calling all brainiac word people

Is not today the perfect day for lounging around doing puzzles?

Blog buddy Orange Tangerine wrote today's NYT crossword. So if you don't have the NYT in hand, run out and get one (or better yet, ask someone else to do it for you). If your near and dear are lazy ingrates, you can surf over to the NYT crossword site, which (speaking of ingrates) costs money. But then apparently a month's worth of access costs .95 more than a hard copy of the NYT anyway, so.

I'm not smart enough to even tackle the thing, but I'll bet a few people reading here are. Especially if you've read her book. You guys might also wanna follow her crossword blog.

Happy 4th

I heart the 4th. Summer weather, outside food, and fireworks. It doesn't get any better.

Enjoy.

IOU

Hi, everybody. We're fucked. Just wanted you all to know that.

OTOH, it really is beautiful weather outside. And if you're inclined to want to get out into it and skip reading a longish blog post, then I recommend just scrolling to the bottom and marking the five numbered posts, which I didn't write, for reading later.

I have been not-blogging the CA budget crisis because really, what is there to say? The state is generally agreed to be ungovernable, so much so that I'm ashamed to say I've done basically nothing calling-representatives-wise about any of it. It sucks that the parks are going to be closed,* and I understand the damage that'll do, but I also know that the money situation is acute and it's gotta give somewhere. Ditto cuts to education funding, health insurance for the poor, broader social services, and all the rest of it. So I haven't bothered to do anything other than shrug my shoulders and wonder what the long-term effects are going to be.

My uninformed predictions are that as state workers continue to take huge pay cuts (currently at 14%; 8%, I understand, for University of CA faculty), teachers don't get re-hired (including, I predict, the teacher Pseudonymous Kid was to have next year, which is a pity because she has a ton of energy and did some awesome stuff with her class this year and because I like her a lot), and state contractors have to start laying people off, we'll see more people being unable to pay their mortgages, hence foreclosures, hence an even further drop in real estate prices, hence more people ending up underwater and more businesses shutting their doors, hence even further drops in state revenue. Catch-22.

And of course, even if state workers continue working for free because there is already too much work and not enough staffing, the demand for state services will only increase. It's not hyperbolic to say that there will certainly be people who will die because of all this: nearly one million children will lose health coverage (.pdf), 10% of the state's spending on child welfare will go (.pdf),** the elderly are losing health care services.

So, given that I believe all this but haven't gone up to Sacramento this summer to protest or lobby, am I part of the problem? You know, I'm really not buying that I, or that "Californians" as a group, are responsible for this bullshit. Yes, the voters have passed a lot of bullshit propositions without clearly understanding their impact on budgeting and running the state--but come on, you can't honestly expect individual voters to be experts in state funding.

Yes, we passed (among other things) Prop 13, which has crippled our revenue stream for the past forty years, and people continue to resist the idea of repealing it because we feel that our property taxes are too high. But ironically (and almost certainly intentionally on Jarvis's part) we're right: the biggest effect of Prop 13 is that corporate real estate taxes are astonishingly low and individual homeowners' property taxes are actually higher, because corporations hold onto property much longer than individuals do. But again, it's not really reasonable to expect individuals to think about that sort of thing, since the property taxes the voters have to deal with are the ones on their homes. (Which by the way, the lower real estate prices get, the lower the property tax rate that gets locked in by anyone buying now--whether homeowners or corporations--another hidden effect of the crisis that's going to have repercussions for years to come.)

And yes, an even worse problem is that we--or rather our legislators--can't pass a budget without a 2/3rds majority, *and* they're required to balance the budget. Both of which, again, sound like good ideas if you don't know a lot about state funding issues: after all, a 2/3rds majority suggests that any budget that gets passed will be broadly acceptable to the majority of the voters who elected the legislators, right? And a balanced budget always sounds like a good, responsible idea. Or so one would imagine.

