Stimulate this

Obama's speech last night laid out some pretty ambitious plans. Not like winning at beer pong, or farting quietly in public - I mean real ambitions. He also seems to get that waving a flag at things doesn't make them good. We seem to have forgotten that. Torture prisoners? No-bid contracts for politician's buddies? Government overseers of the oil companies getting coked up with the CEOs? Barely literate cowboy for president? Wave a flag! It will magically be just great! Dear Republicans: the flag is not magic. Have you seen a bunny fly out of your ass? It's because it is n-o-t m-a-g-i-c.

I am still not so sure I support the economic stimulus package, though. It's treating greedy CEOS like rich frat boys who fuck up all they want then get bailed out when things go bad. How the fuck are they going to learn? If you're gonna let companies gamble, you got to let them lose.

I still think there's lots of ways to save money, though, and get the country back on track. Here are a few of my ideas.

1. Bitch slap every company owner who shut down a plant here then opened one in bum fuck egypt where they can pay slave laborers fourteen cents a day so they can be grossly, obscenely rich instead of just obscenely rich. Then tax them the exact amount that they are saving on labor by doing that shit. Give the money to the people who would have had the jobs.

2. Legalize drugs and prostitution and tax that shit. $4 tax on a blowjob. Etc. We'll pay off the deficit in like 6 months. Unfortunately, I'll be out of a job.

3. Let people actually bid on government jobs. Ahem.

4. Fine people for non violent crimes and stop locking them up. You know what happens when you lock them up? They lose their jobs and stop paying taxes. You know how much money it takes to run a jail? Wardens, guards, water, heat, air conditioning, maintenance, sewage, electricity, uniforms, cameras, other technology, food. . . it's fucking expensive. Does the guy with the weed really need to be in there instead of at his cook job? Really?

5. Actually give out fashion tickets. $500 fine for having a mullet. $250 for acid washed jeans. $1,000 for a haircut with "wings". $100 for shorts with knee high white socks. $800 for having a big ass sticking out of a miniskirt.You get the idea.

6. Take away people's cars who go 90 on the freeway weaving in and out of traffic. Sell them. If they are passing on the right, make them wash the cars before we sell them and spray some of that smell good stuff in there, which they must buy themselves.Screw those assholes. If I stop writing in my blog, it's probably because one of them caused a wreck on my way to work. Jerks.

7. $10,000 fine for dropping out of high school. No money? Work it off picking up trash on the highway. Maybe when you scrape up enough possums you'll get your ass to English class.

8. No more handing out cash to corporations to help them expand and advertise and stay open and shit. Don't know how to run a business? Don't run one.

9. No more sick sized bonuses for the assholes who sit in board rooms and vote to pay shit to their workers and only give out 2% raises while they pay themselves $45 million a year. Cap their salaries and let the people who do the work have the money. Maybe they could keep one house each over their heads. Big shot does not need seven homes while other people are getting foreclosed on, I don't care what he says.

10. Let gay people marry and adopt children, creating more stable homes, less kids in government-sponsored foster care, more two income houses, more families buying family stuff, less volunteer money going to stupid organizations who hate us because it will be pointless.

Just some ideas, but the message he's rocking and the word I am sending is that it is HIGH motherfucking time for some reform. Jump on the bandwagon, y'all, a new country is hopefully about to leave the station.

You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but . . .

Defendants may, overall, be irresponsible, short sighted, drunk, dishonest, and consider violence a viable means of problem solving, but they are my people. It isn't that I fight, drink, lie, steal or find myself utterly unable to foresee the consequences of my actions - for the most part. It's just that I understand.

I credit my upbringing. One of my great accomplishments is that I got through high school without getting in a fight. You may not think much of this. Let's draw a picture. My fondest memories are riding around with my bare feet sticking out of the window of a Camaro with a big joint in one hand and Mountain Dew in the other with Led Zeppelin playing really loud, on the way to the store to get Moon pies, then to cruise around aimlessly or maybe look for drugs. Yes, we were rednecks. People kept shotguns and were wont to bust out the trailer with one in hand if you showed up in a strange truck. I'm assuming cellphones have helped a lot, for those of them who can pay up their minutes.

