Watching the Sox at least living history, whether or not they win this game. I think the best thing to come out of the drama of a come from behind series like this one is it tossed a little work to poor Doris Kearns Goodwin. She got to chat a bit with Tom Brokaw about the hometown team.

Don’t get me wrong, as a writer and a performer, I’m not going to excuse plagiarism. However, it seemed like she was onluy allowed out of mothballs every four years to comment on presidential elections and whatnot. Now, here we are in a neck and neck race for the future of our country, and she hasn’t been scene much (at least not by me). It’s tough when you can’t even get seasonal work.

I’m hoping for a Red Sox win, not only for the obvious local loyalty reasons. If it comes out Houston versus Boston for the World Series, we might want to just forget the presidential election. A Texas-Massachusetts baseball game is probably more honest than what we got going on these days by way of the electoral system. Maybe they should play in Florida to really underscore the game of it all.

I have now checked my laptop, my Mac desktop, my old PC and two different big, portable drives, and I cannot fucking find my business resume. I also pulled out every file that I could looking for a paper version. I know this thing exists in the universe, I just have no idea which galaxy.

The fun part was finding a million old cards and letters and unsent correspondence. There was a card from someone named Margaret, who said that she thinks of me often. It sounded like she missed me. I cannot recall ever in my life being particularly close to a Margaret. I can think of a Monica, a Martha, a Mary, a Michelle, a few Julies and even a Carolina, but Margaret ain’t ringing no chimes.

In another card, a good (and memorably current) friend’s mom invited me to come back for another visit and afternoon tea. In the note, providing more proof of my waning brain capacity, she thanks me for visiting with her daughter while she was sick. The problem there, I cannot remember her EVER being sick. Sure, maybe a cold or some plantar fascia now and again, but sick and worthy of a visit. Hmmm.

(I will likely call and/or email and ask, but if you are slacking in your office and see this post (and you recognize yourself (Hint: your first initial is actually E. and that’s the letter your mom would have given if asked), please leave a comment about this alledged email I may have forgotten.)

Tying back into the background soundtrack of my mad search through paperwork, I found a baseball card for 3,000-hitter, Wade Boggs. Yeah, I was monitoring the sixth game of the Red Sox-Yankees pennant series.

I’m a shitty baseball fan, I admit. I lack the patience to sit quietly and watch an entire game, but I generally have some idea of the standings throughout a season. Then, I might actually watch largish portions of playoff games. I dunno, maybe it’s all of the running around the bleachers that watching a game to me meant to me on annual trips to Fenway as a kid. Or, maybe it’s the picture in my head of the very measured, reserved viewing of my grandfather.

My grandfather was a loyal baseball fan, who I mostly remember from when he was housebound by emphysema. As far as I know, he watched every game he could in a season or caught it on radio. Not once do I remember ever seeing him cheering or shouting or raising his voice in any way. It could have been the opera by his aspect while watching.

Of course, there were quite a few years under his belt by the time I came along and was anything like a cognitive being, so he may have been much more frisky a fan back in time. (By way of explanation on the differences in our ages, wide for a grandparent, compared to the other kids in my town. He had been a doughboy in World War I (and hated the Belgians because of it). I was a fetus when JFK was shot. I guess he was around 70 when I was born.)

We did, as children, only ever refer to him or call him by “Grandfather.” I never appreciated the formality of that appellation until I was an adult. So, maybe he was never what you would call “frisky.” But he was a Red Sox fan, and baseball is the only sport in which I remember his showing interest. In fact, he seemed pretty antagonistic and dismissive of every other sport.

Anyway, the Sox made history tonight and took the needed three straight to make it to a seventh game. It makes me a little nostalgic for last fall when M. and I snuggled on the couch and watched those playoffs. It was then I knew M. was a natural-born American tricked into birth on a different continent.

By the way, fuck this guy and his hatin’. (Hi, hbee.) Watching the Sox play is far more entertaining than most of the crapfest comedy shows you see around town.

(Just held my self back from linking to the towering temple of fecally challenged comedy. No need to underscore my bitterness. People who understand the state of the Boston/Cambridge comedy scene will understand. As for the perpetrators who wouldn’t know comedy if it smacked them in the face like a wet halibut, what can you do? Although, when I do leave town, I think there is one such perp I will gladly suggest to fuck himself. I just gotta assemble the right crowd of beer-buying well wishers to witness it. Girl’s gotta capitalize on righteous indignation every now and again and at least get some free drinks out of it.)

Now that I’m almost fully recovered from yesterday’s trauma, I can give this item a little attention.

Check my getting quoted right here on the world-wide Internets thingie.

(Never mind that I said I was a research administrator helping oversee systems or that the computer I mentioned was running a flavor of Unix, not open source, or that the less than visionary craphead leader made fun of my dating life whenever I mentioned open source solutions. I’m still in the game if you look beyond the details.)

