Bleah. Yaar. And bah.
Apparently threatening one’s management company that you will book a hotel room and deduct it from your July rent if the a/c isn’t in proper working order by the time you arrive home is the magical combination of words that gets your shit fixed … even if it’s after the major heat wave has broken.
I’ve officially hit my capacity for stupid. Seriously. There’s a trio of people about whom I am really starting to wonder — do they actually think they are smart/useful/worth the oxygen they breathe? Between the one who’s trying to get their contract extended (HELL to the no), the one whose mind *boggles* when you ask them to do their job and who is thrilled with the job they do (even if no one else is), and the other who refuses to fix problems that you ask for help with but suddenly meets with their team and declares to the whole company, “We have identified a problem! And we have asked Goddess to fix it,” well no goddamn wonder there’s a stapler imprint in the middle of my forehead.
Oh and the insurance company I’ve told six times to change my address? Stop charging me late fees when every fucking statement is returned to you and you have to forward it to my right address again. Type it into the fucking computer! The home office did, a year or so ago. But the local office? Not so much. I can has somebody in my life with brains? Plz?
Moving on to amazingly competent people who aren’t in charge, I’ve been asked what the experience of seeing Hillary Clinton’s speech live-and-in-person was like. Other than feeling like the country is 14-karat fucked that she’s not the nominee, well, it was magical.
The love in the National Building Museum on Saturday for her was outstanding. The hope that we all had was so fragile and raw — as we all shared our stories together about why this was our candidate, you saw a lot of pain in wondering whether anyone else could fill those stylish high heels and address the things that matter to us most.
My friend Blythe pointed out a woman who was sitting in the VIP section, whom she had also seen at a rally in North Carolina. She said the woman worked many jobs and was really sick and had no health care, and someone from the Clinton camp somehow got her hooked up with health care services. And there she was today, doing well because she got the help she didn’t otherwise have access to.
That was my deciding factor, her plans for national health care. We are treating people as worse than second-class citizens if they are stay-at-home parents, caregivers, working poor and even middle class because health care is so fucked in this country. And it hits me at home, harder than I will ever discuss here.
And low-cost health care avenues around here are a goddamned joke. Even if you have no income, you still have to pay for whatever shit level of care they can give you. How can you go to work when you are unwell? How can you help to stimulate this flailing economy when you’re in too much pain to get out of bed? Why are we willing to let these potentially productive citizens wither away to nothing?
< / rant >
She has a huge gay fan base — I was originally hanging out with a group of guys and gals who were just hilarious and brilliant. A few of them worked at her campaign headquarters in Arlington, and they were pointing out all the congresscritters and reporters who showed up. And they were very adamant that while they think John McCain is a dick, they are not voting for Barack Obama, either.
That’s what worries me — so many people who said they will either vote Republican or just stay home. And even while I sit here wondering whether I’ll do a write-in vote myself, it’s still a two-party system. Ergo, any vote not for the Democratic nominee is automagically a vote for the Republican nominee.
I remember being so angry last election when so many people voted for the Independent/Libertarian candidate — I couldn’t believe they would cost us the glory of kicking Dubya Junior out of the White House. I know they wanted their voices to be heard that a two-party system sucks and no one has presented us with a candidate worthy of our vote. I get that. I feel that now.
But now that approximately 50% of Hillary’s supporters aren’t planning to support the presumptive party nominee, well, do we just bend over and kiss our asses goodbye? I mean, I vote Republican in local elections if I like their candidate better, but I will always, always hold the party line on the national level.
But just like people voted for John Kerry four years ago because they thought Bush was a tool (and not because they liked Kerry), well, I find myself wanting to do the same. I will likely vote for Obama because I don’t want McCain to jeopardize women’s rights or keep us at war for the next hundred years.
Blythe had said to me not to worry — he’ll probably be dead before the general election, given all his health problems. 🙂 It’s terrible to smile at that, but I’ll take hope anywhere I can get it these days.
I just feel like the media giving up on her influenced the people who were going to vote for her. I mean, they were declaring Obama the presumptive nominee before South Dakota’s votes were counted (in her favor, I might add). I was proud of her that she stood up that night and claimed the victory she had earned and point-blank ignored the rest of the hoopla. I didn’t sleep at all that night — I was physically ill over the way things had turned out.
At the rally on Saturday, some people in line with me (as the line wrapped around the city block 1 1/2 times as we waited to get inside the NBM) said not to worry, she’ll run again in four years. The hell? The woman’s a very young 60-ish, but she had to go to fucking war for the past year. Who in their right mind would do that again? We lost, plain and simple. Well, rather, we lost out.
There isn’t always tomorrow, boys and girls. And that’s why my nerves are raw. I don’t see anybody coming to me and telling me that I still count, too. I don’t hear anyone saying that the dreams and hopes and ideals I had don’t have to die right here and now.
I wish I’d done more. Donated more, gone and volunteered, blogged, campaigned, whatever. Anything to keep from feeling so hopeless and wondering what I can do now.
Maybe the answer is to campaign for Obama. (Give me time, though — I’m still not ready to move on. *sniffle*)
I have a campaign button that says “Chelsea in 2016: Keeping the Family Tradition.” If the country hasn’t been screwed-up into an even less-recognizable state by then, and if she actually decides to follow in her parents’ footsteps, I think I’ve found my new calling. I just wonder what to do with myself in the meantime.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:51 AM
When all else fails, there’s the strategy of calling your apartment complex’s corporate office. On-site management offices are usually staffed with, well, whoever will take the job, and their commitment and competence cannot be counted on. But at corporate, you have the executives who understand what the legal obligations are regarding features of the property and the rent that people pay to enjoy them. So keep careful note of who you call, when you call, how many times you’ve called, and if you can’t get satisfaction, just call up the chain until you do. At my last place, I went a month with a stopped-up toilet and repeatedly ignored calls to management until I finally just grew a pair and called the property manager’s boss at corporate. My toilet was fixed within the hour.