It's About That Time

Been away from this for far too long and realize the pent-up verbosity is starting to impact my ability to remain twitch-free during waking hours. So. Here goes.

My mother is driving me insane. She is unlicensed and has never owned a car, so that just tells you how the ride has been.

I'm driving my children insane. And so the legacy lives on.

Speaking of legacies an inside-operating, old-school-politicking, power-playing Chicagoan is vying for the top job in the city now that the beloved and beleaguered mayor is stepping aside. I know intellectually that I should be inclined to support a less Daley-esque figure for this position, but I frickin' love Rahm. And when I say 'frickin' I mean the finger-in-your-bare-chest-you-muther-effer version of the word.

Which leads me to Delaware. Obviously. There's nothing like a perky, cute, high-heel-wearing, tight-skirt-sporting, vernacular-using gal from some remote state running for a national office to fill up every conceivable bit of blank space in the world. It's got to make the Hillaries of the world just want to vomit. Call me Hillary from now on.

Now that I'm Hillary, allow me to look disgustedly at all my fellow progressives and lecture: Act your ages (hands on hips) and stop pouting right now, dammit! Don't let me come up there and see that look on your face again. Do you hear me? We don't always get everything we want; have you seen my life for crissakes? But that doesn't mean good things aren't happening. Democracy does not operate on 4G speed you spoiled, over-caffeinated, self-indulgent brats. Yes, you. Now march back to your position on the historic arc we've created to reclaim our nation's progressive identity and you tow that blessed line before I spank your bottom and send you to bed with NO healthcare.

On the off chance you opt to go to your room and fume silently, save for the grumbles of your un-fed, spoily-cat tummy, I've got something for you to ponder up there. Why is this country so bipolar?

We routinely expose ourselves as homophobes by not openly and matter-of-factly accepting homosexuals in our armies, our churches, our public offices. Then we wonder why our children are so driven to despair when they lurch into a reality that pits their identity against their basic safety. We all know gay people. So there's no question they exist. And there's no question we know it. The only question is: when are we going to stop killing them, either by commission or omission, whether in spirit or in deed? When?

We wonder why people are so disconnected that they wouldn't recognize the danger in exposing someone's intimate habits on the world-wide-web. Then we sit with our family members in a car or an audience or a waiting room and each click away at our individual electronic devices rather than bear idle conversation. I know the newspaper's dying, but just like there's something uniquely human about the tactile experience of touching that paper and hearing that crinkle and smelling that ink, there's something uniquely inhumane about experiencing everything in a virtual sense instead of a real sense. And that inhumanity is infecting our children.

We tout our devotion to equality, diversity, education in every venue with every version of a mic we can find. Then we vote for morons in lip gloss, grossly and shamelessly question the nationality of our president because of his color, and systematically decimate the systems, tools and resources we have for teaching our children anything but how to be the first to buy HALO for the best price. I talk about losing weight all the time. Not exactly committed to it in real life. The proof is in the pudding. (Are you eating that?)

Now that I think about it, I don't need you to think about it. In fact, scratch the question. We're not bipolar. We're just incredibly stupid.

And as a final thought? I offer this: Rick Sanchez may or may not have been right. Judge for yourself based on the entirety of the conversation. http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/transcript-cnns-rick-sanchez-meltdown-sirius-radio-21386?page=0,0

But his termination was absurd, and as a Cuban-American myself, I'm quite comfortable accepting that he could view Jon Stewart or CNN or any other establishment in the U.S. as being bigoted (or prejudicial, as he later corrected himself - which did not make the news). I accept this because I blend quite nicely with Anglos and Jews on the surface and still when people discover my ethnicity they feel comfortable calling me 'amiga' or a 'hot-blooded Latin mama' or asking me to do a Charro imitation. (Granted, the latter of these was in the late 70s, but man it stung and I'm still carrying it with me.) I've been asked more times than I can count if I have a good recipe for salsa. I never ask my Polish friends for pierogi recipes, do you?

In the most academic circles people will greet me with 'hola chica' and I've had more than one person ask me if my fair-skinned children actually 'belong' to my dark, olive-skinned husband. Bigotry is quite alive and healthy in this country, certainly in media where even Univision's lead anchors are fair and have blue or green eyes. So if Rick is a little raw from a lifetime of dealing with that and has had it up to 'aqui' with Jon Stewart's nickering and teasing, I'll allow him a little leeway. Just like we allow Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews and Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh some room. Lots of room.

Oh that's right.

They're white.