Bartlet for America

From this imaginary conversation between Barack Obama and the greatest fictional American President of all time, Jed Bartlet:

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Because no one writes rants like Aaron Sorkin.

Political Linkage

Due to my recent bout with bad attitude and an even worse ability to focus, most political thoughts I have in draft will stay in draft. (I mean, who wants to read, at this late date, my thoughts about Joe Leiberman's defection, the politics of school "choice," and Sarah Palin's ironically hypocritical stance on abstinence-only sex ed?).

Recently Cecily wrote about the assertion that, deep-down, everyone is ultimately a one-issue voter. In a way, I believe this to be true. For me, the issue I focus on is reproductive choice. It's not that it is the only issue I care about -- far from it -- but it's the issue I use as a barometer to help predict other parts of a candidate's platform. I find that a person's attitude toward reproductive rights is reflective of their general attitude toward other issues I care about: education, health care, gay marriage, women's issues in general, first amendment rights, the [non]Patriot Act, civil rights, the list goes on.

McCain's recent comments about reproductive choice during the final presidential debate speak volumes about his general attitude toward women. (This was just after his comment that "Sarah Palin is a role model to all women." In what world?! I ask.)

Anything I could compose at this point regarding his politics on this issue wouldn't be as articulate as what has already been written. Not to mention that the following women have personal experience to draw from, which gives their arguments more clout than mine would have. So to enlighten yourself, go forth and read:

Why No One With a Uterus Should Vote for John McCain by Julie at A Little Pregnant

Dear John McCain by Cecily at Uppercase Woman

More Wounded Than Eloquent, I'm Afraid by Alexa at Flotsam

And this, on the lighter side, from Pundit Kitchen:

In closing, I think that future candidates should take note: the use of air quotes in a political debate is destined to turn out poorly for the user.

Togetherness

For the life of me, I cannot get my shit together these days. Or keep it together for very long, on the rare occasions where I do feel like I’m on top of things.

Over the summer, I never really felt I got a handle on the situation: the new two-child family situation. By the time school started in August and I returned to work, we still didn’t have a schedule and were only functioning with a bare bones routine. Since then, we’ve hammered out a routine, the child portion of which starts around 4:30 in the morning (sometimes earlier) and doesn’t end until 9 p.m. This leaves very little grown-up time. On days when the Hubster works late or is out of town, I usually don’t eat dinner until after nine.

Luckily, the baby still sleeps through the night nine out of ten days. (He will be thankful he did this when he reaches the teen years and I exact my revenge on his brother for not doing the same by waking him every four hours repeatedly over a two-year-span.) Though I am short on personal time, I should feel reasonably well rested and mentally acute enough to greet the day. Inexplicably, this is not the case. For some reason, I am exhausted. Exhausted like I was last year, but with no handy pregnancy excuse. The new-baby-excuse works well when talking to other people (hey, as far as they know I could be up two, three, seventeen times a night), but I know that it’s bullshit. Still, I’m dragging myself out of bed like I spent most of the night cramming for a Poli Sci exam. And, some days, nearly falling asleep on my drive to work. (Because of this, I really am thinking about taking up coffee drinking.)

Mentally, I’m also struggling. While pregnant with the Monkey, I commented to a friend that I felt I’d dropped ten I.Q. points. She agreed and said that for her, the feeling lasted until her youngest child turned five. Five? Sweet Holy Moses. I don’t have five more years of this in me. But my physical exhaustion is translating to mental exhaustion. I can’t concentrate. My memory sucks (in fact, I thought of a much wittier title for this post, but by the time I got my draft open again, I’d forgotten it). And often I’m barely able to form coherent thoughts or hold a lucid conversation. Sometimes I lose focus in the middle of a topic and start a new thought with no rational segue. This has made teaching my history classes all the more an adventure. Every day, it’s a gamble as to what will come out of my mouth. Either my students think I’m a fun, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of teacher or they think I’ve completely lost my mind.

There are other physical symptoms, common to the post-partum hormone plunge, that are dragging my spirit down. My hair, so long and luxurious during pregnancy that I only had it cut once in all that time and it nearly reached my waist (it’s never been that long before and never will again), has been falling out. In clumps.

I haven’t lost any weight since my post-partum checkup at eight weeks. Which was two months ago. In fact, I think I might actually be putting weight back on. Not long after school started I had to bite the bullet and buy new work clothes, because I still didn’t – and still don’t – fit into my “fat” clothes.

Because of all of this, my attitude stinks. I’m feeling understandably blue. My self-image is suffering. I feel fatigued, chubby, unattractive, slow and generally overwhelmed. Wasn’t it Ozzie who said, “I’m sick and tired of bein’ sick and tired?” I could triple the length of this rant listing all the things I’m tired of, but I’m too fucking tired to do it. And in truth, if there’s anything at all I learned from reading Prozac Nation, it’s that the only thing more depressing than being depressed yourself is reading about someone else’s depression.

Last weekend, I mentioned all of this to Dr. Friend (actually, I have three doctor/friends, so I suppose I should come up with a better pseudonym for her, however she is the only one who is my actual doctor in addition to being a friend) and she said it wouldn’t hurt to check my TSH. (Actually, I mentioned it and she agreed with me, since you know I’m all about diagnosing myself for these things, what with my degree from Google School of Medicine and all). Rather than have me make an office visit just to get the test order, she mailed it to my house (a little friend-courtesy; it helps to know people). I noticed that she ordered not only a TSH test, but a complete CBC and further tests for anemia.

This morning on my drive to work she called me about my results. Everything is normal, except that my iron is a little low, but not enough to classify me as anemic. While I’m glad that there isn’t anything medically wrong with me (well, nothing new, that is), this still leaves me with absolutely no fucking reason for being fat and tired. Or more accurately, no excuse.

I think I keep hoping that somehow these issues will work themselves out. That isn’t happening. Apparently, I’m going to have to be more proactive. I must stop looking for excuses and figure out how to carve an actual life out of my days, one with a workable schedule of job, family-time, meals, laundry, and the ever-popular etc. (It’s the etcetera that’s killing me). Hopefully then I can whittle out some me-time. Maybe start running again. Get it together.

But first, self-medication. Does anyone have advice for a non-coffee drinker on starting to drink coffee?