My family was not unusual, so I don't know where I learned better. I was born in a trailer and encouraged to kick ass whenever appropriate, I just never really found it to be appropriate. My sister, on the other hand, caught on quickly. Once, some girl showed up at the house intending to beat up my sister, which was just a terrible idea, since she could probably single handedly conquer Afghanistan. The chick pulled up in the driveway, got out and cussed until sister bandit heard her, who promptly went flying out the side door and screamed (insert awesome southern accent)"Get the hell out of here, ya big-footed, hairy bitch!" Of course, the girl didn't leave, so sister bandit kicked her ass all over the front yard. Another time, my father lent her his car to go get in a fight, since she apparently needed to go teach some girl a lesson for something involving her boyfriend J.T. and could simply not put this off until her rusty Escort was running again. About an hour later, she came back without a scratch, but was holding her wrist. My dad, who was watching Nascar,, looked up and asked how she'd gotten hurt, with a subtle tone sugggesting she'd better not have lost - he taught her better. She explained she was so mad when she got back in the car, she slammed her hand on the dash and bruised it. Satisfied his progeny had prevailed, he dispensed the fatherly advice "well, that was stupid. You should have gotten back out and hit her again!" then returned to watching the race.

Knowing at some level something was just not right with this picture, I quietly resolved to get the hell out of Dodge when I turned 18.

However, the education has come in handy. I don't get surprised. Of course I understand that when the crack ran out, you had to drive a borrowed car without a license and go steal some things because you needed more, and of course when the car was wrecked, you had to just leave it there, since getting caught would mean getting that old warrant served. Well, duh, what else would you do? Of course when the bitch showed up with your baby daddy and started talking shit, you naturally busted a beer bottle and went after her. Bitch has to learn a lesson, right? Girl got her pride. I think it makes me a better lawyer. At any rate, it gets me through the day and when the clients find me in a sea of stuffy white guys, they know that someone, somewhere, outside the trailer park does, in fact, understand.

Vote for me

I used to want to have an exciting life. I've changed my mind about this. Lately I've been privy to dyke drama including, in no particular order: amateur porn, public servants, a butcher knife, a broken beer bottle, an anonymous letter, drunk texting, and a slanderous internet questionarre. I don't particularly know most of these people, I just learn a lot by being in the right place at the wrong time. I've decided turning into a pumpkin at 10:30 and having girlfriend bandit get on me to eat more vegetables is really a fine little life. And it isn't even like "bitch, eat some damn carrots or I'm gonna cut you!" or like "Gimme those potato chips before I kick your ass!" or anything like that. It's just run of the mill encouragement to pack a lunch instead of having a velveeta cheeseburger, though I really do like the velveeta cheesburger, especially with a chocolate shake and a nap in my office. Sigh. Today I had mashed potatoes and turnip greens. And I'm not even fat.

What is it about lesbians that draws such drama? We can leap tall boundaries with a single bound; fall in love at boob-thundering speed; grow an emotional briar patch in like 9 minutes flat. Here's what I propose - we use our powers for good! All the lesbians of the world should unite their emotional powers and change the world over night. We could have the israelis and palestinians singing along to poorly arranged guitar ballads, have everyone in the world adopt a kitten/puppy/weird bird and through their love of that pet, embrace environmentalism and stop climate change; glue together the polar ice cap; help North Korea realize all they really need is love and feed the hungry with good, homegrown vegetables from co-op gardens. And if we can do these things half as fast as we can meet a new girl and practically move in with her, the world's biggest problems would be solved by next Tuesday - Wednesday tops.

Therefore, I am officially throwing my hat into the ring as mayor of the world. I will immediately order less clothing for hot chicks and that all hairy men wax their backs, then get on to the rapid business of reforming the earth by redirecting lesbians away from butcher knives and toward falling in love with the world. We would all be living together harmoniously with 175 billion kittens in no time. Vote for me! Our time has come! Just make sure the election results are in by 10:30 or so, because I'm going to bed.

Inside the U-Haul

I have a couple friends in new relationships, (read: moved in but don't know each other's middle names) and girlfriend bandit has an old friend getting married to some girl she's known like five minutes. Lesbians. What is it about us that makes us get involved at the speed of flying pool balls? "Hi! What's your name? I love you! Hey, Anne, this is my new girlfriend! It's different this time. Can you help us move?" I suspect that double estrogen works like some potent drug. I know boobies aren't magic because guys don't act like this. They are really good about slowing things the fuck down; a butt scratch, noting that she's cool enough to sleep with again,then remembering the game is on with a mental note to call by like Tuesday or something.

