is it just me?

oh, mercy. where to begin. I have not posted because it's been so long that I don't know where to start. so I have decided not to tell any boring stories about where I have been (the two second version: boston, washington dc, charlottesville va and cleveland in that order). Just the highlights. I promise.

you and your racist friend

my husband is a graduate of MIT, the ultimate nerd mecca. Over Labor Day weekend there was a reunion for some people on his sports team, and I decided to go see some old friends and relatives. On Friday night we met up with a couple of his fraternity brothers. Nerd fraternity brothers is kind of funny. He shook hands with one guy who said "Hey man, where' s the handshake?" as in the secret fraternity handshake. Secret handshakes: cool. Talking about them: uncool. One of the guys is a medical resident. He says that now that he is working around real people he has decided that he liked it better when he went to good schools and only was surrounded by the top 10% (I am assuming he meant in intelligence) of the population. He really doesn't like having to deal with everyone else. That's great for a doctor, you know, because only well educated rich people get sick. I already have decided that I don't really like him. Later in the evening he starts a sentence, interrupts himself, looks at me and says "You should know, I'm kind of a racist." And you should know that now I really don't like you. Who admits to being a racist? He then proudly reported that he voted for Jesse Helms. Twice. Super. We have so much to talk about. Since this was just after the Hurricane and both those guys lived in Houston, we asked them if they were going to volunteer at the Astrodome. We had asked this before the whole racist thing, but I guess now we really know. They had both already said not a chance anyway. So I decided he'd better find a doctoring job in a nice private hospital in richy land that doesn't accept insurance or medicaid. Cuz there's nothin quite like a racist, classist doctor. Interestingly, I got into a conversation with his wife (after Friday night I was dying to meet her since I couldn't actually imagine who would marry that guy) and she was talking about how she has reservations about getting her ph.d. since academia is esoteric and elitist. I felt like saying "yeah, maybe your husband should be the academic - he'll fit right in." She is studying French literature and wants to write her dissertation on prostitution in Francophone African literature. I really think her whole dissertation might be specifically designed to piss off her husbad. Right on. anyway, if you're a racist, at least don't tell people that you hardly know. It's not really good for conversation.

babies

all of our old friends have babies. it's an epidemic. if one more person asks me when I am going to have a baby I might have to kill them. or their baby. It's just like marriage. As soon as your friends get married they say "when are you going to get married" and as soon as they have babies they say "when are you going to have babies". This problem is since I don't have a baby we hang out with our friends and they want to pretend like they can still do non-baby things but they can't. So you end up trying to eat in a restaurant or go somewhere but it's not quite the same. I mean, I love kids. I do. And I like babies. But there is a reason why people with kids all stick together and people without kids all stick together. Becuase it's just not the same. Like when one of your old single friends gets married and the three of you try to hang out and the result is the complete and total absence of fun. I really think that single people hanging out with couples is a lot like childless folks hanging out with babies. Somehow they feel sorry for you that you don't have a boyfriend or a baby even if you don't feel sorry for yourself. So they spend their time telling how to meet people or asking when you'll have a baby. So I have decided that next time someone asks me I'll just tell them I'm infertile and make them feel bad for asking. Then hopefully they'll spread the word and people will stop asking me so they don't ahve to feel awkward. And then if I do get pregnant I can fake that it's a joyous miracle and that I saw Mother Teresa in a dish towel and my infertility was cured. It'll be great.

47 million dollars

that is the estimated price tag of the wedding I went to this weekend. Okay, I exaggerate. But when the bride's family pays for the hotel rooms for the wedding party for three nights, and white suited waiters are standing there like statues holding trays full of champage upon your arrival at the wedding, you know it was expensive. But it was really gorgeous, and a lot of fun. This is good because I had a theory that there is an inverse relationship between cost and fun. Not here. Big cost = big fun. They mistakenly decided to have a Sunday brunch (note to any current wedding planners: this seems like a good idea. it is not. everyone is hungover, tired of making small talk, and may not want to run in to the bridesmaid they hooked up with.) One of the groomsmen rolls in, and apparently at 6 am he was still up and for some reason was talking to the cops. excellent. a sure sign of a good wedding. if the cops are being called to the hotel at 6 am the following day, you have done your job. We are too old to be up with the cops at 6am. We prefer to drink absolutely as much as possible and still be in bed at 2. mission accomplished.

you know they don't understand you, right?

okay, that's it for the travel stories. as promised, just the highlights. I spend a lot of time around people and their dogs. This is because I have a dog that has an excessive amount of energy so I take him places to make him tired where usually there are other people and dogs. I am terribly, horribly afraid of becoming a dog person. Dog people are weird. Lots of people talk to their dogs like they are smart, logical humans. They are not. Now, my sister talks to her two year old like she is an adult. But eventually, my niece will talk back to her like an adult. Not so with the dogs. We have a neighborhood dog park where the dogs can be let off leash, but it is surrounded by yards and does not have a fence. It's tricky. So the other day I arrive and one of the park dogs in a yard, playing with the dog that lives there. Her owner is trying to catch her and says (I am not kidding) "First of all, you can't play with that dog because it's on leash. Second of all, you need to stay inside the park." I mean really, it's a dog. Do you think itemizing your list of grievances is helping? I'll tell you: it's not. Grab the dog by the collar and drag them in to the park. This does not make you a bad parent. This is what draws the line between dog person and dog owner and you want to be very sure you stay on the right side of it. At another park there is swimming and lots of labs go there to chase toys. My dog is a fast swimmer and he steals toys. I am not proud of it, that's just how it is. So he keeps stealing this lab's toy which his owner calls a "bird" but it isn't a bird. If my dog beats his, he yells "UNACCEPTABLE" at his dog. He keeps asking his dog if he's going to "take that" from my dog. I pray that this man never has a son to put in to pee wee football. It will be ugly. At one point he actually chastised the dog for going to the bathroom instead of chasing it's bird, informing it that it could "do that later". Oh for heaven's sake. My final dog story (if you're bored skip on to the next heading) is about people who talk to their dog for the benefit of other humans present. I find this tedious. If you have something to say to me, say it. If you feel like talking, talk. Just don't do it through the dog. For example "Calvin, do you want wiscolizard's dog to leave you alone?" What that means is they want me to call my dog off Calvin. Which I will and he will listen. But couldn't you just say "Please call your dog?" No. We are working through a medium here. And those people all have a special, special gift which we can only hope they will use entirely for good.

