After deleting my MySpace account (I know, right?  What’s MySpace?), I felt so…free.  It was a great feeling.

Facebook?  You’re on thin ice.

Look, I love Spam as much as the next Tennessee kid, but I need to make a request.  People, PLEASE, be a little more discriminate in the people you click to invite to EVERY GROUP AND APPLICATION YOU JOIN.

Have you ever gotten such a request from me?  No.  You know why? Because I don’t really join anything.  But also because when I do, I don’t feel the need to invite everyone I know to it.  It’s just rude.

If I get one more email that “So-and-so has invited you to LOVE JESUS!” I’m going to scream.  Because I don’t love Jesus.  I mean, look, I’m sure he was a nice guy and all, but I don’t really have any ties to him.

Here are the groups I’ve been invited to join RECENTLY:

• One Million Strong Against Socialism – Guess what!  We don’t live in a socialist country.  So unless you’re fighting someone else’s battle against socialism, I’d suggest you find another catch phrase.
• Mafia Wars ANYTHING – If I haven’t joined by now, I’m probably not gonna, right?  Get the picture, please.
• Retake Congress – I don’t really wanna, but thanks.  This was fun.  Also, I’m not a republican.
• Take Back America in 2010 & 2012 – From Whom?  Oh, I see…because those shady democrats got a hold of it.  I’m not really much of a democrat either, but good grief.  You lost.  GET OVER IT.
• Virginia UNCONSTITUTIONAL NULLIFICATION RESOLUTION Coalition – I don’t even know what this means.  I looked it up, and I’m thinking it has something to do with state’s rights and not letting the federal government dictate what individual states can do.  But I’m not sure if you’re for that or against it.  Either way, it’s a dangerous little game you’re playing, except that you don’t actually affect anything anywhere anyhow.  Aside from annoying the crap out of me.
• Become a fan of Jesus Daily! – Again, I’m sure Jesus was a nice guy.  I’m also pretty sure he doesn’t give a damn about Facebook.  He’d probably want you to stop getting on my nerves.  Don’t make Jesus cry; stop sending me these invitations.
• Calling all Christians!  Let’s see how many Christians there are on Facebook! – I’m guessing…about ten REALLY LOUD ones.  Then a bunch of other people who are willing to join and do nothing.
• I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who hate cancer! – It would be a bigger challenge to find a dozen people who love it.   Just sayin’.  At least make it interesting.

I’m not a Christian.  I’m not a republican.  I’m not so much a democrat (because generally I hate politicians and everything that goes with them).  I’m not conservative.  I don’t like the mafia.  I don’t want to farm on the internets (I don’t even understand the DRAW of this one, but I’m going to just assume it must be fun or something).  I don’t like cancer, but then no one does.  I don’t care if some guy in Utah or whatever can decorate his house like a pirate ship if ONLY 1,000,000 people join THIS group.  I don’t want to be in the BIGGEST GROUP ON FACEBOOK LIKE EVER TOTALLY OKAY.

It’s completely unnecessary for you to just invite everyone on your friends list to every group you join.  Have a little respect for other people’s beliefs.  Not to mention their tolerance for your spam.  I can’t find any way to take myself off the “INVITE ME” list, so you’re just going to have to work with me.  Or I’ll be happy to start sending you invitations to every atheist, socialist, political leftist, anarchist, cancer-loving group I CAN FIND.  This is not a joke.

Friends don’t let friends invite everyone to everything.  Think about it.  It’s in your hands.

Aunt Kim, if you’re reading this, I’m NOT talking about you. Well, unless I mention whistling. Then I’m probably talking about you. But I don’t think it’s going to come up.

(My Aunt Kim and Uncle Howard and a couple of my aunts on my dad’s side are pretty normal and fun and don’t talk about Jesus all the time.)

While chatting with Gofahne on Monday morning (I know, I wish she would blog more too! But we have to let her go at her own pace, folks. Be nice.) about our respective Thanksgiving weekends, I went on a little rant about holidays.

You see, my sister (we all remember my sister, right?) started a campaign a couple of months ago to get everyone together in Tennessee for Christmas this year. She asked me about it and I said that I probably couldn’t go because I can’t really afford a ticket and I don’t want to take more time off work. The campaign continued to the rest of the family.

Most of my family still lives in Tennessee. This includes my dad’s family. My mom’s parents and my mom’s youngest sister (Aunt Dana, who also made an appearance in both posts about my sister) live here in Dallas (well, the ‘burbs), along with my mom and step-dad. My sister lives in New York with her boyfriend.

