Internets, too much flu for me this week and too much political b.s. at City Hall. But hey, we’re Portland, so be cool, would ya? Let’s all be cool and not talk about the real problems here. Let’s dance all around and pretend we’re not talking about what we’re really talking about. We can call each other names and then say, Just kidding! (And whisper, I hate that bitch.) We can listen to cocktail music and later, go to a strip club or two. Yeeeeeeeeeee-haw.

Our babysitter, last week: “Aw, it’s just, Sam was my guy!”
me: “Why?”
her, mulling it over: “You know… bikes… and everything…”
me: “Holy Christ. Are you for real here?”

Is there more “there” there? Integrity would be good. Let’s spread some of that around instead of the STDs. And don’t give me some crap about all politicians are corrupt, all couples sleep around on each other, everyone’s an asshole.

That is not true. You’re not that way, and I’m not that way. True? Or false? There are more of us with integrity out there than you would think. It’s just the unethical ones who get all the attention, not the ones quietly living their lives and trying to keep things under control.

Also, I’m a little aggravated with a certain local society blogger who’s all, Why are you such Puritans, Portlanders? Isn’t it cool our mayor is getting some? Isn’t that cool?

A lot of us are getting some, and we don’t need to find underage tail to make it happen. If something like this is happening right now in Mr. Adams’ life, when he should be acting like a grown man instead of a 17 year old — no, wait, the 17 year olds I know don’t play bullshit games like this — anyway. Chances are it’s a pattern. Chances are it, or a variation of it, will happen again.

If you have crazy shit like this (oh my God I don’t know how my dick slipped out of my pants! Where did you come from, dick?) going on in your life once you’ve hit your 40s — even when you’re in your 30s, or late 20s — you, my friend, have yourself a problem.

I’m not a compulsive gambler here, but I’m not betting on Sam Adams. If he truly had an ounce of integrity, he would step down from office and start over. But appearances, appearances, you know. Wouldn’t want to let go of the brass ring once you’ve stolen it.

Adams has snaked a number of people here, some of them my friends and associates. People have had to step down from their jobs. We don’t need any distractions here and I am feeling resentful. The chaos and bullshit and distractions. We’ve got issues to deal with — jobs. People not having homes. The schools. People going hungry. I don’t want the distractions, I want focus.

I try not to, I try to rise above it, but I do hold a grudge. To quote Karen Karbo, it keeps you warm at night.

Also, just to be completely aboveboard about things, even though almost twenty years have passed by, I still have a grudge against said society blogger. I have tried to forgive and I just can’t forget, and him coming to Sam Adams’ defense has reminded me of a sad, ugly chapter in my life where he also tried to cover for someone else. And have a good laugh about it at the same time. I don’t really feel like writing about it, I don’t know if I ever will. I didn’t want to ever think about it again. I’m ready to move on. Let’s just say — patterns. Same old bullshit. And Portland is a small town, still. There is one degree of separation here, and sometimes not even that much.

Then my minister comes along with, is Adams “truly repenting?” And I’m thinking, Holy Christ, minister, are you for real here? Because if I’m being an asshole all week long, then come Saturday I’m confessing and sobbing, and I’m purified in the blood of the lamb on Sunday, then come Monday, back to being an asshole, that still makes me…

Ready?

An asshole.

So maybe when that dawns on you, you should deal with your shit and perhaps consider never being an asshole again. And maybe trying to serve as mayor of a fair-sized city while you’re doing this kind of soul-searching is a little bit of a conflict. A drain. Maybe you should just work on your shit for awhile and then take on some bigger tasks after that. Maybe Adams should work a blue-collar job for awhile and see how the other half lives.

I hear he likes gardening. Maybe a landscaping crew would train him up for awhile. Good luck having enough money left over on payday to buy food, but maybe your friends will have you over for soup.

During times when you really want to act like an asshole, you can usually see the patterns emerging, and past childhood trauma comes knocking at the door. Demons rise up and slap the shit out of you and you really, really want to pretend you’re 17 again and be irresponsible but you know what? You’ve got to work through it. You’ve got to rise above it.

“Keep passing the open windows.”
— John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

Someone left me a note in comments asking so Wacky Mommy, you uptight snatch, hysterical much? (cuz adding that word, “much,” makes the sentence extra-extra tangy and original) and I’m thinking, You have no idea.

So. So, so, so. Exile on Main Street?

Indeed.

Now that’s cocktail music.

This one is sweet because Mick Taylor is in it. And Charlie is wearing stripedy pants. You know how much I love stripedy. And Mick’s smile, when he flashes it, lights up the whole place.

