These Moments of Clarity

Today was very very cold. On cold days like this, the lake turns this very particular color. It's so blue. So pretty.

Today, we were driving home from school and the car was warm and it was so pretty outside and Patty Loveless was singing "Joy to the World" and I felt like the song. I felt joyful. And my thoughts turned to my father, who died five years ago.

There's a Mike Doughty lyric that goes "the only way to beat it is to bat it down." That lyric got me through years of thinking of my father. When I got to feeling like it was just so goddamn motherfucking unfair that he wasn't around to play with my daughter or to boozily quote Houseman with me at Christmas parties, I'd just bat it down. That lyric was a mantra. I bat it down and bat it down and batted it down some more.

But it's been five years now and it occurred to me that maybe it's time to stop batting it down. To recognize that every joyful moment in life (and there are so many) is colored by, is weighted down with loss. So, I cried and cried and cried.

But I was glad to cry and cry and cry. It felt really good to not be batting it down.

Funny that, huh?

Changing Bar Stools

Back in the day when I followed sports assiduously and tended bar, I heard someone say (and he may have been quoting someone) that people who call into radio sports shows are people you'd change barstools to avoid.

Great metaphor, right? I think of it whenever I watch Keith Olbermann. I love Keith Olbermann. I love his show. I love how he made it OK to march out of lockstep with the Bushies. Despite all that, he strikes me as the kind of guy I'd change bar stools to avoid.

Today I was reading Andrew Sullivan, whose blog I quite like. It hit me, I'd probably change barstools to avoid him too.

It goes without saying that not only would I save a barstool for Rachel Maddow. I'd put my purse on it and shoot death rays at anyone eyeballing it while I was waiting for her.

Eek! Ack! OMG! OMFG!!!!

Hall and Oates! HALL AND OATES!!!!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Hall & Oates Pay Tribute to Alan Colmes

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

At the Home Depot

Yesterday, while Laney was at Chinese preparing for her future as fluent in Chinese so she can take care of us when we're old and broke and subject to our economic overlords in China, I went hunting for Christmas decorations. I went to a few stores and then found what I was looking for at Home Depot.

While I was there, I decided to have a key made, since we needed a key. There were two guys at the key kiosk, a middle-aged white dude and a slightly younger Latino dude. The following conversation took place:

Megbon: Can one of you guys make me a key?
White dude [smiling and cheery]: I can't, but I bet he can. Can you make us a key?
Latino dude [also smiling and cheery, and heavily accented]: I won't do it to you, but I can do it to her
White dude [laughing]: FOR her. Not TO her. FOR her.

And they cracked up.

Just to be clear, these guys weren't being gross. They were flirting a little, but in a totally non-threatening way. And in the course of their non-threatening, filled with Christmas-cheer kind of flirting, the Latino guy stumbled into a pretty hilarious malapropism.

But, there I stood, in the aisles of the Home Depot and, y'all, I BLUSHED! I stood there with my Christmas ornaments in my almost 40-year-old arms and I BLUSHED!

I'm beginning to despair of ever growing up.

It's Not a Christmas Song

Why is it that you only hear this song at Christmas? I keep thinking we could use it more in January and the cruelest month (which is, with apologies to T.S. Eliot, February).

Anyway, the song is gorgeous and sexy and makes me feel all soft and gushy when I hear it. You?

Bloggers are Lazy. And Stupid. And People Still Like them more than Christiane Amanpour

Recently, Christiane Amanpour said to Huffington Post:

I think that in the West sometimes blogging is an excuse for sitting back and just commenting on life as it passes by and putting out your opinions on what is happening.

As far as I know about Christiane Amanpour (which is, frankly, mostly gleaned from the Gilmore Girls), she's got some serious journalistic chops. That said, there she is, like so many people in her profession, casting blame for the current state of print media outward instead of taking a good hard look inward. Maybe I can help her out a little...

1n 1998, we were bombing Iraq and India was testing nukes. And what did you read about: Monica Lewinsky and her blue dress. In fucking technicolor.

In 2000, we learned that Al Gore was a smug asshole who claimed he invented the internet. Except, of course, he didn't.

In 2002, a Canadian citizen is shipped off to Syria to be tortured for a year. For no reason. By Americans. Did you guys see that story on the front page of a major American daily? Funny, me neither.

In 2003, George Bush lied and lied and lied some more. And then he told some more lies. And many (if not most) of these lies were easily disprovable. And then we went to war in Iraq and 4000 Americans were killed.

In 2004, John Kerry was an effete asshole who said things like "Who among us does not like Nascar." Except, of course, he didn't.

In 2007, George Bush lies about torture.

[An aside: I really believe that if mainstream media (front page, evening news kind of stuff) reported on torture like professional journalists instead of like a bunch of fucking retards then we'd care about this more. I refuse to accept that we as a nation are so morally bankrupt that we condone torture. It's hard enough to accept that we're morally bankrupt enough to pretend it doesn't exist.]

In 2008, John McCain is a mavericky maverick who mavericks. Whatever.

Traditional media capitulated, again and again, their responsibilities as the fourth estate, while citizen journalists picked up the slack. And yet, it's the lazy bloggers who are at fault for the demise of news dailies.

I am exactly as Christiane Amanpour says. I do sit back and comment on life as it passes me by. But I ain't trying to be Glenn Greenwald or Josh Marshall (both of whom do more real reporting than anyone writing for the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times) But, even my lazy, pajama-wearing self knows that if everyone in the room is running away from me, chances are I have something to do with that.

Signs You May be Overexposing Your Child to Politics

This morning, Laney and I were playing telephone in the car. This is a game we play where we pretend to have a phone conversation. Fun, right? So here's how it went:

Laney: Ring Ring
Mommy: Hellooooo!
Laney: Hi!!!!
Mommy: Who is this?
Laney: It's SARAH PALIN!!!!!!!! [commences hysterical laughter]

Kid knows how to get me.