I mentioned all of that so you could see that this will involve a lot of plane tickets. I guess I probably could have just told you that and saved a paragraph.

Now, I had already told my sister that I probably couldn’t make and I thought my mother had said the same thing. Then my sister’s boyfriend passed the bar in New York (YAY! CONGRATULATIONS!) and started his first job as a lawyer with a really good law firm and he can’t really leave to go visit Tennessee for Christmas. So now my sister, who started all this mess, can’t actually go to Tennessee either.

In the meantime, my mom jumped on board with the “everyone in Tennessee for Christmas plan.” She asked me about it and I said the same things about a plane ticket and not taking time off work. I said I would think about it, but that I wasn’t really all that interested.

She heard, “Yes.”

Now we return to Thanksgiving evening. After Princess and I finished dinner with my friends, we had to haul our cookies all the out to the ‘burbs for “dessert” with my family. My mom had been quite distressed that I wasn’t spending Thanksgiving with the family (despite the fact that I hadn’t done so for the last two of them) and had been trying to convince me to just invite my friends (who had their own plans, yo) up to her house for Thanksgiving.

You can imagine my surprise (except I wasn’t really, because this is pretty typically the case) when Princess and I showed up at 7:00 pm and they had just sat down to eat. Mom had been working all day, as usual, so no one even cooked anything. Imagine if I had invited my friends up to my parents house for a dinner of Luby’s that was supposed to take place at 6:00 and didn’t actually happen until 7:00 pm.

This is one of those things that I just don’t understand about my mother, but that’s a topic for another day.

Quickly the topic turned to Tennessee for the holidays. I said, “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be there (blah blah plane ticket time off work blah).”

My mom said, “What?!? I thought you said you were going?”

Crap.

Now, I’m facing off with my mom AND my Nana. No excuse is really working. What I really want to say is, “I DON’T WANT TO SPEND THE HOLIDAYS FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE AND EXHAUSTED BECAUSE I HAVE TO TRY TO SEE EVERY RELATIVE I HAVE IN TENNESSEE IN 48 HOURS. Also, I don’t really like Christmas or Christmas carols or spending endless hours with my family.” You see, I was trying to AVOID saying all that.

Me: I can’t really afford a plane ticket right now.

Mom: That’s okay. I can help you out with that.

Me: I don’t really want to take more time off work and I don’t have any vacations days left.

Mom: Well, you can wait to leave on Christmas Eve after work.

Me: So really, it doesn’t matter what I want?

Everyone: Geez! Don’t get all upset! If you don’t want to go, just say so! We don’t want you to spend time with us if you don’t want to!

CRAP.

Me: Yeah, I don’t really want to go. I just want to have a nice, relaxing, quiet Christmas and if I go to Tennessee, I will be exhausted.

And I thought it was over.

WRONG.

About an hour later, my mom brought it up again. I think I left it at, “FINE. You buy the plane ticket and tell me where to be, since I clearly have no say in the matter.

She said, “Okay.”

So it looks like I’m going to Tennessee for Christmas. Or maybe I’m not. I’m at the mercy of my mother now. When we had dinner on Monday night, she said, “Sarah can’t come? This was all her idea…maybe we should just scratch the whole plan and go to New York to visit her.”

I’m guessing I’ll know the plan on Christmas Eve.

I recounted this story to Gofahne and she said, “The holidays are meant to torment single people that would rather just chill, relax, and be alone. I swear that is their purpose.”

I kind of agree.

Look, I don’t hate my family. I’m just tired of everything always being on someone else’s terms. What about what I want? I suppose the difference between my dad’s family and my mom’s family is that I actually feel like my dad’s family wants to see me and isn’t just pursuing some bizarre “Our family loves to be together, see everyone? We’re PERFECT!” ritual. However, my dad’s mom only talks about calories and Jesus any more and my dad’s dad goes on about socially conservative politics all the time and I just can’t take that crap. You can see the dilemma, right?

I’m just going to start at the beginning, repetitive though it may be. It’s really long. Far too long. But when I sent it to Rebecca (do you ZooLoo? I do!) over at Losing it to see if she could help me edit it down, her response was “You. Cannot. Edit. Any. Of. This.” So here it is, in all its glory. Feel free to skim it, peruse it, glance at it, print it out and light it on fire, or not read it at all. I won’t hold it against you. There’s some really good stuff in here, though. How did all of this happen in two months?

