A Rock To Tie A String Around

I have this paralyzing fear that someday one of those camera crews is going to rush me on the street and ply me with unanswerable questions:

“What is the capital of Kazakhstan?”

To which my reply will be:

“Uhhhh…..”

or

“Who is the congressman from the 16th district in Pennsylvania?”

“Uhhhh….”

Then, I’ll see myself on David Letterman or Jay Leno under ‘Ignorant Americans and the Really Obvious Stuff They Should Know’ section. It’s not that I think I’m alone in not knowing all the world capitals or congressmen, but more of a fear of looking like a dumbass in public.
I’m glad there’s a movement out there that’s freed people from such fears. The Tea Party Movement seems completely carefree about looking like fools for not knowing really obvious stuff. I kind of admire them in a strange way. Take for example this fellow, who seems to think that Medicare isn’t a product of socialized medicine:

I mean really, you can’t buy that kind of confidence. Also admirable about the Tea Party Movement is their almost foolhardy defiance of logic and steadfast refusal to give in, even in the face of startling hypocrisy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032501722.html

Mike Vanderboegh, a self-proclaimed former militiaman has been encouraging his followers to fight back on the Nazi, commie fascist healthcare takeover that will surely be the ruin of the nation. His solution is to break the windows of those that voted for it.

“So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party [that they] cannot fail to hear, break their windows…Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM.”

That’ll teach ‘em. Now this is a true American, this guy works for every last dime he has, no one will rip his slingshot from his hands, especially not some Maoist demon touting health care reform. That is, until you get to page two of the Washington Post article.

“Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension.”

See what I mean? That kind of blind confidence just can’t be manufactured, it comes from the heart, a heart that currently lives on a socialized medical fund….but still. Vanderboegh seems oblivious to the contradiction that is his philosophy but I kind of like him for that. He reminds me of when I was eighteen, nineteen years old and used to sit around with my friends, Reality Bites style, talking about how we were never going to work for ‘the man’ and we’d never compromise our art. Of course, Monday would roll around and we’d go to classes paid for by our parents who earned the money we were wasting by working for ‘the man’ and when we were low on rent, we’d call our moms and beg for some of her ‘man’ money. But we were bold, you have to give us that.

Vanderboegh has proven to me that that kind of precocious naiveté doesn’t have to disappear in your early twenties. You can cling to it all the way into adulthood, and you can even start a whole political movement based off the otherworldliness that comes with illogical arguments and ill-informed, selective research.

So, thank you Tea Partiers, without you, we wouldn’t have had nearly so much entertainment over the last year. I mean who can bring the C to the Razy like the Birthers, who would have to chutzpah to tell spell check to shove it like the radical right?

Screw Spelling!

or this little gem:

Finally, I’ll leave you with this, an oldy but a goody. Rest easy my Tea Party friends, and don’t let the man get you down.

I have finished the first draft of the second book, officially. Now the hard part comes where I have to agonize over rewriting all the parts that I know for a fact suck, and then tweak all the bits that now don’t fit the newly rewritten pages, and then in a month or so, I get to do it all again, and again and again…until I’m confident to start the actual editing process.

Writing is an exercise in insanity. But this blog isn’t really about my insanity; it’s about my poor husband. For starters, you should understand that I’m married to the world’s sweetest man, most understanding, kindest and patient individual that I’ve ever met. Good thing too, cause I give him a lot to be patient about.

With The Tree Museum, I fed him chapters as soon as I wrote them. I would literally save the word document and then email him a copy, and wait breathlessly while he read it, trying to judge his reaction by the look on his face. I had to physically restrain myself from sitting right across from him as he read and blurting out questions like “Do you get it? Isn’t the part with the chicken nuggets and the coffee the best thing ever? Huh, huh?”

not the actual us, we use stand-in for all photo ops....

There’s a scene in Funny Farm (yes, I’m old) where Chevy Chase takes his wife out for their anniversary and for her present he gives her the first draft of his novel and then makes her read it, right there, in front of him, while he watches.

