Compromise

November 4th will only deliver good news. Either we get Barack Obama, or we get four years of Tina Fey impersonating Palin. Laugh through the tears, right?

Actually, I laugh through the tears at the red suit the GOP spent $75K on for Sarah. A genuine Saks Fifth Avenue purchase! Oh my! Who woulda thunk a hockey mom from Alaska would don a gen-u-ine outfit from Saks - all the way from New York! Joe Sixpack, look out - Sarah's on the prowl, and she's lookin' for you.

**

What concerns me the most is that I not only prefer Tina Fey's impersonation to the actual woman, I forget that somewhere outside the elite media's radar, she's actually contributing to the Republican campaign. I forget she's real, and thus a threat to most civil liberties I've spent my little idealistic, anti-American-residing-in-new-England-life enjoying. It's interesting, though, to think about the bullheadd ways in which she's standing behind her beliefs. She does not believe in abortion; she does not believe in sex education. Consequently, her daughter, seventeen and pregnant, will wed her boyfriend, a fun-loving hockey player who, I bet, did not see this coming one year ago. Is this kind of loyalty to one's convictions admirable, when beliefs override someone else's best interest? At what point does it change from loyalty to stubbornness? Flexibility and willingness to adopt other viewpoints, especially in the best interest of a loved one, are pinnacle to one's character. With versatility we don't stand a chance in upholding relationships, because everytime we hit disagreement, the only choice is to walk away. Same with political character. Politicians cannot simply "walk away" when someone (or, another country) does or decides on something they disagree with. I'm not comfortable with someone in office - someone "in charge of the senate" - who so stands by her beliefs that she was willing to publicly end her daughter's childhood.

Teenagers are morons. We all know this, we were all teenagers once. Hell on most days I still feel like a teenager. But the best part about teenagers is that they're transient. Adults will, however long it takes, ultimately emerge. Thus, how crucial it is to cushion some of their fall - no, I'm not saying kids that should be blindly forgiven and given a free pass whenever they mess-up. But, what parents have that children don't is perspective. My parents were careful to express their perspectives - versus their beliefs - in such a way that motivated me to to craft my own, and consequently, I always felt sure that my emerging identity (or, adulthood) was safe. While the President and the VP are not meant to be our parents, they are meant to present the sort of perspective that presents the possibility of change. The Republican social agenda, as it stands, emits a sense of social suffocation and paralysis. When a President is not willing to generate change, there is little left for us to do but sit and wait for the next election year. We're one of the freest nations on the planet. This kind of outlook is devastating. Further, if there's someone in office who would rather see her daughter married than revise her opinion regarding sex ed in high schools, I can't imagine where she'll stand in the name of a billion strangers.

Forget Palin going against feminist beliefs (and then ironically becoming iconicly feminist), or misspeaking as if Alaska employs a different language. What scares me the most is that she agreed to be co-pilot when she has no idea how to fly.

In the Meantime...

Watch this. These are my friends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9V_aOCga0

[Sorry, I haven't learned how to enter in hyperlinks yet]

And watch this, not because you haven't seen it before, but because you know you're desperate to see it again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFL58Jduryg

Do Dogs Get Bored?

The other day I asked my roommate if she thought dogs got bored. Her answer was simple: "No, because they aren't smart enough to know if they've been doing or not been doing something for hours."

She's right. Every time Beep sees her tennis ball it's like the first time. And whenever I throw her pink flamingo down the hallway, she runs as if she might not catch it. The other night we played fetch while I worked, and I must have thrown that f-ing pink flamingo seventy-five times. she.did.not.get.bored.

Here's my concern: Neither did I. I was obsessed with her properly retrieving the pink flamingo that not only was my work cast aside, each time I would throw this silly thing I would think, "Will she find it? Will she pick it up? Will she run back to me?" Yes, of course she would. Even if she couldn't remember, she'd already done it seventy-three times in the last forty-five minutes.

Perhaps I'm also nervous that almost the entire reason I humored her desire to chase said flamingo upwards of eighty times is that I felt like if I stopped, I would genuinely hurt her feelings. Let's get back to the beginning: dogs don't get bored. Chances are, they also don't get offended if their parents opt out of fetch for a little while. Or do they? My dilemma exactly. What if I'm hurting her feelings? What if, when I say "No more," and go about my Gossip Girl, Private Practice, Law & Order: SVU routine, she retreats to the corner thinking, "Does no one on this Earth love me?" How could I cause that kind of pain to such a small, innocent, sweetly-dressed animal? Am I so cruel that I would knowingly reject someone (okay, fine, something) whose second favorite thing to do (after getting a treat for using her pee-pad) is greeting me at the door?

I would like to answer plainly: No, I am not.

But still, what if I am?

This reminds me of the time my three friends gave me a swirly in eighth grade. I was in the library during study hall and they came in, saying that they really needed to tell me something, but since it was private, we should probably go to the bathroom. Then suddenly my hair was in a toilet, and I had three people holding me by the ankles.

Later that afternoon, after my Science teacher perfectly justifiably asked why my hair was wet and I didn't have a quick enough response, the four of us sat in the middle school headmistress's office with our advisers. The headmistress asked if these were the types of friends I wanted. They were, I explained triumphantly, they were just playing a joke. But they put your head in a toilet, the headmistress responded, kindly. Wait a second. She was right. They did try to flush my head in the lower-school bathroom. I hadn't even showered yet. It was the end of the day. The tip of my ponytail was... oh my god.

I responded, I think, in a perfectly appropriate fashion. I decided then and there that friends don't flush friends down the toilet. Literally, at least. The four of us left the office while the adults convened over necessary punishments. They decided that the ringleader deserved a suspension, and the remaining two would be forbidden to attend the homecoming dance. For eighth graders at an all-girl school, that was far, far worse than being suspended. The three of them looked at me incredulously, shocked at my ultimate betrayal. I might have toilet-water-stained clothing, but they weren't allowed at the dance. The Dance, they said in unison. I'm sorry, I said, but still, it was kind of crappy what you did.

Expectantly, news of this scandal reached far-and-wide across the middle school, and I was confronted with multiple people asking why I was so cruel. When I explained that I was sorry, and that I actually hadn't asked the school to suspend the ringleader, I was met with, "But the dance. It's Madonna themed." How could I do such a thing? Take a fucking shower, one especially ardent classmate told me. Thankfully we were thirteen and that meant that "situations" had a half-life of about three days. By the day of the Dance, everyone was fine. By the next Monday, we were all friends again. But a few weeks later, the three girls kindly let me know that while I was a fun and engaging friend, they couldn't quite trust me. I again apologized for admitting to the teachers that they'd given me a swirly, but they didn't want to hear it. I had betrayed their trust, and it was time to move on.

These two situations taught me something: I'm drawing a connection between my seventh-month-old puppy who loves nothing more than toys that squeak and the aftermath of a swirly in the eighth grade -- I really, really need to get a life.

I Wish I Could Turn Back Time

A friend of mine said that to her boss a few weeks ago, and I think it reigns as the all-time best response after making a mistake. What's better, my friend didn't make a mistake. Her boss asked for one thing and then changed her mind.

"I wish I could turn back time." I just like to practice saying it.

Sometimes I wonder if powerful people forget that while us young grasshoppers are willing to learn anything and do most things in hopes for successful careers, at no time are we capable of predicting, controlling, or resolving Manhattan traffic. Or any city traffic, for that matter. But perhaps this is part of the joke: if we could, we probably wouldn't be asked to sit in the same seat for so long.