I just had a FANTASTIC time visiting friends. Lots of them are known around WordPress World, though, so I’ll leave them — and myself — their/our privacy and focus today on another aspect of the trip, which is Road Trip World.

I love road trips, personally. I have an immense collection of CDs, not just the bought-at-the-store kind, but many homemade discs. I play around on iTunes and create theme CDs. Hey, some people knit, some smoke, some watch TV: I make theme CDs. And I haul ‘em all with me, so I never have a moment of silence on a road trip. Silence = death, especially when you’ve been driving for 8 hours straight and might doze off going 80 around a West Virginia curve.

Here are a few observations:

West Virginia, to my complete and utter shock, has the best drivers in the world. The only place that comes close to it is California. I was astonished to see people riding in the correct lanes for their speed, truckers staying where they’re told (the far right lane, thank God), drivers using turn signals and moving over to let others merge… I didn’t expect this from West Virgina, which previously only existed, in my mind, so we crackers from SC could make fun of somebody. I only experienced ONE asshole driver with a WV tag. I have no idea how this is accomplished, but I don’t care. As far as I know, the WV highway patrol could be pulling over lousy drivers and shooting them, then dumping their cars down the mountainside. If this is the case, someone please let me know, because it means there’s work for me in West Virginia.

Along with West Virginia, Virginia is the most beautiful place I’ve seen on the East Coast. Rolling hills, untouched mountains, towns few and far between… It was like looking at the U.S. the way it should have been left, before we came along and paved/electrified/billboarded/tunneled through it all. It was beautiful, but at the same time very sad.

If anyone had told me there was more farmland in Ohio than in SC, I’d've said they were smoking something. But it’s true. Instead of our ubiquitous tobacco and hay and peaches, there were acres and acres of corn. I felt right at home, like any minute now I’d see a sign that said “Tigereye’s Hometown, 17 miles.” And the Amish country is lovely.

Back in the Carolinas: Ludacris is right. MOVE, BITCH, GET OUT’ THE WAY. Jeeeeezus H. tap-dancin’ Christ, why does my state produce such total morons? The worst drivers in the U.S. are from Florida, Georgia, and, unfortunately, SC. There were assholes driving the speed limit in the left lane, assholes tailgating me when I’m speeding 20 miles faster than I should be, assholes who drive slowly until you try to pass them… I understand road rage. It’s why I don’t keep a weapon in the car: I’d be overly tempted to use it. Well, a real weapon, anyway — there’s always the tire iron. But really, I’m tired of being embarrassed for my home state. CAN’T YOU IDIOTS DO ANYTHING RIGHT? You vote red and you drive badly and you fly a goddamn Confederate flag — I belong here like flour in a torte.

I am the palest person alive. I saw five states’ worth of people to prove it. In a photo y’all won’t see, I’m posed beside a mannequin that’s only slightly paler than me. This hair sure does show up vividly, though.

In a hotel room in West Virginia, I stepped out of the shower to find a wolf spider crouched in the corner of my bathroom like a tumor set free. For those of you who don’t know, wolf spiders are black or gray, hairy, and they JUMP. He stayed still a while, and I dried off and went away. I returned to the bathroom twice and there he was, still in his corner. (In case you’re wondering, I didn’t kill him because I didn’t have any bullets, Malathion, or hydrochloric acid.) Then I discovered, on my third return, that the only thing worse than having a wolf spider in your bathroom is coming back to the bathroom and not knowing where the wolf spider went.

I brought two lovely pairs of shoes and schlepped around all weekend in my ratty Birks.

Virginia and North Carolina have the cleanest rest stops I’ve ever seen. These things are important. I only encountered one stop, on the Ohio turnpike, that was actually worse than a single man’s bathroom.

