I can't concentrate on anything today
From The Washington Post:

"Without question, the Washington media descended unfairly on Dean -- both because he was the front-runner and because he's leading a movement that's hostile to their insider culture," said Yale historian David Greenberg, author of the book "Nixon's Shadow." "They turned the 'scream' from an amusing if slightly weird sidelight into a four-day front-page story that may seriously damage his chances."

I usually bristle at all the finger-pointing at the media, but I think this is true, and also dangerous. This really is kind of a fascinating time to be watching politics -- don't get me wrong, I still am as cynical about it as ever, but this race is really interesting.

Here's another:

After Dean's Tuesday concession speech, according to ABC News, a reporter asked campaign manager Joe Trippi what happened in New Hampshire. "I'm not talking to you," said Trippi, hours before resigning from the campaign. Why? "Because the media is a pain in the [butt]."

Having your campaign manager refuse to talk to the media is a stupid strategy, but then again, your job isn't to pretend to be something you're not to make the media like you so that, in turn, you can be the Democratic nominee. Wonder what he really said -- I don't think it was "bracket-butt-bracket"...

until someone loses an eye
I've been playing a little game with myself the last few days entitled "It's Too Cold to Blank." Its recent incarnations have included some sensible things, like tonight's It's Too Cold to Watch TV (the ground floor of 17-- Wouldn't-you-like-to-know,-you-internet-stalker,-you Street is basically unheated during the winter). Also, It's Too Cold to Go Buy Milk for Hot Chocolate, Let's Have Tea Instead and It's Too Cold to Go for a Walk in the Snow. [Look at this thing the Post has now -- the expert snow yardstick says six inches so far.]

But I've now expanded this game to other, less sensible things. The most recent includes It's Too Cold to Go to the Gym Tomorrow Morning. There are several reasons why this is not OK. One is that the gym is very near to my house -- as in visible from my window. I could have walked there and back about 13 times in the amount of time it just took me to write this paragraph. Another is that the gym is, not surprisingly, indoors. If I had to run on the elliptical thingie in some kind of outdoor arctic courtyard like a hearty Norweigan cross-country skiier with blond pigtails and a Saint Bernard, perhaps Too Cold would be a valid reason. It is not.

Here are some more miscellaneous phrases I thought or said tonight: It's Too Cold to Talk About Politics, It's Too Cold to Drink Water, It's Too Cold to Take Another Look at the Faulty Code of Your Web Site, and It's Too Cold to Read This Book About How People Who Live in the Oklahoma Panhandle Are Not Cold. Don't look for any explanations; I can't provide them.

Damn, it's cold. And I'm going to the damn gym tomorrow morning, damn it. I bet those guys driving the snowplows down the damn street every 30 damn seconds are pretty unhappy. It's Too Cold to Drive a Damn Snowplow.

the moral of the story
I love this list of What Literature Has Taught [Him], especially the "Lord of the Rings" and Bible entries. Ha. It also made me want to add my own: "The Naked and the Dead" taught me that war is bad, that being both naked and dead at once is less than desirable, and that I really don't need to personally climb a scary mountain in Japan to figure any of that out.

l'chaim
Here at take it easy, there is no State of the Union on TV right now, and no monkey in a red tie is telling me that taking away funding from public schools and testing students into oblivion actually strengthen public schools. La la la! I can't hear you!

Mo, my new favorite web person, posted this list on her blog today. I'm not certain where her local paper is, but these "10 best nutrition moves" sound sensible to me:

1. Eat seven to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

2. Eat fatty fish two or three times a week.

3. Restrict red meat to once or twice a week.

4. Eat 25 grams of fiber a day.

5. Use olive oil primarily.

6. Eat "good" carbs.

7. Drink three or more cups of tea a day.

9. Shave portions by one-third to half.

10. Take a daily multivitamin.

She has explanations of them all, if you want more detail, also. Except for 9 and 3 (but 3 only by default, not for health reasons), I don't do any of these. In the winter, I get about 2/3 of 7. Sadly, I don't cook most of my own food, so I don't know about 5. I try 10 periodically, and even set up a dorky reminder for it in Outlook, but I do it MAYBE once a week. If a week were actually two weeks long. And I am actively trying to be healthy and good, here.

