Imagine that you have arrived at the emergency room after a horrific car crash. The doctor in charge offers you two pills. One will relieve the inflammation of whiplash. The other will reduce the psychological trauma, muting the nightmarish flashback to a manageable memory. Would you take one? Would you take both? Is there any difference?

A very interesting column from Ellen Goodman. As much as we don't like it, I think we're defined by the bad things that happen to us more than the good; we use words like "character-building" because we can't think of other ways to explain the age-old "why me, God" guestion, and most of us -- in retrospect -- probably wouldn't want painful experiences taken away. They make us richer, deeper, more empathetic and more whole. If I could stand it, I probably wouldn't take the pill.

But how many people live through way worse things than I could even imagine, and could be helped by NOT having to relive them over and over? How many lives could be made better if the pills were taken? Not only the lives of the victims, but the victims' families -- how many veterans' children would grow up with fathers not terrorized by the shadow of war, to use Goodman's example? Oy. This is making my head hurt.

Overheard at an extremely fancy bar Saturday night:

Him: Darling, how do you spell "escargot"?
Her: Darling, it's right there on the menu. Why do you need to know?
Him: Darling, because YOU make my escargot.
Her: Oh, darling, you're such a cad! ["Cad. She really said that. Cad?" -- ed.]
Both: Chortle chortle kissy kissy chortle.

What am I missing here? Have I lost all ability to pick up on poorly constructed sexual innuendo? Or is it just some kind of private joke? Later that night, at a Halloween party where no one was dressed up, I repeated this story to several others (who also did not get it, which made me feel somewhat gratified), and one of them suggested it had some reference to a knock-knock joke that plays on "escargot" and "S Car Go." We couldn't piece it together. Help?

Also at that party, I met a random woman who looks exactly like the way I imagined a character in something I'm writing. At first, I actually thought I might know her because she looked so familiar; later, I realized it was just that she looked like a picture of an imaginary person in my head. It was eerie.

This year's winning entries in Editor and Publisher's photojournalism contest are absolutely breathtaking. Wow.

So I went to Chicago this weekend. Woo, midwest! It was my first time there, and it wasn't supposed to be a touristy visit because my writing group was visiting another member there and trying to do writerly things (such as writing), but we did manage to do this and see this and this and the building of this. We saw this here, and we ate here (cheezeborger cheezeborger cheezeborger!) and here. I wish I'd made it there when K. lived there, but my conclusions from 72 hours spent in the city: Chicago is freezing cold and a little scary (we got a tad lost on the South Side Saturday night) but extremely accessible via public transportation, culturally rich and architecturally amazing. Also, deep dish pizza is good.

Hee hee. This is a piñata from a particularly amusing e-card. Thank you all for the nice birthday-ness. Is much appreciated. Am looking very forward to seeing A. and K. and family for more birthday lovin' this weekend, and many others Sunday. Whee.

More blogging to come post-sniper (if there is a post-) and post-elections. In the meantime, you might want to get your war on. (Trust me, this one is worth a click.)

"Aah," I say. A big giant "aah." That would be an "aah" of scared-ness, not an "aah" of relief... the shootings of the last week -- the spree, the rampage, the sniper attack, whatever you want to call it -- are in the county where I work. It's weird, because I always view Montgomery County as a safe, wealthy haven; I think of myself as traveling away from violence and chaos in D.C. (the place where I have jury duty ONCE AGAIN in November because there is so much crime and so few people, the place where a friend of a friend just got mugged at gunpoint and then had the awesome gumption to ask for her keys back, and it actually worked! but those are both other stories) and toward this cushy, spoiled suburb where everyone thinks about traffic solutions and banning Santa Claus in the town parade and having the highest SAT scores in the country. Things work here, better than they do in the District. Not that I would ever want to live here -- too boring, too bland, too many giant stores and SUVs, too much stuff and not enough stuff to do -- but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like being able to park my car wherever I want, and the fact that I can go to a monstrosity of a Target to get socks and potting soil and a new clock radio. And I like the good bagel place and the freakily awesome knitting store.

