sound and fury (signifying nothing)

Having a song stuck in your head, even a horrible song that makes you want to stab puppies, is much better than having a person stuck in your head. I personally have found myself humming the “Oscar Mayer weiner” song uncontrollably, yet didn’t spend the entire drive home wondering if the song ever thought about me, or what it was up to, or had it show up in my dreams.

I’m seriously starting to feel for heroin addicts. At the same time, I envy them for the ease with which they can fulfill their cravings, however short-lived such satiation might be.

Music: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Born Into a Light

Seems like with every bit of progress I’ve made lately, comes a caveat: now take two steps backwards.

I’m really trying to be positive, because I’m ready for a change and because I know it could be worse. I do have to let some of it out somewhere, though, before I fucking explode.

What would seem like the biggest fiasco of the day would be arriving at work to hear the fire alarm going off. This meant that the building had to be evacuated, including all the donors who were mid-procedure at the time. So I got to hang out for twenty minutes on the sidewalk with 60-odd other people, and then go back inside and attempt to pick up where we left off, with the addition of the 40-something people who hadn’t yet gotten this party started.

It was actually surprisingly orderly, even though we had to run our asses off to catch up. People were understanding. No one got ornery. Despite initial expectations, things were going to be all right.

Except that pervasive sniffle. And the occasional sneeze. And the feeling like my head was full of sludge. Wouldn’t you know it, I seem to have caught something from the clientele. So I’ve got that head-cold feeling, where your thoughts aren’t able to connect as quickly as they normally do, snot being a much worse conductor than your standard potassium or sodium. I know it’s quite evident in my writing that my thought process isn’t totally up to par, but I’m powerless to change it. Also, I’m too fucking tired to care.

Leaving, I thought, “thank Christ all that’s over with.” Except it wasn’t, not quite. See, my car developed this problem last night, where activating the right-hand directional would cause the headlights to turn off. Not just that, which was odd enough, but they’d fold down. At first I thought I was knocking the lights off when I flipped the signal, but it did the same thing even when I reached down to the base of the signal stalk, on the opposite end of the headlight switch. And it didn’t do it when I signaled left, either. I’d have to stop the car and turn it off to be able to turn on the headlights again.

Well, tonight they wouldn’t come on at all. The switch was stuck between the dash-lights position and the headlights position. When I twisted it hard to get it to go all the way, the dash-lights became stuck on. But the headlights refused to turn on after 15 minutes of fuck-aroundery.

Luckily, the switch that allows you to flip the headlights up and down was still operational. In the end, I drove home holding the high-beams on, trying like hell to stay back from the folks in front of me, mentally apologizing to everyone I passed. I still don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it. Nor do I care, at this point. I’m tired and achy and stuffy, and sort of bewildered that, in a car that’s 20 years old and has just shy of 200,000 miles, the electrical system is having problems that I was warily anticipating in the engine or cooling system.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. To be followed by one or two more tangential bad things.

Music: Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees

It’s not news that I registered as a Republican in 2000 partly because of John McCain.

It’s not news that John McCain lost the South Carolina primary election that year because of push polling, specifically, sleazy scumfucks calling potential voters and asking them “would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had an illegitimate black child?” The black child in question, of course, being Bridget McCain, a Bangladeshi baby adopted by the McCains.

It’s not even news that Charlie Condon, the same sleazebucket who birthed the original push poll idea in ‘00, is running John McCain’s South Carolina campaign this year. That’s right: John McCain, having had his own daughter used in an unbelievably dirty effort to sway the votes of ignorant and racist South Carolinians, turned around and said, “hey, I’m totally over what you did to my family. I want you to be the guy who gets me elected in this state.”

It’s news, at least to me, that apparently Bridget McCain herself found out about “her” role in McCain’s 2000 loss and asked his campaign if they would avoid such dirty tricks this time around.*

So much for family values, huh? Not that it’s any surprise to anyone, red or blue, that John McCain has pretty well devoted his life to winning the presidency at any cost, like it’s a basketball championship or something. Along the way, he seems to have lost a great deal of the integrity that possessed folks like me (who grew up in a pretty liberal family) to believe in him in 2000.

Of course, John McCain is going to win soundly in my home state this year, a state that rejected him eight years ago based on rumor and innuendo. Then again, McCain is a vastly different person than he was in 2000. It would seem his transmogrification is nearly complete, allowing a state full of insular, close-minded fools to once again march to the polls and pull the lever in support of a candidate, and a party, that gives not a damn about the best interest of the common person, all because they have this warped idea that it’s “what Jesus would do”.

I love South Carolina, but there are some seriously cringe-worthy moments in its history, and this is one of them. My only hope is that North Carolina can negate some of the stench wafting up from below by going blue this election.

Music: Sara Bareilles – One Sweet Love

*Not that the plea of his daughter made any difference: not only did Dear Old Dad hire the same jerk who dragged him (and her) through the mud in ‘00, but his campaign has been running push polling again: “would you vote for Obama if you knew he supported Hamas?” Of course, McCain could hide behind the notion that it’s not him, specifically, but his campaign (or, heh, that wily old “overzealous staffer”) making the calls, and he has no control over it; to which I say, you want to lead the country (and by extension, the Free World), and you can’t even lead your own campaign staff?! I’m not too terribly worried about it, since most of your undecided voters are the analytical, gather-the-evidence types who aren’t so stupid as to fall for push polls. The reason this kind of shit worked in 2000 was because they targeted the seedy underbelly of the Republican base – the uninformed racist redneck, or the quasi-informed-but-mostly-single-issue-(abortion, guns, Jebus)-voter. In other words, the ones so stupid that they mostly vote to see their team win, no matter how badly they’re really shooting themselves in the foot.

And in case you’re wondering or care, my greatest hope this election is not for Obama to win, although that’s the direction I’m leaning (to think, I’m actually voting in a battleground state this year! My vote may mean something! Sorry, Ralph). It’s for McCain, through his ineptitude, lack of dignity, and ridiculous choice of running mate, to split the Republican party into two factions: the fiscal conservatives (whose ideas I can understand even though I don’t agree with them, because they’re usually reasonably informed and don’t insist upon foisting their morals on everyone else) and the social conservatives (who have made a mockery of the Separation Clause and represent the type of stupid that shouldn’t be allowed to influence major policy in this country). We could actually get a viable third party out of this. It isn’t the party I’d have hoped for, but it’s a start, damn it.

Here’s a piece of wisdom I never thought I’d be sharing: don’t believe everything you read. Or anything, apparently. Because anyone who shares any particular bit of knowledge shouldn’t be trusted, as they stand to gain from it.

What I’m saying is that book learnin’s bad, folks. This is particularly problematic for me, because I like reading and learning things.

Unfortunately, however, I also like sharing these things I’ve learned. I do it to spark conversation and debate, to impart what I have learned onto others so that they may in turn share it and spread it. Throwing my seeds into the wind, as it were.

Of course, you could also look at it as my being an obnoxious, overbearing know-it-all, and attempt to subtly undermine me by saying that my “knowledge” isn’t accurate because my source stands to profit (or has profited already) from sharing his or her knowledge with people like me. This goes for social commentary, checkout tabloids, research papers, and calculus textbooks.

(I think I’ve been bitch-slapped by someone I might have previously underestimated. Explains the particularly sharp stinging.)

Besides deciding to become an anti-intellectual bump on the log of society, what’s one to do? I suppose reading only things that are completely unprofitable is an option. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch – I already write things no one makes a profit off of.

Does that mean that I am an authority on everything?

Music: Ryan Adams – Nobody Girl