Goodbye, Huck

Last week I was informed that presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had dropped out of the race. Had I been in a less public place, I'm fairly certain I would have cried. His withdrawal amounts to little less than a national tragedy, leaving us with three democrats and a Ralph Nader to pick from in November. This might be the first election ever in which the Republican party has had no candidate to represent it.

The lines, then, have to be redrawn, and all definitions rethought. If John McCain is a Republican.... What does that make me? I must be some kind of extremist. Ann Coulter has declared that in the event of its boiling down to Hilary and McCain (or, for that matter, the devil and McCain) she will be voting for the first. This is scary, although it's important to remember that Coulter is Coulter and we all know she's got a reputation to keep.

The fact that Huckabee is prophesied to have a good chance in 2012 is of little consolation. By then the Party will have hopefully pulled itself together, and somebody stronger will take his place. He'll no longer be necessary. Right now, though, we need him, if only to fill some psychological void. Nader said he threw in his name to give people a "choice." How kind. As far as I'm concerned, there will be no choice in 2008.

Boots

An every-other-day gym class and the tennis shoes it necessitates have made me appreciate my cowboy boots more than ever. The boots have got to be the most comfortable footwear in the world, and they look uniformly out of place with everything-- just one more reason to wear them every chance I get. Not wanting to subject my friends to a gym locker for an hour twice a week, though, I leave them at home on gym days and wear actual shoes instead. Weird shoes that have laces and arches and are better off worn without knee socks. Shoes that provide something called traction. And I hate it.
Tennis shoes are pathetic, and I miss my boots all day when I'm not wearing them. At this point a confession must be made, though: my cowboy boots are not actually...gulp...real. Not that anyone unfamiliar with western wear could ever tell, but they're not even leather. This fact is more than slightly embarrassing, and makes it difficult not to smile when fielding the rare compliment or more frequent question as to whether they have steel toes.
The boots are really just a pair of cheapies my grandparents bought for me at Kohl's when I was on my little western kick. Given that that was more than a few years ago, though, they've held up pretty well. The scuffs and dents, I argue, give them character, which is why I love them so much in the first place.
Tomorrow is another gym class, meaning another day through which I will wander with virtually no identity. Somehow even I, despite my impatience with fashion, am unwilling to attempt cowboy boots with gym shorts.

Early-outs

If I ever find myself in a management position, I must remember what a profound impact getting out twenty minutes early has on an employee's morale. Twenty extra unplanned and unscheduled minutes. When you weren't expecting them, they seem like incredible freedom. Twenty minutes is enough to get coffee, start a load of laundry, or call a friend. Or begin studying for the history test you completely forgot about. Yes. Or that. I don't think I've ever liked Ryan more than when he told me I could take off after the next customer. There's nothing better. It's almost like a snow day from school, except that it is not limited by bad weather and can happen at any time. Yes, it's something to remember. People like managers who periodically let them leave early. Revolutionary.

The unending winter.

The unending winter. Just when you thought it was over, it's back. And not just a little bit, big-toe-still-in-the-door back. Back back. Or at least that's how it would seem. Where does all the snow even come from? I remember studying the water system once in homeschool, and from that understand that all forms of precipitation start as water held in the clouds. And the clouds get the water from oceans and water sources on the ground. If this is so, though, how can we simultaneously have both an abundance of snow and floods? Clouds and lakes can't gain at once-- one has to be giving up at least some of the water. Somewhere, there must be some pretty bad droughts. Or maybe I have a terribly warped view of water to begin with. Water is finite, right? There is a limited amount of water, although it isn't something we worry about, because water technically never really goes away. You can drink it up, but you'll just pee it back out. You can evaporate it, but it isn't actually gone, just absorbed into the air. At least, that's what I'd always thought.

Customers tonight were complaining nonstop about the snow, but it amused me. Snow like this, all light and fluffy and perfectly unaware of its slim chances of making it till tomorrow, is inspiring. It's a good-natured snow, and I'll enjoy it as long as it holds out.

The untimely blog

Funny how you want something about as long as you can’t have it. A few years ago, I would have done anything to be allowed to have a blog, but my parents refused. And it was going to an amazing blog, too—I was going to be famous, have a following! People in New York City and DC would subscribe to the little 7th-grade whackjob’s blog, thinking she was some great political analyst. My political and journalistic careers would be simultaneously launched before I was even out of middle school! But no, Mom said. The child molesters would find me long before any congressmen did, and people with blogs never got hired anywhere good, anyway.