Anyway, I'm sure it's hypocritical somehow, but it does make it more shocking that this stuff is happening here and not in a scary part of D.C. (Of course: Not that I'm asking for or expecting it to happen in D.C., and, regardless of location, I would like it to stop, please.) And today was the first time I was faced with the question, "why would someone kill random people?" from a child who really wanted to know the answer rather than an world-weary adult who already knows there's no answer. Obviously I didn't have one, but I told her that and we talked about it. I probably got a B- in my handling of the situation... low 80th percentile on the scale of good handling. Her school, under a code blue alert when all the doors are locked and kids can't go outside, was surprisingly normal. All the kids seemed fine. I don't know what to say, really.

In news of the trivial, goodbye Yankees! I was sad but not surprised. It's a fitting ending for my year of almost disliking the politics of baseball enough to disown it entirely. Anaheim was scrappy (albeit owned by Disney, ick. Not that Steinbrenner is better, really, but whatever.) The Yankees were so not dominant, and this was their definition of a rebuilding year -- half the team was new, and some of the old-timers were too old. So now I can root for Minnesota with a clear conscience. Screw greedy, evil baseball management! Go Twins.

Things I Would Like To Learn,
by Gwen.

How to pull and maintain a better poker face.
How to cook without using any dishes that need to be washed afterward.
How to amass a personal fortune.
How to avoid getting sucked into reruns of "Law and Order" just because other people in the house are sitting on the couch, eating chocolate chips, watching intently and providing incisive commentary.
How to find hot Japanese teens -- oh, wait, that's just what my spam wants me to learn. :)
How to practice homeopathic healing.
How to do more knitting stitches.
How not to take it personally.

The end.

H. was here this weekend and it was the best time I've had in ages. She rules. Rules, I say. H., you are so NOT redder on the box -- you are redder than the box's wildest dreams.

And speaking of ruling, it was Kelly's birthday on Friday. Twenty-five short years ago, Kelly was born unto this earth, and the earth smiled, because Kelly was good, and because it knew we all needed her to keep us sane and straight (no pun -- well, yeah, OK, sort of) and happy and laughing and loved. Long live Queen Kelly.

Note the logo.

Yup, folks, those are E*ron yo-yos. We spent a good half hour today looking at all the stuff up for auction. It's actually more sad and less funny (less funny-ha-ha but plenty funny-weird) than you would think. Hundreds of thousands of unused laptops with no operating systems installed, and cardboard boxes full of cell phones, and zillions of stress balls and model ships and foosball tables and those tacky cooler sleeves for beer cans -- all emblazoned with that crooked E. It looks like the downfall of capitalism, neatly categorized and utterly pathetic.

And an open letter to Congress from The Nation, calling upon members to oppose war with Iraq. It's the most concise, cogent piece I've seen so far. Wow. I'm scared. If the auction of capitalism seems small and pathetic, this is its truly large and frightening complement.

Next person with whom I go on a long car ride: We are so, like, totally playing this game. I love it.

I just wrote this huge long thing about the girl I mentor, and how this was the first session since school got out last summer. But then I erased it, because it seemed invasive and scarily public. So OK! Let's say: It was nice to see her. I feel lucky to know her. The end.

A list of people killed at the Pentagon with short biographies and, very poignantly, pictures and descriptions of the objects or pets that meant the most to them. A favorite tie, a player piano, a lanyard holding a security clearance tag, a teddy bear given to an AA on Secretaries' Day, a beautifully laid Thanksgiving table, dogs, children's books, paintings, cars, photographs. This is the only kind of coverage I'm really interested in today -- I fall for the Big Retrospective Picture Analysis sometimes, but this seems better right now. Warning: This humanizes the number of causualties in a way I haven't seen done this effectively before, so don't look at it if you're trying to stay away from sad Sept. 11 stuff. For me, though, it was good for once to consider the people who died without the larger context of the situation -- to look at them simply as people who liked this stuff or that stuff, and to see what their families wanted to say about them.

