Twenty-Two Questions

This is not my originally planned post. I sat down last Sunday and wrote a pretty aggressive post slamming the GOP, their candidate, and the people who still support him. There was a lot of the f-word and anger at their garbage person of a candidate. I expressed disappointment in the system, in humanity, in democracy. It was a lot. Then I had a moment of clarity about what I had written. I was having dinner with some of my friends earlier this week. I don't see these ladies all that often (even though I work with two of them). It was fun and we laughed a lot and shared ridiculous stories. During the course of the evening, what I wrote on Sunday popped into my head and I couldn't bring myself to post it. Not because it's not true (it all is true) but because the anger isn't going to change anything. It's not going to change a person's mind if they're already set on a certain candidate. If his own words haven't changed their mind, my anger isn't going to do it either. The amount of obscenities would only make my mother sad.

So instead of being angry today (although I'm still very angry), I'd like to pose a series of questions that have been stomping around in my head during the last few months of this election. Some will make us all laugh, some channel my anger pretty specifically, some are what they are. I don't expect anyone to have the answers to these questions but I welcome your attempts in the comments. And you know, lists always make me feel better.

1. When did the GOP get so weak? I get that minorities and women aren't their people of choice but when did their rhetoric of hate become the only thing their party is about? Didn't they at least, at one point, talk about their platform and policy? I feel like that used to be a thing.
2. Does Paul Ryan get up in the morning, look at his collection of blue ties (the ones that bring out his eyes in a way us Democratic ladies don't like to admit we enjoy), and say to himself, "Does this shade of blue make me look less like I'm lying when I say I support our nominee? Or was it the sky blue tie? I can never remember."
3. When Hillary Clinton did the shoulder shimmy at the first debate, do you think she thought "Channel Beyonce but also give Kate McKinnon something good to do on SNL?"
4. How many people think having 17 candidates in a primary is a good idea?
5. Can anyone pinpoint the day it became acceptable to question the patriotism of a family who lost their son to war because of their religious beliefs?
6. Exactly where are these locker rooms the Republican candidate hangs out in? I don't think he understands that most people don't stand around discussing how they can get away with sexual assault in locker rooms unless they swim for Stanford or play football for Steubenville. 
7. When did we, as a nation, get so hung up on the word "pussy" being vulgar but don't condemn a candidate who doles out racist, homophobic, and xenophobic speech like he's giving out terrible candy on Halloween?
8. Follow up question: What type of candy do you think each candidate gives out on Halloween?
9. Who would watch a fourth debate if RuPaul was the debate moderator and made the nominees lip sync for their lives? 
10. Does Kellyanne Conway take five showers a day to cleanse herself of the filth she has to go on television and defend?
11. Did John McCain and every other GOP mouthpiece wake up after the bus video and realize "Holy shit, if I leave my mother/daughter/sister/wife in a room with him he might actually assault them? Now I have to go on television and talk about how much I love my wife/daughter/mother/sister because obviously I do all the time but particularly when it will make me look like I care about women generally. I mean, I do care about women generally but mostly when they sit quietly and don't talk about having freedom to make decisions about their bodies or contradict anything else I say."
12. Who would have thought that the Bush who would actually impact this election would be Billy Bush?
13. Does anyone know the appropriate gift to send to the debate moderators for their service to this country? Except Lester Holt - he gets nothing. 
14. Now that Rhianna is endorsing HRC, do you think she and Katy Perry will make up? I want them to be friends. I don't know why but I really want it to happen.
15. Is Melania okay?
16. Do you think Chelsea Clinton texts her dad (after teaching him how to text) every day asking him to make smart life choices? I think I would if I was her.
17. If Mike Pence and Tim Kaine lived in the same neighborhood somewhere in suburban American and one of the teenagers in the neighborhood threw a rager, which one would call the cops?
18. Follow up question: How many times would he call the cops in one evening?
19. Has anyone checked on Ben Carson lately? Is he okay? Does he know where he is and what planet he's on?
20. Which pantsuit was your favorite? It's the white one right? You don't think a white pantsuit is going to be good with her hair color but it just is.
21. Who was your favorite celebrity at the conventions? You pick the convention. 
22. What happened to Rudy Guiliani? I thought being the un-fun Republican from the Northeast was Chris Christie's job.

