Bass Ackwards

Today’s post is brought to you by some kind, anonymous The Reader who gave me one whole tip and then wouldn’t even let me tell you his or her name.  Thank you, Genderless but Generous The Reader, whoever you are!

Priests aren’t allowed to reveal a word about what’s said in the confessional, but the confessees are not so bound.  Pull up a kneeler.

Listen, I told you I’ve been pissy.  And I mean piss-y.  Josh The Pilot is summarily creeped out whenever I say this, but I’m an empath, a highly obnoxious emotional sponge who serves as the mood barometer of the surrounding territory:  It is physically impossible for me to remain calm if the rest of the room is falling apart.  (Okay, unless it’s 2004 and I really, really hate my job.)  I would suck as a POW.

This extends locally and even nationally.  Therefore, as you can imagine, these past few weeks have been one little stormcloud of Fun.  If there’s stress around me, even just my own stress, I will suck it in, process it poorly, and send it back out amonst the universe in the form of a Swiffer hurled across the kitchen hallway.  I’m not talking the airy little Swiffer rag you stuff up into the sweeper here, people: I mean the entire Swiffer, pole and all.

That’s not acceptable adult behavior, of course; anger is normal and human, Swiffer javelining is not.  Christ threw out the moneychangers, but He did not hurl about cleaning implements because He was pissed that it was cleaning day again and there was still a stack of essays left ungraded.  That plus a multitude of less Procter and Gamble-sponsored outbursts (“I’m SORRY, I guess I’m just too INCOMPETENT, FAT and UGLY to hear you POLITELY ASK ME TO PACK YOU A SANDWICH FOR LUNCH”) landed me in the Confessional.

Now, the Church teaches that if Confession is done properly, it’s not a drive-thru sort of situation. It doesn’t work if you swing by to pick up a little penance on the way to the orgy.  You have to go in there truly repentant, all  “No seriously, I’m not going to sit around radiating little furor waves at that cop anymore.” (Please note that I’m not including this to start a big ol’ religious argument fest down in the Tasting Room, so any attempts to start one won’t get out of approval mode.  I’m just explaining where my faith is here for narrative purposes, so if you have Confession-related catechismal issues, please direct them to this address. The recipient will be more than happy to help you out with that.)

So on Monday I plopped down behind the screen (if you’re lucky, your church will still have a screen with a highly uncomfortable kneeler, instead of the church I grew up in, which stocked the confessionals, Oprah-style, with two armchairs and a potted plant.) And the priest, as good priests do, made the event a spiritual counselling session rather than ten seconds of “Wow, sucks married to you.  Five Hail Marys, see next week, same sin-time, same sin-channel.”

I threw the whole mess down at the screen and the priest said, “Have you tried praying for healing? I can tell you have much anger in your heart.  And when you are angry, you cannot move forward.  But you’re worse than stuck.  You are moving backwards.”

Which… true.  Even though I hadn’t gone into the Olive Garden details there in the box, I sit here a despairing newlywed, because I have been pulling *#&@ that I would never have considered during the dating phase.  And– yeah, the marriage and the toilet scrubbing arrives, the roses and the “When you.. I feel” statements go.  Because you get tired and you get impatient, and the furor flashes up and you don’t want to have a twenty-minute sob-encrusted wrenching conversation when two second’s worth of a hurled Swiffer will say exactly the same thing.

No, I don’t cheat and I don’t hit and I don’t name-call.  The Great Swiffer Toss was aimed well in the opposite direction of my husband.  When I scream, the vitriol is aimed exactly where it belongs:  At me.  But that isn’t how a woman who wants her husband to date her for another fifty years or so behaves.  Not when the husband greets me at the door in my perpetual exhaustion and says “I have a present for you!” and the present is a freshly-made bed, complete with stuffed animal to keep me company while he unsticks the hinges on the front storm door.

