Update:
I just read that “President Bush cut his vacation short by 2 days” to go to New Orleans and talk to the people on the ground. But.. but..but.. I thought he was only on vacation for 1 week in August and then he was just in Crawford because the White House is under renovation. Yes? No? Is there no limit to the number of lies his staff can spin per unit time?

People are dying all over New Orleans and Mississippi. Hospitals have no generators and people on life support including premature babies are dying. Can you imagine the pain of losing your baby because the government couldn’t get some fuel to keep the generators at the hospital running? Tens of thousands of people have no water, no food, no medicine – nothing and it’s been that way for 4 days. The streets are lined with the dead and they aren’t the ones that drowned in the flood – they are the ones who cannot survive the hardship. Of course the natives are restless. So what is the one thing Bush says publicly other than ‘help is on the way’ (and we all know that the help is a mere fraction of what it needs to be)? He says this:

“The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.”

Our President is a moron and I say that at the probable risk of the FBI showing up at my door and arresting me for treason. Karl Rove can out a CIA agent but an angry citizen is fodder for Camp Gitmo.

If George W. Bush doesn’t go down in history as the biggest idiot ever elected to office and if this turn of the century doesn’t go down as the most oppressive, misguided time in our country’s history I will be very, very surprised. Not only do we have a total monkey brain for a President – he has disciples who keep him in power and protect him all the while chipping away at our basic rights and sending our country in bankruptcy. It feels like we are in the dark ages. Under the leadership of Bush we have lost our country. Hopefully he will put us over the edge and the next fight for survival will be for a return to freedom, justice, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Hopefully not too many more people will die needlessly before it happens.

What’s in your 21stCentury purse? If you are male and carry a man-purse that counts.

Update – apparently my little tale was too boring to get through and no one has answered my question so I’ve moved it to the top. Come on people, this is your opportunity to regale us with cute tales of how you went to get a pen out of your purse and all you could find was a rubber ducky and a binky. Or how about the one where you thought you put your checkbook in your purse only to discover it was a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar leaving you unable to pay for your purchase and totally humiliated. Or how about the one about the condom? Surely someone has a good condom story to tell.

You know it happens. Now spill!

My daughter reached into my very small purse today and pulled something out and said, “Wow! What is this spy gadget?”
“Oh – that’s a jump drive”
“A jump drive? What’s that?”
“Its a portable hard drive you can plug into your USB port. It’s really cool”
“Boooring… it looks like something you could plug into a special security lock and then the numbers would flash across this part.”
“Sorry to disappoint!”

So here’s what I have in my purse:
1 wallet
1 Pair of glasses
1 pen
1 lipstick (Stila – Jo)
1 jump drive

1 cell phone
2 AA batteries (probably dead – don’t know)
and if I am not driving the car 1 keyring with 3 keys on it.

That’s it – I like to travel light. No small toys, no loose Cheerios, no emergency rations, no tools, no implements for my hair.

Would Janis Joplin or Mama Cass last 2 seconds in the music business today? Not that Janis didn’t look great in some of her pictures but she was definitely not known for being a hotty. How about Joni Mitchell ? Mama Cass was just plain big. Can you find a female artist with reasonable standing on the charts today who does not have an extremely high FMQ*?

Let’s review:
Susan Tadeschi (closest thing to Janis I can find)
Joss Stone (somewhat Janis like and barely legal)

Dido
Nora Jones
Shawn Colvin
Fiona Apple has had a little fun with ‘the image’ but she is still sucked in
Liz Phair is no better although from her lyrics you might expect her to be.
Michelle Branch (a little over the top, non?)

Sade
Beyonce

The only plus size female singer I can think of is Wynona but when she is photographed for an album they make her look totally hot. Besides, she sings country so that doesn’t exactly count. Carnie Wilson is the only big rock-type singer I can think of (and she was more folk than rock) and she went and had her stomach stapled.

Now there may have been some efforts to minimize Cass Eliot’s bulk but for the most part people just let her be the singer she was and it was enough to portray her as carefree and happy.

Near as I can tell, if you ain’t pretty and sexy you don’t get to be in the business. Just look at what Stevie Nicks has done to herself. For the love of God the woman is my age but she knows perfectly well she wouldn’t get far on her old material if she looked 50.