At the end of January, I got dumped by a douchebag of epic proportions. I wrote about it endlessly as if anyone cared. As it turned out, some people did (thanks for your support, guys!). Who knew?

I wasted far too much energy and far too many tears on someone who really never cared about me in the first place.

I closed myself off and shut myself down for a good four months. Then, one day, it was like the light just came on again. I started going out more and hanging out with my friends while not wearing my pajamas. I found some new hobbies. I met some new people. It was great.

Then I ran into Motorboater. We all remember him, right? Very quickly, though we’d only really been out a few times, he got really attached to me. It freaked me out. A lot. The whole time I was saying things like, “I’m not really ready for anything serious” and “Gosh, I kinda think you’re a jackass” and “Gee, no, I really don’t trust you.” And still, it didn’t dissuade him.

Then came the day when he decided to go into weird, slightly psychotic mode. There were phone calls and text messages and he asked me to meet his mom (after like three dates…wtf?). My personal favorite was when he asked me if I wanted to come hang out with him and his mom (no), and I said I had plans to go rock climbing with my friends and then we were going to have dinner. His response? “Cancel that. I haven’t seen you in a week.”

Not bloody likely. (Sometimes I don an English accent when I’m pissed.)

After a couple more calls and texts and some guilt trip about how he didn’t have anyone to talk to because his mom was hanging out with the guy she picked up at the last bar, I agreed to come out for one beer. Then his mom gave that stranger a blow job in front of the bar. And I was done. Stick a fork in me, whatever.

I didn’t hear from him for a while after that, which was fine with me. Then he called me one night, while I was at dinner with my mom. I didn’t call him back. That was the end of it. So I thought.

A week or so later, I ran into him at a bar. I tried to be nice and just sort of friendly let’s let bygones be bygones about the whole thing. But Motorboater? No…he steadfastly refused to speak to me for most of the evening, but while sitting at my table. Ugh. Then he finally left. At 2:00 am, I receive a text about how he didn’t think that seeing me would affect him, but it does and it really sucks when someone tells you they don’t want to get hurt, but then they ignore your calls and act like nothing’s wrong and how he knows that this is what happened to me in my last relationship, so he knows I know how much this hurts.

What?

So my year and a half long relationship is comparable to our three dates? No. Save that drama for your mama (not that she doesn’t cause enough of it on her own.). I’m out.

Then I met this guy and we were friends and I really enjoyed that and then he kissed me and it was nice and we went out once, but I was worried about it ending our friendship so I had to say something and I think I hurt his feelings, but we’re still friends and everything is okay. I hope. (And he reads my blog. Everyone say hi!)

Last week, I was shopping for groceries and this guy sort of…hit on me. Blah blah, he asked me out and he seemed cool, so I said yes. We had a really great first date. Like really great. Movie first date great. We had a really great first kiss. Like really great. Better than movie first kiss great. (Of course the next day, via text message he FREAKED me out by telling me he felt like we were involved and asking me if I felt the same…wtf? After what follows, you can totally come back up here and say, “Uh, shine? RED FLAG!” and you will be completely right and I will buy you a beer. Or a cupcake.)

And I got excited. About a boy. We hung out a couple more times. I decided to overlook that he was wearing crocs, for crying out loud…who does that? Plus, he was a smoker. Still, I was excited. Our second date was also good. Then we had our third date. It can only be described as awkward with a touch of defensive. I’m not sure what happened, but the whole time we were at dinner, things were just…off. He told me stories I wouldn’t tell someone I was trying to impress, he quizzed me on music (Because he knew I had dated a couple of musicians and he’s a musician, blah blah. Oh, by the way, I’m DONE with musicians. I hope…), and generally acted in a bizarre fashion.

Oh, I should mention here that he also had this thing for asking me what I was thinking. Do boys outside of high school still do that? I thought you men were all about not knowing what we’re thinking. And this wasn’t just like hey we’re sitting in silence for five minutes and you have this pained expression on your face so I’m going to ask you what you’re thinking because it seems like I should. This was like hey we’re kissing, but now I’m going to pull back and ask, “What are you thinking?” or say, “Penny for your thoughts…” Yeah, in that moment, you don’t want to know what I’m thinking. Trust me. It’s about what an idiot you are, though.

If I want you to know what I’m thinking, I’ll tell you. Does it seem to anyone that I have a problem saying what’s on my mind?

