la Matriarch

I’ve been trying for the past several days to come up with a way to express my feelings about the celebration at Grant Park on election night.  I’ve been more overcome with emotion and elation than any other time in my life and my thoughts are just too jumbled to make any sense of.   For my own selfish reasons, I need to be able to get the experience out in some form that I can read, share, store.  Piece by piece, maybe…

We’d secured tickets to the event and had been told that the gates to Grant Park would be open to ticket holders at 8:30 pm and that there’d be another area for people without tickets right next to Grant Park where they could gather to watch Barack’s speech on the giant TV screens. 

I’d been glued to the TV all day long and after I found the live streaming video of the people lining up to attend the rally, I hardly left my laptop.  We’d have headed down there earlier, except I had a board meeting to attend at 7:00. 

We drove downtown around 8:00 and parked at my job and took a cab over to the entrance of the rally at Congress and Michigan and as soon as we got in the cab my guy yells to the cab driver “TAKE ME TO SEE BARACK!”  If you knew him, you’d know how strange that is.  He’s extremely shy and laid back.  He hardly ever speaks in public and quite frankly I started wondering if he’d completely flip out at this event and cause me to miss it in order to take him to the crazy hospital.

Driving downtown and then later in the cab, I was surprised how deserted the streets of downtown Chicago were but once we started to approach the Grant Park area, I realized that all the people were concentrated in this small area.  That’s when I started to get nervous.  I don’t do well with crowds and looking around at all the people at heightened states of this and that, I could see the potential for disaster. 

As we stood waiting to cross the street to get to the ticket holder’s line, I was already becoming annoyed by the rowdy drunk guys behind us, smoking swearing and stinking of beer.  I wanted to be OK with them just having fun celebrating this historic event but the truth is that I considered it a very serious matter, one that deserved a night of sober. 

I nearly died when I saw the line for ticket-holders that stretched down Michigan Ave as far as I could see.  We walked all the way from Congress to Roosevelt (5 blocks, I think) only to see that the line had snaked around and down Roosevelt Ave.  We were feeling very defeated since it seemed there’d be no way we could make it through the line and into the park before Barack’s speech.  Then something crazy happened.  I think the Chicago Police just got sick of it all and on a whim they opened a blocked side entrance to the park and started telling us all to go.  “The lines are too long, just go, go!”  We all poured in and I’ll never forget my guy saying “this is where the stampede happens.” 

We walked as fast as we could, past drunk girls complaining about us skipping them, not even knowing where the end of the line was.  As we walked, I kept looking at the long line to my left, the ticket holder’s we’d just passed patiently waiting their turn to enter the park - they’d probably never make it in.  We weren’t that far from them but the path we were walking down was lined with beautiful trees so they didn’t see us or there might have been some kinda riot when they realized they’d waited for hours for something we’d hardly waited for, at all. 

Ultimately we ended up at the very front of the line in the corner where they’d stationed another ticket-taker between the wall and a big ass garbage can.  We were packed together to a level that nearly sent me into a full-blown panic attack.  It was one of those times where you know that something small could happen to excite the crowd into a panic and you’d end up on the ground fighting for your life while people trampled you.  As we stood there, waiting, inching forward, I could feel the breath of strangers on my neck, I could hear whispers not meant for me to hear, I could smell what they’d eaten and drank.  It was hard to find a way to position my head so that I could inhale anything but other peoples exhales.  That was an awful moment.

We eventually made it through and I’ve never felt such freedom as I did when we passed the entrance and I was able to walk with some space on either side of me and breath the fresh, cool air. 

When we entered the park there was a sea of people already there watching the Jumbotron but we found a spot over by the east fence so that at least one side of us would not be packed with people, and we waited, and watched.  First they announced that we’d won Virginia, then Pennsylvania, and before long that feeling that we’d be winners that night came to settle in my mind and for the remainder of the night I fought back tears. 

Only a minute or so after the polls closed on the west coast, the screen shined bright, “Barack Obama has won the Presidential Election.”  The crowd erupted and we began sobbing.  I looked around me into a sea of diversity all crying together about whatever  singular thing this meant to each of us.  Old black men who I imagine never thought they’d live to see this day, Muslim women in hijabs probably envisioning less harassment in this country after today and white people just like me who, even though we don’t experience racism like the others, totally get it.

