Hoy en dia

Today I saw a kilo of cocaine.  I'm not kidding- it had a playboy bunny etched into the top and smelled oddly of decaying organic matter.  Additionally on my day's roster: attesting that I never committed a felony, peering into the guts of a CT scanner and carefully ignoring persistent pleas for greater funding-funding which my office, and certainly I, do not have.

Today was field trip day at work and I got quite an eyeful.   Now that I am back at home, snuggled in and watching gossip girl I am reflecting upon such field trips. Even in 2nd grade, they never were what they were cracked up to be- unless you were the lucky one who actually got to milk the cow at the farm.  Today's field trip was no different.  As I look back on life, I know I'll be happy that I spent 7 hours on my feet, touring public facilities that do amazing things on string budget- but for right now, I am really regretting the choice of wearing wedge heels over flats.  

Grrrrrr!

I couldn't find anyone that wanted to take a hike with me yesterday.  To be fair, I only made a few calls to 'outdoorsy-type' friends and family members and gave them less than an hour to realize that a chance to spend time among the trees with me would be their greatest gift of the weekend.  No dice.  Thus, I ventured to the great wild by myself.  My alone-ness allowed me to take random turns, scale the difficult trails and simply turn around if it suited my fancy.  While on the more difficult trail of my local mountain, I found myself leaning back, extending my left foot while extending my right arm for counter-balance.  Throughout this feat of natural balance that kept me from plummeting to my death, I started to think about the inner animal in all of us.  It is the animal that allows me to sense a potential fall and lean just enough to escape it.  It is the animal in me that can hear a twig break in the distance and ensure my cellphone is still in my pocket (an adaptive animal-meets-technology reflex) and keep my eyes out for Bad Guys.  

Up until this election, I've always thought that Republicans are more in touch with their inner-animals.  They are reactive, lean into the wedges that define social platforms and rely on tribal associations to create the in team and the out team.  We democrats often respond partly with anger and partly with hurt feelings- we don't understand why republicans deride the intellect that separates us from the lower beings on the food chain.  We wish they would focus more on the issues and less on the gut animalistic reaction to the emotive language associated with anti-real-Americanism.  But, Sarah Palin, has allowed the democrats to get in touch with their inner animals.  The visceral reaction of democrats towards the Alaskan Governor is one that should be easy for republicans to understand- they originally tapped into it.  She makes us bear our teeth, grip our claws and long to tear her down to protect the ways in which she threatens our tribe: the common good, humility in the face of great challenge and the ability to speak candidly about issues.  She is the alpha; that which can attract the most fervent members of her own tribe while making the auto-defense mechanisms that lay dormant in the opposing tribe finally mount up.

It is the animal in my that wants a John McCain loss to be highly correlated to his VP pick.  I want her to go down- not because she is a woman (stop accusing me of being sexist, you sexist Fox news announcers with perfect makeup and coiffed hair!), not because she is a maverick (a loose, self-defined term), not even because she so obviously is a pawn to the campaign and completely reliant upon them to define her 'core beliefs' (sounds very maverickish, huh?).  I want her to go down because she is a threat to my tribe.   I do not want folksy mean slogans to triumph over research and intellectualism.  I do not want "Do as I say, Not as I do" (abstinence education...) to rule my country.  Most of all, I do not want ignorance to win.  Call me a fool, but I still believe in democracy and have faith in the majority's rationality.  

** I do like that the top spell check option for Palin is "Plain".  So true. 

Go on Ladies!

One of the unappreciated highlights of this election is the role that women have played. No, I do not mean the 'historic nature of HRC's campaign'. And, this may come to a shock to my faithful readers, I am not about to pay Sarah Palin a complement. The fabulous women to whom I refer are those of Saturday Night Live who have emerged of late as the saviors of the show and democracy itself.

In a decade marked by pitiful SNL performances, save only for a few male dominated highlights and a few lewd musical numbers that play on the playa hatin' video girl stereotypes, Amy Pohler and Tina Fey have rocked Saturday nights and the subsequent network morning shows for weeks. Pohler looks as though she may pop she is so very pregnant and Fey can coif her hair better than Gov. Palin herself. Together, the dynamic duo are renewing social commentary and political parody that has been lacking in my Playstation/Reality TV/Sports Center generation. High school classmates now eagerly watch Presidential debates- a coup in itself- so that they can understand the jokes on Saturday night.

Currently, I have a heroin-esque addition to Pohler's Palin Rap. I don't even know what my favorite part is, there are just so many (the McCain scary face, the Moose, Todd, etc.). For the past two weeks, these women have effectively dominated the water cooler chat in my, and I can only assume many other, office. The dead on wit and national appreciation for the genre makes me hopeful for the future- on the several Saturday nights when I am staying in, already had three-four glasses of wine and just ready to laugh.

Budget madness ends- but my life is still bizarre.

My day yesterday:

5:45 am:  Innocuously climb aboard an elliptical trainer at my neighborhood gym.  Within the 1/2 hour aboard, learn that the new owner of said gym doesn't believe that acid-washed jeans have gone out of style.   Toward the end of my a.m. sweat session, get into a semi-brawl with a father of a high-school classmate who claims that Obama represents socialism and I must want socialists to take over the country. 

