This used to be my favorite bridge

OK, disjointedly cruising web while fast-forwarding through MFJ. I went on something of a Twitter bender on Tuesday night, eventually landing on the biggest prize of them all–none other than past PG Superhero Questlove! Not only does ?uesto tweet, he blips.

The problem with the Twitter bender is this: currently, when I post here at PG, I blast a tweet (man, that is the new shitting euphemism) with a tiny URL for the post. The problem: if I post too much, then I turn into a Twitter-spewer. (I’m sure there’s a better term for this.) I had to stop following my no-longer-new gay conservative British boyfriend because of just this. He posts a shitload on The Daily Dish. He should. It’s his day job. (When does he find the time to write the Sunday column and The Think. Again. Atlantic articles? I am obviously not worthy of the same bloggy air he breathes.) But Andrew’s constant tweets were irritating. Remove.

Now, the realists among you, Dear Readers, may be thinking: Is PG on crack again? Since when is her problem posting too much, so as to run off the 40 people now following her on Twitter? And you may have a point. But let’s look at the traffic. As far as I can tell from the commentariat here at PG, there are seven Dear Readers. 40 “people” are following me on Twitter.

If I was a different person, I would now create a Venn diagram of the two readerships. Let’s leave at this: you know who you are, Intersecting Set Members. What do you think I should do?

Hodge Podge Lodge. Hodge Podge Lodge. Hodge Podge Lodge.

1. Max Kennedy is on Morning Fucking Joe “right now.” Some of you may know of my pleasant acquaintance with Max. He is a lovely person. Max is promoting his new book, talking about Obama, and being delightful. I like Max. One of the reasons he’s on MFJ is yesterday’s ceremony to rename the Triborough Bridge in honor of his dad. Now that’s a nice thing to do–name a major bridge in honor of Robert Kennedy. But WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY RENAMING THE TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE? Come on! Why? It’s my favorite bridge. It’s the bridge where we broke down and caused a traffic jam that we heard about on the radio (seeing the connection here?) while sitting in the broken down car. Does any one in their right mind think New York cabbies are going to start saying, “The Kennedy’s backed up, we should take the Queensboro?”This might make sense if they named the three legs of the bridge after the three brothers: the Jack connects Manhattan and Queens, the Bobby Queens and the Bronx, and the Ted is the one you take if you follow the signs for New England. (I, for one, have never crossed that bridge. And given my aversion for all things New England, I hope never to. No, that’s a lie. I crossed it regularly with one of the Republican Boyfriends From My Past Life. Often. No wonder I can’t stand the Ted.)

   What’s even worse? Wikifuckingpedia changed the entry yesterday. As in, “We don’t give a shit about the Triborough Bridge, Robert Moses, the history of New York, or helping people. We’ll just redirect them to the Robert Kennedy Memorial Bridge. The Triborough, that is so November 19th, 2008.”

   This is when I have a problem with the speed of change. This is when I want to give up all the tweeting and blipping and the linking and the commenting. Fuck it all. I’ll even turn in the DVR and record MFJ on a VCR. Triborough Bridge? History.

   But this is not why I started down this path. No, yesterday, when I saw a post about the ceremony on some news website, there was a picture of the dedication. Now, if you grew up in New York driving to Long Island, you pretty much know every inch of this bridge. And you can figure out exactly where they were standing in the freezing wind. And if I had managed to skitch this picture, I wouldn’t have to waste your time and mine describing it. But I didn’t because yesterday I was all worried about posting to Prematurely Grey because I don’t want to run off the strangers who follow me on Twitter, so I was doing everything I could to not post stuff here (even though I posted stuff here–worked out great, didn’t it?). The picture: Robert Kennedy Jr. standing making a speech. Various Kennedys surrounding him, including Max (very recognizable guy–white hair). Post mentions Bloomberg and Patton were there, among other dignitaries. And who are these other dignitaries? There’s this guy with even whiter hair than Max’s. Hmmm. He’s kind of tall and commanding looking. There’s something about that guy…

   When the fuck did BILL CLINTON BECOME AN “OTHER DIGNITARY?”

