labsinthe

You just keep telling yourself that

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 10:42:00 -0700

From David Frum's USA Today column, "Why the GOP lost the youth vote":

If the inexperienced Barack Obama wins — and then discovers that there is more to being president than giving speeches — we could discover that the next generation of young people reacts to the failures of an Obama presidency by rediscovering the enduring Republican principles of limited government, individual rights, strong national defense and pragmatic effective governance.

It might help if the party of "enhanced interrogation" and shocking incompetence rediscovered those principles for itself.

'I've always liked Dumbledore, just not in that way'

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:58:00 -0700

Heh. From the shamelessly tabby (let's put "GAY" in ALL CAPS) UK Sun, via Hit and Run:

PROUD Paul Croft got a tattoo of Harry Potter wizard Albus Dumbledore on his back - but is now being teased by pals after he was outed as GAY.

Proud Paul, 36, spent a YEAR having the Hogwarts headmaster etched into his skin as a surprise for his five kids.

But the factory worker has been the butt of jokes ever since Harry Potter author JK Rowling revealed last week that Dumbledore was in love with a fellow male sorcerer.

Paul, of Nottingham, moaned yesterday: "It's been terrible. I've always liked Dumbledore - just not in that way.

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:40:00 -0700

Go on. You know you want to click.

Some people in Victoria have their priorities straight

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:11:00 -0700

From Victoria craigslist Rants and Raves:

RAVE: Your Pile of Leaves
Reply to: pers-459421458@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-10-25, 11:05AM PDT

I would like to rave about your massive pile of leaves, and also apologize for destroying it. I know it's hard to rake those leaves up, and it just looked so beautiful. Now, I haven't dove into a pile of leaves like that in years, since I was probably 12. My parents house doesn't get that many leaves, and living in a basement suite doesn't really help either. However, it was SO enjoyable. Thank you, and sorry if you had to rake it again.

Zombie Voter Specimen 1

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:54:00 -0700

From the New York Times story, "The Evangelical Crackup"

“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!'"

Bush and clemency, then and now

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 2 Jul 2007 16:19:00 -0700

Let's compare, shall we?

THEN: From Alan Berlow's article, "The Texas Clemency Memos" from the July/August 2003 issue of The Atlantic:

On the morning of May 6, 1997, Governor George W. Bush signed his name to a confidential three-page memorandum from his legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and placed a bold black check mark next to a single word: DENY. It was the twenty-ninth time a death-row inmate's plea for clemency had been denied in the twenty-eight months since Bush had been sworn in. In this case Bush's signature led, shortly after 6:00 P.M. on the very same day, to the execution of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded thirty-three-year-old man with the communication skills of a seven-year-old.

[snip]

Gonzales's lack of attention to Washington's mental retardation is particularly surprising because demand was growing nationwide to ban executions of the retarded, and because the most highly publicized case of a retarded defendant, that of Johnny Paul Penry, was even then playing itself out in Texas courts. The miscarriages in the Washington case were also precisely the kind of thing Bush claimed to want to be told about. "I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own," he wrote in his autobiography, A Charge to Keep (1999), "unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair." Such information had indeed come to light in Washington's case, yet Gonzales's memorandum did not tell Bush about it.

NOW: From Ben Feller at AP, "Bush Commutes Libby prison sentence":

WASHINGTON - President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in a highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh.

Bush's move came just five hours after a federal appeals panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term. That meant Libby was likely to have to report soon, and it put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

[snip]

Yet, [Bush] added, "Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable."

Bush then stripped away the prison time.

Dubya finally discovers mercy, just in time to spring good ol' Scooter from the clink. Too bad for Terry Washington.

Love pirate, or practice tips from Johnny Cochran

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 2 Jul 2007 11:51:00 -0700

Check last line of this AP story. The defendant's lawyer apparently just saw Pirates of the Carribean:

CHICAGO - Stealing someone's heart can cost you: Just ask German Blinov. A Cook County jury ordered Blinov to shell out $4,802 last week after he was sued by a husband from a Chicago suburb for stealing the affections of the man's wife.

Arthur Friedman used a little-known state law to mount the legal attack against Blinov. The alienation of affection law, one of eight across the country, lets spouses seek damages for the loss of love.

