Political rant and an interesting note about taxes

Daily Kos brings several things to light today, including this oh-so-apropos quote from President Roosevelt:

The president is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able and disinterested service to the nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

So, here's some truth. President Bush is a sick man. He is a cad, a bounder, a cheat, and quite probably a drunkard. His handling of the Katrina disaster, the Iraq war, and now the Supreme Court nominations (Harriet Miers?! Did he really think that was going to fly?!) has been marked by shocking incompetence and pathetic amounts of incomprehension.

Not that this is news to anyone. I just had to vent. Bush's approval rating among black people is down to 2%, by the way, with his overall approval ratings below 40%. Can we have the 2008 election tomorrow, pretty please? Or can we get a recall?

Also, in the grand American tradition of freaking out about fiscal policy mostly when it hits my pocketbook, I found this gem and promptly hit the roof:

[Bush's Tax Panel is conducting] an examination of ways to modify the deductions for mortgage interest and health insurance, two of the largest tax breaks now available to individuals. Together, these two deductions will cost the Treasury about $250 billion this year, with the benefits going disproportionately to the most affluent taxpayers.

This will never fly with voters. It will be a death knell or at least an albatross to any supporters it if they even think about trying to pass it. But my God, the fact that they are even considering it is terrifying. Kos's analysis here.

Realizations

I spent all day at my former high school, running focus groups and doing interviews. Had a bit of a shock in the afternoon when I realized that the kids I'd spent all morning talking to were not yet born when I graduated from that same institution.

Fogeydom, I have arrived. Roll out the red carpet, that I may dodder forth upon it.

Also, it is very strange being pregnant and interacting with a bunch of high school kids, because for high schoolers, pregnancy is just about the uncoolest thing ever. Here I am feeling so young and unsure and oh my god now I have to grow up and be a parent and they are looking at my bump and I might as well be eighty, my reality is so remote to them. Heh. Considering the reality of 9th-graders, I think that's a good thing. I did my time in that hell.

Again in the "wacky realizations" department, I noted this afternoon that I am actually doing two evaluations this year, one for a project run by the principal of my old elementary school, and one for my old high school. Perhaps my old middle school will be next, or my undergraduate institution. Who can say? It's the Year Of The Alma Mater! Except that the advent of the squid will make me miss my 10-year college reunion, which I had been looking forward to. Grar.

I got offered a third evaluation, as well. It wouldn't be too much more work - it's for the same program as one of my existing ones, only at a different high school, so I'd essentially be able to use a lot of the same written material and research for both. And I could sure use the money; I have all kinds of nagging things hanging over my head - home repairs, school fees, a touch of lingering credit card malaise - and this job could make a significant number of them go away.

But dear God, I can barely work my main job right now. I am falling apart. Would this be setting myself up to fail? Or holding myself to high expectations for success? Or both?

All my comfort food is gross

I woke up this morning at five, from a horrible dream in which I wanted, but could not have, a deli sandwich. (You're not supposed to each lunch meat when you're pregnant, for some unfathomable reason.) I'd gone to bed the night before without dinner, because I was feeling nauseated and horrible (even though everyone promised me there would not be nausea at this point) and so I dreamed that I was hungry, hungry, hungry, and there was nothing I could eat. I went, in my dream, to my desk, and pulled out my stash of various snack foods, and they were all icky in some way. I had a pack of cookies, even, the kind of cookies that cause paroxysms of ecstasy in normal people, they are so good and chocolate-chippy. And I opened the package and started crying, and said to my mother, who was watching me, perplexed, "I'm so hungry, and all my comfort food is gross." I know it doesn't sound like much, but I was so upset when I woke up that I cried for real.