The only exceptions to the rule I could find were Tracy Chapman who is neither beautiful nor willing to pose like a tart and Bonnie Raitt who refuses to prostitute her natural beauty and who has more talent her in little finger than most musicians combined but was not included on Rolling Stones top 100 guitarists (sexist assholes! Oddly enough, Joni Mitchell was)

Am I missing something? Am I wrong? Please tell me I’m wrong.

*FMQ – fuck me quotient based on beauty and photographic portrayal

It’s been 11 days since I posted anything. Every single day I think of at least 3 things I’d like to write about and every day I just skip it. Topics have included:

– The real perils of 21st Century Parenting – kids getting put in jail for acting like kids
– PTA Bitches – oh the stories are abumdant
– Public Schools that can’t function without Herculean parental efforts
– The Skankification of America (I could have picked a million links)
– Life before the Boppy was invented
– Birth stories – they never get old
– My retarded vegetable garden – what happened to my green thumb?
– Raising children who think you rock the house (read comment from Humbly Ann)
– Wasting time on the internet
– Hollywood sucks

And more – there is so much more.

And one of these days I’ll do it- I’ll write something up. I really will.

Let me know if you have any requests. I aim to please.

Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville California is angry with President Bush because she lost her son in Iraq. She wants the President to come talk to her, to tell her why her son died because as far as she can tell there is no good reason. She wants to know when the rest of the soldiers can come home. She doesn’t believe in the ‘course’ Bush refers to in ‘stay the course’ and who can blame her?

Bush keeps insisting that we are winning against the insurgents and yet the death toll due to terrorism in Iraq and in the rest of world doesn’t support that claim. Once in a while we have a ‘good’ month where the number goes down a little but by and large the monthly casualty count has been trending up since the beginning of this undeclared, unapproved war predicated on false pretense. Some mothers respond to this by declaring their dead children heroes and patriots and I don’t fault them that. If they can’t believe that their kids are dying for their country then they have to believe they are dying for no reason. Cindy Sheehan is in that sad camp. She believes that her beloved baby boy, the one she cooed and smiled to, the one with the round little tummy she blew on to make him laugh, the one who gave her plaster of Paris hand prints he made at school, the one who sat at the breakfast table one morning casually stroking his peach fuzz while striking an air of mature nonchalance, the one who one day found himself looking down at the top of her head and smiled wryly, the one who stood patiently in his first tuxedo posing for endless prom pictures and hamming it up for the camera, the one who wanted to serve his church and his country since he was a small boy, died for no good reason. She speaks about how Caesy died looking much as he did as a baby and about how painful losing him has been for her. She is angry and she believes that George W. Bush owes her some answers that consist of something more than rhetoric about ‘the war on terror’ and the need to remove a despotic despicable leader who was never a threat to her country. She went to London to testify on the need to investigate the Downing Street memo and she is in Texas trying, once again, to get some answers.

She has said she will wait outside of the Bush ranch until the President comes out to speak with her directly. Members of his staff have spoken to her and told her that Bush really cares but she wants to hear it directly from him. She wants him to stand up and answer for the casualties of this war. Sadly, that means she will be out there for a full month waiting in vain while the most vacation happy President in the history of this country continues to get all the R&R he feels entitled to in spite of the many crises his war has generated. She will do this because that’s what mothers do – they stand up for their children in life and in death. The press will forget about her and we will all go about our lives, continuing to muddle along day by day, living in a country that doesn’t know how to rid itself of a despotic, despicable leader.

Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville California is angry with President Bush because she lost her son in Iraq. She wants the President to come talk to her, to tell her why her son died because as far as she can tell there is no good reason. She wants to know when the rest of the soldiers can come home. She doesn’t believe in the ‘course’ Bush refers to in ‘stay the course’ and who can blame her?

