It scares the shit out of me that 92% of people can’t answer these questions correctly….

This is how I feel.

I’m going to bed.

I stepped into it again.  I should have known better, but in a fit of optimism, I thought I might get somewhere.

Big surprise; I didn’t.

I believe I have finally learned my lesson.  I can walk away with an open heart and a clean conscience knowing that I genuinely tried.

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1.  Students, especially those at whom I’ve been yelling for the last two months to get their work in, but who have decided that they want to hand it in AFTER grades have closed.

2.  Even though I love him with a depth that he will never understand, I want my fucking geriatric cat to fuck off at 4:20 in the morning when he starts yelling for no discernible reason.

3.  Fuck my legislature.  No, really.

4.  Fuck every single one of the Republican candidates and all of their narrow-minded, racist, bigoted, misogynistic bullshit.

5.  Fuck all the people who love them and believe that the poor are leaching off the system, that radical deregulation is a good idea, that tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs, and that they are somehow the victims of President Obama in the guise of Robin Hood.

6.  Fuck slush and the mess it makes on my car, my shoes, and in my house.

7.  Fuck “help desks” that don’t.  My coworker was told, after 40 minutes with an Apple representative, that she couldn’t do something – it was impossible.  Two minutes explaining the problem to Mr. Chili in a chat box and she was doing it.

8.  Fuck calories.

9.  Fuck liars and con artists and people who make despair convincing.

10.  Fuck bullies.

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I want to see outrage from the “right.”  I want someone to come out – preferably someone who’s run at the mouth about how little respect and decency “liberals” deserve – to stand up and loudly proclaim that shit like this cannot be allowed to happen.

Someone, ANYONE, please explain to me how this is even remotely okay.  Then explain to me how the disrespectful rhetoric – coming mostly from the “right” – didn’t create an environment where someone decided that this would be an appropriate way to send a message.

Then explain to those babies why their kitty is dead.

1. Do you live close to where you grew up? Why? I live 54 miles from where I was born and raised. Why?  You’ve got me!  I think it’s mostly because, in my early adulthood, I didn’t have the resources to flee to a warmer climate.  Then I met my husband, who built our house a whopping 4.3 miles from the house in which he grew up, and we just kind of dug in.  Apparently, I’m a wicked Yankee, too, which others have led me to believe makes me ill suited to live anywhere else, so there you have it.

2. Have you ever been so angry that you almost lost control?   Yep.  I’ve hated the feeling, though, and have gotten pretty good at retreating to the center when I feel it coming on.

3. Are you a fan of a musical act that slightly embarrasses you?   Please.  I was a child of the 80s.

4. Is there a movie that always makes you cry?   Uh, YEAH!  I well up at the “if they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it” scene in Apollo 13, no matter how many times I see it.

5. Who is the most famous person that you’ve met?   I’ve met Matt Scannell of Vertical Horizon fame.  He is chosen family with the TwoBlueDays, who are chosen family with me.

6. Before you leave your home, what must you have?   My phone.  I feel naked without my phone, even if I never use it while I’m out.

7. What do you miss the most about being a kid?   VERY little.  For all the responsibility and accountability that comes with being a grown-up, there are also a hell of a lot of freedoms and privileges, too.

8. Tell us about a passion of yours that your readers would not expect. Oh, God.  Is there anything I haven’t told you all yet?  Um…. I can’t write in books, so I’ve grown dependent on Post-it page markers to make notes and observations.  Sometimes, I have so many notes in the books that the leading edges are wider than the spine….

9. At what age do you think you’d be to think, “I’ve had a great run”?  Honestly?  I could say that right now.  I’m not nearly done, mind you, but I’ve been so happy for so long that, if I had to, I could die happy right now….

I’m exhausted, and I only watched the second half….

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Chicken nachos for dinner.  In winter’s grip, I’m transported to sparkling Bermuda.

Enjoy!

I am of two minds about this sort of thing.  On the one hand, I really, really don’t want to know about shit like this.  I tend to try to avoid any involvement in the intimate lives of others; their private doings are no more my business than mine are theirs, thank you very much.  Besides, the thought of Newt getting his freak on is something I would rather never have to contemplate for any reason.

On the other hand, though, if the issue in question has a direct bearing to the person’s job, then I do think that, at least to some extent, it should be fair game.  The politician who goes around beating the “family values” drum but who, it’s later revealed, was also banging another woman outside of his own marriage (as in the case of our dear Mr. Gingrich) deserves all the scrutiny (and, frankly, public humiliation) available when the story breaks.  Same goes for the anti-gay activist who gets busted for soliciting gay sex, or the cop caught dealing drugs, the teacher who aids students in cheating on tests, or…. or…. or… – the list of those kinds of ironic transgressions goes on and on.

I think this is part of what bothered me so much about the whole Anthony Weiner debacle.  There was no need of that bit of adolescent nonsense going as far as it did (and I think that, had he not tried to lie his way out of it when the story first broke, it maybe wouldn’t have).  Weiner wasn’t trying to cram his social ‘values’ into policy, he didn’t stand at his podium and loudly decry the degradation of the sanctity of marriage.  He was being a scumbag for texting those inappropriate photos, but in the big picture, that didn’t have ANYTHING to do with the job he was doing; I didn’t see an ethical conflict.

In Newt’s case, though, I think it IS right that this becomes an issue (and, to be fair, I thought his personal behavior SHOULD have been a bigger issue than it was when he was spearheading the attack over the Clinton-Lewinski mess).  Does a person have to be spotless to do his job?  Of course not; but I do think that, before people start to throw stones at someone else’s glass house, they should make damned sure they’re not living in the same neighborhood.

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