i missed the W’s state of the union speech last night. i was much too busy at the OG with wendy driving the waiter insane, being carded for a glass of wine, and listening to the old biddies behind us bitch that their food came out too fast.

however, i managed to catch the last two minutes of W’s yammering and most of the democrat’s response. well, rather, i tried to listen to the democrat’s response only instead i listened to sister #4 bitch endlessly about how she really, really wanted to watch Love Monkey but the dumb president was on.

i love the state of the union address — even when it’s a republican giving it. even when i know that the state of the union is some sort of crazy whack disarray. i still love to listen it all.

this love stems from my Legislative Politics class i took way back in the way back when Bill Clinton was president and things were happy. Legislative Politics was one of the best Poli Sci classes i ever took. for the life of me i can’t remember the name of the professor. it’s been driving me nuts, and i know his first name was Richard and his last name started with a C. he was a granola-y guy from California. he was the BEST! he taught us all about robert’s rules of order and such good things.

but better than that, he made us all members of congress. the whole semester had us role-playing different members of of the house of representatives. we had to draw names from a hat and that’s who we were. i was Major Owens, a mighty-fine democrat from Illinois. as a US Rep we had to research a bill that the rep we were playing in class had submitted to the House. Major Owens rocked! i found a bill that he had submitted to repeal the 2nd amendment. it was awesome! of course my bill died in committee, just like Owens’ did. but still!

so the class was just awesome awesome awesome. but the best part was the state of the union (which we were assigned to watch) and not even so much the speech itself, but the professor’s deconstruction of the speech and his hints on what we should watch. pay attention who claps when, and who sits where. it was all very important.

and now, my train of thought has been derailed.

while i was in the middle of writing this weird memory, sister #2 called, crying. she’s lost in uptown and she just had to drop off burial clothes for one of her favorite residents who died. blech. i feel so bad for her. this is why i could never, ever be a social worker. i’d be a heaving, sobbing mess all the damn time.