It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

I have nothing I want to write about tonight.  Not a thing.  It was a pretty long day at the bill-paying job today and I mostly want my acetaminophen-pm and my pillow.  But, since it’s my turn to post (and I’m all kind of resolved to be better about that this year)….here are things that I considered and discarded:

1) The Job.  One day, when I have other means of income, I will write a fabulous tell all about my way not glamorous job.  It will be a fantastic mix of tragedy and comedy.  I will be hailed a genius and the world will be changed.  Until then, I like paying the bills.

2) Politics.  Not touching that with a 10-foot f-ing pole.  To quote Josh from The West Wing, “I’m so sick of Congress I could vomit.”  If I hear about one more damn Republican Primary….

3) The Idiot Who Nearly Ran Me Into a Ditch This Morning.  He made my day start out sucky and since he didn’t actually manage to run me off the road and to an early grave, you’re stuck reading this sub-standard post.

4) The Weather. I’m not talking about it because ours has been fantastic and I don’t wanna jinx it by saying more than that (having written this much, we’ll get 6 inches of snow and -15 temps tomorrow)

5) The Cat.  She’s being bitchy and a little attention whore and paying attention to her will only make it worse.

And on that note, my little painkillers-o-wonder are standing by to cure the pounding in my head and whisk me off to the land of Nod on 25mg of Diphenhydramine.

In case you haven’t been tuned into, oh, I dunno, the whole internet:

American Censorship Day.

Given that the Congress-folk involved in the hearing this morning all but thought DNS was a Nintendo thing their grandkids use, now would be a good time to contact the brain doner for your part of the country and tell them that the “Stop Online Piracy Act” is a bad, bad, bad idea.  Seriously, this is a hideous abuse of copyright, a misuse of government resources to act as a thug squad to protect outdated business models, and a big honkin’ Pandora’s box of oppression waiting to happen.

Oh, and it TOTALLY MAKES THE FIRST AMENDMENT ARGUMENT IN ELDRED V. ASHCROFT RELEVANT (YO!  SCOTUS!  YOU TAKIN’ NOTES?!?!)

Note:  Normally The Management here at MTV, MPB tries to check the politics at the door to the Spacial Anomaly Coffee Bar and Refueling station, but in this case, Cammy was not to be deterred.  Kristy may or may not agree with this post’s suggestion that you call your Senators and Representatives to tell them to shove this Bill where the sun doesn’t shine.

Would we drink coffee with Molly Ivins?

Kristy:  Um… I feel like I should have a cute, colloquial way of saying “Hell yeah” but Cammy’s the one who’s good at that.  So I’ll just say Hell yeah.  I have to give Cammy the credit of introducing me to Molly, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.  For one thing, it’s another case of owing her a cup of something (coffee or something stronger if she prefers) for the hours of amusement she’s given me.  Not to mention a couple of readings I assigned to my composition classes.  Also, there’s a lot I’d like to talk with her about and commiserate on.  Being the liberal daughter of a Texas conservative, every time Molly talks about her father it sounds… very familiar.  But what I’ve always loved about Molly went way beyond political orientation–it was a lot more about her willingness to critique everyone and her ability to point out the humor in everything.  So you can’t tell me it wouldn’t be delightful to people watch with her.

Cammy:  By cute colloquialism, I’m assuming Kristy means something along the lines of “Does a wild bear shit in the woods?”  So to this, I’ll say,”Did Han shoot first?”  YES.   Even though I’m most definitely not a liberal, I still love Molly.  She would lampoon anyone on either side of the aisle with sharp insight and the kind of humor that would literally leave my sides aching–and I love equal opportunity mockery.  Granted, she didn’t have to work hard, at least not when she was covering her native Texas politics.  The utter madhouse of the Lone Star State was (and still is) comedy gold.  She bucked trends, pissed some people off (a lot of people) and even when I totally disagreed with her politics, I had to give her credit for her style.  She painted some of the most accurate pictures of Texas I’ve ever read, and shared them with the world*.  For all that, I owe her several rounds of the beverages of her choice.  I’d love to hear her tell stories–because Lord knows she has them–of the insanity of Austin with the Lege in session that didn’t quite make the article/book cut.   And how pissed is she that she’s not around to address the wonder of Governor Good-Hair trying to go national on us?  I want to know if she truly has the same kind of misguided, twisted pride that our state gave the world people as nutty as H. Ross Perot.  I also want to talk about our mutual love of Texas.  As she once said, “ I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.”  I’m always ready to talk about how we can love a state that manages to thrive in a state of total fucked-up insanity, especially with someone, who like me, left the state, got educated on the East Coast….and still managed to love that misfit of a state.

