In between bouts of wanting to punch Senator Bill Frist in the face, I’ve been thinking about back to back conversations at work that couldn’t have been scripted better to remind that the past is the past is the past.

Yesterday, the topic was conformity with the boss mentioning that as of late, based on some peer to peer conversations, she realized she was on the freakish side of liberal when it came to tolerance in hiring. Well, yeah, duh, not surprising since you tend toward jeans in a more structured environment, academic feel or no, and like to tweak the old establishment your own damn self.

The weird, looking backward aspect was her example, she would indeed, she said, hire an otherwise qualified and capable job candidate with visible piercings or tattoos or blue hair or maybe a gothic fashion sense. Actually, I got the feeling she would relish having a bad-ass looking goth freakishly minding the store.

The hair, tattoo, piercing thang was a familiar theme, dissected in the old world of the old job. The consensus–fuck no, no job, get out you weirdo. Seriously, the same example, unnatural colored hair, tattoos or piercing were the standard for what not to hire in conversations around the cliched water cooler.

My old boss stated it baldly, “If someone came in looking like that, I would have to assume it was a reflection of poor judgment, and I would have to wonder how that judgment would be for the job.” In other words, can you really trust those people? (Never mind that a quick trip to a local mall would suggest almost all people 25 show some sign of that so-called impaired judgment.)

The other conversation which echoed back was about dating musicians. In one of the fine examples of fucked up line blurring the ex-boss counseled an underling to dump her beau, instead of marrying him, because she was throwing her life away on a deadbeat. She opined that the underling had a bright and successful academic future and deserved one of their own to complete her happy picture of domesticity, some wonderful bright boy, full of earning potential and solid, earthbound dreams.

Maybe fair enough, but the flaw of the existant boy who was being dismissed amounted to only that he was a musician, a writer and, therefore, a poor earner. Nevermind that he founded a band that garnered some critical notice and a bit of CD sales and some touring. Forget that he is sweet-tempered, and at least when I knew them, absolutely devoted to his woman.

Many conversations in the workplace focused on the waste of this girl with this boy, this boy who would amount to nothing but a scruffy ne’er-do-well with sideburns and a guitar.

In my new, spooky world, the new spooky boss also talked about a musician with no earning potential in contrast to a promising academic girlfriend. Yeah, only she married him.

My new place of employ is so damned invested, I just can’t deal sometimes. It’s like I couldn’t even stab these people if I wanted to. If I did someone would just have to organize a town meeting and community fundraiser to like rehabilitate my bad ass stabbing self or something.

Today, it was free flu shots. Tomorrow, it’s a special lunch-time event to go over Governor Arnie’s special made up legislative stuff. It’s a bunch of referendums (referenda?) to which know one knows the answers. So we’re having a little edjumucation/voters hoedown.

Hard-core earnestness and doing the right thing and all.

Oddly in the disease-curing hopefuls’ world in which I used to toil, there was never this level of engagement in a better society. Fuck, those people could only stumble a bit beyond their egos to ocassionally bump into something useful. OK, maybe not all of them, but I am surprised that most cancer drugs have medicinal-sounding names instead of “Dr. Johnson’s magical elixir,” just so some asswipe doctor could see his name every day.

On top of that, the blinders to real world issues, like special elections and state referendum, were far too opaque. You know, what’s the future of the world and all when there’s hairs to split among learned colleagues and publication counts to pad?

I probably will fare a bit better at this gig over the last, and who knows maybe I’ll drop some of my workplace suspicion and skepticism. At least, I’ll keep riding the gravy train and soaking up the learning moments whilst I can.

At work there were free flu shots. I spent the day going back and
forth in my head as to whether to snag one, since I am not really
exposed to children or the elderly or anyone else weak in the line of
disease fire.

(In my racist soul, I would argue living with the third-world spawned
boy-o is a risk, but after 20 or so years, he’s probably clean.)

Then, GW made a speech about pandemics, so I thought "fuck it."
Wouldn’t we all be better off doing the opposite of whatever genius he
spouts?

But it was free and easy. Just a few steps to a conference room in
the same vicinity as my little cube. And, what the hell, when we go
to Malaysia, it will be one last thing to worry about. (Except, of
course, for the avian flu that is going to kill us all, just like SARS
did.)

