Duorno

I dreamed last night of a man named Duorno. He was the sort of man who can enter a tragic situation and haplessly soothe you. He was tremendous--and I could not help but realize in the dream that his name contained the word "duo," that really there could be two physical men of this one.

He entered the stage just after a grandmother's suicide (mine? it was not clear). She had stabbed herself in a field of some kind. And Duorno came along and presented himself as someone who did not melt along with the general meltdown, someone who is oddly everything you need in a moment like that--a distraction, a stable presence. Someone to make you realize that the madness is not yours, and that you do not need to be a part of it at all.

Enter a childhood friend to the dream, a terrible date who would not get off a cell phone, a small Frenchman with curly hair, shake, and exeunt.

Hello Kitty has no mouth because she "speaks from the heart."

And now a Hello Kitty Grilled Cheese Sandwich!

All Id, All the Time

Living in the animal state sounds pleasant to me right about now. What are these days when I feel like a windshield is protecting my brain from feeling things like rain? I can't decide if that is the feeling, or if it is something more like a raw uninspiration. Hence, I'm trying a blog entry.

Thanksgiving. Always a holiday I have despised, as much for the forced TV parades and staying home from school as for the dreadful food items. Not to mention that I am not sure there was ever such a thing as a peaceful sit-down dinner between colonialists and Native American Indians.

Beckoned by an editor. More soon.

I Freakin Love the Tabloids

This is hilarious. The dek on this Daily News story about bad NYC schools is "Sez 86% of high schools hellholes", and the lead is

"Nearly nine of 10 city high schools are hellholes that parents do not want their children to attend, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told City Council members yesterday."

HELLHOLES.

Not once in the story is there an actual quote about hellholes, and the use of this bizarre word is just too funny, secondo me.

Woosh!

This morning, I was wondering if there could possibly be a dead body dumped somewhere along the BQE. The smell seemed to point to the possibility. Then, just as I'm contemplating this, flying past me, on the right, is a boot--woosh!--evidence of something lost, possibly dumped, probably dead. (Or evidence of a bizarre loss--I mean, who loses a boot?) It was a slicker-type boot, some kind of rubbery, shiny material.

I found myself wondering about the probability of dumped dead bodies in the woods around here yesterday. I wonder what all this dump-wondering is. Maybe it's the lovely weather.

Loving Every Nothing

If I can appreciate nothing else today, I can appreciate that the new education secretary is named Spellings.

Yes. Love that.

I appreciate windows that do not open in offices. No, I don't. I appreciate the Virgin Mary Sandwich lady, for only taking a bite before she recognized the sanctified face and preserved it in a box with cotton balls at her bedside for 10 years. That's right, cotton balls. Ten years.

I hate sirens. But there they are.

I like my two fortunes stolen from the fortune cookie pile in the kitchen:

"Show your face to the people who really matter."

"You will be free of the heavy burdens your [sic] have been carrying."


Quite connected in my underworld today. Very taoist-cosmic, in the nihilistic sense I'm careening off lately.

In the Ongoing Battle

More from the Good and Evil front:

Got this IM from an editor. A lovely compliment wrapped in insanity, as per usual.

"you just got a nice compliment from one of our sources
she calls you a "great, great, great" writer
she's a survivor
but she's crazy
and wants to collaborate with you on her next book."

Nothingness and More

It would be fair to say that when I come off a big story, I feel...quiet. And unable to start on the next one. So surfing of the Internet commences, blogging meaningless posts like this one happens, and general wonderment at things busy people pay no attention to escalates.

The latest statistic to make my eyes bulge is that Arafat's finances were estimated in the 1990s by some guy to be between $3 and 5 billion. That's a big gap. How does one begin to imagine a billion, let alone two, of anything? Sand is the only item I can think of that can be an easy to understand billion, and even that is ridiculous.

I like to think about the nearly six(?) billion people on Earth and how many of them we will each have contact with in our lifetimes. I have no idea how many that will be for me, but I hope it is a lot. I hope I keep on in this outward spiral I've been travelling for years, learning what I can. At least seeing what I can.

Living in New York is close to a pantisocracy when it comes to exposure: Every time I walk on the same blocks, I wonder how it is I've never seen a particular man or woman. But then I think that it is just entirely possible this is the one and only time I will ever see this person. That seems okay, right? I mean with six billion of us, some will have to remain anonymous.

Pantisocracy!

Is the word of the day.

pantisocracy

\Pan`ti*soc"ra*cy\, n. [Panto- + Gr. ? equal + ? to rule.] A Utopian community, in which all should rule equally, such as was devised by Coleridge, Lovell, and Southey, in their younger days.


I'd also like to take this opportunity to encourage donations to Doctors Without Borders. I've been reading about Darfur today...

