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July 31, 2004
Regarding No. 3, of Yesterday
(I'm not sure why the Democrats should be "red-faced." Who wouldn't resort to profanity in a balloon deployment crisis?)
Posted by hilatron at 12:56 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 29, 2004
Oh-so-political closing night observations
1) I am entirely convinced that sometime in the last week there was a meeting in which it was determined that Edwards gets dibs on the thumbs-up sign, because he looks marginally less like a tool doing it. Kerry did this little aborted thumbs-up right as he came on, but remembered himself and switched to the new pumping fist gesture he's been assigned. It is...somewhat less painful to watch, I guess.
2) I understand the utility of the raising and lowering podiums, of course. But they still freak me out every single time.
3) I think they should have let down all the balloons at once, instead of that time-release thing (or was that a balloon malfunction?) Sure it doesn't last as long, but the sudden balloon influx is far more exciting.
4) Is it, like, remotely fun to get nominated for President? I bet it's not the least bit fun. I bet the Johns are both standing there all, "How soon can I get out of here and get some sleep?"
5) Damn. That's a lot of balloons.
Posted by hilatron at 10:14 PM | TrackBack
Wednesday's oh-so-political observations: late edition
1) I'm getting tired of the "From [southern state] to [northern state], from [eastern state] to [western state], we will blah blah blah!" construction. Do people need some sort of regional ego-stroking to get charged up? (Don't answer that.)
2) It's really amazing how the Democrats have allowed themselves to be put on the defensive. Way to allow the tone and content of political discourse to be set by your opponents, guys! And, oh yeah, we GET that you are Against Terrorism!� and are not, in fact, a bunch of raging pussies. Want to mention the crappy economy, the attacks on civil rights, the increasing theocratization of our government anytime soon?
3) Go Al! Sure, he's too much of a loose cannon to get any sort of centrist nomination, but he's the only speaker I've heard so far that had a big chunk of the crowd testifying. (Except maybe Bill Clinton, but that was more like a sort of creepy orgiastic moaning that I may have hallucinated.)
4) I'm getting tired, in general. I feel for the delegates - 7 hours of speechifying a day, and they can't even run out to throw the laundry in the dryer during the slow parts.
Posted by hilatron at 02:34 PM | Comments (1)
July 27, 2004
Four more oh-so-political observations.
1) Obama 2012? Damn hell, yo.
2) What is up with Ron Reagan's delivery? Does he think he's hosting the Stem Cell Game Show? And why the hell did those fools put him on after Obama?
3) Oh, my god, can we put it to rest with the children's choir please? I am not so sure that people who can't vote should be roped into political events for emotion-stirring purposes.
4) Open invitation to Teresa Heinz Kerry: you're welcome at my house for Mah Jong, cocktails and revolution anytime. Just give me an hour's notice to vacuum.
Posted by hilatron at 11:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 26, 2004
Three oh-so-political DNC observations
1) Is it me, or is the national anthem getting slower each time it's sung? No offense to Bebe Niwans, but shit, I could have knit a scarf during "glaaaaare" alone. At this rate, sporting events and political rallies will be taking up 90% of the nation's time by the year 2050.
2) Damn, they so need a more impressive sounding gavel. "Thunk!" is never a triumphant sound.
3) No more taking classic songs and replacing the real words with dorky campaign-oriented words! In the name of Homeland Security! (Hey, why not, it seems to apply to everything else convenient these days.)
Posted by hilatron at 10:16 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 23, 2004
Heads-up Followup
Well, those fools went for it. Dare I hope that the Senate does better?
I particularly love (if by "love" you mean "react to by smashing my head repeatedly against the wall to make the pain go away, go away") the language from the sponsors that refers to the concept of same-sex marriage like it's some sort of disease that could spread, with "activist judges" as the virus.
Has it really come to the point where politicians can just take a meaningless phrase, attach negativity and revulsion to it through context and intonation, and let it loose to sway voters? Crikey.
Posted by hilatron at 07:57 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 22, 2004
Heads-up
A quick note for the people who might read this in the next two hours or so:
According to the Human Rights Campaign, Congress is set to vote on the Marriage Protection Act today between 1:00 and 2:30. More info here, with a handy e-mail petition thingie. Here's a directory of Congresspeople, which also lists their office phone numbers. Here, edited to take out my personal representative info, is what HRC e-mailed to me:
The House will vote TODAY sometime between 1 - 2:30pm, Thursday July 22, on H.R. 3313, the so-called "Marriage Protection Act." This is a sneak attack on the GLBT community - proponents of the bill think that nobody is paying attention, since the Federal Marriage Amendment failed so spectacularly last week in the Senate.It is crucial that we show Representatives that we ARE paying attention to their vote. PLEASE call your representative RIGHT NOW, before you do anything else today - and then send this message to others in your community.