So, yeah:  He maintains, even steps it up, as I move backwards.  Backwards in my marriage and backwards in my career, because when the economy went cliffdiving, so did many of my freelancing contacts, which meant I had to start putting on a bra to make a living again.  That’s translated to many, many minutes of staring at the back wall over my students’ scowling, bored heads:  “Why can’t you be a nice long line at a book signing?”

And so I left the confessional sniffling, and lay down on the bed with my husband, and we did my penance together, which was to pray over Scripture about Christ as a healer.  Then I drove to my classroom and went around the room with my students’ latest essays.  And in front of the whole entire class, I praised each and every one of them on one good thing they’d done with the assignment, even if the thing was “You remembered to put your name on it!” Only two of them fell asleep.

And then I got in my car and I saw the two following bumper stickers during my drive home:

1)  Hand lettered, black cutout furor on a white background: BLAME THE REPUBLICANS

2)  Professionally produced, and all the more heinous for it:  WHY COULDN’T HILLARY HAVE MARRIED O.J.?

Backwards, all of us.

be cool at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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WIN

What a baby in a Cowboys dress has to do with the election, on BlondeChampagne Radio.

I can talk too at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

You Can Talk

Tonight’s liveblog is brought to you by LynD The Reader, awesome in email, comment, and deed.  Thank you, Lyn!

8:45:  Oh man, this is a big night for C-SPAN, which has busted out an actual graphic.  There’s a countdown clock:  “Debate In…”  Big doin’s!

9:01:  Network throw to the official feed, with moderator Jim Lehrer and his hair informing the audience that “I’m going to hold my breath for 90 minutes.”  The crowd, terrified, laughs.  Jim turns to stare into the camera.  If I’m one of the candidates, I’m vomiting right now.  The pressure, holy crap.  I don’t care how many lollipops are waiting on the other side of this.

9:01:30:  Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaring.

9:01:45:  JIM.  YOU’RE ON.

9:02:  Right out of the gate, Obama wins the Blue Suit Stand-Off.  Kickin’ red tie.  McCain has trotted out a striped red and white tie, and looks like he lost the other three members of his barbershop quartet.

9:02:30:  The order has been determined by a coin toss.  That is something I would like to see.  How did they agree on which coin to use?  Was it just, like, a quarter?  Who supplied the quarter?  Maybe it was a First Presidential Debate Commemorative Coin, with Jim’s head on one side and a blue suit on the other?  Did they have a celebrity tosser?  They could have brought out Justin Timberlake to flip it, or The Shat.  Or Pia Zadora!  I DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE COIN TOSS.

9:03:  Jim announces that he would like to begin with something from Dwight D. Eisenhower. What needed to happen here was for him to reach under the desk for one of those Dukakis-grade helmets and slap it over his head.  But sadly, it’s only a quote about… I don’t know… presidentality or something.

9:19:  Jim keeps admonishing the Senators to address one another.  I am beginning to think that he prepped for this by babysitting my nephews for about eight hours, practicing by demanding that they apologize to one another for hogging Lightning McQueen.

9:22  Oh, now we’re just playing “My facts are more awesomer than your facts.”  I want to wheel out Dana Carvey to moderate this thing with a “WROOOOOOOONNNNG!!! Issue Number FOUR! What’s up with that enormous terrifying eagle bearing down on both your heads!!”

9:23  McCain breaks the monotony by busting out a “festooned.”  WOW.  SAT Word of the Night Advantage, McCain!

9:30:  I can’t read Obama’s lapel pin, so I am unable to tell what he cares about.  McCain is not wearing a pin, and therefore clearly doesn’t care about anything, the heartless bastard.

9:31: “Google For Government”, seriously?  I give it precisely two minutes before the top hit on every single search, even for “capital gains tax reform,” is porn.

9:34:  Senator McCain, in an election in which your opponent is airing “Lookit this guy, he’s all creaky an’ stuff!” ads, don’t refer to ANYTHING ANYWHERE NEAR YOU, even if it’s a pen, as “old.”  And don’t hold up a Sharpie and call it “a pen.”  I tried to take attendance with a Sharpie last week.  It didn’t go too well.