None of these seem diet-trendy and I'd like to incorporate some of them into my daily eating habits, but nuts? And 25 grams of fiber? And ew, fatty fish. I don't know. Do any of you guys do any of this stuff? Are $300 tax refunds going to save the world?

here, birdie birdie birdie
Our disastrous house with the leaking roof and the yummy leaded water had its first living creature (that I know of; the only one I want to know of) today -- we heard these funny scratchy noises coming from the fireplace in the living room, and the next thing we knew there was a little guy hopping around in there. Long yellow beak, pretty black patterned feathers. Clearly stuck in the fireplace. So. How to get him out.

Luckily I was home alone with the good calm roommate, the one who has castrated bulls in Equador. We took a sheet and put it up in front of the fireplace, opened the doors, and he flew out into the sheet and got sort of trapped between my right foot and the wooden pole of the fireplace. He was pretty relaxed, all things considered -- either that or he was too scared to flap around wildly. I could feel his tiny bird heart beating hard against my foot, but he held very still and poked his beak out of the top of the sheet, and I kept it pinned to the wall as C. scooped him up and took him outside. He flew up into a tree and looked down at us, and when we looked out a few minutes later he was gone.

OK, now I am going back to my initial form of book-review procrastination: The City Paper article about DC debutantes that's freaking me out way more than the bird. Scary article help me! Come on, you knew I couldn't write a whole thing about birds without a single reference... :)

apple butter and politics
Have nothing to do with each other as far as I can tell. I was trying to think of an elegant metaphor to link them together, but really, I'm just going to make you read my boring political musings before I give you the recipe I promised back when we were broken. But you're stuck with the politics before the apple butter! Ha ha! All my base are belong to me! [Or you could just scroll past that part to the recipe. --Eds.] [Da scroll! Da scroll! Da button! Da button! Scrolling so smooth like da butter on da muffin! --Strongbad]

Sorry about the not making sense to most of you. I swear these connections are clear in my head, but it's late and I'm well on my way to breaking my new year's resolution about going to bed earlier for the first time. Yes. Ahem.

So D.C. held its Democratic primary today. What? you ask. Isn't that before Iowa and New Hampshire? Isn't that breaking the rules? Well, yes. It is. That's why it's total bullshit -- and, I found out today, even more bullshit than it seems:

D.C. Democratic leaders sought to comply with party rules by making the primary non-binding and agreeing to select delegates to the Democratic National Convention at caucuses in February and March, after New Hampshire and Iowa had their votes on Jan. 19 and Jan. 27.

So let's be clear, here. D.C.'s votes at the convention are marginal -- in fact, I think "votes" is really "vote," because it's only one ? in the first place. But now, with our "non-binding primary," our meaningless votes are meaningless EVEN TO OUR OWN REPRESENTATIVES. Maybe that explains why only 10 percent of registered D.C. Democrats voted. This is what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like? Oy.

I voted for Howard Dean. I don't even Howard Dean particularly, it was just that he was the only viable candidate on the ballot -- he, Sharpton, Kucinich and Mosely Braun were the only names you'd recognize. I mean, I guessed that saved me some time actually informing myself about which candidate I really would like to be the nominee, and I can use that time to do my nails and watch old episodes of Degrassi, but it would have been nice to actually have a vote that counted for anything. Apparently the whole point of this fiasco was to raise consciousness about D.C.'s lack of representation, so I'll do my part: We have no representation. It sucks. It's stupid and I want to stop paying federal income taxes until I have some, and that would get me arrested. So please, people, when you go vote in your nice cushy states that actually count for something, remember us disenfranchised paupers over here, and vote for someone who's going to at least take the idea of statehood seriously. Which means voting for a Democrat, first of all. Among them, I don't know -- at least Dean had the decency to flout the DNC and put his name down on our ballot; maybe he'd pull through. Hell if I know, though, because I didn't have to learn anything about his candidacy, because he was the only real candidate I could have voted for.

Alright, I'm done. What do you have to do to get some apple butter around this place?

