There's a new parlor game in Maryland political circles, one that's way more fun than guessing who's behind omalleywatch.com: Who's FakeSheilaDixon?
"I am having [Chief of Staff] Demaune [Millard] look into whether I can tax people for dressing poorly," FakeSheilaDixon wrote on Twitter yesterday. "It should be UnderArmour jumpsuits or DolceGabbana."
Another bit from the Twitter feed: "I keep telling my citizens, if they are stuck in traffic just get your driver to turn on the sirens. People move right out of your way."
And another: "Quick set of bicep curls before I take a walk downtown. Michelle Obama has nothing on my guns."
Though clearly satire, FakeSheilaDixon reads like the work of a real City Hall staffer because it's full of insider tidbits.
"Confession: I am not the health nut I make myself out to be. There is always a bag of Cheetos under my desk. ... I am thinking about ordering pizza for lunch. Check that, we all know what happened to Demaune last time."
Everybody knows Mayor Sheila Dixon is a health nut. But how many outside City Hall remember Millard's lawsuit against a pizzeria that refused him service last year?
Some of the details that ring true turn out to be fiction, so the writer may simply be a master of verisimilitude, not a real insider.
"Someone should tell [Deputy Mayor] Andy Frank to cool it with the Indian leftovers in the microwave," FakeSheilaDixon wrote this week.
Is the deputy mayor really stinking up the second floor of City Hall with reheated tikka masala?
In a phone interview this week, Frank copped to eating Indian.
"I do, I do enjoy it," he said.
But he insisted he's never popped it in the mayoral microwave.
"I've never brought it into the office," he said.
And what of another purported City Hall aroma?
"This meeting was difficult," FakeSheilaDixon wrote Wednesday, the day the mayor really was at the Board of Estimates. "[City Council President Stephanie] Rawlings-Blake had on this extremely powerful perfume. It was very distracting."
Next tweet: "I didn't know anyone wore Shalimar anymore, but that Rawlings-Blake is always full of surprises."
Does the council president really wear Shalimar? And a lot of it?
"She does not," Rawlings-Blake spokesman Ryan O'Doherty assured me.
How is FakeSheilaDixon going over with Real Sheila Dixon? Spokesman Scott Peterson responded with admirable gravity.
"The welfare of our children, families and residents while maintaining the progress of Baltimore as a cleaner, greener, healthier and safer city is our central focus," he said via e-mail. "We do not have the time to be consumed by these types of distractions especially in the midst of the current budget situation."
Lots of other people seem to have found the time.
FakeSheilaDixon is just a week old today. As of yesterday, the feed had 75 followers, including the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.
"Why I like Twitter: people are called 'followers,'" FakeSheilaDixon wrote. "Everyone in Baltimore should be my follower, because I am their Mayor."
Talk about sick jokes
Great minds at Johns Hopkins University may someday develop a swine flu cure. For now, they've come up with swine flu jokes.
"A new disease demands a new dictionary," Hopkins' communications office writes on an administration Web page devoted to flu updates. What follows is a bunch of lighthearted definitions meant to remind students, faculty and staff how to avoid and treat H1N1. Among them:
"Pig: A student ill with suspected or presumed H1N1 flu. (Variation: Piglet: a sick freshman.)
"Pig in a blanket: A sick student complying with doctor's advice to stay home, drink fluids and get plenty of rest.
"Pig Latin: A sick student's Classics homework.
"Pig pen: A sick student's room, where he or she stays until 24 hours without fever, off of fever medication.
"Pig sty: A sick student's room before he or she properly disposes of used tissues and cleans doorknobs, desktops, keyboards and other surfaces with virus-killing wipes.
"The Farm: Mom and Dad's house, where pigs who live near campus go to recover rather than sit in the pig pen day after day.
"Sleeze: to sneeze properly (into one's sleeve) when a tissue isn't handy.
"Hog tide: Alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
"Trough: A dining hall, where unsanitary pigs could easily transmit the H1N1 virus if they share drinks, utensils, etc."
For the whole list, see web.jhu.edu/administration/flu/updates/091309.html.
Getting wiggy
Things are looking up for the state GOP. Daniel "The Wig Man" Vovak has thrown his powdered Colonial periwig into the ring for Maryland Republican Party chairman.
Laura Vozzella's column appears Fridays.
