A Lot of Mess for One Post

The Big Move is now over.

In summary - I packed and moved out BY MYSELF for most of Saturday and early Sunday. My brother-in-law and sister came by Sunday morning to help with the mattress, desk and tv. By 10AM Sunday, my entire life was sitting in my sister’s garage.

Then, a pleasant surprise – my new (crazy) landlord was able to check in on Sunday, so I immediately began moving myself out of the garage, and into the new place.

I broke at 5pm to head downtown to run the Nike Human Race 10k (did anyone else do this race?) Despite the incredible muscles fatigue and 300-calorie day, I made it through almost 56:00 minutes, a few minutes off what I had hoped, but given the circumstance, I was cool with it.

Monday morning rolled around, and Cheese pulled into town.

And I SHIT YOU NOT – the man had AT LEAST 3x the stuff I did. As he rolled open the UHaul trailer, I almost choked him out after seeing the contents inside.

But alas, in the 92 degree weather, we got him moved in as well.

Tuesday I woke up, battered, terribly bruised and exhausted beyond anything I can remember (the only thing close was the day after Ironman). I took the day off to get stuff done, including a joint bank account (!) and unpacking.

So here we are.

Right now, things have been pretty much moving forward, getting used to the whole “there’s someone home when I get back at the end of the day.”

But the MAJOR thing that happened?

Part of being “all grows up” is having that discussion about “how not to waste money.” And after a long few days of, uh, ahem, “discussion,” it was decided that Ironman Madison ’09 would not be happening for me.

Cue the violins.

Apparently, there are BIG things planned for the ’09 year, and Ironman doesn’t quite fit into the plans. And as you can imagine, I pouted like a 5-year-old, cried, yelled, and threatened to break up if I didn’t get my way. At the end of the day, it was resolved, if not to my best liking, but I can accept it.

As for the rest of life – If you live in Illinois, then you have undoubtedly heard that the state’s child welfare department (AKA my job) just laid off 325 people (over 50% of my building alone). Not to mention the fact that they eliminate all funding of substance abuse programs (‘cause apparently these parents are going to get themselves clean – yeah right) - the fine governor is out to make a statement, and doing it at the expense of our children and their future.

And don’t even get my ass started on the ridiculous of this school boycott – honest to God it is just plain stupid. While you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees with equal education, some aldermen think that if you just throw more (of your tax) money at a problem (low graduation rate and high drop out rate), then we should have equal education. More money = problem solved, right? ‘Cause I mean, parental involvement, community poverty, and environmental stress of gangs and drugs surely had nothing to do with it.

But fuck personal responsibility - let’s just keep throwing money at an overly bureaucratic public school system so it can continue to be mismanaged, instead of addressing the wasteful spending, and putting the money towards more useful things, like CHILD WELFARE to help build and support communities and families – the same families that produce children that WANT to go to school and graduate.

I mean hell – who DOESN’T love to work more hours, just to have more of their money taken away and spent on programs that don’t work by individuals who are corrupt/dysfunctional/clueless/greedy?

Not you?

Huh.

(insert pause from me holding my tongue about November elections)

And a brief word before I head off to watch the RNC (and yes, I did watch the DNC too):

If your one of those people that are all, “Oh my god, Palin’s daughter is pregnant! How can she subject her daughter to the media? How can she ‘have it all’ by trying to be a mother and VP?”

Yo, seriously - Let it go.

First off, the girl’s pregnant. She had sex – oh holy shit. I mean, who out there wasn’t having sex as a teenager? Sure, she got herself knocked up, but is YOUR family perfect? Do you hold her mother responsible for the fact that her daughter has sex? Do you hold YOUR parents responsible for the fact that you had sex as a teen? Does it say anything about the character of YOUR own parents if you were having sex? Would you blame YOUR parents if you got pregnant? Probably not, I suspect.

Secondly, as for the “exposing” her daughter to the media – Obama brought his family to People magazine and ACCESS HOLLYWOOD.

Lemme say that again – ACCESS HOLLYWOOD.

Is nobody crying about Obama “exposing” his young young girls the flare of the media? He talks all, “Families are off limits,” but then splashes his family’s mugs all over tabloid media.

And finally – Can Palin do it all? Well, gee, I don’t know – can Obama? I mean, he has two young, young children as well – can he, as the potentially future leader of this country, be both a parent and leader?

Or any of the past Presidents, for that matter? Or was this question never raised because they were all men?

Isn’t that sort of a double standard?

Or do we still live in a world where a woman is the expected partner to stay at home and care for the family?

Well, that’s not really a progressive, liberal way of thinking, is it?

Just wondering.