The Bitchiness of Politics

"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." ~  P. J. O'Rourke

Trust me, I love politics and current events. I really, really do. I could happily sit and watch the news at 5, 6, 9 and 10 pm. Plus tune into the national programs as well. I would do this all the time but then I'd have these kids poking me - "When are we gonna have dinner? I need help with my homework..." Blah, blah blah...
Love of politics + Love of current events + addictive personality = neglectful mother at dinner time.
In all honesty I am getting pretty sick of this election cycle. I can't wait for the commercials to end, the negative campaigns to cease, and the finger pointing to stop.
At this point, I don't even believe the fact checkers.
Unless they have a politician hooked up to a lie detector machine on the Maury show, I am hesitant to believe a single word that comes out of their mouths.
In complete disclosure (in case you couldn't tell from previous blog posts) I am a full blown Democrat. Oh, who am I kidding...I'm a bed-wetting liberal and proud of it. But not all of my family and friends are.
And this is the season where it starts to get ugly.
A couple years ago I had to start hiding rabid Packer fans on my Facebook page. Hey, it's hard enough to be a loyal Vikings fan when we lose all the time. It's even harder when you have friends and family gleefully telling you to Suck It! on your news feed every Sunday afternoon.
Lately I've had to start hiding delusional Republicans, too. Now save your breath - I know there are plenty of people who would call me a delusional Democrat, too. Go ahead. It's not like I haven't heard it before.
I have a wide circle of friends who are both red and blue. We have interesting conversations, to say the least. I even have family members who roll their eyes when I start on my rants. In fact, I'm not even sure about my dad anymore. He has become increasingly conservative as he's gotten older. It worries me. Apparently being a former hippie does not preclude someone from crossing party lines and drinking the kool-aid. Don't get me wrong...he hasn't completely lost his marbles. It's not like he's supporting Michele Bachmann. But I do look at him with a wary eye now. I trust him with my life and I trust him with my kids' lives.
Just not sure I trust him with a ballot.
But that's the beauty of this country, right? We all have the opportunity to believe what we want, to support what we want, and to love who we want.
Unless, of course, you're gay. Then you have an uphill battle ahead of you.
A few years ago my friend Jill and I were discussing gay marriage. We couldn't figure out why so many people were against it. "Seriously," Jill said. "Why does it matter if they get married? They have a right to be just as miserable as the rest of us."
That comment still makes me laugh.
Last winter I was dating a very nice guy. I'll call him AJ. We got along and agreed on everything. Well, almost everything.
After a night at the movies we stopped at a local bar. We sat on our bar stools and ordered a cocktail.
"Listen, Vanessa," AJ said, leaning closer. "I gotta tell you something. I've been meaning to say it for awhile, and I just need to get it off my chest and come clean."
I felt my stomach drop. An older gentleman on the other side of AJ leaned in closer, too. He wanted to hear what was said.
"Just say it," I told AJ accusingly. "I know what you're gonna say."
AJ twisted the gloves in his hand and let out a deep sigh.
He looked me right in the eyes. "I'm a Republican."
"Oh god!" I wailed. "I knew it!" I put my head down on my arms and took a deep breath. "I can't believe this."
The older gentleman scoffed and moved further down the bar. Obviously this conversation was not what he expected.
Now things with AJ never really worked out, but it wasn't due to his political preferences. But it did get me thinking...
How much would a person's political preferences matter to me when dating?
Honestly I don't know how Mary Matalin and James Carville are still happily married. Don't they just want to wring each other's necks when discussing party differences?
Do you suppose they watch the debates with a note card and keep score?
Do they gleefully show each other dismal poll numbers?
Do they write "Suck it" on each other's Facebook page when the points swing?
Somehow I doubt it.
So for now I will continue to hold out hope that I will find someone who's just as delusional as I am. Who wants the wars to end, the gays to be able to marry and the women to be allowed to make decisions for their own ovaries.
Oh, and someone who doesn't show up drunk and on a bicycle for our date.
Is that so much to ask?