Six big apples, cored, peeled and finely chipped
1/2 c. apple cider
2 c. brown sugar, firmly packed (we used much less because our apples were very sweet, not at all tart)
1 1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. ground nutmeg
1 t. ground cloves

Place apples and apple cider in 1 1/2-quart microwave-save bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap (we used a plate because we were paranoid about that no-microwaving-saran-wrap thing). Microwave on high 15 minutes. Carefully remove plastic wrap (duh) and stir in remaining ingredients. Return to microwave and cook, uncovered, 10 minutes more, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer mixture to a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Store in airtight container in refrigerator. Yield: about 2 pints of apple butter.

Weird, huh? I forgot about all that microwaving, but it was really easy and the stuff turned out well. Yum. I need to go to bed before I decide it's time for a big cooking project.

and we're back
Sort of. Except I still don't understand— whatever. I don't understand anything about what was wrong. Just don't ask questions and smile like you know what you're talking about, and you will fool the FTP gods into thinking you've got it made.

look, ma...
... no wires! Thanks to the time and talents of the best network-setter-upper who ever roamed the earth, I am writing this from my bed, connected to nothing. I could be writing it from the kitchen table, or the balcony, or across the street, or suspended from the ceiling. Miraculously, it turns out that my iBook had a wireless card ALREADY INSTALLED in it -- god bless the gentle folk at the F&M computer store. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles. What a good day.

Unfortunately, however, it's still about 10 below in here, so this evening's computer use will have to be curtailed. If only Reuben could install a wireless heating network.

high-brow, low-brow, no-brow
I really like the image from this Washington Post article about established literary writers (however you define them) walling themselves inside the canonical castle while "torch-toters, best-selling barbarians" like Stephen King bang on the gates and demand to be let in. I've been thinking about the whole debate since they announced the National Book Awards for this year, and certainly since I read the speeches at the dinner, which unquestionably pitted King and Shirley Hazzard against each other in a really dramatic way. [They are here and here if you so desire.]

But really, it's not that much of a fight. The National Book Award is pretty populist -- "Three Junes" won last year, and that was entertaining but not exactly fine lit -- and it's a little nonsensical to have the popular vs. high-brow debate in that context.

Let me preface this by admitting freely that I don't like Stephen King's books and I do like Shirley Hazzard's. I know. I'm sorry. If you're the guy who responded to one of my book reviews last year by telling me that I am "illiterate" and "have a hole in [my] head," I'm extra sorry. Not really. But I do think Stephen King should have won that award. He's a smart guy, and very talented, and sometimes a lot of people are right about things -- I can see that even though I don't personally like his books. And I wish that everyone would stop demonizing "literature," because it doesn't automatically mean "overintellectual" or "hard to read" or "if you like it, you're a terrible snob who should be burned at the stake for not complying with what the editorial 'we' think popular books should be."

Things can be both popular and good. Lots of good things are not popular (Elizabeth Bowen, Roddy Doyle, eating cottage cheese and apple butter together); lots of popular things are not good (Ms. Steele, Jan Karon, Star Wars novels). But they don't automatically preclude each other (Alice Sebold, Anne Lamott, David Sedaris). And I'm going to read "The DaVinci Code" one of these days, really.

resolute
Yay New Year's long vacation time with family friends Angels in America fun nice telescope (we saw Saturn -- it has rings! it looks like a picture of Saturn and it is cool! and the surface of the moon and the messier object star nursery something and Mars and the pleiades and so so so so cool). I haven't written down words in a coherent sentence in a couple weeks and I don't think I can start today, but here are some resolutions for, I think, the first time ever.

1. Will go to bed earlier on weeknights. Number on clock will usually begin with a 1, only rarely with a 2, never with a 3.

2. Will go to yoga at least once every weekend am home.

3. Will listen more and better.

4. Will regularly invoke Richard Rhodes' Knickerbocker rule and apply ass to chair writing-wise.

I don't think I ever made any specific resolutions before -- I am actually feeling a bit uncharicteristically optimistic right now. Can these things really work? Anyone else have resolutions?

B-I-G F-U-N
I played Scrabble with my friend Meredith today for three hours in a coffee shop. Amazing words were spelled. Marvel. Voltage. Avowal. Gussie. Winnows. Hairy (as in, "oh, Mr. Lehman, your arm is so _____"). I was one letter short of "troubled" -- which perhaps applies to broader things as well, but we'll let sleeping Scrabble implications lie.