Despite having seen this movie about 200 times, I did the same thing to my dear husband. I knew better, but it was like a tick, I couldn’t stop myself. To his credit, he never once did what I’m sure he had the compulsion to do more than once – which was virtually toss my half filled first draft back in my inbox and tell me to shove it.

Unfortunately, this was only the tip of the iceberg with my literary spousal abuse. I also talked about my book all the time. I forced The Husband to listen to me run alternate scenarios, agonize over whether Nate or Rosemary would say this or do that…..it was constant. Then I would rewrite something and present it to him like it was the best thing ever….ever.

I made The Tree Museum the topic of dinners, lunches, I woke him up at night just to see if he thought The Signmakers would be more likely to go with biodiesel or solar powered cars. I’m surprised he didn’t permanently remove my laptop.

Then, when the book finally came out, I plagued him with my near constant insecurities: was that mean republican blogger right? Am I a neurotic liberal pinko commie spouting half-baked propaganda? Don’t answer that one – that one was rhetorical.

I was determined not to make the same mistakes again with this book. I wouldn’t let him read a word of it until this last week. Even then, I hesitated, qualifying it as a piece of half-baked suck. Saint that he is, he still wanted to read it.

I have to admit, I still plagued him with plot questions, character surveys, and every once in awhile he was woken up to questions like “Does the FBI investigate ships or is it the Coast Guard?” He would groggily answer “Hmmm…snort…mmmm”

Which honestly didn’t help at all.

I think you have to be a strong spouse to be married to a writer. I think you have to be like Mr. Fredrickson in Up and turn down your mental hearing aid whenever your spouse is in danger of driving you crazy. Writers are a crazy, vain little bunch, I’m just glad I attracted a saintly husband.

Thanks honey.

Hearty congratulations to my Facebook friend, Emily Holman! She has indeed, won Super Fantastic Blog Contest 2010! Emily secured her place in the seat of honor by offering me up many ideas, but the one that the box wine liked the most was:

Would you take a trip to Space?

My answer is yes, in a heartbeat. This is actually not the first time I’ve thought about this. A few years ago when Richard Branson first started talking about ‘Virgin Galactic’, I checked it out for my future travel plans.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

It turns out that for a mere $200,000 – you can book your very own galactic flight. Don’t have $200,000? No problem! You can put a deposit down for a puny $20,000.

Okay, all sarcasm aside, it does sound pretty freakin’ cool. You train for two days, go up in the specially designed Branson Space rockets, do a couple of graceful space somersaults, and then you shoot back down into the atmosphere. That night you go to sleep with some serious space cred.

You can book right online too, or talk to a Space Agent (I think I talked to one of those last week when I had to call Blue Cross – ba dum dum…) and book over the phone. Of course, there’s the somewhat ambiguous travel dates…by ambiguous, I mean nonexistent. Branson’s been getting space reservations since 2005, and still no launch date in sight. He is however, seriously considering building his space station airport in the New Mexico desert, from the artist’s rendering on his website, it looks pretty cool too.

Which leads me to the real topic of this blog….why is Richard Branson such a tool? Seriously, people? You’re putting a $20,000 deposit down on a space flight that comes from the mind of the guy that hosted that mindfuck reality show a few years back where he convinced a contestant to go over Victoria Falls in a specially designed barrel, then when he finally go the guy to agree – he kicked him off the show for being so gullible.

Seriously?

I don’t know why Richard Branson offends me so much. He’s actually really onto something with this space travel for profit thing, especially now that NASA will be holding bake sales to fund their moon missions. Maybe NASA should reserve one or two seats per flight for rich tourists, for the $200,000 tickets they could sell, the astronauts could surely find time to deliver fresh towels and freeze dried ice cream to the passengers. Of course, they’d have to work amidst comments like:

“We live there! Right there! In the big one, right above the Mexico!”

They’d adjust.

I guess it’s just the idea that he’s charging for something that doesn’t even exist yet. It would be like me charging the neighbor kids for floating pony rides on my special magical pony/bird hybrids that I plan on creating in the garage on the weekend Dr. Moreau style. Of course, if I were Richard Branson, the reality of succeeding with my floating ponies would be greater, as is his dream of flying overprivledged tourists into space for a three minute vacation. I suppose it all comes down to opportunity.

