What’ll Pennsylvanians do after the 22nd? We’re like the spawn of besotted yuppie parents committed to having only one child, citing “environmental concerns.” But then, whoops!

Keystone, say hello to your new brother, Indiana! He’s little, so he needs a lot of attention right now, and we’ll be carrying him around, feeding him and sleeping with him for awhile. But you know how much we love you, too! Right? We’ll do lots of special things together, too. Just us. Promise!

Okay, dumb metaphor. (Besides, I really like creative names like “Ashton” and “Caden” better than “Keystone” and “Indiana!”) Before my great state goes into attention withdrawal, it’s worth checking out some remarks made by Obamessiah in San Francisco more than a week ago. He was characterizing “these small towns in Pennsylvania” as bereft of good jobs and having been left behind economically by Presidents Clinton and Bush (Good strategy so far).

But then,

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

RUT-ROH!

Cue the hyenas (I mean, Merry Christmas in April, McCain and Hillary!). Republicans accused the Chosen One of being an out-of-touch elitist. Hillary alleged that he was arbitrarily judging people in whole swaths of the state as unenlightened.

Really? When I’m bitter, I cling to this and this.

Seriously, I think maybe Ed Rendell (a Hillary fan) had a closer take. He pointed out the obvious when he said that rural Pennsylvanians have always valued hunting–which requires firearms, more often than not–and have their own rich religious traditions. Those things have always been part of the cultural fabric, not the crutches of snaggle-toothed yokels in the backwoods.

And really, hunting is a way of keeping game populations in healthy balance, since we have encroached on the territories of natural predators. What should we do, shoot birth-control darts into deer (I’m talking to you, Main Line!)? As for religion, didn’t Obamessiah just silver-tongue his way out of a little Preacher Problem himself? Antipathy towards people unlike themselves? (I’m talking to you again, Main Line!).

Anti-immigration and anti-trade biases? Well, those things are growing among the disappearing middle class in PA and, uh, everywhere. I don’t think either one is right; I’m just sayin’ that maybe people feel threatened when the brutal gulf between the haves (who can afford to be all self-congratulatory in their embrace of “diversity”) and the used-to-haves (who may be looking for anything to explain the unraveling of their lives: if they can eradicate the causes, maybe things will go back to normal) threatens to swallow them whole.

Probably not an intentional slap at Pennsylvanians on Obama’s part. Just. Very. Dumb. coming from someone who’s very anxious that voters not view him as a stereotype, or hold his particular brand of religion against him.

Read the transcript of Obma’s comments here. I’m-a gonna load up my Winchester, tromp out to the old quarry and pray to Xenu before bed. Aaaargh! So bitter!

So today, Big Unit (DS #1) has decided that his (flag!) football coach is “too mean,” bc during last Saturday’s game, he grumbled, “Awww, c’mon!” when Big Unit fell. Believe me, when in doubt, I tend to jump in and rescue. I also feakin’ despise the overinvested, red-faced parents helicoptering on the sidelines. And whenever I set foot on a baseball diamond, I wax all nostalgic about the kind, encouraging ol’ retired guy who coached my summer softball team when I was 10. Even if you couldn’t hit the side of a barn, on his team, you mattered. (And he ended up with a respectable record using that approach.)

Big Unit’s coach is no cuddly grandpa type, but overall encouraging. And hey, what coach says, “Well kiddos, I sure hope we place fifth today!”? I think Big Unit needs a little of this to light a fire under his kiester. If I can help spare him three decades of going all fluttery with discouragement in the face of relatively mild adversity, then I’m all for it–as long as Coach’s critiques are about the game, and not the kid.

OTOH, I feel Big Unit’s pain. If anything, I tend to get all cringey and flustered when Authority Figures raise their voices or express displeasure. But it’s time for Big Unit to learn how to deal with all types of people.

Jumbo Unit (DH) was backing me up on this at dinner tonight, and he said:

“Big Unit, that’s football. If everyone got a group hug after every play, it’d be gay lawn ball!”

After laundering the piss out of my pants from laughing, I got to thinking: What would gay lawn ball look like? I’m thinking something croquet-ish, with lavender polos and white patent-leather oxfords, but who knows?

The Sachets v. the Yankee Candles, tonight on LOGO!

Blogs. Everyone I ever met in sophomore year of college who was “working on a manuscript” that moldered in their sock drawer prolly has one now.

And now, for my 39th birthday, my present is a bigger forum for self-congratulatory navel gazing than the same old four walls. (Jeepers! 2003 is gonna be great: I can just feel it!)

Funny, I’m not sure how this will turn out yet, but navel gazing does sorta tie in to something that’s been weighing rather heavily on my mind:

GRAY PUBES!!!!

WTF? A formerly demure brown beaver has transformed into a geriatric alpaca, lurking beneath gray, worn-out “hipster briefs.” Hawt!

It was a slow, insidious transformation. The postpartum inner tube had deflated just enough to permit a downward glance at the damage. The intervening weeks and months hadn’t been kind. My once-dandy landing strip had become a curly rainforest teeming with silverbacks.

The the ever-widening gunmetal stripe overtaking the top of my head, I dunno, that’s manageable. It’s like a cancellation stamp that makes my latent “invisible to teenage checkout boys” status official once and for all. And there’s always nice ‘n’ easy, or whatever’s on sale in the health and beauty aisle. But this puts the “closed” sign on the shop doors in bold type: never again will a new, bandbox-perfect person emerge from my own personal Dark Wood of Bad Grooming.

It’s not like I’ve taken to bed clutching a bottle of mouthwash, but jeez.

“On a very special Golden Girls, Blanche dyes her mound of Venus for a big date.”

No thanks. Guess I’ll just age with integrity from the waist down. But check out this shite, in case that’s not in the cards for you.

How to cope with this betrayal of youth, sweet youth?