Because they are very, very excellent.

By about 11:00, Eastern Standard Time, I had planned to cry myself to sleep, and maybe not eat for the next few days.  But, I changed my mind.

Because they are excellent.

You know how they talk about that camel, and the proverbial straw?

Well, this is a god-damn haystack.

Enough already.  This is all getting scary–and we don’t need scary, with everything else that’s going on in the world.

The Democratic ticket may, in my opinion, err on the side of being ineffective leaders and disturbingly prone to opportunistic political expediency, but as long as they don’t continue to fall prey to the many wrong-headed calls for them to “take off the gloves” and “counter-punch” and stoop to endless “he said! she said!” invective and so forth, that is very different from the Republican ticket, both members of which increasingly seem to be extremely dangerous, and have always been inclined to be mean.

For a lot of people, this may not be a vote they make with wild enthusiasm and starry-eyed optimism (and for those lucky people for whom it will feel that way, do me a favor and don’t bother lecturing me about it endlessly or making smug, Kool-Aid driven comments, afterwards), but really, how many Presidential votes actually do fall into that category?  From national campaigns to local referendums, I have probably voted at least a hundred times in my life, maybe more (yes, I even show up for the local judicial elections), and I can think of only two occasions when casting my little vote made me genuinely happy.  Well, three times, if I count my first vote, which wasn’t for someone I strongly supported, but hey, I was voting, in an actual booth, at a real, live polling place–and that was pretty cool all by itself.

This is America, and people should cast any vote which makes sense to them, but I just wanted to make it very clear that even if, like me, you find yourself in “which one is the lesser of two evils?” territory, it is my very strong opinion that voting a Democratic slate is the way to go this time.  Straight up and down the ticket.

It is very disappointing that after this horrible, interminable, often ugly election season, I can’t ever imagine enjoying politics the way that I once did–but, a vote is still a vote; nay, an inalienable right!–and I wanted to make it very clear where mine is going this year.

These are good times.

Really good times.  Fabulous times.

Somewhere down the line, My People will forget how incredibly lucky we have been for the past few years.

The only saving grace is that it will be easier to get tickets.

Is it safe to talk about books these days?  I think it is, although I may be proven wrong.

I just finished Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife, and found it very unsettling, indeed.  Like Prep, I thought it was extremely well-observed, without being particularly engaging–or entertaining.  But, American Wife was a strange, and puzzling, choice, for a novelist to make.  The notion of a stranger publishing an extremely personal and speculative version of a person’s actual life is–I don’t know–unseemly. Rude, even.  It will certainly make the author rich, but I’m pretty confident that the author was already rich, so I’m not sure I see the point.  I would say that the entire project borders on stalking–except that I think it crossed the border, relocated to a new country entirely, settled down and began to grow crops.  (and if you find the Buffy reference in there, you’re good)

I suppose that Primary Colors was an unnecessary novel in a very similar way, but somehow, it seemed less–prurient.  Or, maybe just less scatological.  Then again, Joe Klein, for all his failings as a pundit, is simply a more compelling writer.  I suspect that Ms. Sittenfeld was aiming for Theodore Dreiser–which might have been a damned interesting creative choice, and a really good book–but, ended up with–well–Olivia Goldsmith, instead.  (It doesn’t help that the last third of the novel is a rushed blur, and clearly the result of trying to hit a demanding deadline schedule.)

American Wife is worth reading, and–sort of–ambitious, but after I finished it, I was left feeling as though I should go wash my hands.

I’m currently about halfway through Giles Blunt’s By The Time You Read This, which I’m enjoying.  A nice, solid book.  It won’t reinvent the wheel, but then again, it wasn’t designed to do so.

What else?  The Camera, by Ansel Adams.  Dense, demanding–and very informative.  Actually, I hope to read the entire series, but I’m starting with The Camera.  (Here’s a great article about photography, by the way, on an excellent site.)  Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey Il’s surprisingly not-as-dated-as-you-would-think Convention. A book about fishermen called Their Fathers’ Work.  Everything the Instructors Never Told You About Mogul Skiing–because, even though such things are probably out of my reach, it can’t hurt to try to improve.  Red Sox Rule–for no other reason than because I feel like it.

And I was completely delighted to pick up an affordable secondhand copy of The New Professional Chef, which I had wanted for a really long time.

I haven’t read The War Within yet, but I assume I will, at some point.

And–it scarcely needs saying–but, go, Red Sox!