blue girl

The Man and The Band

Bobness has a post today of a conversation he had with his son this morning which reminded me that I wanted to post a conversation I had with my son and his friend from a couple of nights ago.

I had to pick them up at the movies at 10:45 p.m.  Just wait, all you parents of pre-teens out there.  Being the taxi driver stinks, not to mention the worry that consumes you as you start to imagine one calamity after another.  Gang fights with racial undertones.  Drug deals gone bad.  Half naked girls.  Ok, I'm exaggerating.  I said your imagination will consume you!  Anyway, I digress.

They are waiting out front as instructed.  All safe and sound.  No half naked girls to be seen.  Good boys.

The minute they get in the car, they put their i-Pods on. 

"You guys!  Take your i-Pods off.  I want to hear about the movie.  Plus, that's rude to be sitting here with those things on."

Then I happened to think -- did they have those things on while watching the movie?  Probably.  Ugh.  I've got to lay down some i-Pod rules. 

Anyway, my son's friend, who sort of looks like Todd Rundgren at a Bad Company concert tells me he just got a job at the local car wash drying off cars.

"That's great!"

"Yeah.  I make minimum wage plus tips.  All I have to do is tell them how cool their car is and they always give me a bigger tip."

"Well, that's good that you figured that out.  How come the car wash?  Did you try to get a job at McDonalds?"

"I would've loved to work at McDonalds, but everyone wants to work there.  It's impossible."

"Well, it's probably for the better.  When you work at a fast food place, you come home reeking of the smell.  Every time your mom drops you off, does she start singing....Car wash....Workin' at the car wash, yeah."

"Mom!"

"Sorry."

My son bellows from the back seat, "I'd never work at McDonalds.  That would be selling out.  Totally working for the man."

His friend chimes in, "Yeah.  But all I really care about is the cash."

"What are you talking about?  Selling out to the man?  If I had to do it, you're probably going to have to do it, too."

"But you don't work for the man!  You work for yourself!"

"Hello?!  I'm in advertising?  I sold out a long time ago.  How do you think you got that i-Pod....that I'm going to take away any second if you don't take if off!"

"Mom!  Turn this song up!"

Todd Rundgren, Jr. pipes up, "Yeah, dude, my dad loves this song."

I pulled into Nazareth,
was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place
where I can lay my head.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me
where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand,
"No," was all he said.

As the car went quiet except the radio playing full blast, I remembered back when I was 14 and loved The Band.  And remembered the time when I thought I'd never sell out.

Take a load off Fanny,
take a load for free;
Take a load off Fanny,
And...and...and
you can put the load
Put the load right on me.

A Little Bedtime Story

This week has been a nightmare.  Mainly because somebody jinxed me and I developed a very strange sleep pattern.  (I cannot read or think too much about sleep.  It screws me up.)  Every night fell asleep around 11:45 p.m. and woke up at 3:15 a.m. in a panic that I only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep.  Worrying that I only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep, I couldn't go back to sleep, so I would get up, open the laptop to see if anyone was blogging.  Most normal people do not post anything on their blogs in the middle of the night, (Damn you all! -- don't you know you are there to entertain me 24/7?  And be grateful I referred to each of you as normal!) so I would venture off into parts unknown.  So weary, I went to read Michelle Malkin!  I even hit on a site called Shoot A Liberal.  Just pathetic. 

Huh?  What did you just say?  Who's pathetic?  Them or Me?  Well, all I've got to say about that is -- if you'd just be a little more committed to your craft, I wouldn't find myself so desperate at 4:00 a.m., now would I?

The guys over at Shoot A Liberal are the kind of rightwingers who think they're funny.  Let me tell you, they wouldn't know funny if it laughed in their faces.  My blogging buddies are funny.  But, hey.  Looks aren't everything.  Heh.

Shoot a Liberal had a post introducing a new rightwing blogger.  They were so excited!  Chuckles, Freelance Genius (one of us) left a comment there:

Traitors, blah blah.
Monkeys, blah blah.
Immigrants, blah blah.
Democrats, blah blah.
American Worker, blah blah.
Terrorists Win, blah blah.

Then he left a second comment:

  Sorry, I forgot:
ACLU, blah blah.

I think his comments made the goofs at Shoot A Liberal mad.  But Chuckles made me cackle, so I went to check out his blog and read this:

She had given me the once over, but I was sure that she hadn't gotten a good look, so I made a comment about carbs and pretzels. She said that she hadn't eaten in a month and had dropped 20 pounds so what did she care about carbs? I responded with jeez, I just thought that's what people said these days. This resulted in more banter and then the introductions and wild sex.*

I knew what that asterisk meant without even having to read it at the bottom of the post.  That little paragraph above reminded me of a post by Papa Bill:

I was 17, driving along with very little on my mind (I do that a lot) when I saw an attractive young girl in a convertible pulled over to the side of the road. This was a great situation, my fantasy went, I'd save the fair damsel and with any luck she'd reward me with ... sexual favors.

