Democrats on the move in Texas? Check

Democrat in the White House? Check

Democrat representing me in Congress? (Well, you can’t have everything–where would you put it?)

Frankly, I’ve been preparing to hang up the superpowers for good. Not only does democracy seem to be on the upswing, I can’t afford the shoes in the Current Economic Climate and the Ongoing Middle Age Identity Crisis has me paralyzed, hair-wise.

I came home from the second 7:30 am middle school parent meeting of the week (yes, everything you think that is wrong with that phrase is indeed wrong with that phrase) gearing up to announce my retirement. Before getting on with the Great Announcement, I thought I’d unwind with a little Cafe Vienna moment courtesy of MSNBC. Just a smidge of MSNBC. Not a full Morning Fucking Joe rewind–no need to get involved in Transition to the White House–Obamanation or Abomination! this morning. Time to grow up, move on, knit some hats.

And BOOM there she was! WWSPD on November 13, 2008? Of couse, she’d speak at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami. But why should that bother me? She can’t hurt me anymore.

It bothers me because standing on her right is none other than GOVERNOR GOODHAIR, MR. 39%, TEXAS’ OWN RICK PERRY!

But that alone was not enough to drag me back to the WordPress window. No, I can resist Rick Perry and the thought of the 2010 Texas governor’s race and the likelihood that Rapunzel Sarah will come to the Lone Star State and stump for this chump. I can even bear the thought that I will end up “rooting” for Kay Bailey Hutchinson in the Republican primary so I can see Sarah repudiated by good Texas Republican women.

So why I am back ringing the alarm? Grandma made me do it.

People of Austin! People of Texas! People of America! Prepare! Repent! End times are upon us!

One Tough Grandma is running for mayor of Austin. This spring. As in, starting today, Carole Blahbedy Blah Blah Blah Something wants you to return her to the mayor’s office.

Could Kinky be far behind?

Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

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…

Started my normal cruise through the sites I read (Times, Talking Point Memo, First Read) and decided to check out FiveThirtyEight a little earlier than normal. Clicked through on the “Road to 270: Arizona” (even though I really don’t give a shit about Arizona) and HOLY SHIT!!! WHAT ARE MY SHOES DOING ON 538?!

I kid you not. I own those shoes. I not only own those shoes, I wear those shoes. I wore them throughout the convention (tucked flip flops in the big red bag for walking). I wore them them Monday night to the couple of local Dem events I attended with yet another man named Joe. (Evening Joe? Joe the Lawyer? New Mexico Joe? That’s it–New Mexico Joe.)

Could it be that I own and wear the iconic (to the point of being a CafePress t-shirt joke) Obama Mama pumps?

So far, I haven’t seen anybody else in these shoes. In fact, I tried to find them on Zappos and after scrolling through 15 pages of Donald Pliner shoes all I could find for you to see was the slingback version:

Ladies and gentlemen, I could have purchased the slingbacks. They were there at my local shoe dealer (and I use that word purposefully). But I chose the pump. Pumps, yes.

I’m beginning to wonder if the Superpowers have migrated downward.

I haven’t had a haircut since before the convention. Frankly, it’s been the source of  great confusion and concern. True confession: I’m growing my hair out right now. And given the fact that my haircuts are intimately connected to the fate of one Tom DeLay, enemy of the people, friend of casino gambling, I’ve been questioning whether I’m doing everything I can to save democracy.

But this is a new election! Tommt D, we are five seats away from taking back the Texas House. Obama Deputy National Campaign Director Steve Hildebrand promoted this fact to a roomful of national political bloggers in July. (I was there and I nearly cried.) This fall, I’m not just whistling Dixie. (I have been waiting to type that for years.) We are five seats away. Five seats.