But Natalie Friedman, the woman at the center of it all, claims her husband asked her to have sex with other men and women — including Blinov — to spice up their relationship. She supposedly began having feelings for Blinov, prompting her husband to file the lawsuit.

"This guy ruined my life — he backstabbed me," Arthur Friedman told the Chicago Sun-Times. "What he did was wrong. And I did what I had to do to get my point across."

Blinov doesn't deny having a relationship with Natalie Friedman while she was married, but he was surprised to learn he could be sued for it. His attorney also said Natalie Friedman was unhappy with her marriage before the relationship started.

"German was not a pirate of her affections," attorney Enrico Mirabelli said. "Her affections were already adrift."

I think my adrenal glands are fried...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:26:00 -0700

...because I have an employment law exam tomorrow and I can't work up any motivational panic. Instead, I'm reading paperback novels and updating my Facebook profile. Yesterday, I scrubbed the apartment from stem to stern. (Is there such a thing as cat-hair lung?) Might as well have gone to Sombrio.

It's not that I don't care. And it's not that I couldn't benefit from a couple of hours poring over the Labour Relations Code. But I've no sense of urgency. I hope my confidence isn't misplaced.

Mildred Loving and the freedom to marry

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 06:16:00 -0700

You may have heard that Virginia is for lovers. So the slogan says. But 40 years ago, Mildred and Richard Loving discovered otherwise when Virginia prosecuted them marrying a person of a different race. (She is black, he white). On the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision striking down racial miscegenation laws (appropriately enough, Loving v. Virginia), Mildred has this to say:

Loving for All
By Mildred Loving
Prepared for Delivery on June 12, 2007, the 40th Anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia Announcement

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn't to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

We didn't get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn't allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn't that what marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the "crime" of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed.

The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn't have to fight alone. Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, and so many good people around the country willing to speak up, we took our case for the freedom to marry all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men," a "basic civil right."

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God's plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation's fears and prejudices have given way, and today's young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Why I'll Miss Molly Ivins

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:42:00 -0800

I don't really want to do one of those tributes that involves stealing all her best zingers and parroting them back out of context. If I'd written when Ann Richards died, that probably would've been my tack, because I admired Ann, but she didn't mean that much to me personally.

Molly's different. I met her a few times at her Final Friday parties for the lefty Austin set, but I'd be lying if I bragged about being a Friend of Molly. I didn't know her; she wouldn't have recognized me five minutes after we'd been introduced. Unless she had a sharp memory for babbling fanboys, that is.

I first read Molly as an insolent and self-consciously political teenager. I'd moved to Dallas from Canada a few years before, and still struggled to reconcile my liberal upbringing with the racist, gay-bashing, football-obsessed attitudes around me. I sneered a lot. I wrote incendiary columns about drug testing and abortion in my high school newspaper. I baited what Andrew Sullivan's now calling the Christianists. I tried really hard to like Rage Against the Machine.

Despite all this, the world did not reform itself to suit me. I had absolutely no sense of humour about this, but since when do teenagers have a sense of humour about anything? A martyr in my own mind. When I graduated from high school, I went back to Canada just as soon as I could manage, and quickly realized that as much as Texas pissed me off, I'd left part of my identity behind. It's disconcerting to define yourself in terms of your political views, and then find yourself in a place where damn near everyone agrees with you.

I moved back to Texas after two years, chasing a girlfriend who didn't stay a girlfriend for very long. I'm not sure I would have managed to reacclimate if I hadn't discovered Molly. Here was someone, a longtime Texan and an unapologetic liberal. And who, somehow, had managed to maintain her sense of humour in a state where politicians win election by gay-bashing and out-Jesusing their opponents. Texas liberal humour is gallows humour. I'm not sure if this is a Molly story or not, but it's stuck with me for years, and it illustrates the point:

The good people at the Texas Observer, an Austin-based lefty magazine that Molly once edited, decided to hold a contest. Staffers would start out driving in East Texas with bumper stickers reading, "I'm the fag that Ann [Richards] sent to take your guns away." First one back to Austin alive was the winner.

