I have a friend, we'll call her "Aimee", who likes to bring a Sharpie with her to dive bars. Why, you ask? Well, Aimee likes to leave her mark, literally. Given the right mood and the right bar, she'll leave a message on the bathroom wall. She has two messages she especially loves. The first is to write "Only monkeys look in corners" near the door and then to write "monkey" in the corner. Sure, it's silly, but it's also funny. Her second message is a just a little more cryptic: "child's portion baked ham". What does "child's portion baked ham" mean? We have no idea. Personally, I love it precisely because it's nonsensical.

And so "child's portion baked ham" is a particularly whimsical addition to my personal white noise. I've been thinking lately that all the partisan messages we're bombarded with are nothing more than white noise too. I was at the Farmer's Market Saturday with a friend and she purchased a "Global Village Idiot" button featuring Bush. Ha ha. I'm so beyond caring about those kinds of buttons or bumper stickers. I've seen so many one second political messages in the last six years that they all just blend into one giant message that reinforces my belief that 90% of the politicians of either party care about one thing and one thing only: getting elected.

Both the Retardicans and the Dummocrats practice nothing but sound byte politics these days: "cut and run!", "Bush lied!", "defense of marriage!". These words mean as much to me now as "child's portion baked ham".

I don't think I care about politics anymore. I care about policies, but not politics. To me, reading about politics is like trying to get to know someone and never getting past their stories about how they partied in college. While that's entertaining, it doesn't tell me anything important about someone. It's just superficial. It's just like politics. And it sucks.