Depression is, actually, a lot like my dream. I'm hungry all the time - for something I can't name, and my usual comforts are all gross. It's why I might as well work while I'm depressed (though it's easier said than done when your work requires research and thought), because even if I try to comfort myself - let myself read novels, or play video games, or surf the web - it all feels gross. Nothing really helps, not exercise, not hugs, not leisure, not work, not treats, not sleep, not nothing. I just have to weather it. I read in one of my pregnancy books that one in ten women gets depressed during pregnancy; figures I would be one, as I've only managed to be off antidepressants for two years since graduating from college. And the doctor says I will be at high risk for postpartum depression, which I was already prepared for. I don't want to go back on the pills; I'm not comfortable with the number of trials done with SSRIs and pregnancy, and certainly not willing to take risks in that department, since I'm functional and all.

I just...my life is good, okay? I can look at it objectively and say, this is the good life. I have everything I need and almost everything I ever wanted and I am loved by a large number of wonderful people. Feeling the way I do is just so fucking counterintuitive that I could scream. I do not want to be this negative shut-in who spends her days struggling to just do a few chores and maybe leave the house. I want to enjoy this good life that I have. Goddamnit.

My Life Is A Farce

Seriously. A comedy of errors.

Last night I went to pick my husband up at the airport. We got his bags loaded in at the curb and went to start the car - and the steering column had locked, or the ignition or something - the key won't turn. After ten minutes of fiddling, a call to the mechanic, and noises about calling AAA, we got it to start and drove home. As we went to bed, my husband said, "I think your phone is beeping - is the battery low?" I told him I'd check it in the morning.

This morning I got up and showered and had breakfast, etc. As I dashed out the door on my way to my OB appointment, I realized that my car was still broken. I did remember to grab my phone - but the battery, as my husband suspected, was dead, even though the forwarding cradle it was in was supposed to charge it. Another ten minutes of fiddling got the car to start again, and I made it to the OB appointment - where the front desk is the most ridiculously unhelpful front desk ever.

I kid you not, I had to ask them for the urine sample cup (apparently, I should have known that they keep them in the unlabelled cabinet behind the toilet). I knew from last time to bring my own disinfectant wipe (the sign in the bathroom says to "wash the area thoroughly with soap and hot water" - yeah. In a 3'x3' public restroom, suuuuure) and this time at least I didn't have to ask them where the sample went - nothing is labelled, and the compartment is about 6" square and hard to see. Also, there is a basket of Sharpie markers on the back of the toilet - so you can write your own name on the cup. Again, no instructions. Waited an hour for the doctor, heard the heartbeat - thump thump thump - back to the front desk, where I was handed complex paperwork with no explanation. I like the OB a lot, or I would never put up with this; I have never, ever dealt with a less helpful front desk. Turns out I need to go to two separate hospitals in the next three weeks, one of which I need to call ahead of time for an appointment. Neither the phone number nor the directions (nor the information that this is what I needed to do) was provided to me until I specifically asked.

So, down to the car. This time, no amount of jiggling or prayer will start it. I give myself a blister on my thumb trying. I try to call AAA - but they are experiencing record wait times; the meagre charge on my cell phone will never survive it. Back up to the doctor's office, to try to place the road service call online. Back down to the car, because I left my AAA card there and I need the number. And up to the waiting room, where AAA's web site insists that I have a username and password, but refuses to give it to me. The web site starts to crash intermittently and will not allow me to place the tow request online. I try my husband; perhaps he can place it for me, but he is in meetings and unreachable. My cell phone dies.

I ask the front desk if they have a phone I can use; they send me to their business office, but give me the wrong directions, so that I try two separate offices before finding the correct one. Nobody is there, so I wait for another ten minutes before someone comes out to help me. Finally, the call is placed.

I am starving and I have to pee and the tow truck will be here "some time in the next 45 minutes" to take me to a mechanic I have never been to before, who was recommended by the same front desk woman who cannot give simple directions. And then I have no idea how I'm getting home from there; cab service in California is expensive and intermittent. Maybe it will turn out to be another exciting adventure.

See? Farce.

