Positives

I wish I had deep thoughts about what to say when I hear my neighbor yelling at his girlfriend.


The guy is a straight up jack-ass, which you may have determined based on the fact that he feels the need to yell at his girlfriend.


It's not the yelling, though. Definitely a "tone" thing.


I can't actually hear the words he says most days, I just hear that, "I'm smarter than you, you stupid woman" thing in his voice and it makes my skin crawl.


People, I've been dealing with that guy my whole life. He thinks he is smarter because of the penis.


Yes, it's that guy. That fucking guy.


Never mind the fact that I live in a building with only 4 apartments, where there are no strangers, and this guy doesn't feel inspired to say hello if I run into him in the hall. All of the rest of us say hello. Some of us spend a half-hour catching up every time we run into each other--it's that kind of building. We're nice. Well, most of us are nice--I have my days.


I can overlook the hallway slight, but not the tone. Not the tone.


That guy and his most unfortunate girlfriend live across the hall from me, and we share a wall, which gives me unique access to two sounds: 1) Sometimes their cat runs up and down the hall meowing, which gets my cats very excited, and 2) I get to hear the jackass take that tone with his girlfriend.


What she does to "deserve" it (Hint: It's nothing) I'll never know, but about once a month, the man unleashes a lecture on that girl.


Earlier this week I was reminded of the mildly amusing (read: sad because it's true) joke that I found on the internet somewhere: "Lord, please grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man."


I love that one.


I think, if only I could be that clever and find a mildly amusing thing of my own to say, or even just think, when I hear the tone, either next door, or directed at me.


Actually, fuck it, I don't need to be that clever. Neither does my neighbor. We can be smart or dumb--neither situations warrants "The Tone". That's the simple, blunt truth of it. No part of your day to day should involve someone who claims to "love" you talking to you as if you are a moron.


The fact that I wish I was better talking about abuse just makes me the perfect mate for an abuser. Sick.


I think. I feel. I know I'm flawed and want to do better. Those things seem like positives--they are. They should be, anyway. In the wrong hands, though...they make you a target of some mediocre shithead.

Something + Something + Something + An Egg On It

Why is it that we look at other peoples food pics and think they are lame?


Maybe that's just me. I think your food pics are lame.


My food pics are lame as well, I just know a thing or two about good lighting and angles and framing. This makes my food pics infinitesimally less lame than some people. (Probably not a measurable amount).


The photos I take that don't look good? You never see. My friend Phil had someone ask him how he takes such good photos and his answer was, "By taking a lot of shitty photos." This is exactly correct.


Also? Red plates. I dunno. The damn things look good in natural light.


Today I'm having "rustic" roast beef hash with an egg on it.

This is a perfect (and perfectly easy) thing to do to look sort of impressive. Something + something + something + an egg on top = Eat That.


'Egg on it' a new/old trend we can all appreciate, isn't it?


One time I was standing at Andrew Zimmern's food truck at Loring Park while watching Dessa (just dropping names, now...) and who should be standing there but the man himself, so I asked, "What's good?"


I expected him to say, "All of it!" and of course he fucking did, it's his food truck.


Anyway, I settled on...Crispy Pork Belly With Green Papaya Salad, Chiles, Lime, and? An egg on it.


Glorious. Pork belly, amirite?


You should just put eggs on stuff. Do it.


Example: shredded brussel sprouts + onions + bacon. Fry that up in a pan and what? Put a fried egg on top. Insane.


Next example: Bell peppers + onion + mushroom + broccoli. Fry that up in a pan, drop a fried egg on top. Amazing.


Loco Moco...maybe the ultimate With An Egg On Top thing. Hells yes.


Avocado Toast. Egg on top. Die happy.


This dish: "Rustic" just means I don't like uniform chopping and I'm sure as hell not going to bother throwing all this stuff in the grinder like my mother used to do with the Sunday roast leftovers (a fond memory, though...)


Roast beef, potatoes and onion.


And an egg on it.


Eat it.

It's Like Drunk Tweeting, Only Longer

Not sure how many days in a row I've had this particular headache but I'll chalk this one up to "tension" and/or "stress" and go for the Fireball Whiskey instead of the pain reliever.

What am I saying? Fireball Whiskey IS a pain reliever!

You can find Fireball Whiskey in the cordials section of your local liquor store, which would seem to indicate that it is more like schnapps than whiskey, but for my purposes, that's OK.

Last Thanksgiving I carried a flask of Fireball to a remote campsite in the Adirondacks while my fellow hikers carried cans of beer. Fools. The flask in question was actually a water filtration reservoir that I was supposed to be using for emergency water. Oops.

