Applauding the Health Care Bill

To the President and the Democrats

Who passed the Health Care Bill,

Who stalwartly fought and triumphed

Through the rage of Capitol Hill,

We applaud you and salute you

For achieving this reform,

For breaking political stalemates,

For ignoring the misinformed.

Despite the media's trials

And red wrath you have incurred,

You fought to ensure that

All Americans are insured.

 

Expanding coverage to 32 million,

Slicing the deficit through the next decade,

Offering the poor and poverty stricken

Expanded access to Medicaid.

Requiring all to purchase health care

Or face an annual fee

So that taxpayers do not later pay

When they face an emergency.

Protecting those with long-term illness

From new insurance being denied,

Helping countless adults and children

Who otherwise may have died.

Allowing seniors to get the medicines

That they require to live

By closing the prescription donut hole

That their small salaries cannot give.

 

And how will all this great reform

Be covered and repaid?

By taxing things like tanning booths

To subsidize government aid,

And taxing unearned income

For the top bracket of the wealthy,

And the expensive Cadillac plans

More than enough to keep the rich healthy.

And because of all this funding

We offer universal health care plans,

And Amongst the other industrialized states

Now America may proudly stand.

 

So despite the media's outcry,

The lies and slander thrown,

Despite the difference in beliefs--

The House and Senate's own--

Despite the mass of strong denial

The clash of partisan will,

And the public defamation from those

Who never read the bill,

Despite the President's foul treatment,

The political beating you've endured,

This bill will ensure that

All Americans are insured.

 

Spring Break

For the past week, along with fellow blogger Kind of That Girl, I went on a spring break cruise. It was awesome--too awesome to even begin relaying all of the amazing memories and hillarious stories. Instead, I have a list of quotes we wrote down throughout our trip. Interpret them how you will.

Supple 20 yr old
Rain when Katy drives
Old ppl hotel
Cabbie: best peaches (bitches)
Thank god I was wearing my cover up
Becky kissed Iurii on the lips
Should I, no. Will I, yes.
I will profan all I want
Got bitch slapped with an iguana tail
Is Ed Too Tall Jones too tall?
My everywhere is burnt
Stairs or steps?
The meatball says no
Guys. We gotta figure out this condom situation
If the alarm goes off we'll just laugh about it
Zen will take us to jail
Super cereal
I'm not as drink as you think I am
We're not friends yet you can't make fun of me
Wait that tasted like water
Try it it's not that bad
--that's what you said about the nail polish remover
Wingman city
She just birthed her ID
I may or may not have arranged D's makeout session
Cotton eye Joe
Please bring me to jail
Are my boobs rectangular?
I need to bitch slap you
Sir Nipsalot
D's market in her bra
I'm unpoopular
If I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing

The Dress

This morning, miracle of all miracles, I found The Dress. It took four bridesmaids, three hours, two scraped knees, and one fate-induced gift card, but I found it.

 

My hunt for The Dress had, prior to this week, been little more than a sporadic day dream in my occasional spare time. Flipping through magazines, looking around on the computer at work, driving past bridal shops that I know I need to visit sometime. But this past Monday, I received an email that changed all of that.

 

"Congratulations: you've won a free wedding gown!"

 

You can imagine my surprise and skepticism upon opening this email. However, when I called the number to confirm, I found it to be true. I had registered for this 'contest' on a whim a few weeks ago, and the gift card was for Filene's Basement annual Running of the Brides event, to be held the upcoming Friday (today). I accepted the gift card and began researching this event, which has happened every year since 1947 and brings designer gowns to one location to sell for at most $699, no matter what the original pricetag. Apparently hundreds of brides storm the store at 8AM to find their perfect dress at a fraction of the cost.

 

Skepticism growing, I called my mom. She listed a wide range of legitimate examples of this event, from a clip she saw on the news last year to Monica's participation in Running of the Brides on Friends.

 

Skepticism fading, I asked her hesitantly, "What do you think? Should we...umm...go?"

 

"OF COURSE!" she'd exclaimed, and the rest of the week passed in a flurry of recruiting my 'team,' preparing my signs, and generally getting ready for the event of a lifetime.

 

Which, in fact, it was.

 

We arrived an hour and a half early, about twelve hours behind the first people who had begun lining up outside the doors. Walking in my cast (I'd abandoned the crutches), we took our place behind about 200 other people as more and more brides/teams trickled in behind us. When the time came for us to all surge forward into the store, it was a mad house of running, screaming, pushing, and for a few of us unlucky brides, falling. However we did manage to secure some dresses to try on.