During John McCain’s concession speech, I felt sad for for him.  He is the ultimate patriot, with real battle scars to show.  I thought he was humble and gracious and it saddened me to see him realize that this lifelong dream of his might not ever happen.  I was proud of the way that he hushed the booing crowd and wondered if on that day he was ashamed of them. 

I was mesmerized by Barack’s speech.  I especially loved how he spoke to the folks that did not vote for him and even as I think of his words today, nearly a week later, it makes me emotional.  “I hear your voices, and I’ll be your President, too.”

Most of all I was absorbed in the reaction of my boyfriend, a young African American man who I’ve spent years trying to support through times he’s been unjustly stereotyped and alienated because of the color of his skin.  Before this night he felt he lived in a world of fear and pain to the extent that it prevented him from even considering bringing a baby into it, one of the most basic human functions.  But as I watched the tears run down his face, I could see many of those bad memories, feelings, philosophies leaving him, and I was overcome with the thought of how this monumental event will personally effect my life, and his. 

I have never been a patriot.  As long as I can remember, I’ve been ashamed of the history of my country, the genocide, the enslavement of the past and the general I’m-better-than-you attitude of the present.  In Grant Park on election night, that all went away.  For the first time in my life, I’m proud of my country and I’m optomistic about the future. 

Thank you, America.

More Wordless Wednesday

Wow - is that a title straight out of 4th grade or what?  Clever titles are more trouble than they are worth, sometimes.

I’ve tried to stay away from blogging about politics but if you’ve read much of my stuff and somebody were holding a gun to your head demanding you tell them who I’ll be voting for, you’d guess right (correct). 

It’s easy to sit around and argue the standard platform differences between Republicans and Democrats but at the end of the day, we stand where we stand.  Who cares.  And, it would be easy for me to sit here lecturing you about how pro-choice is the way to go, and how fucked up my womb will be should a Republican get elected, but last time I checked there’s a Republican in office for 8 years, and my womb is just fine.  

Here’s the bottom line.  I want to live in a country that I’m proud of.  I don’t want the world to see us as big mean bullies but today, that’s our reality.  I don’t want to sit here year after year watching some war that, at this point, I doubt makes sense to anybody (surely not me).  And although I know this is crybaby-crazy-talk, I’d like to be able to take every dollar of my money that’s been spent funding that war and give it to my future father-in-law who has no health insurance and a shiny new lung cancer diagnosis. 

I don’t want to be thinking the shit I’ve been thinking all week about how all great nations eventually fall and wondering if this economic crisis we’re in is the start of our fall.  I’m tired of hearing about white supremacists who we dismiss as radicals on the fringes of society but whose core beliefs we share but are unable to recognize (or admit), and hate crimes and stereotyping and restricting of rights and freedom of speech and freedom and freedom and freedom all at the same time.  It seems like we’re always going around declaring how great and free we are but we’re not really walking the walk.  Feel me?

The reason I’m so excited about this election is that it’s the first time in my life that I think we are at a point where we could really move beyond it all.  And no, I don’t have delusions of grandeur brought on by the media and great marketing.  I’m not like that.  I’m an intelligent woman - I don’t establish my beliefs and values based on what reporters think and write.  It’s something inside of me.  It’s that this is it feeling (probably the same feeling that sends you into a panic if you’re on the other side because it really does mean the kind of change that’ll make your skin crawl). 

In Eckart Tolle’s book A New Earth, he says we (the country, the world, the planet) need to “evolve, or die.”  That’s where we’re at, people.  Evolve, or die.  It’s really important that we get this one right. 

Years ago, after a year of being inseparable friends, my guy and I decided to give a relationship a try.  I was terrified and excited all at the same time.  I remember telling him “this is either going to be really really good or really really bad and I’m not all that sure which it’ll be but I am very sure that things will never be the same between us after this.  We can never go back.”  That’s exactly how I feel about this election.  It’s going to change the world - I’m sure of it.  I’m just hoping that, like my relationship did, this election goes my way.