MapQuest’s new slogan should be: Close Enough. It took me off the highways and into Amish country, and while it was a scenic route, I prefer an all-70-mph course, thankyouverymuch. I then discovered MapQuest doesn’t allow you to select “mostly highways” as a planning option, although you can opt out of highways altogether. To which I say, WHAT THE FUCK?! I’m supposed to get from SC to Ohio using all back roads? How does one do this without taking a hot air balloon, pray tell? Also, MapQuest gave me a few key wrong directions, solved by my own sense of place (I know Columbia is south of Charlotte, for one thing) and the assistance of one of my hosts, about whom I will say Kevin No Last Name Officially Kicked MapQuest’s Ass. He got me onto the turnpike and knocked at least an hour off my trip.

A hotel drink machine stole a $5 bill from me and I was so incapacitated with a leftover migraine I didn’t feel like doing more than glaring when the manager told me to piss off. It’s a chain hotel, though, which means it has a website. Dude, all you had to do was be nice to me and give me five bucks — I did it all the time in retail. Now I’m home, healthy, and havin’ a grudge. Just wait.

 I came home to 6 work assignments, 135 emails (about 40 of which I didn’t delete), a cat pissed off at me for boarding him, and a thermostat on 77. You know you’re back in the Carolinas when the temperature is over 101 and the gas is under $3.90.

I miss my friends, though. I’m ready to do the whole trip again, this time without the spider.

Living with OCD is not that big a deal, although admittedly I don’t have a crippling form of it. I don’t have to re-check the locks or drive home and make sure the hair dryer is unplugged or touch every doorway in my house on my way out. I do, however, obsess more than most people do, about, uh, everything.

I worry about the spiders that have SURROUNDED my house. (I’m spider-phobic. I don’t consider that an unreasonable fear, though, and neither should you. I maintain that if Satan had taken the form of a spider when he tapped Eve on the shoulder, she would have known instantly who he was.)

I worry that there will be some weird prison break at the vet’s where Spike will be boarding for the next few days and he’ll end up a stray, in the care of a crazy cat lady who will overfeed him and fail to keep up his vaccinations.

I worry that I’ll take a wrong turn despite my carefully MapQuested directions and end up driving off a cliff in Quebec instead of making it securely to my friend’s house.

I worry that my motel, where I’m staying mid-road trip, will have bedbugs and I’ll have to burn everything in my suitcase, as if I had scarlet fever in the 1800s.

I worry that I’m not bringing enough shoes with me.

I worry that the rotten lousy brats who live around the corner will strip my outdoor AC/heat pump unit for copper to trade for crack, and then I’ll have to kill them and I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison, known as a child-killer, without everybody understanding that those worthless little bastards have deserved it for over a year.

You should see my suitcase.

OK, I have these jeans and those jeans and those shorts. Well. What if the forecast changes? I’ll bring one more pair of jeans. It’s sure to be colder up there. But what if there’s a heat wave? Better throw in an extra pair of shorts, just to be sure. Do I have all 997 hair products? Will that travel-size shaving gel last me the weekend? Do I need nail polish remover? Probably not, but it’ll fit in this compartment, so I’ll bring it anyway.

Facial scrub? Sure, why not. If I don’t bring it I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a zit the size of Pike’s Peak on my chin. Benadryl? I can always use Benadryl. Damn, this Imitrex expired in January, but I’ll bring it anyway, as insurance. Hell, it might even work.

YOU CAN NEVER, EVER PACK TOO MUCH UNDERWEAR. That is the 11th Commandment. Or it should be.

OK, setting the VCR… let’s see, Monk on Friday. And that Benjamin Bratt thing on A&E that I missed the other night, that reruns this weekend, I’ll get that too. I’m due home Monday. What if there are unforeseen circumstances that keep me in a no-cable-having hotel on Monday? Better set it for The Closer and Saving Grace too. And the new episode of the Benjamin Bratt thing runs next Tuesday. Why not — I can tape 6 hours, I might as well use ‘em.

Is that enough dental floss? I have a real OCD thing about dental floss. If I don’t floss I feel like I didn’t shower. (My dentist loves me, especially since I have bad teeth despite the whole flossing thing. I helped him buy his Porsche.)

Better bring the red shampoo, just in case.

