But Call Me Betsy

Every day, I wake up and read The Washington Post and go, "Are you high?" I'm not asking myself, I know that I am not high, but whenever I read the new strange thing DT has done, and I think he must be on some kind of drugs. Cocaine is my guess. Can you imagine what it must be like to work on his communications team? You would have to find yourself lying on a daily basis to try to change the meaning of whatever tweet he has sent at 2 a.m. Last week, it was something about re-starting the arms race with Russia. His staff then has to scramble to revise the message so that it's less threatening and crazy. KAC (Kelly Anne Conway) has to say things like, "He's not saying that he wants to start competing with Russia and other countries with nuclear arms, but that he wants to be sure that other countries are on warning that they shouldn't start building more weapons." Huh? Also, why? Why is he saying this? It's not in response to anything tangible;...

Had lunch today with the work group and got into a conversation about Trump and the man sitting next to me said he understands that I am emotional about how horrible he is, and then he patted my arm in a consoling way.  He meant well, but I was like, Hey, I'm not being emotional, this guy is scary. He's dangerous and unstable. He's tweeting now about starting an arms race again, echoing what Putin said hours earlier. I'm not sure that he's ever had an original idea that he executed. I mean, I believe that he has an actual personality disorder, and not one of the easily treatable ones, but more like a classic narcissist who only sees himself reflected in the world around him, and sees people and situations as tools to improve or threaten his situation. The other part that worries me greatly is that he seems easy to please and easy to anger, and therefore, easy for intelligent people to manipulate. Tell him he's smart and he loves you. Tell him he's an idiot...

No, I am joking. It is not a comedy. Beware. I went with Dan's mom to see Manchester by the Sea last night, not having any idea what it was about or any opinion about Casey Affleck, other than a certain tendency to discredit him because he's Ben Affleck's brother. There's nothing really wrong with Ben Affleck either, except he seems like a total guy, pretty un-nuanced. I am basing this only on the movie Good Will Hunting , which I haven't seen in ten years. But anyway, it's a good thing I didn't have a clue about the plot of the movie, because I probably would have declined to go. In case you're also unaware, it's a story about a man who works as a janitor in Massachusetts. He's not surly, exactly, but he's not friendly, doesn't connect with people, drinks a lot of beer, and punches men out in bars. You wonder what's wrong with him. His brother (played by one of my favorite actors, Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights fame--nev...

We went to Dan's 30th reunion a few weeks ago, which is not something I recommend you do as a partner who does not know a single person other than your SO. Women kept thinking they recognized me, but just couldn't place me. There would be a moment where I'd catch someone's eye, and she'd go, Hey! her eyebrows flying up, ready to give me a hug, and I'd be say, Hi! I didn't go to your high school. And then she'd swing away, taking a big sip of chardonnay. Which reminds me that huge social events where you know almost no one would be so much easier if I still drank. I mean, easier in the short term, because I would stop feeling so awkward after about one glass, but it would likely be bad in the long run, because I stopped drinking in part due to the day-after regrets. I am not a person who can have one glass of any alcohol--like, why? Why just the one when you can have ALL of it? The more you drink, the more you erase all of the uncomfortable feelings a...

Post apocalyptic dreams last night, topped off by the smoke alarm beeping to wake me up and the dog going into PTSD afterwards, shivering for ten minutes as he crawled onto our pillow. I dreamed that an old friend of mine and his wife were having marital troubles and he was stalking her, and so we were trying to protect her, but then we realized that the sea level was rising quickly, and he got swallowed up whole by a giant fish. We had to gather our family to escape as we watched the water creep forward to envelope the condo we were in, and it was filled with more huge sharks and other creatures who wanted to eat us. We got into the car and started to drive away, but the threat was that we would have to keep moving to higher and higher ground, because we were going to be inevitably swallowed up by water. My social worker friend at work has informed me dreams of being overtaken by water have to do with something you're not dealing with in your life. I am sure there are many thing...