More Wordless Wednesday

Alternate title: In Search Of Diet Number 786

Well that really sucked.  I made it 30 hours on the UltraSimple Diet then ended it like I do most other diets, with a big ass meal of fattening food followed by a sick amount of sugary desert.  Why did I think this one would be different?  Because I’m a moron.  By now, I ought to know that diets that are severely restricting do not work for me.  They make me sad and physically ill, a feeling I’m unable to sustain. 

I maintain that food is love.

A brief summary of my experience with the UltraSimple Diet:

1. Woke up and 6:00 and drank 2 tablespoons of olive oil mixed with the juice of 1/2 a lemon.  I blame this step for the failure of the entire diet.  Even now, over a week has gone by but every time I think about the way the thick lemony olive oil felt going down my throat, I feel like barfing.
2. Drank hot water with the juice of another 1/2 a lemon.  This probably wouldn’t have been so bad had my stomach not been bubbling from the oil drink.
3. Drank a cup of hot green tea.  I hate hot drinks, period.
4. Mixed and drank part of a protein shake that tasted like absolute shit.  This drink was so bad I returned the Rice Protein Powder to Whole Foods the next day for a refund citing that it made me sick.
5. Sat around feeling vomity for several hours.  There is no way I can express the disgustingness that I felt after drinking all those drinks and taking all those pills (probiotics, fish oil and a whole bunch of other stuff).
6. Drank a cup of homemade vegetable broth and 1/2 cup of rice.  Even though this wasn’t very much food, it was plenty given the state of my stomach.  It actually tasted pretty good.
7. Sat around wanting to kill somebody for a few hours. 
8. Ate a piece of salmon, 1/2 a cup of brown rice and broccoli.  This was a very yummy dinner.  I made the rice using the recipe from the book which called for garlic and turmeric in the rice water.  I’ll definitely make this again.
9. Took a detox bath.  This was hugely relaxing and I loved it.  2 cups of Epsom salt, a cup of baking soda and 10 drops of essential lavender oil. 
10. Went to bed miserable. 

Day two is not even worth discussing - I ate nothing until the noon binge.

Did I mention that the second day I started having chest pain that got so bad I eventually needed to seek medical attention?  Diagnosis: esophageal spasms, hiadal hernia or reflux.  I’m not blaming UltraSimple but I’m pretty sure it aggravated which ever condition I’ve got. 

Anybody got a freak diet they want me to review next?  I’ll never stop trying!

I O U one picture of the view from the nosebleed section

Buying season tickets is sorta like buying a condo.  You pick the seats you want but you have no idea what your neighbors will be like until after you move in and realize they suck.  By then, it’s too late to do anything about it except give them dirty looks and wish bad stuff on them.  Like that your foot will accidentally be in the isle and they’ll trip and fall down the very steep stairs on the way to their regular 3rd quarter bathroom break (hypothetical). 

This will be the 6th year that we’ve purchased season tickets to the Chicago Bulls.  We sit in the 300 level, the nosebleed section.  Seriously, there is only one row higher than our row.  We’ve had the same seats for the past 4 years and besides one guy who I frequently want to stab, our neighbors are tolerable.  Remind me to tell you about our first-season seats and the event(s) that nearly landed me in jail.

