Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

The Pregnancy Diary: The Pregnant Voter You Crave

January 26th 2008. I'm still pregnant. My stomach had been inappropriately patted five times.

It is also an election year.

CNN was indeed my favorite channel in those times of the elections and no new shows. In 2008, you could get all the drama of 24 or Law and Order on CNN (without Fred Thompson) that you could ever ask for.

This day had been lush with dramatic goodness from The DNC Race.

Like the Stomach Pat Count, I started to count how often each Democratic Candidate mentioned (Some Person) in (some state) working at (some crappy job) who needs (something), that only they can provide.

Obama started with the woman who sent him exactly 3.01 cents. I love the "penny accuracy." I wished to see this check.

Then Edwards and some horrible sob story of some woman who had to put her two kids in one bed. Of course looking for change...and I'm sure an extra bed.

By the time Hilary Clinton did her concession stump speech? Wow was the only word I could get out.

It was so far away from a concession speech (and from South Carolina) that it was especially fantastic. Whatever CNN finally cut that short, as she was in some heavy South Carolina denial (Hey...how about the band?!? she proclaimed).

I was convinced she must have gotten on the phone with the Mayor of Nashville on that jet ride and screamed GET ME A BUNCH OF BLACK PEOPLE TO PUT ON THE STAGE, PRONTO!!

I just wanted to hear another sob story to out-top Obama and Edwards:

There was this lady I met in Tennessee. And let me tell you, she lived in a SHOE! She had so many children wanting decent healthcare and education? She didn't know WHAT TO DO.

It reminded me of a Monty Python Sketch:

Barack: I met this woman on the South Side of Chicago who worked at Jewel working three shifts only to make enough to live in the worst of housing trying to feed her babies...

John: She was lucky! I met this woman who lived in a dirt ditch next to a trailer park licking floors for two cents an hour for eighteen shifts! She had to carry her children with her and feed them on her breasts while licking the floor, every once in a while having her children lick the floor just to get the extra nutrition.

Hillary: Dirt ditch by a trailer park? LUXURY. I met this woman who lived on shards of glass in a non-zoned part of this country. This woman does not even live in a STATE. She has no tongue, no arms and no legs. She is nothing but a torso. Her 25 children push her around on a filthy towel cleaning up dirt piles for 82 hours a day and then they have to pay the manager five dollars an hour for the privilege! Dirt ditch? They only DREAMED of a dirt ditch!

Bill: I once had sex with that woman...

Hillary: Shut up, Bill, I'M running!

All of them spoke of education. Of changing healthcare, universal or otherwise. They all were really going for the Home Family Woe.

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I was then a Black Pregnant Woman. No wonder my phone was ringing off the hook when Super Tuesday came around the corner. I was then, A Black Pregnant Woman Everyone wanted.

Around the corner from my home were the Clinton Offices. I had gotten three calls from them for help. I got calls from Obama's Campaign asking the same thing. My name was on a lot of lists for this sort of stuff, because I helped with some back end website work on the Kerry/Edwards Campaign.

Edwards, who was running. Kerry, who was supporting Obama.  Oh, the drama...

I'm that person they wish to stand behind them at the podium. Upwardly Mobile Pregnant Black Woman. In the full-on grips of pregnancy, whose physical appearance can range from 30-40. The still sort of young vote.

They wanted my vote. They needed that endorsement. It was a brand new world of change...and of late? It seemed I was the person they really wanted to prove they could change.

I was officially the Voter They Craved.

The one who you look at and know good and well you should not be singing "Who Let the Dogs Out" around because my face will turn on you. (Mitt Romney in 2008).

I'm the one who can tell you that appearing on Ms. Banks' show does not secure the Black Vote as much as it will secure the Drag Queen Vote. (Obama in 2008).

I'm the one that you can meet and use my story and not have it sound like you just got someone's last three dollars and one cent.

...They saw me as Black and Pregnant. In actual fact, I was: The African American woman in San Francisco who owns her own small comedy business in her home in the SOMA, about to have her first child. In my mind I was:

The woman whose only reason she is covered by insurance is because her husband works in healthcare. The 42 year old woman who has worked hard all of her life and, like many Americans.

The person who knows that even with two incomes and healthcare? One bad thing could lead to disaster.

The woman who could not afford a better place in San Francisco unless she and her husband went in on it with four other people. Who knows that in San Francisco, making 50K a year means literally nothing. You are living where you can or you are living on top of Chemical Waste in Hunters Point. The woman who knows that if she wants to afford a home in San Francisco? Move to Oregon.  But she doesn't wish to do that.

She still, though, has enough money to give more than twelve quarters and a penny to her candidate.

That person who has been an active member in politics. She has never been arrested. She has never been on food stamps. She has a college degree. She pays her taxes and gives to charities. Although she is not religious, she does believe in good people. She is also drop dead sexy and funny. If they were not running for office right now? They'd SO HIT THIS. (Bill Clinton would too. But then, Bill would so hit *anything*).

Her story is one of millions of people's. Just a person trying to live in this country. To make it not only better for others?  But very honestly and selfishly...for herself.

But they are not going to see the blunt truth of that. They pretty much saw me as a black pregnant woman. Not a person, who in the scheme of things, they would really care less about, as I'm that person (like many), who will make it no matter who is our President.

The Legion of People who say We will Make This Dumb Shit Work. The hordes of Well Screw ME. Oh well...We will Figure Something Out. The unwashed masses of Christ on a Cracker this politician is as dumb as a bag of rocks, and that is an insult to rocks. Okay. Lets see if we can work AROUND this dumbass.

Had the pleasure of working around Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. If McCain landed in office? I would have worked around that too.

But in that moment of 2008, my skin, my genitals and my "delicate condition" made me a frontrunner vote for the DNC Front Runners.

Impress me, candidates, I thought, while hurling between commercials, pregnant. Don't you want my vote? Black woman having a baby over here! I'm what you CRAVE!

Dance, Candidate Minions, dance for my vote.

Dance.

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