It was a better three hours than the three(-plus) hours I spent with the Lord of the Rings movie last night. Not that that wasn't fun too, but the thing didn't start until 10:45, which meant the theater didn't go dark until 11, and then there were 800 previews to get through. Too much boring fighting, again, and too many false endings for 2:30 a.m. I wonder if Orcs (Orks?) would be worthy Scrabble opponents.

juniper and lamplight
It's raining on top of the snow right now just like it always used to -- and presumably still does -- in Connecticut. Dark December days make me want the library at Wesleyan... I spent quite a lot of time there, especially in my thesis carrel or the downstairs reading room that was halfway underground, whispering to T. and sneaking sips of instant hot chocolate made with coffee. Would be nice to be there right now, in one of the big armchairs by the windows reading one of these, many of which have just graced my ridiculously extensive wishlist. (Idea stolen from the stupendous Bookslut.)

It's such a cliché to want good books and hot drinks and warm light and big armchairs on cold, rainy days, but there you have it. Unlike rules, clichés are made to be proven correct.

Alissa and I are looking at Storypeople right now even though I am supposed to be mach schnelling her
My dad always told me, the right tool for the right job, but all he ever had around were a few screwdrivers, so he ended up using the telephone a lot.

Go find one of your own. Mach schnell!

a gift hoarse
That's two bad animal spelling puns in a row, there. Whoa, Nelly.

So, after way too nice a weekend, I seem to have lost my voice. I don't really feel that bad but I sound horrendous, like I swallowed a cactus, or a rasp, or a bunch of razor blades (speaking of swallowing razor blades, is anyone else in the world besides me and my roommates watching Carnivale on HBO? Brother Justin and his black eyeballs is/are the scariest, scariest, scariest character(s) to ever come out of a writer's head. We watched part of "The Shining" this weekend and it didn't even hold a candle. Brother Justin is creepier than the redrum kid and Jack Nicholson combined.)

I left work early today, drove home, had some tea, slept for two hours, got up and worked on the novel for four uninterrupted hours. I wrote through a part that had really been bothering me -- I'm not sure if I'll keep it, but at least it's out of my head and on the screen. And if I were able to speak, namely to call people on my cell phone, I don't think it ever would have happened.

Sometimes it feels like we just have to figure out the same few lessons over and over again. (If I believed in fate or "larger plan" or what have you, I would have written that setnence as, "Sometimes it feels like life just teaches the same few lessons over and over again.") I need to remember to carve out space for writing and other things that require mental quiet. Mouth closed, eyes and ears open, settling the extrovert down a little and encouraging the introvert to come out. I'll still be calling all of you back just as soon as I can talk again, because it's not like I can really live without that, but remind me to make time for this too so that I don't have to learn the same damn lesson that I've already learned 400 billion times 400 billion MORE times.

In the meantime, while I am still silent, take a look at this. I read it at the gym this morning and have been thinking about our one-man Rorschach test all day.

tails of the city
I took the Metro home from work tonight and, woefully underdressed for the 38-degree evening, decided to stop at Cosi for hot coffee to fortify me for the 15-minute walk home. I was probably about 20 steps out of the store, ready to turn down 19th Street, when this gigantic -- when I say gigantic, I mean absolutely insanely unbelievably gigantic -- dog bounds around the corner and slams into me. Puts its paws on my shoulders, literally, and sticks its huge doggie face into mine. I spill half of a very large coffee, complete with milk and Equal, onto its back.

The dog's owner comes around the corner, chasing after it with a leash, and begins apologizing profusely. (Because this is my life and not a Meg Ryan movie, the owner is a graying man who is at least old enough to be my father and wearing a rainbow flag pin on his coat besides. Figures.) I, in turn, am also apologizing profusely about spilling coffee all over his dog which, in the meantime, is hopping up and down with unfettered joy. His mammoth horse-sized head is swinging to and fro. His monstrous tail easily would have taken out any passing compact car. His paws could have trampled children or small adults. A non-dog person would have been horrified, but, of course, I loved it, despite the loss of most of my coffee. I really think the universe is trying to tell me something if random dogs are singling me out like this. Can I have a puppy for Chanukah? Please?

no time, but...
... I can't leave that thing up there about being miserable when I had such a good weekend. The pre-Thanksgiving turkey was brined and cooked in a hilarious turn of events Friday night, and a day later, 20 people and lots of food sat on the floor on cushions to eat it and talk to each other. It was one of those times that added up to more than the sum of its parts... halfway through, I looked around and had one of those so-many-people-I-care-about-are-in-one-room frissions of happiness. Really was warm and lovely and great.