Kristy:  For the record “Does a wild bear shit in the woods?” and “Did Han shoot first?” are what we folklory types call “sarcastic interrogatives.” Totally counts as a cut colloquialism.

*See this article in The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/article/texas-america

Cammy: Yes!  While I know I should probably hesitate more about this, I can’t help it.  I would completely risk looking like a moron to sit down and have a cup of coffee with the “Iron Mädchen.”  Just as long as I had easy access to a German-English dictionary and time to brush up on my verb conjugations because the last thing in the world I’d want to do is go in and “Du-tz” the Chancellor of Germany (familiar rather than formal “you”).

I’ve got a boatload of topics I want to cover with this woman, starting with the quote I’ve heard attributed to her that “Anyone with something to say needs no makeup” (“Jeder, der wirklich etwas zu sagen hat, braucht kein Make-up”).  There’s a lot of clues to this woman’s personality wrapped up in that one, especially knowing how vastly she had to be “transformed” style-wise before winning her spot as Chancellor.  And the transition from physicist to politician–there’s got to be a goldmine of interesting talk to be had there.  I’ve got my theories about women in political power with science backgrounds, and a conversation with Merkel would go a long way toward testing those theories.  And, of course, I couldn’t talk with this woman without going into the East German thing.  Not just the recent little amusing story about how she was at the sauna when the wall came down, but about the impressive fact that she’s an East German in the top job in a unified German.  Symbolic, if nothing else.

I’m anticipating that the woman has at least a little bit of a sense of humor (anyone making a crack about the German sense of humor is invited to attend one of my family reunions for a counter-argument), which, hopefully, would keep her from getting pissed at me firing off questions like a fan-girl at at Con Q & A.  Hmmmm, maybe this should be over a beer instead of coffee….

Kristy: Um… probably not.  To be clear, this is not about not wanting to have coffee with Chancellor Merkel.  I’m just fairly certain she wouldn’t want to have coffee with me.  There’s that whole thing about the make-up.  Personally, I’m a huge fan of make-up (what?  I have fair skin and had horrible acne as a teen, I’m covered with acne stains and no one wants to see them).  I know some feminists will roll their eyes and tell me I’m just allowing myself to be exploited and I’m trying to fit myself to the expectations of men and yadda yadda.  But I disagree.  I don’t wear make-up for men–they don’t notice it.  I’ve had conversations with my male friends about how they don’t like women with lots of make-up; inevitably they praise me for not wearing much, oblivious to the fact I’m speaking from underneath a pound of concealer and powder.  I wear make-up for myself.  Partially because the powder absorbs the grease my skin produces and keeps it from clogging my pores, but mostly because I feel better about myself with it on.  And when I feel better, I’m more confident, more likely to speak my mind, more likely to get things done.  But somehow I think the “Iron Maedchen” might just see me as superficial and vain.  Also, I’ll be totally lost when she and Cammy start talking about science and physics.  And I don’t know a word of German.  So I will eagerly take notes about everything she says when Cammy comes back with a full report, but I don’t think I’ll be attending that little coffee klatch.

Cammy: I think there’s more to  the cultural aspect of the make-up thing here.  It’s not just about the make-up itself–it’s how it ties to her being an East German.  As I understand it, cosmetics were an incredible luxury item before Communism collapsed.  An Epic!Win hostess gift when visiting the East was some CoverGirl eyeshadow.  It’s one of those things that set “Ossis” apart from the West.  There was, and still remains a view of those from the East as being backward in comparison to the West (at least in Germany).  So, needing make-up for confidence was as much a luxury as the make-up itself, especially immediately after unification when the East Germans definitely had something to say.  Merkel’s line is more of a defense against those in the West who were too busy laughing at their dowdy Eastern neighbors.  I’ll grant you that I like that quote because I’m the lazy girl who doesn’t like to put on make up and would love to level the cultural playing field enough to remove the pressure for me to put it on, but the reality of the quote is something different altogether and it probably doesn’t do either of us much credit to reduce it to mere physical appearance.

All that said, I’ll give you an out on this one, Kristy, though part of me would really like to drag you in.  I have a feeling you’d find a way to hit it off with the Iron Mädchen better than I would.  If nothing else, you two could sit around and practice your Russian together and leave me out.  And don’t forget, no matter how you interpret the make-up comment, they DID hire a stylist for the woman to get her into office, and last election she was workin’ the cleavage, so…..