There may be an advantage, though, of not knowing someone - you don't have expectations that get let down when people change, because people do change, and sometimes drastically. Hiking boots gather dust. The bookworm starts watching basketball. The hippie discovers a competitive edge. The gardener stops saying "I want to live off the grid" and gets interested in luxury vacations. Drunks sober up and introverts start wanting to go party. A few years in, you might hardly recognize your girl as the one you took home, played folk music on your futon for and moved in over your cat's objection.

I think this is where it matters whether love is a verb or a noun. Hear me out here. Love as a noun is very subjective. We feel love, we are in love, we glow and gush to our friends, and all that is great, but is a booby-soft pink cloud of love that just doesn't cut it to get you through everyday life for long. Then there is the verb, to love. To give something that matters of yourself. To show up when you don't want to, listen though you're tired, give her a chance to work her issues out though you really don't understand them, and maybe just to stop and ask if you're being respectful, supportive and kind. I think as lesbians we get really caught up in what we want to feel, which is necessary and great, but sometimes forget to pay attention to the love we do.

I'm not saying stick together when she's changed so much she doesn't hit all 5 of your top five requirements for a mate. Hey, if you really need someone who will play with your monkeys and she develops a deep dislike of all poop-throwing primates, though I've no idea why that would happen, by all means move on! I'm just saying that it is what you do that matters. My dad got in a car wreck a couple years ago and girlfriend bandit drove out to sit with him in the hospital for weeks in a row - without being asked. That was when she truly won me over; what she did showed me dedication, loyalty and a willingness to go out of her way for me and for my family, who are really important to me, though you'd never know it by how bad I suck at calling. It's that kind of stuff that gets you through the times when the pink cloud is black and shitting sleet on you and you have to scrape and scrape to get the ice off your car and realize you have a crappy scraper and then that it is Saturday and you didn't have to go to work after all and put on a suit and went out in the sleet for nothing. You know, those days.

And that is my valentine's day message: if you're going to rescue some kittens together, make sure to do some stuff that gets you through the dirty litterbox days. Years later, you'll be glad.

And the winner is: Soul!

We won! The four black chicks with the lesbian coach are the freakin' national champions. I sat in the back, stomach in knots, heart thumping, as round after round, my girls stood up and laid it the fuck down. Their final closing argument was a spine tingling work of art. People told me they wanted to cheer.

After the competition, I needed to walk back because I just couldn't sit any longer. They walked, in heels and the drizzling rain, because they said if I was walking, they were walking. It was so wonderful to see them beaming with joy and reeling with their success. It was on the walk back that they told me they had wanted to win for me, and came out there determined not to let me down. "We couldn't have done this without you," they said. There in the craptacular neon light of Las Vegas, my heart broke. I thought I just gave them a good crash course in trial practice. Maybe I gave them something much more valuable.

In thinking about this over the past couple of days, I think I'm beginning to see why sports fans are so interested in the coach. It's the players, on game day, who matter. But before game day, it's the coach's job to bring out the best in those players. When organizers and a couple coaches were talking to me about how great my team was, I told them a little about my methods, which focused not just on the case, but on teaching them to believe in, speak for and understand themselves. I wanted them to be who they needed to be within the case. They grew. It was wonderful to watch, win or lose.

Maybe here it even went a little farther. They were all calling their parents (I envy how close black families are. I love my mom and dad and still haven't called them) and I heard one telling her mom that they were the only black people there. It might have taken a little extra to help them have the kind of courage and self assurance they showed in a white male profession against schools whose names people knew. "Oh, Rutgers. . . " they said, looking deflated. "Shit, they tried to recruit me and I didn't even write them back," I told them. "We run the courtrooms in North Carolina for a reason, and don't you forget it." While that's true, it is also true that our school is the state underdog. It's the old black college with the ghetto nearby. We let people in with lower scores and tougher backgrounds to give them a chance. So, "take that, white boy!" I say out loud. "This was right, and beautiful", I say to myself. I let them hold my St. Thomas More medal for the final round and asked that he guide them. I guess he did. And I'm learning that so did I.

Soul in Las Vegas

I'm a Southern chick and haven't spent much time here in Nevada. So far as I can see, it consists of dust, rock, hoover dam, Las Vegas and people who smoke. Oh, and white people. I saw one black dude yesterday touring the Hoover Dam. We offered to take his and his boyfriend's picture together and they freaked out. Like they weren't as obviously gay as Cher's club music and size 19 heels. Sigh.