But we have these budget crises over and over and over again. It's not surprising, then, that the voters feel like "the government" is broken (it is) and that somehow the legislators are to blame (they're not, really, despite the fact that the Republicans are being intransigent assholes). Or that this feeling leads to our voting for even *more* propositions that tie the legislature's hands, or voting against necessary suspensions of mandates, even though passing them might have helped. Or that it buttresses both anti-government reactionaries and passive bystanders.

It's some catch, that Catch-22.

The only solution that will work, some say, is a constitutional convention to rewrite some of those rules. I think this is probably right. Not that there's any guarantee that a new constitution would be better, and god knows the fear that it might be worse is terrifying.

If you're still reading, and have any interest in understanding how CA's legislature works and what the entrenched problems are, I strongly recommend the CA budget-related posts over at the Edge of the American West. Which I provide here in chronological order (that is, reverse blog order) for your reading . . . pleasure.

1. Decline and Fall
2. "This State is Days Away from a Budget Collapse" (note that this was written back in February)
3. Partisanship and Budget Crises (This might be the most interesting for those who are interested in partisanship and governance. It also makes a good case that Prop 13, which most of us like to say is *the* biggest problem in CA, isn't.)
4. How We Got Here: Thoughts on the State of California
5. California's Crisis and the Collapse of the Republican Party (I found this one really interesting by way of understanding what the hell has happened since the days of my grandparents' Eisenhower Republicanism.)



*Though maybe not.

**Both pdfs taken from the California Budget Project, which is a pretty good site for the wonkily-inclined.

Mawiage

It's sort of ironic that the reason I'm actually sitting down to write this is because I'm not running an Important Errand because Mr. B. left the lights on in the car (again) and it didn't start, and of course I wasn't leaving on Important Errand until fifteen minutes before the destination location closed, so I am basically fucked, which actually I would be okay with but Mr. B. has a bug up his ass about how Important Errand HAS to be done TODAY.

So, instead, I have time to finally talk about why I loved Sandra Tsing-Loh's piece about her divorce, and why all the gossip and schadenfreude about Mark Sanford kind of depresses me and, while we're at it, why I thought it was really crappy, the criticism that Edmund Andrews got a while back because, in his book about the subprime mortgage crisis and his own bad mortgage, he didn't talk about his wife's bankruptcy.

Look. Anyone who has spent five minutes on the internet knows that any time someone writes honestly about their personal life, everyone and their dog is going to jump up and down and DEMAND to know more, or pontificate about why the author is CLEARLY a BAD PERSON. Or, what's worse, how the other people in the author's life--their wife, their husband, their children--are either idiots or victims or both.

(Which that last is really obviously shitty, people. I mean, even if you think that by virtue of writing about one's life one is inviting criticism, *clearly* the non-authorial characters aren't.)

But let's be honest. If you are an adult, and you have ever in your life had a relationship with another human being, you know damn well that you have made mistakes, that the other person has made mistakes, that people get hurt and friends have tiffs and partners have problems. (And if you don't know this, then I don't care how old you are, you're not an adult.)

And the point of that kind of writing, or one point, is that it is beneficial to be honest about the human condition. Especially if, like Tsing-Loh, you can do so graciously. Because life *isn't* a crystal stair, dammit, and Cinderella stories are fantasies. This is a feminist point, though you don't need to be a feminist to embrace it; which is why I think it's extra-shitty of feminists to crucify people for this kind of honesty, by the way. We know that the Ideal Mother doesn't exist; and most of us, though we adore our children, definitely have moments (or months) when we loathe everything having to do with them.

And marriage is the same way. I mean, really: is anyone surprised to hear Tsing-Loh say that many of her friends in long marriages with children are finding that "the passion" is on the back burner?? That after twenty years, she

can pick up our girls from school every day; I can feed them dinner and kiss their noses and tell them stories; I can take them to their doctor and dentist appointments; I can earn my half—sometimes more—of the money; I can pay the bills; I can refinance the house at the best possible interest rate; I can drive my husband to the airport; in his absence, I can sort his mail; I can be home to let the plumber in on Thursday between nine and three, and I can wait for the cable guy; I can make dinner conversation with any family member; I can ask friendly questions about anybody’s day; I can administer hugs as needed to children, adults, dogs, cats; I can empty the litter box; I can stir wet food into dry.