 

This, however, was only the beginning of the event, for once you had a dress or two to try on, you had to begin to trade. You couldn't automatically trade for the dress you wanted--oh no. Not only was it impossible to find The Dress in the mass chaos, you also had to go through a series of trades to develop the quality of your 'pile.' High quality piles attracted high quality dresses for their trading potential, and it took us about an hour to work up the pile. And when we did, I would try on a dress, walk it to the mirror, and other brides would come up and try to trade what they had. Depending on the quality of their dresses, we would give them a dress from the 'No, it's hideous' pile, the 'Perhaps' pile, or the 'Major potential' pile.

 

So this is how, during the climax of the event, I found a dress that was Almost The Dress. There was a fairly attractive bride a few piles away from me with a soft, empire-wasted gown draped over her arm. One of my bridesmaids had tapped me on the shoulder, calling my attention to it, and we decided we MUST try it on.

 

This particular dress was one in her own 'Major potential' pile, so I had to pull out all of the stops to get to try it on, lending her not one, but TWO of my favorites just for the chance. And when I tried it on, it was maybe my favorite thing thus far. However, our bride-to-be-enemy also felt the same way.

 

I had to give it back, but my team and I began plotting how we'd steal it from her: would she take $100 as a bribe or should we just grab it and run to the register? We were biding our time, waiting for her to either discard the dress or decide on it so we'd have to steal it, when something remarkable happened. I retried on my 'Major potentials' and found it. The Dress.

 

Much to the dismay of the bride-enemy, it was categorically better (and a few thousand dollars better) than the one I'd almost stolen from her. Many women, in fact, came up to me and asked if I would be giving it up. I had liked it the first time I tried it on, liked it even more the second time, and when I ran my hands down the sides and discovered nothing less than pockets, I knew it was true love. The bridesmaids and I had let out a collective scream while I jumped up and down on my good foot, celebrating the conclusion to our long hard battle in finding The Dress.

 

 

 

 

Publishing Blues

Everyone knows that while the writing process can be pure bliss, the publishing process can be pure hell. Maybe that's why so many of us turn out to be bipolar. I had thought that I'd grown jaded to rejection, accepted the endlessly mind numbing form letters as translations for "not the right time" or "just not my style." I've read the blogs of writers struggling to get published, read stories of how Stephanie Meyer had 8 out of 12 query letters rejected and how J.K. Rowling's manuscript was thrown in the trash. So I've persevered, trying everything from querying agents to entering contests.

 

Today, I have received yet another rejection. Typically I query via email because I find the impersonal notes in my inbox to be much less abrasive than snail mail. When mailing your query or manuscript, there is a certain temptation to check your mail box every morning when you leave and every night when you get home. There's a waiting, a wondering, as you imagine your work physically in the hands of a person who could make your dream of having your work in hard cover a reality. There is the painful excitement of finally getting a response, carefully peeling back the sticky envelope seal, and pulling out the form letter that tells you that it's just "not the right time" or "just not my style." And then, insult of all insults, there is the cover page to your novel, forever separated from the manuscript that cost too much to print and was too much for them to mail back to you, which now lies among similar nameless stacks in some distant paper recycling company.

 

All rejections are difficult and have the tendency to stifle your writing, pressure you to do better, produce something more geared to current sales or popular topics. I tried this, in fact, and found it to be the most miserable five chapters of my life. So despite my publishing blues, I hereby vow a number of things, no matter how I feel tonight sitting beside the remnants of a form letter I joyfully burned over the sink:

 

1. I will never again try to write what I think will catch the attention of a literary agent

2. My works will never be designed to fit cleanly into a single genre for the agents that only market to certain genres

3. I will never, ever, write anything that has a vampire or werewolf in it, other than to make fun of 50% of current young adult fiction

4. I will resist all temptation to send hate letters out to particularly rude agents

5. And I will never give up on getting my work published, never stop writing.

Girl Scout Cookies

There comes a time in every girl's life when you must simply settle down with a box of girl scout cookies. It doesn't matter where--it could be holed up in a back room at your office, curled up in bed, or even outside today bundled against the rain clouds. And it doesn't matter what kind, either--Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Cinna Spins, Daisy Go Rounds--just as long as it's your favorite.

 

Today, I am choosing the first of both categories, enjoying a box of Thin Mints in an area in our office we call the Dungeon. The Dungeon is a room buried deep in the Capitol where no one will ever hear the screams of the unbearably bored or ruthlessly used interns trapped there every day of the week. It's decorated in cheap wood paneling, cracked-leather chairs, a lamp with a hat as a lamp shade, and posters/magazine pages/receipts that are a tribute to the boredom and frustration of interns past.

 

The need for the girl scout cookies arose from a series of events, not all of which happened in this room, but perhaps were exacerbated by it. I shall call it: The Great Signature Fiasco. The Fiasco began mundanely enough, with one of my bosses giving one of the interns an assignment, which was passed on to me. "We need to get this signed by the gov. No rush, though." It's not a difficult task to walk up and obtain the signature, which I promptly would have done if A) my foot wasn't broken and B) two of my bosses hadn't promptly given me five separate assignments to handle. I work work work, naturally, but then another bomb is dropped--I have to attend a meeting in which I must stand on one foot for three hours to take notes.

