Allegedly, She Has Something to Say

Yes yes, I am a pathetic correspondent. You are 100 percent correct about that.

And I have no excuse, really. Life just got away from me.

Nothing really new to report. Kitty's looking at grad schools; she and Suzu and I will be in Denver this coming weekend to check out one possibility. (I'm looking forward to *finally* visiting the addition to the Denver Art Museum -- this will only be my third try...) Amy's headaches are just about under control. It's been a year since my mother died; that's kind of been on my mind over the past couple of days. I'm continuing to drive to Baltimore every Saturday for Czech classes. And I'm still desultorily editing the NaNo novel. I need to make at least one more pass, and then I think it will be ready to farm out to a reviewer or two. (Yes! A couple of people have volunteered to read it for me! What fools!)

Back in January, President Obama talked smack about Washingtonians' ability to cope with snow. Not only do I agree with him, I predicted it. For folks who have lived in the snowbelt, DC's (lack of) weather coping skills are a source of continuing frustration. Today, however, my frustration came to a head. We had a snowstorm roll through during morning rush hour. We only got a couple of inches of snow out here in my neck of the woods, but I slid through a stop sign here in our apartment complex, and I-66 was a snowy mess. Ask me if I saw a snowplow.

Vienna Metro must have been short-staffed; whoever spread salt on the sidewalk didn't get it up the hill to the parking garage (I could *see* where they quit) and the unsheltered part of the station platform hadn't seen a shovel at all. No, check that: the shovel was right there, leaning against a shelter roof pillar.

Yo, dudes, get a clue. When it snows, you can't just put down salt and then go home and hope for sunshine. You have to plow. You have to *keep* plowing. If you're shoveling, you might have to shovel more than once -- but "at least once" is pretty much mandatory.

Someday I will once again live in a place that knows how to handle snow. Someday....

</rant>

...of this year's NaNoWriMo. The first draft of "The Women's War" clocked in last night at 53,654 words.

It still needs a lot of work, of course. But I've been kicking around the idea for this story for almost a year. It's good to finally have it down on (virtual) paper. Now to whip the first draft into shape -- at a *much* more sedate pace.

Grudging thanks go to Kitty, who pestered me about signing up for NaNo several times in October (and who then didn't finish her own novel -- oh well, there's always next year!).

In other news, I'm pleased with the outcome of the election. I think Barack Obama will make a fine president. I've been entertained by the neocons who were so worried, right after the election, that Obama would take the country so far to the left that we'd become a socialist nation -- and who are now worried because he's bringing in a bunch of Clinton appointees. First they whined because he didn't have enough experience, and now they're whining because he's surrounding himself with experienced people. You can't have it both ways, guys.

Had a good Thanksgiving in Roanoke with the girls -- although due to the NaNo deadline, I drove back on Friday and spent most of the rest of the weekend hermetically sealed in the apartment, slaving over a hot laptop. Going back to work today, I felt like I hadn't had a weekend at all, much less four days off. Looking forward to taking the full two weeks off between Yule and New Year's Day, whoo hoo!

And in a few short days, I'll be 51....

Happy holidays!

It's been a really long time since I posted anything here. A lot has happened since February.

In March, I was supposed to go to Spain for my long-awaited vacation to commemorate my 50th birthday. The day I was supposed to leave, my mother died. I ended up spending that week cleaning up Mom's house while waiting for the funeral.

I was able to go to Spain after all -- FINALLY -- in early April. Had a great time. Sevilla was fun; the Alhambra was as fabulous as advertised, but the Moorish bath was better; Madrid was cool. I got to see lots and lots of stuff that I'd been waiting 30 years to see. And the Washington Post published an account of my trip in their "Vacation in Lights" column in May. Imagine -- me, with a byline in the Washington Post! :)

In May, I moved the youngest home from college (the eldest chose to spend the summer in Roanoke, working on campus); then we drove to Indiana to get the stuff I wanted from Mom's house. We managed to get it all back here in the new Fit, whoo hoo!

June was the annual Kevinswatch fest. This year's was in Denver. I intended to take Amtrak all the way there, and fly home; alas, flooding in Iowa put the kibosh on that idea. I ended up taking the train to Chicago and flying the rest of the way. (The youngest came, too -- she flew separately both ways.) Had a lovely few hours in the Loop with my sister-in-law before heading to O'Hare. And the fest was fabulous, as always, and Denver was great, as always, and as always it was really hard to come home.