I find it utterly infuriating that we have so little information from the PE that half the articles written about him are supposition, based on previous positions while still using the caveat that he is likely to change his mind. Sentences like, "He said he was going to repeal Obamacare, but then he softened on it, but now he's appointing people who want to do away with it, but yesterday he said he believes all Americans should have health care, but an hour later, he gave a thumbs up to a private organization meant to review policies, but today, he's saying he'll let us know in another week or so."  That's firstly. Secondly, it is fucking unacceptable that the PE refuses to live in DC and, thirdly, it's ridiculous and embarrassing that he also claims to be smart enough not to need daily security briefings. "They'll come to me if something's up," is basically what he told a reporter on Fox News (see--I have been trying to get outside of ...

I am not a person who believes in conspiracy theories generally and I don't read overtly fringe websites, though I did stumble on one the other day claiming that the 911 attacks were perpetuated by insiders, not Muslim terrorists. I don't believe that the pharmaceutical companies are in cahoots with research to stop a cure for cancer. I don't believe that JFK was killed by two gunman. I find it difficult to believe that Princess Diana's car crash was set up by the royal family. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if any one of these things are true, because deception is often just under the surface when money or power is concerned. I'll admit that one of my favorite quotes is "behind every great fortune is a crime," though the actual quote by Balzac is actually "The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed." At the same time, I wouldn...

I gave up the news for about two weeks after the election because I couldn't stomach it and didn't want to see his gloating orange face on TV, spreading more fear and mistrust every time he speaks. I have since let the news back in a little at a time, and am trying to do what someone recommended recently; to get out of our bubbles of news and try to listen to other points of view. I've attempted that too, though maybe not as much as I should. I am trying to watch Fox News or to at least pay attention to voices of those who are happy to have Trump as president, so I can understand why and maybe find a point of connection. But then I'll read about him bad-mouthing a union rep or giving a rally where he makes the idea of using gender neutral pronouns seem like a joke (at his rally yesterday, he pointed out that he was named "Man of the Year" not "Person of the Year," making the point that inclusion is for nasty women only), and then I turn sour aga...

If I could find one positive thing about Trump, maybe I could somehow stomach these horrid choices he's making for high profile positions. Like, one person who is in favor of some form of social justice. These are comically bad people for the positions they're taking on; either because they have little to no experience with the role they're about to have, or because they are so far removed from the issues they must face due to their personal wealth. A doctor with no political experience as director of HUD; a man who believes people in poverty should do the whole up-by-the-boot-straps thing and will likely support slashing public housing initiatives. An EPA director who doesn't believe in climate change.  A vice president who is adamantly anti gay, and anti gay marriage, who believes in conversion therapy. A national security adviser who was fired by the Obama administration for mismanagement and who tweeted that he believes that "fear of Muslims is rational....

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross first published  On Death and Dying in 1969, wherein she described the five stages of grief people go through when someone close to them dies or when they realize that their time on earth is finite, likely to be cut short by a terminal cancer or other fatal health complication. This election, those stages keep circling around in my brain, because it does feel like something died today. It would be hard to define what exactly it was that died and easy to say it was hope, but that's too sentimental. Maybe it's more like a faith or certainty that Hillary Clinton would win--had to win. She was clearly the much more prepared candidate, performed well in all three debates, had the backing of the President and other well-known figures, and was surrounded by a team of really smart people who know how to run campaigns. And then there's her competitor; the man for whom the word "buffoon" was designed--ill-prepared, angry, unqualified, wildly temperam...

Just finished watching the last episode of the most recent Girls after a three-week binge starting in Season 3 due to a free HBO offer that expires tomorrow.  The show makes me miss my twenties, but never, ever wish to go through them again. In my twenties, I thought I just wanted to find a guy, marry him, and start having babies. Well, part of me wanted to do that. The other part of me, the one who was running the show, wanted to only date unavailable men, stay single, go to grad school, and keep moving. That part dominated until my late thirties (it's still there...though I have lost the need to destroy relationships. Or maybe I am moving on to destroying them at a much slower rate. You'd have to ask Dan). In my twenties, I always felt like I was behind. I wasn't far enough along in my career (what career?), I didn't have enough savings, I wasn't following the path that many of my friends were on; the path that worked to create families and stability. Here are...

