Not me, but close.

Once upon a time I was something of a swimmer, and tonight I tried for the second time to practice with a master’s team, which is something grownups who used to swim do when they want to keep at it. “Master’s,” in this case, is a very complimentary way of saying “hobby.” The other time I tried was three years ago, right after my daughter was born, but I had just gone back to work after my maternity leave and it was too hard to give up a whole evening with her. Also, my body was still a pile of goo from giving birth to her, so the whole foray didn’t last long.

So tonight I went back. It’s been more than two decades since I competed in any meaningful way, and it shows! The 900-yard warmup (a third each swim, pull, and kick) took me about half an hour, or a full half of the practice. Then I got to swim with a broomstick, which is apparently a thing. You grab a five-foot, duct tape-wrapped stick at either end and try to swim freestyle with it, and it kind of works like you’re paddling a kayak, only you’re trying not to drown. Then you turn over and do the same thing with backstroke. Meanwhile, the kids on the kids’ team are lapping you* six times over, and they’re using snorkels! Because that’s a thing too! Also, you don’t have to breathe after every stroke when you’re swimming breaststroke, and you can turn on your damn front when you’re doing backstroke turns. It’s anarchy! It’s like saying that after you kick the soccer ball four times, you can smack it with your hands. I can’t wrap my old lady brain around it.

On the plus side, you still use kickboards and pull buoys, and it just so happens that I’m packing my very own pull buoys: my middle-aged, post-baby thighs. They’re much denser than Styrofoam, but just as buoyant! Win. And coaches have changed from mustachioed jerks in too-short shorts who paced the deck and yelled at you to kind, understanding women just out of college who think I’m super for just showing up. More win.

But. The facilities. I grew up in suburban DC, where high schools did not have their own pools. We’d heard tell of schools in other parts of the country that had their own pools right in the building, but we dismissed it as myth. But it’s true! Since high school I’ve seen many schools with their own pools. And while it’s still cool to think that you can go to practice without carpooling after your last class to a municipal pool across town, the high school pools I’ve seen all have something in common: they are post-apocalyptic hellscapes that have not been cleaned, updated, or otherwise changed since the Great War. Actually, there is one area that is clean: the water, which is chlorinated to the point of being barely dilute Clorox, an environment that obliterates any foreign contaminant, as well as unprotected eyeballs.

Tonight’s pool was pretty typical. Behold pieces of the very typical locker room:

And this school is a pretty well-funded school. It’s big, it gets extra money by letting swim teams, adult education programs, and other outside groups use it when classes aren’t in session, and it’s in Massachusetts, which means that it’s better off, on average, than a similarly-sized school in Rhode Island. And yet…

The water hits you like tiny BBs. It hurts. It says, "rinse off and get out." This, on the other hand, says unchecked rust. Also, "I like."

Was there a nuclear war? Who wrote this, and what does she like? Or who? Did she like him/her/it, or did she like like him/her/it? Why did she stop? Were there zombies? Did the omega people rise up before she could finish?

My theory is that schools build pools for the sole purpose of neglecting them. They’re sacrifices to the funding gods. If someone accuses you of overspending, all you have to do is point to your crumbling, decrepit pool and say “Look at the corners I’ve cut! If our children shower without wearing flip-flops, their feet dissolve!” 

But why can't they sacrifice something else? Like driver's ed? Or math?

*Me.

So this guy:

Now that it’s hotter than holy hell here in Rhode Island, it’s nice to think back a couple of weeks to when it was cool and rainy and I pulled up behind this guy at a light in Lincoln. This guy takes the “I want to disparage the liberal media, but I still want to enjoy the convenience of leasing a vehicle” attitude of this guy and blows. It. Up. Blows it up good.

You know what? I think I love this guy. I can only imagine the thought process that brought him to this conclusion.