   People, I’m not going to be able to make any headway on Hodge Podge Lodge Thursday if this is the kind of crap that’s going on out there in Blogadelphia. (Hat tip Joe Klein, back in the MFH over at Swampland.) Bill Clinton returns from Kuwait, promises to stop shaking down foreign oil magnates for anti-malarial drugs, and BOOM! he’s nothing but an “other dignitary?” He’s the guy they’re showing “right now” on MFJ at the dedication. Not Mayor Mike. Not Governor Shack Up II. (He’s kind of the Pope John Paul II of New York, isn’t he?) No, they’re showing the Big Dog. He’s telling me to think of Robert Kennedy’s legacy every time I go over that bridge.

   No fucking way, Bill. No way. I am not going to think of Robert Kennedy’s legacy every time I cross that bridge. Sorry, I love ya, but no dice.

   Sometimes, when I cross that bridge, I’m going to think, Fuck, we’re going to miss the plane. Other times, I wish we’d left at 11:00 like we said we would. Some days it’ll be, I hope the traffic’s not this heavy all the way out to Dad’s. Occasionally it’ll be, Were we listening to WNBC or WACB when the car broke down?

   What can I do to end economic injustice? Nope.

   Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to name the Triborough after Robert Kennedy? Bingo.

   Hodge Podge Lodge is officially derailed. I have to deal with life. I have to check Twitterific. I have to go to the dentist. I have to buy some new shoes so I can defeat the Republican golfers who threaten to keep holding my state (and our nation’s future) hostage in the coming legislative session. Can I do it? Can I throw up (sounds gross) the eight other things that keep running through my Mr. Rogers brain? (”I’ll have things I’ll want to talk about/You will too.”)

2. The state of Texas is officially onto the next thing: who will get Kay Bailey’s senate seat when she resigns to run for guv in 2010 (Twenty Ten! Can you wait to stop saying “Two Thousand” all the time?)
3. I am officially obsessed with maps. Thoughts on space, maps, and the future of our nation another time.
4. I have to stop trying to catch up on The New Yorker. Biggest. Time suck. Ever.
5. I found the index card with the names of the people who were supposed to vote for me at the county convention back in March. This is the document that shows my budding political organization skills and begs the question: when is the Three of Spades a lucky card? When the other guy draws the Two of Hearts, that’s when. Full story in my upcoming political memoir: Dreams of My Comparative Goverment Teacher.
6. John Aielli just played Judy Collins and I didn’t interrupt what I was writing to tell you about it. Who says there’s no such thing as focus here at Prematurely Grey?

OK, that’s just six. There’s more, like will we have a tough woman from Arizona as the head of Homeland Security? Who else loves the idea of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State? Will I ever get a job or will my addiction to MFJ keep me from moving off my bed, let alone up the ladder? What’s up with Tom Daschle’s glasses?

But wait, before I sign off, I must give you this final Hodge Podge Lodge tidbit, courtesy of Twitter (tying it all together, people–I am still a writer at heart, despite all evidence to the contrary):

wow. that's about all they could say. wow.

See why you’ve got to get on Twitter?

Obviously, this happiness has made me uneasy. I am not a happiness person. I’m an anxiety person. I like anxiety. I know anxiety. It’s my birth right (as a New Yorker) and the hallmark of my generation (OK, maybe cynicism is our hallmark). Kind of like darkness for Paul Simon, anxiety is my old friend and without it, I feel untethered to reality.

Without anxiety, where would Prematurely Grey be?

Fortunately, this question began to make me feel, you got it, anxious. By yesterday afternoon, things were looking good for the continued existence of this blog, even though blogging is over and there is no blogosphere. (I can’t be bothered with linking to the most recent examples of these two, ugh, memes.) This weekend was something of a dark night of the soul for old Prematurely Grey. With the return of small-d democracy to America, the fight for truth, justice, and the American way feels less pressing. And the fact that everyone else in Austin seems to think that Craddick is out as Speaker makes my constant handwringing regarding the Texas Legislature seem a little over the top.