Specifically, I'm in Las Vegas, the craptacular center of the universe. I'm here as a trial team coach from my old law school, a historically black university that trust me, does more with less. We get shit for grants, no post-school loan support, an administration I don't even want to talk about and the local whitey schools stick their noses up at us. Know what? We virtually staff the state's courtrooms and have turned out some of the state's finest defense attorneys and prosecutors. So there, whitey 85 hour a week drink too much never see your fancy house fucked up kids lousy marriage potbelly corporate law spent 3 years in a corner writing memos monkey. Roll your high cholesterol ass up in the courtroom and try to make a hearsay objection. I dare you.

I figured since this was a national competition, we'd see the nation represented. Nope. We went to registration last night and stuck out like muffins in a toolbox. Every coach and student in the room was white and straight. My team is four black chicks with a gay white coach. Know what? I think we got it. My team rolled in all suited up and ready to impress. We were behind two guys that looked like they just rolled in from a drunk. If you don't have the sense to shower and put on a clean shirt before you meet the opposing team, how much are you really thinking?

I see who we are as a strength, though. We're people with the strength to break the molds and be who we wanted to be, not who society told us we should be. However, it took a while to convince my students. Law is a potbellied white male profession and sitting around reading case law does not help one find one's true voice. It helps one find a lot of dust and question the existence of a soul.

We only had a month to practice but after two weeks I suddenly realized these girls were trying to cram themselves into molds that don't fit and losing everything that makes them special. Black women, at least southern black women,have this incredible ability to put you and your silly ass who I KNOW didn't just say that up in my house in your place in two seconds flat. And black oratory is a fine, soul rocking, inspirational thing. Ever seen a sweating black dude stomping around a stage telling you about Jesus while the audience says "amen!"? I don't know if there was a heaven before black preachers, but their sermons have probably built one.

My students had lost that. Finally, I told them to put their notes up and tell me why I should let this sorry ass piece of crap defendant live, or, on the other side, how I could sleep at night after letting the state kill this idiot who never had a chance. It was like watching Neo wake up from the pod in the Matrix. The goop started wearing off as they talked about how they really felt. "Now that is a closing argument." I told them and beat their notes out of their hands.

Regardless of how we do, I'm proud. I've seen four women start to find themselves. They stand a little straighter, speak a little stronger, smile a littler wider. Maybe we win the competition and maybe we don't. But I feel pretty sure we have stood up against the stuffy old establishment and struck a blow for the soul.

I got nominated?

So I'm pretty pleased that my list of rants here, otherwise known as a blog, has been nominated for a lezzy award at thelesbianlifestyle.com. Get your lazy ass there and throw in a nomination. Maybe I win something. I'm not sure what one would win, though. A dildo shaped pen? A signed picture of Cat Cora? Some wrenches? Tickets to a women's basketball game? Mmmmm, Cat Cora.

Apparently, I've been nominated in the best feminism and political blog category. This confused me a little since I would have expected it to be in the humor category, but I suspect, deep down, that I'm not nearly as funny as I think.

I suppose it now behooves me to talk about the lesbian lifestyle or something political or feminist now. Um, OK. More dykes should run for office. That's political, right?

Um, the lifestyle part is going to be more problematic. I'm not really sure what the lesbian lifestyle is. I'm pretty sure it involves a lot of pets and comfortable shoes. I have a girlfriend and a few lesbian friends. Our houses, incomes and bras look nothing like the "L Word." Neither do any of us. I don't really follow sports but did watch the superbowl. That guy with the ball ran really far! That other guy with the ball did pretty good too. I wore a turtleneck with my suit the other day. It looked soooooo gay. At least that's what neighbor dyke bandit said. Is that a lifestyle?

Truth be known, I'm not so sure I even have a life. Saturday night I played video games while girlfriend bandit painted shelves. Then we ate some broccoli and mashed potatoes. Neither of us drink or go to the bar. We are usually in bed with books at 10:30. I listen to loud hip hop on the way to work but can't rap. I know how to play guitar but don't. Is this a life? Does it have style? Do I have style? Probably not. I'm a lesbian. We like comfortable shoes.

I am happy and flattered, though. Now go fucking vote, you freeloading reader. Earn your political feminism lesbian blog reading keep.