Okay! I’ve imagined it, and here it is:

 “Bumper sticker? Hell no. I want, like, a bumper sticker times twelve, bitches. Oh, they don’t sell bumper stickers that big? Well, meet posterboard, liberal bumper sticker manufacturers. Posterboard’s gonna take you to school. Now, I really hate this Obama guy, but how do I state it strongly yet succinctly? This isn’t Twitter, and I’m not speaking as @BumperStickersAndSocialistsAintShit when I’m driving my car. But how do I express that this President’s policies – and the man himself, I daresay – are synonymous with socialism without taking up too much space... that’s it! I’ll just say that: ‘Obama = Socialism.’ Done and done. But wait! What if people driving by me think that I think Obama equals socialism, but that I think that’s a good thing? Like, I like Obama, and I like socialism? That’d be awful. What if a liberal honked his approval at me on 95? I’d die. What I need is a graphic, a visual representation of dislike that is simple and universal. But what? What what what… of course! Thumbs down! No, two thumbs down! No one, even an Obama supporter, is going to think you like anything when it’s flanked by two downward-pointing thumbs. It just isn’t possible. Now to put this plan into action… offspring! Fetch me my Sharpie.”

This may be one of the biggest breakthroughs in communication in the last hundred years. So many complex ideas could be conveyed this way!

Imagine your own!

Reminder: I am not a graphic artist.

Oh, man. Has it ever been a while! I bet you were thinking, hey, that curmudgeon has up and gone native. She’s probably looking around herself right now and thinking, “Rhode Island is normal! There is nothing at all curious, off-balance, or just plain wrong about this state, and so I say ‘Stop it, Rhode Island’ no more!”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha NO. Not even.

As it happens, my tiny state actually called me into its service for a brief spell, believing (rightly!) that my cynicism, general bad temper, and virtually useless master’s degree would make me the ideal solver of the problem that was 38 Studios. You see, our last governor, in his final act of taking a crap all over the State House, promised ex-Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game startup a cool $75 million in loan guarantees. Mind you, that was $75 million Rhode Island didn’t really have, $75 million that was better spent almost anywhere else. And so it came to pass that a new governor took office, 38 Studios shit the bed like almost every video game startup does, and the legislature shone the Curmudgeon Signal into the cloudy night sky. I flew into action.

It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of late nights, a lot of hot wieners, and a lot of dropped r’s, but we got it done. Under my masterful leadership, the state assembly and I crafted a plan that would see the loan repaid with interest, 38 Studios’ books going almost instantly from red to black, and not one job lost. The only problem? I had a vacation booked just before they were going to put it all into action.

They begged me not to go.

“You can’t leave!” they screamed. “You have to see this thing through to the end! Without you it’ll crumble and all hope will be dead! DEAD!”

“Guys,” I replied, “Have you ever tried to get a refund from Sandals? It’s nigh impossible. And anyway, aren’t you being a little bit dramatic? Calm down. You’re all adults, and you all want to see this thing succeed, so just follow my carefully-laid out instructions and you’ll be fine. What’s theworst that could happen?”

“But we’ll be lost without you! We’ve come to realize that your caustic, cranky exterior masks your quiet brilliance! And you make the best cookies in the world!”

“Well, that's true, Gary, but…”

“And you look like you’ve lost weight!”

“Nice try.”

“Oh, please don’t go! We’ll eat you up, we love you so.”

“Um, okay, that was weird. I’ll, uh, let myself out.” And I did.

As I waited that night at TF Green for the first leg of my four-stop flight to Miami, I thought to myself, they’re going to be just fine. This’ll all work out. I’m just going to enjoy my vacation and forget about it. In fact, I’m so confident that they’ll follow my foolproof plan that I won’t even follow what’s happening in the news.

And I haven’t! I want to be surprised. Not that I will be. I’m sure everything worked out great.

It did, right?

Right?

Respect.

Okay. See, this is impressive to me. Here’s someone who believes so strongly in something that they’re willing to plaster it all over their car for the entire motoring world to see… but not permanently. You see, they hate Obama… and commitment! Because, you know, they could change their mind, right? You just never know. Not to mention that one needs to keep the resale value of one’s compact Japanese SUV in mind. Or it could be that this person believes so strongly that soon we’ll all live in a right-wing utopia where Obama is defeated and all media is controlled by Fox News, and there’s no class warfare and everyone’s Christian and unicorns and fairies don’t expect special treatment just because they’re magic, and bumper stickers like these won’t even be necessary anymore.