Humor me for a minute ... what is with you boys?  How does your mind go from carbs or changing a tire to sex in less than three seconds? 

Then I quickly learned it's just not the boys.

I discovered a new blogger this week.  Tonya at exilednomore.  She had a quick post introducing a new blogger she had just blogrolled, A Sideways Look at Womanhood.  Tonya suggested all girls go pay a visit, but wrote to make sure to read a post called Cybersex first.

What?

She suggested it.

I had to oblige.

Just trying to be a friendly blogger.

Geez.

This is all I feel that I can safely repeat of that post:

Mind numbingly bored, and having exhausted all areas of stimulation, I cautiously typed the words "adult chat" into my Google search box, if for nothing more than to satisfy my curiosity.

Let's just say that there weren't very many innocent words like carbs or tires in that post.  And we'll leave it at that.

As the sun was starting to come up, I decided to check in on one of my favorite rightwing nutcases.  Who, by the way, has had almost 900,000 visitors.  Seems like all of you could not only be writing a little bit more for blue girl, but maybe visiting a little more often, too?  Aren't my words enough?  Do I have to post a photo of me in a SuperMan costume?  Boys.

Needless to say, it bored me so that I began to yawn.  I turned the laptop off and went downstairs and turned on MSNBC.  And as I drifted off all I could hear the newscaster saying was, immigrants, ACLU, terrorists ... blah, blah, blah.  What a nightmare.

Wednesday Funnies

Jerry:  I hate rental cars.  Nothing ever works.  The window doesn't work, the radio doesn't work... and it smells like a cheap hooker... Or is that you?

Elaine:  Gimme ten bucks and find out.

             The Airport
             Episode 50

Seein' You There With A Smile On Your Face

I walked into the post office to mail all of the Deficit poster orders  I've received.  I stood in line for more than 20 minutes observing the cranky postal workers.  I kept thinking of Newman.

The mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming, there's never a let-up. It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more and more! And you gotta get it out, but the more you get it out the more it keeps coming in. And then the bar code reader breaks and it's Publisher's Clearing House day!

The lady in front of me, who from now on I will call Short Fake-Blonde Lady Wearing Black Leather Jacket One Size Too Small (or SFBLWBLJOSTS) would not stop talking to me.  I would have learned a lot about her in those 20 minutes if I would've actually been listening to her instead of staring at her nose and other various parts of her body the whole time while I was nodding politely and wondering why she felt the need to be telling me, a perfect stranger, her whole life story.  I know of people who enjoy these little *real life* encounters.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Man Without A Country, he writes about his encounters with real-life people that he seems to enjoy so much.

I go next to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and Second Avenue.  This is very close to the United Nations, so there are all these funny-looking people there from all over the world.  I go in there and we are lined up again.  I'm secretly in love with the woman behind the counter.  She doesn't know it.  My wife knows it.  I am not about to do anything about it.  She is so nice.  All I have ever seen of her is from the waste up because she is always behind the counter.  But every day she will do something with herself above her waist to cheer us up. Sometimes her hair will be all frizzy.  Sometimes she will have ironed it flat.  One day she was wearing black lipstick.  This is all so exciting and so generous of her, just to cheer us all up, people from all over the world.  So I wait in line, and I say, "Hey what was that language you were talking?  Was it Urdu?"  I have nice chats.  Sometimes not.  There is also, "If you don't like it here, why don't you go back to your little tinhorn dictatorship where you came from?"  One time I had a pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it.  Anyway, finally I get up to the head of the line.  I don't reveal that I love her.  I keep poker-faced.  She might as well be looking at a cantaloupe, there is so little information in my face, but my heart is beating.  And I give her the envelope, and she weighs it, because I want to put the right number of stamps on it, and have her okay it.  If she says that's the right number of stamps and cancels it, that's it.  They can't send it back to me.

Then I go outside and there is a mailbox.  And I feed the pages to the giant blue bullfrog.  And it says, "Ribbit."

And I go home.  And I have had one hell of a good time.

I suddenly realized that I was standing there, looking directly at SFBLWBLJOSTS, with a fake smile on my face like Woody Allen playing Alvy in Annie Hall in that one part where the comic is interviewing him to be his joke writer.

Comic:  "Place looks wonderful from here
And you folks look wonderful from here! 
And seein' you there with a smile on your face
Makes me shout
This must be the place."

Alvy (thinking to himself):  Look at him mincing around, like he thinks he's real cute.  You wanna throw up. I don't know how much longer I can keep this smile frozen on my face.