Here's what you should say:
"My name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a constituent of [Your Representative]. I am calling to urge him/her to vote AGAINST H.R. 3313, the Marriage Protection Act. This bill would undermine the Supreme Court as well as other federal courts - it's simply un-American to try to deny an entire group of citizens their day in court. Can you tell me how my representative will vote?"
I disavow the excessive capitalization and hand-holding, but applaud the effort. Calling would probably be better, unless you are one of the many people I know who have been embrokened by the "economic upswing" that we are told is happening. But, oh, that's right--we have more important things to worry about, like what will happen when The Gays get The Marriage! AAAAAAAAAAH!
Posted by hilatron at 10:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 19, 2004
Home Improvement
So on the route I take back and forth to work, there used to be this great, dilapidated old house. I don't know much about architecture so I couldn't tell you anything very informative about it, except that it had a turret, was dirty white, and had a very Slasher Movie Golden Age look to it - creepy, but a little bit small potatoes. Less Gothic, more sleazy. Nonetheless, this is one of those houses you make up stories about when you're a kid (or, you know, me): this is where the killer comes back to when he busts out, the house that doesn't get torn down because the workers won't take any amount of money to drive their bulldozers onto that property, etc. The house even came with a mystery: although deserted and clearly uninhabited for some time, not a single window was broken and someone was delivering newspapers to the house every day...newspapers that never got picked up. Oooooh!
But. Several months ago, the house met its match in the form of some developers. They tore it down, poof, over the course of a weekend: a shocking house hole greeted me on my way to the office one Monday. In its place, they have been erecting a huge, ugly and offensively overpriced condo establishment. It's beige, and made in that sort of matchbox luxury style. Vinyl siding rubs shoulders uncomfortably with misguided decorative flourishes; the doorways to each unit are disproportionately big and grand, so new-minted yuppies feel like "The King is Home!" when they slosh home from the office, the day care, the gym, the club.
For a long time, there was a chain-link fence erected around the site, adorned with a sign crowing some blatantly insincere sentiment about being "part of the neighborhood," complete with drawings by children. Awww. Mud and tools and pieces of house-to-be have been strewn around the site for months now. The passerby is in constant danger from the comings and goings of construction vehicles. However, as the display unit was completed and the driveway graded and the rest of the building made shipshape for buyers, the fence has come down and a new phase of events has begun.
A series of strange, fussy and seemingly grudging repairs has taken place over the last few weeks: new soil poured onto the workboot-besmirched Designated Tree Area, but unevenly, clumping two feet high around the base of the DT and spilling over the granite bounding stones in a careless line across the walkway. One panel of the fence between the condo and the neighboring house has been replaced, two others left damaged and dangling. The cracks in one of the concrete sidewalk squares out front are filled in, but carelessly, with gaps and holes still remaining. You can almost feel the contest of wills between sale-hungry investors ("We've gotta make this place look Classy!") and those managing the actual work ("I'm trying to build a damn house here!").
Yesterday was the best so far. One of the established, old-money trees that grows on the sidewalk in front of the condo got a big hunk of its bark gouged out, in an incident probably related to some pipe work they were doing there last week. The bark broke off in one clean piece, maybe one foot wide by two feet long, and was lying on the ground next to the tree, until yesterday. I walked past the scene of the incident on my way to the store, and saw that the hunk of bark had been fitted neatly into place on the open wound of the tree, and fixed securely with a piece of bright pink string, tied in a bow. An attempt at grafting, to clean up the neighborhood, I guess. I wonder if it will take?
Posted by hilatron at 10:38 AM
July 15, 2004
My Fidget is the Best
I hate the Bouncers, those people who can’t sit quietly without jittering one of their legs up and down, balancing on the ball of the foot, a repetitive motion that you can’t ignore once you notice it. Oh so annoying, especially when you sit next to them on the subway – then in addition to the jiggle-jiggle-jiggle, there’s rub-rub-rub against your knee. Those damn Bouncers need attention, a daily walk, something to keep them in line.
Then there’s the Shifters, the folks who don’t know how to stand still. It’s a constant series of movements, shifting the weight from side to side, crossing and uncrossing the arms, sighing and flailing and generally crying out for a pair of leg shackles. You’re standing behind one of these cats at the bank and it’s all “What’s that over to the right? Oooh, look, it’s a line! How ‘bout here on the left? Hey, check that out, more line!” The worst are the ones who don’t realize that their little personal rhythmless two-step is causing them to move backward, until you have to poke them with your book to retain your personal space. Then of course it’s you getting the offended glare, as though you had not been standing here, mature and stable, two feet planted firmly on the ground, minding your own business. Shifters are just ne’er-do-wells, never done an honest day’s standing in their life.