Or maybe they tape bumper stickers on the inside of their back windshield because while they hold these particular extreme viewpoints, they’re open to new ones. Maybe it’s up to some brave lefty to help them change their mind and replace those current stickers with “The Moral Majority is Neither” or “Coexist” or “Who Farted?” But, you know, with tape. On the inside.

Blight, continued.

Look.  I don’t mean to get all real and stuff. I know everyone’s just trying to make it through yet another 50-degree midwinter day here in New England, and it’s not easy, what with the clear roads and limber, painless back muscles from not shoveling snow. But you know what? Life happens. Like it or not. And sometimes it isn’t pretty.

Look at this. Don’t you dare look away.

That is --- or rather, it used to be --- a whole, functioning streetlight and street sign. Well, kind of. It only marked one of the streets that make up the corner (the other one apparently isn’t any of your business), and the light worked now and then. Anyway, one night --- last week, last month, last year (who knows?) --- it all came crashing down. Literally. Now it’s just laying there, dead, on the corner where my office is. That’s right. I have to look at this carnage every day on the way to my comfortable office job with enviable benefits. People ask me, “After all this time, don’t you get used to it?” And the answer is No. No, I don’t “get used” to it. Sure, I've learned how to hop over potholes and frost heaves and avoid the larger expanses of broken glass and scatterings of party cards with pictures of gigantic-bottomed ladies on them, but how do you forget about an entire downed streetlight that isn’t going anywhere? Even the metal pickers don’t want anything to do with this. How are they going to fit that thing in a little pickup truck?

And what about the children….’s parents? Or childless adults who drive or walk in the area? How will they know where not to enter? Or which way to the path to health? This is a travesty. This is blight.

Also, the State of the State address happened. You can read it here. The gist of it is, we’re broke, and we’re jerks. Go Rhody!

The year so far.

The anti-zeppole.

Is it St. Joseph’s Day yet?

Sorry, I’ve just been curled up in a ball on my couch, watching Downton Abbey and Project Runway All-Stars until a dump truck backs up to my house and drops off 100,000 zeppoles, in which I will then swim. As I’ve been waiting for that blessed day I’ve kind of tuned out what’s been going on in my adopted home state, but today I thought I’d check in and see what’s been happening since early December. And do you know what? Things have happened. Things, indeed.

First of all, Christmas happened, even though evil Governor Chafee insisted on calling the state Christmas tree a “holiday tree.” Lo, we have truly witnessed a miracle. Of course, this transgression may have released all kinds of negative mojo on our local government, because not long after that, someone who works at City Hall called in the intrepid ghost hunters of Ghost Hunters “after she heard a whisper in her ear while leaving the ladies’ room on the fifth floor.” Chances are this was just your everyday lobbyist trying to get a minute of the employees’ time, but since the Ghost Hunters are Rhode Islanders (it’s true!), this may be just a fantastic scheme to drum up some business for local paranormal experts and night-vision goggle manufacturers. Brilliant!

More recently, in hilarious criminal news, a state rep gotin trouble just this very morning after he was pulled over on suspicion of DUIand marijuana possession. The comedy comes from the fact that this guy gotpulled over last year on suspicion of DUI and marijuana possession in Connecticut and raised all kinds of stink about it, claiming that the New Haven police were out to get him because of their deep-seated bias against local politicians from Rhode Island. This time around, though, he gave up quickly and hilariously. As today’s ProJo tells it, South Kingstown police discovered Rep. Watson driving erratically on three wheels in the snow. And then:

[The police officer] said he told Watson to sit in his car to get out of the cold as he awaited the arrival of a second officer. When the two officers went back to speak with Watson, they found Watson holding a can of Natural Ice Beer.

[The second officer] said Watson was belligerent and cursed at the officers: "[Expletive] you, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, [expletive] you."

Watson was taken to police headquarters, where [the second officer] said he "attempted to explain to Watson that he was under arrest for possession of marijuana and not drunk driving at this time. Watson replied, 'Shut up! You got your guy!'"

First off, how on earth does one beat a drunk driving charge when a cop witnesses you doing just that? And secondly, please, Heavenly Father, if I ever screw up so badly to be arrested for anything at all, please, please give me the presence of mind to find some reason to say "[Expletive] you, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, [expletive] you." And then tell them to shut up. Also? That is one complacent mug shot.