OK, now it's back to work. (Later, we will go back to take it easy's regularly scheduled doom and gloom. I read an article in US News this morning that made me want to rip out my hair -- we can talk about it later, though. Concentrate on the happy pre-Thanksgiving and almost-real-Thanksgiving for now. :) )

bleh
I'm having one of those days when the world seems like a very harsh place and I'm just trying to duck out of its way so I can get on with my small, unimportant life. Avoid eye contact. If I can't see it, it can't see me either.

I've been working on the stuff about the trials for the two sniper suspects for so long that it's basically unreal to me -- a story, a page full of words, a loose bunch of details that need to be spelled correctly and posted quickly. An abstraction. Then this kind of testimony crops up and I remember that it's too real, unbearably sad, horrifying.

I know that losing perspective is a defense mechanism, and that it lets you think on a different plane so that you can operate objectively and make dark jokes about terrible things. I know a lot of journalists have to do it to stay sane. But the horrible jolt you get when you come back to earth and remember what you're really talking about might not be worth it. I feel awful. Too callous and too sensitive, too everything.

all artistic-like
This weekend, I went to The Corcoran to see an exhibit called "Beyond the Frame: Impressionism Revisited." A sculptor named J. Seward Johnson has basically taken a bunch of famous paintings and made them three-dimensional -- life-sized statues, hills full of fake grass and poppies, fully decorated rooms that you could step into and around.

There's something sort of trivializing and naughty-feeling (trying and failing to resist the liberal-arts pull of the word "transgressive," but at least I wrestled it inside the parentheses) about the whole exhibit. It was packed, and there were kids all over the place, touching the statues, climbing on everything. And the thing was that the exhibits didn't really create a feeling of anything the way that looking at -- or into -- a painting does. You'd think it would draw you in more, but it didn't, really.

That said, it was pretty cool. Johnson's statues are actually amazingly cool and not trivial at all. There was a lot of playful self-referencing in the exhibits, too, that showed a different level of awareness of the project. But I don't know, maybe I'm too snobby, but it didn't really have any kind of emotional impact at all.

Intellectually: cool. Practically: not so much. Except maybe the Van Gogh bedroom. My roommate had to drag me out of that one, which was, in fact, rather incredible. It sort of made you feel like you weren't really standing on the ground.

coaxing, gently
Come on, leafygreen, cooperate.

enemy terrirory
Scotty Claus suggested to me on the phone tonight that perhaps writing something here for a change might be a good idea. So to placate my innumerable (Scott + Carl = 2) West Coast readers, I figured my newly acquired DSL and I could cooperate to make his dream a reality.

One of my friends, who works for the defense department, is going to Iraq, probably for six months, and I had dinner with him last night to say goodbye. (He is an excellently secretive military employee as ordered, and I have absolutely no idea what he does at his current job, why he is going to Iraq or what he will be doing once he gets there. He soldiers with his brain and not with his brawn, but I don't know more than that. I am also deliberately not using his name or talking much about his reaction or feelings because I know D*nald R*msfeld stays up late every single night reading my blog and I don't want to screw up my friend's career. OK? OK.)

Anyway, I think I was playing the role of pep talker -- despite how much work it will certainly be, and how it's more than a little dangerous, and how far from home it is and how long six months will feel, this is an unbelievably cool opportunity. It's someplace no one from this country will ever get to see otherwise. Way more importantly, he's going to be a part of something so much larger than himself, something that is so important on a global scale. Talk about making a difference. If people as smart and capable as he is are in charge over there, I feel a little better about the whole thing.

But later, he pulled his dogtags out. Then I got it. He's really going away, and those pieces of metal are hanging under his shirt for only one reason.

I'm not sure how I feel about it now. I still think it's incredible and important, but there's an awful lot of dread and worry for him mixed in. And I'm still not that crazy about this whole thing. In case you were in doubt.

My pal Donny R. and I are going to go check the new fun blogs I am now reading, and then I am going to go to bed. Maybe tomorrow someone will explain to me why it seems as though we have traded weather with Iraq, and now it's 85 degrees in November.