For obvious reasons, there's lots of discussion lately about sexual assault. I had a conversation with a friend the other day where we compared whether or not we had been sexually assaulted. We decided we hadn't, not in the blatant ways they're talking about now. Though it's true that no strange man has ever grabbed me on the street, I have felt threatened by men, or assessed by men, or worried about men while out and about, particularly when I lived in Chicago in my twenties. But unwanted attention doesn't always come from strangers, it more often happens with someone you know.  I can't count the number of times some guy I know has accidentally touched me where he shouldn't--just a brush by, often with an apology. Same goes for unwanted contact with men I've dated. Women say yes to things or more accurately "not no" to sexual encounters way more than men might think. We're caught in this weird bind where if you don't want to fool aro...

We don't tend to be up on TV series, especially those on paid movie channels like HBO or Showtime, and I have no idea what I was watching in the mid-2000s when The Wire was on (besides The Bachelor ). Never got hooked on any of the network shows either. Grey's Anatomy seemed like a more soap opera-ish version of ER and none of cop procedurals ever measured up to Homicide or even further back, Hill Street Blues . Current shows like Scandal or How to Get Away with Murder or Mistresses seem geared toward college students. Okay, but so, we got free HBO for three months and started The Wire , in large part because everyone who has seen it raves about it, and Dan has never quite recovered from Breaking Bad , which set the bar high, high, high for him. We're now up to season 3, episode 3 and it feels like we are watching it in hopes of getting hooked. We are not hooked. We care mostly about Omar, but less so about McNulty or any of the other cops. I liked season 1, which f...

I'm reading this pretty goofy (but fun) book I got at the library called Dear Emma. I'm certain there's a tie-in to the Austen book, but I haven't read  Emma in a while, so I'm not keyed into the parallels. This book is a first-person account of life in college as told by Harriet, who writes an advice column for the school newspaper called "Dear Emma." She's in love with a guy from one of classes who has ghosted away and is now dating her co-worker at the library. I read half of it yesterday in a blink because it's entertaining. This morning, I was thinking about a recent column I wrote for Philadelphia Stories about MFA programs (to do or not to do), and then thinking it would be enjoyable to write a satire of MFA's though this must have been done to death. And then I also dismissed the idea out of hand because it wasn't potentially serious enough for a first published novel. It wonder if other people do this--reject a writing idea...

I'm reading this pretty goofy (but fun) book I got at the library called Dear Emma. I'm certain there's a tie-in to the Austen book, but I haven't read  Emma in a while, so I'm not keyed into the parallels. This book is a first-person account of life in college as told by Harriet, who writes an advice column for the school newspaper called "Dear Emma." She's in love with a guy from one of classes who has ghosted away and is now dating her co-worker at the library. I read half of it yesterday in a blink because it's entertaining. This morning, I was thinking about a recent column I wrote for Philadelphia Stories about MFA programs (to do or not to do), and then thinking it would be enjoyable to write a satire of MFA's though this must have been done to death. And then I also dismissed the idea out of hand because it wasn't potentially serious enough for a first published novel. It wonder if other people do this--reject a writing idea...

Terrible nightmare recently where I was teaching a shop class and the kids (mostly teen boys) were totally disrespectful and unruly and I screamed at them, cussed at them, threw one girl out by dragging her chair and depositing her in the hallway after tipping her sideways and calling her a douche-bag. Kicked out another kid for making a snide comment to his friend, and yelled, "I don't need this job. I don't care if you drop this class. I don't care if you all drop this class! I'm really much nicer than this!" I continued. "You need to get to know me!" What I planned on teaching them in shop class, I have no idea. It might be related to this book I'm reading, A Man Called Ove . I accidentally saw the last few pages last night and see that he will die at the end. It's been hinted at. He has a bad ticker. But still. He's a handyman, a self-taught jack-of-all-trades fixer upper. When I was reading last night, I thought, Why haven't I...

