Bitch Fest #1

All right, so I thought about making this a completely separate blog page, but in the end I  decided no one wants to visit two separate pages.  Therefore, I will simply be keeping THIS blog, filled with various life observations and deep thoughts...

...BUT occasionally interrupted by pieces that I'd like to cohesively title "BITCH FEST, or 365 Things I Feel Entitled to Complain About."

Every now and then, I feel the need to rant.  Usually it's about stupid sh*t, stuff that really doesn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things.  But man oh man, sometimes...sometimes it just wells up within your soul and you just HAVE to let it out, you know what I mean?

And I figure it's safer for everyone if I vent in the written word as opposed to...well, anything else.

So here it is, take it or leave it:  my first installment of Bitch Fest.  Please enjoy the anger.

BITCH FEST #1:

PEDESTRIANS!!!

Okay, perhaps I should amend that to read RUDE pedestrians.  But lately they've all felt the same, they all seem incredibly rude, and therefore I lump them as one large mass.

I've been walking a lot lately.  I always try to walk, considering I have no other athletic activity that I actually enjoy in any way, but lately I've been doing even more of it.  Anything that's within a feasible distance, I hoof it.  The grocery store (as long as I'm not stocking up, that is), the nearest mailbox, the local Quizno's (which has unfathomably been replaced by a Subway, an act which deserves a 'Fest' of its very own, surely.)

Not only is this a health-conscious thing for me to do, it's also environmentally friendly (no car = no excess black crap in the air), and, I thought, less-stressful than dealing with L.A. traffic.

L.A. traffic is the worst traffic.  Ever.  I refuse to believe otherwise.  It's not just the sheer, overwhelming number of cars on the road...it's the utter stupidity out there, the unbelievable jerk-wads who think they have the right to zip in and out of lanes, the abundance of pickup trucks piled high with oodles of construction/repair/furniture odds and ends that I just KNOW are going to come flying out of that truck bed and through my windshield one of these days.

It stresses me out.  Bad.  I try to drive as little as possible.  Hence, more walking.

Where I encounter PEDESTRIANS.

What I have discovered, to my despair, is that just because you've taken the drivers out of their cars, doesn't mean you've made them any less rude and/or moronic.

Perhaps it's just my humble Midwestern sensibility - I go out of my way to step out of an elderly woman's path, I hustle across the intersection if a car is waiting for me, things of that nature.  It's just common courtesy to me.  I can't imagine doing anything else.

It seems that not everyone was brought up with such lofty ideals.  Certainly not the family who continued to walk all four abreast as we approached one another on a narrow strip of sidewalk.  Me with my two overflowing grocery sacks (because, of course, I always get just a liiiiittle bit more than I should, considering I have no motor vehicle with me), them laughing, talking, ignoring the fact that I was coming steadily closer.

You know how this ends.  I moved off the sidewalk.  I was actually forced OFF THE SIDEWALK by these a$$holes who couldn't see fit, not even one of them, to at least drop back.

Unbelievable.  I'm not asking you people to walk in the freaking street, I wanted to shout back at them.  And this happens to me ALL OF THE TIME.  It blows my mind.  It is SO rude.

My mood was only worsened by the pair of giggling teenage girls standing at the next stoplight.  They were there before me, so I assumed that they had already pushed the walk button - silly me!  Now, normally I would push it in any case, never knowing if someone was a forgetful goober or if the system had registered the request or whatever, but in this case the girls were of course standing directly in front of the button.  I didn't ask them if they'd pushed the button, nor did I ask them politely to move aside so that I could do so - after all, that would be rude.

The light changed.  The red hand stayed put.  The girls looked confused.  They pushed each other jokingly.  A car, which had been waiting to make a right-hand turn in front of us, had to pull to a sudden stop as the girls decided, last minute, to simply make a dash for it.  

And me?  I got to wait on the corner through two more light changes.

Is a little courtesy too much to ask here??  The willing stupidity and downright obnoxious behavior that these people are soaking in disgusts me.  People have no respect!!

