You guys know that I take voting seriously. I believe in it with every fiber of my being, actually.
it’s not just that if you can’t be bothered to show up and vote that you lose your right to complain, although you should. But it remains everybody’s right to bitch. Look it up — it’s in the Constitution.
but really, I think it is important to pay attention, and express your preferences in local, county, state and federal elections. Primaries count too — because in these screwy days, primaries are often more important than the actual election in November.
which brings me to my immoral dilemma:
Tomorrow is the Republican primary in my congressional district.
Now Elyse, you are saying, “you are too smart to be a Republican!” Which, of course is true.
However, in Virginia, all primaries are open; I don’t have to be a Republican to vote in tomorrow’s GOP primary!
And frankly, since there is a good chance that whoever is chosen on Saturday will end up representing me in Congress, well, I want input. And the field is wide open and filled with lunatics. Some of the lunatics like Bob Marshal are known crazies. But the front runner, Barbara Comstock, is hardly any better, and she looks like she is always sucking on a lemon. So I don’t want her. If I go and vote for one of the real way out loonies, the Democratic candidate stands a better chance.
Are you still awake? No? Then how come you’re answering my question?
Now I am getting to my immoral dilemma.
If you vote in Virginia’s GOP primary, you must swear an oath to support the GOP candidate in November.
It is, of course, un enforceable. They will not know if I break my vow. Personally, I don’t think it is either legal or ethical of the to ask for such a vow.
Still, I try not to lie, especially when swearing oaths.
But does it count to knowingly make a vow you have no intention to keep because the vow shouldn’t be asked for to begin with?
****
Sorry for all the typos. My computer died. Obviously a Republican.
My sisters and I never saw eye to eye; rather we heard heart to heart through our telephone receivers. We lived a good distance away for most of our lives. And so our connections, close as they were, were nearly always via long distance calls.
The ear pieces on the phone grew increasingly warm and comforting with each laugh, each tease and each word we spoke. We spent hours on the phone, twisting the curly, stretched cord around our body parts, spilling out our hearts and our triumphs and our woes. But there is no record, no evidence, and sadly fewer clear recollections.
So I made up some memories.
* * *
I began to question the wisdom of this trip as soon as the line went dead.
The call Thursday night was unexpected. Sam and Dave – customers from the burger joint I’d worked in back home — had tracked me down in Boston. I’d left home six months earlier, and was surprised that the guys had found me. They had said they were in Boston often and promised to look me up – but so had a lot of people.
Six months away from home hadn’t been nearly as fun as I expected my “coming of age” to be. I hesitated to admit that I was lonely and would love some company. But I hadn’t even thought about Sam and Dave – forgotten them, in fact. Well, I barely knew them to begin with. Sam was tall, blond, nice smile. A well done hamburger with fries; Dave was shorter with shaggy brown hair that he often pulled back. He liked his cheeseburger rare with onion rings. Both drank Coke. One of them drove my favorite car, a 1974 Datsun 240Z. Blue.
“Great, we’ll pick you up Saturday at 10,” one of them said. Was it Dave? He and Sam were on separate extensions and kept finishing each other’s sentences like an old married couple.
“Yeah, Steve gave us the address along with your number. See you Saturday!” said the other – Sam, I guessed. And then they hung up.
They didn’t leave a number so I couldn’t call them back. For that matter, they didn’t leave their last names. First names, a car (cool as it was) and burger preferences. That was all I knew. Yet I had just agreed to spend the weekend with them at the Cape.
At only 19, I hadn’t done too many stupid things with guys yet. So I called my older sister, Judy, 24, who had.
“This is ridiculous,” I told Judy, pacing back and forth across my tiny apartment like a bobcat in the zoo. “I can’t possibly go. I don’t know who they are. And I can’t possibly call them back – they didn’t leave their number. They didn’t leave their last names. They didn’t even tell me where I just agreed to go. God, this has all the makings of a Hitchcock picture.”
“Are you Tippi Hedren or Janet Leigh?” Jude roared at her own joke. “You’ve known these two cute guys for three years and never went out with them? Either of them? Or both of them – together?” she teased. “God you’re boring. You’d be Doris Day in a Hitchcock movie.”
“I’m just going to have to talk to them when they get here on Saturday.”
“Ok,” said Jude, swallowing her laugh. “You’ll talk to them on Saturday. Good plan,” she burst out again, “especially because you can’t talk with them before that because you didn’t get their number,” she said, gasping for breath.
I began to relax. Somehow, when I told my troubles to Judy, they stopped being problems and became situation comedy.
“You’re a huge help. I’ll call you back next time I need abuse.”
“Anytime,” Judy said, hanging up.
I spent Friday at work bouncing between laughing and worrying. I didn’t pack. Of course I wouldn’t go with them – I didn’t even know their last names!
At 10 am Saturday the doorbell rang. “Shit.”
“We’re here,” Dave or Sam said through the intercom system. Another reason not to go – I couldn’t keep them straight. I buzzed them in, and took a deep breath. I still didn’t know what to do.
Did it take an hour for them to climb the two flights or were they upstairs in a flash? Suddenly I felt queasy. “Oh God,” I thought as I shut the bathroom door, “what would Judy do?” I sat on the toilet for the longest time, trying not to panic. At last, I smiled, shrugged and said “oh, what the hell.” I walked back into the main room and said “I’m not quite done packing, but I’ll be just a minute.”
I threw a bathing suit, a change of clothes, and a couple of other things in a backpack. “There’s just one thing,” I said, smiling at my dates, “I’d love to drive the Z.”
* * *
Me, Judy, and Beth, a while ago
*****
This is a reposting. Today would have been my sister Judy’s Earth Day Birthday. I wish I could call her up and give her grief.
There are days when you just look your best. Most women I know can point to just a few times when the stars are aligned – when we are simply movie star beautiful. Every hair is in place (or perfectly out of place). The dress hangs just so; the pearls, even though fake, hang at just the right length. The dress accentuates the right things and hides the imperfections.
Perfect. Stunning. Memorable.
I had a new dress to wear that spring day in 1984 . I had waited to wear it until I needed the perfect combination of professional and sexy. This was it.
A meeting with clients in my DC office. Lunch with an old friend. A date.
So on that Friday morning I put my new dress on. I was looking pretty damn good, my best. And I knew it instantly. I would remember this day. Unusually, I primped in front of the mirror. Everything looked perfect.
The dress was black, with three-quarter sleeves. It hung straight at the sides with just the hint of a curve at my waist. The six-inch white stripe down the center added a little bit of elegance to the dress, and to me.
My shoes, slightly professional black pumps with two-inch heels, worked. The pearl necklace – yup a perfect accessory.
My curly reddish-blond hair was swept back into a French braid, but wisps of curls invariably straggled out, softening the lines around my face.
I looked like a movie star. At least as good as Marilyn.
Google Image
Or Audrey
Google again
Or Eva
Heads turned towards me as I walked to the metro. A man offered me his seat and then flirted with me until I got off. More heads turned as I walked the two blocks to work.
My office was at the end of the hall, and I passed my colleagues.
“Wow, Elyse!”
“You look great.”
“Nice dress!”
“Got a date tonight?”
With each compliment, each appreciative look, I preened just a bit more. Smiled a little bit more. Walked a little taller. I couldn’t help it. I looked gorgeous!
When I arrived at my doorway, I turned to go in. I looked back down the hall feeling as if I’d gotten off the runway at the Paris fashion show.
Ed, the lawyer who sat in the office across from mine, got up from his desk to see me.
“Elyse!” Ed said. “Wow! You look like a movie star! You look just like Pepe Le Pew!”
At my house, we’re not big on Valentine’s Day. We have a nice dinner, John gets me flowers and I get him a book. This year the book I got him is on the Civil War.
I don’t get mad if he forgets. I mean, we’ve been married 27 years. I know he loves me.
But I would certainly start a Civil War of my own if this was his idea of a Valentine.
Photo Credit, CrooksandLiars.com. Thanks for the laugh!
FiftyFourandAHalf 