I love people-watching as much as I do basketball.  There are Bulls basketball home games a couple of times per week from October through April (and later if we make it to the playoffs) and that’s enough to satiate my people-watching appetite.  At the games, one of the people I’m the most fascinated by is the dude I call Basketball Pimp.  Basketball pimp is a handsome-ish young (I’d say he’s about 28) well dressed guy who shows up about half-way through the first quarter of every game with a different pretty girl.  He brings young chicks, older chicks, black chicks, white chicks - he’s been doing the same thing for years.  I always imagine that every girl feels flattered that he’s willing to share his season tickets (we season ticket-holders feel we’re one-up on the rest of you) with her and that she’s the most important girl in his life.  They all have that look.  That hey-look-how-hot-I-look-even-though-it’s-just-a-basketball-game look.  He walks in barely looking at them and they follow along behind him like little chicks do big chicks.  His seats are in the center of the row below us and he always takes the shortcut to get to them, which requires taking a huge step up from the platform onto his row.  Since his girls are usually wearing shoes/boots with real high heels, they always need help with that big step but Basketball Pimp never does it - it’s always the uber-friendly older guy who has the season tickets right there at basketball pimp’s cut-through.  Having to help these strange girls every game would annoy me but I think it makes this guy feel like a hero and probably give him future masturbation material.  Basketball Pimp never seems to be very nice to the girls so I’m always wondering why so many of them want to hang out with him.  I’m pretty sure it’s not the “love of the game”.  Please understand, these are not basketball fan girls.  They don’t clap or gasp at bad calls like the rest of us.  They just sit there looking pretty and trying to squeeze out any conversation they can from him.  Sometimes when I’m supposed to be paying attention to the game, I’m watching them, psychoanalyzing them (mostly him), deliberating about what (if anything) they did before the game and what they’ll do after. 

Dinner, then basketball game, then nightclub where he’ll buy them too many drinks, then have his way with them later back at his place.  After he’s done with her, she’ll want to cuddle but he’ll find some reason that she needs to leave.  He’ll take her home then head back to his place for a sandwich and never give it (her) another thought until he runs into her again. 

The butterflies will keep her awake that night.  She’ll tell all her friends about him and he’ll consume her thoughts for days.  First hoping, waiting for his call, then realizing he’ll never call, then the grieving process that girls go through when they realize they’ve given what ought to be their most treasured possession to some random dude who took her to a shitty basketball game.

Well this season, just for fun, I’m gonna keep up with how many different girls he brings to the games.  Occasionally he does bring the same girl back for more than one during the season - I’m gonna keep up with that, too.  And if you’re interested, I’ll be sure to share that with you here. 

The 2009 Chicago Bulls season officially starts on Tuesday, October 31st.  Stay tuned for more from the Basketball Pimp.

Taking this photo was sort of like rocket science

Since I was a kid I’ve always had this impression that the older a woman gets, the shorter her hair gets. Because of this perceived tendency, I’ve been freakishly attached to my long hair.  Well, I’m attached because of the fear of aging, but I’m also a lazy bastard and hate spending money to get my hair cut so I’m liable to go 6-8 months without ever stepping foot into a salon.  My good friend slash hair stylist has always given me shit about my laziness and how it effects my looks.  I’m all about pony-tails and just enough make-up to prevent the assholes I work with from saying “you look like you just woke up” all day long.  “You know, your hair would look really cute if you’d use some product in it every now and then!  And stop wearing the pony-tail so much, you are ruining your hair!” She’s lectured about this for the past 20 years.

When I went to get my hair cut a few months ago, it had been 8 months since the hair cut before that.  Seriously, I’m not exaggerating.  My hair was to the lower middle of my back.  I was in a pissy mood (I’m reminded of a comedy show where the accused stood before the judge saying “ohhhhh it was a crazy day and I was flowing pretty heavy, and he was an asshole anyway, so I shot him 10, 12, 15 times”) and my hair looked a hot mess so when the stylist asked me if I’d ever considered going short, I gave her cart blanche to do whatever she wanted so long as she didn’t talk to me for the rest of the appointment.  She cut it shoulder length, a look I was completely indifferent about but others seemed to enjoy.  I’m pretty sure they loved the significant improvement moreso than the actual style. 

Mid blog rant about stylists - why do they feel the need to engage me in conversation during the hair cut?  I’m an introvert and I hate that.  If they’d ignore me the entire appointment they’d get a significantly larger tip from me.  And do you ever feel like your stylist is just playing with your hair like they do with those creepy doll heads instead of seriously working on the task at hand?  I swear they can turn what ought to be a quick blow-dry into an elaborate production of brush and dryer that goes on so long I’m always tempted to start screaming “STOP FUCKIN AROUND - I’VE GOT SHIT TO DO!  THE HAIR WAS DRY 10 MINUTES AGO! WRAP IT UP!”  And, newsflash, everybody does not enjoy real hard head massages during the shampoo!  It feels like physical abuse to me and makes me never want to put my head in your bowl again.