I think I stayed put in July. In August, I drove the youngest back to school, then spent a couple of days at Pipestem State Park in WV. Pipestem is one of my favorite places, period. I've been there several times over the years, both with the kids and by myself. There's a lodge at the bottom of a gorge that's only open in the warm months, that can only be reached by hiking down the mountain *or* riding an aerial tram in and out. A river runs through the gorge, past the lodge; deer meander through at dawn and dusk, nibbling windfall apples from the tree on the playground. One time we took my friend Kim with us; on our way into the park, we almost nailed a wild turkey as it ran across the road in front of our car. On this visit, I did a lot of hiking -- including the aforesaid hike down the mountain, which included fording the river -- and ate at the fancy restaurant twice.

So basically I've been traveling all year and now I'm broke. :) But that's okay; since the stock market tanked, *everybody's* broke... My current travels are pretty much relegated to driving back and forth to Baltimore most Saturdays for Czech class. Oh, and I'm making a run to Roanoke over Samhain weekend for the Family Weekend festivities at Hollins.

I'm supposed to be editing the KW anthology this fall, but we're still waiting for enough submissions to make a go of the project this year. If it doesn't happen, I guess I'll shop around the story I wrote for the anthology. I've also got an idea for a novella; in fact, I spent a good chunk of my Pipestem getaway brainstorming for that project, but haven't started writing it yet. I may sign up for NaNoWriMo just to force myself to put my butt in the chair and write the damn thing.

In the midst of all of this, of course, has been the presidential election. My favored candidate is out of the running, of course, but I've long since reconciled myself to throwing my support behind Obama. McCain is the best of a bad lot of Republicans, imho, but his running mate has no business being any closer to the White House than Wasilla, Alaska. It just seems to me that McCain has been focusing on making the bold, unlikely move, just so he can live up to his reputation as a maverick -- as if doing something, anything, is more important than doing the right thing. I've been very impressed with Obama throughout this financial crisis. He's been calm and thoughtful, seemingly careful to weigh the situation thoroughly before acting. I get the sense that he will make a great President -- that he's just the man we will need for the coming storm.

Altho why anybody would *want* to be President right now, considering the disaster he'll inherit from Dubya, is beyond me....

So that's what's been happening here lately. Hopefully, now that I've gotten over the hurdle of posting to explain why I haven't posted in so long, I'll be checking in here more often than every eight months (*eight months*?!?!!?).

Yup, it appears I'm posting to this thing about once a month. Maybe I don't have much to say in between?

Anyway.

Three things to muse on today, and two of them are from today's Washington Post. First -- and given that it's Super Tuesday, this is timely -- the Post ran an article today about Rush Limbaugh (and other conservative talk radio ranters) refusing to support Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Limbaugh goes so far as to say he'd rather see a Democrat in the White House than McCain. Here's the original story, if you're so inclined:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020402798.html

The part that caught my eye was this paragraph:

Mark McKinnon, a top McCain adviser, called the criticism from Limbaugh and the other hosts "frustrating," saying: "Our question is, 'Isn't it better to get behind a Republican you may disagree with from time to time than work for an outcome that puts a Democrat in the White House with whom you will disagree all of the time?'"

So let's see here. The choice would be between a President you could rant about some of the time, and a President you could rant about *all* of the time. Purely in terms of radio theater, yeah, Limbaugh supporting a Democrat for President makes perfect sense to me....

The Post story goes on to dredge up Limbaugh's seedy underbelly -- the prescription drug addiction, etc. What I would like some reporter to check out someday is a rumor that I heard about Limbaugh when I was at Mutual/NBC: that Limbaugh was a regular guy and NOT a rabid right-winger at all, and that this "dittohead" schtick of his is nothing more than radio theater. If that's true, then it's made him a whole lot of money, but it has irreparably harmed the fabric of the Union in terms of inciting the us-v.-them attitude now prevalent in partisan politics in America.

Anyway, onward. As a graduate of Indiana University during Bobby Knight's glory days, it made me sad to read today that he's hanging up his folding chairs for good:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020402501.html?hpid=moreheadlines

I was a freshman at IU in '76 when the basketball team went undefeated and won the national championship. It was a pretty cool induction into a basketball-rabid school for this lifelong basketball fan. Say what you will about Coach Knight's temper, the man could coach a winning program. Hats off to him, and may he find peace in retirement.