I'm a nice person, so I did allow them to throw some of those stupid, heavy cans of beer into my pack to carry, even though I was apparently the only one with brains enough to go with "hard" liquor instead of beer for that trip.  What's another pound, right? When we got to the camp, we were met by younger, more athletic hikers who had carried up a couple of glass growlers full of their favorite brew. I felt lazy for bringing a puny flask.

I have found it handy post-election to tell people, while in the throws of some heated online discussion about whatever, that I'm drinking Fireball and therefore laughing at every fucking thing I read and hear. They get a little less angry at me for being so wildly liberal.

FYI, I'm not wildly liberal, I'm just regular liberal. That's the kind of lib that the right claim doesn't exist, but I assure you, we're here.

When I'm drinking Fireball I get to this nice euphoric state where things are good and everything amuses me. I start reading things out loud, even if I'm the only person in the room, because whatever it is I'm reading is so damn amusing, it must be shared.

The cats look at me funny. 

I don't care.

(Since we're talking, reading things out loud is really the best way to enjoy a thing someone has written, especially poetry. Try it.)

Fireball Whiskey. Makes me listen to music "better", and makes me write worse.

Listening to...? Del Amitri. Which I do sometimes, but not a lot. I'm not a nostalgic person, and sadly, Del Amitri albums are all...(*sob*)...older records now. But...Fireball. I seek out some warm, happy comfort.

(Short break while we get all serious, cuz you know she's not a real drunk chick if she doesn't get serious at some point: I really do dig Del Amitri. I'll pull some adjectives out of the air for you--let's see how I do: Accessible? Listenable? Thoughtful. Clever. Melodic. It's good stuff. You notice the guitar work a bit more while you're drinking and the particulars of the vocals. It's different drunk than while sober. More Del Amitri, please, and thank you. Want me to tell you about that time when I was working nights at a Top 40 station when "Here and Now" was released? Yeah. Totally rigged several nights of one of those 'call in and vote'  radio shows in their favor because what a great fucking song. I tell my radio friends (and this might not mean anything to you non-radio people, so go ahead and skip to the next paragraph) that I would always pot up the fades of Del Amitri songs while playing them on the air because there was good stuff hiding in those fades. Ya faded too soon! Guess we can apply that statement to a lot of things.)


Because I am currently learning/studying French, I have the keyboard on my phone set to French language and it keeps correcting "Amitri" to "amitié". This is, of course, very amusing to me because of the Fireball.


I started sending drunk texts, in French, to people who don't speak French, and tell them, "Oops, sorry, I've had like 6 shots of Fireball!" as if I normally send texts in French, just not to them.


I'm feeling much better. Clearly I needed the laugh. We all did.


Thanks Fireball.

Repudiation Day

Stressed today.


I tell myself I'm not election stressed, but it's a lie. I live in a world of instant answers, and not having instant answers about election results is stressful.  I don't want exit poll stuff, I want real results, so...wait. And stress.


In the meantime, here is some stuff about the election.

• My kid voted in her very first presidential election today. I remember mine. I remember walking into a polling place wearing a "vote" pin (didn't have a candidate name, just said "vote") and I got stopped for a moment by a poll worker. The year was Nineteen-eighty-jeezuz-was-it-that-long-ago and it was somewhat uneventful after Pin-gate.
• As you may have heard, there is a woman on the ticket this year. (REALLY!) This does not mean much to me and I realize that the fact that it's not that important to me is the significant thing, here. It's perfectly normal, in my head, that a woman can (and in this case, *should*) be elected President. It's not an anomaly. It's just a person stepping up to accept the challenge of the day. Women have been doing this forever, we just finally got to the part where men stopped poo-poo-ing us enough to get to a good place. Nothing to get excited about! Just a thing.
• Then I went on the internet and it was all, "OMG I'm weeping about this!" while reading other people's stories. An unexpectedly emotional day.
• Then I realized that my kid, in her first presidential election, got to vote for the first woman at the top of the ticket. And I was proud of her and of us.
• Then, true to form, my kid sent me a Snapchat with an "I voted" sticker on her forehead and a caption that read "Trump 2016!!" Not to worry--she followed that up with a "just kidding, guys" snap. She does know how to mess with me. Did I ever tell you about the time she cracked the joke about selling sex on the street corner when she was 11 or 12 years old? Or the time she wanted me to take a pic of her chugging from a wine bottle and sent it to grandma? I think she was maybe 13, then. I love that record-scratch sense of humor of hers. She's brutal, in a good way.
• Hey, Hey, USA, what the hell took us so long? (since we're talking) Other countries have had plenty of women in positions of power, for, like, ever.
• This election has shown me many things about my country that I do not like. For example, people who happen to be complete fuck-heads are feeling pretty OK about themselves right now. I can't tell you how many times during the last month I have uttered the words, "Fuck these people..." in reference to those who threaten (excuse me...I mean "joke about") violence toward the other side. Because Fuck. Those. People.
• Just a qualifier about that last bullet point: I've been around these effing guys my entire life. I grew up in a place where any kind of intellectualism was thought of as a bit of a weakness. This disease has spread across the country and there has been a steady crescendo of the "My stupid is just as good as your smart" bullshit for the last several years. You know what? It isn't. It fucking isn't. Smart is smart, and stupid is stupid. One is good and one is bad. They are not the same or even close. They are not equal. Also? Fuck. Those. People.
• I decided that the word of the day would be "Repudiation." Smart people, you're good. Stupid people, ask a smart person to explain it to you.
• Every time we do this election thing I feel like it's kids running rampant and making a huge mess and then grown-ups show up to enforce calm. Think about this year....you had a ton of people say that Trump would win just based on the size of political rallies. This is logic a KID would formulate in their head. They have such a limited concept of human beings that they think anyone who doesn't behave the same way they do can't be real. I just want to say, "Thank you, grown ups!" Thank you for showing up and keeping our shit together.
• Favorite over-heard joke so far today? "Tomorrow's headline will read 'Orange Crushed'." Here's hoping. Thanks Lance Gould!
• Second favorite thing: Fuck-head Farage (Nigel, to his friends, if he had any) asks "Will today be Brexit day in the USA?" and the internet reminds him we brexited 250 years ago.
• The stickers on Susan B. Anthony's headstone...another unexpectedly emotional thing, for me. The line of people waiting to pose for pictures by her grave? You can't help but feel something when you see that. No, she was not without fault. She wanted women to vote but didn't consider women of color worthy of that right--suffragettes of color had it tougher. I'm not one to forget those things. I'm glad to live in a time where I can get both the emotion of the day and an important history lesson at the same time. We get a little better every day.