That's a horrifying joke on a lot of levels. But after I started reading Molly, I understood why it was funny. I worked with the ACLU of Texas for a couple of years doing media and legal clerking work, and you had to be able to laugh at stuff like that to survive emotionally. For every victory we savoured, there were dozens of awful things we could do nothing about, either because we didn't have the resources to fight them, or because the good people of Texas had decided that, being a whole 'nother country, certain parts of the Constitution didn't really apply. Including the really important parts.

Molly embodied the fighting spirit of those stubborn Texas liberals who went into every fight knowing they were outgunned, and damn near expecting to have their asses handed to them. People who suffered defeat without bitterness, and dared to think tomorrow might be different. People who may have lost their greatest wit, but never their unsinkable sense of humour.

Thank you, Molly. For taking justice seriously, and life not at all.

Clang Clang Clang

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 4 Jun 2006 09:25:00 -0700

Sunday is one of two days when I don't have to wake up at 6 AM. So to the guy who woke me up with those church bells, you can stop now. I'm not coming.

His legs are strong, but his mind is gone

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 28 May 2006 12:40:00 -0700

In between praying down hurricanes on godless Floridians and calling for Hugo Chavez's assassination, televangelist Pat Robertson has found time to leg press 2,000 lbs., a feat of strength so unbelievable that, well, no one believes him.

I am troubled by your dismal lack of faith, people. Has Pat ever led you astray before? Back in March, he raised the alarm about the threat posed by liberal professors:

They are racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al Qaeda - and they could be teaching your kids!

[snip]

These guys are out-and-out communists. They are radicals. They are, you know, some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order. You don't want your child to be brainwashed by these radicals. [snip] Not only brainwashed but beat up - they beat people up, cower them into submission. [video here]

And man, oh man was he right on with that. As a student at the University of Texas, I was personally cowered (sic) into submission by marauding bands of lefty academics on several occasions. They repeatedly stole my lunch money to redistribute among the homeless, and some even molested me whilst chanting subversive passages from Chomsky. There are, um, "multiple witnesses."

Dear groovin' bus lady

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:33:00 -0800

When you started bumpin' on those blue vinyl seats to whatever it was you were listening to, you made me realize I'll never again feel weird for obsessively tapping my fingers every time "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" comes on.

When you started doing crazy jazz hands and rolling your head all around so that the rest of the folks at the back of the bus had to bite back their smiles, that was cool, too.

But when sitting down wasn't enough anymore, and you decided to go strutting up the aisle with your Gatorade bottle, and you screwed the cap on crooked, and orange Gatorade splashed down the back of your leather jacket, and you didn't even notice 'cause you were so in the moment.... That, crazy bus lady, was friggin' awesome.

Fear, loathing, and cross-border bill payment

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:23:00 -0800

Grrr. I owe money. Lots of it. And as a child of the internet age, accustomed to paying everything online, I'm starting to get irritated by the hoops I'll have to jump through just to get those pesky student loan bills paid every month. Sallie Mae has a credible online payment system, but only if you're using an American bank account. Nyah nyah, all you debt-to-your-eyeballs college graduates who fled the House of Bush and still have to pay back (with interest) all of those J.P.'s Java $4 mochas. And I thought getting reamed on the exchange would be my biggest headache. Right now, my best option is paying to transfer money from my Canadian chequing to my old Bank of America account in Austin. Expensive pain in the ass....

Reckless

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 3 Nov 2005 21:16:00 -0800

I don't know what to do with any of this. Once, I was sober and practical. I didn't let things faze me, and avoided drama like a gauche disease. But every once in a while I'd notice that everything tasted like sand. I'd freak out then, embark on self-important vision quests, question everything, tear my life apart. And once I'd worn myself out and thoroughly spooked everyone around me, I'd go back to being nice stable normal mundane.

I hated reverting. But now I have the opposite issue: I can't stop. I can't stop telling people what I really think, how I really feel, what I really want - tossing my bloody feelings around like hand grenades. It was one thing when it was just me stabbing myself in the back. But now I've started getting emotionally stabby on other people, springing stuff I'm too selfish to keep safely stowed. It hurts them. And it hurts me in the end, too.

And yet... It's still better than eating sand. Although not so much this week.