We mustn’t forget the Pickers. As soon as a Picker feels a moment of repose coming on, he or she busts out the nail-cleaning (especially irksome when performed on manicured talons – oh, that clicking sound), the hair-twiddling, the zit-finding missions (the slow, contemplative stroking of the skin, the pause as the fingertips encounter a protuberance, the faraway eyes as the Picker ponders future extraction). Pickers have no boundaries, and worse, no sense of humility: do they really think that the rest of us care to observe their mundane grooming habits? Do they imagine that we can make an in-depth exploration of their split ends without thinking a little less of them as a person? We are not all aestheticians, after all.
I am a Fiddler. When I’m restless or distracted or watching something boring on tv, no pen or paper clip is safe. Caps are there to be opened and closed repeatedly. The battery cases on all the remotes in the house are loose and degraded from the constant opening and shutting. I play with zipper pulls; I snap snaps; I peel off strips of tape from the roll so I can tape, untape, tape, untape on the desk or on my hand. As I refine my bottle-cap spinning upon the smooth accommodating surface of my desk, I see you looking at me: you with the leg, you with the flaky scalp. I know what you whisper about me to your fellows: property-destroyer! Wastrel!
You can say what you will, but when the chips fall, when the shoe drops, when the inevitable days of revolution come and it’s fidget pitched against fidget, who do you think will have the advantage? The jittery Bouncers, restless and unable to focus, are emotionally unstable already, it’s clear. The Shifters – what will they threaten us with? Interpretive-dance-fighting? And the pickers, what do they propose to do, groom us to death? Massive wedgie assault, perhaps? No, it’s clear that the Fiddlers will have the advantage. We have tools, my friend, and have put in the practice to wield them formidably. We can improvise, adapting nearly any office supply or small household gadget to our advantage. We are not to be taken lightly, whatever aspersions you cast upon our characters now. You just watch yourselves. There’s a rubber band and a toothpick with your name on it, and don’t you forget it.
Posted by hilatron at 01:16 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 11, 2004
Motherfuckers Motherfuckers Motherfuckers
I saw it today. Still processing - there's a lot there to think about. Moore (as he often does, agree or disagree with him as you might) takes on way too may issues to delve into them in as thorough a manner as you might like, and sometimes it seems like he gets sidetracked by the tempting possibilities rather than sticking to the grim verifiable facts (of which there are enough to keep all the damn hippies in America on blood pressure medication for the next decade or so). On the other hand, it's such a fucking relief to hear a voice on the liberal side that's as unapologetic, as impassioned, and as "on-message" as those on the right. Say (or snarl or shriek) what you will about the Bush administration, damned if they haven't got the branding thing down.
Anyway, I hardly feel qualified to go into this all right now. Right now, I have two questions:
1) Where did our rage go? There's footage at the beginning of the film the protests in the wake of the 2000 elections. Citizens were incensed! Congresspeople were up in arms! And what-the-fuck-ever, whether the studies in the aftermath say that Bush or Gore would have "really" won, it doesn't matter. The fact remains that the American people allowed a Presidential vote to be decided by nine justices, rather than by a count of their hard-won votes. And then, then, in the wake of all the horrific acts that came after, it was all just sort of forgotten. There have been so many things to be mad about or scared by, we don't know where to turn or what to focus on. I know that I, for one, have become numb to the onslaught of shitty things that seem to be revealed every day. How funny is this anymore, really?
2) What do we do? I hope that Kerry gets elected, I'll do what I can to help with that, but let's be real - the trends that allowed this administration to start empire-building right under our noses, not to mention hacking the Bill of Rights and Constitution to shreds, started long before Bush's tenure. And I think the blame lies with us, really. We don't pay attention, it's boring or confusing to keep up with all the shit that goes on in Washington, and so we start electing the candidate who sounds best without really looking too hard at the details, or identifying with one "side" or the other to the exclusion of all rational discourse. I know I've been guilty of both of these things. Just getting Bush out is not going to solve the problem (although I sure hope it happens and that it helps keep the damn world from blowing up). We need to get on the ball here and realize that there are always a certain number of fuckers on either side who are waiting for opportunities to fulfill interests other than ours. We need to keep our eyes peeled.
To make a start on my new vow to pay attention, here's a little something that may interest you. Keep your guard up come November, guys. With all the shit that's gone down, I wonder how paranoid it is to ask, are we even going to have the chance to throw our votes away next time?