As I awoke from my daydream SFBLWBLJOSTS is going on and on and I happen to think -- I might get hit by a Mac truck on my way home and this is the last conversation I may ever have, so I decide to pay attention and chime in.

"Yeah, I know what you mean.  Low tire pressure is not good."

Luckily, the crankiest of all cranky postal workers is ready for SFBLWBLJOSTS.  I watched as she went up to the window and thought to myself -- she should start her own blog.  She has so much to say. 

I felt guilty.

My turn!  Yay!  I got my favorite postal worker!  The un-cranky one.  A youngish guy, maybe in his early 30s. African-American.  I think he might be gay -- not that there's anything wrong with that.  He's got braces and always has his i-Pod hooked into his little stereo at his counter with his little itty bitty speakers.  He'll be going through my mail and not wanting to listen to the song that comes on, he'll switch it really fast without missing a beat and go back to stamping my mail.  I can totally relate to that.  I am The Champion Channel Changer in the car.  You gotta love the song that's on or life's just not worth living.

He looks at my pretty red tubes with my custom Blue Girl In a Red State mailing labels. 

"Blue Girl In a Red State.  Hmm.  What's that?  Is that your company?"

"Yes.  But it's more than a company.  It's an empire!  Just kidding.  It's my blog."

"Oh.  I've read about blogs.  I'm not a computer guy though.  What do you sell?"

"These are posters.  Artwork representing the deficit.  They're really great."

A minute goes by and he starts laughing.

"Why are you laughing?  What's so funny?"

"I just got it."

"Got what?"

He turns a tube my way so that I see my mailing label.

"Blue Girl In a Red State.  I just got it."

I smiled at him.

He gets a really serious look on his face and leans forward, staring at me over his glasses.

"Are you sad?"  He says with his poker-face.

"Yes.  I'm very sad." I deadpan.

"These are sad times we're living in."  he deadpans back.

"Yes.  You are correct."

"Well, I'm a Blue Guy In a Red State.  Can't say it loud though.  I'm not supposed to talk about these things."

"I understand.  The wiretapping and all.  You never know.  All Blue People are heartbroken now.  I'm sorry I have so many tubes.  Do you ever feel like the mail never stops?  That it just keeps coming and coming and coming?  That it all just piles up more and more and more and more??!!"

"Yeah," he laughed.  "It never stops."

"It must be relentless!"

As he switched the song on his i-Pod, I paid my postage and Ribbit flashed through my mind.  I thanked him and as I was leaving he yelled, "Smile Blue Girl!  Have a good day!"

I waved to him as I pushed on the door to leave.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I kept my eyes open for a Mac truck.  Coast is clear!

And I went home.  And I thought to myself, I have had one hell of a good time.

Pretty Words Of Warning

From Rebecca Gratz of Philobiblon, a warning to "all maids in love."  What I gather from reading Rebecca's post is that the mermaids referenced in this poem below are men.  Strange.  I've never heard of mermaids being men.  I've heard of them being mermen, but not mermaids.  Still a beautiful warning though -- all you lovely maidens out there falling for pleasant songs.  Beware!

Beware of fair and painted talk,
beware of flattering tongues:
The Mermaids do pretend no good
for all their pleasant songs.

Some use the tears of crocodiles,
contrary to their heart:
And if they cannot always weep,
they wet their cheeks by art.

Ovid, within his Art of Love,
doth teach them this same knack
To wet their hand and touch their eyes,
so oft as tears they lack.

                   ~Isabella Whitney

Why I Tend To Lurk At Times

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.         
         ~Henry Brooks Adams
           The Education of Henry Adams, 1907

A Post Of Thanks

Thanks to each and every one of you for the support you have shown me.

From the one who inspired me and continues to inspire me...

For much of last night's debate George Bush looked like a blister about to pop.  Loud, mouthy, swaggering, interested only in hearing himself lay down the law, he behaved like a verbally abusive husband.  Not a wifebeater but a browbeater with a bar-fighter's grin.  It is astonishing and sobering that this dull roar with a one-track mind that runs on tank treads is fighting for reelection instead of facing impeachment; his lies and failures have fed thousands of graves, and filled thousands more hospital beds with bodies and pysches that will never be whole again.  And still our mainstream pundits can not, will not see him for what he is.  He cracks a corny joke, and they marvel at his Reaganesque humor.  He hollers at Charlie Gibson, and he's hailed as a take-charge guy.

Sigh.

...to the one who answered my millions of blogging questions and continues to do so...

Me:  Why, why, why, why, why?  How, how, how, how?

Him:  Because, because, because, because.  Like this, like that, like this, like that.

To each and every one of you who visit me, I thank you from the bottom of my blue, blue heart.

Ooops!  I almost pulled a Hillary Swank.  Thanks to The Skimmer for creating that gorgeous image above and for putting up with my blogging addiction.  He's not just a Skimmer, but also an Appreciated Enabler.

