On Blago, Oprah, and Other Sundry Items.

I should preface this by saying I'm not a political animal by any stretch of the imagination. I don't like debating politics in general, and the stuff that I believe is the stuff I believe, and know that my mind won't change on those stuffs, so it's folly for me to think I can change someone else's point of view. So you'll have to excuse my rather...lighthearted attitude regarding the governor of my state being, essentially, a less-murderous, big-haired Tony Soprano.



I do think it's a horrible thing, don't get me wrong--I mean, this cat was threatening to cut funding for A CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL if it didn't pony up a sizable campaign contribution, for Christ's sake. But I can't help but be hugely amused by the hubris of this guy. He knew he was being wiretapped, he knew he was under serious-ass scrutiny, and his response? "I think there's nothing but sunshine hanging over me. By the way, I should say if anyone wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it. I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly." Allegedly, his wife Patti can be heard in the background on the tapes, right-onning Blago's working over people for cash, dropping just as many f-bombs as he does as he angles and connives and threatens. When I heard that, all I could conjure up in my head was Carmela Soprano bringing the pie to that lawyer's office to get a letter of recommendation for Meadow to attend Georgetown:

Carmela: I don’t think you understand. I want you to write that letter.

Joan: Excuse me?

Carmela: I said I want you to write the letter.

Joan: Are you threatening me?

Carmela: Threat, what threatening? I brought you a ricotta pie and high school transcripts so you could write a letter of recommendation for my little daughter to Georgetown.

"I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden and uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there." - no, not Tony Soprano...but Rod Blagojevich discussing Obama's Senate seat that HE WAS GOING TO GIVE TO THE HIGHEST FRIGGING BIDDER

Can you imagine what he could have accomplished had he used his power for good and not evil?

Meanwhile, on Oprah Watch, she kind of made me sad today. I am not an Oprah fan in the least. On a good day, she makes me grind my teeth. So when I read that SWEET MOTHER OF GOD OPRAH IS 200 POUNDS and the subsequent self-hatred she flung out there, I was simultaneously grinding and thinking, "woman, you are worth so much more than this public self-flagellation horseshit". My personal opinion of her aside, there's no getting around that she has accomplished some significant shit. There's something so...pathetic, watching a woman who has the world by the ass a) providing comedians/assholes ammunition to debase her solely based on her weight and b) essentially discounting all she's accomplished because she's *gasp* 200 pounds. And reinforcing the message that you are a failure, no matter what, if you're fat. That nothing is more important than being thin. She has millions of Oprahlytes who look to her for guidance and suggestions on how to live a better life - can you imagine what she could accomplish if she used her powers for good and not evil?

And finally, this piece on McSweeney's made me laugh this week - laugh and THINK (oooooh). It was this bit in particular:

Whoops, I don't know what I was thinking, talking about my problems when you're so much more lovably flawed.

I don't know about you, but I've had that fleeting thought more than once in my real-life relationships. I've believe I've mentioned it before, my tendency to become the zany wacky fat girl sidekick in a good 99 percent of my relationships. We've all had that friend that we believe to be prettier, smarter, better than us, the charming narcissist who will allow us that token 30 seconds to share what how we're feeling and soon navigates the conversation back to her feelings and her struggles. And because we're convinced we're not quite worth the oxygen to talk about what we might be feeling or struggling with, it becomes habit to zip it and let the lovable minx keep on yapping...and yapping...and yapping.

At some point, however, I realized it was okay for me to talk about me for a while. In fact, it was super-okay to jettison people out of my life who weren't willing to talk about me for a wee bit. It was downright kickass to give the heave-ho to people that weren't willing to support me, to comfort me, to regard me as something beyond an asexual sarcasm/heartfelt advice generator. It's cliche, but that phrase "it's not the quantity, it's the quality"? So true when it comes to friendships. It takes a while to accept that it's worth doing the dumper on people that bring us down, but holy shit, it is so...freeing. Not that I'm suggesting you should go out tonight and go on a friend-jettisoning spree, but if you're feeling like someone in your life is consistently crapping on you? It might be time to do a little housecleaning.