Alas, time and teachers have now officially forced her to accept my new blogger status, and as it would seem that a language arts grade has a greater immediate effect on employment than a relatively obscure website, she has consented. (Although I was told in no uncertain terms that anything I had to say about communism or creationism was to be omitted). Yippee. Now if I could think of anything to write.

Coffee

The expiration date on the Starbucks Frappuccino I’m holding is February 11 ’08. I pop off the lid and take a long drink. Coffee has become a necessary evil for me the past few months. I don’t even like it anymore, but force myself to drink with the knowledge that personality, grades, and general ability to function all hinge on my ability to finish the bottle before second hour. Mochas seem more like a daily ration of cough syrup than treats—something to be gotten over with as quickly as possible.

This particular drink is vanilla-flavored, and it is not good. Only with the most valiant of efforts do I keep myself from gagging. Why did I ever elect to such an early class? Actually, the earliest one isn't the worst. The tiredness doesn't really hit until science a little later. But it looks like I’ll be sleeping through class again today, because there’s no way I can finish this.

Phone calls and bad jazz

It is painfully evident that he is not going to call tonight. So here I sit, trying again to teach myself to appreciate jazz, blaring Miles Davis if only to drown out the brother's friend who is currently receiving his weekly trumpet instruction. Jesse is no good at the trumpet. I knew this before I learned to appreciate jazz. Many times Mom has attempted to pull out of the agreement by which she subjected us all to the weekly half-hour torture session called the private music lesson. She has gone so far as to tell Jesse's family, who loves the low rates and flexibility of taking lessons from a friend and neighbor, that Jesse's future is in jazz, and that he deserves a teacher who specializes in it. This is hilarious. Jesse may have a slim chance at a future in electric guitar (this inferred from his hair, not his actual playing), but the idea of him playing trumpet after high school is ridiculous.

Twice the phone has rung, igniting a terrible forest fire of hope, only to be immediately put out by the sound of some new enemy’s voice on the other side. The last call was from my great-aunt, wanting to talk to Dad about some computer problem. That would have been a long one, clogging up the phone line for a minimum of an hour, judging from past experience. I told her he wasn’t home, then sicced her on my uncle. After his display at Easter, he almost deserves it.

Another mistake.

A piece of advice from someone who discovers most truths ‘the hard way’: Easter dinner with the entire mother’s side is not an appropriate activity for a fourth date. I thought I could pull it off; I have a good family, and if nothing else, surely dessert would not fall through. I had forgotten about uncle John.
As Paul sat uncomfortably behind a plate of strawberry shortcake, John began to relate to us the story of cousin Luke's food poisoning the night before.
“Man, we thought he was gonna have to sleep in the bathroom. He was so scared. He kept asking me, ‘you think it’s gonna happen again?’ I kept telling him, ‘I don’t know, Luke, but I’ll go get your sleeping bag from downstairs.’ See, first he thought the diarrhea was from running so hard at his basketball game last night. Then when he looked and it was all orange and red, he said maybe he’d actually got it from the Mexican restaurant afterwards.”
Linda, Luke's mom, joined in. “I knew something was wrong when he finally came out of the bathroom. He was like, ‘Mom, I need to show you something.’ I went in there and it was just awful.”
John: “Oh yeah. It was everywhere. It had exploded up and under the seat, all over everything. There were drops on the floor. I had to use a sponge.”
I avoided Paul’s eyes.
The topic finally changed—to sex ed classes at school. Dad chuckled. Being one of the few male teachers at an elementary school and therefore a shoo-in for the job, this was a conversation to which he could contribute something. Current procedures were compared with those of the classes the baby boomers and generation X-ers had attended, before John (the doctor) launched into his traditional speech about STDs.
“Get this—they’re gonna make Grace take home a doll next year to make her think twice before having sex. A doll! They think making kids carry around dolls is gonna stop them? Guys don’t care if the girl gets pregnant. The whole thing is ineffective for at least half the population. What they need is a herpes simulation. A doll that cries every hour for a night is nothing. They need something that zaps ‘em every time they pee. And they should have to wear it for a week.”
Paul never did eat his strawberry shortcake, and the drive home was comparatively silent.
I had to ask for my goodbye hug.