Better bring a baseball cap, in case my hair just goes fucking crazy.

Didn’t I used to have prescription sunglasses?

Did I pack the dental floss?

OK, books. I’m reading these and I plan to start this. If I finish this one, I’ll have this extra. What if I finish two books? You never know — I might be insomniac and want something to read and NOT HAVE IT. That’s my idea of hell. So I’ll bring this too. And a crossword book, just in case. With a new pencil. I might do a bunch of crosswords and use up the old one. Oh, and this is just a mass-market book, so it’ll fit in the bag.

Recharge the iPod. Then bring the iPod recharger with me. Same for the cell phone.

Cotton balls. Those can’t be enough cotton balls. Luckily the whole bag doesn’t use up much space.

I think I’ll burn a new CD in case I get bored with the 300 already in my car. What’s a good theme for a new mix CD? I can’t decide. I’ll burn all three. Damn, now I have to get the CD wallet out of the car and re-alphabetize it. (No shit. I actually fucking did this.)

There. I left a space for my razor.

Maybe some extra socks and underwear.

I’ll see you all next week!

Everything in this post is true.

As you all know, I don’t make any apologies or excuses for my political beliefs, which hasn’t always made me popular in my very red state, but it wasn’t until all this Bush administration-warrantless wiretapping idiocy started that someone actually went after me for them. I’m sure my FBI file isn’t exactly up there with Tim Robbins’s, filling an entire file cabinet, but I bet there are at least two heavy, tattered folders of it, dating back to when I protested Gulf War I in college and running straight up to when I called GWB a smirking, slack-jawed baboon over the phone last week. Assuming a certain level of federal efficiency, of course.

It started, as many things do, with the telephone. And ice cream. And it goes back at least three years.

See, they’re wiretapping pretty much anybody, so I’d been joking for a while about being on the list, with no further qualifications than writing letters to the editor and publicly mouthing off to friends over drinks, movies, trying on clothes, hunting the car in the parking garage… My phone cracked and popped more often than I thought was normal, starting in 2003, but it was, after all, just a phone, and I’d flung it across the room a few times, so a little static didn’t seem unreasonable.

Then my favorite ice cream went away.

It was Haagen-Dasz Bananas Foster, and if you never got to try it, that’s my fault and I’m sorry. I really am. It was delicious: banana ice cream with an irresistible streak of caramelized rum swirling through it. My mouth is watering now, just thinking about it. I first found it at my local Publix, and when I got my one experimental pint of it home and tasted it, I went back the next day and bought about six more pints.

I savored them all, every life-beautifying bite, right up to the moment Publix suddenly stopped stocking it.

That didn’t make sense. If you’re selling out of something, you get more of it ’cause it’s obviously in demand, right? I’d done years of work in retail, and this was one of the most basic things I’d learned, right behind Ninety percent of people will steal anything not nailed down.

I figured maybe Haagen-Dasz just owed them a delivery, and stopped in the Publix near the veterinary clinic where I worked instead. Ah, success! I took home two more pints. And then the next time I looked at that store, they weren’t carrying Bananas Foster anymore either.

My phone kept crackling. People commented on it. John, my best friend, my mom. In fact, it was my mom who first said, “Are you being wiretapped? I hope you’ve got better sense than to say some of the things I’ve heard you say about the president over the phone.”

Well, I sure as hell was after that.

Then I went to a football game with a friend, and we stopped at a Ben & Jerry’s store on the two-mile hike back to the car (next time there’s a Clemson game on ESPN, look at that stadium and you’ll immediately understand). She got Key Lime Pie; I got Wavy Gravy. In the car, scarfing down our calories while waiting for the traffic to clear, we rhapsodized over how good it was, how we wished we each had a B&J store closer to home…

Next home game, both flavors were off the menu. Key Lime Pie was limited, explained the college kid behind the counter, looking at us a bit wide-eyed; Wavy Gravy had been discontinued again. He seemed nervous, like we were considering buying ice cream just before we blew up the place.