Update: I had a Luna bar for lunch. The lemon zest kind are gross. The tow truck company sent a battery charging truck out instead, as all of their tow trucks were out dealing with accidents on the freeway. Luckily, the battery-charging fellow agreed to have the tow truck come out later and to take me home in the meantime, so I'm back and safe, and the car will be towed without me.

Amusement of the day

Of all the things I ordered through Amazon resellers two weeks ago, the only one that has yet to arrive is my copy of Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It.

In other news, I'm adding the back entries from the old blog in batches again; I've done through October of 2003 and still have about 8 months left to do. So for those of you who are reading this through blogrolling services and suddenly seeing reams of old material, that would be why. Apologies.

With A Ten-Foot Pole, by Robert Mezey

With A Ten-Foot Pole

The sky is white and nerveless and involves
Standing off at a ludicrous distance, thinking
Bad thoughts — well, not bad really, rather say
Homeless, images of a time and place
Long since scattered to dust — but still, what power!
My dearest wish — but one shouldn't have wishes,
Wishes are horses that kick you in the heart,
Then ask you if you'd like another ride.
I rode one once, or let's say she rode me —
But you don't want to hear that story again.
I know I don't. Maybe you'd like to hear
About a time and place that kept their distance.
The sky was white and nerveless . . . leave it at that.

          — Robert Mezey, in the 10/3/05 New Yorker.

I'm drawn to this poem and dissatisfied by it at the same time. It fit really well with my week, in some ways; I spent some time a few nights ago googling people I'd loved and lost or let go, which is an odd and melancholy thing to do and I'm not sure why I was doing it. So I'm hearing the regret for the past, and the idea about futile wishes, and I like some of the imagery. But I hate that he chooses the female pronoun "she" instead of calling the wish "it" - it makes this a poem about love lost and all sorts of tedious teenage angst topics like "walls" and getting "too close" to people, instead of being a poem about distance and desire in a more universal sense, and why we engage and disengage. He should have known better; he says in the poem, "But you don't want to hear that story again," and I really didn't. Still, there's enough in it to make me think, so that's something.

Miscellany galore

I so adore my husband. I had to change the batteries for the remote control, so I went into his office and looked through his (relentlessly organized) closet to find the batteries cache. Among tins and drawers neatly labelled (with a label-maker!) "Cables" and "Tokens" and "Paperclips" and "Adapters" there is a shoebox-sized tin, similar in appearance to all the others on the shelf, labelled, "Completely Useless Crap I Feel Obligated Or Irrationally Compelled To Keep Around For The Rest Of My Life".

Also, he called me from Maine this morning, and I think he's bringing home more of the odd folk-art sculpture I so enjoy - this time, a turtle made from an old WWII helmet and some machine parts. Yessss!

I couldn't sleep, the night before last, and so I counted sheep, backwards. This is a crappy exercise for people with a vivid imagination. I turn them colors, or chase them with wolves, or give them little capes, or racing stripes and numbers, and I get so distracted I forget to fall asleep. This time, I was jumping them over a little fence - boing, boing, boing - but they weren't moving, so I kept getting a sheep pile, and having to jump them back over...

Yeah, welcome to my head.

In any case, I finally did fall asleep, and woke up wondering why nature has never created green hair or fur as an adaptation. We have green animals, sure, and green feathers, and animals that can change their skin color, even, but no green fur. Wouldn't it be good camouflage? And yet. I think I must have fallen asleep dreaming of shaggy green sheep.

Last, but not least, I look in the mirror, and there is a pregnant lady there. This is involving some serious adjustment of my self-image. I'm a pregnant lady. Me. And then I'm going to be a mom. The waves of panic are strong, but intermittent. I've lapsed into a bit of a depression (in general, not about the pregnancy) which is affecting my work and my social life, but I'm otherwise healthy and fighting it with exercise, sunshine, and bullheadedness, the only weapons really available to me. Next doctor's appointment Tuesday, and I'll update then, but I think the fetus is fine. In case you were wondering - I know I sort of announced and then went incommunicado for about a month, but I've been struggling with other things.