Thursday, October 08, 2009

Red-Haired American Cougar Seeks British, French Or Scandinavian National For Matrimony And Medicine. Please Don’t Tell My Boyfriend

Over at Comment is Free, the Guardian’s American op-ed site, I discuss my exotic American opinions about healthcare reform and how to end world hunger and generally save the entire world.

This post’s headline, naturally, refers to the personal ad I plan to take out if I ever become too sick to afford my medical bills, which shouldn’t cost more than a few Euros and pounds and I frankly don’t understand my idea hasn’t caught on with American women and British men already. It would be like Russian brides only better, because we sort of know how to speak proper English.

Of course, I wouldn’t have to resort to such drastic measures as complaining in the British papers if I’d made better choices with my life, such as “Don’t start your newspaper career at the exact moment the Internet killed the industry.” My career highlights thus far include working on a phone sex line, infiltrating a Furries convention, and realising only too late in life that acting in Japanese tentacle porn might have been a better career decision than copy editing novels for a vanity publisher.

Sometimes people online mistake me for a certain talented high school athlete from Quebec who went to Beijing last summer as part of the Canadian Olympic diving team. This makes me feel sorry for my Quebecoise namesake, who doesn’t deserve to have her name linked with a disreputable person like me.

8 Comments:

Anonymous smartass sob said...

Sometimes people online mistake me for...

Lately I've begun to mistake you for Andy Rooney of Sixty Minutes. You'll take that any way you wish to, I suppose. ;-)

9:23 PM  
Blogger Jennifer Abel said...

Smartass, this post will make a LOT more sense tomorrow when my article goes up on the Guardian. It would've done so already had the stupid Nobel Committee not given the peace prize to Obama, which threw the whole world's newspaper and blogosphere schedules all higgledy-piggledy.

Meanwhile, I came down with a bad cold within 12 hours of writing the piece, and am now in a feverish fuzzy-minded NyQuil daze.

1:21 PM  
Anonymous smartass sob said...

tomorrow when my article goes up on the Guardian.

The Guardian. THE GUARDIAN!!!??? The lefty-swishy, America-hating, Labour-loving, Limey rag of a birdcage liner, Guardian? Poor, poor, deluded soul - our raving, rusty-haired, reasoner has gone over to the DARK SIDE? No. It cannot be! It is the fever - nay,it is the Nyquil speaking. 'Tis not the Feral Genius, the gonzo libertarian. 'Tis but a passing spell brought on by long bouts of stressful, striving, overwork - it soon shall pass... Or do I hear the thrumming strains of strumming steel, the radiant ringing of chiming bells, the dull drone of murmured oaths and incantations? O'Lord, cast out these demons, a poor wretch beseecheth thee!...

But wait! A blinding bolt shatters the consciousness! It is part of the PLAN, is it not? A cunning scheme to breach the bulwarks of our foes, to infiltrate the ENEMY, to bring the battle to his midst and drive him to hes very feet! Ha! Brilliance! Seltzer, er...I mean, Excellsior!!!

==================================

Seriously though, it will be interesting to read your article. Congrats on being published in The Guardian. You'll post us a link to it, of course?

Autumn colds, which turn into upper respiratory infections and/or bronchitis and hang on for weeks - how well I remember them. I've seldom had them in the years since I've quit smoking. But when I do feel one coming on, I begin eating lots of chips and salsa, or picodeguayo - peppers are full of vitamen c, as are tomatoes. Citrus fruits help, too. Lay off the coffee and other caffiene for awhile - it drives vitamens out of one's system. Get plenty of rest. And chicken soup - don't forget the chicken soup!

Anyway. Hope you get to feeling better soon. ;-)

8:46 PM  
Blogger Jennifer Abel said...

Oh, I'll definitely post a link to it; I wrote this post on the assumption that the piece might go up while I was still asleep, and I could make a quick link/edit the next morning. But I woke up next morning with a fever, and when I read about Obama's peace prize I thought I must surely be hallucinating.

And it's a beautiful day today and I wish I had the energy to go out and enjoy it.

8:20 AM  
Blogger Wife Beater said...

Obama gets a Nobel... Sometimes I wonder if we are all living in a NyQuil inspired hallucination.

10:08 AM  
Blogger Windypundit said...

But life would be so much more boring without disreputable people...

7:28 PM  
Anonymous smartass sob said...

Smartass, this post will make a LOT more sense tomorrow when my article goes up on the Guardian.


Actually I had a pretty strong hunch what the title of this post was alluding to, and now, since I've read your article at the Guardian, I see my hunch was right. After all, I am the smartass sob. :-)

Good article at the Guardian, but it's a shame that few of the comments were on your side of the debate. Forcing people to buy health insurance really is much like forcing the poor to buy food and fining them when they don't - makes just about as much sense. That's an analogy I hadn't thought of before.

I wonder why our beloved masters couldn't just send all the people needing medical care, who can't afford insurance, over to Europe or Mexico to get treatment. Looks like it would be much cheaper for all concerned.

1:16 PM  
Blogger Jennifer Abel said...

That's an analogy I hadn't thought of before.

Thank you! I like to flatter myself by thinking that, even if my insight into an issue is similar to many others', I at least have a knack for finding an unusual metaphor to describe it.

Metaphors are fun! So is old codeine cough syrup. I'm working from home today -- interviewed a guy over the phone, and it's damned lucky he already knows and likes me, as my constant coughing would've made for a horrible first impression.

1:36 PM  

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