Also, if he texted me mushy crap like “Miss you, XOXO” I didn’t really respond (Because ew). Then a few minutes later I would get a text about how I didn’t respond. Usually fairly defensive in nature. “So I guess no hugs and kisses from you?” Ugh. I don’t really play that crap. It’s weird and stupid and I don’t get it. WHEN I’VE KNOWN SOMEONE FOR A WEEK. I don’t actually miss you, yo. So I’m not going to lie.

Then his roommate came home and everything sort of went into the shitter. It was already teetering on the edge, anyway. Then his incredibly conservative, incredibly republican, incredibly aggressive roommate gave me the third degree for an hour and a half. And he (my date) said the words “Obama is a complete fucking idiot.”

Sure, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. But really? Obama’s a complete fucking idiot? I just don’t think so. I refuse to sit and be attacked about my politics by people I barely know. Hell, I refuse to discuss politics with anyone.

I grimly muscled through it and about 15 more what are you thinkings and the next day, I promptly called my bestest mcbestest friend in the whole wide world and the love of my life (it’s really too bad neither of us is a man), Cheese, to discuss. We decided that he definitely lost points and that I was probably going to have to end it.

I was in favor of just letting it fizzle out. After all, we’d only known each other for a week and it wasn’t like we were friends or anything. But oh, no.

Every Monday night, after I work for 12 hours straight, I meet my mom for dinner. We’re trying to have a relationship and stuff. I guess while I was at dinner, he texted me, “Thinkin bout ya! ” I know there’s nothing wrong with that, per se. But we’ve only known each other a week and that’s the 37th such text I’ve received. It’s just a little much for me.

After dinner, I called Cheese and we talked while I drove home. Then I downloaded and installed the latest update for my phone (Hello, texting in landscape, you sexy beast!), which took a good half hour. Then my phone rang. Him again.

“Hi. Miss you. What are you doing?”

It’s 11:00 pm on Monday, I’m in my bed. Duh.

“You know, when I text you, it’s totally okay if you text me back. It’s not going to freak me out.”

At this point, I’m pretty sure me skinning a live animal in front of you wouldn’t freak you out. I let out a big sigh and explained that I was busy and shit.

We got off the phone and I went to sleep thinking, yeah, that’s over.

Wednesday, while I was at work, he called me. I didn’t answer BECAUSE I WAS AT WORK. He left me a message, “Uh, hey. It’s me. Give me a call if you don’t mind.”

Five minutes later, he texted me: Hey you! Any chance u may be able to hang after jits 2nite?

Thirty minutes later: Guess u r 2 busy 2 talk 2 me. Drop a line when u can if u don’t mind. Thanks.

(Can I just mention here how much I hate this kind of text? Unless you’re phone is old, I see no reason that you can’t type out at least most of the words. It takes me forever to translate and it gives me a headache.)

Two hours later: Is everything ok? Not like you to not respond. (To which I kind of wanted to scream “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS ‘LIKE’ ME!)

Three hours after that: Well…Hope u r ok.

Then at 11:00 pm, a minute and a half long voicemail including crap like, “I just want to make sure you’re okay and you’re safe and I haven’t done anything to piss you off…just please call me and let me know you’re okay, sweetie.”

So, okay, with no response from me whatsoever, he called twice, left me two voicemails, and texted me four times. By this point I was so twitchy and annoyed about the whole thing, I didn’t even want to talk to him. Had it been one phone call or one text message (maybe even two texts), I would have gotten in touch with him and we would have proceeded with the fizzle.

Instead, at this point, I’m kind of concerned that he’s going to make a suit of my skin and wear it to feel pretty.

This morning, I sent him the following text:

I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. I didn’t have my phone with me yesterday, and coming home to two phone calls, two voicemails, and four text messages is way too much, way too fast for me. I’m sure that you’ll find someone who will be thrilled with this level of attention, but that someone is not me. I just don’t see a future for us.

Which I think is damn near crystal clear (The Mole thinks I was far too nice). Not that I expected him to just deal and move on…since clearly he’s crazy.

He usually sleeps really late, so I wasn’t exactly expecting a response right away. I knew I was going to get one, mind you, just not in the next minute or two.

So I get this text:

Please don’t do this. I am very sorry that it was too much. I was genuinely concerned. I care and it gets the better of me when I worry. Please don’t end this…it just got started.

Ugh. First of all, no, you weren’t genuinely concerned. You were worried you had pissed me off, sure. But I’m a grown-up. Not returning a text message for a few hours is not a sign of death. Just a sign that I’m either a) busy, or b) don’t really want to talk to you. Either way, I’ll get back to you when I’m ready and pushing it is only going to make me want to talk to you less. Second of all, seriously, it’s been a fucking week. Get over it.