Evil Bill Is Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 4 Sep 2005 18:45:00 -0700

Bill Rehnquist, that is. One less guy who gives a damn about Gilbert and Sullivan, whoever they are. And federalism. And kicking people when they're down. Am sorta wondering, in a detached, glad-I'm-in-Canada sorta way, what soulless whitebread asshole they'll recruit to replace him. (UPDATE: Answer: John Roberts)

And no, I don't care if he was a nice guy in person. Hitler loved his dog. But that's not the legacy I'll remember. Alan Dershowitz nails it for me here:

My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history.

So here's the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won't hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.

Church Lady, I Got Mine

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 10:35:00 -0700

How charming they were in their church lady suits and their church lady hats with their brassy church lady earrings! They opened up their little book of scripture, and showed me a painting of paradise as imagined by the United Church of Canada (guessing). It looks like BC, which is, um, where I already live. I am so undeserving. I think church-lady-with-ribbon-and-horn-rimmed-glasses picked up on this, because she made a special point of telling me that paradise would be for everyone, not just for us forest people. (Even the poor starving children in Africa!) I thought of pointing out that good Christian Laplanders might not want to live in a rainforest. But since they were the sweetest church ladies ever, and didn't once mention my eventual destination, I wished them well and sent them next door.

Suspense

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 21:36:00 -0700

My nerves are a fuzzy sweater set upon by a pack of wild hyenas. I'm starting to appreciate how the astronauts felt when they heard large chunks of foam came off the shuttle on liftoff - again. Well, maybe it's not that dire. But it's making me crazy.

Interviewed earlier this week for a couple of jobs with the BC Public Affairs Bureau. The directors for the two ministries said they'd decide by Friday. That's mercy - I can't imagine having to wait two weeks or a month to find out. But still, my stomach is digesting itself on this Thursday night, and no amount of ice cream seems to distract it. I'm not a superstitious person, normally, but this week I'm taking it to extremes. I won't go into the ridiculous lengths I've gone to avoid jinxing this, but trust me, it's pretty embarrassing.

See, I can't remember ever wanting a particular job this badly. Judging by the description, it combines all of my skills and most of my interests in one sleek package. Room to play, room to grow, room to learn. Room for a Miata. Let me put it this way: I'll wear a suit for this one, and no one will ever hear me complain. Well, maybe in August. Fingers crossed.

The law degree as psychological armour

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 19:45:00 -0700

I decided some time ago that once I earned my J.D., that would be it for me; I had no intention of ever actually practicing law. Naturally, I worried about having mortgaged my future with no means of paying the debt. I'm feeling a bit better about it now.

On Friday, I bused into Victoria to meet with an old friend of my aunt's who has worked in provincial government for 25 years. I was hoping for some advice, maybe a couple of numbers to call. I scarcely dared to imagine what actually did happen. Within five minutes of sitting down in his office, he was on the phone, calling up contacts in other ministries. After a coffee and some friendly chitchat, I then found myself walking over to another government building downtown, portfolio in hand. Upon my arrival at the second office, I wound up taking PR competency tests and wondering why I hadn't given serious thought to government work. Part of it, of course, is that I'm used to Texas, where the entire state budget is apparently devoted to cops and
road construction. B.C. actually has - gasp! - social services and an environment ministry not referred to (with painful accuracy) as "train-wreck." (I refer to the old TNRCC, now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Or Quislings. The first is correct, the second merely true.)

But I'm getting off track. I've always suffered from a lack of confidence when it comes to job searches; I usually feel underqualified, and even when I'm not, I usually assume there's someone better in the applicant pool. Strangely enough, having those two little letters after my name makes a difference. Suddenly, I actually believe the puff-pastry come-ons in my cover letters. I feel attractive to prospective employers. If nothing else, I've proven I'm not a complete flake, not just to the UT law school gods, but also to myself. Expensive armour, but I'm glad to discover I can wear it proudly.

I know you're scared even though you say that you're not

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:30:00 -0700

Nightwalking again. This evening, the mp3 decides to take me on a journey back in time. First it gives me Aimee Mann's "Momentum" from the Magnolia Soundtrack. Then, Rufus Wainwright's "A Bit Of You,", followed by Belle and Sebastian's "Waking Up To Us," which in particular evokes some pretty nasty memories for me. By the time we got to Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize," I'd had enough. Click.