 

Thus, at the end of the day, when I stayed late to observe the entirety of the meeting, the letter was not signed.

 

And as I'm only part-time and did not work the next day, it continued forth in its unsigned status.

 

One intern trivia night, many shots, and a whole lot of drama later, we have finally moved past it. I got the whole story from one of my fellow interns when we met up last night to lose magnificently in a trivia game. They couldn't find the paper that was sitting on my desk waiting to be signed, our boss springs a previously unannounced and extremely short deadline for the signature, the interns frantically rush around to obtain it from an autopen that had been shut down for the day, finally find the gov, and have the signed letter ready for our boss, who then determinedly strikes out at every intern in the office for our collective unintelligence. There were things said I dare not repeat, things not usually said to high achievers of the caliber of these governor's interns. Things easily dismissed in retrospective, but that during the lecture may or may not have induced a deep, entrenched dislike that all of the interns now feel. Including me, today.

 

Thus the need for girl scout cookies.

Crutches Chronicles Part 5 (Unfortunately)

There's nothing more exciting than a celebratory night on the town. Last night's celebration was twofold--first, Kind of That Girl and I went out to celebrate her new job: Teach for America! And second, although not nearly as monumental, it was the night before my podiatrist appointment and my theoretical freedom from crutches. After one lost debit card, one too many drinks, and one rather embarassing tumble down a hill, I am sad to report that the crutches chronicles will continue for at least another four weeks.

Crutches Chronicles Part 4

One thing about the crutches has gone far beyond a regular annoyance to downright painful. I have serious bruises and burns on the underside of my arms and the outside of my upper rib cage from crutching around. The situation was exacerbated in several ways: first, on the first night of my new crutches life style, I met my sister out for sushi, which we walked to. And second, on my first day of work my boss sent me to an unprecedented amount of meetings, forcing me to crutch around the entire Capitol and wear out my muscles--not to mention my skin from where the crutches rubbed me raw.

 

So when I got home, I came up with what I thought at the time was the most intelligent solution in the world: I would simply roll around my condo in my rolly chair. The used leftover of my sister, this small black chair has everything I could've wanted: five wheel stability, 360 pivot motion, even a slight recline should I desire it. I cruised around my condo, moving rugs and chairs out of the way so I had clear track to travel on. And it was brilliant. I could wheel to the kitchen, stand and make food, then wheel back to the den to enjoy my meal. I could wheel over to my bedroom, to my bathroom, to the front door without issue, enjoying the freedom of being able to use my arms without limit. Even the cats were happier with the rolly chair, sometimes sitting in my lap as we crossed from room to room.

 

But it wasn't until one task in particular, perhaps the worst task one could imagine, that the chair betrayed me.

 

I had wheeled over to the catbox to take care of that, which I'd pitifully neglected since discovering my foot was fractured. As I leaned over to make the first scoop, something happened and the chair literally threw me to the ground, landing partially in...yes, the catbox. The dirty, stinky, neglected cat box that I'd just gotten around to cleaning up. I shakily sat up and glared at my chair, lying complacent on its side, its 'five wheel stability' clearly not what it was cracked up to be.

 

After hopping for five minutes on one foot to clean up the mess I'd made, I took a one-footed shower and recommitted to my crutches.

Something Borrowed

Just had to share--my older sister gave me the sweetest early wedding present. She got married just a few months ago, and when I went to her house to meet her to go shopping yesterday, she pulled out a gift. I opened it and found a small crystal perfume bottle, already filled with the same type of perfume she had worn for her wedding day. Though my big day is still a year away, I now have my 'Something Borrowed' to wear, a gift from my Matron of Honor.

Crutches Chronicles Part 3

Embarrassing situations I have gotten into due to crutches:

 

-My first day back at work, when the parking deck stairway tired me out so badly that I had to pause mid-way up the steps to the capitol to catch my breath

-Tripping back down said stairway on the return trip to my car

-Tripping on flat ground

-Not being able to shove my crutches into my tiny two-seater

-Hopping out of my two-seater on one foot, accidentally closing my coat in the door, and not noticing until it jerked me backward in front of a dozen college students

-Having to carry the ugly black bookbag I've had (and subsequently torn up) for three years instead of my sleek black coach purse

-Getting caught in an extremely heavy door with said bookbag, leading me to hop and and shuffle through with an entire committee watching

-Using a public restroom (will not explain further)

-Slipping on a tile floor after coming in from the rain

-Dropping a stack of papers while trying to carry them and crutch at the same time

-Date night with my sorority, where my crutches got knocked down into spilled drink after spilled drink

-The next day at work, when the plastic and metal strongly smelled of alcohol