coupons

There's a comedian named Gene Pampa who's pretty funny. Years and years ago in my old boyfriends basement I heard him tell a joke about being a the supermarket. He goes into the checkout line with a huge basket of stuff. Someone with two items gets in line behind him. He says "If that's all you have, you might want to do some more shopping because I'm gonna be a little bit of a while. I'm writing a check, and i don't ahve any i.d. I got a lotta coupons...all I gotta do is cut em out."
(A sad side story, I first saw Gene Pampa in 1993. I saw him several months ago and he was telling almost all the same jokes.)

So the other day we were at the grocery store. We get in line behind someone who appears to be finished their transaction. Wrong. They are trying to scan in all the coupons and it's not working. We need a manager. We get a manager, and then the lady starts digging through her bagged groceries looking for the coupon items. This is taking forever. Her son is eating a candy bar with the wrapper on, desperate for sustenance. The weird bagger lady says "You're sure dressed up nice. Are you going to church?" The lady looks confused. It's Tuesday night at 8 pm. Finally they figure out she has the wrong item for the coupon. She pulls them out of the bags, and instead of either deciding a) she won't get them or b) she'll pay full price, she asks the checker guy to go get the right kind of juice. Are you fucking kidding me? That is so far beyond grocery store etiquette I can't even tell you. We have now been standing there waiting for about ten minutes, thinking that any second now all this confusion will be cleared up, and she looks at us and thinks - eh, that checker guy doesn't have anything better to do than save me 30 cents on juice. I really thought I was going to kill her. Remarkably, the checkout guy who is 17 years old on a good day, was totally chill. He went, got the juice and rang her out. Honestly. There should be a special kind of police for that kind of blatant disregard for understood social norms. There should also be personality police, but that's another post altogether.

okay, that's all I can handle right now. perhaps that's all you can handle as well.

It has become clear that was has happened in Lousiana and Mississippi is a clear, unmitigated disaster. I have absolutely no idea what I would do if I lived there, and my heart goes out to those who do. The pictures, in case you live under a rock and have not seen them, are truly astonishing. My one hope is that this will help put other things into perspective. I hope that it will make people complain less about their own lives, at least for a few days. And I hope it will keep people from overestimating their own disasters. For some reason, this bothers me. For instance, a couple of weeks ago a tornado hit a town near here. (If you live anywhere other than Wisconsin then they told you it hit Madison - this news even made it to my brother-in-law in Paris - but it wasn't actually Madison.) Anyway, it was kind of bad. I think about 30 homes were completely destroyed, and more were damaged. Maybe one person was killed. Obviously, it was very unfortunate for those affected, but in the grand scheme of things: manageable. Among other things, the homes destroyed were not trailer homes, they belonged to people who can afford things like insurance. Anyway, it was big news around here, and they quoted a guy saying "This is our tsunami." I'm sorry, but...no. You are not allowed to compared this to more than 100,000 people being washed out to sea, along with entire towns. Not allowed. Really. Hopefully this hurricane will make people realize that even in the case of natural disaster, most of the time we are all pretty freakin lucky. And the people in New Orleans are now allowed to call this whatever they want. Because really, it doesn't get that much worse. Fortunately most people had time to get out of the way, as gradually (though relentlessly) rising water is kinder than a giant wave that comes out of nowhere. Though you will notice that the people who are left behind in New Orleans are the ones who don't have insurance or money or support networks. Nope. It's poor people and old people and sick people. God help them all. mercy. Interestingly, I read one guy in Lousiana quoted as saying "This is our Hiroshima." An interesting reference, given that that was sixty years ago and people usually pick their favorite recent calamity. But I would say not a good reference. It's really not the same, due to the complete lack of intention in the case of Katrina. I'm not that comfortable with the comparison, but whatever. I am trying to understand the compulsion behind drawing comparisons. Does it make it seem more real? Does it make people feel like others understand what they're going through? The terrorist attacks in Spain and London were "Our 9/11." Things that happen in Iraq are "Our D-Day." Start looking for it. It's everywhere. But of out respect for those who have suffered greatly, please try to keep things in perspective. Don't complain about your job for one day. And send money to the Red Cross.

I think one of the most tragic parts of this whole thing is that some people have decided to use it as an excuse to rob people at gunpoint, shoot at medical helicopters, shoot police who try to restore order and contribute to even greater mayhem. Why must you do this? I do not understand. Sure, break the glass and steal water from Wal-Mart. This makes sense. You are desperate. But checking the stickers on sneaker boxes before stealing them? Shooting people? Is this really necessary? Obviously none of those people are reading this, but if they were I would beg them to stop before we lose all hope. Seriously.

Somewhat relatedly, they are also about to start the trial of a guy who killed six hunters in the woods last fall. Perhaps you heard about it, another great story to help put the fine state of Wisconsin on the map. They are refering to it as a 'massacre' which to means seems overly dramatic, but it was pretty brutal. He says he did it in self defense, though after shooting eightpeople that gets a little harder to believe. We'll see. I think he's in trouble.