(About the Key Lime Pie: sorry, Beth. Didn’t mean to drag you into this.)

If it had stopped with the ice cream, I think I could have gotten along just fine, if disgruntled. (I mean, Bananas Foster was really, really good.)

Next to go was a favorite perfume. It was Liquid, manufactured by Hard Candy, and I’d ordered a bottle of it from their website, followed in short order by the lotion and the shower gel. It was an odd, almost licorice-scented perfume, unlike anything else I’d come across, and not long after I stocked up on it, it was gone.

After the success with removing one cosmetic from me, the guys in their black suits and black Lincoln (they must be miserable, sitting there in a southern summer, dressed like that, or at least I like to think how unhappy they are) decided they were on a roll and took away three of my favorite lipsticks, although by now I was catching on and ordered a backup of each one before they disappeared. Hey, it’s a pain trying to find a good red lipstick these days. I’d tell you what the colors were, but I have a sneaking suspicion the government guys might go through my house searching for them, and anyway you wouldn’t find them. Sorry.

And so it continued. No kidding. I keep thinking Ben & Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk is going to be next, so I’ve stocked up on it; instead the one I lost was Brownie Batter. The anti-frizz leave-in conditioner I used to slather onto my dyed, damaged hair has vanished. Ditto Pineapple Paradise Yankee Candles, Night Court on DVD, my favorite Opi nail polish, Clinique shower cream, and Escape body cream.

The tide might be turning, though. It’s possible that it’s just because this is an election year, but for the last two weeks, I’ve been searching every Publix and Bi-Lo and Bloom in three counties, looking for Lean Cuisine Chicken in Peanut Sauce. (Don’t laugh. If you couldn’t cook, you’d live off these too.) I almost gave up, carrying around the mental image of black-suited guys who don’t even remotely resemble Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones, raiding the freezer case at Publix, muttering to each other as they worked:

Guy 1: Go check the Ben & Jerry’s. I think we missed some Cake Batter last week.

Guy 2: I will, but first, don’t forget the Land Shark beer. It’s behind you. That’s on the list too.

Yesterday, on my grocery run, I passed a Publix stocker working the freezer section and peered over his shoulder. I think I messed up his afternoon, asking him to pass me an entire stack of Chicken in Peanut Sauce, but it was worth it. I’ve got to make it last, at least until November when I might get my civil rights back.

I only wish I could get Haagen-Dasz Bananas Foster back, too.

This has not exactly been my week. If I’d known how it was going to go, I would have crawled in bed after seeing Wall-E (far and away the best thing that’s happened to me all week) and come out only to hit the snooze alarm.

I volunteered to help a co-worker finish a massive project, and through no fault of hers, it’s sucking up my free time, my patience, and my will to live;

Spike ran out the front door today, and when I leaned over to scoop him up, I threw my back out for the first time in 6 years. I had to crawl — literally this time — back in the house, and it took me 10 minutes to get vertical. I have 5 pain pills left on this batch and I’m considering taking them all, washed down with a swig of Corona. Also, when I can move enough to catch Spike, I’m considering swinging him around by his tail until he’s dizzy and then flinging him out into the yard;

On top of that I’m getting a rerun of yesterday’s migraine;

I have to pay the rent and I’m curious as to what my landlord would say if I called him and said, “Hi, can you come over and get the check? By the way, it’ll only be good because it’s covered by my overdraft protection. And the reason I can’t bring it to you is I can’t walk and anyway I’m on painkillers.”

Also, I’m worried my adored Roger Federer is going to get beaten by his rival this weekend at Wimbledon. There. I said it.

As far as good news… well, Wall-E, like I said, is extraordinary. Back down to earth (snicker), there’s a two-day Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel, so I’ll be entertained while immobile.

Anyway, happy holiday weekend to everybody else!

I’ve been hanging out on a few sites lately that, while fun, tend to lean a little more celebrity-heavy than I usually like. I’ll go there looking for a conversation on the election or a good book review and instead it’s where I can get all the latest up-to-date information on Amy Winehouse and whichever Olsen twin is around lately (like it matters).

