Of dogs and friends

I have a dog named Mollie. She's a 4-year-old chocolate lab and, in short, she's the coolest person you'll ever know. She's a little hyper, but she's also smart, sensitive and VERY optimistic. She's pretty much my hero.
I bring her up because lately I've been wallowing in what my friend Ben refers to as "a funk." Or, in Breakfast at Tiffany's-speak, I've had the mean reds. Just want to hang out a window and shout "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" So what's the problem?, you might ask.
Really, it's a combination of factors — as best I can tell, at least. I'm not terribly pleased with my job (high stress, long hours, waaaay undercompensated for time and effort) but that's not entirely it. Mostly, I'm restless. I'm ready for a fresh start. I'm trying to move to another city where I'll be closer to my oldest and dearest friends and where, hopefully, I can find a job that doesn't make me want to drink every day. But it's a slow process, and I'm not a patient person. I'm also naturally cynical, and so I already am predisposed to believe the whole attempt will not turn out like I envision.
Which brings me back to Mollie and her ever-present optimism. It doesn't matter how many times you tell her you don't want to throw a ball for her, she'll keep bringing it back and dropping it in your lap, just in case. She doesn't get frustrated or upset, she just keeps trying. And if she eventually decides her attempt is going nowhere, she finds something else to do and does it happily.
I think I should strive to be more like my dog.

And now, for something completely different

We're three months month into 2008, and I'm starting to wonder about the direction of our technological advancements.
We have iPods, supercomputers and robots that can vacuum the floor. But where the heck are the flying cars? How about the device on Star Trek that allows you to transport instantly to somewhere else? Or space ships that can take us to other galaxies?
Of these innovations, I've seen nothing.
What I do see is cell phones. Smaller and smaller they grow, and more attached to our heads they become. Sometimes literally, if you use hands-free devices.
I have a love-hate relationship with my phone. On one hand, I feel safer driving on the dark, deserted highway on my way home from work at night. On the other, there's just no escaping friends, family, telemarketers and bill collectors, because you're carrying them around in your pocket.
It's an addiction. Like alcohol, heroine or Law & Order reruns.
Here's a story I bet you can relate to:
You hit the snooze button a few too many times, and of course you're running late for work. And probably, just for good measure, it's Monday.
You throw on some clothes, brush your teeth at lightening speed, grab the car keys and hit the road.
Then half a mile (about thirty minutes in traffic) away from home, it hits you: You FORGOT your cell phone.
What do you do? Do you say, "Nah, I'll just leave it at home today. Nothing I really need that for."
OF COURSE YOU DON'T!
You have to turn around and get that annoying little device, don't you? Because what if something bad happens? What if you break down, run out of gas, your mom gets taken to the hospital, your kid gets suspended from school and your dog escapes from the back yard? How on earth could you possibly be out of touch for the whole eight hours that you are at work?
In reality, you got along for [fill in the number] years without your kids, significant other, friends and salesmen having immediate phone access to you.
I can remember as a kid leaving the house for hours on outings that did not involve constant interruptions via obnoxious pop-song ringtones and text message alerts.
People called houses, left messages and waited for a return phone call. And it was OK! The world kept rolling right along.
I'd like to invite you all to join me in putting the phone down and interacting more with the live and in-person world.
Starting right after I take this phone call.

I want Ron Paul to be president, and I don’t care if you think he’s crazy

Editorial note: This is way more political than anything else I'll probably ever post here, but it's something I had already written.

I’m a 25-year-old single, white female and for the first time in history a woman has a shot at the White House. I should be jumping for joy. What times to be living in!, I should be shouting.
Instead, I find myself repeatedly saying to people: If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, I’m leaving the country. She’s a heinous, sneaky, flip-flopping fem-bot. But that's just my opinion.
Some of you may be asking: If not the person who shares a similar lettering of chromosomes (that’s XX, unless I misunderstood my eighth-grade biology teacher), then who, Kim, would you vote for?
The answer is Ron Paul. And don’t look at me like that.
He’s the only candidate I believe is a constitutionalist.
You know, the constitution. That piece of paper telling us what the government can and can’t do? I’m a fan of it. And I’d like a president who actually has read it, and possibly even agrees to confine his actions while in office to the restrictions set forth in that document.
For an example of what I’m talking about, let’s look at an issue. How about national security? That’s kind of a big deal these days.
Now, I like not being blown up as much as the next person, but I’m only happy to let my government intrude so far on my rights as laid out in that wonderful and carefully-thought-out document . . . the constitution. So here’s how some of the candidates for president voted on the Patriot Act, a measure I believe blows a giant metaphorical raspberry at the constitution, then thumbs its nose while shouting “Nah nah nah nah nah” at Americans:
Paul voted against the Patriot Act. Then he voted against reauthorizing the Patriot Act. Twice.
Thanks, Ron. I do like my civil liberties.
By contrast, Sen. Hillary Clinton voted yes on the Patriot Act . . . then voted no to reauthorizing it . . . then voted yes to reauthorizing it. Can’t make up her mind whether civil liberties are good or not? Or was it that the polls two of those years said 51 percent of voters like civil liberties, but the other year only 49 percent did? Hmm.
Sen. John McCain voted yes on the Patriot Act . . . as often as possible. At least he sticks by his bad decisions.
Sen. Barack Obama was not in office when the Patriot Act was first passed, but he voted no on reauthorization once, then voted yes the second time around. But he’s young, maybe there’s hope.
This is merely an example, of course. And while I may still be young (read: old enough to have figured out this is all bullshit and really bitter about it), I’m not a fool — McCain has the Republican nomination, and Paul is unlikely to make a realistic bid as a third-party candidate.
And I’m not above being grateful that I live in times where a woman and a black man are battling it out for the Democratic nomination. That’s progress I can be proud of.
But at the end of the day, I will still stare sullenly at CNN and tell myself, “If Clinton wins, I’m moving to [fill in the name of a suitable sandy-beached foreign country].”
She hasn’t voted away my right to do that. Yet.