Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

According to CNN's county to county break down, yes on Prop 8 has a majority in LA county. How? I just don't understand. Who are these people? What do they have against people just living their lives?

We acheived a huge victory as a country yesterday and over the last year. We honestly did. But apparently we still have long way to go.

I'm actually really emotional about this. SPAIN is more progressive than California?

When CNN.com called the county my precinct is in for Obama, I called my family so we could be self-congratulatory liberals together (the family that's haughty together stays together!).

My aunt and I actually ended up making fun of my mom mainly:

(A story from their recent trip, this one takes place in Lisbon.)

[SETTING A CHURCH IN LISBON, PORTUGAL.]

Aunt: We were staying in a pasada that used to be a convent.
Me: Ok so, the comedy, it writes itself!
Aunt: Oh yes, it writes itself!
Jenn: It's better than Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein!
Me: Did mom catch on fire?
Aunt: She started smoking a couple times but we were pickled from the cava, so I just swatted her out. Ok, so did your mom tell you about the sunglasses?
Me: Uh, no!
Aunt: Ok, so we're at this church and she's all excited to see the bones of the monks and nuns buried in these holes in the floor. She's the Jack Russell Terrier of travel companions, just running all over the place enthusiastic for anything macabre.
Me: Yeah, I inherited that.
Aunt: Yeah, I know! Everyone but me, if it's got blood or gore or is a skeleton dancing, y'all're all over it! But anyway she rushes up to the hole the monks are buried in and she's bored by that pretty quick because it was too dark and she couldn't see anything. So she rushes over to the one the nuns were buried in. That one was illuminated a bit better so she could sort of see bones and water and whatever junk's accumulated over the years. But she can't see quite well enough, so she crouches down and leeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaans in to get a better view. You know her new sunglasses? The ones she ordered and was so proud of?
Me: [already laughing]
Aunt: YEAH! Thunk, right into the water with the bones and thousand year old nuns! So what does your mother do? She starts motioning to the tour guide from her face to the hole over and over. Then she says all innocent 'Does anyone ever go down there?' She spent like a half hour trying to convince someone to GO DOWN IN THE HOLE WITH THE BONES AND THE WATER AND THE SCARY SCARY SPIRITS OF VENGEUL NUNS for her sunglasses.
Me: Did she convince anyone?
Aunty: Surprisingly, no.
Me: Did she try to pay someone to do it?
Aunt: You know her so well, it's like she's your mother or something. Anyway, I decided we're going to get a stuffed nun for Chrismuhanukwanzukah this year and get [my cousin] to make little sunglasses for it. It can be your mother's new house god, like the romans. She already made an offering! I told her that there's a ghost nun who's been waiting hundreds of years to be able to see, and your mom gave her glasses. [The sunglasses were prescription.]
Me: We can sit it under the Jew Tree, you know how much she loves the Jew Tree.
Aunt: [laughs and laugh] Kassie, it's silver tinsel with fiber optic lights, even your grandmother thinks it's tacky!
Me: Dude, that tree is SWEET! [I also put blue beads and ornaments on it to spiff it up a bit.] Were you guys already drunk when she bent over the hole? She's lucky she didn't fall in.
Aunt: NO! That's the strange part! Also, of course she almost fell in! I was being nice and leaving that out!
Me: I abraded my cornea the other day with fingernail scissors, so I think it's ok for you to tell me that part.
Aunt: Stop cutting your bangs yourself! What did I tell you about that? At least get those kid's scissors with the round tips! [I didn't mention I was cutting my bangs, she just intuited that. Also, she's NOTORIOUS for cutting her own hair with fingernail scissors--so much so my mom came and took them all away at one point when she cut a bald patch in the back. I learned to cut my hair with fingernail scissors from this woman!]

More stories about my mom not knowing ANYTHING about Christians later. Preview: my aunt tried to explain about Catholics praying for people after they're dead:

Mom: What's the point, they're already dead!
Aunt: I'm trying to explain that...
Mom: Does god have take backs? How do you get a god take back? Can I get a take back?
Aunt: Are you Catholic now?
Mom: I can be if god's going to just forget all the shit I've done.

That's actually a masterful grasp of theology for my mom (the same woman who asked me what the chickens have to do w/ Easter once, like Jesus had a basket of chickens or something).

The next story will be my mom and aunt at the Chapel of the Boooooooooooones (which my mom was very excited about as it's stunningly macabre).

.
As you can see, everyone (here as represented by Jenn) gets into the spirit of laughing w/ my mom and aunt once they meet the sideshow. I'm going home relatively soonish, so I should have some excellent new stories involving yarn festivals, pork, and my mom quitting smoking (hahaha what the fuck EVER, if a heart attack didn't make her quit, I don't fucking know what will!).

The "Ok, so..."s is how we all really talk. That's authentic transcription.

We won. It's almost unbelievable, like being in love and having the person your thought was the object of your unrequited mooning pop up one day and say "I love you."

Rahm Emanuel as the Chief of Staff? HOLY SHIT, AMERICA, YOU ARE NOW A FANFIC!