I’m actually kind of fascinated by Amy Janis Winehouse, and occasionally someone I’m interested in will show up in a picture — George Clooney is always a nice surprise — but it’s irritating to see all these photos that belong in Us Weekly on a site that usually has a little more substance. Celebrities in general kind of bore me. Besides, you’ve got a guy as interesting as Barack Obama running for President and all these people can crab on about is some British modelly thing on her fourteenth minute? Nah, I could be doing my nails.

For example:

Who is Agyness Deyn and why on God’s earth would anyone find her interesting?

Who gives a rat’s ass what Miley Cyrus (or her sad-assed washed-up dad) is doing this week?

Does anyone even remember Hilary Duff? No, and we like it that way.

Who are Spencer somebody and Chuck Bass and why should I read about them instead of playing spider solitaire compulsively ’til I win?

Don’t get me wrong. I went to that site to escape a crappy-assed social network, and at least the new place actually enforces its Terms of Service, which few other places can claim. I’m just in a bad mood and don’t give a damn that Matt Damon has eaten all the Ben & Jerry’s on the West Coast, as long as he leaves some for me.

Nice Melons tagged me, and I was just thinking — I believe someone else tagged me for God knows what, back around the time John was in the hospital and I was going broke fast. But now that my life is in TOTAL working order, ha ha, here I am — and if you’re that other person who tagged me way back when, I will owe you one. Seriously. No fingers crossed or anything.

I’m'a do what Wanda did — or somebody — sorry, you guys caught me on Flaky Friday — and just cut out the old answers and put in my own…

What was I doing 10 years ago?

Working at a Barnes & Noble, trying to claw my way up into management. When I did, it absolutely sucked.  

What are 5 (non work) things on my to do list for today?

Watch as much Wimbledon on ESPN as possible, go run a couple errands, finish Forever Free  (the last book in Joy Adamson’s Born Free trilogy — hmm, note to self: buy Kleenex on that errand) , avoid a relapse of yesterday’s spectacular migraine, work a little on the novel, and listen to “This American Life” on NPR tonight.

What are my favorite snacks?

Bruster’s Cake Batter ice cream, peanut butter Girl Scout cookies, chili-lime tortilla chips with Paul Newman’s pineapple salsa, and cookie dough of just about any kind.

What five things would I do if I were a billionaire?

Pay off Visa, buy a row house in San Francisco and a beach house in Hilton Head, go to Ireland and look up relatives I’ve never met, and keep on buying books. Oh, and follow Jimmy Buffett on tour for a year. 

Where have I lived?

Two small towns and two large ones in SC. For reasons of privacy — you never know who’s lurking — I will only name Clemson as one of them. Sorry.

What jobs have I had?

Part-time bookseller, clothing retail, Clinique, bookstore manager, college bookstore flunkie, and transcriptionist.

Which bloggers/friends would I like to know more about?

To quote Wanda, everyone’s been tagged already! But all of you that visit here.

I’m sick of losing the good ones. Bo Diddley, Jim McKay, Tim Russert — like those guys aren’t going to be missed enough, while Cheney and Rove and their like are still sliming around without their souls — but George Carlin? What is this? THIS ISN’T FUNNY.

I love comedians. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in front of the TV late at night with my parents, watching Johnny Carson, or (and sometimes even better) whoever his guest host might be, all of us laughing ourselves silly. We’d say, as the sky darkened or as one of us began yawning, “Don’t fall asleep — Bill Cosby’s hosting tonight.” That would perk me right up. I loved Bill as much as Johnny. See? I was on a first name basis with both of them!

I fell in love with Steve Martin, whether he was on Carson (as we referred to “The Tonight Show”) or on Saturday Night Live, from Yortuk Festrunk the Wild and Crazy Guy to Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber. I laughed helplessly every time I saw John Belushi appear onstage as the Samurai and whenever Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd went at each other during “Point/Counterpoint.” I thought Richard Pryor was funny until I saw Eddie Murphy for the first time — I had no idea who Gumby was but it didn’t matter, and the Assassination of Buckwheat made me snicker out loud just remembering it, this minute.