If I get sick this winter, though, the fault will rest squarely on the
shoulders of GWB. His speechifying confused me.

I learned something today. Something that surprised me after quite a few viewings live and up close at the Boston Marathon. Until today, I had not seen blood stains streaking down man chests at marathons.

Now I know that there is a need for a product such as this one.

Thankfully, M.’s nips appear unabraided and unmolested.

I appear to be living with a crazy man. At least that’s how I calculate the desire to run 26.2 miles.

M. ran his first marathon today. Thank god for the end of Dayligh Saving Time, which I hate. It gave us an extra hour’s sleep before the marathon start time of 7 a.m. Wonderful trooper girlfriend, partner, whatever that I am, I was right there at dawn heading into downtown San Jose with him.

We were off at sunrise and came home right at sunset, once we had a late lunch or early dinner. Since I had a whole lot of time to kill, while himself trotted throught the miles, I walked the 5K course. I listened to an audiobook and basically made little effort to strain myself. Nothing but time was my mantra.

I did not make the ultimate personal goal for which I was aiming. I half-heartedly strove to be last. I failed. There were others behind me, because, after all, we all dig running with a pack. If I couldn’t actually bring up the rear, I wanted to be last in my age group. Nope, failed that too. Overall for women (listed as “females,” which I hate when women and girls might do), I was 54 out of 57. For women of my vintage, I was 6 out of 8. You can look it up.

Since my time was directly proportional to my effort, or lack there of, speedwise, I felt quite douchey at the finish line. An event photographer took my picture while several young woman from a couple of local colleges cheered out, “Come on, you’re almost there, you can make it!” and other words of encouragement.

Um, yeah, I hope I can fucking make it. I was strolling. And, 3.1 miles isn’t that far. (Pretty often, M. and I walk up the street to the local mall-ish area for dinner. It’s about 2.5 miles up and 2.5 back.)

Not knowing this fact, the girls went wild cheering on my apparent first step away from a completely sedentary life.

With one hour (almost) down, I walked around a good chunk of downtown San Jose, peed at a couple of fine hotels, hit one Starbucks that had a mysterious shortage of chai latte, hit another to succeed in my chai quest, moved my car closer to the finish line and still had several hours to go. Back at the finish line, I made another spin around the vendors and sponsors with free samples and talked a good while to a buddy on the phone.

By then, marathoners were trickling in, but not my baby.

He did make it, though, and I kind of like the fact he’s looking a little mortal after the run. Until now, I have only seen him sweat, but never hurt. His knees took a pounding, and he’s resting in front of the TV with Ben-Gay.

Mortal, but successful. Now, in his weakened state, I stand a chance to bend him to my will.

I couldn’t sort out my feelings yesterday over Harriet Miers.

On the one hand, when she was nominated I loathed the cronyism and suspected her only qualification was taking GW’s secret to her lawyer’s grave. However, there was the chance that she would be more moderate than at first blush. Now, my happy dance of her withdrawal is marred by the thought the pressure came from seriously whacked hard-core right wingers who will not rest until every sperm and egg in the universe are given a chance to grow up and live in FEMA constructed trailer parks.

Meaning, Bush will do fucking anything to bend to that corner of the lunatic fringe. Oy.

Today, however, I rise to sunnier times and downright optimism. Poor little “Scooter” got caught.

The one glimmer of a brighter future that sustained me through the sad spectacle of the ’04 election ran in my head as, “Nixon got his second term, but then there was Watergate.” Surely, I hoped the lying, incompetent weasel of a second-term president, George Walker Bush, had that kind of malfeasance lurking in his power corridors. Hubris among the powerful being what it is, it was only a matter of time for things to unravel.

That was my dream and today I feel a dream coming true.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, motherfuckers.

The best headline had been on the NY Times online a little bit ago: “Prosecutor to Speak Soon; No Indictment for Rove Today.” I was digging the “today” aspect. As in, Karl Rove hasn’t gotten his turn yet.

If Karl Rove resigns this week and/or is indicted I may start believing in an intelligient designer.