On Monday I turned 41.  I am still in complete shock and denial about the whole damned thing.  As a birthday gift, my guy paid for a fancy hair doo which has rendered me, you guessed it, with real short hair.  It’s gotten rave reviews at work but now, in addition to being in shock about being old, I’m in shock that my hair is not even close to touching my neck in the back.  WTF? 

So, now that I’ve gone shorter and people have noticed, that means I’m more pressured than ever to keep up with my hair.  Short hair cuts suck on so many levels but the main thing is that the up-keep means way more frequent hair cuts than I want, or can afford.  When your hair is long and scraggly, another couple of inches doesn’t make it look any worse.

And once I trade my car for a Prius, I’ll be fully set with the requisite age related transition activities of whacking off my hair and getting an ugly car.  It can only get worse from here.

Any other mandatory aging activities I’ve forgotten, here?

I’ve broken my right arm twice in my lifetime. 

Once when I was about 10 years old, all the “big kids” in our neighborhood built a wood platform at the top of a huge tree in the backyard of Timmy and Tammy’s, the twins house we hung out at.  Tied to a branch way above the platform was a real long rope that hung from that tip-top branch, to the ground below.  The game was to stand on the platform in the tree (which seemed about 50 feet off the ground to fradycats like me but was probably really only 15-20 feet from the ground) and grab hold of the rope.  The person at the bottom of the tree grabbed the end of the rope and yanked it away from the tree as far as they could run with it which swung the person hanging on to the rope way out into mid air.  The person dangling from the rope hung on having the time of their life until time to be returned to the platform where they’d eagerly await their next turn.  Well, that’s how the Evil Knievel kids did it.  I, on the other hand, can hardly walk down the stairs of my porch without busting my ass, so this pseudo bungy tree trick was really hard for me. 

I stood on the platform scared to death until all the other children had taken their turns and I could no longer stand the torment I was getting from being such a chicken-shit.  I held the rope as tight as I could and was swung out gracefully over the grass.  It felt wonderful and I really thought I was hot-shit.  I’m not sure if I lost my grip or just forgot to keep holding on, but I fell 15-20 (or 50) feet, landing immediately on my right arm.  I can’t describe the way my dangling broke arm looked but it was fucking gross and freaked me out and I ran for my life, all the way home, leaving behind all my Evil Knievel friends.  I wore a cast for 6 weeks.

A couple years after the Tarzan tree debacle, I was out in the front yard of another friend’s house and we were doing basic cart wheels thinking we were rock stars.  Deciding we needed more of a challenge, my friend placed a short box on the ground that we were to do cart wheels over.  It was sort of like an obstacle course for rock star dummies.  My friend breezed through her cart-wheel-over-the-box but when my right arm hit the ground just beyond the box, it snapped and I collapsed to the ground.  I wore that cast for 6 weeks, too. 

Both times my arm was in a cast, the cast was removed by my father, with a small hand saw.  I was terrified that he’d saw my arm off but both times he sawed through my graffiti’d cast with the carefulness of a brain-surgeon, the blade never touching my arm. 

All these years I’ve always thought that my dad sawed off my cast because he’s a big ole redneck who liked to scare the crap outta me.  But, sometime during the presidential debate on Wednesday night it hit me that my parents probably never had health insurance the entire time I was growing up.  During that time period, my father was a painter and a roofer, working whatever jobs he could find to pay the bills and support his family of 5.  My mother, a stay-at-home mom. 

In hindsight, I’m pretty sure my father would have preferred that my casts be removed by a professional, in a real doctors office, with an instrument designed for cutting in close proximity to your children’s very valuable limbs, rather than in the front yard, braced on God knows what, with something that ought to be used to cut down trees.  But, when faced with the dilemma of sending me back to the doctor for a proper cast removal and bone check versus whatever other important expense he had at the time (food, shelter, etc…), he decided that the some other expense was more important, so he did the best he could to play doctor himself. 

Thank you dad, for being careful with the saw.

When I was younger (actually until just a few years ago) I was one of those people who’d get pissed off about all those Feed The Children commercials angrily proclaiming “WE SHOULD TAKE CARE OF THE POVERTY STRICKEN PEOPLE RIGHT HERE IN OUR OWN COUNTRY, FIRST!” 