Joan Rivers was funny (really — yeah, honestly, but it was a long, long time ago) but Elayne Boosler was hilarious.

I would leave John for Harry Anderson, whether he was doing magic on SNL (remember when he ate the live guinea pig?) or starring in my favorite sitcom ever, “Night Court.” Sorry, John, but you can’t blame me.

I wanted to throw stuff off the roof with Letterman on a weeknight. I wanted to hang out after school with the Huxtables. I was proud whenever strangers mistook my dad for Steve Martin, which happened almost weekly in the ’80s.

I fell in love/lust with Denis Leary the first time I heard him sing the Asshole Song.

And now George Carlin is gone. He was the only comedian I’ve ever seen on tour outside a comedy club, and I remember his opening routine was on the Airport Security Questions: “Did I pack my bag myself? No, my friend Abdul offered to do that for me.” After 2001, I thought wistfully that he’d have to retire that routine. Not to worry. A friend who saw him a year later said he was now riffing on the humor of suicide. I had been a fool to think the likes of Carlin could ever lose his edge.

He’s also the first person I’ve ever seen in concert who has died, which is a hard slap of reality. I’m under no illusions that B.B. King and Eric Clapton and the Stones will live forever… OK, maybe the Stones will. I hope they do, actually. But Carlin was one of the most alive people I’ve ever seen. It was like the room hummed when he was in it, although he’d probably say that’s just because I’ve seen too many fucking concerts and my ears are wrecked.

Damn it, George, I hope you’re hanging out with that invisible man who lives in the sky right now. I miss you already. It’ll be a while before the seven words are fun any more.

OK, a short while.  But I still miss you, man.

When you lean as far left as I do, you encounter a lot of people who practice different religions or none at all. I like this, personally. I was raised in a little cracker town where the Most Different People around were the two Lutheran families, so when I was allowed into the larger world — I called this “graduating high school” — I was kind of relieved to actually meet some of the people whose beliefs I’d only read about until then. Any resulting cultural exchange was always fun. Seriously, I remember thinking — my Catholic friends had to share a veggie pizza once a week? My Hindu friends avoided McDonald’s fries? (I still think these guys were robbed. Those fries were a food group when I was growing up.) It was a cross between leaving Hooterville for the real world and stepping out of the black-and-white house into the color of Oz.

Since then, though, I’ve noticed one thing that bugs me more and more. I really get annoyed by the implication that all Christians are alike, stamped out of the same cookie cutter and following the same bizarre religious practices. I’ve met people who genuinely think we all handle snakes, speak in tongues, don’t drink, don’t swear (although I recognize the argument that I might really go to hell for this one), scream outside abortion clinics, and, last but most personally irritating, vote Republican.

Ahem. Please stand aside while I get this soapbox out.

I can’t say this directly to the folks on a couple of newly discovered and appreciated websites, or apparently 99% of all screenwriters anywhere on the planet, or even a few clueless dopes in my own political party who don’t realize we’re all under the same big blue tent, so I’m going to pass it along here and hope that someone who needs to hear this speech will follow one of my regular friends to this post.

All Christians are about as alike as all… well… all anything, and it’s like having a rock in my shoe to think that the guys who wrote, for example, my old favorite “The West Wing” would be astonished to learn about the vast difference in views, experience, and practice between, say, members of the Church of God and Episcopalians. (For anyone curious, I’m a Methodist. I was sort of raised Baptist but it quite obviously didn’t take.) By the time I was in high school and reading everything I could get hold of, I knew there were great disparities in other religions as well: the spectrum between Reform and Hasidic Jews, the disparity between all those religions — Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Shinto, and probably at least two or three more I’ll be embarrassed to have excluded –vaguely referred to in class as “Eastern,” or even the difference between two of my Catholic buddies, the one who attended Confession and Mass every week and the one who went to church maybe twice a year but still restricted herself to the veggie pizza on Friday nights. And then there were and are my atheist friends, including the one I’ve been with for nearly 11 years. He has slightly more conservative views on abortion than my Methodist self does, but also believes visitors to the Bob Jones University Art Museum should show the minor respect of dressing nicely when they’re there. I like this range, by the way. I’m not much into stereotypes.

