Obama Chief of Staff puts a stop to pending Bush regulations

WASHINGTON (CNN)– President Obama has wasted no time handling the Bush administration’s unfinished business.

White House officials tell CNN Obama Chief Staff of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo Tuesday to all agencies and departments of the federal government. The memo halts further consideration of pending regulations throughout the government until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration.

Enough about them; let’s talk about me. This morning, after playing my usual game of How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up? and guessing 7, I sat in the attic on the crooked seat of an ancient rowing machine Pete and his brother have carted around and used since they misspent their youth and found enough pocket change to go drinking with the Vice Principal. In fact, every morning, I sit on this crooked seat and row while watching the news because being physically strong has always been important to me, because I will never have the kind of money gym membership requires and if I did I wouldn’t spend it that way, because I can row, which is above all else political. It is political that I have the ability as a middle-aged, lower middle class white woman to take care of my health, and it is political that athletics shaped my physical form. It is political that I color my hair, wear cosmetics and wear clothing that does not restrict my movement. My hair looks fab, by the way, and that’s political. Everything I eat, everything I do, my artwork, my job, the blog – it’s all shaped by politics. This blog has no ads, and that is a political decision; my ability to pay for this blog is political. I’ll never take a bite of a Domino’s Pizza or set foot in WalMart or Sam’s Club, and those are political decisions. I shop at Costco because Costco treats its employees well, and that’s political. Last week, my delightful compañera Jill was kind enough link to yet another of My Little Meltdowns with this note:

Now, my good friend Tata is usually given to blogging about delicious cooking and fabulous decorating and about her highly colorful family and her Coolest Cats in the Known Universe. But you know that a politically-related story is important when Tata gets her umbrage on, and this one takes the proverbial cake…

Frankly, I’m not that nice a person. I’m nice to Jill because I like her, respect her and know she’s smarter than I am, which I like a whole bunch. Writing about my family is political, writing about food is political, taking in stray animals is political, having shelter, creating a home and even falling in love are all political, and we skip over these points often to get to the funny or the tragic. When I write about the selfishness of movement conservatism, it always corresponds to my own selfishness because I am subject to the same human impulses that make people despots and saints. It must correspond, if I’m any kind of writer. Jill knows all this and she’s too kind to say so: when we met for the first time, Siobhan, Jill and I had lunch and went bra shopping and I said nothing about myself because for more than ten years everyone I met had heard about me – whatever I was, everyone I crossed paths with knew me in an abstract sense. Which is political, of course. Seeing myself through someone else’s eyes is political, and educational, and I have so much to learn.

The other night, Pete and I were making dinner.

Pete: Phil’s daughters just went back to school. The younger one, Ellie, who started college in September got kind of date-raped in her first semester.
Tata: Welcome to the World of Women, my dear.
Pete: She got herself into a situation she couldn’t get herself out of.
Tata: No. That is not at all what happened. She was going along and some shithead raped her. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t get herself into a situation. A rapist freaking raped her. He is responsible for his actions. Did she press charges?
Pete: Yep. He got three months’ probation. Phil’s more upset about it than Ellie is.
Tata: Good for her, because shitheads are literally everywhere.

Every microscopic bit of that is political. We may choose to overlook politcal aspects of our actions and identities but they exist and bear examining. Back to me on the rowing machine: my skin color, my free time, my good health, my control over my body including my uterus, my ability to feed myself nutritious foods, my job, my insurance, my sexuality, my desire to feel strong and take care of myself as an adult, my hope that I will someday retire, these are all the results of other people’s life’s work. I am who I am as a composite image of other people’s struggles, wins and losses, and I cannot really know who they are or were, but I have watched and listened, and I know when people are trying to rewrite, reshape or redraw me in an image more comfortable for uncomfortable them. That is what happened every day for the last eight years, one little rule here and one acre of national park land there, one drowned city over yonder and holes in the safety net everywhere, and let’s not forget the cowardice endemic in the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. It’s all political and it’s all exhausting, but at least for the moment, someone is thinking, and not just about himself.

Okay okay okay so last night I’m walking around upstairs, thinking Ta thoughts, going la la la la life’s good – whut? and next thing you know because you’re joining this story late I’m bouncing – bump bump bump! – down the stairs and land on the left side of my sweet patootie. I didn’t bother screaming since I couldn’t possibly scream louder than the bump bump bump! of my butt down the stairs and by the time I thought of screaming I’d already landed and that seemed, you know, pushy. Besides, as my much younger sister Corinne reminded me, we used to do this for fun, which was before I spent half of every day coddling my right hip, so when I landed in the middle of the flight of steps it took about a year for me to narrow down the source of all that pain reverberating through my limbs like church bells through mountain air.