Which is to say I can work at a career and child care and joint homeownership and even platonic male-female friendship. However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.

She says that this is a "failure," and so it is. It's a failure in terms of our idea of what A Good Marriage is Supposed to be. But maybe that failure isn't, in fact, a personal one.

The Good Marriage is Supposed to be:

sexually monogamous
between one man and one woman (even though, or rather because, men and women Are Different)
for their entire lives
begun early enough that they can have children, plural, (if they want to), without having to go through infertility treatment
passionate, again, for their entire lives
respectful at all times
mutually supportive, at all times
economically successful
able to accommodate two careers, if so desired
a friendship
something you "work" at, but it's not supposed to feel like work
flirty--but only with each other
not jealous
a PIllar of Society

Marriage should be like the early days of dating + the settled feeling of being "a couple" + a true partnership + a friendship + exciting + comfortable + productive (of kids, of material goods). People shouldn't get married "too young," but they certainly shouldn't wait "too long." They should both want to have passionate sex with each other whenever the other person wants to, but not when the other person doesn't, and god knows we don't want to see married people acting like teenagers in public places: holding hands is cute, and so are sweet chaste kisses, but come on! Especially if you already have children!

You mustn't fight--not in public, not in front of the children, and not so the neighbors can hear you. Certainly not in front of guests or friends. In fact, not only mustn't you fight, but you mustn't even act tense lest it make others uncomfortable. If one of you is abusive, then why does the other one put up with it???--but divorce, of course, is a Terrible Thing. Unless we've known all along that that person was bad for you, or that you were a terrible couple, or that the relationship was doomed, in which case for god's sake why didn't you divorce years ago? In fact, why did you get married in the first place?? We tried to tell you.

We also tried to tell you that that two careers thing wasn't going to work--you hardly spent any time together. It also doesn't work when one of you subsumes your life in the other person's career, though--I mean, don't you feel your masculinity is threatened? Isn't it your own fault that you don't have any savings or retirement or interests of your own now that he's left you/died/the children have moved out? Anyway, marriage is a total tool of patriarchy. And while we're at it, are you going to change your name or not?

If you're gay and you (want to) get married, you're just being assimilationist. And if your marriage ends, then not only are you a personal failure, but you've Undermined the Cause. Anyway, given how fucked up marriage is, why do you want to have anything to do with it? Except that oh right, we want you to save it for us, because god knows we've fucked it up. Unless of course your getting married is going to fuck it up even worse, in which case, forget it.

Marriage is a sacrament. It was ordained by god. It's a secular institution, which should include tax benefits and health insurance because it promotes stability and because financial benefits not only incentivize marriage but make it easier for spouses to support each other in hard times. But that's not fair to single people! So really, marriage shouldn't convey any benefits whatsoever--but you don't get to complain about the emotional or financial burdens of marriage, because after all, you chose to do it.

NOT that that means you can choose *how* you do it. Because your weird, unconventional marriage makes other people uncomfortable, and plus it sets a bad example for the children, who might think that it's okay to live that way. Which it isn't.

....

So yeah. I loved it that Sandra Tsing-Loh had the huevos to write about the end of her marriage, and to do so in a way that "depressed" people by saying that (duh) even really good marriages sometimes end, in part because maintaing a Really Good Marriage is virtually an impossible task.

Which isn't to say that staying married, or having a good enough marriage, or loving someone your whole life is impossible. Just that by and large, when it happens, it doesn't usually look the way outsiders--or even the people in it--expect it to.

And you know, if some of us can admit that about our own marriages? Maybe the rest of you could have the manners to admit that you don't know everything, too.

ding and doom

I couldn't sleep last night.
At M-'s place, I tossed and turned, waking up at 2, 3, 4 and finally 5 am. I dressed, got my bag together and sat back on the bed waiting for M- to turn over. He walked me downstairs and gave me a big hug, whispering, 'Things will be ok today. They'll be ok.'

I think I mumbled 'I know,' or something inadequate, and walked to the bus that would take me to the train that would take me home.