Lulled into Lunacy

"As long as people are going to call you lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention." ~ Gregory Maguire

I swear, if I am ever lucky enough to publish my memoir I am going to title it "Lulled into Lunacy."
Because honestly, that's what happens when you parent small children. You start off doing crazy things just to survive and get enough sleep and make it until bedtime. You start rationalizing behavior that would usually be deemed mentally unstable at best.
You eat 4 day old stale Pop Tarts that you find wedged between couch cushions because honestly, it's one less meal you have to make.
You iron your clothes while you are wearing them because hey, who has time to set up an ironing board?
You pick up your son's underwear off the bedroom floor and smell them, hoping they're still clean enough so you can put off laundry just one more day. (If your head snaps back involuntarily, then you are out of luck).
And the longer you do these things it starts to become acceptable.
And your friends are doing the same thing so now your society that surrounds you has decreed that it's ok to do things that you never in a million years would imagine yourself doing. I used to think that once my kids got older I wouldn't be so stressed out and tired. I would be more calm and relaxed and I would wisely impart wisdom on my kids so they would grow up knowing their mother had her act together.
Oh, no. Not even close.
My youngest is 8 and I still finding myself losing my shit more than I would like. And it's really stupid stuff too that makes me look like I'm about two minutes away from a straight jacket.
Some of it I'd like to blame on genetics. Or at least Growing Up in the 70's.
I can remember riding in the back of the family car, when I was about 9 and my brother was 5 or 6. I'm pretty sure we were in a Maverick. I'm also fairly certain we were wearing seat belts, but in my mind I imagine us running rampant in the back seat...like restless natives. After one of our countless complaints to my dad while he was driving:
"He's poking me!"
"She just reached over and scratched me!"
...my dad laid down the law and turned around. "This is your side, Vanessa, and this is your side, Shawn. See this section in the middle, about 6 inches wide? That's No-Man's Land. Neither one of you can go there or cross that area."
We were silent for about 30 seconds, until we started screeching, "Oh my gosh he's in No-Man's-Land DAD!!!"
I'm surprised we weren't just tossed out on the side of the road and forced to walk home.
Fast forward until it is me in the drivers seat and my kids are repeating the same complaints. I tried to hand down the "No Man's Land" law but my kids weren't having any of that.
I don't have the patience my parents did. I try to tune out the kids until my eyelid starts to twitch. Then I lose my shit.
While my left hand is firmly gripping the steering wheel, my right hand begins to swing wildly behind my seat, looking to make contact with anything. My kids are so skilled at dodging and ducking out of the way they could be in a Bruce Lee movie. It's actually pretty impressive.
And how does the saying go? The road to hell is paved with the best intentions? Yeah, or something like that. That's how I feel it is with parenthood.
We really all have the best intentions, right? None of us want to knowingly screw our kids up. Although I whole-heartedly admit that there have been times that as I'm yelling at one of the kids, there is a voice in my brain that's telling me, "Hey...reign it in Crazy Pants."
I love that line in the movie Mermaids, when Cher tells her daughter, "It's not like you kids came with an instruction manual."
I've told that to my kids, too. I really thought, in my delusional younger age before having teenagers, that once I hit my 40s I would be the most organized and patient mother that western Wisconsin had ever seen. I would be so accomplished that mothers in my neighborhood would look at me with envy and whisper, "How does she do it?"
But alas, it hasn't happened yet.
My inner lunatic keeps making herself known.
Instead of joining the PTA when my kids started school, I started selling sex toys at home parties because the money was good and the parties were more fun than organizing a bake sale. I quit when my oldest was in third grade because I didn't want to be known as the Dildo Mom on the playground. When the UPS guy would come and deliver the products, I would have to assemble the packages and match them up with the customers' invoices. I would empty out the products in the middle of the living room floor and tell my kids, "Ok, hand Mommy one of the green things and two bottles with the pink swirl on the label."
And my kids were such good little helpers, too.
So maybe it's genetics or maybe it's lack of sleep or maybe it's just who we are as people that form us into our parenting roles. I'm not sure. Maybe it's a combination of all of it.
Maybe we shouldn't recognize it as being lulled into lunacy, so much as we should acknowledge that we have evolved into it. Willingly and freely.
Chalk it up to one more thing I'm going to blame my kids. Right after stretch marks and an over-worked uterus that deserves its own pension.