Then, before I even really had a chance to respond, which I didn’t think I particularly owed him anyway, since I had made myself clear, I get this text (we’re talking about maybe two minutes later…and again, I’M AT WORK):

Wow…No response to my feelings. Ok. Guess there is nothing I can say to change your mind. Thanks for the very little time we shared. Sorry to burden you with my care. Have a good one.

Boo fucking hoo is about all I have to say to that. Also, “Sorry to burden you with my care” is an INSTANT CLASSIC and I will be using it all the time. (Rebecca’s reaction: also, sorry to burden you with my care is so awesome, i want to sew it on a pillow, stain it with my own blood and send it to someone. Hell, yeah. Sounds like a Christmas present to me.)

UPDATE: I received yet another text from him: I really wish you would reconsider. I thought we had a good thing starting between us.

Kim, over at repliderium.com writes a regular letter to a random asshole. She calls it “Dear Asshole.” Which I think is pretty awesome. This week, she wrote a “Dear Asshole” letter to the California Supreme Court. Short, sweet, and to the point.

My comment was (longer than her actual post, yes I tend to do that) this:

But they let the marriages that were performed stand, too. Which makes no sense.

Wait, let me start over. Seriously, people, wtf? This is not okay. No one should get married, I’ll grant you, but if you’re going to let some people get married, you have to let all people get married. I understand not approving marriage between people and goats, even though some people truly do love goats. But allowing gay people to marry does not mean that next week people will be marrying goats. Even though they don’t talk back and I hear they’re very gentle lovers. One does not lead to the other. Nor does any of the other crap you’re so afraid of make any fucking sense. Please follow your Bible’s rules and stone me for eating shrimp, if that’s how it has to be.

But having said that, how does it make sense to say, “Yeah, this isn’t okay, I supreme courtly rule that you don’t have the right to be married. But…well, it’s okay for this small percentage of the gay population who got in under the wire”? Way to create strife in an otherwise, fairly united community. Assholes.

Can someone please please explain to me the fear people feel about this? I just don’t get it. At all.

So I’m breaking up with you, California. Even if your beaches and your people are pretty.

And to all you social conservatives out there – watch out. Pretty soon, we’ll all be coming after you. Just wait until we strip away your rights. Oh wait…you kinda like that, don’t you? That explains the eight freaking years of George W. Bush. Maybe we’ll force all of you to be in a relationship with a goat. I see a YouTube video in the making…

So I already told you about my first morning in Tennessee. Now let me finish up the day.

After my little chat with Granddaddy, Grandmother and I went to the grocery store. This would be the first of about six trips. On the way there, I mentioned that Granddaddy kind of cornered me to talk about politics that morning. She rolled her eyes and said that she wished he wouldn’t do that.

“But I am really scared because I think we’re heading towards socialism. And that scares me.”

The thing is, though, I suspect that she doesn’t really know anything about socialism or what it is. And we’re really soooo not headed there. We are capitalists. Plain and simple. But a pure capitalist system is just not realistic. So we have lots of programs in place that are more socialist in nature. And that’s okay.

Otherwise, please return your social security check. Thanks.

Feel free to not use the post office. And your roads? Yeah, we can stop fixing those.

Just putting it out there.

Anyway, I think she pretty much just believes whatever Granddaddy tells her. Oh, and that God will take care of it.

After the grocery store, we went to have lunch at O’Charley’s. She told me about how all my aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and cousins were doing. I hadn’t seen anyone in three years or so.

My dad has seven kids, aside from me. He’s never really been much a part of my life. He and my mom were married for about an hour (okay, it might have been a year), 29 years ago. He remarried when I was six or seven, I think. And then the baby making began. My youngest sibling is 24 years younger than me. And I have had apartments that were larger and had more bathrooms (2) than the house where these nine people live.

But they are all well behaved and smart. And very talented musically. Except maybe the youngest one. They invented the recorder as a torture device for grown-ups, right? Cause that thing is terrible. To be fair, she’s only five and I’m sure she will be amazing should she ever take up a real instrument.

Anyway, one of my brothers decided he wanted to play the oboe. And since they’re all home-schooled (yes, all seven…though the oldest is now in college), my step-mom had to find an oboe teacher.