Ass-crafty

Childish. I know.
But is it not a possibility that Ashcroft is resigning so he can be appointed to the Supreme Court? Daily Kos has a good discussion on this.

In other non-news, I'm fighting the forces of good and evil today. There's not much to add to that, but keep the faith.

Update on the Mouse in the House

Benito (the Mouselini) has a new home.
He finally wandered into a no-kill trap baited with gorgonzola--after having had his way with the stove for a few days--and now resides somewhere under the brown leaves of Prospect Park.

We wish him much luck.

Taking Lives

A 25-year-old kid killed himself with a shotgun at the World Trade Center site. His relatives in Georgia say he was upset about Bush's reelection, and his supervisor at the computer lab where he worked said she considers it a protest.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/07/ground.zero.suicide.ap/index.html

Reminds me of monks burning themselves in the street. But so much death in one place. It's hard to comprehend, and leaves me infinitely sad this evening.

The Next No Thing

I have to wonder what the bloggers will think of next. I mean to blog about. The election is over and done with. A few days of pouting and misery in the entries will surely give way to something of substance. What will it be?

Man-monkey love?

Something equally absurd, I'm sure. I no longer have confidence that we who care care long and hard enough. No, I believe we do, but I suppose I wonder what all the words are for. We value certain things, the majority, it appears, value other things. Caring and dithering and blathering can't change that, any more than their blathering can change my mind.

So cancel the not caring idea, and change it to not effective.

We cannot be effective. And that is endlessly frustrating.

The one major eye-opener I've felt these past couple of days is a need to understand the right in this country. And the political bloggers are all over that, as is the media, which is nice and edumacating. The reassuring part of learning to understand them is realizing that they, too, will only be effective to a point. I hope.

In any case, I have the odd happening of a "check-up" this afternoon, something I have not had since I went to a pediatrician, I believe. I saw an internist for a specific reason a while ago, and she scheduled this check-up. What will they check? What havoc have these years brought upon my body? How is my blood? (Viscous? Runny? Blue?) I know already: stop smoking.

But what vices then?
Always more vices.
Always more dissatisfaction.
Always more delusional and self-deluded people.
Always more to write about.

(My job is safe. Whew.)

Because Nothing Else Is Funny

Harper's has the only funny thing I've seen since Nov. 2:

No contest
Posted on Thursday, November 4, 2004. From a list of cases heard in U.S. civil and criminal courts, published in the October 24, 2004, issue of the ABA Journal eReport, the online magazine of the American Bar Association. Originally from Harper's Magazine, January 2004.
Sources

Schmuck v. Dumm

United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff

I Am the Beast Six Six Six v. Michigan State Police

Friends of Kangaroo Rat v. California Dept. of Corrections

State v. Big Hair

Billy-Bob Teeth Inc. v. Novelty Inc.

U.S. v. Pipe on Head

Herb v. Grow

Henny Penny v. Chicken Little

Advance Whip & Novelty Co. v. Benevolent Protective Order of Elks

Fried v. Rice

Outlaw v. Commonwealth

Bad Ass Coffee Co. of Hawaii v. Bad Ass Coffee Limited Partnership

Easter Seal Society .for Crippled Children v. Playboy Enterprises

Loser v. Superior Court of Alameda County

State v. Nailer

People v. Fester

United States of America v. 2,116 Boxes of Boned Beef, Weighing Approximately 154,121 Pounds, and 541 Boxes of Offal, Weighing Approximately 17,732 Pounds

Jones v. God, Jesus, Others

Plough v. Fields

Farmer v. Heard

United States v. 11 1/4 Dozen Packages of Article Labeled in Part Mrs. Moffat's Shoo Fly Powders for Drunkenness

Truelove v. Truelove

Klink v. Looney

Hamburger v. Fry

Lexis-Nexis v. Beer

Short v. Long

People v. Booger

There Are Men Hammering On My Roof

Such is the course of a morning trying to sleep in.
It was a late night in a room half-full of oversized white people wearing diamond pinky rings and looking for the more important person than you to talk to. It was a political party with NO TV. I had to call in for the latest on the election. NO TV.

And, a few judges up for reelection and only one actual politician in the race.

The night, it was as awful as it sounds.

And now the morning, it is as miserable as the radio makes it seem, I do believe. When Rove is getting his "redeeming" popular vote, I have every good reason to turn it all off and enjoy the more soothing sounds of the blam-blam of the hammers on the roof. Blam-blam is a better sound than what I'm hearing about the election. "We really are a nation moving far more to the right," says Bob Henley from NJ as I type.

I'm off to self-soothe.

Straddling the Country?

Confused. CNN has this caption on its front-page photo today at 1:30:

Kerry arrives to vote in Boston.

