to have beautiful flowing locks of well cared for hair.  Our identity is tied to the way our protein strands hang gracefully around our unwrinkled faces, lightly kissed by the sun, curling just so, making it look like we might have just gotten out of bed to make you breakfast or rub your feet or kiss your dick.  Now that Britney’s hair is gone it makes it a lot harder for men and women to imagine her dancing to stripper beats and flinging her sweaty locks in your direction.  In a weird way, I’m sort of proud of the Brit, she’s cut off her shackles and is ready to party like it’s 2050 - a time when women can have hair or not, suck dick or don’t, raise kids or have a career, and still be considered a woman.

Another woman who’s been accused of the crazy says it best -

I am doll eyes/ Doll mouth, doll legs/ I am doll arms, big veins, dog bait/ Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do.

My mom and I have a lot in common, probably the reason we didn’t get along for quite some time.  I don’t know how it happens that something will fly out of your mouth and you’ll realize you’re channeling maybe the least favorite part of your parent and then like a sheet billowing over a freshly made bed you see the whole world through your parent’s eyes, only to have it come floating down to rest crookedly with the wrong edge facing the top. 

When I was a kid growing up in rural Arizona, I was the only 5th grader to raise her hand when Mr. Sudan asked if anyone’s parents were voting for Walter Mondale.  I think I actually got boo-d.  I saved myself by saying only my mom was voting for him, my dad was interested in escalating nuclear armament and wiping out communism by blowing up Russia with one big bomb before they could blow us up.  I was SUPER popular.  I hated Walter Mondale.  Hated him because he had funny eyebrows.  Hated him because he made me look like a freak of nature who liked losers.  Hated him because he was short.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about a woman in the number 2 position of the country.  I thought it was weird that she wasn’t running for President.  I thought it was even weirder that 5th graders were talking about her blowing up Russia when she was on her period, specifically because I believed female politicians didn’t get their periods.  It just wasn’t done.

I don’t talk to my mom that often.  I call.  She calls.  We both have an aversion to the phone so usually we miss each other.  Sometimes it’s enough that she and I know we called one another.  The rest is just words we’ve probably said before.  This weekend my mom called and I actually was able to answer.  She was so excited about the Democratic win.  I am too.  I wondered what this Congress could possibly accomplish in 2 years time.  She did too.  We both hoped there would be proper investigation of the White House’s more criminal actions, like domestic wire tapping and lying about Iraq.  Then we talked about 2008.  And Hilary.  Our dream ticket is Clinton/O’Bama.  Our nightmare is Clinton vs. McCain.  We both sort of love McCain, partly because deep down we’re still home-team girls, and partly because we know that if a Republican must be in office, it should be someone like him.  I’ve said before that I hope Clinton doesn’t run.  Mostly because she is so unbearably awkward and stiff when she speaks.  Her monotone grates on my nerves almost as much as Bush’s muttering and giggling.  But of course I’d vote for her. 

It’s really too soon to talk about 2008.  My mom and I are basking in the glory of having a woman in the number 3 position for the Presidency.   It’s quite a long way from me defending Geraldine Ferraro on the spider bars at recess while desperately wishing Walter Mondale would take care of some personal grooming issues and Ryan Kilby would catch me in kiss tag. 

Rumsfeld resigns, Democrats take back the House, Britney gets a brain and when does it start raining frogs and when exactly do the aliens get here and teach us a lesson?

Seriously, could anything really scary be lurking around the corner?  Has Carl Rove brainwashed me so cleverly into believing if something good happens for the Democrats something terrible with happen to the world?

I’m still holding my breath for the world not to end.

I guess it’s safe to say I’m a glass-is-half-empty kind of girl, this whole "Here’s your full glass of milk, drink up!" thing is going to take a while for me to get used to.