Plus there was the unexpected discovery that there are more than five people reading this thing. Readership may have doubled. PG may in fact have reached double-digit readership. More readers=greater sense of failure in not having anything to contribute.

But just when I thought it was over, just when I couldn’t link to the latest story heralding the Coming of Nate (I’m getting a little sick of Tech Support Guy’s mancrush on the latest metrosexual out of Chicago, 2008), it turns out, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE YEAR OF THE JOES IS NOT YET OVER!

Joe Scarborough is in the MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE!

Ladies and gentlemen, at 8:13 this morning, my Republican boyfriend Morning Joe said, “Fuck you” on national TV.

You may be asking yourself, “Can he do that?”

Yes he can.

It’s a long story, with his obsession with Rahm Emmanuel at the heart of it (a little mancrush for Joe, I think). Bottom line: Morning Joe blurted out “Fuck you” and I HAVE A REASON TO WRITE AGAIN! I do not have to suspend this stupid blog because there’s nothing to write about now that Robert Gibbs is going to stop being funny because he’s going to be Obama’s Press Secretary.

The passing of the generation torch is complete. Generation X is in the motherfucking house. Morning Joe is the new Imus.

This is our time. This is our moment.

Will embed video when it’s not stuck in the HuffPo-i-verse. Here’s a link to Andy Borowitz (funny). There’s also a self-righteous, thinking it’s funny diary on Daily Kos that I won’t bother you with. (I read daily Kos so you don’t have to, Dear Reader. You should pay me for that alone.)

Well, DKos is good for something. Here’s the YouTube. Watch and smile, my friends, watch and smile.

Fuck. I can’t embed it. Will do so later. Time to go…

Don’t you think it’s been like M*A*S*H* lately? Like we’re all exhausted, frozen and still operating on American soldiers, South Korean orphans, and the occasional cross-dresser? I have no idea what was happening two weeks ago, except that it sucked for Obama and made me stop watching Olbermann.

In other words, the past two weeks have been a blur.

Or, maybe more like a comic.

Ka-Pow! The economy actually melted down.

Wham! The United States Congress had something it actually had to accomplish.

Whahhh? McCain suspended his campaign?

Huh? He wasn’t going to go to Mississippi and debate?

Screeeech! McCain and Obama had to go to the White House but the deal cratered?

Whoa! They had a debate and Obama looked a whole lot less scary than the white guy?

Pow! The bailout failed.

Remember that? Last Monday, the bailout failed to pass in House. The House Republican staged this mysterious revolt (mysterious to all those who hadn’t watched Newt Gingrinch talk about how bad the bailout was on Little Georgie S.’s show the day before) and the bailout died.

Cats and dogs, living together! Barney Frank to America’s rescue! All in the middle of Rosh Hashanah!

Then ultimate sign of the Apocalypse: Dow drops 777. If only it had been 666. Then we’d just be dead and we wouldn’t have to keep track of all this shit. But it was 777, which must have a lot of meaning for a lot of crackpots easily accessible to me via the amazing crackpot-finding machine here at my fingertips. But I was too busy watching the Youtube of the Princeton Economics Department’s forum on the meltdown and trying to figure out just how completely stupid Nancy Pelosi actually is to waste precious time tracking down those particular pots.

Meanwhile, we’re all having this serious drooling problem, reminiscent of the SNL sketch with the drool buckets, because it turns out KATIE COURIC IS THE SAVIOR! She’s the one, the redeemer. Who’da thunk it? Sarah Palin can’t answer questions. She just can’t. She doesn’t remember what she reads. She doesn’t remember Supreme Court decisions. She doesn’t know shit.

(Here’s where maybe, just maybe, the fact that she’s got a SIX MONTH OLD BABY MIGHT EXPLAIN THE PROBLEM. But that would be sexist–as they told me over at Balloon Juice the other day when I commented that the reason conservative men are for her is because they–keep this on the downlow, OK?–want to fuck her.)

