Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Family secret NO MORE!

In the church basement set, a favorite expression is, "You're as sick as your secrets." Well, apparently I have been keeping an aspect of my background on the down-low, and it has been suggested to me that I may be keeping this information in the family closet, as it were.

As a person with a comprehensive website, blog and MySpace page, I'm not exactly a closed book. However, there is a part of my family history that I haven't addressed, and well, I guess it's time to address it. My quiet on this issue hasn't been part of some elaborate cover-up--I am not mentally equipped for covert operations, as anyone who knows me can verify--but rather, a family/Midwestern/Catholic tendency to just leave things (particularly unpleasant things) be.

You see, back in Wisconsin, I have a cousin who is--well, there's just no way to sugar-coat this, so I'll just get it out--a Republican. Not only that, he's a member of Congress.

Yes, I, Ann Podolske, life-long liberal and mid-life lesbian, have a card-carrying and vote-making member of the GOP in my family tree.

How did this happen? Well, no one can really say how such things happen, but I do have a theory. The Congressman's father, my uncle and dear mother's only brother, was lost in WWII, and as a result, the Congressman wasn't raised with any Democratic influence at all, poor dear.

I guess he's a Republican because he just doesn't know any better. And while some might think that I, as a member of his family, have the duty to try to help the Congressman see the error of his ways, I know that I am powerless over how he votes on bills (the wrong way, typically), and that all I can do is take care of myself, donate to my favorite lefty causes, vote Democratic, and pray for him.

If there were a GOP-anon, I'd belong, but alas, there is no such organization.

Yet.

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