Bush keeps insisting that we are winning against the insurgents and yet the death toll due to terrorism in Iraq and in the rest of world doesn’t support that claim. Once in a while we have a ‘good’ month where the number goes down a little but by and large the monthly casualty count has been trending up since the beginning of this undeclared, unapproved war predicated on false pretense. Some mothers respond to this by declaring their dead children heroes and patriots and I don’t fault them that. If they can’t believe that their kids are dying for their country then they have to believe they are dying for no reason. Cindy Sheehan is in that sad camp. She believes that her beloved baby boy, the one she cooed and smiled to, the one with the round little tummy she blew on to make him laugh, the one who gave her plaster of Paris hand prints he made at school, the one who sat at the breakfast table one morning casually stroking his peach fuzz while striking an air of mature nonchalance, the one who one day found himself looking down at the top of her head and smiled wryly, the one who stood patiently in his first tuxedo posing for endless prom pictures and hamming it up for the camera, the one who wanted to serve his church and his country since he was a small boy, died for no good reason. She speaks about how Caesy died looking much as he did as a baby and about how painful losing him has been for her. She is angry and she believes that George W. Bush owes her some answers that consist of something more than rhetoric about ‘the war on terror’ and the need to remove a despotic despicable leader who was never a threat to her country. She went to London to testify on the need to investigate the Downing Street memo and she is in Texas trying, once again, to get some answers.

She has said she will wait outside of the Bush ranch until the President comes out to speak with her directly. Members of his staff have spoken to her and told her that Bush really cares but she wants to hear it directly from him. She wants him to stand up and answer for the casualties of this war. Sadly, that means she will be out there for a full month waiting in vain while the most vacation happy President in the history of this country continues to get all the R&R he feels entitled to in spite of the many crises his war has generated. She will do this because that’s what mothers do – they stand up for their children in life and in death. The press will forget about her and we will all go about our lives, continuing to muddle along day by day, living in a country that doesn’t know how to rid itself of a despotic, despicable leader.

Running a marathon is sort of like giving birth. The process leading up to the blessed event is fraught with trials and tribulations. The prospective mother suffers anxiety and pain and requires endless preparation and education to get it all right. The process itself requires the skill and flexibility of a contortionist to pull off and all through the process one can’t help but think that maybe a detour to the dentist’s for a root canal would be more fun. And then when it is over we think, “hey – not so bad and look what I got out of it! The next time……”

Last time I ran a marathon (San Diego Rock n’ Roll in 1999) I felt Done with running when it was over (that’s Done with a capital “D”). It took me about 10 days to get up the nerve or gumption or interest to go out and run at all and then I was really just not interested. As I recall I did get back into running after the long hot summer ended and I even remember working up to a 10 mile run but then I just quit. I started swimming some time after that and I really enjoyed the swimming and just decided that I didn’t like running and would not do it anymore. The marathon itself didn’t seem like it was that big of a deal, though.

In 2004 I turned 50 and I decided I wasn’t going over to the other side of The Hill without putting up a good fight and running a marathon seemed like just the right ring to step into. I was going to run the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati in May but oops – I forgot to train. Then I decided that the sensible thing to do would be to run SF since I live in the area. On April 11, long after I had registered and paid the $91 fee I had a start – uh oh! better start training! I got out my old Team in Training calendar, wrote the current dates on top of the old dates and was very relieved when the SF Marathon date landed on the box marked Rock ‘n Roll Marathon! I had started training exactly on time.

With the exception of 1 run, I did this training all by myself. I was the only one paying attention to whether or not I showed up to put in my miles and I was really proud of that. I ran the marathon with a few thousand of somebody’s closest friends but none of mine. Although I didn’t make the time goal I had set for myself I did finish in a very respectable time.

I went out too fast and got in some trouble because of it. I took off with the 5:00 or 5:10 pace wave. My plan had been to try to stick with an 11:15 to 11:30 pace for this first half of the race and then to pick it up for the second half but oh no. Why stick with a plan when you can just wing it and see what happens?? First mile split 10:33 – too fast but I decide that I will naturally slow down when we hit hills so I just keep going at that pace. Second mile 10:19. Dang – still too fast but now we are running through Fisherman’s wharf and the tourists have come out to cheer us on even though it is 6 AM on a Sunday and I’m feeling good. Third mile split 11:10. Ah – finally hit the right pace and it feels pretty good so now I’m warmed up and enjoying myself. Of course I’ve neglected to note that we have just gone up our first hill and it was pretty steep and of course that slowed me down. It’s flat again now and we’re running along the waterfront which is beautiful. Mile 4 10:36. Mile 5 10:50 and we are heading up, up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Mile 6 11:50 and now I’m thinking I really should slow down and pace myself. I’m warm in spite of the dark and the fog and I notice that my head is soaked and think I’m sweating to death but then I notice that the guy in front of me is in nylon pants that are soaked – it is just the fog and we’re all wet. The temperature is perfect, though. I’m not hot and not cold and on I go with the sub 11 minute miles as I continue to guffaw in the face of a well constructed and sensible plan to make it through all 26.2 miles.