Which leads us to Thursday. Remember Thursday? It was just three days ago. There’s only been Friday, Saturday, and Sunday since Thursday. Again, a lifetime. And why a lifetime in 72 hours? Why does that debate seem like it happened when I was in 10th grade?

Because for the last three days I’VE BEEN TRYING TO KEEP MY HEAD FROM EXPLODING WHILE EVERYONE GOES ON AND ON ABOUT HOW SARAH FUCKING PALIN EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS!

She EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS! Holy shit–did you hear?–SHE EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS!

Has nobody seen any of the movies? Election? Legally Blonde? Miss Congeniality? La Femme Nikita?

OF COURSE SHE FUCKING EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS!

Did anyone seriously think she was going to be as bad as she was with Katie? Really? Come on, Katie has superpowers. She’s the Redeemer. Gwen Ifill, she’s some lady who we used to think was going to sit in Tim Russert’s chair of fucking gold. (More on that guy later–how could he be gone, leaving us alone with  Tom Brokaw’s and his last stand against the barbarians at the gate–if I didn’t like the guy and think it really in poor taste to bad mouth the deceased I would CURSE HIS NAME FOR LEAVING ME WITH TOM BROKAW AS THE SUPPOSED FUCKING GROWN UP AT NBC–Tom’s as pissed as Grandpa McAngrypants, in a South Dakota detatched broadcaster kind of way!)*

And now we’re in hour 70 of Operation Exceeding Expectations and it looks like

a) McCain is morphing into a silver back gorilla:

b) The National Review is morphing into a porn site:

and c) Little Miss Double EE is winking her way into a tie with Joseph McCarthy for most damaging demagogue in American history.

Some great clips that have kept me amused as I’ve sniffled and napped through the last three days in the Land of Counterpane to come. Plus, I think I’ve mastered spacetime. And a little something about Jesus. So, yeah, even though I haven’t been (hate to use it as a verb) blogging, I’ve been blogging.

*Maybe not more later.

So, in quick succession, here are a few clips that my favorite sites posted this morning. I’m beginning to see my role as a collage artist. Obviously, there are different types of blogs out there. There are the great journalistic ones such as Talking Points Memo. Then there’s the hardest working man in the blogosphere–Andrew Sullivan–my new bff. Who knew that a gay conservative British Catholic who actually chooses to live in Washington and I would have so much in common? And then there’s my hero John Coles. Another lapsed Republican. Wait a minute! Is there a theme here? Is this all just me working through my Republican heritage?

Back to Mr. Clean (who would be a terrific sponsor for All My (Grand)Children).

Clip Number Five: In Which Our Heroine’s Aging Guardian Tells Us What Needs Cleaning

Thanks to Talking Points Memo for posting this. I can’t watch CNN; thanks for saving me the trouble.

But wait, there’s more.

Clip Number Six: In Which God Speaks

Speaking from down here 150 miles outside Aftermath Ike (but in its actual command center), I can tell you that there’s a difference between a job for Mr. Clean and a once in a century event.

*I’ve been reading What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe this summer. I’m still in the first third of the book (John Quincy Adams’ presidency), but it’s already made me think a great deal to how communication technology transforms the political process. Too much to go into now, but I’ll add that this is the first presidential election with a robust Internet. Meaning, the Internet is the primary driver for political communication in 2008. It hadn’t reached this level in 2004 or 2006 (but the George Allen macaca remark was the harbinger). The other communication medium that’s dominating 2008 is the cell phone, obviously. Basically, between the two, new information is ubiquitous. You can’t escape it. Hence, Palinmania.