9:39:  Heh.  Obama said “orgy.”  Immediately followed by “hard to swallow.”  Heh heh.

9:42: There’s a green light flashing waaaay over Jim’s head which reminds me of waiting in line for Confession, complete with the hideous tension and unnerving silence.  Speak too loudly, and all the world hears your sins.

9:48:  Yelling over Iraq.  I’ve just pulled my sweatshirt up over my head, South Park-style, and crunched waaaay down in a feeble attempt to become one with the couch.  This is what happens when a person who avoids conflict at all costs is forced to sit still and watch a fight which cannot be ended with stomping and a slammed door.

9:56:   John, see the comment at 9:34.  You might not want to baldly reference Alexander the Great, who was last seen in 323 BC.

10:01:  These questions are making it way too easy for both candidates to simply default into their stump speeches. I want real questions:  “Senator Obama, is it soda or pop?”  “Senator McCain, Bree’s hair–what’s the deal?”

10:02:  Battle of the Dead Soldiers Bracelets.  I’ve just about cringed my way through the back of the couch and past the wall behind me.  This is sick.  If I make them each a friendship bracelet out of embroidery floss, will they both shut up about it?  They can pick the colors.  I even have metallics.

10:17:  “I hate Iran more.”  “No, I hate Iran more!”

10:22:  Did I just hear McCain drop a whispered “horses—!” bomb under his breath while Obama was talking?  I think he just dropped a whispered s-bomb.  He’s got Nastia Liukin’s vote.

10:32:  NOBODY is talking about how much Word 2007 sucks.  Both of you, stand against the docx tyranny!

10:34: On the bright side, I am now so terrified about suitcase nukes that I haven’t had a panic attack over the bailout in four whole minutes.

10:43:  Debate over, good game handshake.  Well, now I can relax.

Wait- veep debate next week?  Oh crap.

10:45: The dresses of the pending First Ladies are a downright Ug-Off.  Cindy McCain looks like she went shopping at Ruffles R Us, while Michelle Obama clearly got up this morning, looked at the couch, and said, “That looks wearable.”

10:47:  Stop saying “spirited,” talking heads.  Start with “They hhhhhaaaaate each other!” and let’s take it from there.

COMMENTS REMINDER: Before you type… reread the policy.  No shrieky-shrieky in the Tasting Room.

I want a podium too at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

tip the bartender

Sparing A Dime

The bank which holds our mortgage just failed.  This means that instead of owing horrifying amounts of money to an enormous, bloated corporation flushed with foreign money, we now own horrifying amounts of money to a different enormous, bloated corporation flushed with foreign money.

This entire affair has a 9/11 feel to it; there’s this terrifying, enormously huge impact-y thing going on, so huge and impact-y that normal life fades to frivolity.  In the event of a catastrophic economic meltdown, who’s buying columns about the Bridezillas and clamoring for literary readings and facilitators for writing workshops?  And this TV commercial wants to sell me a gel toe separator, really?  You’re concerned with sonic pulse toothbrushes with this going on?  An online poll about which celebrity is the worst pet owner, for serious?  This is what you’re talking about?

Perhaps, just as sports became such a national obsession in the 30’s, we cling to our distractions because we so desperately need them right now.  Or maybe we’re just scrambling about for another circus as the coliseum crumbles around us.  It makes me long for the days of lipstick and Sinbad.  Remember when this election was hilarious?  Last week?

As a child, I was terrified by a book I saw entitled The Great Depression of 1990, and on a subsequent school assignment about stress (we had entire chapters about stress in grade school, there in the 80’s, and were also severely warned against eating egg yolks) I wrote, “I’m afraid there will be another Depression.”  I’m thinking I was less concerned about economic collapse than I was by my main informant about the Great Depression, which at the time was Annie.  If the stock market crashed, I was headed to an orphanage to scrub floors in a thin, drab dress while Carol Burnett screamed at me.