I know this probably what Emily had in mind for her prize-winning blog….as consolation for her almost sure disappointment, I’ll give her a free advance ticket to my floating pony circus, coming your way, in the somewhat vague future.

I haven’t ignored the Super Fantastic Blog Contest 2010, really, I haven’t. In fact, it’s not too late to enter, my response and box wine influenced winner decision will arrive next week.
I had to get this one off my chest, lest it fester and drive The Husband crazy for the next month. I realize this contradicts my earlier post ‘I’m not your mommyblogger’ but I couldn’t resist.

We were recently forced to switch pediatricians, our HMO broke up with our Medical Group and since the HMO has custody of us, we had to say goodbye to our wonderful pediatrician. Instead we were sent across town to the evil stepmother of a new office.

I’m continually surprised about the medical field. I used to want to be a doctor, back when I was a kid. That goal was whittled down and smooshed into an unhealthy obsession with medical television dramas and forensic crime TV. One thing I have learned as I get older: real medicine is much less interesting and competent than television medicine. Give me television medicine any day. Those doctors know what’s going on, and they act quickly. In real life, you can sit in that waiting room for days only to be diagnosed with a shrug of their highly educated shoulders and a prescription for a pharmaceutical strength multi-vitamin.

My son, Mr. Adorablepants, is the healthiest kid I’ve ever seen. He’s fearless, strong, and eats anything I put in front of him, most of the time that is…sometimes he throws it across the room, but he throws with gusto – I have to give him that. So when our new pediatrician told me I needed to put him on pharmaceutical strength Vitamin D supplements, I paused.
I know my medical knowledge comes from WebMD, I know. However, I also know that Mr. Adorablepants lives in sunny Southern California and is outside at every possible opportunity, has fair skin and is a healthy weight and height – not obese. Thus precluding any of the risk factors for Vitamin D defiency. He also has no signs of muscle weakness or lethargy.

I can’t help but wonder who’s funding the Vitamin D campaign around there. In any case I told her no thanks.

Then, they wanted to give him a TB test. He’s two years old…. Now, as a teacher I’ve been TB tested every which way from Sunday. They TB test us teachers to the point of giving us TB with all the micro-doses of the virus that they have to inject under our skin. I know my TB tests. As a result, I know that all 800 times I’ve been tested, they’ve made a big stink about telling me not to bump or mess with my arm, because irritating the little bump of virus can give you a false positive result.

I would love to explain to Mr. Adorablepants that he shouldn’t mess with the bump on his arm, but I think his response would be this:

“Dinosaur! Grrr!”

That’s been his stock answer to most of our discussions lately.

So I asked the nurse: “Do you get a lot of false positive results on two-year olds when you give them a TB test this young?”

She nodded and said “Well, yes…”
So, we passed on that one too.

At the end of the day, we left after two hours, with a good guess at what he weighs and an approximation of how tall he is. They had me stand on the scale with Mr. Adorablepants, and then did the foolproof scientific method of asking me how much I weigh and then subtracting the difference.

Seriously people?

Then, to make up for it, they gave Mr. Adorablepants a lollipop – or in the immortal words of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – a cavity on a stick. This was especially ironic as they had just given us a referral for his first dental visit. When I pointed out that a lollipop is a major choking hazard for a two-year old, the doctor looked at me like I was made of witch-cake and said “Well, yes….”

We passed on the lollipop.

I feel mildly bad about being such a bitch on wheels, but not too bad.

It just frustrates me. You have to be your own amateur doctor to not get screwed by your professional doctor.
A few years ago I was having some allergy issues and trouble breathing. I went to my doctor who looked up my nose, listened to me breath and two minutes later prescribed me an asthma inhaler.

I had to explain to the doctor that the inhaler could kill me as I have a heart murmur and have been explicitly told to stay away from anything that increases my heart rate – such as Sudafed, coffee and especially Albuterol inhalers.

He shrugged and said “Yeah, you don’t want to use this then.”

I know WebMD is not an alternative for medical school, but it’s frightening to me what could happen if you trust your doctor too much.