1. I read on Daily Kos that Kay Hagan is now leading Elizabeth Dole in the North Carolina senate race. Keep hope alive! I then got in the game of commenting on DKos. Having a mom who’s hated Elizabeth Dole since she was at Duke gains me a little traction.
2. I managed to make a joke in the comments on 538. Not that I advocate subverting important discussions about web polls of whom the 538 readership believes is currently the third most likely person to become president (Obama and McCain weren’t allowed as choices); I simply subvert these important discussions by asking why not me? I added that I could have two teenage daughters pregnant for the 2012 race. Take that, Sarah Palin.
3. I got out of my house and actually went over to the Travis County Democratic HQ. Guess what? We still have Texas House races to win and a senate contest and maybe a couple of guys running for Congress. Who knew?
4. I followed the McCain speech live blogs on a couple of sites and then watched the post-game show. I have to share this video, because it’s too good (hat tip to Balloon Juice–the best place to find people who are more outraged than I am–go there now–stop reading my crappy blog!). Watch someone actually say the truth on TV! On CNN of all places! Watch this, please:
5. And then came the game changer. Drumroll please. Judy Warner expressed feminist angst for all. And I had to call bullshit! Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I’m free at last. Judy, you cannot have my feminist rage. It’s mine, I tell you, all mine!

Not that anyone cared how I cured myself of Palinmania. But in case you’re trying to get over it, well, get over it.

Today is the birthday of one of the two “Montanans.” (It also happens to be Salman Rushdie’s birthday, so maybe I should treat this “Montanan” as the troublemaker I think he really is.) In honor of this event (and some other things that happened in Montana), I write this mercy post. Yes, there’s more to come. Yes, I am completely paranoid that if I begin writing this thing again I will be risking far more than I ought. Of course, I have no choice in the matter.

Yesterday, my horoscope said that I should begin a project in secret, so I didn’t dissipate energy by telling people about it. Naturally, I thought it was about sewing. But maybe, just maybe, it’s back on the horse of thinking. And that means writing. And that means that somebody’s not going to like me. And that means a world of pain in any political interaction. And them’s the breaks.

Here’s your horoscope for today, buddy. Looked at it in hope that I could just erase this thing and get on with my life. You can see how well that went:

Gemini (May 21-June 21): Your intuition is strong, particularly with regard to figuring out what makes people tick. With your natural gift for gab, you’ll probably be able to talk anyone into anything. Close a deal over lunch.

Happy birthday, Salman. You really do have the snake’s point of view in all of this, don’t you? Thanks for tossing me the apple the other day. Let the dissipation begin!

And what is so good about Good Friday? What are we to make of saying that a bad thing, perhaps the most terrible thing we can think of, is really a good one?

Well, not to say that my Tivo problem is quite that important, but it turns out that having an unreliable Tivo is a good thing. It’s a good thing because my unreliable Tivo made me so mad that I had to write about it and now Austinist has included that post in its Best of the Austin Blogs: Week of April 10. (And without even posting the little thing on how Austinist is making the Chronicle obsolete–coming soon, friends.)

So, thanks for the shout out, Austinist. I knew you were a good addiction. Better than reading Television Without Pity for another hour.

As for you, my dear unreliable Tivo, turns out you’re my cross to bear.

Also, anyone who has suggestions for how to walk the fine line between laughing until I pee and wordless union with the divine that seems to be my state of being is welcome to share them here.  It’s always been a bitch, being the funniest mystic in the room.  The price I pay for growing up with a woman who was “New Age before there was a New Age” and a man who’s most profound statement about God remains, “I don’t care what you call Him–you can call Him ‘Jack.’”

You may have noticed that the previous entry was listed under “my god, what have i done?” If you read it, you might see how playing the song might have been a lot more effective. I’ll figure out how to link to songs later, so you can just listen. Maybe it’s time I turn into a DJ and let myself play God. But today my fate was in John A’s hands. And his plan was to get me both to pledge and to believe in the power of writing about listening again.
If anybody out there still doubts my faith in the radio, well, you’re simply not paying attention.