(Even though that one is on Sticky Fingers, not Exile on Main Street.)

That’s Portland’s mayor.

Sam Adams, the Brave New Mayor of Portland, gave a little press conference this afternoon. It gave me a raging headache, which is better than a raging something else, I suppose, which appears to be Sam Adams’ problem.

1) His press conference interrupted my Obama-thon and really, there is no excuse. He is Obama, Sam. You are just some idiot.

2) Well, the rumors were flying during the Adams’ campaign, about his “mentoring” relationship with a young intern. Did he screw a minor? No, of course not. He waited until he turned 18. Oh, sure. I feel a lot better about it now.

I don’t care if it was consensual. What I care about is that he was a kid. Eighteen is still a kid. What I care about is that when grown-ups sexually abuse children and young adults, whether it’s taking advantage of a situation (one extreme) or going in for the kill (the other extreme), they damage something in the other person.

You can damage a person’s heart and soul. You can damage their bodies. That body is not yours to take — it is theirs. May we be clear on this? It is not your body to take.

This is true of adult-on-adult situations, too. (And by “situations,” I mean the whole gamut — from taking advantage of someone because they’ve had too much to drink to doing serious bodily harm to a person.) You can harm another adult, and I might hate you for it, but when you harm a kid, you are a special kind of bastard to me.

Now you want… what, Sam? Forgiveness? You made sure you lied, you made sure that the other person lied, you made sure you got into office and now you want forgiveness? You’re not at church on Sunday morning, hon. Don’t pull a Jimmy Swaggart here, “I have sinned,” etc.

Don’t be that fucked up. You need to figure things out, and I need my city run by someone who’s not in some kind of midlife crisis, thinking he’s a teenager, having some hott teenage sex. You are a grown man. You are my age.

The Brave Little Toaster is much, much braver than our allegedly Brave Little Mayor. So. So, so, so. A note:

Dear Sam,

You said in your press conference that if the people of Portland asked for you to resign, you would. I’m asking, and I’m not the only one. The 900 cops in this town are asking you, too. Politely.

Love and kisses,

Wacky Mommy

Sgt. Scott Westerman, president of the Portland Police Association, tells Willamette Week that Adams’ admitted coverup of the 2005 affair with Beau Breedlove revealed “a dramatic lack of integrity.”

“What would happen if a police officer befriended a 17-year-old cadet, or a high-school girl, and waited until the second she turned 18 to nail her?” Westerman says. “This is the mayor of our city. This is supposed to be the person who dictates the culture.”

Yick.

Honey. Get to stepping.

If I could clone myself I would. One of me would go to work, one would have a spa day, one could keep all my appointments and one could go volunteer at the kids’ school, have lunch with them and give them a lift home.

here are bullets for you…

* It has been a crazy few months.

* I am starting a second new job, because why work just one job when you can work two? (They are both half-time.) (That equals one full-time job, which you math teachers out there probably already figured out.)

* Reading: Harry Potter 5, Everything on a Waffle, Jacob Have I Loved, more Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

* I have no appetite, yet am barely losing any weight.

* Our female guppy died, our male guppy, one of the leopard catfish, one of the neon tetras. The shrimp is doing fine, as are the blackskirt tetras, the rest of the neons, and the ugly, despicable snails.

* “Maybe those guppies had some issues” — Wacky Girl

* “Mom, why is it usually skinny people who are on Weight Watchers?” — Wacky Girl, as she balances on my exercise ball.

* “Hey! That’s very personal!” — Wacky Girl

* Friday Night Lights is REVIVED and back on NBC in just half an hour. Gotta go, Spocky.

xxox

wm

I speak broken English, mostly. “Nekkid” for “naked”; “Who dat?” for “Hello, this is Nancy, to whom am I speaking?” when I answer the phone. “I’m not playing these little fuck-fuck games” for “Please, you will cease and desist bothering me. Thank you.”

I would love to be fluent in Spanish. Hell (or “hail,” as my Arkansas-born mama says it), I would love to be fluent in English. I can understand Spanish, sometimes. Bits and pieces. I can get the gist of what someone is trying to say. My comprehension is OK, but when I speak it? Oh, man, do I get shy. My daughter attended an incredible Head Start program for one year of preschool. About half of the parents were native Spanish speakers, and the program coordinator was starting up an English class for them. Would I like to attend?

“You can work on your Spanish, they can work on their English,” she suggested.

I was too shy to even try.