Which reminds, I think along with updating my resume, today’s project includes adding some press stuff to this here website. I mean I have been quoted in the goddamn Wall Street Journal. The real one, the one made out of paper.

Spent part of tonight reading up on when you might use a bleach irrigation in dentistry and bleach poisoning (aka wasting time with the Internet).

Turns out my dentist wasn’t trying to actual kill me, just irritate me. Bleach is considered an irritant not a poison, and even a small child can survive swallowing a bit. In adults, though, the gagging, retching, vomiting reflex kicks in harder (that’s why I know now that I am grown up).

Irritant it sure is that bleach. My throat is still sore and burn-y tasting and it’s been about 12 hours since the attempted murder. Oh, I mean attempted/succesful irritation.

By the way, the visual I left out of the anecdote below — Me, prone in a dental chair and hemmed in by the spit sink on one side and the tool tray on the other, emitting strange gurgling noises as a prelude to more conventional pre-puking sounds. Very Mount St. Helens. The dentist, rushing to grab the wastebasket and inserting it between me and the spit sink in case the technicolor yawn eruption was to exceed the spitting in the sink volume.

Even while I was retching, I mentally registered the huge nasty factor of your dentist anticipating the need for a wastebasket hurl.

At the end of the appointment, I entertained myself by accusing him of murder and asking if a Google search would reveal a path of dental deaths and his picture.

Generally, I pretty much fucking hate the medical establishment and medical procedures. I understand them, I endure them, but I hate the discomfort and the alien feel of probes, pokes and whatnot.

I’m actually a big, fat wuss at heart. (Although, pain doesn’t actually bother me that much. My pain is not the physical it’s the guinea pig, science experiment, end product, piece of meat feeling.)

The absolute worst feeling of dread and loathing is reserved for the dentist.

Due to shooting pains in my face from a long dying tooth, I have of late succumbed to dental probing. So far, there have been all sorts of Inquisition-like methods of exquisite torture, including a root canal and enough drilling to be worthy of Bush’s ultimate Alaskan wilderness wet dream. I have endured and see a future of chewing into my dotage.

The dentist is a nice, young guy. He’s polite, gentle and takes the time to explain what he’s doing and waits for me to finish clenching in anticipation of his dental reaming.

Today he tried to kill me.

Until the day comes when the burning in my throat ceases, I am not sure I can adequately explain what happened.

For now by way of metaphor or example or something all I will say is if for what ever reason you have ever gagged, say on a small morsel that went down the wrong pipe or a large cock that pushed a little too insistently, you have felt discomfort. Anything causing that involuntary throat closing and convulsing retch leaving the hot taste of bile beyond the end of your tongue is a feeling of helpless, hopeless, godawful kill-me-now misery.

Today, I wished for the relative comfort of that horribleness. I convulsed, I retched, I swallowed, I spit, phlegm came from my mouth, my nose and probably my blood-shot eyes. None of those reflexes could relieve the burning, burning, burning.

So, today’s tip for anyone thinking of taking a little coursework in the lucrative world of dental assistance, is fucking listen to the dentist. If he says turn the fucking suction wand on full tilt than I want to hear that puppy hum like an unmufflered chopper doing 90 on a clear day. And, if he says to fucking suck up that river of bleach BEFORE it pours down the prone patient’s open throat, you fucking wield that wand of suction full bore, like a righteous sword of god and make that river disa-fucking-ppear.

Now I know what it would be to die by bleach poisoning and a more wretched exit I cannot imagine.

Hours later, and my throat still is raw and feels like I’ve been gargling Chlorox.

Looks like the writer William Gibson has cranked up his weblog after stopping about a year ago.

Inspiration for right-thinking Americans every to not let up on the weasel Bush.

He quotes a lightbulb joke from John Cleese.

How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

None. There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn’t work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness.

Yeah, that just about fucking says it all.

I spent part of today reading through thesmokinggun.com’s transcript of Bill O’Reilly’s office hijinks and general creepiness. Then, I watched clips of Jon Stewart from The Daily Show taking on the the clowns from Crossfire. For a minute, I felt like there was hope that reason and rational discord could pull us out of a now completely indefensible war and remove GWB from office.

But, then I read through Ron Suskind’s piece in the NY Times about GW’s faith. (Sorry if the link doesn’t work, you have to register at the Times’ site.)

Fucking hell, if he is able to mobilize the holy rollers to vote, Armageddon is likely closer than we all think. It’s depressing to think certainty without reason or cause is a good quality in a president. I don’t know which part is scarier, the one where Bush gets Sweden and Switzerland confuses or this little gem:

In response to a question, he talked about diversity, saying that ”hands down,” he has the most diverse senior staff in terms of both gender and race. He recalled a meeting with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany. ”You know, I’m sitting there with Schroder one day with Colin and Condi. And I’m thinking: What’s Schroder thinking?! He’s sitting here with two blacks and one’s a woman.”