Leading up to SXSW Interactive, I had become more than a little agitated about the state of the blogosphere. It was starting to eat me alive and I knew that one of us was going to have to go. I’d outlined my plan to my friend Prentiss (pay attention here, reader; he’ll keep popping up over these next eight posts) at our daughters’ volleyball practice earlier that week. It went something along these lines: people have to shut up. Especially women who are angry at other women because they haven’t made identical decisions that might possibly bolster the toothpicks their self-worth is structured upon.

Prentiss asked me what I thought of BlogHer. And I said I didn’t know about BlogHer. And it was then I learned of BlogHer and the upcoming invasion of Austin by “The Queens of Cyber Space.”

Longtime readers will realize that this prelude to SXSW took place during my earlier consideration of jealousy, in particular, of how jealousy gets in the way of almost any discussion about opting out. Gets in the way yet manages to remain unseen. And how my jealousy of writers and bloggers who are already being read by people like me makes me think that my writing is completely pointless because these other people are already doing it. The way thinking about it makes me feel right now.

Once I checked out BlogHer and the Chronicle articles and other reasonably reasonable mother/women/feminist sites on the web, I started to feel that dreaded little warm spot inside that always leads down one of my spiritual alleys. This one was: You are not alone. You will find an audience. Other people will value your path of intelligence, moderation, and constant scrutiny of your hair for signs of the Second Coming. Maybe, if you go listen to them, SOMEDAY YOU WILL HAVE READERS TOO.

The BlogHer panel was Saturday morning. At the exact same time as my brother-in-law’s movie.

Point, BlogHer.

But maybe I could go to one of the other panels about blogging on Saturday afternoon. Maybe I could catch something that would rub off on me and I could become a famous enough blogger this year that people would ask me to sit on a panel next year and I wouldn’t have to feel so completely horrible about all the decisions I made.

That’s when Chris told me he had a migraine and had to get home.

I had parked the Saab pretty much across the street. The Saab had become my ride because the air conditioning was out. Chris got the Passat. But the Passat was full of stuff for the trade show and was parked someplace else. It was over 85 degrees, Chris felt like he was going to throw up, and we got in the Saab.

Well, the air conditioning was also out in the house, somebody had to pick up the computer Bside was renting for the trade show booth, the computer wasn’t ready when that somebody got the the computer store in a hot Saab, so she had to wait around for 35 minutes, the sitter took Mazie to her sleepover but forgot her bag (which was at the sitter’s house, where they’d walked on the first 90 degree day of 2006), the air conditioning repair guy, my friend Allen from the cold day the heat went out back in December (remember that one?), arrived just as I got back with the iMac (which would turn out not to have wireless–impossible, you say–but that’s really getting ahead to Sunday and why I didn’t get to the panel I wanted to go to because I was the person who could go buy a router and cables at Office Max), and Chris started rallying just as the wiring problem with the A/C had been identified, and he ate some of the ham and cheese brioche I’d managed to pick up en route to picking up Mazie from her morning’s sleepover.

While this was happening, I imagined the men and women in the convention center discussing how blogging is transforming social interaction on the net.

I was aware, in the moment, of the irony that my life, the thing that forces me to write as perhaps the only way to keep from losing my mind, my life of driving around Austin in a frenzy, praying that some song will come on the radio to keep me from going over the edge, the source of this blog that has started to take on some personal significance I wish that it did not have, my subject, was in fact keeping me from being in a room of people I thought of as my virtual tribe.

I imagined the BlogHer women, the mommy bloggers, the hip mamas, all talking and laughing and linking to each others blogs while I was trying to figure out how it was that the computer that was ready on Friday at 5 was not ready on Saturday at 3. Trying to figure out who could let in the A/C guy if I was stuck watching an operating system being installed. Trying to figure out what we would do if Chris didn’t get better. Trying to figure out where Mazie’s bag was. Trying to figure out what to wear to a party full of people who’d spent the day in the freezing convention center.

I was not going to make it to the ball. I was going to stay in my life even when the circus came to town and I’d been practicing my juggling all year long. I seem to be destined to keep practicing and never quite make it to the audition. And how would anything get done if I just ran away and joined the circus?