Ok, so I will pay actual currency to the person who writes the Entourage fic where Ari is all:

"You cocksucking motherhumping grandstanding ASSHOLE! It wasn't good enough you were a CONGRESSMAN, HUH? No, that's not fucking good enough. Why don't you just hop on a plane and fuck me up the ass with a fifteen inch dildo? Oh, you already did! Chief of motherfucking Staff to the first black President? How about you go all the way and declare mom's birthday Jew Day? That's your next trick, am I correct? Well fuck you, your fucking religious zealot wife, your fucking Capital Hill office, and your fucking dog! Don't expect a Hanukkah card this year, ASSHOLE!"

*throat clearing* "I appreciate your congratulations and will take them in the spirit with which I assume you intended them."

"Yeah, you do that, ass bandit! I meant them in the spirit of FUCK YOU." *throws phone against the wall* "LLOYD, get me one of the back up crackberries, stat, I need to call my fucking mother."

"Ari, don't say fuck in the same sentence as mother! What's wrong with you? Oh! Your brother's so dreamy! Will he visit? Oh my god, could he get us a White House invitation?"

"You're fired! Again!"

*

What? Even if it's not Emanuel, the other rumor is Daschle !!! Dude, Biden and Obama with Daschle or Emanuel running the west wing? Are you SHITTING ME?

That noise was me passing out.

ETA: "Fuck you. I love you." You know who's awesome? Yeah, THIS GUY!

Also, so the Huffpost is telling me that Richardson is on the shortlist for Sec of State, that Bobby Jr for head of the EPA, and they have some SERIOUSLY cracktastic possiblities for Sec of Defense (Petreus??? Hils? Keeping Gates? wtf, people? I nominate myself! next they'll nominate Borat for Homeland Security Pope--or whatever they call that shit) on top of the fact that idk if Powell would be willing to take one for the team and land in the Iraq quagmire--why ruin his historical rep for that, on the other hand he's Colin Powell, so who the fuck knows.

Earlier Howard Dean was on Chris Matthews being a chucklehead. I wonder how long he's going to last in his current position w/ the ascension of the new regime. Not well if Rahm takes the offered CoS pos since he hates Dean. Could be hilarious. Oh, Howard Dean, go back to your medical practice, you're wearing chum-scented cologne and the sharks are in the water now.

I'm so excited right now I'm making myself want to puke! If I was friends with me I'd be all "fucking walk away from Defamer and stop reading every article on the internet about Emanuel, you pervert!" But I would say it with love and ask me to read it out loud since I'm obsessed. That scenario didn't work out for either the fictional me or the real me.

I feel like maybe someone gave me a pill that brought me down about 60 IQ points.

Oh, look, I'm being enabled:



He's trying to decide who to kill first. I vote for Lindsey Graham--go, Rahm, go!

Ok, so now MSNBC is talking about Jesse Jackson Jr to fill Barack's Senate seat. Interesting.

Wow, it feels like...8 long fucking years since I gave a shit about American politics. Everything that's happened since Shrub was first elected has felt like the inevitable slide into ruination and futility. I would say my personal low point was the passage of the Homeland Security measures. I didn't need my civil rights anyway, thanks! I've never been a knee-jerk sort of patriot who hand waves away the harder truths of how our freedoms and rights and lifestyles were bought on the backs of our own citizens (many of whom we refused to call such) and the rest of the world. That being said, the last decade has been so very disheartening. All those years that people claimed that Nixon was the nadir, that Reagan was, had no idea how far we would sink, how fast, and how disgustingly. The Repugs used one of our greatest national tragedies against us, stealing it from us and warping it to their own ends. We let that happen out of fear and disillusionment.

I will be honest and admit I never thought we'd win this election. I truly believed the "democratic" process in the States was so derailed, that election fraud was so pervasive, that the Enemy would just steal it all again. I don't know what kind of world we'd have if the rightful man had moved into the White House eight years ago, and I was scared to picture a world where Barack Obama won this election. That's all truth, and it's horrible. It's horrible on many levels, one of which is that I'd given up so soundly on my own country. In regular life I'm a very hopeful believer of a person--when it comes to politics I always, always believe the abject worst. I'm a pragmatist and believe that all politicians are corrupt, that no one's pristine, that everyone has a skeleton--and I'm GOOD with that. I don't expect Caesar's wife to run of elected office in America. I believe in Obama and Biden enough that I feel like my shell has cracked. I don't think they're perfect, but they believe in many of the things I do, and that's enough. Will we agree on everything? No way, because I want a redo of ERA, the leftest activists in the known universe appointed to the Supreme Court, intervention in Darfur, immediate climate change action, and to bomb Utah...um, ok, maybe a fence?

Anyway, from my Rahm enabler (popnography) check out this ballet-dancing, Jewish, Sarah Lawrence grad who's about to take over the motherfucking White House. Please, step on the tarp for easier clean up after he eats your still-beating heart.

Who do you want to see in the Cabinet?