If we win back the Texas House, the 2010 Texas House redistricting might redraw the seats Tommy L. and his buddy Midland Tom drew up so Democrats would never hold power again in the Lone Star State. (How could it be that Texas Democrats keep winning, Toms?). And if we redraw those seats and a few more actual representatives of the people are elected in 2012, well, we might be able to redraw those Congressional districts. And if we redraw those Congressional districts, well, Austin might have a representative in Congress, come January 2014.

OK, I’m not going to buy new boots. I’m not going to buy new shoes. And it’s not just because of WWSPD. I’m going to give the money I would have spent on shoes on the Travis County Democratic Party.

And for those of you who might be concerned about my outfit tomorrow, I think I’ll wear my mom’s 1973 black suede Bendel’s peep toes. I’d like to see Sarah whip out her mom’s shoes from fourth grade and rock them at her next fundraiser. Come on, Sarah, I dare you.

But in what has to be a truly unexpected development, I’ve developed concurrent borderline obsessions with two additional guys. This morning, as I lay around reading every fucking thing I could find about the debate that didn’t make me want to kill the writer and skimming through (can you skim TV? film scholars out there, will you please weigh in?) Morning Joe (kind of like sipping on NyQuil–not good, but not the worst thing I could be doing–well, OK, really really bad), both of them popped up yet again, in what has to be their best form yet. So the time has come for me to introduce all of you to the two of them.

Instead of explaining all the reasons I love these guys, I’m going to keep it simple. Here’s what Bachelor Number One did this morning, (Well, he did it last night; I found out this morning, courtesy of, choking here, the fucking HuffPo, which I HATE for keeping me up with what Paul Reiser thinks of our current situation.):

Robert Gibbs is in the MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE! Preppy boys will in fact inherit the earth. Proof right here, ladies and gentlemen. (And, for the record, Gibbs is the one who compared Lindsey Graham to Niedermeyer on Morning Joe during the Republican Convention[killed!], laying the groundwork for me to show my daughters Animal House in honor of their father’s 41st birthday and thus ensuring that our republic will go down in flames just because of Sarah Palin.)

Meanwhile, over in the land of the written word, I’ve become completely obsessed with the NYTimes coverage of Meltdown 2008–THE FIRESTORM IN THE FINANCIALS. And by completely obsessed, I mean reading every word written by Paul Krugman. Now let’s be honest: no one slept with Krugman in college. No one. So the idea that I’m following this guy’s every word is, well, unexpected. But over the past two weeks, the Princeton Econ Department has skyrocketed in the Bizarrely Sexy Index and I’m reliving Econ 101 (first experienced in Fall 1982, with none other than Big Man on Campus Alan Blinder at the lectern, boring the shit out of me and 500 other stupid freshmen in Alexander Hall weekly). But Krugman, shit. Let’s face it, I’ve hated the guy all year because he’s been in the tank for Hillary. He’s done nothing but give Obama shit. And he’s the kind of wonky tech weenie who appeals to Tech Support Guy (he buys his books), not a hotshot historian (oxymoron?) for a backseat driver like me.

Well, there’s more to Krugman than meets the eye.

Just trust me here. Read this little post and then follow his link. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

Today, Aftermath Ike hit Texas. And part of me wanted to scream, “Jesus, why don’t you put me in charge of FEMA? I would have gotten those fucking trucks full of assets out of Fort Worth and San Antonio. I would have said, “Hey, drive on the feeder roads once you get to the 610 Loop, because anyone who’s ever been to Houston knows the highways flood. It’s not rocket science to drive those truck from San Antonio.”

Here’s the deal: journalists are pissed because they haven’t been allowed to observe the Bolivar (pronounced Boll-i-ver) Peninsula. This is where the worst of the worst took place. And who doesn’t have a good answer for why no one’s been allowed in? That’s right. Our very own Governor Good Hair, Mr. 39% himself.

