![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Optics and Asthma
Sep. 30th, 2019 09:42 amGot into a big fight with Max over impeachment. It is really fucking annoying when one’s hesitation over problematic optics gets mistaken for rightwing political cant.
“Trump attempted to extort the cooperation of a foreign country for his own political benefit!” Max fumed. “If that doesn’t rise to the level of impeachable offense, I don’t know what does!”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t,” I said. “I’m saying it looks bad.”
“Looks bad?”
“Yeah. It looks as though Trump might have been asking for very legitimate help to investigate Biden’s very questionable attempts to protect his son’s very questionable job.”
“That is completely bogus! The whole Hunter Biden thing has been thoroughly investigated, and nobody has found anything illegal about it!”
“You’re right: Influence peddling is not illegal; it’s just really fucking sleazy, and moreover fits right into Trump’s I’m here to clean up the swamp! rhetoric.”
“I cannot believe you are saying these things—“
“Well, you better hope that Nancy Pelosi spent this weekend urging Uncle Joe to drop out of the race and retire to some Alzheimer’s home in Delaware where he can grope the female staff without getting his hands slapped. Because otherwise, the Democrats are gonna lose the 2020 election—“
He railed at me some more.
I nearly hung up on him.
I live in a Congressional district that went for Trump in 2016; Max lives in Berkeley, California.
You may judge for yourself which of us has the more sensitive finger on the pulse beat of the average American voter.
###
Other than that, it was a pleasant day though I did give myself an asthma attack.
Lois Lane and I had a very good time chatting, laughing, drinking tea, and exchanging numerous protestations of mutual adoration, but she refused to come expiate her sins with me. Thus I made the trek to the Hudson River on my own, trekking down a fairly steep hill.
I dismembered my little pumpernickel bagel into the river, turned my pockets inside out and sang the little song I’d composed in honor of the holiday:
When I eat a potato latke
And sarcastacize my world view,
It’s better than worshipping Shakti
I enjoy being a Marrano Jew!
Yeah, yeah. “Marrano Jew” doesn’t scan. But it’s accurate.
The problem was that having trekked down the hill, I now had to trek back up again. And my cold has moved entirely into my chest, leaving every bronchus and alveolus constricted. By the time I got back up the hill, I sounded like a pair of bagpipes.
It’s a sound I spent much of childhood listening to since I was a severe asthmatic as a kid, and my mother would never take me to the doctor.
I suppose I should be grateful. If she had, I'd probably be several inches shorter.
Got myself home and spent the rest of the evening sipping endless cups of tea (theophylline!), watching Giant, and answering annoying texts from Max who is convinced I am a bigoted zealot slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.
You’ll be sorry when I’m dead, I thought.
As ever-so-many mothers have thought before me.
But this morning, my chest is clear. I’m thinking if I can just spend the next two days avoiding triggers, the crisis will be past.
I really hate corticosteroid inhalers.
“Trump attempted to extort the cooperation of a foreign country for his own political benefit!” Max fumed. “If that doesn’t rise to the level of impeachable offense, I don’t know what does!”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t,” I said. “I’m saying it looks bad.”
“Looks bad?”
“Yeah. It looks as though Trump might have been asking for very legitimate help to investigate Biden’s very questionable attempts to protect his son’s very questionable job.”
“That is completely bogus! The whole Hunter Biden thing has been thoroughly investigated, and nobody has found anything illegal about it!”
“You’re right: Influence peddling is not illegal; it’s just really fucking sleazy, and moreover fits right into Trump’s I’m here to clean up the swamp! rhetoric.”
“I cannot believe you are saying these things—“
“Well, you better hope that Nancy Pelosi spent this weekend urging Uncle Joe to drop out of the race and retire to some Alzheimer’s home in Delaware where he can grope the female staff without getting his hands slapped. Because otherwise, the Democrats are gonna lose the 2020 election—“
He railed at me some more.
I nearly hung up on him.
I live in a Congressional district that went for Trump in 2016; Max lives in Berkeley, California.
You may judge for yourself which of us has the more sensitive finger on the pulse beat of the average American voter.
###
Other than that, it was a pleasant day though I did give myself an asthma attack.
Lois Lane and I had a very good time chatting, laughing, drinking tea, and exchanging numerous protestations of mutual adoration, but she refused to come expiate her sins with me. Thus I made the trek to the Hudson River on my own, trekking down a fairly steep hill.
I dismembered my little pumpernickel bagel into the river, turned my pockets inside out and sang the little song I’d composed in honor of the holiday:
When I eat a potato latke
And sarcastacize my world view,
It’s better than worshipping Shakti
I enjoy being a Marrano Jew!
Yeah, yeah. “Marrano Jew” doesn’t scan. But it’s accurate.
The problem was that having trekked down the hill, I now had to trek back up again. And my cold has moved entirely into my chest, leaving every bronchus and alveolus constricted. By the time I got back up the hill, I sounded like a pair of bagpipes.
It’s a sound I spent much of childhood listening to since I was a severe asthmatic as a kid, and my mother would never take me to the doctor.
I suppose I should be grateful. If she had, I'd probably be several inches shorter.
Got myself home and spent the rest of the evening sipping endless cups of tea (theophylline!), watching Giant, and answering annoying texts from Max who is convinced I am a bigoted zealot slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.
You’ll be sorry when I’m dead, I thought.
As ever-so-many mothers have thought before me.
But this morning, my chest is clear. I’m thinking if I can just spend the next two days avoiding triggers, the crisis will be past.
I really hate corticosteroid inhalers.