God bless D.C.: Check out our candidates for mayor. I might actually vote for the Green Party Statehood guy. Then again, there are so many other attractive options: the bugle-playing stripper, the guy who thinks the statement "D.C. has a unelected president whose daughters and niece are drunks" is a reason to vote for him, the current mayor up for reelection who was just fined a zillion bucks for forging names on his petitions.

And, to make matters even better, I don't know what city ward I live in, so I'm not sure where to go tomorrow morning (let alone which wonderfully qualified candidates to vote for there). My current voter registration card has my old address and polling place on it, but my driver's license has my new address -- when I was at the DMV last time, I asked the clerk if I'd get a new card and she actually laughed at me. I repeat: God bless D.C.

Good afternoon, I'm Gwen, the worst blogger on the planet. Sorry that I will have to be your guide for today, if any of you are still out there to be guided. If it makes you feel any better, I never write in my journal any more either. This is because, I think, I'm working on other writing stuff that's using my old personal writing energy. Anyway, moving on. Again.

Alissa is having a barbeque tomorrow and it's going to be fun even if it's cold and raining. Alissa's house is always fun, and fun does not stop for weather. I am not worried. Plus, we will be decoupaging a table. (Jason, I'm sure you'll be really excited about this activity, but we can put pictures of your skydiving self on there! You'll love it.) Frank would be proud.

I moved last weekend. New house is lovely. Lovely lovely lovely. Moldy closet excepted, I couldn't be happier.

This article from The Morning News is just about the only piece I've seen resurrected from last fall -- published Nov. 10, 2001 -- that captures how I felt about two months after It and, to a lesser degree, am feeling now. It's a little dark but so very true and, ultimately, a little hopeful. Let it not be said that we pessimists can't have perspective.

H. has pointed out that we're exactly at the one-year anniversary of our vacay. A year ago today, we were in the San Juan islands. Hi, vacation. We miss you.

Hello. I'm back from vacation. I'm relaxed. I'm tan. I wrote a lot. I can now say I've been tubing, by which I would mean that I've been dragged behind the back of a speedboat while clinging to a flimsy plastic innertube and screaming. It was fun, but given a choice, I will always choose the canoe. Choose the canoe! That sounds a lot like "Take the Cannoli."

(By the way, can I just mention that I can't stand my stupid gold box on Amazon? It's such a great idea, and so eye-catching, and they're totally wasting its potential -- a company that seems obsessed with researching and cataloging our tastes based on past purchases and viewing histories and favorite ice cream flavors and social security numbers and godknowswhatelse should have done a better job with this. Why are they trying to sell me a Black & Decker GH400 12" Grass Hog Automatic Feed String Trimmer/Edger with Auto Feed Spool (AFS)? What is a Grass Hog? Have I ever done anything to indicate that I would like an Auto Feed Spool? Do I even have a lawn?)

On a more serious note, I found out one of my thesis advisors died in July. She was very ill, and had been for a long time, so it's not exactly shocking news, but I'm thrown just the same. The woman was absolutely brilliant. She could speak Middle English, was an unbelievable expert on feminism and Marxism, had read everything that had ever existed, ever. And, like many extroadinarily intelligent people, she was also very difficult. There were times that I flat-out despised her. She reduced me to tears on more than one occasion, and could be hopelessly discouraging at a time when I desperately wanted people to tell me that yes, in fact, I could want to be a writer, and yes, I could really finish a book of short stories in a year, and yes, someone someday might want to read something I had written. At a time that I only wanted yesses, nothing but mushy-smushy affirmation, she gave me a lot of nos. She could be pretty merciless in her criticism, and a few times I thought she would absolutely crush me. I don't know if she knew how much she affected me. I always tried to hide it. (As did the rest of her advisees; despite all of the emotional upheaval, she was the absolute most sought-after thesis advisor and we had to fight to get her. I saw more than one of them in tears after an hour in her office, too.) But after a while, I just got angry at her, and she gave me/us something to push against, something to prove, and I wonder if that wasn't the point.