8:17 am: Peaceful commuter rail ride disrupted as a set of women sit across from me.  Our knees nearly touch.  Women #1 proceeds to tell Woman #2, and inevitably myself, about her tumultuous relationship.  Apparently #1's Man ditched her at Chowda fest, and paraded around in a costume.  Loosely tied to this event is #1's disdain for the way that the Man treats her.  To resolve this issue, #1 went to have her cahds read.  #2 quickly inquired to whom #1 to get her cards read to which #1 responded:  "I get my cahds read by all of them; Regina, the otha one- I've spent so much g.d. money getting my cahds read this week.  But whateva, it's what I'm into."  Apparently Regina, card heiress extraordinaire, told #1 to change her locks, break up with the Man after he had done all the work that needs to be done around the house.  

8:54 am: I briefly ponder becoming a card reader/opportunistic woman guide.

9:36 am:  Six minutes into a site visit at an urban nutrition center, I realize that the woman who is to guide us through the ins and outs of said center is Not Well.  

10:04 am  Woman at center reveals that she is all jacked up on steroids and other drugs.  Reasons sited include: major problems lately.  Hmmm.  She proceeds to guide us through the paper work needed to apply for the service.  Such directives included, but were not limited to, "and then I have them sign on the line right here.  Then they put the date next to that line, on the 'date' line."  

11:40 am: Return to office, fearing a voice mail box filled with questions about my morality.  Recent budget cuts had dropped upon the Commonwealth the day before and I had the good fortune of having 6 of the 9 cuts highlighted in a local newspaper be those within the departments with whom I work as designated budget cutter.

11:42 am: Finish checking voicemail.  No angry constituents, only those confused that all earmarks are not showing up as cut on the website. 

11:47 am:  Come to grips with the fact that I will never, ever be able to figure out website programming.

12:oo-5:00 pm:  Frantically attempt to catch up on the regular business that fell to the wayside amid budget cut panic.

5:45 pm:  Sign the lease to my new apartment.  Simultaneously become excited and scared (a la Jesse Spano) to live there and pay for it without taking on a stint as a street mime or otherwise untaxed employment.

8:16 pm:  Go to bed.  Exhausted from budget cut madness, commuter rail trauma and occasional anger toward Sarah Palin.

All of us WILL learn

It's increasingly easy to become discouraged by the state of the world- the very human problems that are molded into very mechanical political needs go unaddressed and we are stuck in a holding pattern of ever widening socio-economic gaps and faltering services to adequately address them. Unfortunately, we often look to one-solution-fits-all cures when the only cure for hugely inadequate education and health systems would be blowing the whole thing up and starting fresh. With 49-51% of our nation subscribing to the conservative persuasion, TNT style reform is unlikely. It is in this vein that I make a self-promotional plug to a burgeoning reform in the education world that I was lucky enough to teach within for 2 years- the Knowledge is Power Program- or KIPP Schools. It's unique approach to educating low income youth is as much derided as it is embraced- but its success is undeniable. What's great about KIPP is that it doesn't claim to be THE solution, merely part of it.

One of the founders of KIPP appeared on the Colbert Report earlier this week. Dave Levin, whom I will have an everlasting and very real crush, used his 5 minutes to discuss the urgency of NOW in our education system. My first group of Kippsters are applying to college this year- the very idea of it and what they've overcome as individuals blows my mind. My job is currently asking me to evaluate very difficult decisions about levels of human-centric services that are required to cut back due to this implosion in the economy. I can only hope that cuts are being made strategically and programs that change as many lives as KIPP (which actually doesn't receive government funding outside of its per-pupil allotment) don't end up on the chopping block.

I am not alone!!!

It is not in my nature to be completely swayed by the spinning heads in the back room of a political forum, but after Thursday night's Vice Presidential debate I wondered if I had seen a completely different debate than those who make their living commenting on such events.  I saw two space-shot candidates; one whose priority was to prove that she can speak in complete sentences, regardless of relevance to the topic at hand (hmmm... was a winning strategy in the past two elections) and the other who parsed his words so much to show that he is not in anyway looking down on a candidate that thoroughly deserves to be looked down upon (I need Jed Bartlet, circa season three in here STAT).  The former was completely void of gravitas but terrifyingly assured of her superiority; the latter looked like he was suppressing his gravitas under his ubiquitous grin while avoiding any nod in the direction of his opponent's quite apparent inferiority. 

Yet, in hearing the pundits I started to believe that I was dead wrong.  Perhaps, I thought, my solidified views of both candidates overshadowed my ability to really WATCH the debate, maybe I was simply seeing what I wanted to see.

And then I rode the commuter rail the next day.  

The commuter rail tends to attract a segment of the population that limits interaction to, "Can I sit there?",  "Did you see the Sox game last night?", or "Tickets, please!".  I, along with the majority of the riding population tend to bury my head in my book, alternated with sneaking peaks over the top of said book to people watch and deliberate what offices allow its employees to wear THAT (!).   

But, Friday's commuter rail ride was a virtual Roman Forum of politics.  Things overheard include:

- She didn't mess up, but she didn't really SAY anything.  

- Why did she keep winking?  It was weird.

- She reminded me of my girlfriend. My girlfriend always tells me to stop bringing up the past and I'm always like, Dude, I've just started to absorb the past.

- "I can't believe you watched that." Person A.  "Are you kidding?! Do you know how much is at stake?" Person B (Blogger, silently, 'YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS')

And, thus, my 'man on the street (well, train)' survey  has proven my gut instincts right and made me feel less alone in this crazy pre-presidential atmosphere.