Finished a collection of short stories called Barbara the Slut by Lauren Holmes that was funny and engaging and not that deep. There were about 10 stories and maybe all of them were in first person and a few were told from the point of view of a teenager, but not in a cutified way. One story was told from the point of view of a dog. I skipped that one the first time around, but went back to it after I ran out of other stories. Nothing deep about them--I mean, for the title one, you didn't get all of this detail about why the teenager slept with all of these boys--except maybe because she had an autistic brother and over-educated and slightly clueless parents, but I liked that about it--that she was just a girl who didn't really know how to be around boys and thought she had to sleep with them. It reminded me that I don't have to try so hard to give back story or meaning to my stories. That there doesn't have to be some big reveal, but I just have to render it in a...

Donald Tr*** continues to amaze and incite with his "Nuremberg-like rallies" (says Martin Amis in an article about Trump's books) and his latest proposal is that we ban all Muslims from the United States and then invade Iraq and take all of their oil to cut off their money supply. Anderson Cooper had to interview a guy from Trump's staff and try to not to guffaw out loud as he was saying, "So, wait, you agree with Trump that we should go into Iraq, one of our allies, and take all of their oil? You don't think that will create even more dissent and radicals? And how exactly would we do this?" The guy goes, "Well, Anderson, the devil is in the details. We'd have to figure out how to get it done, but I'll leave that up to the people who do this kind of thing." The collective strategy of that group is to propose whatever preposterous, xenophobic, racist idea they can come up with ("Build a wall and make them pay for it! Take the ...

Reading Eggers'  Heroes of the Frontier a nd wondering why he didn't call it Heroines of the Frontier since the central character, the one whose head we're inside, is a woman--a former dentist who has a loose-bowled ex-husband and two children--one brave and reckless (the girl) and one introspective and protective (the boy). She's at a crossroads in her life and decides to rent a rickety RV and take her children to Alaska to visit her friend/rival, Samantha. I thought I wouldn't like the book that much because I've been mostly reading mysteries, but it is funny and unexpected and not too big for its own britches. I also was resistant to the male author borrowing the female experience to tell the story, but it would be something else completely if the main character were a single dad--you'd have to focus on the weirdness of that, and he would almost be saintified by society for raising two kids on his own--so, I guess Eggers needed her to be a woman. She...

I missed the first fifteen minutes of paradizzz and all that's happened is that there's a new lady on the island who has gotten her claws into the unrecognizable, bearded Nick (former poet turned bro). The other women (particularly Mom x 2/Baby Voice) are upset because the new lady has had some lip work done and, of course, the false eyelashes. Lace has taken it down a notch by doing only two shots instead of one before lunch. She's desperately trying to establish a relationship with Grant. We watch her take another shot. Vinny conveys this to Grant and so Grant decides to go find her. I hope she doesn't start crying because her fake eyelashes will come right off.  STOP drinking. Meanwhile, Leah, the new girl, is on a one-on-one date with Nick. She says she's really attracted to his lumberjack look, even though he doesn't look at all like a lumberjack. They kiss as the sun sets behind their heads, but we know from the previews that she will go home soon...

Observations: Nick has decided to knock it off with the poet demeanor to take on the beefcake persona. I think he may also be wearing a retainer as he sounds as if he has developed a lisp. ED and Chad are back. Chad's face has become even more over-grown. Omigod, Chad has a Morkie. Chaplin is a Morkie. But Chap is way cuter. Chad's Mork is white and runny-eyed. Remember Amanda and her two toddlers and her off the shoulder shirts (perhaps that's where JoJo got the idea)? She's back. First to arrive is mommy x 2, followed by Nick. This is his third time on a Bachelor type show. Is no one going to comment on the crazy sound of the birds overtaking the stilted dialogue? I forgot that Amanda talks in a baby voice. Jubilee is arrival number three and she has earlier told us that she is practicing not looking like a bitch when her face is resting. Fourth = Evan aka The Penis Guy (according to Jubilee). Amanda likes that he's a dad. Vinny yells and he's in. Then...