Posted by hilatron at 06:31 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
July 07, 2004
A Word On Euphemisms
Lately I have been sort of fanatical about things like substituting "I have to go to the bathroom" for "I have to use the restroom," even in cases where I feel that I am among my betters and ought to use my Fancy Manners. That is because I am getting tired of people not quite saying things to me all the time. Allow me to present an exemplary scene:
Two characters, HILATRON and SOCIAL WORKER, are in the odiously floral office of a nursing home. They are discussing some sort of paperwork mumbo-jumbo relating to Dadatron.
SW: So, I think everything is in order here. Oh, one thing we'll need to determine is whether your father has a living will or anything that dictates his final wishes.
H: Yes, I've got something at home that I can fax to you.
SW: Great, because we'll need that when... [Social Worker stops suddenly and looks shifty for a moment] Well, we'll need that in case anything happens, or if your father should... [Looks hopefully at Hilatron, hoping she gets the idea.] pass...?
H: Uh, yeah. I'll get that information to you.
End scene.
Caregivers talk a lot to me about "passing" these days, and about "things happening," when what we are really talking about is: you and me both need to have our ducks in a row in case Dad goes into a coma or chokes on his Saturday-night bean supper, and we need to know what you want to do when, not if, he kicks it. Because, of course, that's the one thing there's no if about for anybody.
I realize that they’re trying to be gentle, and maybe they do encounter people who get the vapors over the grim realities. But it's awkward because when they start pretending that there's an "if" clause in the case of my Very Special Family Member and pussyfooting around the particulars of the Do Not Resuscitate order, what I want to do is jump on the counter and start singing a song called “I Knooooow…That Everybooooody…Croooooooaks!”
However, I never do that, or even something more reasonable like saying “Hey, I know you talk about this stuff all the time and it doesn’t really freak me out, so let’s ease up on the sugar coating, shall we?” Instead, I feel compelled to go along with the game. So when we get to the “passing” part of these conversations I have a special expression that I adopt: slightly furrowed brow, slightly turned-down mouth, head tilted to the side, and an understanding look in the eye as I try my best to pantomime “This sure is tough to talk about, but you can count on me – I appreciate your thoughtful circumspectness.” And then I say “passing” and “in case something happens” and all the other crap, too. This is of course exceedingly stupid, because it reinforces the idea that the other person should keep on doing those very things that annoy me. But for some reason I find myself powerless in the face of people’s determination to protect me. It is my kryptonite.
I worry that you can get addicted to euphemisms, that today it’s accepting the “passing” because it’s easier and next week I’ll be smiling pleasantly at the news while they talk about Operation Enduring Freedom [whose?] and the importance of The [two-heterosexual-parent, white, middle-class, “values”-endorsing] Family. So I go to the bathroom, not the restroom, as an act of rebellion and a sort of immunization from halfway expressions. I sign all the relevant correspondence as “Hilatron (Guardian – and daughter – of Dadatron),” just so it’s a little harder to consign us to cold impersonal roles and ignore our messy realities. I feel that it is important to keep my jutting edges sharp in some areas, even as I grind others down. Maybe it’s as frivolous a gesture as jumping over cracks, but it feels like a kind of balance nonetheless.
Posted by hilatron at 03:11 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
July 01, 2004
It's Hard Looking This Good
My coworkers and betters have now decided that I have worked here forever and know everything about everything, which means that daily, of late, I get casually asked to “Find the shizwap from the clammydo we did in 1994 and integrate it with this here fipfam,” or “Get me the dillawangs from the last five years, and meet me in the conference room in ten minutes.” I paraphrase, but you get the idea.
This week, I’ve been looking for slides. So far, I have been accused of having a system for keeping track of the slides (most of which I have never seen, none of which I have ever archived, and with which my sole contact has been to type lists of those that are used in presentations); of having created and saved samples (and of course slides) of a custom-imprinting project which, it turns out, happened two years before I got here; and of knowing where “all those pictures from that…thing” went.
The real problem is that my psyche is always ready with a backup supply of insecurity, so of course, when each unknown factor is first brought up, I think that surely I should know this, why don’t I remember making the custom coasters? Where DO I keep the slides? My god, what kind of loser am I?? And yet, there’s something about me that keeps putting me in such fixes; I must look one million times more competent than I feel. Every boss I’ve ever had has one day woken up believing that I hold the key to the universe, and is so, so surprised and disappointed when it turns out that I am just bumbling along like everyone else (although, to my credit and unlike most of my past supervisors, I am capable of operating a basic e-mail program. But that’s a discussion for another day). I do not know what I do that causes people to think my shit is all together, but I really wish I could tone it down, at least to an extent that would prevent strangers from asking me for directions all the time. Me, the girl who navigates via unusual landscaping choices rather than street signs! Ha!
For now, I must figure out what I’ve gone and done with that one letter that I didn’t type and which my boss cannot describe to me in any detail, I mean really, who hired me anyway?
Posted by hilatron at 09:46 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack