Behave, please.

So as Bubbles said on the phone earlier this evening, "People just don't know how to behave sometimes."  Agreed, Bubbles!  Last night I was at Jacob Wirth's in Boston with my friends Sarah and Gina, and there were two couples at the bar, standing directly behind Sarah's seat.  They were seemingly straight, seemingly married couples, as both women were wearing (really ugly) wedding and engagement rings (I'm talking uuuugggglllyyy here, folks).  The two men appeared to be in their late thirties, maybe early forties, which made their behavior all the more confusing: they kept leaning on Sarah's chair and even put their elbows on the bar next to her plate while she was trying to eat.  They also were using outside, football-stadium voices, and remember, we were inside, at a bar.  They talk-yelled about how the Yankees suck, and how they're pro-union, and how they're in a union, and the Yankees suck, and they're in a union, and the Yankees suck, forfuckingever, while the wives stood behind them and didn't talk at all.  Not at all: not to each other, not to the men, not to anyone else in the bar.  It was quite strange. 

Why don't people like those guys have a sense of how to behave in public?  I accept that one can't be picky about one's family: families are the luck of the draw, it's a total crapshoot.  And yet, presumably these guys have been away from their original families (mom, dad, siblings) for awhile, and forged other relationships outside of those families (see above: wives with bad rings), and thus, should be able to recognize and correct the bad behavior that was maybe accepted in their original families.  And what about the women?  Why not say, hey, buddy, you're being kind of obnoxious, so why don't we move down toward the three empty seats at the bar and stop bothering these gals?  Why aren't they pickier?  Why'd they pick these guys, and why'd they, or the guys, pick those horrible rings?

So maybe I'm going to be called a big snob, but really, I'm not; I'm just PICKY.  I've gotten progressively pickier about the food I eat and the underwear I like and the soap I use as I've grown older, and I want everyone to evaluate, or re-evaluate, the food they're eating and the clothes they're wearing and the products they're using so that we're all living lives we choose, not just lives that are most convenient or cheapest or easiest.  Do it!  Be picky.  And be picky about the ring you wear to symbolize that you're partnered up for life.  You'll be wearing it forever, so don't choose or let someone give you a tacky ring.  Everyone you encounter has to look at it.  It's just polite.  

this was me, before I could vote.

I'm wearing a tiny sweatshirt from The Balsams, an amazing resort in Dixville Notch, NH!  Dixville Notch residents are the first people in the nation to vote in presidential elections.  They (there are about twenty-three of them or something) vote at midnight on Election Day.

THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE, and then, VOTE!

This morning I heard a brief story on NPR about a political ad that aired on a Spanish (television?) station. The ad urged folks to refrain from voting. The producer of the ad was interviewed and said that due to the 60-second time limit, he edited the last phrase of the ad, the phrase urging people not to vote, from the original, which urged people to refrain from voting for candidates who have betrayed or ignored them. While I understand the sentiment (why vote for someone who does not have at least some of your interests at heart?), in this, as in so many other things, context is key. Thanks, NPR, for doing an in-depth story and giving the producer a chance to explain his editing decision.

November is fast approaching and with it comes the end of all those commercials on tv promoting candidates or trashing candidates or urging us to be single-issue voters. This year an inordinate amount of money has been spent by "independent" groups who obliquely endorse a candidate under the guise of advocating for a cause. The Supreme Court decision that allows these groups to lawfully do so is a sound one, legally, but many groups are slacking on reporting how much money they're spending and completing FCC forms, the purpose of which is for reporters and the public are able to track these funds.

Being a U.S. citizen is a pretty sweet deal, generally, especially for those of us who were granted automatic citizenship by dint of being born in one of the 50 states. We're free to complain about everything about our republic, we're free to gather and protest and criticize our government and leaders. I see my basic obligations as a citizen as being confined to paying taxes, returning library books, moving my car on street-cleaning days, and voting. That isn't so much for our government to ask of us, is it?

My dad (a pro-life, smart, thinking Catholic who is a staunch Democrat) and I went to see and listen to the excellent historian and academic Jill Lepore the other night at Porter Square Books here in Cambridge, and she reminded the audience that our experiment is a new one, that our country and government are novel tests for what happens when democracy is put into action. To this end, citizens are pioneers (sans the irritating and dangerous covered-wagon travails). We are obligated to research and think about candidates and, after they are elected, to track the job our representatives are doing.

Be picky! Picky-Picky Quimby was freed from these responsibilities, as he was a cat, and didn't even get a vote within the family on what he ate or whether Ramona ought to be confined to the basement instead of him. If you're reading this you're likely not a cat, and so you are held accountable for your actions (or non-actions) as a citizen. So be picky, think, and then VOTE next month.

People need to be pickier.

This is my best friend, Bubbles, and my ex-cat, Maorou. They're both beautiful, complicated mammals. They are not to be taken advantage of, although in the past, I've taken advantage of both of them.

Folks ought to be pickier, in so many ways. We need to be pickier, choosier, about the people for whom we vote to represent our interests in government; about how we get our news; about how we find our information; about the books we read and the people we date and the food we eat. My dear friend Gina suggested recently that we (meaning she and I and our other friends) are "niche people" which means, to her at least, that we are not representative of women and men of our generation in the United States. I am resistant to this idea! I am not an artist or an intellectual or someone with lots of money or someone who doesn't know where her next meal is coming from. I am not an victim or survivor of abuse or serious physical illness or disability. I'm grateful and bratty every day. I want the same things millions of women in this country want: I want more money, more time, more physical stamina, more athletic ability, fewer chores, better sleep, better skin...I am not seeking fame, but rather, a way to restore my teeth and boobs to their sixteen-year-old loveliness.

Oh, to be Picky-Picky Quimby: old and tired, with clear memories of a toddler Ramona yanking on his tail; distrustful of the grade-school aged, gentler Ramona; disdainful of the discount cat chow the Quimby family feeds him due to their reduced circumstances. Remember when Picky-Picky meets his inevitable yet still untimely end? Beezus gets blisters on her hands from digging his grave.