So...How Are We Feeling Tonight, America?

This is an "as of around 5PM Sunday before election day" map showing how things might go on Tuesday according to 538.

Not particularly bright and sunny for either candidate.


One thing we know for sure? This map will change.


Another thing we know for sure? This country has been changed, and we probably won't have another "civil" election for at least a generation.  I'll probably be long dead before one side stops being a bunch of shit-birds.


A friend of mine, one of the rare friends with whom I don't mind talking politics, asked me for a prediction. "Who's gonna win this thing?"


As we talked, it occurred to us both that we've all lost. I don't say that to sound like one of those, "both candidates are bad" people. I don't believe both candidates are bad. I believe that a Clinton presidency would be like the Obama presidency: Not nearly as exciting as their opponents make them out to be. Kind of boring, in fact. Boring like...people going to work. Government office style boring.


I'm a big fan of boring when it comes to the presidency of this country. Bring on the boring. Not much fun for the comedy writers, of course, but far better for the rest of us.


Even if it turns out we have 8 years of "boring," we're still not going to have a great 8 years. The shit-birds will still be shit-birds, emboldened by the escalation of ridiculousness that has proceeded these final hours.


They'll get their shit all over everything.


We're all covered in it already.


On Tuesday, I'll be lifting a glass. It might be in disgust. It won't likely be in celebration. Even a win for the person who *should* win just means more whining from the ones who didn't. They'll get louder and louder and we'll all have to put up with their pouting and stamping of feet. No one will enjoy this. No one.


The PR angle of politics used to be fun for me. I was pretty good at predicting an outcome based on how people were talking, what words they were using, and how people reacted. We're not much fun to look at these days. Oh, I still have my preference, and I still think one side is better than the other, but the other side is not so predictable any more--they keep moving the goalpost to new areas of awful.


So...how are we feeling tonight? Ready for it to be over, but sick with the knowledge that it won't be, for years.

Four for the Price of None

November is NaBloPoMo, which I understand to mean as the month I get to feel guilty for not writing a blog every day, while simultaneously making jokes about head, because NaBloPoMo, amirite?

Yes, I'm 12.

Today is November 4th, so I owe 4.

Here they are.

And trust me, they are just as entertaining all on the same page as they would be if I had posted them individually.  

I don't know if that's a good thing.

Blog 1: Not For All The Tea In Edina

Does that tea store at the mall ONLY hire the hyper-active dudes that are SUPER psyched about tea?

What's the recruitment like for that place? DO YOU LOVE TEA AND SUPER-AGGRESSIVE SALES TACTICS? THEN COME JOIN OUR TEAM!!!

Imagine being trained to be the hallway guy at Tea Store (You know I'm talking about you, Teavana, right? You must know...). What things must that trainer say to the young recruit to make them successful...?