I’m not asking for respect, because any Christian who doesn’t think we get it in spades is delusional. I’m just hoping maybe there’ll be one unsuspecting person who will slap his forehead and say (out loud, natch), “Golly gee willikers! What was I thinking? I’d better get hold of that screenplay I just sent Aaron Sorkin before he thinks I can’t tell a Presbyterian from a Primitive Baptist!” (Uh, dude, you’re probably in the clear.)

I watched “Fear Itself” last night on NBC and at one point the screenplay called for a family to be in church two weeks in a row and sing “Amazing Grace” both times. I didn’t think you had to be a foot-washer to know this is a big dumb error. Why do you think hymnals are so freakin’ big?, I asked the TV in frustration. If the only church songs you know are “Amazing Grace” and “Silent Night,” that’s fine, but before you sell this crap to someone don’t you think you should rustle up a friend and maybe ASK? It may have put me off the show.

What’s interesting to me is there are writers who make this mistake too, although considerably fewer of them and making even more considerably less money. Screenwriters as a rule strike me as egomaniacs, with the possible exceptions of Diablo Cody and Larry McMurtry, so maybe they don’t like to admit they aren’t in touch with everyone’s universal experience by asking somebody else for his or her recommendation. It’s also possible that they don’t know they don’t know, in which case they’re exactly like I would have been if I’d never left Hooterville, or read a book.

For the record, Imaginary Screenwriter who Stumbled Onto This Post, in my family alone there are Baptists, Methodists, and non-church-affiliates. Some of us drink and swear (some of us swear more than most people should), go to Jimmy Buffett and U2 and Tool concerts, watch extremely violent movies, vote Democratic (which is almost a secondary religion), have sex before we’re married, don’t like or want kids, hang out with gay friends, and don’t want the Ten Commandments propped up in every courtroom, classroom, and roadside rest stop like a Burma-Shave sign. Then there are others who equate drinking and smoking and premarital sex with crimes, went to private religious schools, don’t listen to any music racier than Josh Groban, place Bibles in every room of their home (including the bathroom, which is just freakin’ weird beyond words to me), are horrified by gay couples in California getting married, and think Bill Clinton is the Antichrist. (They might have moved on to thinking it’s Obama by now. I don’t know and hope I never find out.) So, Mr. Imaginary Curious Screenwriter, riddle me this: if one family, in one remote Hootervillian corner of one appallingly conservative southern state, can have a stretch like this between members of the same family, why can’t you figure out that maybe we all didn’t fit inside the same cookie cutter?

I hate the constant bitching of the right-wing whackjobs about the “Hollywood elite.” I think that’s a crock. You never hear them bemoaning the “sports elite,” do you? No, most of those guys vote the way the right wing wants them to, so they get a pass. And I’m not going to take a swing at Hollywood either. It’s lazy and misses the point.

The point is, I guess, to look around once in a while and see some new differences. It’s a big country, guys, and moreover, it’s oddly shaped. You’d better be prepared to bring a really big set of different cookie cutters to fit inside it. And that’s not even getting out to the rest of the world.

OK, bear with me. This isn’t exactly about what you think it’s going to be about.

I’ve watched the Triple Crown races as long as I can remember. For anyone who doesn’t know, a horse named Big Brown is poised to be the first horse in 30 years to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont. It’s a big deal, although to be fair, he’s the 3rd horse in about 8 years to have won the first two; a lot of times, things go wrong for them in the Belmont.

But this is about something else.

Remember Secretariat?

He was possibly the greatest racehorse of all time. He won the Triple Crown in 1973 and set records in all three races, including one in the Belmont that will probably stand as long as any of us will live. But what most people don’t know is that among the field of horses he beat over and over was a racehorse named Sham.