Oh! And speaking of Heavenly Father, some kid in Cranston successfully sued to have a prayer starting with those words removed from the wall of her public high school’s gym, thereby unleashing a veritable shitstorm of general bad feelings in her direction. All I’ll say about that is this: public school, people. Whether or not you think the kid is a precocious twit who should have just kept her mouth shut is not relevant. And you know that death threats aren’t protected speech just because you make them in the comments section of the ProJo, right? Good luck, kid.

And speaking of shitstorms, Johnston kind of stopped stinking! Kind of. Enough to stop people’s hearts from racing and eyes from watering, that is. It’s good to see that Johnston is cleaning up its… oh, sweet Jesus. Sweet Zombie Jesus! Are you kidding me? What the hell is wrong with you, Johnston?

That’s it. I’m going back to the couch with a fuzzy blanket and a can of frosting. I really think this is Mondo’s year, don’t you?

Pretty green triangles with decorations.

Well, great.

Why is it that when Rhode Island makes the national news, it’s always about something stupid and/or embarrassing? Why is it always bankrupttowns and pension debacles and mob musicals, and never newborn okapis or princess visits? Why can’t we just for once do something awesome and get recognized for it?

Rhode Island’s most recent embarrassment is this whole “Holiday Tree” debacle. In case you haven’t yet heard anyone on Fox News keen and wail about it, our governor decided to refer to the decorated conifer in the State House this year as a holiday tree, not a Christmas tree, and the sky fell. When I first heard about it I put my head in my hands, not because I’m offended as a celebrator of Christmas, but because I knew that there was a good chance that Governor Chafee’s choice would become the 2011 flash point for this “war on Christmas” nonsense we hear every year. And you know what? It did! It totally did. Even though Chafee isn’t the first governor to call it a holiday tree. Oh, you didn’t know that? It’s true. The last governor – a Republican, no less – did the same thing.

HE DID THE SAME THING.

Of course, when he did it, the people who didn’t like him weren’t as loud or as organized, or they plain didn’t care, so no one made a stink about it. Or perhaps there were more egregious offenses against the baby Jesus to preoccupy them. I don’t know. What I do know is that yes, of course it’s a Christmas tree, and yes, calling it a holiday tree is probably a bit of a misguided, if earnest, attempt at inclusiveness. (Although I’m not sure what Carcieri’s reasoning was.) However, I also know that it’s worth little more than a headshake and a chuckle before you just move on already. If you want to host a “rival” Christmas tree lighting in front of your office, fine. Whatever. What you don’t do is get together a bunch of your asshole friends and go to the official lighting just to sing “O, Christmas Tree” really loudly out of spite. And you don’t, in doing that, try to drown out the children’s choir on hand. The one that is full of children who’ve spent who knows how many hours rehearsing for this big deal and aren’t yet old enough to understand why grownups would engage in such childish behavior over semantics. And then you know what you don’t do? You don’t take to the comments section in the Providence Journal,* try to call out the choir director for being rude because she had the gall to interrupt your interruption, and then chalk it up to an imaginary conspiracy:

47

8:46 PM on 12/6/2011
Some people started to sing, then realized the children were singing another stanza of their carol. Everyone stopped singing, then when the children finished that song, they started again. The choir director than motioned for the children to begin another song, AFTER "Oh Christmas Tree" was well under way. If anyone was rude, it was the adult directing the children. It was such an obvious set-up, everyone there could see it. Of course, it was intended to give the governor and his supporters something to complain about, as they look kinda stupid complaining about 200 plus people singing a Christmas carol.

Oh, for criminy. Yes, that's the stupid part. On the bright side, the whole mess made theDaily Show! Go Rhode Island.

In other news, I’ve decided that I shall rename my own Christmas tree Mrs. Timothy Mortimer Fancypants, and when my daughter complains, I shall blow an air horn at her. And Mrs. Timothy Mortimer Fancypants will be decorated with every single one of these ornaments, because they may be the best ornaments ever. 

* Sorry. I just couldn't stay away from the crazy. Comment on, you hilarious lunatics!