In any case, that resistance is always in the back of my mind somewhere. I have always imagined sending her a copy of my first novel, and her sending it back with chicken-scratch red all over it, saying the one thing I can still hear in her voice: "You have talent but you don't know what to do with it. Work harder. Stop writing like you're afraid." In her own weird way, she saw right through me -- the me that's terribly scared of exposing myself through writing, of taking risks and of being judged -- and I don't know if she deliberately recognized it and called me on it, or if the way she built me up and tore me down just happened to hit on it exactly.

I really, really, really wanted to show her that novel: part revenge fantasy, part thank you, part I don't know what. I thought about it all the time. This all seems very wrong, somehow.

It's been so long that it took me a few seconds to think of my Blogger username. Apologies all around -- I don't really know what's going on, except that I'm working really hard on some new projects, and on more things at once than I knew my brain could handle. This is a good thing.

Second Sondheim weekend was fantastic, again. There's something wonderful about going to the same theater with the same (fun, wonderful, old-friend) people multiple times in a row... that theater feels intimately familiar now. I really like going to the theater in general and I really liked going to this theater in particular: a long ascent up two floors of carpeted marble staircase to red plush seats and the midnight blue screen with the little white Sondheim scrawl spotlighted in the lower righthand corner. Megan told off an usher (who deserved it) Saturday night, but otherwise it was a pretty near-perfect experience. In order from most to least, I would say my favorite shows were: Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Passion, Sunday in the Park with George and, lastly, Merrily We Roll Along. Farewell, Sondheim festival. You were fun.

In other news, anyone who ever says "women are the ones who play games in relationships!" to me is going to get smacked. Gwennie will smack! (V. subtle B. Jones reference.) Because men? They play games, too. And I'm not talking about backgammon and poker and freeze tag, although I would prefer those. It's not, like, the worst thing that's ever happened ever, but honestly, I find it more stressful than enjoyable and wish we could just say what we're thinking and skip the playing.

In other other news, I am going on a much-needed vacation Thursday and Friday. The odds of me updating again before then are not tremendous, so I will say goodbye now, and hello to the dock and the lake and the woods and the books and the friends. Can't come too soon, is what I'm sayin'.

From The Morning News:

Surrick: Malcolm, there’s already a bill being pushed through Congress to make it legal for a citizen to shoot – in the stomach – anyone in possession of a snakehead. Those little bastards aren’t going to be allowed to step one stinking creepy foot-fin in this country.
Ostrom: Well, God bless America.
Surrick: Hey. Hey. Stick your finger in this Bible and tell me where it says, ‘and lo, God created this fucked-up carnivorous snake-fish nightmare and it was good,’ and I’ll welcome it with open arms.

Hee. More working now.

House Approves Homeland Worker Amendment. Because civil rights are pesky annoyances that get in the way of our dictator -- whoops, president! silly me -- doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whomever he wants! Labor protection laws are for whiners, right? Thank god we got rid of those! Whew!

Exaggeration aside, this is a slippery slope if ever a slope were slippery. First the Department of Homeland Security, then the Department of Defense (what if that guy working in the Pentagon is a terrorist? we need to be able to find out!), then the entire government ('cause if that lady cleaning trash cans at the DOJ doesn't unconditionally condone its actions, we should be able to fire her without warning!), then the whole airline industry (your friendly baggage handlers could be assisting terrorists! no unions for them!) It's endless.

I saw these bumper stickers on my drive home from New York last Sunday; a few days ago, I found them here, and this nice woman is mailing them to me for free just so they'll be displayed prominently somewhere. I usually think bumper stickers are a little naive and overly reductive -- I'm not usually a bumper sticker kind of girl, but I'm considering wearing these on my forehead, damn it.