Any other year, Sham probably would have won the Triple Crown himself. He had beaten Secretariat once before the Kentucky Derby (although Secretariat had an abscessed lip and was running a fever at the time). He was a great contender. He led the field briefly in the Derby before Secretariat, who had been dead last, came up and outran them all. After the race, it was discovered that Sham had knocked out two teeth coming out of the gate, so he wasn’t at his best when he lost, either.

In the Preakness, Sham was out in front again, and Secretariat came from last place like a rocket. He passed the entire field of seven horses in fourteen seconds. I’ve watched it on YouTube and it’s such an incredible performance it almost looks staged.

By the time they got to the Belmont, these two horses had fought it out for the lead twice already. Both had outstanding records; both had expert jockeys; both had that competitiveness that’s so humanizing in racehorses.

I can only imagine what they must have been thinking, going into the gate at the Belmont, seeing each other again, each knowing the other was the real competition.

Sham: I’m not going to lose to him again after coming so close.

Secretariat: How many times am I going to have to beat this guy?

They both went right for the lead in the last race, neck and neck for what seems a long time on a grainy video clip. Then Secretariat pulls away, slowly at first, then lengthening and lengthening his lead. It’s one of the most jaw-dropping athletic feats I’ve ever seen: he leaves Sham and the entire field behind by thirty-one lengths. It’s almost a sixteenth of a mile.

Sham, physically and probably psychically devastated, finished last.

Any other year, he almost surely would have won it all. But he just happened to be running at the same time as an incredible competitor. It was terrible luck for him: both horses were winners, had competitor’s hearts, had run with injuries, had fought it out for the lead almost all the way.

If it hadn’t been Secretariat’s year, it would have been Sham’s. He was good enough — he just met up with a champion.

I am a Barack Obama supporter (I was a John Edwards supporter, to be honest), but at times I have felt absolutely wretched for Hillary Clinton. I bet she feels like Sham. Any other year, any other (less badly run) campaign, and I would have been honored to vote for her. Hell, if she’d won the nomination, I would have.

She just happened to meet up with a champion.

When Secretariat died, and a veterinarian performed his necropsy, he was stunned to find that the horse literally had the biggest heart he’d ever seen. It wasn’t malformed or abnormally enlarged, it was just much bigger than the normal equine heart.

The same vet, it turns out, performed the necropsy when Sham died. And Sham had the second biggest heart he’d ever seen. Second only, of course, to Secretariat’s.

I didn’t know what today was, either, until I read about it at www.jezebel.com, but it’s the anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s passage. If it wasn’t for this day in history, I wouldn’t be able to vote. (For anybody.)

Voting has always been a Big Deal in my family. I remember being 6 years old and asking both my parents if they’d hold me up so I could punch the card for Jimmy Carter. I did it again four years later, standing on my own two feet, although it didn’t work as well that time. In junior high, I was one of less than ten — no, I swear to God I’m not exaggerating — Democrats at an extremely affluent consolidated school (I was one of the broke-ass kids, which helps keep the chip firmly glued to my shoulder more than 20 years later), and one of three who volunteered to debate on Mondale’s behalf in Civics class. The Reagan kids yawned and adjusted their designer clothes while we gave our arguments. But I’ll try to be a little less partisan, although it goes against everything I am.

My point is, I’ve always voted. My parents have always voted. My grandparents, all three that I knew, always voted. My grandmother and I have both worked the polls on election day and during various primaries, and let me tell you, if you haven’t done it, that is some of the most exhausting work I’ve ever done — next time you vote, thank those senior citizen volunteers, because the first time I did that job I was 22 and it wrung me out like a cheap paper towel. And without the work of several admittedly flawed (the blatant racism of some of these women makes me cringe) but determined women, I’d not only never have voted myself, I probably wouldn’t have been able to beg my dad to pick me up so I could punch the ballot for Jimmy Carter.

I think we’ve still got a long, long, long, grueling way to go as women… but at least this was a start.