Another fun filled day at the hospital. My neighbor had to be here at 7 am for a nuclear stress test of her heart so they can decide if she is up for surgery. She really is a trouper, this woman. And the best part is she and her sister have been feeding me their home made tabouli and hummus. WOO!
I’m actually outside in the car now, because the test takes forever and I find hospitals to be depressing and dreary, not to mention they are full of sick people just waiting to cough all over you so they can share the plague with you, and I just had to get out of there. I did sit there for a while, though, and I realized as I was leering ogling the nurses (politely and discreetly, mind you) that as I age, the age range and hence the size of the pool of women I find physically attractive is expanding by the day. One of the benefits of growing old is the ever-multiplying opportunities to be a dirty old man. I call that a win.
In other news, I’ve grown so sick of the budget talks that I no longer care if the government shuts down, I just want Boehner’s big orange weepy pumpkin head off my tv.
Valdivia
You’re such a mensch John.
cleek
oddly, the only time my TV shows Boehner is when he’s the butt of a Daily Show or Colbert joke.
you should get a TV like mine!
01jack
I have to say trouper.
I can’t help it.
PurpleGirl
Even if you’re not sitting in the hospital the whole time, taking your neighbor to her appointment and waiting for her is a very good deed. It’s a mitzvah (tertiary meaning). Like Valdivia says, you’re a mensch.
LGRooney
I have found the pool to stay relatively similar in size because, as I grow older, my tastes change. Of course, being married, I have an actual pool of one but the potential pool, should I ever need it, has aged with me.
Then again, I am just a liberal wuss with no closeted issues so my opinion probably counts for naught.
gypsy howell
At this point, I would much rather they shut down the government than throw women under the bus with this Title X/ Planned Parenthood nonsense. Sadly, I believe the Dems, at the end, will throw us under the bus. (Either that or good bye enforcing the clean air act, which is the oligarch’s preferred outcome – I’m sure they don’t give a shit about abortion one way or the other, other than to keep the rubes distracted.)
And why is it a foregone conclusion that the federal government shouldn’t “pay” for abortions the same way they “pay” for any other legal medical procedure? This is bullshit all the way around.
LGRooney
@01jack: Not so sure about that. Since JC doesn’t explicate further, we can take his spelling and it still carries meaning.
I hope you were as pedantic when throwing your undies at ABBA or Iron Maiden in concert!
Trinity
@Valdivia: Second!
Violet
You’re a good man, John Cole. What a lucky neighbor you have. I hope all her tests come out well and she gets good news about whatever illness she’s struggling with.
A corollary to your observation about the pool of attractive women expanding is that “old” has an entirely different meaning as you yourself get older. “That man/woman isn’t old. He/She is only 30/40/50/60/70 (whatever age is closest to your current age).”
jwest
If finding 7000 votes for Prosser didnāt convince you of the futility of opposing conservatives, wait until next week when we bring back Pia to American Idol.
Dick Cheney liked her, so a āmistakeā will be found in the voting.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
When you start finding lasses who might have hot flashes hot, you know you’re a horny old goat with a goat’s omnivorous appetite….
Bizono
Good for you, John. Next step is to make polite conversation with them…
A Farmer
Did everybody see the CBO called bullshit on Ryan’s privatization plan for Medicare?
LGRooney
@gypsy howell: I saw some R blowhard on CNN this morning yapping about how we shouldn’t ask the taxpayers to pay for something like abortions, with the obvious implication that since so many people find it morally objectionable it is unfair to make them pay. Now, even assuming acceptance of the premise implied that taxpayers are paying for abortions, could I not make the same case for all the god-damned wars we have waged practically non-stop since the turn of the century? I find it morally reprehensible so I should not have to pay for it.
JPL
I wish they would shut down the entire government. Do tea baggers fly?
John Cole
@01jack: Wow. I never knew that! Thanks- I’ve always mentally thought it was trooper.
NonyNony
@A Farmer:
Next up – a budget proposal that defunds the CBO and replaces it with private sector contracts to think tanks to provide budget analysis.
…
10 years ago that would have been snark.
Bill H.
Win. And Reid’s.
Mostly, I want Paul Ryan’s arrogant, self-satisfied smirk off of, preferably slapped off of, his silly face.
I can’t respond regarding nurses because my wife is in the house and could look over my shoulder at any moment.
Rosalita
Anyone read Benen yet this morning? Even some GOPers are getting squeamish about the cultural reasons for the shutdown
LGRooney
@NonyNony: They don’t need to do that. They already have Heritage or AEI ready to provide the garbage-in side of their computations and they can thus analyze the garbage-out.
General Stuck
The budget and shutdown bullshit has risen to a level of a bad Monty Python script. The GOP, always truth challenged, have completely jumped every truth shark that exists. I was listening to Guthrie on MSNBC interviewing Jeff Flake of AZ wingnut, and she asked him the current state of dispute was about abortion and all the policy riders, or about the amount of spending cuts. Like a parrot, Flake regurgitated it was all about the money talking point. Guthrie then asked the obvious, of how does that make sense, when the current diff in dollars between sides is just 3 billion dollars, and that is less than one percent of the budget. Flake basically said that every penny saved is important. So the wingnuts are on teevee, claiming that they are willing to shut down the government over 3 fucking billion dollars. I expect them to next demand a ban on tax money for Unicorn research Obama is doing on the sly. Fucking surreal, and of course is about tanking the economic recovery for Obama’s defeat in 2012, and ultimately to shitcan the ACA.