I'm at work now and everyone is silent. There's no chit chat. No 'Hey, what did you do last night?' Just silence.

I hope I get my pink slip by noon so I can go home and cry in private. (I haven't cried this whole month; I've been tamping down my emotions just so I could get through this and get the work done. Rather, I've been letting my anger float up. But something's bound to crack.)

I've also decided that I'm done with the non profit sector. My search strategy will be to Embrace Evil, to identify and work for the most badass corporate entity I can find in the region, make an obscene (for me) amount of money and not look back. Maybe I'll even change my political party and sell out completely. Hell, I'm almost 40; time for a change.

Really. I'm done.
Suggestions welcome.

For the win

FDL has the best Franken/Coleman post.

Love and Chemistry

Like a hair floating in the rich broth of Dr Sybil Vane's satisfying post, S. Tsing Loh's article put me right off my feed. Could have been the chemicals, I guess. The chemicals in me, I mean, not the chemicals in Loh's article.
I've been taking on a lot of chemicals lately, lowering pails of compounds and distillates. The procedure is to take on chemicals for a few days. Then discharge chemicals for a few days.
Then, follows a period of reflection where I spend a few days reviewing my sins and thinking about naked women.
Then the cycle begins again.
There's a posset made from craisins and spent uranium fuel rods that is particulary ghastly.

There's another of ball bearings marinated in a sauce of potato squeezings and evaporated rocket fuel drained from Titan missles dismantled under the terms of the Salt II agreement, pureed and filtered through an old Robin Hood flour sack, boiled in a pot of radioactive algae, then forced through my kidney by a bicycle pump run by the power-take-off of a 1949 Model M Farmall tractor.
Tasty but it leaves a glick in the mouth. Jackets the tongue in fur. Or hair.
There are some other compotes brewed from the table of elements but they're all named for various Greek gods of sodomy and hair so we'll skip over them for now.
Hair is the hostage of these shocking cocktails. I buzzed mine off to spare all the shock of it falling out in hanks before the long bar of alchemy. A homlier sight you cannot imagine.
Naturally, this is a source of hilarity for my so-called friends and family. Poco claims he can see a likeness of some cartoon figure on the top of my pate. I would whip that child if I had the strength to chase him down. And get aholt of him. And whip him.
So, you will understand that I am sensitive on the topic of chemicals. And hair. Especially hair.

Side Note: I'm told the hair grows back differently after the chemical sluicing. Thicker. Different colors, even. My hair is (was) a salt and pepper hue. Mostly pepper.

OK, OK. Mostly salt. I've requested that it be restored in a chestnut or russet tint. Lots of waves. I'll let you know how that works out.

Which brings me back to Sandra Tsing Loh's article. And the chemicals of love.

She lists a taxonomy of types of attraction and their associated chemicals. You've read the article. I won't go over it here. I would only ask; what chemicals are being fed to the lads in the Loh circle? Cause they are not doing the trick. All the married men of her acquaintance have stopped making love to their wives. Or anybody, so far as can be known. I'd call that bad chemistry.
She concludes that domestication is the enemy of copulation and offers certain proposals, none of which I disagree with, for improving contemporary household arrangements. I especially endorse her tribal proposal for child-rearing; turning the kid over to a household of related women-folk. That's the scheme we've hit on here and it works pretty well, not only for the little kid but for me, too.

Suddenly, I feel a deep fatigue. And all this talk of chemicals is making my stomach lurch.

If you don't mind, I'm going to post what I have so far and take a nap. I know I should wait to post till I have this piece completed but, you know, life is uncertain.
I'll holler.

Infinite Fluff

1. I was just in the cafe downstairs getting breakfast. Usually I get a sandwich and take it to go, and eat it at my desk upstairs. But I decided to get an omelette, and since I idiosyncratically hate eating off plastic when the food in question requires a fork, I answered "for here" when the guy asked me "for here or to go?" Several minutes later, I noticed that he was prepping the to-go plate, probably because I always get my food "to go" and so he heard "to go" even though that's not what I said. Not wanting to embarrass the guy or express displeasure as it was a reasonable mistake, I said "actually, I'd like to get it "for here"--can I?" as if I'd changed my mind, though I'd wanted it that way all along. The guy said sure. The woman next to me, turned to me, smiled, and said in a conspiratorial tone: "You're a woman, you can change your mind." I looked at her quizzically, gave a fake half-hearted chuckle, and turned back toward the guy preparing my food. Not content with my brush-off, she repeated herself. "You know, you're a woman! You can change your mind!"

