"I'm Tired. Tired of Playing the Game."

Rain, mud, horse poop, stupidly scheduled myself to babysit tonight, and I'm still going to do the race tomorrow. Now the girls are pulling out all the American Girl accoutrements, and the timer's going off.

Dinner break.

Pizza, baby carrots, apple slices. Conversation: Belgium, roller coasters, solar power. Eight-year-olds are all right. And it's actually easier to babysit than to have them hang out solo.

Happy to see Mel Brooks made the national honors list.

Worried about the right wingers. They are so anxious, so terrified all the time. They need treatment. But I don't think they can afford it. Here's what one of their leaders--they follow these leaders so blindly, poor things, out of their terrible, terrible fear--says:

"And so Americans are frustrated," Boehner told reporters. "They're angry. And most importantly, they're scared to death that the country that they grew up in is not going to be the country that their kids and grandkids grew up in."

I don't quite understand why that would be such a bad thing. But today might be a very good day to think about fear and what it does to people, and what it causes us to do.

I myself am terrified of Aetna. Terrified they'll drop me or worse, my child, at any minute. And I know damn well that's what you're afraid of, too, Mr. and Mrs. Bama. So I don't believe it for a minute that you're afraid of government health care, or socialism, or big government. You and I both know what you're afraid of. You can't fool me; I spent enough time in the same place you come from to know.

I'm off on the other screen searching for my favorite quote from the Washington Post this week, and I've just about given up.

--Holy shit. Speaking of health care, I just had to perform emergency surgery. My child just decapitated one of the Bitty Twins, trying to get one of those cute little shirts over her head. The doll's, I mean. I "saved her life!"--

Anyway, favorite quote from a parent who didn't want her child to see the "stay in school, listen to your parents, work hard" speech by our President the other day: "His charisma is frightening."

It's like The Blob, a miasma clouding civilization, threatening the nation, it's the dreaded Charisma of the Black President, coming your way! Run, Loudoun matron! Scamper!

Oh, I suck, truly, I can put the head back on a doll, but I can't do this justice. I wish Dave Chappelle would get back to work. He'd know just what to do.

PS: This week's library book is Mario Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl. And it's good.

Photo: Late great Madeleine Kahn rides again.