NonyNony
@John Cole:
Actually, trooper is also acceptable, unless you’re a prescriptivist. The language shift since the word entered the English language allows for either spelling.
(But if you’re the kind of person who gets annoyed at things like spelling “lite” instead of “light”, “trouper” is the acceptable choice.)
Gin & Tonic
@John Cole: As long as we’re correcting spelling, you were ogling the nurses “discreetly”.
NonyNony
@LGRooney:
Ah, but eliminating funding for the CBO would eliminate that pesky analysis that points out that the numbers they get from Heritage or AEI are garbage.
Contracting the CBO’s job out to Heritage would “streamline the whole process and save the taxpayers’ money from being spent on a useless and inefficient government bureaucracy”.
shortstop
@John Cole: Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but it’s discreetly. Unless you were careful to finish ogling each nurse before moving on to the next.
You’re a good guy to do all this for your neighbor.
geg6
@gypsy howell:
The most ridiculous thing is that we already DON’T pay for abortions. This is about cutting off access to birth control, breast cancer screenings, and PAP smears. Apparently, women are just meant to have babies and then quickly die horrible, drawn out deaths that could be completely avoided.
shortstop
@Bill H.: My older mom, a recovering Republican, is exactly the demographic that might find Paul Ryan to be a nice, clean-cut young man who’s bravely saving the nation almost singlehandedly. Instead she calls me up daily to say how much she’d like to “take a switch* to the little punk.”
*It’s a Southern thing.
Poopyman
@JPL:
I’ll bet you they do!
No wager on the landing, though.
"Serious" Superluminar
@John Cole
I’m guessing some of those nurses had beards and spoke with a discrete British accent, then.
LGRooney
@geg6:
You say that as if they are separate events in the wild dreams of the
jiteahdis.cleek
@shortstop:
discreet/discrete…
where i went to college, all CompSci undergrads had to take a number of classes in “discrete math” (graph theory, set theory, topology, etc.). we got a good 18 months out of saying things like “we shouldn’t really be talking about the nodes on this graph in mixed company”.
had to be there, i guess.
Cackalacka
Here’s a thought. We all know that Sully is a boob posting arguments in bad faith. We all know that he doesn’t allow comments. We all know that dozens of liberal bloggers, including this site, will call him out.
Any thoughts as to provide a ‘mirror’ site, where you post a link to a latest thread of his BS, so folks can discuss and call him out?
Poopyman
Amen, brother! Although like LGRooney, I have an actual pool of one. It depresses me how picky I was as a youth, and most of the ones that I found acceptable … well, they didn’t reciprocate.
As a yoot I was an idiot, but I comfort myself with the fact that that is a universal.
BGK
So, two floors above where I work is a call center for HCA’s dial-a-nurse division. It’s staffed by actual nurses, complete with scrubs and other nursing accouterments. One would think it would be a pervy person’s fantasy, seeing as how one encounters these nurses in the common areas of the buildings all the time and many of them have plastered their cars with liberal/lefty cause bumper stickers. However, they are the singularly most grumpy group of people I’ve encountered in some time. If one is fortunate, one might get an irritated grunt in reply if one has occasion to greet one of the nurses. I can’t say as I hold it against them, as they’ve likely been deeply scarred by working for Rick Scott’s former outfit.
jibeaux
This kind of reminds me of About a Boy, the Nick Hornby novel, where the main character discovers that if he considers single mums he has access to hotter women than by ruling them out. So he gets a car seat for his back seat and mashes bananas into it and goes to meetings for divorced parents.
I’m not recommending that, by the way, just like that book.
Poopyman
My TV just has Trump’s squinty, malignant face topped by that orange combover. I’ll trade ya.
cathyx
@BGK: They sound like a perfect match for John.
p.a.
Sully:
Don’t be unhinged, John. Be hinged. It’s much more attractive to nurses. (sexism alert- I wonder if scrubs do a decent job of preventing sexual harassment issues compared to the old white nurse uni’s. Scrubs aren’t anywhere near as sexy. Any criticisms of this comment as blatantly sexist I will freely agree with, and plead guilty.)
BGK
@cathyx:
Ooof, good catch.
My boss is largely tolerant at how much time I waste with Balloon Juice, though he would likely draw the line at me setting up a live stream portal for the security cameras…
shortstop
@p.a.: Why are they even wearing scrubs if it’s a dial-a-nurse operation? Why don’t they just pretend to be when callers ask, “What you wearin’, baby?”
Brian
John, if you had a belt buckle like this all would feel better.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Cackalacka: We could call it sillyqueen, kinda like instaputz. I’ve half a mind to set it up.
Gin & Tonic
@cleek: Topology is not discrete.