Tegan and Sara to the rescue! (High five, Tegan. Down low, Sara) You know why? Because

I know you're scared even though you say that you're not
I know you're scared even though you say that you're not

I do.

Join the Youth & Beauty Brigade (and shut your damn dog up)

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 23:11:00 -0700

Further nightwalking, and more music to add to the list. Decemberists' Calfornia One/Youth & Beauty Brigade from Castaways and Cutouts.

New pet peeve. I absolutely loathe being barked at.

Nightwalking with Tegan, Sara and Postal Service

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 22:23:00 -0700

I love Victoria. Every night, just as it begins to get dark, I go walking in the trees. There's wooded land right across the road, undeveloped but criss-crossed with foottrails and pimpled with bike jumps I've never seen anyone use. Way in the back, slumps a battered and rusted 1950s Austin (or so my father said). I wander the paths, brushing spider webs from my face. Think about stuff. And listen to mp3s.

I have discovered the perfect nightwalking music:

Candidate One: Tegan & Sara - two women who rock with their shirts on. The album is So Jealous, their third. They are lesbian twin sisters from somewhere in Canada, although I swear I didn't know they were Canadian when I first thought they were cool. I'm not going to try to explain it, except I adore women who play fuzz and aren't using it to cover sucky vocals. (see also Velocity Girl, Juliana Hatfield, and even poor Veruca Salt).

Candidate Two: Postal Service. Supposedly this is a side project by the main guy behind Death Cab For Cutie. I don't know anything about that. I do know that when certain songs from Give Up start playing - like, say, the first four songs, I don't miss fireflies at all. I am a pilgrim for Postal Service now, and have even made some converts. Most submitted to the gospel of Postal Service willingly, and with grace; a few are imprisoned in the woodshed with "Such Great Heights" on repeat. They'll come around.

Work is fun is work

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 12:52:00 -0700

Well, my six weeks of vagabondism, travel and hedonism is over, at least according to my mental timeline. Now, to work. Scanning the classifieds here in Victoria is a depressing exercise, and I'm actually relieved to hear from people that no one ever finds a job in the paper. It's a who-you-know kinda town, and while I'm not exactly settled in just yet, I already know a few people who might be able to help. Shall see.

Just hoping I have the guts to refuse compromises at this point. No, I don't want a 40-hour-a-week job doing something boring and mechanical. No, I don't want to cover city council and little league for the local rag, though I might be persuaded to correct its many spelling and grammatical screw-ups for a sizeable retainer. No, no, NO, I don't want any serious legal work; luckily, having an American law degree probably diminishes my attractiveness as law-clerk-about-town anyway. Sound open-minded, don't I? Well, I'm also ruling out animal husbandry and sex tourism, so there.

So sorry, liver and lungs

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 8 Jul 2005 10:54:00 -0700

Hear that sound? No? Well, I do. It's the sound of internal organs screaming for mercy. Suck it up, liver. You too, lungs. I know I've been cruel, but considering that neither of you are 19, you've been troopers. Really. Just one more weekend: Folkfest is on, and you didn't honestly think I'd behave, did you? Ladysmith Black Mambazo demands misbehavior; they called this morning and told me. So c'mon, y'all. You can do it.

Back in Victoria after an exhilirating Canada Day and ten-year undergrad reunion in Ottawa. Carleton people, you rock. I had extremely unrealistic expectations of the trip, and you blew them all sky-high. We must do this again, and soon. Zero points for Cindy not coming, though. Girl, I know you've got two kids, but you shoulda let the sled dogs babysit.

Also made a friend there, suddenly and unexpectedly. Not sure what that means exactly yet - we only spent 36 total hours together. But if nothing else, it's been a long while since someone looked at me that way, and I'm not surprised to discover that my fragile male ego needed the boost.

The dumb guy at the airport this morning...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 07:09:00 -0700

...was me. Up at 4:30, blindly stumbling to the Victoria terminal by 5. A full 24 hours early. The worst part - even worse than the condescending smirk on the ticket agent's face - was the realization that I have to get up before dawn again tomorrow.