"Uh. Men can't?"
"Nope, only women!" (Laughs loudly)

What in the flying fuck, people? What on earth was this supposed to mean? Was I supposed to laugh at this mutual dig at our gender--oh, those women, so indecisive! Was it supposed to be some kind of shared joke pointing the finger at the invisible men who get irritated with indecisive women?

The cafe never fails to entertain.

2. I'm so in love with this video and I want you all to see it.



3. Last night I cleaned out my purse-messenger-bag-thingy in preparation for my trip today. It's this ritual I go through every time I travel--somehow, carrying around tons of random crap every single day for months while I'm at home in Chicago is just fine, but I have to pare down to the bare essentials the minute I leave the city. And lately, I've been obsessively writing lists. List of jobs, lists of things to do, lists of purchases I've made, lists of my favorite blogs, lists of items in my pantry (a post I never put up). And so I did a bag inventory, and it's a fascinating picture of the general discombobulation that my mostly professional exterior hides. I like looking over each item, examining it, sorting everything into three piles (essential--keep in bag; trash--throw away; important--put somewhere that's not in my bag), having memories. Even from the last two months. And so, without further ado, I bring you the most boring thing that has ever been published on this blog: these are the belongings I've been carrying every day, on my person, for the last several months since the last time I did this. Think of it as a companion piece to Sybil's meditation on place and home--this is a meditation on things.

1 black wallet
1 Canon A550 digital camera
1 Sony Digital Voice Recorder ¹
1 bottle allergy eye drops--generic ²
1 bottle generic ibuprofen--200 mg tablets
21 individual 200 mg ibuprofen pills, scattered in bottom of bag ³
4 tampax pearl regular tampons
3 generic walgreens-brand tampons
$2.87 in change
$1 in bills
1 sharpie; 1 yellow highlighter ⁴
1 lighter (purple)
1 doctor's referral to dermatologist ⁵
1 3-way Radioshack adapter
2 traffic citations, dated 4/11/09 (illegal u-turn; failure to produce insurance)⁶
1 parking ticket, dated 5/11/09 (expired plates) ⁷
1 notice from gas company ⁸
4 nametags bearing my name ⁹
1 business card from court reporter from deposition, 6/25/09
1 business card from veronica, "bra fit specialist"
1 yellow legal pad with 14 pages of notes from deposition, 6/25/09
5 plastic thermometer covers ¹⁰
1 Minneapolis bus schedule #540
1 bus ticket, Minneapolis to Chicago, 6/21/09
1 file folder with 2 federal complaints and 3 motions for class certification ¹¹
1 petition for a refund signed by 47 bus passengers ¹²
3 earrings (2 which match each other)
1 cherry chapstick
1 deconstructed red pen in 6 pieces
1 Tide stain remover pen (purchased 2007)
1 pair headphones
1 Washington Mutual checkbook with 10 checks and an empty ledger ¹³
2 dead batteries
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor by Sudhir Venkatesh ¹⁴
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon ¹⁵
1 6x9 spiral notebook in which I am writing this list
1 mini 3x4 notebook containing: various addresses in Dearborn, MI, to-do list dated 4/14/09, notes from Rogers Park town hall meeting.

¹ Which I have used only once since I bought it, but keep carrying in hopes that I will.

² The first eyedrops I have ever taken, purchased when I broke down after 5 days of cat-and-makeup induced puffy eyes. They work.

³ Spilled on approx. 5/10/09

⁴ Highlighter stuck in there to use highlighting those briefs that come later. Dunno what the Sharpie's for.

⁵ When will they stop insisting on biopsy-ing my fucking moles? I don't have cancer, yo.