Then there’s the finger pointing. FEMA says the state was supposed to distribute the assets. Texas says FEMA was supposed to do it. Then somebody (I can’t keep this straight) says, “No, the local governments are supposed to do this?” WHAH? The local governments are supposed to handle getting the ice and water and MREs to their dazed citizens, the ones who didn’t leave and didn’t, for whatever reason, get themselves a 72 hour supply of food and water?˜ Yeah, that sounds like a great plan.

There are different ways of telling every story, I suppose. Looking through the Houston Chronicle blog, lots of grocery stores are opening up (with limited supplies), 500,000 people have power now, and you could drive on the highway downtown. (But why would you want to go there? The streets are littered with glass.) Latest update–four Starbucks are open. (Any idea how 4 Starbucks are going to handle 2 million people?) Apparently, the American way of life will continue in Houston.

But Aftermath Ike is here for a while in Galveston and Orange and Port Arthur. And part of recovering from the recovery will be talking about performance of officials like Rick Perry who call the people who didn’t evacuate “knuckleheads.”

Shit! After all the reading and watching and thinking, I can’t find the heartbreaking quote, the one that would damn Rick Perry to an even hotter hell than the one he’s headed for. It was an interview with a woman who stayed behind, one of the non-evacuating knuckleheads. And why didn’t she evacuate? She’d already spent all her money evacuating her family for Gustav. She couldn’t afford to evacuate. There are other reasons people don’t evacuate, some of them pretty pathetic. But to lump all of these people, these dazed and devastated people, together as knuckleheaded, well, I really am shocked that Perry didn’t get the VP nod. Guess you can’t put lipstick on a pig..

Clip Number One: In Which the Republican Nominee Provides a New Definition for National Security Experience

McCain Interview

Do you think there’s a way that this guy makes it to the election? Seems like he’s rotting on the inside, no? And news flash for all you Palin fans: apparently being a popular governor qualifies you for being vice president. Guess that means Governor Good Hair will never ascend to Veep!

So it looks like Sarah is, in fact, the mother of little Trig. And the soon to be grandma of, let’s call him, Media Shitstorm.

Across the valley from Wasilla, the ladies and gentlemen of the Netroots Nation are slogging it out over whether or not the Palin family’s twists, turns, and labor pains are any of our business.

Any of our business!!??!!

Come on. We haven’t had it this good since the days of Tad the Cad. Mom and daughter aren’t sleeping with the same guy this time. No, they’re just back-to-back preggers. They’ll be pumping side by side at the inauguration (if Bristol’s prone to early delivery like Sarah).

Women of 1964: this is our time. This is our moment. One of our own just gave a keynote speech at the DNC. She wore a knock out dress in front of 38 million viewers. Her daughters are hogging the mike and having sleepovers with Joe Biden’s granddaughters.

Meanwhile, another of our brood is juggling the stresses of every working mom. Bridges to nowhere. Troublesome brothers-in-law. The legacy of a remote state hobbled by corruption. Giving major speeches while holding in premature high-risk infants. Her oldest daughter is pregnant but not following the Juno model. Learning what the GOP’s foreign policy actually is and hiding your reaction to it. It’s a lot of work, being Sarah Palin.

Stay tuned.

In case you weren’t aware of them, there are rumors that Sarah Palin’s five month old baby is really her grandchild.

So, for everyone who’s feeling that being a 44 year old woman has suddenly become the coolest thing on earth (in other words, that there’s been a reversal of the magnetic poles), here’s a little evidence to back you up:

The first woman of our generation to ascend to the highest level of national attention seems to have grown up watching the same crappy ABC soaps we did. Let us now add Wasilla to the fabled list of Pine Valley, Llanview, and Port Charles. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s show. Who knows. Maybe the baby’s father will show up in a snowmachine.

Frankly, as I’ve debated the resurrection of Prematurely Grey over the past two months (and don’t think that I’ve been thinking about anything else while upstairs “reading” all those history books I’ve been claiming to be interested in this summer), the don’t do it column kept tipping the scales. Going to the state convention didn’t do it. Going to Netroots Nation? Just made me glad to be in retirement. Brass ring trip to Denver? Well, maybe.