If You Buy One, I'll Be Forever In Your Debt

"Hey!  I need some cash.  Do you have any cash?" I yelled up from the bottom of the stairs.

"Um, yeah.  I do.  Actually, I've got a lot of cash.  Look in my wallet."

"Yesssss.  I knew there was a reason I married you."

*****

My husband created this piece in the early 90's when Ross Perot was all deficit, deficit, deficit.  Which made 17% of the American people polled at the time all about the deficit, too.

Not so much today.  In January 2006, Just 2% of Americans pointed to the budget deficit as the country's most important problem, a number that has remained stable throughout Bush's presidency.

I am not well equipped to discuss this sort of thing.  When reading articles to write this post, I ran across this comment to a post by Matt Yglesias.  (I'm not well equipped to type that guy's name.  I had to look back at it 10 times before I got it right.)

Anyway, here's the comment to his post:

Although foreign money loves 10 year Treasuries, the Fed tightening and the continued jawboning on the part of various Fed governors seems to have had an effect. Longer term maturities now have gradually increased in yield, and if we return to a normal yield curve, where longer term Treasuries yield more than the shorter term, it will mean increased interest expense across the board. Although over the longer term, overall interest rates may remain lower by historical standards, it will still mean our debt and continued Bush deficits will have to be serviced by higher rates of interest than in the immediate past years.

This may be why the deficit is currently of lesser concern. Unfortunately, we are dealing with very large sums of debt financing and even small changes in the prevailing interest expense can have profound effects upon our current accounts and future budgetary considerations.

Um.  Ok.  Yeah!  I totally agree!  He's absolutely right.  It is indeed why the deficit is currently of lesser concern.  Especially the part about longer term maturities now having gradually increased in yield.  I know when that happens I just don't seem to worry about the federal deficit at all.

But that doesn't mean I don't worry about my own personal deficit, which brings me to another point.  The image you see above is actually printed on a beautiful cream Strathmore cover stock and measures 9 1/2" x 13 1/2.   We've got 100 of them.   I would call them posters, but I prefer to think of them as finely engraved, highly conceptual lithographs.  Where a pressman, who's father was a pressman, and who's father's father was a pressman, dedicated to his craft, upholding the family tradition, slaved over every press sheet, loop in hand to make each one the glorious masterpiece that each truly is. 

Each are numbered and signed by the artist and await a new home.

AND YOU CAN GET YOUR VERY OWN TODAY FOR JUST $10!  THAT'S RIGHT!  FOR JUST $10, YOU COULD BE THE PROUD OWNER OF A MASTERPIECE!  JUST IMAGINE!  WITH ONE OF THESE HANGING IN YOUR OFFICE OR FAMILY ROOM, YOU WOULD BE THE ENVY OF YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY! 

THEY'LL THINK YOU'RE FUNNIER, SMARTER...SEXIER! 

WOMEN WILL LOVE YOU AND MEN WILL WANT TO BE LIKE YOU.  AND IF YOU'RE A WOMAN, VICE-VERSA!  WHO DOESN'T WANT THAT?  YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL!  JUST $10 EACH! 

IT'S SO EASY!  JUST EMAIL BLUE GIRL AT [email protected] TO PLACE YOUR ORDER!

BUT YOU HAVE TO ACT SOON!  EACH JUST $10!*  DON'T WAIT!  GET YOURS TODAY!

*****

I opened his wallet and there was a whopping twelve bucks in it.

"Hey!  I thought you said you had a lot of cash?  There's only $12 in your wallet!"

"Well, how much did you have before you took my $12.00?"

"None."

"Well, compared to *none*, $12.00 is a lot of money!"

Now that's an economics lesson I can understand.

*****

Thanks to Ezra Klein for the links.

*While supplies last.  Hurry!  Order yours today!

You Gotta Keep The Faith

My husband was inspired to create this poster after the 2004 election when an exit poll revealed that 22% of the electorate said "moral values" was the issue that mattered most in how they voted.

I was inspired to post it today because of this post by Lance Mannion.

Seriously Serious

Nancy Nall is one of my first reads every morning.  I really enjoy her writing plus, she provides some of the best blog linkage out there.  Here's a link from her post this morning.  An excerpt:

Until you’ve grasped the concept of evaluative regression in linguistic constructs through hierarchical categorization in both fixed medium and verbal locutions, until you’ve mastered Derrida’s theory of signifier/signified, become capable of elaborating on issues of social construction vis-à-vis word usage, or even remotely gathered an ounce of information about relative textual analysis, symbol recognition, arbitrary etymology outside documented lexicons, I doubt you have any room to quibble over adverbs with me. I doubt you can even read Latin or Greek - and without that you have no idea what our language even means, let alone how to use it!

You really have to go read the whole thing.  I mean, for real!