BGK
@shortstop:
Not all of them wear scrubs. I get the impression some of them work split shifts at some other location where scrubs would be appropriate dress.
I would ask, but I’d likely get a cig stubbed out on my left eyelid.
chopper
@LGRooney:
we have to hold the government and soldiers fighting overseas hostage so we can stop taxpayer funding for abortions even though taxpayer money doesn’t fund abortions and also we have to gut the clean air act.
as a fed, i’d rather get furloughed for a week or two than see the CAA get gutted. not that the goopers aren’t going to try that shit again another time.
chopper
@Gin & Tonic:
it’s all donuts and coffee cups.
joe from Lowell
Has anyone seen the ad for the heart attack pill that they always run on MSNBC?
“What’s small, red, powerful, and promotes cardiovascular health?”
My answer: the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party’s Council on Physical Fitness.
Gin & Tonic
@chopper: “And”? You know a donut and a coffee cup are the same, right?
shortstop
@BGK: I had to know.
Larkspur
@Poopyman: “As God is my witness, I thought teabaggers could fly.”
cleek
@Gin & Tonic:
that depends on which kind of topology you’re talking about.
Comrade Mary
You’re a good guy, John, for both the favour to your neighbour and the discreet ogling of a panoply of women. Remember that half your age plus 7 is a good rule of thumb for those on either end of advances, though. (I expect laments from people who have passed that line: it’s a rule of thumb, and I’m sure people will find exceptions. OTOH, it’s too large a range for others. I know I’m within the limits right now, but still feel a little self-conscious. Do NOT make cougar jokes around me.)
Speaking of old people and staring, this is fucking brilliant.
Tractarian
@Cackalacka:
Welcome to Balloon Juice. :)
Affectionately known as “Andrew Sullivan’s Comment Section.”
Can I get a tag line?
PurpleGirl
Remember the guy in Wisconsin who got the high-paid state job with no college degree and little work experience (and two DUIs to his record)… well, after being demoted back to his previous (feather-bedding) job, he’s resigned.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/119410129.html
Now, let’s hope that strings can’t be (or aren’t) pulled so that he can get unemployment benefits… he DID resign.
Hawes
Yes, the advantage of middle age is the expanding spectrum of women whom you want to have sex with and can’t.
Power to the impotent!
dr. luba
Hummus and tabouli? Sounds like someone is coddling islamofascist atheist terrorists……
AliceBlue
I’m reminded of a TV commercial for Playtex bras that used to run regularly when I was a child. You had one nurse rhapsodizing about the benefits of her Playtex Living Bra to another, then a doctor would walk by and leer at the bust of the Playtex-wearing nurse. Said nurse would then giggle–I can only assume that she blushed since this was in black and white. Offensive and hilarious at the same time, but of course back then no one thought a thing about it.
shortstop
Y’all lay off Cole’s wide-range ogling. You don’t see him putting out obnoxious ads like “SM, 42 (I have no idea how old he is; just took a guess), seeks fit SF, 18-25.”
Maude
@shortstop:
The real story is that John was staring bug eyed at the nurses and they tossed him out and he had to sit in the car.
Tim, Interrupted
Oh please, Cole. You know as well as I do that the only nurses you were ogling were male.
Love you!
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Larkspur: WKRP ref! Thank you for the first chuckle of the day.
TooManyJens
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
A little too homophobic-sounding, don’t you think? I could get behind sillytory, though.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
John, you’re a really good guy for taking care of this lady; it’s what I always thought of as the definition of “neighborly”. I hope you brought a book to read while you waited in the car.
Bill H.
@shortstop:
Oh, I understand the “switch” very, very, very well indeed. It brought back such wonderful memories of my maternal grandmother, “Granny,” Mary Lelia Alabama Featherston. She was such a treasure. Whoo, thank you for that memory.
Bondo
In the words of the immortal Matthew Mahogany, “That’s what I love about these High School girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”
asiangrrlMN
Cole, you are doing a good thing. Cheers to you.
@geg6: I’m glad to see some of the Dems talking about it as undercutting women’s health because that’s what it is. Reid says he won’t back down, and by god, I hope he means it.
Houston Bridges
Is this the same John Cole that Sully calls the “unhinged left”?
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: But only because the transformation between them is continuous.
catclub
@Maude: It should be true, and it sounds good, but I have certainly never observed such an event taking place, and find it very hard to imagine it actually happening. If they tried there would lots of whining and fake innocence that would be far more painful for all (both involved and uninvolved).
mick
i always went for older women. even in my 20’s, i liked them to be 40+.
now that i am 50+, i may start hanging out at nursing homes.
Maude
@catclub:
I kid him because he would never in a million years do something like that. John isn’t sleezy. Too decent and sees women as people.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@TooManyJens: You’re right, sillytory is better. Thanks for that.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
@shortstop:
You mean like this guy?
Colleen
In other news, Iāve grown so sick of the budget talks that I no longer care if the government shuts down, I just want Boehnerās big orange weepy pumpkin head off my tv.
Thanks for my laugh of the day. I’m with you on this one.