As soon as I stopped viewing the world through the American fish bowl I realized that we are the richest people in the world, even our homeless people.  If you are homeless in America, you can usually get a free meal if you can make it to a shelter and maybe even a bed at said shelter.  But many people in third world countries don’t even have access to clean water.  Here we sit in America, drinking our fancy bottled water because we’re such snobs that we don’t think the tap water is good enough, while families die from disease all over the world because they have no clean water all.  They’d die for our regular ole tap water!  Our medical community has no problem doling out the 8-10 glasses of water recommendation for us while others would be lucky to get one clean glass.  

It’s human nature to view the world from where you stand.  But, at least today while we are focusing on poverty, make sure that you take the time to look beyond your own backyard and into the other less fortunate countries of the world who struggle to get the basic crap we take for granted every single day. 

One of our favorite charities we support is Ryan’s Well.  This charity was start by Ryan when he was a young kid who felt bad about people not having access to water and wanted to do something about it.  He’s much older now but he’s still rockin his well charity and it’s been really successful and building wells in remote villages all over the place.  He’s changing the lives of the people in those villages for generations to come.  Ryan, you rock!

Glossary:  Talking shit - Talking a nonsensical or unrealistic way (from Urban Dictionary)

“Your Aunt Gina loves you right now but you just wait a few years until you develop your own personality, she won’t be able to stand you, just like the rest of the kids…”

This is how my only sister once described me to her son, my youngest nephew, whom I love and adore and whom loves and adores me (and he’s old enough to have a personality now and still loves me thank you very much!).  In my defense, I can tolerate kids, so long as they are not talking absolute bullshit in the presence of people who are twice their size and thrice (or more) their age. 

I come from era where kids were not even allowed in the room where grown-ups were talking, let alone to talk shit to the grown-ups any ole time they feel like it.  I am always baffled to see adults debating this and that with their children.  Isn’t one of the perks of being a grown-up the unquestionable authority we have over anybody less than 18 years old?  I have seen my nieces and nephews say things to their parents that I wouldn’t even say now, at the ripe ole age of 40.  I digress…

The reason my sister has labeled me an angry ole kid hating bitch stems from an altercation I had with her then 7 year old step-son, at a McDonalds, with my grandmother sitting right there at the table.  God help me - the image still makes me cringe all these years later.

My step-nephew has always been a, ummm, challenging kid.  Even as I try to tell this story I struggle with the way to describe him because on those days where he’s seriously misbehaving, the only adjective I can think of is asshole and it just doesn’t seem appropriate to call a 7 year old an asshole, right?  Anyway, so I’m already living in Chicago and I’ve flown to Nashville, hooked up with my mom, sister and her kids and we’ve driven down to Memphis to visit my brother et al, my grandmother and my old friends.  We’re at the McDonald’s near my grandmother’s house eating lunch (my grandmother is pretty old and has a hard time getting around so it’s better to hang close to her house), all of us, at a big long table in the back of the restaurant.  The entire meal, my step-nephew is talking shit to everybody and I’m growing increasingly pissed off at him, and at my sister’s inability to control him.  My grandmother sits quietly while we all bicker with him.  I have no idea what he was even talking about but at some point I had an out-of-body experience and the next thing I knew I had jumped up out of my seat and across the table, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt.  Our faces no more than an inch apart, through my gritted teeth, “you say one more word and I’ll beat your ass right here in the middle of this restaurant! In case you haven’t noticed I’m way bigger than you and you should be very afraid!”  I’ll never forget the look on my grandmother’s face as she stared at me, eyes stretched wide, mouth gaping open with half chewed food in her mouth.  It’s the only time in my life that I ever remember thinking my grandmother was ashamed of me. “See, I told you he’ll make you crazy”, was my sister’s only comment as she chuckled at my insane loss of control. 

The rest of the meal we all ate silently, them probably wondering if Aunt Gina really is the kind of crazy bitch that’ll beat up a kid in public and me thinking all the time, thank God I don’t have kids.  I’m not cut out for this.