Politics…Bringing People Together Since…Never

(Don’t even ask what started this conversation…our texts have a narrative thread that falls somewhere between mescaline overdose and fever-dream.)

Ryan: How would you like a Trump-Cruz ticket.?

Me: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of me dying.

Ryan: That’s something you could put on Pay-Per-View.

(A second later…)

Ryan: To be clear…Trump-Cruz, not your dying.

Me: Thanks for clarifying, sweetie.  Wait, are you saying my death isn’t good enough for Pay-Per-View?

Ryan: Yeah…I don’t think I can win here, so I’m just going to tell you you’re pretty and hope for the best.

 

A Debt I Cannot Repay…

I’m just gonna go ahead and show you some flowers first, before I make half of you mad.

I’m going to go ahead and apologize, because while this entire post will be fraught with references to dicks…none of them will be remotely funny. Maybe if you’re new or just really into a good dick story, read about the time I broke up with someone over Jon Hamm’s penis. It doesn’t disappoint.  (Okay, huge lie, it’s an enormously disappointing story on every level, especially for Jon Hamm.)

Anyhooooo…

Today, I want to take a moment to thank Planned Parenthood.  I want to thank them for the education that I was able to pursue, my health which is relatively stellar, and mostly, for giving me control over my future.  It is because of Planned Parenthood, that I have never needed to have an abortion, and for the fact that I’ve never HAD to make a choice.

Thank you for giving nonjudgmental, factual, realistic education to anyone who wanted it, along with affordable birth control, to keep them safe and healthy. Your work has enabled so many millions of people to live full and happy lives, so that, when they are ready, they can have healthy families.

Thank you, Planned Parenthood, for getting me an immediate appointment when I was 20 and thought I was dying, only to find out that I was the victim of too-tight underwear. Thank you again for when I was 33, and convinced I definitely dying this time, because of a chronically unfaithful partner, and for literally holding my hand until the rapid test showed I was safe.

I’m hardly alone…I know my hands aren’t the only ones you held. Thank you for holding the hands of people that I love, who didn’t get good results, and for handling it with such love, compassion, and care, that they didn’t jump in front of buses or swallow every pill they owned. You steered them to medical help, counseling, and showed them that their lives, while altered, were not even close to over.

Thank you for providing prenatal care to women who have no insurance, but who wanted to do the right thing, and for giving easy affordable cancer screenings for women, who otherwise could never afford it, and maybe wouldn’t have gotten help until it was too late.

And yes, thank you for also providing safe and LEGAL abortion services for those that need it. Thank you for being a beacon of light, so my college roommate didn’t have her sexual assault compounded, by having her body taken over, again, by the son of a bitch who raped her.  Thank you for hiring AMAZING staff, who treated her with such gentleness and compassion, that the only emotion she ever had following her procedure, was a deep and profound sense of relief.  Thank you for ending the days my mother lived through, as a nurse in New York, in the 1960’s, where she saw many, many women lose their lives to blood loss and infection, because they were left to butchers when they were too poor to fly overseas, where it was safe.

Thank you for fighting for all of us, even those who fight against you, because you believe we should have options in our lives. Thank you for fighting the good fight, and getting so many millions of women through not only the best most amazing parts of their lives, but also the hardest and scariest.  Thank you for taking care of our brothers, boyfriends, husbands, sons, and friends, who also count on you for their futures.

Just thank you…

Welcome To Arizona! Come For The Weather, Stay For The Xenophobia!

Okay, so for those of you who watch ANY news whatsoever, it should come as no shock that my beloved Arizona has gotten a reputation as being…shall we say…flamingly racist.  While I understand why it looks like we’re all a bunch of backwoods hillbilly cretins most of the time, I feel I must defend my state’s honor.

To begin, it is a fact that almost no one over the age of 30 is actually FROM Arizona, and we are almost entirely populated by transplants from colder states, who came here for the weather, and promptly started complaining because our golf courses were too close to Mexico.  You know how everyone has that ONE embarrassing racist uncle, who screams about immigrants and thinks that Obama was born in Kenya?  Well, that guy got sick of Wisconsin winters or shoveling snow in Michigan, and moved his ass to Phoenix.  So the problem isn’t actually Arizonans, per se…it’s that we have a HUGE population of older, conservative transplants, who unfortunately vote religiously, and who are magnetically attracted to the candidate wearing the fanciest tinfoil hat.

Now, recently, we’ve gotten some attention, AGAIN, for yet another idiot who has taken to leading armed (and I’m talking automatic weapons, here) protests against Muslims at local mosques while wearing (and selling, because we can’t miss a sales opportunity) t-shirts that say things that I won’t repeat, but involve expletives that aren’t, shall we say, neighborly.  Once again, we get bad press, but what the national news doesn’t mention, is that he JUST moved here from California, so once again we get credit for a village idiot who wandered off from another state.  I do not want to give this asshole any MORE attention by mentioning his name, but Ryan and I call him, ‘The Ritz’.

Shockingly, as it turns out, pissing off one of Earth’s largest religions has consequences.  First it means that you will get thoroughly spanked, on national TV, by both Anderson Cooper and Philip Mudd, a former senior official with the FBI and CIA. Secondly, it means your family will have to go into hiding until things cool down.

Well, as it turns out, this idiot lives down the street from Ryan’s sister, Susan, so her entire block was curiously populated with a lot of unmarked paneled vans and dark windowed American sedans.  Because we’re naturally fascinated by this insanity, we have Susan sending us daily updates.

**And, yes, this conversation took place BEFORE Donald Trump’s asinine remarks about McCain.

 

Ryan: She just texted. The Ritz’ wife came back!  SHE ACTUALLY CAME BACK!

Me: There is no way she did that of her own volition. He must be blackmailing her.  She must have killed a drifter or a United States Senator, or something.

Ryan: Has anyone actually seen John McCain lately?

Me: Real McCain?  Or amazingly lifelike, animatronic McCain?

Ryan: I’m pretty sure The Ritz is keeping that McCain in his garage.

Me: What’s he doing with it!?

Ryan: Well, you know how lonely he must have been when he was in hiding with his wife gone…robot McCain was his only comfort.

Me: I wonder what robot McCain’s O-Face looks like.

Ryan: …

Me: What?

Ryan: That’s the sound of me becoming impotent.

I Am So Stupid, I Can’t Even Avoid Someone Who’s Probably Avoiding Me

Me: “So who wants to hear about how I’m the most embarrassing person alive?”

Tracy: “I do, I do!”

Me: “You know how I’m basically blind in the dark?”

Tracy: “Ohhhhh, this should be good.”

Me: “So, I was handing out pamphlets at the football game, and I walked STRAIGHT up some guy, with the biggest idiot grin on my face, asking if I could talk to him about the budget override…”

Tracy: “And…?”

Me: “He starts talking to me, and I realize he’s the principal I dated summer before last… the one where we broke up and it ended horribly, and we never spoke again.”

Tracy: “Oh, my, God…what did you do?”

Me: “I stammered about how he clearly already knew about the override and then ran for it.”

(deafening silence)

Me: “Nothing?  You’re not going to say ANYTHING about this?”

Tracy: “You exist to make me feel better about myself.”

Me: “I want to argue, and I can’t.”