Grandmother said: Well, she finally found someone, but…we think he might be gay.
Me: So?
Grandmother: Well, she went ahead with it. She never leaves him alone with [my brother] and always monitors their lessons.
Me: Um…why?
Grandmother: Well, she doesn’t want him to do anything to [my brother]. I told her that it would probably be okay as long as she kept a good eye on them.
Me: Because he’s gay? Grandmother, you do realize that just because someone is gay doesn’t mean that person molests children, right?
Grandmother: Well, I know that…
Me: Do you? Because it doesn’t really sound like it. Straight people are perfectly capable of molesting children, and probably far more likely. Being gay has nothing to do with it.

I can only hope that my step-mom keeps as close an eye on her children who have straight music teachers.

I’m not naive, okay. I realize that my grandparents are social conservatives. Hell, they’re about the only people I know who are still Baptists. But to sit and say this crap out loud was just too much for me. It’s so unfair. I hate it when people just stand by and let others say hateful things, so I said something.

But she didn’t stop talking about it. So I just sat there, with my teeth clenched, trying to keep my mouth shut. Because it’s not okay to tell your Grandmother to shut up either, right?

Then she told me about how one of my cousins “got in with the black boys at school,” and how they were such a bad influence on him. Ugh.

Me: You realize that bad comes in all colors, right?
Grandmother: Of course I do.
Me: But you felt the need to point out that they were black boys. If they had been white, would you have said “white boys”? Or just “boys”?

She didn’t have much to say to that. I spent the rest of the day shaking because I was so angry that my family could be so hateful. Then I had to go to church to watch my 7-year-old cousin sing for 30 minutes in the first grade choir. I don’t do church. Or kids.

My Granddaddy spent the rest of my trip getting little Republican barbs in whenever he could. My Grandmother spent the rest of my trip talking about nothing but calories and Jesus.

It might be another three years before I go back.

AKA what my Granddaddy said to me at 8:30 AM on the first full day of my visit to Tennessee.

I haven’t been to Tennessee to visit my family in about three years. I know, I know. I’m a horrible person. I’ve been busy, okay?

In the car, on the way home from the airport, I accidentally let it slip that I voted for Obama. I didn’t realize it should be a huge secret, mind you. I thought we were still free to vote for whomever we wanted in this country, even Paris Hilton (I’m still surprised she didn’t win after those awesome campaign commercials).

I thought my Granddaddy was going to pull the car over and make me pick my own switch. For those of you not from The South, it’s a version of psychological warfare that parents and grandparents used to torture children.

My grandparents have always lived in The South. And it shows. The next morning, Granddaddy was on a mission to convert me. I guess he thought we would have a mature conversation in which he would tell me all the reasons why voting for Obama was “Un-American” and I would say, “Golly gee, you’re so right! I’m going to call and see if I can change my vote!” Which, by the way, didn’t even really matter, since I live in Texas. Every vote counts, my ass. But that’s neither here nor there.

So Granddaddy starts in about how Obama wants gas to get above five dollars a gallon. How he’s going to take our guns away and then all the criminals will kill us in our beds, but they won’t even get punished because Obama won’t want anyone to be in prison. Okay, he didn’t say that business about prison, but it seems like something he should think.

He spouts off about how he just can’t stand to see our rights taken away like this. Even though he was totally fine with W. stripping away his rights for eight years.

Do you know what caused the mortgage crisis? Clinton gave mortgages to all those black people who couldn’t afford houses. Apparently the white people who couldn’t afford houses don’t count.

And the economy? Why is it in the toilet? The fear of Obama getting elected put everyone in a panic and the entire economy collapsed because of it. Then they all went out and voted for him. Odd.

Obama’s a Muslim. Obama isn’t a citizen of the US. Obama probably wasn’t even born on this planet. I think he’s from Saturn or something. Maybe Pluto.

And for all this, I just sort of smiled and nodded and kept my mouth shut. There’s no sense in arguing. Plus, this is my Granddaddy. I can’t tell him to shut up, right?

Then he told me that “all liberals are pro-abortion,” and that they’re going to take away a doctor’s right to refuse to do an abortion, so then no doctors will want to even perform births and hospitals will get rid of their OBGYN programs and people will be having their babies on the streets. Now, I’m not sure how you follow that train from the beginning to the end, but that was where he crossed the line for me.

“Granddaddy. No one is pro-abortion. No one. Okay, there might be a few people who are actually pro-abortion, but they’re weird. It’s about choices. It’s about women’s rights, which you clearly don’t understand. But no one is ‘pushing abortion’ on people who don’t want it.”

He just looked at me. Can he really think that people are yanking pregnant women off the street and forcing them to have abortions against their will?