IF THEY MOVE, YOU MOVE! WATCH THEIR EYES! WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT? ASK THEM IF THEY WANT TO BUY IT! I DON'T CARE IF IT'S NOT FOR SALE! ASK! MAKE SURE THEY TRY AT LEAST 5 SAMPLES BEFORE THEY GET AWAY! JESUS CHRIST MAN, DON'T LET THEM LEAVE!

After 52 hours of verbal lashing, the formerly mild-mannered tea sucking hippy transforms into Mr. You Will Buy Something, raring to pounce on the next person wandering past.

I, being a glutton for punishment, went there on purpose, and $40 later walked out with a little bag of Ruby Spiced Cider tea, feeling violated.

But then I went home and drank the stuff and forgot the pain--kind of like you forget the pain of childbirth when they put that baby in your arms.

Now...it is worth nothing that after the baby, I did forget the actual *pain* part, but I was not so baby-zenned that I forgot to tell my doctor to make it so that birthing thing CAN NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN AGAIN--I DON'T CARE WHAT BODY PART YOU HAVE TO REMOVE.

If I was only half as smart as a tea drinker as I am as a mother, I'd suck up the shipping costs and order online.

It's either that or get a job at Teavana and learn their secret ways of persuasion. 

Actually, I'd just do it for the discount because $40, man? You're killing me! No wonder I felt violated...

Blog 2: Oh To Be Young And Stupid Again!

I started at a new job and I am the youngest person on the team.

For those of you not aware, I'm 108 (read: 50) years old, and I'm virtually never the youngest person in any gathering, these days.

Part Two of this equation is the fact that I work from home and my team mates also work from home and we've never seen each other in person.

I'm not sure if it's because I have a certain sound to my voice on the phone or if they're just mean, but I'm getting the impression that my team mates think I'm stupid.

Just to clarify...I'm not stupid. I'm frustratingly intelligent, to the point it causes me social awkwardness. My whole day is an ongoing "solve this problem, solve this problem, solve this problem," dialogue in my head, whether I want it to be, or not. I'm virtually incapable of relaxing. It's why I used to drink so damn much--just to shut it off. I'm also a bit of an empath, so I'm really tuned in to things...like, tone, for example.

And yet...these people act like the simplest task is going to be monumentally challenging for me. They speak to me slowly, in a manner I find condescending. 

Yes, it's probably more my interpretation than their intent. People talking to me like I'm stupid is my #2 Pet Peeve right behind people who waste my time, but as it turns out, people who talk to me like I'm stupid are also wasting my time while they condescend, so maybe they should be #1.

Recently, somebody that I know fairly well (outside of work) made a comment about how they were "too smart" to vote for the Democrat. They were excited about Mr. Trump and believed in their heart of hearts that Mrs. Clinton has had people killed to cover up her criminal activity, and blah, blah, blah, conspiracy theory times 20, that woman just can't be trusted. That same person surmised that I must be voting for Hillary and therefore must be a total moron. I made no mention of who I was voting for, they just went off because I didn't join in with their tirade against her.

Somehow I managed to keep a straight face and say nothing, even though I had never been face to face with anyone making such insanely ridiculous declarations. These are the same type of folks who decide that nobody is voting for Hillary and every piece of evidence to the contrary is faked, etc. It's an alternate reality to the one I'm living where people openly talk about her without sneering. There is nothing you can really say, you just...move on.

My job, right now, feels like a milder version of that moment. I'm trying not to freak out. I'm new. I keep telling myself to just shut up and take the money and maybe my comparative youth will mean I'll still be here after they're gone and I'll enjoy some kind of last laugh scenarios.

Here's hoping.

Blog #3: Related

Hey, they can't all be amazing.

Blog #4: Stress Relief

Once upon a time, I had a knitting blog. I posted pictures of things I knit and I made mild-mannered jokes that were appropriate to the knitting crowd.

Then I discovered that the knitting crowd was a lot more fun than I thought and I wrote about other stuff.

Then I put knitting (the hobby) on a back burner for a while.  

Too much sitting. 

Yes, that's a thing! I'm trying to lose weight, here! I've got 20 more pounds to go! I can't SIT!

But wow...the election and the job and just...fucking everything, y'all.

I take a long walk (5-ish miles) just about every day and that does help, and I think about other things and I don't watch the news. I'm coping, but knitting is zen. It's a problem to solve (See Blog #2) and it's soft and fuzzy and you end up with a useful thing.

That's what my brain needs right now. Knitting.

So I bought some yarn today. 

The giant kind.

The instant gratification kind, where you don't have to do a billion stitches for it to become a a thing...you can do, like, a a few thousand. 

I"m gonna make a thing--a pair of things, actually, and I'll have them done in time to watch the world burn on Tuesday. 

It'll be OK. I'll be knitting instead of worrying.

Feel free to do the same.