Okay…So for some bizarre reason, I have decided to run for office in my little community.  That’s right.  Become an elected official. Why, you ask, would anyone EVER do a stupid thing like that.  I find myself now asking the same thing.  The idea was that since I had stopped working FOR PAY, as they say,  to get my kids past most of the dangerous milestones in life…learning to chew, learning to walk, learning to say no to the crack pipe, that I had some time on my hands (as a former sixty an hour week workaholic) to do nice things for my community.  I worked on building gardens at the school, I helped raise money and get some plans for a redesigned waterfront, I had my little underemployed fingers in all sorts of do-gooder pies.  And someone, clearly while I was drunk, suggested running for the Village Board.  “Great”, I thought.  “This could be a very productive way to spend my time before I return to the work force after ten years off to make millions of dollars.”  And, thus, I did all of the necessary stuff to get on the ballot to try to continue my do-gooding.  Well, much to my dismay, no good deed does truly go unpunished.  Or as my good friend John (and the current Mayor of my community) says..”No good deed goes unpunished and the punishment is excruciatingly painful and perpetual.”  I now find myself in the midst of some of the weirdest partisan shit this side of Washington or, frankly, Moscow in the forties, that I could ever imagine.  Let’s just say that there have been phone calls with subtle threats (“Support so and so because you are a Democrat and all Democrats need to stand together…you are a Democrat before you are a person…even if you don’t agree with anything he/she believes in.”) or the flip side, when I reached out to Republicans to talk about truly Republican issues like repairing sidewalks and trash pickup I got things like “I like you, you work hard, you’re smart…but I am a party person so I’m going to have to support this other person who’s never gotten anything done”.  What the fuck.  BUt that is NOT what this blog is about.  This blog is about IF LIFE WERE PARTISAN.  The Village had a wildly successful health care rally last night.  Hundreds of people in lawn chairs next to our beautiful river.  Pete Seeger came and sang.  Most of the people at the rally were for health care for everyone no matter the cost.  A group at the back of the field were not.  I must say, looking at the number of teeth missing in that particular crowd, a little government subsidized dental care would be a good thing and I was surprised they didn’t understand that.  But what struck me most is how firmly planted in their position they, and everyone on the other side were.    I defy most of you, save the few true smarty pants who do understand, to tell me the finer points of both sides of the health care debate. Frankly, I don’t think most in Congress can do that.  They are just digging in to their partisanship, on a much higher level than my little Village and precluding any real discussion.  I do feel confident that  more productive talk is going on in the halls of that big White House.  So I started to wonder…what if all parts of life were decided by parties.  If every little thing was a group decision and if you were part of that group,  right or wrong, that’s where you stood.  Say, for instance, your kids.  What if kids banded and formed a group called “Kids for Candy at Every Meal and Occasionally Instead of Meals”.  KCEMOIM for short.  No matter how hard you tried as a parent to force some broccoli and protein on the wee ones in your life, they held firm and only ate candy.  No matter how much they wanted a carrot to cut the overwhelming and disgusting taste of Skittles at every meal, no way JOSE will they budge.  You’ll have to pry the Skittles from their cold little hands.  Because that is their party.  It is what they believe in, they think.  Skittles for breakfast, Skittles for lunch and, my god over my dead body, anything other than Skittles for dinner.  In a rare pairing of unlikelys, dentists and candy manufacturers would lobby heavily and fund study after study that made it clear that candy is dandy (leaving the liquor part for the “Liquor Instead of Milk Party”, a group I could heartily endorse) and parents would eventually give up.  They would never, however, develop a taste for Skittles.

Or what about the party “Hairdressers for Brown Hair”.  You’d walk into your hairdresser, tell her that you wanted your usual reddish brown with some face framing highlights and she would shock you by saying “Oh, so sorry, but I’m now a member of HBH and I’m afraid I no longer think that’s a good look for you and we’re going to go brown today.”  Now since most of us are now naturally brown, this would be fine for many but if you are still trying to look a bit youthful and daring with a few highlights and some lowlights, well, you clearly would go somewhere else.  But the elsewhere has also joined HBH.  In fact, almost all hairdressers are now members of HBH except those who have joined “Bleached Blondes Forever” and that’s a group very few of us can comfortably join.  Or what about “Physicians for a More Attractive America”.  They would be happy to treat your H1N1 symptoms but only if they can give you botox between the eyes and in the crows feet and just a bit of filler in the upper lips.  Or “The Peoples Party of Highwaisted Pants”.  My god, I know they are IN this year but that’s one terrifying option.  Or “Spouses for Polygamy”.  Or how about “Pets for Pooping in the House”.  With the tag line…”No More Stinky Litter Boxes for Me”. Or the “I Don’t Give a Shit and I’ll Drive as Slow as I want To and I’ll talk on the Cel Phone” party.  That would be a powerhouse.  The “Every Car Repair will Cost A Thousand Dollars so Fix Your Windshield Wiper Yourself, You Idiot” party.  The “I only Watch Glen Beck” party.  Or, their counterpart, “I Only Watch Stephen Colbert Party”.  Now I like Colbert but I don’t want to have to watch just him.   We could have endless parties.  Although not the fun kind involving some onion dip and a nice cold glass of Chardonnay.  What if liquor store owners started a party.  The “I Only Sell Jug Wine” party.  Wow.  Think about that.  I know I sound bitter but this has been an eye opening experience.  I even got a telephone call from one die hard Democrat who went so far as to point out to me that I no longer existed.  This was confusing and a bit too existential for me since I could clearly see my legs and they were wearing my Frye boots that I liked and the jeans that make my ass look good, so not only did I surely exist but I looked good.  Then the caller clarified.  I don’t exist outside my party.  The party of the Democrat.  What I thought no longer mattered.  Hmmmm.  Who the heck knew that this was how it worked outside of Stalins Russia.  Although, many are saying “I told you so”,  I’m trying to look on the bright side of running for office.  And what’s that you ask?  We’ll actually, apparently, I do exist because the only other thing that has come out of this experience is a stalker who wrote me a really lovely fan letter that included, among many far more graphic and stunning bits of anatomical information about him (are people really built like that?), the fact that he has my campaign picture hanging on his wall and uses it to engage in some self love. As my friend Mary said..”Well, it is a good picture”.    The real bummer is, after my chat with the police about my stalker friend, it appears, even he can’t vote for me, as much as he likes me.  No, not because he’s a Republican or a Democrat who doesn’t share my views.  He just lives in another county but at least it isn’t partisan.