See Y'alls March 20th!

Oh werd?
So, I don't know if I'll have time to post anything while XTing, so... um... have a good end of February.... and March. Drink lots of Guinness for me! I'll be drunkenly wandering around Kentucky this weekend, and then off to Michigan! I fly home March 20th. Call me after 9pm or on weekends (when calls are free) or all the time if you use a verizon phone (plug).
Email me!!!
Much love,
-----KPd. =D

My Cross-Train...

...IS IN MICHIGAN!
(East Lansing, not Ann Arbor).
Everyone is gonna totally be psyched when I bust out my Wolverines stuff in "State"-territory.
Mwahaha!
The office has like, 50 people in it. Fun on a stick!
It's also the regional director's office. (Of "Regional Director Dude" Digging a Hole Blog fame.)
Wahoo!

Woo Capitalism!

Oh werd?
So, since I STILL don't know where my XT is going to be (bear in mind I leave Thursday), I decided that the only way to prepare for it this weekend, obviously, was to....
GO SHOPPING!!!
I hardly ever do this in large quantities. Not to get all Wesleyan on y'all, but malls scare the ever-living crap out of me. I am sooooo not as cool as everyone else there. Alas. But... I *really* needed some new bras, so I decided to brave Victoria's Secret.
Some of you, dear readers, may remember my story from last year about shopping at VC (Viet Cong?). Lots of women in black power suits chase you around with pink tape measure and insist, in thick Eastern European accents, that you have selected "a good bra" but that you have clearly not seen the "more fabulous" bras in the next room.
Me: Oh, that's okay, I like this one.
Eastern Euro Power Suit (EEPS): That is a *less* fabulous bra.
Me: I have a less fabulous checking account, so this is fine. And back off with the tape measure.
But today, alas, the bra I was trying on just didn't seem *quite* right. So, after watching many "less fabulous" people getting lots of help from the EEPS, I decided to grab one myself.
Me: Um, yeah, this size usually fits, but this one feels wrong. Are there any like, sample ones without a giant security brick attached that I can try?
EEPS: No, but I can just take your measurements.
Me: ....Kay...
EEPS: You are clearly one size bigger.
Me: Really? Oh.
EEPS: Try all these on. :::passes armload of bras::: :::shoves me in room:::
(10 minutes elapse) (elapse! SAT word!)
Me: (exiting stall): Thanks.
EEPS: Which one fit?
Me: (hesitantly) I guess the size you said I was.
EEPS: No no no. Try them on again and let me see.
Me: ...Kay...
So, after many attempts, EEPS finally settled on, gasp!, the size I had always thought I was anyhoo. It was a "very fabulous" shopping experience though. Imagine if there were like, professonal jeans-sizers?
In other "I am a consumer" news, I fell in love with a pair of sneakers and then they broke my heart (or, weren't in my size). I was like, in the capitalism zone today.
And I got the Dumb and Dumber Sdtk for 3 bucks. 1994-tastic!
So, tomorrow I'll find out where my cross-train (XT) is actually going to be. I hope it's Florida. Then I can wear my new sandals. =D

Why I Need Health Insurance

Oh werd?
So, everyone in the North End of Bloomfield ("Upper" Bloomfield) has the flu. I know this because every door I knock on is answered by a person in a bathrobe. Old women. Old men. Young moms. Bloomfield dudes with hairy chests and gold chains poking out of their robes. Kids. It's the whole fucking town.
So, I think I should get some sort of hazard pay. They all touch my pen... and my clipboard.... and the money.... Ew! And you can't make flu-people stand in the cold, so you have to invite yourself inside, and then you are trapped in a house of flu! So, if I make it to conference and my crosstrain next week flu-free, it'll be a miracle.
But that's not why I need health insurance.
I need health insurance due to my amazing ability to get into dumb accidents. Like yesterday. So, there's this pot at my house with no handle.... but it was the only one clean... so rather than wash a *new* pot, I decided to handle this one with an oven mitt on. I was pretty sure this would be uber-safe because this mitt was (yes, "was") really long, so I wouldn't have to worry about burning my elbow.... or my shoulder... or my ear... Anyhoo, it turns out (and this seems like a design flaw) that oven mitts are highly flamable. The mitt caught fire (really fast too) , and I couldn't take it off with my ungloved hand because, well, it was on fire, and I couldn't shake it off my arm because it went up to my ear. So, I doused my whole arm in the sink.
I'm fine. The oven mitt is all fucked up, though. I hope I get my insurance card soon...

Oh no! The Fuzz!

Oh werd.
So, today (Saturday), I had to take a bunch of slightly newer staff out to canvass in good old Teaneck, NJ. I was pretty excited when I succuessfully got the office door open (I suck at keys), so I figured that the hardest part of my day was over. Oh was I ever wrong....
It's never good when your phone rings on turf. People don't call to be like: "Dude! I am so awesome at canvassing!" or: "Here are some spiritual words of encouragement I randomly decided to send you!" or: "Hey! I just canvassed Salt from Salt'N'Peppa!" (Okay, the last one did happen once... She lives in Morristown, NJ, if you were wondering... Anyhoo...)
Oh no. You get calls like this:

KPD: Thanks for the 60 dollar contribution. Have a great afternoon!
Phone in pocket: buzz! buzz! buzz!
KPD: Hello?
Canvass Kid: Kerry? Yeah, where are you?
KPD: Tilden St.....
CK: Tilden and what?
KPD: Lincoln..... ?
CK: I'll be right there.
:::cop car pulls up::::
KPD's internal monologue: Oh shit...