Even when Tech Support Guy offered up this gorgeous redesign, complete with the babelicious avatar, I still couldn’t bring myself to open up the editing window and compose a post. I hope all of you like the newly mod Prematurely Grey 2.0. I sure do. Makes me want to be as pretty as the site. Bought a crisp white shirt just to match the place.

But in the world of superheroes, white shirts are just what we wear under the scarves that transform into capes.

For the past five days, this beautiful site has been sitting unused, waiting patiently for me to suck it up and become just another Self-Loathing Austin Democratic Mommy Blogger with a Major Thing for Shoes. You know, one of those. My superpowers are no longer needed, it seems, in a world now safe for liberals. (OK, maybe it’s still not quite safe for us to drop the whole “progressive” beard. Let’s see what happens on 11/4.)

Just when I thought I could be a normal woman with a normal blog, he’s back.

Tom DeLay is back.

Here’s the headline from the Statesman website (which has now disappeared from the home page):

DeLay might be cleared of charges

Holy shit! Bottom line: Tom DeLay might weasel out of this thing yet because the money that was laundered wasn’t cash–it was checks. Wah? Money laundering of checks used to be OK (until the genius Lege of the nation decided it wasn’t in 2005).

I didn’t see this until this morning. But I opened a newly purchased hairdryer yesterday morning and made a pathetic attempt at blow drying my hair. (The George Washington look was wearing thin…) Yesterday morning I attempted to change my hair. Long time readers will know that this was the reawakening of my Spidey senses.

Tom DeLay, look out. Prematurely Grey is back.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time (wasted it, actually) talking with people out of state about Kinky. I am completely sick of explaining that, when Kinky votes, and when he remembers how he voted, he votes Republican.

There are people in my life whom I love very much who vote Republican. In the name of family and neighborly (well, there aren’t all that many in my neighborhood) harmony, I let it go. We agree to disagree and come together on the things we can. This is how the United Purple States of America works. We do our best to get along. We build bridges where we can. We still go to church even though one guy there wears an elephant lapel pin and I want to deck him every time I see it.

But these people I love are not running for office. Not only are they not running for office, they’re not running for office as independents who say they’re going to shake things up because they’re not politicians and they won’t conduct politics as usual. Not only are the not running for office as shake-things-up independents, they’re not voting for Republicans who are completely committed to politics as usual while proclaiming their independence.

What’s that?

Voting for Republicans while running as outsiders in the Lone Star State, home of the Republican machine that is doing its best to institutionalize its power and thus promote corporate harmony and social fascism for decades to come? That Republican Party? The one that orchestrated redistricting? The one that high stepped to Tom DeLay’s marching orders all the way to Texas losing its most senior Dems in the House so we’ll have nobody, I repeat, NOBODY in the top level of the House Leadership if our nutty country really does decide to throw the bums out? That Republican Party?

Yes, you read it here ninety-eighth: Kinky voted for our own darling Kay Bailey Hutch (her name’s been shortened on the ballot here in Travis County) and Lamar Smith.

In other words, Kinky seems to think that the problems are just here at home. We can trust the Republicans to do our business up in Washington.

Who in their right mind is still voting for Kinky in Austin? Tell me–who. I want to hear from you.

This just in: Read this fantastic anti-Kinky blog post by former Kinky-supporter Randy Kirchof (courtesy of BOR, naturally). My favorite part:

A man who votes for Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Lamar Smith is not a man who in any way represents my concerns. The “Satan” comment was one thing, and represents Kinky badly shooting himself in the foot. The Internet sustained your campaign, and it was a stupid and offensive thing to say to your core supporters. In making his actual votes public, he shot himself in the head. That simple statement, once it makes the rounds, will cost you virtually all of your core support. It is public political suicide, nothing more and nothing less.

Randy Kirchof, you da man!