Then he reminded me that Obama voted to kill new borns after they’d already been born. Uh…no. He didn’t. Good grief. He voted against something because it was redundant. There are already laws that protect babies from murder.

Granddaddy does think that the laws about hate crimes are redundant, though. I mean, there are already laws about murdering people. Why should it matter that it was because of hate? Just though homosexuals pushing their crazy “have the same rights as everyone else” agenda on us again.

So I got him off track by talking about football. So, how ‘bout those Titans, eh? Whew.

You know those emails that circulate around with all the crazy stuff about Obama and liberals and crap (I’ve never gotten any about Republicans, really)? The ones most of us just delete? Yeah, my Granddaddy believes all of them. He probably sent them to you. I’m sorry.

Stay tuned for the next installment, “My Grandmother thinks all gay men want to rape little boys.”

A friend just sent me this little gem:

I think it speaks for itself.

I didn’t. But I thought this article, written by Harold Meyerson at The Washington Post, was pretty interesting. Your thoughts?

“The New Landonists”

The leader of the Republican Party was fulminating against the Democratic president’s programs. All that government spending, and yet, he said, “the nation has not made the durable progress, either in reform or recovery, that we had the right to expect.” The problem was that the president didn’t trust the market to right the economy: “The energies of the American economic system will remedy the ravages of depression,” he argued.

And then there was that Republican radio ad featuring a couple wondering if they could afford to get married in a nation with so profligate a government. “All those debts!” said Mary. “Somebody is giving us a dirty deal,” said John. The ad concluded with a somber narrator saying, “And the debts, like the sins of the fathers, shall be visited upon the children, aye, even unto the third and fourth generations.”

The speeches were those of Alf Landon, the Republican presidential nominee of 1936, who turned his campaign into an attack on the New Deal and all its (public) works, including the debts that those works incurred. Despite the speeches and the John-and-Mary ad on his behalf, Alf Landon lost to Franklin Roosevelt by the widest margin in the history of presidential elections, while the congressional Republicans lost to congressional Democrats by a similarly historic margin.

Now, if you listen to today’s Republican revisionists, the Greatest Generation voters who gave FDR towering majorities in all but two states were a bunch of saps. Rather than wait for capitalism to right itself, they backed a president who understood that when private capital stopped investing, public capital had to take up the slack. For some inexplicable reason, they warmed to a president who used public funds to bring electricity to rural America rather than wait for private utilities to get around to it in a decade or two. Oddly, they backed a president who put 4 million Americans on the payroll of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) at a time when private payrolls were contracting, and they actually found value in such federal “make-work” creations as post offices, libraries and the Triborough Bridge.

And the debt that John and Mary’s government incurred? Invested as it was in productive infrastructure, it enabled them to live by far the most prosperous lives that any generation had ever lived. If John and Mary lived in the South, it plowed so much money into the infrastructure of that historically lagging region that it closed much of the gap that had long made it the nation’s poor stepchild.

Today, the arguments made for and against President Obama’s stimulus plan really aren’t that different from the arguments that were made for and against the New Deal some 75 years ago. Where the New Dealers brought electric power to rural Americans, the Obama people want to bring them broadband access. Where the New Deal built dams to generate power from rivers, the Obama people want to build a power grid that can channel electricity generated by wind.

As for the Republicans, they remain locked in Landonism. While retail chains topple like so many dominos as consumers cut back, the Republicans focus on cutting corporate taxes, as though the problem confronting American businesses was the tax on their profits rather than the fact that, in the absence of sales, they have no profits.**

In particular, both the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats exhibit a Landonesque failure to appreciate the crisis of under-investment into which American finance, now as in the ’30s, has plunged the nation. The essence of the crisis, and what distinguishes both the Depression and the current meltdown from every recession between the ’30s and today, is that, left to their own devices, private lending and investment will not and cannot bounce back. Only the government can provide the capital to restart capitalism, which remains, absent diligent regulation, a periodically self-annihilating system.

At times such as these, the normal measurements of government spending need to be altered. What the Obama plan envisions government doing (and what I wish it actually did more of) is committing itself to what would under normal circumstances be lending and investment undertaken by the private sector — lest lending and investment cease altogether. The Greatest Generation’s voters understood the logic of such a strategy when they reelected Roosevelt and his fellow Democrats by unheard-of margins. They rejected Landon’s belief that “the American economic system” would by itself fix the crisis it had created. We can only hope that today’s Americans have the wisdom of their forebears.