Oh god, I'm becoming an old person.  Well, put me in a home then - it's gotta be better than the stuff I've gotta deal with out here.

Stop.  Breathe.  Breathe.  Anger dissipating.  Okay...whoo.

Clearly, these walks are going to be the death of me.

Darn it all, I just gotta sit down and throw together a gosh darn blog, by golly!

Hopefully, you've all been following the political race this season...I'm not sure how you could avoid it, quite frankly.  It's like the newest reality television hit.  I'm willing to bet that whichever ticket loses the presidential election, you'll find the vice presidential might-have-been on 'Dancing with the Stars' next fall.

And I think we can all agree that while Joe Biden might have a great set of gams, we'd all much rather see Sarah Palin do the cha-cha, even if it's not for the same reasons.

I'll be the first to admit that Mrs. Palin did a fine job in the vice presidential debate last night.  As many pundits are saying, she certainly did exceed expectations...those expectations being that she would finish the job of imploding the Republican ticket with her rambling, incoherent anti-answers and lack of political knowledge.

So yes.  She succeeded in appearing to be well-versed in political talking points while not coming across as lost or meandering.  What she did come across as, however, is insultingly folksy and falsely charming.

Let me assure you, I come from a very 'folksy' background myself.  I grew up in a tiny town (technically deemed a village) in rural mid-Michigan, a town which has an official population of 882, as cited by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000 - five years AFTER I graduated high school and moved away.

When I was growing up there, there wasn't much to do outside of school sports.  You had to drive 20-30 minutes to get to the nearest 4-screen movie theatre (where I had my first job) and half again as far to reach a run-down shopping mall in Flint.

I literally grew up in a barn.  A pole-barn.  OK, I didn't spend all of my formative years there, just a few whilst my stepfather built a more typical house on our property.  Property which was in the middle of a dense woods - I had to be driven almost two miles to my bus stop every morning.

I knew everyone in my high school, no matter what grade they were in.  I knew a lot of kids who went out cow-tipping and snipe-hunting.  We all wore clothes five years behind the fashion trend.

And even today, being one of the 'elitists' living in Los Angeles, trying to make a living in the entertainment industry, I'm still very close to my mother, an avid outdoorswoman who enjoys activities such as snowshoeing and hunting, but who also writes for a - gasp! - newspaper.

I'm rambling.  What does all this have to do with Sarah Palin?

I'll tell you what.  I come from just as 'common' a background as Mrs. Palin, if not arguably more so.  As does my mother, who is closer in age to the governor than I am.  And yet neither of us employ this "golly gee" and "doggone it" verbiage that the erstwhile vice presidential candidate seems to cherish.

I'm a regular Jane.  I work hard to make a living.  I'm lower middle class.  But I don't need to be cajoled as if I'm a simple-minded 'hick,' what with all the cutesy 'Darn it all!'s.  I felt talked down to.  You're probably asking, 'But what about Biden?  With all of his high-falutin Washington demagoguery, didn't you feel belittled?'

My answer is, quite the opposite!  I like when someone speaks to me in an intelligent manner.  I like feeling as if I'm learning something from them.  And seeing as how these two people are running for the number two position in the nation, with the possibility of ascending to numero uno, I would certainly HOPE to GOD that they displayed a high level of intellect.  I'd LIKE for someone smarter than me to be in the White House! For a change.

And what got to me more than all of the Pollyanna colloquialisms was the incessant winking. UGH!!  I was writhing, I was so annoyed!  If a woman winks at me that often, I know that either she's being condescending to me, or else I'm in the wrong bar.

Clearly, I'm voting Democrat this November.  Was my mind changed by this debate?  Absolutely not.  I was already an Obama girl, though not one with a tacky You Tube video.  But Joe Biden did win me over.  I didn't really know much about him before last night, and hadn't seen him speak very often. I found him to be a smart dude with a direct way of speaking, a man who knows where he stands and isn't afraid to get a little emotional when talking about his family.

A candidate who reeks of being - shall I dare say it? - truly genuine.

Unlike some hockey moms I know.