[NJM5&6]

I missed NoJoMo 5. Oops! I was too busy not having access to a computer to write. The challenge for the 6th is to write about your first best friend, and since this isn’t terribly depressing I might give it a try.

My first best friend was Ola Mangold. She lived across the street from me, and had (from my early elementary school mind’s perception) a thousand brothers and sisters. The oldest of her sisters was named Billie and walked to school with my brother Josh. Ola’s mom picked me up from school once when I was sick and fed me Teddy Grahams and Sprite (this was awesome because every time my dad took me to the store I asked for Teddy Grahams but don’t remember getting them).

Ola and I hung out a lot and came up with our own secret language, consisting of saying words backwards. I have a clear memory of looking at a stop sign and noticing that "stop" backwards was "pots", and how cool it was that a word read backwards was another word. Maybe that’s the reason that, to this day, I always read signs backwards to see if they say something different? Who knows.

Ola and I were best friends for a couple of years though she was a grade ahead of me. Once she was hanging out with a girl named Tabitha and I got really jealous. I told Ola that she liked Tabitha more than me, and that they were both stupid, and hiding under my bed to cry. Good times. I think I saw her a few years later (oh, the angst that was middle school) but only exchanged ‘hello’s.

So those are the choppy memories of my youth.

As far as today is concerned, I didn’t do much. I’ve been trying to get my unemployment benefits sorted out, and am on the verge of calling the state office screaming because of their incompetence; I found a free chair on the side of the road that is pretty comfortable and not disgusting; I’ve been wondering if Obama will get annoyed at being the superstar of so many of my generation (have you seen all of the products that are coming out?); I’ve been stressing about my life and my place in the world.

I heard today on FOX NEWS that Sarah Palin didn’t know that Africa was a continent or the members of NAFTA. She also thought the vice president was supposed to be in charge of the Senate. She also didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. I can’t even explain how happy I am that we dodged the bullet known as the McCain presidency. Seriously. I think John McCain was reprogrammed by the republicans for the presidential election (he was cool beforehand, and demonstrated his, uhh, coolness, during his concession speech), and Palin was no more than a parrot that didn’t know the meaning of the words she was saying.

I can’t say enough good things about Obama, but I don’t want to spend too much time on it. I know people are already putting up "Impeach Obama" signs, and I would like to welcome them to the terror and helplessness many of us felt over the past 8 years. I think he will be amazing and has huge potential to be a transformative president in this time of crisis, thanks to his intelligence and characteristics of his personality. I promise to stop talking about all of this at some point.

Anyway, it’s Thursday and I’m terribly bored. I have more to write later if I ever get my laptop working again.