I’ve been mentally boycotting a comedy club that I think should book me more but doesn’t. Subjectively, yeah, I hate rejection. Objectively, I am far more funny and original than a bunch of shit that crosses that stage. Ah well, reality, at least as it pertains to a stage I don’t own, is wildly subjective.

My talents, such as they are, shall find some place fitting or at least adequate.

I broke the boycott today, though, and went to a show, mostly to see this chick. Figured it might be “edgy” and/or interesting. Fucking A, life just disappoints every way around.

I hate shitting on a fellow chick, a fellow comedian and someone who seems to ply the sex trade, because fucking god or whatever knows life is hard. But, man, I should be working marketing a bit harder, because, I mean, one hand tied behind my back, I got more to say than “Oh, yeah, L.A. is different.”

Not only that, as someday to have a linkable website buddy o’ mine pointed out on stage immediately after, what the fuck is going on with a sweetly American, apple pie bullshit dominatrix. Shit, if I’m going to be enslaved, I don’t want a goofy hat and giggly Valley Girl pink. Can’t imagine June Cleaver’s daughter in the B&D scene.

Other than that, it’s raining cats and dogs, build the ark, write another cliche, localized flooding to beat the band. Walking back to my car from the usually ghetto DJ dance scene bar (Again with the disappointments, that bar generally rocks my rock star diva world, when every Black dude in city limits tries to get beside me. However, tonight, no DJ because of the Red Sox and no Sox because of the rain, so no crowd at all and no ego strokage for me.), I was so wet you could have wrung out a liter of water from my pants alone.

The good news on the foul weather is the weather is so shitty, I felt bulletproof walking through the mean Cambridge streets at 1 a.m. Who the fuck is going to rape or rob you, when their feet are in two inches of soak?

I was going to post this thought as part of my last post, but then I realized it would be too harshly non sequitur.

Here’s what I want to know after watching last night’s debate and the various pundit discussions afterwards — How do actual homosexuals feel about what Kerry said in regard to Cheney’s daughter?

Pat Buchanan, Chris Matthews, that Scarborough pinhead whose first name escapes me, and someone else were all saying that they were shocked and outraged and whatnot that John Kerry so specifically mentioned Mary Cheney in his answer to how he felt about homosexuality. Apparently, it was invasive and terrible of him to have brought up her personal, private life. Not only that, but Mom Cheney is bullshit, so Kerry was wrong and bad.

From my straight, non-right leaning position, it didn’t seem so bad. I’m not one to think mentioning a person’s sexuality is particularly invasive of privacy.

I dont’ know, though, since it’s not an issue for me, swimming with the majority and all. Maybe it is invasive. Personally, I think the gay daughter thing may be the only think Dick and Lynn have going for them as members of the human race.

The self-realization du jour is that I have a hard time figuring out what people are thinking, especially as it pertains to me. I almost always assume the worst, or when I don’t the worst happens and I’m surprised.

For example, when M. and I fight, even when I know that he is overwhelmed by other pressures that have nothing to do with me or the “relationship,” I figure it’s because he has doubts and doesn’t really want to be with me. (Of course, it doesn’t help that he is every bit as much of the drama queen that I am and is given to express himself as though everything is wrong.) So, then I worry that I am spending time with someone who secretly hates me and my life is a sham, blah blah.

Conversely, and/or perversely, when I finally reach a feeling of comfort in a situation, holy hell breaks loose, shit falls apart and destruction ensues. Take my last job, for example. Stellar annual reviews, repeated reassurances that no matter what I was a valued cog in the wheel, reorganization meetings up the ass and my belief that the head of my area understood and “got” me and wanted my contributions around. Let’s just say I was completely wrong on all of the above and quite surprised at the manner of proof.

What you have then is my acting opposite to what is “normal” as a result of almost all external stimuli. Jesus, maybe I’m just callous and really dim?

Bringing us back to fighting and all, I just don’t know how to do it and still believe that the embattled opponent doesn’t hate me to a depth beyond what Bush feels for Saddam. How could M. not despise me?

(Much the same way a very young me assumed my aunt would never talk to me again after some childish slight. Then, my burgeoning social retardation was already apparent. I had reasoned, I did X wrong. My aunt would not like X. Therefore, my aunt should not like me and has every right to eliminate my existence from her presence. Imagine my surprise when she became angry at me not for X (which had already made me truly believe in my loathesomeness), but because I would think she was so shallow as to dismiss me, her niece, so easily and readily.)

My point being, I guess, I still have the emotional depth of a seven-year-old, and as M. leaves town, I will feel both sad that he won’t be around and I’ll miss him (and him, me) and that he secretly harbors ill will and hides it by acting as though he does actually care about me. Tricky.