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Saturday, October 26, 2002

Still very sad. Also hungover.

Went out for a walk, on this grey sullen morning, to try to clear my head. I live in an overwhelmingly liberal-Democratic neighborhood, and the front lawns hereabouts are well-nigh forested with green Wellstone campaign signs. Many of my neighbors have started turning these into mini-shrines: draping them in black ribbons, taping flowers to them, decorating them with hearts or slogans ("We will continue your fight!").

Nothing is clear yet about what will happen with the Senate race, though the buzz is that Walter Mondale will be asked to step in and run. A sound idea, probably, with the election just a little over a week away; he's widely known and esteemed, seen as a figure of great solidity, and is someone people would rally around.

Back to writing. Have discovered that the sadness+hangover combo is working well for hammering out that big painful final-breakup scene. Not that this constitutes any kind of silver lining.

Posted @ 12:49 PM CST [Link]6 comments

Friday, October 25, 2002

I'm in shock. Paul Wellstone is dead. Killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota, with his wife and daughter.

There aren't a whole lot of people in political office I really admire, but he was one of the few. Smart, principled, articulate, passionate, funny, a person of integrity, a true populist. And an important figure on the national scene, staking out an underpopulated part of the political spectrum.

He was someone who inspired admiration and affection, even among people who didn't always agree with his politics. He was loved, here in Minnesota, even by people who thought he was kind of whack.

I'm sitting here with my arms wrapped around myself, shaky. Can't believe it. Don't want to believe it. Damn, damn, damn.

Reopened to say -- I just discovered that one of the staffers also killed in the crash was a friend of my buddy H. This day just keeps getting better, eh. Fuck it, I'm going to go home and haul out the bourbon.

Posted @ 01:45 PM CST [Link]10 comments

Sunday, October 20, 2002

When I first stepped outside this morning, well before sunrise, I felt little prickles of cold wetness on my face, but it was too dark to see if it was raining or snowing, so I listened for a moment, and -- yes. Snow. The sound of snowflakes pattering against leaves that have turned and dried but not yet fallen is an absolutely distinctive one, a marker of late October/early November. And it's been snowing all day, more or less. About mid-morning, it was absolutely beautiful out--dark auburn and russet leaves, etched with white--but as the day's warmed, it's all turned into slop. The sky is incredibly heavy, just a few shades lighter than the wet pavement.

In other absolutely gripping news of general interest, I had a mini-tantrum yesterday at the prospect of driving madly across town yet again to the grotty little store that closes at 3 and that carries the peculiar brand of vacuum cleaner bags for my old Eureka, so I went out today and bought a new vacuum. Gave it a whirl, and have assessed thusly:

Of the bad: noisier than the old one;
Of the good: oddly, my cat seems unafraid of it--whereas, despite twelve years' worth of wholly uneventful weekly exposure to the old one, she never lost her belief that at any moment it would run amuck, leap on her, and strip the flesh from her bones.

Of the good: No bags! plus, you can let it run and watch the dirt whirl madly around in the dirt-catchment-thingie, like a very small tornado. (I realize this says unsettling things about how easily I am amused.)
Of the bad: emptying out the catchment-thingie into the trash is distasteful, and also gives one a clear and depressing picture of just how much dirt one had been obliviously living with. I am a pig.

Of the good: Longer wand, which means I will no longer wreck my lower back on a weekly basis. Also, the cord is just enough longer that I can actually get into the far corner of the bedroom, instead of leaving that corner to accumulate filth, and eventually require walling off from the rest of the house.
Of the bad: Well, none, actually.

So I'm a happy consumer. It's still not perfect, of course, in that I actually have to haul the damn thing out and push it around, which leads me to wonder if maybe I should've saved my pennies up and sprung for this instead Now there's technology that's doing something to help us!

Posted @ 02:48 PM CST [Link]5 comments