**Bold added for emphasis

Is anyone else as tired as I am of this question?

Why should I have to live my life based on the needs of your children? If you don’t want your kids to watch “filth” on television, get rid of your TV set. Or your cable. And your computer and internet access. It’s not my fault you chose to have children.

Recently Michael Phelps was photographed mouth-to-bong. In all the uproar, the thing I hear most is, “What about the children?” One man called into a radio show last night to ask, “How am I supposed to tell my 15-year-old son, who is a swimmer, that he can’t do those things if he wants to swim like Michael Phelps when Michael Phelps is doing them?”

I don’t know. Just do? You’re the dad, figure it out. Michael Phelps is a human being. He is not bound to live by some imaginary set of laws set about to protect people’s children. Oh, wait. Actually, he kind of is.

You see, swimmers don’t make money swimming. Michael Phelps makes money from endorsements. And guess who might not have that lucrative McDonald’s endorsement now that he’s been caught smoking pot?

The problem is that smoking pot is illegal in the first place. It shouldn’t be. No more than smoking cigarettes or consuming alcohol.

So unfortunately for Michael Phelps, his indiscretion will probably cost him. Of course, maybe that McDonald’s endorsement isn’t so great after all. When he first started doing those commercials, people tried to sue him for making their kids fat.

Maybe it’s time we start teaching our kids about the evil that is advertising, instead of trying to blame their obesity on Michael Phelps. He’s not fat, kids. You know why? Because he works out harder than almost anyone, and he does it everyday.

For the last two days, every time I turn the radio dial to anything besides NPR, everyone is talking about one thing. Nope, it’s not that we have a new President (Woohoo!), or that our new President is black (Really, he is!). It’s not the economy. It’s not the closing of Gitmo (Yay!). It’s that a couple of private high schools’ girls’ basketball teams played each other and one beat the other 100-0. For two days.

So now I’m going to bore myself with talking about it some more.

Granted the story gains a little more depth when you find out that the team who got beat is a school for kids with learning differences (Honestly, I’m not sure what differences means in this scenario…we all learn differently. I suppose it’s just become politically incorrect to say “learning difficulties” or “learning disabilities.” So be it.), and that they only have 20 girls in their whole school, and that they’ve had a girls’ basketball team for four years without once winning a game. But there it is.

Now, I’m all for sportsmanship. I think it totally sucks to run up the score in a prickish manner (a la New England Patriots), but in my opinion, you can’t really blame or punish the girls on the winning team for their victory. Their coach can take a hefty chunk of the blame, sure. But those girls were just doing what they’ve been taught to do in sports all their life. Go out and play your hardest. To tell them they did something wrong is just silly. It’s a competition. They’re there to compete and play their best. That’s what they did. End of story.

The coach made a bad judgment call, clearly. After half-time, there probably should have been a bit of a different game on the court. Put in your B squad, do some drills you’ve been wanting to practice, force more passing, hold the ball for longer, whatever. And seriously, it’s a bad idea to say, “It just happened.” It didn’t “just happen.” It was four periods of picking on the little guy. He wanted to put 100 points on the board, so he left all his starters in. A win is a win, no matter what the final score is. Bad judgment.

But I don’t think it’s fair to say that they should have let the other team score. It’s the other team’s responsibility to score. I don’t think we should be defining “good sportsmanship” as “let the other team score.” Losing builds character. Losing in a crappy 100-0 game against a school who never took their starters out builds more character. That team has lost every game for four seasons, but they still have a team. If they were quitters, they would have given up on having a team long ago. And it seems to be common consensus that they played their hardest, even when they saw the insurmountable score in front of them. Why aren’t we celebrating that? I think those girls are pretty awesome. I probably would have just stood on the court after half time.

The girls on the losing team aren’t crying about their loss. Even their coach is taking it pretty well. And at no point did he go over to the other coach and say anything during the game.

The lesson we should all take from this is not that competition is bad. Competition is good. It’s why we’re all here, evolutionarily speaking (but far more complicated). The lesson, in my opinion, that we should take from this is: No matter how bad the outcome appears, try your hardest. Be the best you can be (Ugh, now I feel almost like an ad for the ARMY. Bastards!).

Oh, wait. I forgot. This is the most important lesson: If you do something questionable as a coach, remember that there will likely be a media shit storm all over your ass, with people asking for your head to roll or possibly for you to be strung up and quartered or tarred and feathered…all because you didn’t think hard enough before making the decision. Just ask Wade Phillips.