Too bad Dante didn't stick around for the invention of, you know, roads and stuff. The Holland Tunnel at 6 p.m. on Sunday would have been its own separate level of hell, I swear. Evil dirty traffic aside, my weekend was hectic and fun. I watched one of my best friends get married -- technically, get "blessed," because he and his British wife really got married in February for greencard purposes -- and actually quite enjoyed it. See, I'm not necessarily a bitter old hag at weddings; however, I am also definitely not what one would consider a Wedding Person. I won't go into the (not interesting) reasons presently, but let's say this one was an exception. I was quite the inverse of a bitter old hag. Ross just looked so, so, so good and so happy and so everything -- I felt rather like jumping up and down and clapping my hands in glee.

Did you note the sixty zillion British-isms in that last paragraph? We have the Harry Potter reader guy to thank for that. Ten CDs of his melliflous accent and I'm "quite"-ing with the best of them. On the phone tonight with H., I couldn't stop saying "expecto patronus!" in his voice, and I've been doing it in my head since we hung up. Expecto patronus! Expecto patronus! Quite!

I stole that little Javascript footnote thing from a few people (mostly these two people who I'm sure will never read this page, but thank you just in case). Now, whenever I have some fascinating parenthetical comment to make, you will see a blue word that first appears to be a normal link. But no! It will be different! You will see a little dotted line like so beneath the words. You will click on it, and then you will be handsomely rewarded. There are two in the previous post -- see if you can spot all the clicky goodness.

The prospect of a long, long drive up evil, evil 95 this weekend was making me despondant, and I've completely exhausted
all the books on CD at the library, so this morning I checked out Talking Book World. Yes, Talking Book World. (Who, may I ask, came up with that horrific name? Hello? No self-respecting patron of any fine establishment could ever say the words "Talking Book World" without a distinct ironic grimace and a "you know, whatever the hell that place is called" wave of the hands.) For the not-terribly-cheap rate of $7 per week, I'm now the proud renter of Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" and the third Harry Potter book. The Bryson book was an easy choice because I've been wanting to listen to it for a while; the other was a toss-up between "Prisoner of Azkaban" and "On the Road." But seriously: If Harry Potter and Jack Kerouac were in a fight, who do YOU think would win?

Wow. Last post was July 2. I am negligent. Very busy, somewhat distracted and negligent.

I am supposed to know how to use GoLive now. GoLive is a reasonably complicated piece of web publishing software made by Adobe, so it looks exactly like Photoshop and ImageReady and all these applications you actually do know how to use, so it tricks you into thinking you know how to use GoLive too. But, see, then you don't. Even after taking a reasonably expensive two-day class all about how to use it (and just the teeny tiny bit of school-like-ness of that class made me long to be in some sort of school-like setting again), even when that class was extremely helpful and worthwhile -- I still don't really understand how to use it. Dirty software. And I don't have the time to figure it out the way it should be figured out, which means I really don't have the time to be blogging.

Television Without Pity is recapping the new season (who knew there was a new season? who will ever watch this show? although you do have to watch it just once to know what the loser people look like so you can visualize while you laugh your way through the recaps) of "Big Brother." I don't have time to be reading that either, so you go do it for me, OK?

If you're cute and tall and red-headed, clap your hands.
If you're funny and nice and like dancing, clap your hands.
If you're smart and you work for Bill, and you live in See-aaa-til,
if it's your birthday and you know it, clap your hands.

You had better be sitting at your desk clapping those hands like crazy, mister. Happy birthday. :)

And Jason, I am sorry I didn't have a fantastically original birthday song for you, too -- you certainly deserve one because you are also marvelous. Change "like dancing" to "like video games" and "work for Bill, and you live in See-aaa-til" to "have a dog, and I'm not sure if you like to jog" so it can be your song too, OK?