Mark Rothko
Red, Orange, Tan and Purple, 1954
Oil on canvas
84 1/2 x 68 1/2 inches (214.5 x 174 cm), approximate size and shape of giant bruise on my butt.

This morning I was supposed to exercise with my friend Leilani Goldstein. She’s a professional trainer but she pities me and finds me hilarious so she pushes us through two hours of really rigorous calisthenics a week and I try out two hours of my comic material. Breathing is optional, of course. Leilani had a scheduling conflict, which was fine by me.

Tata: No, rescheduling is fine. Last night, I sailed down a flight of stairs on my celebrated rump and I couldn’t figure out how I was going to get down on my mat, let alone up in boat pose.
Leilani: You – are you hurt?
Tata: You bet! I can only do plies in my overactive imagination! Wanna try Sunday?
Leilani: You’re going to heal in 24 hours?
Tata: Not at all, but you can still laugh at me while I dead lift like I wish I were.

Meanwhile, Leilani, who is kind and gentle and wouldn’t hurt a flea and used to dance for Ringling Brothers, fails to utter three words in a row without testing the aerobic capacity of her sinuses.

Leilani: I’m so sorry – KTTTTHHHHT! – to hear you – GONNNNKT! – bruised YOUR BUTT!

Yeah. Me, too.

Yesterday, I’d just trundled in from the library where I destroy the dreams of publishers around the world when General Hospital was interrupted by a plane crash in the Hudson River. Now, I know what you’re thinking: putting a plane down in the water is not excellent flying technique, what with the crashing and so forth, but there really can be a variety of opinions on that. For instance, I was trying to make dinner at 3:30 because it was Thursday and Pete and I both work Thursday nights at the family stores and you should not at all attempt to marinate pork chops while watching a marine rescue, my friend. Nope. Anyway, this plane in the water is surrounded by ferries, which are bigass boats, tugs, which are not, and these inflatable hoohaas called Zodiacs, which on my TV look like zippy specks. And somehow I boiled chicken stock and a can of chick peas which I’ve never called chick peas in my life because my family calls them ceci beans and that means we’re saying beans beans and I don’t know why. I spiced this up – whew! – turned off the heat and tossed in couscous, though things happen quickly and we only like to hope they’re for a reason. We can’t know. So we start seeing the same six people climbing up gangways wearing life preservers and you and I both know everyone watching wonders if those are the six survivors but yes and no because yes, they survived but no, it turns out everyone survived – everyone! So I sear the pork chops on both sides for four minutes each while tugboats and the current take the plane south on what is certainly the ride of someone’s life and while the NYPD is full of arrogant armed fucks who’d make Mother Theresa fantacize about wood chippers New York City’s first responders are brilliant, fucking brilliant. The pilot brought the plane down without cracking the fusillage to pieces, which I wouldn’t have imagined in a million years and at a reduced heat, four more minutes on each side before I tossed the chops and the couscous into one of those meal-size Ziploc containers and drove like Jehu to the store, where Pete met me at the door and I said, “This is everyone’s lucky day.”

The full moon is passing, and yet, I am in SUCH A MOOD. My hair is pinned down because otherwise it’d stand up straight. Last week, one of my co-workers told me I’d have to wait for her help until after a big presentation. While there is never a good time for someone to test my theory that I am the Creamy Nougat Center of the Universe, there are also few times when shooting off one’s mouth in the workplace work in one’s favor. Today, I’m going to spend most of my workday trying not to utter any variation of the words, “Why don’t you WAIT FOR ME to feel like kissing your ass?”

Did I mention what I got for those December holidays? I really wanted this!

I’m going to be the most glamorous shopper in the frozen foods aisle making Vroom! Vroom! noises.

Life has changed a great deal since Daria and I were rugrats hiding under the appointment desk in our grandmother’s beauty salon. For instance, at the time, Gram said, “Get up off the carpet. You’ll get hair splinters,” so we’d go play in the basement with mousetraps and bait. Now you can’t get your nails done without wearing a bicycle helmet. For real peculiarity, few things beat the mental image of the family hair salon in which half the stylists are smoking and the other half are delicately nibbling patty melts between appointments and some of them are punching holes in the ozone layer with the thick cloud of Aquanet they’re using to cement Mrs. Becker’s coif into place for the coming week. Mom, the pretty daughter-in-law, washes hair with a cigarette in the ashtray next to the sink. Auntie InExcelsisDeo is a star. Everyone loves her daring and glamorous haircuts, her architectural roller sets and dramatic comb outs. She is in demand, week after week. Everyone talks, but Gram forbids gossip. East Brunswick, even along Route 18, is still a small town and people could get hurt. Gram’s brothers have salons of their own, and some of her nieces and nephews have salons, too. Since I cannot deny my high-hair heritage, I am grateful that ‘burpless’ grass may reduce the environmental impact of that patty melt.