They shut down 1/2 the lanes on the Golden Gate Bridge to accommodate the runners which was very fun. Cars using the other half honked their horns in encouragement (at least I prefer to think that is what all the honking was about). The course across the bridge is an out and back so 1/2 the runners lanes are occupied by the fast runners coming back the other way. I envy them their speed. My side gets to the scenic vista point (not that scenic in the thick fog) and heads back the other way. Half way back there are almost no people coming the other direction so I know I’m pretty far back in the race but that’s okay. Off the bridge and its up, up, up for 2 loong painful miles. I decide to keep running and not walk. Finally we hit a steep downhill and there is euphoria in the air! I run mile 11 in 9:53 and I know I will pay for this but still I’m thinking that I’ll just slow down naturally and so it’s good that I’m making speed now. How prescient of me.. ha ha ha.

On into Golden Gate Park, past the bison (I wave at them!) and on I go. The first 1/2 Marathon runners are all excited that they are almost done and I’m happy to hit the 1/2 but something is happening – my left butt cheek is getting tight and sore – really sore. I make a porta-potty stop and take a little stretch but it still hurts. Crap! I haven’t even hit the proverbial “wall” at 20 miles and I’m sore and now I’m worried. “Buck up, you sissy and keep running!”, I tell myself and somehow manage to get my pace back to 10:44 for mile 14 but then I start to lose it. I cannot run UP another hill and yet there are plenty left to negotiate. This is when I totally puss out and start walking the hills. Mile 15 – 18 all 12:00 and over. I keep going on the strength of knowing that Sharffenburger, a local gourmet chocolate company will be handing out chocolate at the 18.75 mile mark. I’ve had a vision since I learned about the “wall of chocolate” that consuming these sweet balls of caffeinated sugar will give me a surge of power and I will pick up my pace and just fly through the last part of the marathon. Oh – such a dreamer!!! I get there and they hand out a Dixie cup with 3 little chocolate balls in it. I take 2 cups but it’s hard to swallow the chocolate and my stomach isn’t all that appreciative. Crap – whatever… just keep running, girl!

Finally we get out of the park and get to run through the Haight, a place that still capitalizes on the Summer of Love and is filled with hippie shops and lots of people cheering. There is a guy in a 2nd story window waving a red T-shirt and yelling “Thank you, good job, we’re all AWAKE NOW! I worked late last night” over and over. To him I say put some cotton in your ears and go back to bed, jackass! The best part about this section of the run is that it goes DOWNHILL! People are yelling “It’s all downhill now” which is what I also thought so I’m happy and I feel like I can run the rest of the race. Mile 21 – 11:22, mile 22 11:38 but now my left leg and glute are really killing me and my feet hurt. Out of the Haight and through the Mission and then into the industrial backwaters of Potrero hill and you guessed it – hills. I still need to walk the hills. In fact, I can’t really run for very long at all. I walk, jog, and run the last 4 miles as I have given up on making a 5 hour finish and I am in quite a lot of pain. Someone in a 5:20 pace shirt shoots by me and really kills any ability I had to make a 5 hour time. (It turns out this person is well ahead of plan and really shouldn’t have done that – grrr). I try to pep-talk myself into just running as walking doesn’t really feel that much better than running but I ‘m out of gas and hell, I’m no Lance Armstrong. If it really hurts I’m likely to give it up and try something else. I can only run for a couple hundred yards at a time and then I have to walk. I see a dentist’s office and engage in random musings about the comfort of the chair and the relative benefits of having a root canal but no… I must keep moving forward. My trusty Garmin Forerunner 201 says those last few miles were 14+ minutes and I believe it. Onward I go, looking forward to the 26 mile mark so I can run the rest of the way in and run I do. The last mile is round the back of PacBell Park and along the water which is very nice and when I get to the 26 mile marker I run, run, run to get Done, Done, Done!