So, it would appear that cops in Teaneck are... bored... I guess... because they stopped a canvasser for the hell of it in the middle of the afternoon. 1st Amendment aside, we actually had official Teaneck permits, but oh no.... those weren't good enough.

Fuzz: Hi there.
CK: :::waving from back of cop car::: Hey Kerry!
KPD's internal monologue: Fuck. Fuck Fuck.
KPD: Hi! I'm Kerry. NJEF. We work on protecting-
Fuzz: I'm not going to sign your petition or whatever.
KPD: Kay....
Fuzz: Let me see your permit.
KPD: Sure. Here ya go.
Fuzz's internal monologue: How can I fuck with her?
Fuzz: This isn't a permit from the town.
KPD: Um... it's what the town sent us....
Fuzz: This needs official town letterhead.
KPD: Well, it has a town signature on it. RJ La Morte. See?
Fuzz: Who's RJ La Morte?
KPD: The person in Teaneck who signs... permits...?
KPD's internal monologue: Fuck, I have to do the official piss off a cop conversation now....
KPD: Look, are you asking us to stop, or telling us?
Fuzz: I'm *telling* you to stop.
KPD: So.... if I canvass this house behind me, will you arrest me? (flinch)
Fuzz: Maybe I wasn't clear the first time. Are you listening to me? Yes, I'll arrest you.
KPD: Kay... can I have your name and badge number then?
Fuzz: Be my guest. Now you better have the rest of your crew off the streets. Can you do that?
KPD thinking: No.
KPD speaking: Yes. I'm going to call my director.
Fuzz: Now, I want to make sure you were paying attention to me. You understand what type of permit you need now? Tell me, what you are going to tell your director.
KPD: That for some reason, the permit the town sent us is unacceptable, so we need to sort that out.
Fuzz: No no no no. I told you what the problem is. Weren't you paying attention?
KPD: Right right, town letterhead, I heard you.
KPD internal monologue: Shut up smart aleck. You are going to get arrested.
Fuzz: I don't think you did.
KPD: I get it. I get it. Have a great day...
Internal: ...Asshole.

I didn't pull the rest of the crew. But I did drive to the police station to try and sort shit out while my canvass director, who was at a board of directors meeting at the time, attempted to mediate via satellite.... er... cell phone.

Desk fuzz: Give me your permit.
:::hands over permit:::
Phone in pocket: buzz! buzz! buzz!
Canvass director: Kerry? Don't give them your permit.
KPD's internal monologue: Fuck.

So, in the end, we had to pack up and leave Teaneck and go to EMERGENCY TURF!
.....Bloomfield! Sweet as. We don't even need a permit to go *there*.

Typed physical comedy short:
So, on the way to Bloomfield, we stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. It was broken, but I talked the manager into letting me use it anyway if I promised to flush the toilet by lifting the chain by hand. No prob, right? Except, when I lifted the chain..... POP!
And by POP! I mean, something important came off and an absolutely awesome geiser of high powered water shot out the back of the toilet, put a whole in the bathroom ceiling, and started raining down on me. And I really needed to fix it, or at least stop it, seeing as how the manager had done me a favor by letting me pee at all. But first I had to laugh hysterically for 5 seconds. Okay, back to fixing it. Right! So I tried pouring water down the toilet to make it flush, to no avail, and by now I was pretty damn soaked, so I finally reached through the ceiling-piercing geiser of toilet water, grabbed the POP!-ped piece, and replaced it.
No one in Bloomfield seemed to notice my wet hair. Werd.
Fuck Teaneck.

White Environmental Activism

Werd,
So, I heard on the grapevine (or Ben) that *some* people read my blog and then spend 3am conversations pondering my hypocrasies. This seems a tad unfair since I can't be there to offer rebuttals or humorous anecdotes. Because I am sleeping... Because I have to go to work the next day...
Anyhoo, when I have more time, I'll post a more extended treatise (woot!), but in the meantime, let me just begin by noting that the NJ Environmental Federation works on EJ issues, statewide water quality issues, school safety issues, etc. We aren't like picketing Whole Foods to sell more vegan organic wheat waffles or something. (Ew!)
In other "Kerry is a hypocrite" news, yeah, I sure as fuck did volunteer for Nader in Delaware in 2000. I was 17. I was inspired. It dragged me into everything I've ever cared about since. Does that mean I'm not allowed to make one-liners about him 4 years later? Bejeebus....
Maybe there aren't enough chalk-erasing, meat-eating, anti-Palestinian, controversial speakers on campus right now to take attention away from my apparent post-Wes failings....