Another time, we had a craft project, working on goody bags to send home with the families. Would I like to sew with them? They brought in 6 or 8 sewing machines, and were planning to fill the goody bags with all kinds of items to send home. (Enough for every family, so no one felt singled out.) I’m shy about my Spanish, but I am super-shy about my sewing and knitting. So I dropped off my requested donation of tangerines and candy and left, making an excuse about having to be somewhere else.

I tell you this now because I wish I had stuck around. I took two years of Spanish in high school, two years in college, and am now trying to practice my Spanish as much as I can. (We live in a neighborhood where Spanish has become the second language.)

So. So, so, so… along comes an item in the New York Times about a councilman’s proposed ballot measure “to limit Nashville government workers to communicating only in English.”

I like second languages. And third languages, and fourth. Use what you’ve got.

I, Wacky Mommy, am officially announcing the following:

Spanish shall be adopted nationwide as America’s official second language.

?Por que no? (That means: Why not?) It’s worked well for Canada, with French and English. It’s worked well for the rest of the world for (fill in the native tongue) and English. People around the world speak English. We have a lot of Spanish speakers here in the states.

(My late uncle, shocked: “Whites are the minority in California now!” me: “Heh heh heh.”)

We could at least attempt to keep up by learning some basic conversational Spanish. I’m all about bilingual signage. Why not?

And Nashville? Maybe it’s time to brush up on your language skills.

You know what I haven’t done all week?

* taken a breath
* watched TV
* spent any time with my own children
* read enough Harry Potter 5
* fed the cats (my daughter has, though — don’t worry!)
* STUDIED
* “dealt with” the laundry
* BLAWGGED

So, that’s what I will do this weekend. You?

wm

PS — our blogs were down for an indeterminate amount of time, i heard from Hockey God. Sorry. We good?

happy almost weekend.

xxox

wm

“Don’t call me shrill, ho.”

The last time I was called shrill, hmm, let’s see. Hmm, hmmm, hummers! That was it! My boss wanted me to blow him and I wouldn’t.

Then one of the other managers (female, unbelievably enough. Oh, wait. Naw, I can believe it) wanted me to explain myself. Apparently he thought blow jobs were part of my job description, complained to her, she was dispatched to “deal” with “the situation.”

“It’s just, you don’t usually sound so… shrill,” she told me.

So forgive me, Anna Griffin, that I am a little “p.o’ed” at you for calling our recently-elected City Commissioner “shrill.”

Steve just wrote a good post about said column. Then told me, “Doesn’t matter, all their links go dead after two weeks, anyway.” So I won’t bother giving them a link. But I’ll give him one. A link! Settle down, now.

Dear World (and by “world” I mean the 14 people out there who still read me),

So. So, so, so.

It is Sunday, January 4th, 2009.

We have a new president moving into the White House pretty soon.

Things are a mess in Gaza. Israel, I would like to ask you: While the rest of us are talking “hope” and “change” and “substance” in the new year, why do you feel the need to kill others? Please stop now. Obama seems to be pretty pro-Israel, pro-hawk, yes? Wanting to hunt down Bin-Laden and all. Maybe Israel is wanting to get in a few punches now, just in case they’re not allowed to later?

Unfortunately, as hopeful as I am about the new American administration, I think Israel is going to continue to be allowed to do whatever the hell they want to do. Israel = bully.

Why is it that while our nation’s schools are focused on policies of no-bullying, no physical violence, no verbal, sexual or mental abuse, no murder, certainly, the grown-ups can’t follow suit? Do as I say not as I do, aiiiiight?

The year my daughter started kindergarten, one of the first-graders wore a button everywhere that said

PUNCHING

with a black line drawn through it.

“Who gave you that, K?” I asked him.

He was all, aw shucks, smiley. “My teacher.”

Smart teacher.

No punching. Just love. And hope for a better world.

I have been meditating, writing in my journal and studying every day. It has helped with the chaos.

After a long, sometimes bumpy winter break (ice, snow, rain, snow, snow, sunshine, flooding, ice), we are heading back to school and work tomorrow. I’m thinking 6 a.m. should be pretty fun, especially since I’ve been sleeping until 9, 10, 10:30 a.m. every day for almost three weeks. Whatever it takes, that’s what I’m saying.

I saw on the news that the Estacada Library underwent a ton of damage (to books, computers, building) during the most recent bout of flooding. If you have a few dollars to spare, I know they would appreciate it.

Estacada Public Library
825 NW Wade
Estacada, OR 97023

peace,

wm

Look for Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters in the background on the second song.

Happy weekend, y’all.

love,

wm