⁶ Total fines: $135. Dignity loss: infinite.

⁷ Shit, I need to pay this. They got me while my car was in the O'Hare parking lot while I was on vacation.

⁸ See.

⁹ From various functions and conferences and receptions I am required to attend.

¹⁰ Came with the basal metabolic thermometer I purchased to attempt to track my ovulation. Did you know that BBT is remarkably consistently? Nearly every single morning at 6:00 am, my temperature is exactly 97.18 degrees. It's freakishly uncanny.

¹¹ Can you see what's missing? Yup, that's what I'm supposed to have been writing for the last 3 weeks or so. I keep planning on doing research on the train or at night when I can think. It keeps not happening.

¹² The bus must have been over 90 degrees. The air conditioning wasn't working. It was a warm day. There was no ventilation, you couldn't open the windows. It was one of the more hellish experiences of my life. I am not pleased with you, MegaBus. Not pleased at all. That shit was dangerous.

¹³ Does anyone write enough personal checks to even need to keep track of them anymore?

¹⁴ Book's a few years old, but goddamn is it good. It sounds like some very heavy sociological tome, but it's just a big book full of stories about the way people make a living, get by, forge alliances, and deal with the total abdication of responsibility by the government in a poor south side Chicago neighborhood.

¹⁵ Been carrying this in my bag for a month, just started reading a couple days ago. Not only do I have a massive crush on Hemon, but holy crap this is the perfect plane read book for someone who generally hates plane-reading books. Gripping, intelligent, artfully written without being too Eggers-y. Prediction: finished by 8 pm tonight.

Not with a bang but a wimper

Dear Universe -

Are you a regular reader here? I like to think so. If so, you should know, there went my house. It's not mine anymore. It belongs to some nice people who seem to do a lot of good deeds and who work for non-profits. I don't know if they recycle, but they seem decent. And eager.

Universe, I am exhausted. I can haz sleep now? For a month or more?

It's only been 4 years and change in this house. Not much in the scheme of, well, you. But it's my daughter's whole life. We made her in China, in the most clinical sense, but she made who she is here. She learned to talk and to walk and to annoy the ever-living shit out of me, as well as to make me giggle like a preschooler. And we made another life-potential here, but that one got stuck in a fallopian tube. I wrote a mediocre dissertation here. I fought with my husband and my parents and my girlfriends here. I loved all those people here. I made my friends play Wii games on New Year's Eve. I made them lots of chili and made them root for the Steelers. I watched Andre Agassi's last match. I made a lot of promises. I made disastrous carrot muffins once. I also made some Thanksgiving dinners and woke up to Christmas morning. I spent a lot of hours burning my crotch with a laptop, making internet friends. I made a lot of syllabi. I made travel plans. I made decisions. I made some bad decisions, but I made everything I recognize as my adult life right here.

I made, I made, I made.

But not 'I am.' If, Universe, you have some free energy, help me remember over the next few weeks that it's not that I am this space. I just made it something. And I can make the next one something. And I can let the next one make us into something a little older, maybe a little fatter, but still recognizable.

Now: do I dare to take a nap? Or do I have to start braving boxes again?

ding in the land of asshats

It has been a while, poppets. If you've been catching my apoplectic Tweets, you know I can't even get myself together enough to craft a fine piece of writing. Instead, I'm going to vent:

1. Our state legislature is a collection of ignorant, do-nothing boobs who'd rather protect their election prospects than actually get some work done. Unfair characterization? Perhaps. But when you have a budget crisis and only spend ONE frakking day during an emergency session at the capitol and you STILL haven't come to a resolution, then you're frakking useless and incompetent.

(I’m looking at y'all, Governor Quinn, Sspeaker Madigan, Leaders Cullerton, Radogno and Cross! Swear to god, you all deserve a flaming bag of poo.)

2. When they're tired, elected officials can be alarmingly candid. From a GOP legislator: 'Every organization in the state could call us but it still wouldn't matter. People who work in social services vote Democrat; people who use their services tend to vote Democrat. What's in it for us to go your way?' Niiiiice. Frakking useless.