But I could swear I already read a story today that Kerry voted in Wisconsin--which, granted, makes little sense, but still. Anyone have any light to shed on this? I can't find a Wisconsin mention now...

And I'm doubting, as gargantuan as he is, that Kerry is pulling levers in both states. Then again, maybe that's the key to it all...

In the Hands of a Higher Power

What the gods, or the people at The Note say:

Ohio Weather: In Democratic Cleveland, "Occasional rain. Highs in the lower 60s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph becoming northwest. Chance of rain 80 percent." Even worse in Cincinnati, where the Republicans have their eye: "Showers. Highs in the lower 70s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph this morning. Becoming northwest this afternoon. Chance of rain 100 percent."

Florida Weather: Democratic Miami is "mostly sunny early in the morning then becoming partly sunny. A slight chance of showers." The all-important corridor between Orlando and Tampa I-4 is Florida perfection: 87 degrees, 10 mph wind. But Red Pensacola is "Cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms likely. Lows around 70. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60 percent."

Pennsylvania Weather: The all-important Philadelphia and suburbs is "Mostly cloudy. Highs in the lower 60s. Southeast winds around 10 mph." The weather in beautiful Central City, PA , where Bush needs big margins, could be rainy: "Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. Mainly in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 60s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent."

Getting Down To It

We did it. Me and a few hundred other voters made it through the chaos of our local polling place this morning around 9 a.m. The 80-year-old gatekeepers were no match for swarms of seasoned neighborhood voters. The only electioneering I saw outside was a lone Green Party member handing out flyers. Otherwise, one voting machine broke down (from what I saw, only one), which raises the number I heard on WNYC of broken machines this morning from "a couple" to at least three.

I have actual pangs in my stomach today. I wish I could be as assured as Jimmy Breslin, who writes today that he is "so sure [that Kerry will win] that I am not even going to bother to watch the results tonight. I am going to bed early, for I must rise in the darkness and pursue immediately an exciting, overdue project."

[Grand.]

He also has this point:
"Not one cell phone in the United States had been reached by a political poll. These old-line poll takers don't know who cell phone users were or where they lived.

So you were getting CBS/New York Times polls proclaimed as most important and real. One hundred seventy million cell phones and you don't poll one of them. The polls they are pushing at you in the news magazines, on the networks, in the big papers, are such cheap, meaningless blatant lies, that some of these television stations should have their licenses challenged."


[Ach, we'll see soon enough.]


A friend sent me this, just so everybody knows what's happening as things get under way:

Posted on Tue, Nov. 02, 2004

Paper denied access at polls

Judge won't block order banning media despite years of open admittance

By Julie Wallace
Beacon Journal staff writer

CLEVELAND - A federal judge on Monday refused to allow the Akron Beacon Journal access to polling locations -- a practice the paper has enjoyed for years in its news-gathering role.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Paul Matia late Monday effectively cut off the right of all media, not just the newspaper, to monitor voting during what is expected to be the most divisive Election Day in recent history.

The newspaper's attorneys said an appeal to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals was to be filed no later than this morning.

Virtual Reality, Dolls, and Nader

This has got to be a joke.
This is not a joke.
This is yet more proof that Nader has lost his marbles.

3-Day Halloween

What, with the candidates' constant costumes of an irritated monkey and a sulky Frankenstein...

Here's Slate's latest anaylysis:

"Analysis Nov. 1, noon ET: Last night we warned that Florida and Ohio were on a knife's edge and that Kerry could not survive if he lost both. This morning we got two polls that nudged both states ever so slightly back to Bush. The only reason we've had these states leaning one way or the other in the last 24 hours is that we decided at the outset of this project to allocate even the iffiest states. When you look at all the data, Florida and Ohio are tossups. By favoring one criterion over another, you can make a solid argument for either candidate in either state. Last night the weight of evidence was heavier for Kerry by three ounces. Today it's heavier for Bush by two ounces. We warned last night not to make too much of Kerry's 299. We'll warn now not to make too much of Bush's 286. Here is the math that matters: If all the states in which the data lean discernibly to either candidate vote as the polls suggest, the election will come down to Florida and Ohio. If Bush takes both, he wins. If Kerry takes either, he wins. Since the odds in each state are approximately 50-50, with a tiny edge to Bush, the combined probability of Kerry winning the election is about 70 to 75 percent."


I, myself, danced Halloween night away in a 1950's Grace Kelly (in "To Catch a Thief") zombie costume, to the tunes of zylophone music and sexy burlesque.

For the actual most frightening night of the year, tomorrow night, I will be in one of the circles of hell, reporting from a local Republican party headquarters. On assignment. Don't tell me my job isn't glamorous. And cringe worthy.