Okay, one more thing. The annual list of words that should be banned from the English language can be found here:
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/

Hey, it is what it is. :)

So it looks like I'm posting about once a month. Hmm. Gotta work on that.

We had a lovely, quiet New Year's Eve. Without a TV, it's difficult to find a way to watch the ball drop in Times Square; there are websites where you can watch for free, but bandwidth is an issue, and I didn't try soon enough to get into the site. Soooo...we watched a countdown clock online, counted down to the midnight, and then just sorta looked at one another. Yeah. Happy New Year.

We toasted with sparkling cider and terrified the cats with a couple of party poppers. Then we went back to doing what we'd been doing before the countdown: reading online, reading a book, watching videos, whatever. We are *such* party animals....

I guess the big news, for me, is that my stories went live at Calderwood Books a week or so ago. So, hey, if Santa brought you an e-book reader for Christmas, check 'em out! And many thanks to Joy and Jennifer and the crew at Calderwood Books for making the process as painless as it has been. You guys are awesome!

Being out of the news biz, I find myself sort of startled by certain things nowadays. For instance, I've been more-or-less successfully avoiding the election news, thinking, hey, it's all hype, we've got *months* before this thing actually happens. And looky here, the Iowa caucuses are THIS WEEK! Holy cow.... The Virginia primary is still a ways off (I *hope* so, anyway, jeez) but I'm still very much leaning toward Hillary. Dammit, I *liked* the Clinton years. And I always thought she'd make a better chief executive than Bill. I'm still not sold on the concept of her being electable in the fall -- the Clintons are so polarizing to so much of middle America. But Obama just seems too inexperienced to me; give him a couple of terms in Congress and let him run again, and I'd vote for him then. The other Democrats -- meh. Edwards never excited me, and I can't even think of the others right now, so clearly they've made a big impression (not). I *am* sad that Evan Bayh's name seems to have been dropped. Evan briefly dated a girl on my hall in college, so I have a soft spot in my heart for the guy.

Of the Republicans, I suppose McCain is the least offensive to me, but I think he's unlikely to win the nomination. He's run so many times now that his persona is a little shopworn, and gods know American consumer culture always wants the New Hotness. Huckabee scares the crap out of me, plus he and Romney both seem too untested (I am mindful of the hash Jimmy Carter, with no national political experience, made of his presidency); Ron Paul strikes me as the Perot of this campaign (highly unlikely to win but could be a spoiler); and I can't think of the others so, again, clearly they've made a big impression on me.

Can we go back to Obama for a minute? Two things I'd like to say about him. One, and this is totally snarky: Did you see the pictures of Obama and his wife with Oprah, the day Oprah announced her support for Obama? Wow, Oprah looked like five miles of bad road, especially compared to Obama's wife. Memo to Oprah's handlers: never, under any circumstances, put those two women on the same stage, ever again.

The second thing: I know I'm likely to get in trouble for this observation, and I risk being branded a racist and whatnot. But I direct you to this story from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/22/AR2007122201762.html

It's about how a racist element is supposedly creeping into the Clinton campaign. On December 12, Clinton's co-chair in New Hampshire, Bill Shaheen, made some remarks about Obama's comments in his autobiography about his drug use in his early years. Obama has said all along that he "came clean" in order to be able to talk to young people about making mistakes and rising above them. But Shaheen said that if Obama wins the nomination, the GOP could use the admission as a window for "dirty tricks". Shaheen said, "It'll be 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' " Here's the story in the Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121202793.html

The black media pundits jumped on it with both feet, saying that the Clinton campaign is deliberately conjuring up whites' deep-seated fears of blacks, because everybody knows that all white people believe in their heart of hearts that all black people are drug dealers.

Bullshit. I'm white and I don't believe it. And I'm personally a titch offended that some black folks still believe that all white folks are racists. Whatever happened to judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin? Only white folks are supposed to do that? Black folks get a pass?

Anyway, let's hope we can lay some of this crap to rest in 2008. But frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

One more political observation and then I'll quit: I love watching political experts try to process the concept that somebody might not want to be in politics. Witness Al Gore, whose name keeps popping up as a possible Democratic presidential candidate. After he won the Nobel Peace Prize, wistful pundits could be heard, sighing, "Maybe he'll run *now*...." Yo, dudes: the man has an Oscar *and* a Nobel Prize. What makes you think he'd *want* to be President now? He's having more fun now than he *ever* had in office. Leave the guy alone!