It’s easy to be frightened by all this, because I don’t even understand my own mortgage.  All I know is that it’s certainly not one of those interest-only thingies, the rate is fixed, the tax-assessed value on the property dropped many thousands of dollars about five minutes after the ink was dry, and that the entire document is in a safe deposit box, thick and jargon-filled and sitting on my head.  I took four years of medieval literature, okay.  I don’t know what the answer is.  I can barely comprehend the question.  So I called my mommy.

My mommy remembers World War II, the Cuban Missile crisis, the JFK assassination, race riots, gas lines, stagflation, and New Coke. I minored in history, but was born into a drifting period of it; having focused my studies on the Revolutionary War and the space race, I often wondered what it was like to live in such massively decisive moments.  Did everyone really understand the importance of the Battle of Trenton as it was happening, or was it simply another flash-crisis to wade through?

“Are you scared?” I asked my mother.

She said she wasn’t.  Josh The Pilot told me not to worry, too, pointing out that it’s a mighty good time for him to to be an essential government employee.  And Julie The Nephews Mama, who actually did take economics courses, isn’t scared either.  I suppose I will take my panicking cues from them.

For the moment, however, a repeat of the MTV Video Awards is on.

no deal at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

tip the bartender

The Truth Comes Out

You are my dear friends, present for my darkest and most joyous moments.

And so at last, after all these years… I am sharing with you my 1-900 past.

and my parents encouraged it at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

What To Do When The World Is Falling Apart

The nation is facing perhaps the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes, and so Josh The Pilot and I are taking immediate action.

We are watching The Development of the Ice Cream Cone on the Travel Channel.

In case you missed it and need your own way to manage the bailout, here are some baby horses for you.

You’re welcome.

true leadership at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

tip the bartender

Very Deep Thoughts

On the Emmys

On the Derby

On things that take two years to go seven miles

On beginning education training at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum:  In order to work with the space hardware, I have to be all Julie Andrews about it and start at the very beginning.  Well, fine.  I can make friends with Wilbur and Orville.  Only… first, please make sure I can speak to them in comprehensible sentences, and then maybe we’ll talk about a date, complete with drag, lift, and thrust and whatever else goes on in a cockpit.

I was the possessor of two out of eight breasts, total, in a classroom of forty people.  And it was nine hours of 1) security procedures 2) Why The Smithsonian Ain’t Got No Money and 3) A Doctoral Dissertation on   the Practice and Theory of Aeronautics, As Applies to Thermo-Viscoelastic Behavior and the Lyapunov Stability Theorem.

There were many, many Power Point slides about ramjets and propellers and the innards of reciprocating engines and something called a Wankel that wasn’t at all what I hoped it would be, and what to do if we saw a guest chewing gum (Answer:  Taze), and then somebody said something about pistons, and in Hour Seven I finally raised my hand and pointed out that I was a blonde English major with a NASA history background, and before we discussed which reciprocating engines were on display and how many Vs of Hp each turbined, could we maybe clear up what a reciprocating engine was, please?  (Answer:  Pistons.)

On the financial markets bailout:  Everybody shut up and give all your money to me.  FIXED.

loquacious when pissed at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

tip the bartender

Blonde Champagne Radio: Back Online

Hurricanes and poltics, and how they’re all connected, and stuff.

finally stopped coughing at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Stone Cold Structure

When you’re an eldest child, and your parents are both eldest children, and all four of their parents are eldest children, and the power goes out for days and days, this is your playtime:

trains and cars and $250 in lost mayonnaise at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Dishy

I’ve been hired to write for The Side Dish, the entertainment blog of Dish Network, which apparently needs people to reflect for many hundreds of words on the trials and tribulations of the Golden Girls.

no Orange Cord here at:  mbe@drinktolasses.com