In the next seventeen days, I'm sure I'll come up with a lot more questions we need to answer. Until then, I'll be over here waiting for my "Icky Trump" t-shirt to arrive and listening to Janet Jackson's Control on repeat.

Happy Democratic Process America!

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We are going to be friends

When I started this blog way back in 2011 (wow) I was in the process of adjusting to my move to California and the weird stage of adult life where making friends is challenging. The move was for my job and I knew no one in the area but jumped at the chance to try something new. It's hard to move somewhere and not have a support network. It took a long time for me to make friends, even at work, and I typically excel at making friends at work. When my beloved Ford Escape died, I had to deal with it on my own. When I got locked into my bathroom, I was afraid no one would come looking for me. I've always been very independent and have no problem doing things on my own but sometimes you just need people because being around other people is just funner (debate whether funner is a word on your own time).

I believe it looked something like this.

Adult friendships are difficult. When you're young you have no fear (or maybe just less fear) so friendship comes a bit easier. The structures of youth like school, clubs, and mom arranged play dates made friends easier to come by. Little things were much more important; I remember becoming friends with a girl in second grade just because we had the same Pound Puppies lunchbox. My family moved a lot when I was younger so making friends was something I got very good at because I did it so frequently.

In her book MWF Seeking BFF, Rachel Bertsche chronicles her yearlong quest to find a new best friend after moving to Chicago to be with her husband. She goes on 52 friend-dates and calls her year "the year of friending." I read the book not too long after moving to California and immediately started taking notes in the margins and plotting how I would make more of an effort to make friends. I had a plan and I began exploring Meet-Up groups and plotting to join book clubs despite horrible book selections.

Then something happened without me even trying: I made a friend at work.

I've always been the type of person who enjoyed getting to know my co-workers. People spend more time at work than they do at home these days so it makes sense that friendships would occur. This is in direct contrast to the traditional world of work where work and personal lives remained separate. I don't believe you have to like everyone you work with nor do you have to best friends with the people you do like but work is much more enjoyable when you have people to go to lunch with, commiserate with when you've had a bad day, and celebrate with whether it's something major or you know, Tuesday.

In the DC office and at my previous job, I made friends very quickly and it was mostly because of the same strategy that worked when I was younger: commonalities. Finding things in common with my co-workers was the way to go. Whether it was Project Runway, liking ranch dressing on french fries, or bowling, finding these small things helped my work friends and I move to actually being friends. It wasn't until one of my California co-workers (who shares my first name) and I started discussing baking that we started hanging out. She introduced me to some of her friends and I started to feel like I belonged. By the time I moved back to the East Coast I felt better about my friendships and not as alone way out west.

I've spent most of this week thinking and writing about workplace friendships. I volunteered to write a blog post for our wellness month at work and decided to focus on the benefits of workplace friendships. There's a lot of research now that suggests workplace friendships are good for employees and organizations. I'm sort of obsessed with this infographic right now. In an informal Facebook poll, I discovered most of my friends feel like they have a best or close friend and work. More importantly, most felt their employers supported friendships. What's most interesting to me is much of the research points to three elements that need to be present in order for workplace friendship to take hold: physical proximity, familiarity, and similarity. So really workplace friendships aren't all that different from making friends on the playground. We're a little bit more sophisticated (maybe) but we need the same things we did in the second grade.

As I sat with two friends from work (one I've knows for awhile now and enjoy hanging out with and one that is new; this was our first non-work social event) watching Pitch Perfect 2, I realized I've come a long way in the years since I started this blog. My friends, workplace and otherwise, have been a big part of that. I could wait until Friendship Day to say thank you but August seems so far away.


So enjoy one of my favorite White Stripes songs instead.