Today I made the mistake of asking my grandmother to go with me to a funeral of a person who had meant more to me than her. Apparently, a lot more. As I leaned over the casket, saying goodbye to an old friend, she commented rather loudly that she had a sesame seed stuck in her teeth.
Bob had been a military man. As the American Legion representatives went forward to salute him and the assembled crowed fell silent to watch, Grandma pulled me close and whispered in my ear, rejoicing that she had finally managed to disloge it. I congratulated her, then let my head fall into my hands.
It must be admitted, though, that when the tears started to fall, she was right there with a clean napkin.

Research Essay Topic II

New topic for the research essay. Because communists beat college any day, I will now be doing my paper on Che Guevara, the socialist revolutionary who was in cahoots with Castro to overthrow Batista back in the 50s. He was executed in Bolivia only twenty years later, but I've begun to notice him everywhere. You can find his face on anything-- shirts, bags, even shoes-- and I'd like to know why. How has a Cuban revolutionary become so popular among the rather self-centered youth of a democratic country? Do the people sporting Che have any idea who he was, or is he recognized simply as in image of dissent and social rebellion?

It should be interesting. When searching him online, I found a twist on the traditional Che-wear, a T-shirt with his face bordered by text that states, "I have no idea who this guy is." Where, then, is his appeal? Is it in the photograph itself? There are a lot of different ways I could take this.

New camera

A church friend and should-be professional photographer has just bestowed upon me a most gloriously ancient film SLR to replace the piece of crap I have been using hitherto. The only problem is, I don't know how to use it. This fact becomes especially embarrassing when one remembers how I have complained for the past two months about the overly user-friendly features of the last piece of equipment. The first camera was a 35mm given to my aunt for her high school graduation, and was apparently quite a gift back in the day. The autofocus lens was considered a plus, as well. However, I griped endlessly about how autofocus was really nothing but an autolimitation of my creativity, and blamed the fuzzy images and poor compositions on the instrument. Now that I have a all-manual camera, I am officially out of excuses, my creativity being completely unfettered. No autofocus to hold me back now! Instead, the limitations have changed, the most prominent of which being my cluelessness as to how to even load the film.
I found a video online that I thought would help, but after repeated viewings and a thorough consultation of the manual, I still could not even open the back. The camera and its hippie-strap had me completely in love with it from the first moment, but I was quickly becoming angry at my own incompetence, and took it on the undeserving SLR.
"Camera, I am about to become very disenchanted with you," I warned, trying in vain to just get the darn thing open.
When it finally did, I over-followed the instructions of the quack on YouTube and managed to make the camera eat the film. Seriously eat it. I wound the entire footer of the film back into the canister, where it was absolutely irretrievable without breaking it open. Unwilling to blow a three-dollar roll of film, I grabbed the can opener and header for my parent's walk-in closet, where I pried off the top, pulled out the digested film, and did my best to reassemble the carcass. It worked surprisingly well, but the inevitable cracks in the canister meant that I would have to load the camera in the dark, which did not go over so well. I eventually gave up for the night, and my beautiful new camera has not left its bag since.

Research Paper

I'd like to write a cynical little piece about colleges, particularly those which are called “select” or “ivy league” schools. Does admission have to do more with the student’s abilities, or his or her parents’ money? Will dropping these university's names at an interview really increase your chances of getting the job? I would incorporate statistics from various big-name schools about the percentage of students employed in their field within six months of graduation, etc., and compare these rates to those of lesser-known private and state schools to help determine whether select schools deserve the prestigious connotation they carry.

Castro

Fidel Castro has finally stepped down from power, effectively ending one of the longest-running inside jokes. But it’s probably about time. And although the new guy isn’t much better, we can assume it won’t last long. The chosen figurehead, Fidel’s brother Raul, isn’t more than five years younger than Castro, who we all know has been dying for the past decade. It is assumed that Raul will serve to prolong his brother’s regime after and if Castro ever dies, but really, how long can a seventy-six year old prolong anything? Castro is just over eighty—a decent accomplishment considering Cuban life expectancy, and it’s natural that he would want to pre-select a like-thinking successor. But a seventy-six year old hermano? That’s ridiculous! But not, I guess, too much worse than us electing McCain.