My daughter is waiting for me at the finish line with gold pom poms but she isn’t shaking them and I miss her and she misses me. I get my HUGE freakin’ medal (with little pads on one side so you can use it as a coster) and my myalr blankie and ask someone if I can use her cell phone to call little Pookie (my daughter) so we can connect. I must say, people were ever so nice with the cell phones which was good because I didn’t take mine with me. I call Pookie who says she is right in front of the finish line. I try to walk back there to find her but I am on the wrong side of the road and I have to walk on COBBLESTONES and my ass and my leg hurt soooo much – I am dying. Finally I go into the Red Cross tent for ice, borrow yet another cell phone and call her. As we are going through our “Where are you?” “Where are YOU?” routine she says, “I’m looking at you right now!” I sit on the bag of ice and it feels sooo good! Pookie comes in pom poms blazing, all dressed in black like a Black Angel and I am so glad to see her and have someone to share my triumph with! I was sorry I had missed her coming across the line but I was so very glad to be finished.

Monday I was a hurting unit but today I feel pretty good. My thighs are a little sore but I am planning on swimming tomorrow and then going for a short run on Thursday. I can hardly wait to put my running shoes on and hit the road. I’m not exactly sure what the difference between my experience in 1999 and now is but I think it has to do with effort. I took longer to run this marathon but worked harder at it and I cared more about the results. I went beyond ‘just finishing’ and started to think about performance even though I’m not a performance athlete by any stretch of the imagination. Or maybe not. Maybe it is age which oddly enough has brought new found faith in myself. I don’t know. I just know that for my next marathon I’m sticking with the plan!

Bush: Intelligent Design Should Be Taught – Yahoo! News

Is there no insult too great for the President to resist visiting it on our country? What the hell business does he have telling anyone what they should teach in school? Is there no end? For love of your country Mr. President please take that 1 month vacation and DO NOTHING! We will be better off for that. Go ahead and take your 50th vacation since taking office and just chill out and shut your pie hole for a month. Oh, and take Cheney and Rove with you.

Bill Frist has announced that he is going to back legislation on stem cell research. Oh for joy – the voice of reason from the far right! HA! I mean on the surface that’s what it is – but what does it mean? The question the press is asking is, “what will this do to Bill Frist’s chances on a bid for the White House”? I’m not sure but perhaps he is just trying to make up for this risky manuever in other ways. I would have missed this news (which I just found by doing a news search) had I not gotten a letter from Senator Barbara Boxer the other day describing Frist’s senate floor shenanigans:

Late Tuesday night, Republican Leader Bill Frist interrupted Senate debate on the defense authorization bill, abruptly changing gears to call up a different piece of legislation that apparently demanded our immediate consideration.
Senator Frist assured us that this was a “very important” bill that absolutely required action before the Senate’s August recess. Surely Senator Frist would only postpone consideration of the defense authorization bill until September for a very good reason, right?
So was Senator Frist calling up legislation to fix our broken health care system? No.
Was it a bill to improve education for our kids? Nope
Strengthening Social Security? No, not that either.
No, instead of finishing our work on the defense authorization bill during a time of war, Senator Frist and his buddies over at the National Rifle Association decided it was critically important to consider new legislation shielding gun manufacturers from civil liability lawsuits, and to do it right now.
Can there be a better example of how upside-down the radical right wing’s priorities are, and why we need to return control of Congress to the Democrats?

So it would appear that Frist is just covering his tracks or rebuilding his alliances or schmoozing the slightly less conservative right. Maybe a person sick with cancer got to him (Arlen Specter?) but considering the magnitude of the political gamble he is taking I doubt his vote has anything to do with compassion or reason. His kind just doesn’t work that way. If it did then he wouldn’t be playing 11th hour political games with the NRA. In fact, if he were using reason he wouldn’t have stepped into the Terri Schiavo case with arm chair, video based dianostic pronouncement and he wouldn’t have opposed stem cell research to begin with. No – the guy has a different agenda and it is surely slimey and dark. I’ve come to expect no less from the current band of Federalist Society puppeteers running our country.

As I suspected…. he met someone else with whom things have ‘heated up’ over the weekend. I pretty much figured that one out, too. So I’m brushing off my knees and moving forward.

As for the “it wasn’t meant to be” – that may be true but this guy is first one I’ve met in 5 years I was really interested in. Hopefully I don’t have to wait another five.

Thanks for the feedback and support. Special thanks to my sweet daughter Humbly Ann – I love you!