3. The women I work with are awesome. For a month, I’ve been holed up in our 'situation' room, hammering out implementation strategies to save our agency with two other women who are, frankly, awesome. They're smart, feisty, no bullshit and when we disagree we always find a workable compromise. (I’m so angry I advocate more for the 'scorched earth' strategy and they're more for the 'let's work this out' strategy.)

We swing wildly from hope that all this work will bear fruit and we will successfully lobby our legislators to get off their asses to do the right thing to despair that everything we're doing still isn't enough to counteract the massive amount of apathy and partisan bullshit in Springfield. We are not pros at grassroots organizing but I find it amusing to see us suddenly adopting some of its practices.

Our COO worked on the Obama campaign and she comes into the situation room at least a couple of times a day to give us some coaching, some encouragement and tell us stories from the campaign to inspire us - and it works. She rocks. I've already told her, 'When I lose my job, I will need your advice on what to do next and how to get in someone's office.'

She said, 'When folks hear you're on the market, you won't need my help.'

If we're all laid off in the next week or so, we've all promised to convene regularly as Ladies of the Day - slightly bitter, exhausted, depressed, over-educated women who kick ass while being momentarily at loose ends.

4. The people who inhabit our political process are the worst things about it. This isn't some fake cynicism on display here. This is what I’ve honestly seen during the past few months. I used to love watching politics; I loved the drama, the snark, the 'gotcha'-ness. But it's only when you connect the dots, and see that what happens in the political arena actually trickles down and materially impacts a life (or hundreds of thousands of lives), that you realize the people we have elected have cheapened the whole process.

It's a wonderful thing when a farmer downstate can walk into his state rep's office and say his piece and that aide or rep will listen to him. This is the beauty of our state political process. It really is that down home. (By the way, how many of y'all have visited the district office of your local rep?)

But there's another side to it that infuriates me. In Illinois, at issue is a now $9.2 billion deficit budget that the general assembly has chosen not to address. Instead, at the end of the regular session it ignored its responsibility and chose to send a 50% lump sum budget to the governor that basically decimated all of human services. The budget solves nothing, except to put the governor in the uncomfortable position of signing a budget that will turn Illinois into Mississippi.

Here's the infuriating part: they know that.

They know the 50% lump sum budget is a bad idea. They know it doesn't solve the deficit; they know that without revenue, the deficit gets worse; they know the impact of a decimated human services sector on their districts. They know there are structural problems that need to be fixed in this budget and still no one makes a move. For some reason, they think the veto session will bring a magical Resolution Fairy and then they'll find the money to solve the problem.

What they're really doing is keeping their eyes on the 2010 elections and hoping to do nothing that will endanger their seats.

Ask each side what they're going to do about this crisis and they shrug and say the same thing. 'We have ideas,' they say. 'But the other guys don't want to hear them.'

They know the human collateral this budget will cause and they look at you without blinking and say, 'There's nothing i can do. You all will have to call my colleagues and convince them.'

At which point someone grabs my wrist and I clamp down on my tongue so i don't scream, 'Swinging your colleagues is YOUR FUCKING JOB! WHY CAN'T YOU DO YOUR FUCKING JOB?!'

This is an abdication of responsibility that is unacceptable. And I’m not just talking about the GOP here, either. It's the Dems, too. They act like giving a Yes vote was the height of their duty, like voting Yes was a shining gift to the people of Illinois.

Last week, Cynthia Soto, my rep, was in a budget briefing the governor's office had invited us to attend. She stood up and said, 'I voted yes to raise revenue! I did my part! Now do your homework - it's your turn to make those calls to the No votes and get this thing turned around!'

I turned to the woman standing next to me and whispered, ‘What bullshit. What the fuck does she think we've been doing for the past month? When is she going to get off her ass and do her fucking job?'

The woman whispered, 'Unbelievable, isn't it?'

You wanna give us a gift, elected officials of Illinois?

We, the people of Illinois, would love to see you take your jobs seriously and work as hard as we do. Really. We would. Earn your paycheck, you apathetic motherfuckers.