ase

The Governator and Attorney-General-Governor-Candidate(-D) Jerry Brown went on record in favor of allowing gay marriage while this week's Prop 8 decision is appealed. (For those just joining us, Proposition 8 was challenged as soon as the LGBT community could pull its collective jaw off the floor. Likewise, the district court decision that struck down Prop 8 was appealed about 30 seconds after the ruling.) I'm no jurist, but I think this is a hopeful bellwether for the eventual case settlement.

I am terrifically tempted to use money I don't have and an employee discount in pursuit of a car and Perseid meteors. It's been the sort of week that encourages recklessness.

Work on Friday was surprisingly fun: an evening event where I got to skip out at the end of my shift, circulate through the other booths (and grab some of the freebies), skip back in time to cadge a ride home, and drive the luxe car. Sweet!

(Incidentally, driving a BMW 328 in San Francisco is the definition of frustration. The stop-to-green-light handling was sluggish, and the car just felt kind of stiff. The handling reminded me of the Mazda Millenia, which isn't happy until you achieve third or fourth gear: an ephemeral feat in stop-and-go city traffic.)

In summer, San Francisco by night is a splendid vision: fog cuts the financial district somewhere between 15 and 50 stories, reinventing lofty buildings as true sky-scrapers, windows glowing in the orange-backed haze. SoMa's drunks - the Adams-Morgan of San Francisco? The parking is better, probably - fling themselves across five lanes of almost-absent traffic. As close as Marin and Brisbane, the stars might peep through the damp and cool, but the City proper swarms with water vapor. New Yorkers might consider their city-state the end-all thanks to land consumption and population; San Franciscans might achieve the same self-absorption by grace of weather.

Dear summer: thank you for giving me peaches and fresh corn. Also, thank you for going away. Sincerely, the loyal opposition.

Tonight's cooking experiment: baked pork chops with crushed garlic, rosemary and thyme in olive oil. 350 F, 15 minutes, flipped at 10 minutes. I used a regrettably heavy hand with the spices, so it may be salvage-or-toss time. K. recommended making pork chops into pork-pasta salad, which might actually work. The side dishes - couscous and tomato-ish salad - came out nicely. The couscous just got olive oil and basil. The salad was one cucumber, seeds removed; a green pepper, a red pepper, half a vidalia onion, and several heirloom tomatoes, with a little olive oil and basil and a lemon squeezed over everything. I think I will have a light lunch tomorrow (couscous and salad), or maybe I will declare Culinary Oops Day and see who I can sweet-talk into a sushi run.

September is apparently my month for good intentions. I'm trying to cook, I'm trying to exercise (not 90 degrees every day! I can bike more than five minutes without dying! Awesome!) and I'm trying be mindful of that whole lactose intolerance thing*. Fortunately, Nabisco has removed every remnant of unprocessed ingredients from Oreos, so now they're milk free, hah! That's one junk food snack back on the list.

*Lactase: there are limits, and I still get dehydrated even when the pills are in the right bag and I remember to look for them. Finally, they're kind of expensive on the per diem.

I finally ate my pork chop of dubious character while listening to C-SPAN radio (what's the difference between NPR and C-SPAN? Not that much, when the boombox is on top of the fridge), and decided it's a good day to be me: not in a hurricane recovery zone, secure job, income exceeding expenditures. Health care! If the banks don't collapse under me and my fellow Americans, because some of my fellow Americans are thoughtless people who vote sub-par hooting primates underqualified individuals into national office, I'm going to hang on until the upturn. There's a lot of people who don't have that confidence right now. I was going somewhere with that, but it's, um, really late, so I'll just plug the Red Cross and your local food bank and remind people that when you vote for out of touch and underqualified people, you're voting for recessions.

Yeah, no rage there. Cough.

SATUDAY MORNING: To really stupid rumors (mightygodking) I bring really basic medical stats. Nail Palin on her political record; if she is raising her grandchild for her daughter, I really don't care that much. (I am waiting with bated breath for some Palin political scandal, because hi, Alaska: home of corruption worthy of the Mayors Daley; stooping to personal attacks makes me ask for people to stop being on my side.) Sunday ETA: huh. Just - what Scalzi said.

SUNDAY EVENING: Did an overnight trip to dad's. Dad just got back from looking at houses in Tucson; he and Second Wife made an offer on a short-sale. Second Wife was doing nothing I wanted any part of, so I didn't see much of her or her dogs. Or the horsies. (If you ever need to be convinced of the fundamental stupidity of a horse, try loading it into a horse trailer. If you ever need evidence of my willingness to judge you by your hobbies, watch my reaction to you trying to move your horse.) So I let dad use me as an excuse to try an Indian restaurant - so much pain there - saw the house-shopping pics, and dad's kitchen garden - why aren't the store cucumbers this snazzy? Why? - we chilled with soccer on HD, and eventually I took the hour and a half back home on car, bus and metro, loaded up with foodie things dad dumped on me.

TODAY: Cooking. Grocery runs. Baking. Food prep. My oven is running hot. Not on, cookie-making machine! Go over-fry my chicken, or something else I only marginally care about!

FOR MANY, MANY DAYS: book log. Er, July's. Watch this space for a special July/August book log double edition!

Yesterday I voted at 2:30 in the afternoon of an unseasonably warm day. I left the hoodie at home (see comments on unseasonable weather) and missed some really long lines; it took longer to make this icon than to bike to the polls and cast my ballot on one of the notorious Diebold machines. (If I voted in a swing state, I'd be expressing grave misgivings, but I don't. Actually, Maryland going Republican would probably be an excellent piece of evidence in favor of the Apocalypse hacking.) So I've secured my whining rights, which I'm planning to bank as smackdown points when people get too crazy.

Actually, I think I'm going to spend them right now.

If you're that upset about Bush's re-election, I strongly suggest volunteering your time and money for the candidates and party (or parties) of your choice. If you think there's been electoral fraud, volunteer for your local elections committees and lobby for election reform. My mother may be crazy, but she has two sayings that are very applicable here: "put your money where your mouth is," and, "lead, follow, or get out of the way."

Republicans are not evil incarnate, people. They're not necessarily stupid or blind either. Please don't ever suggest that, because my very bright and admirably self-possessed sister is one. Maybe they didn't vote for Bush. Maybe they think he's the stain on their party. "Evil" isn't these people. "Evil" is the sloppiness, corruption and extreme polarization the Republicans and Democrats are capable of. The major difference I saw between the two candidates this election is that one of them sidestepped more deviously. "Who is less blatant in their evasions" is not a good criteria for picking Presidents, in my opinion. So please don't tar every person who disagrees with your political stance with the same brush. I know a number of liberals who I want to beg to please not be on my side, and a number of conservatives who I rather like and respect. The people I am most disappointed in are the liberals who are throwing temper tantrums (like this one!) today.

Thus endeth the rant.

I don't know how I am going to deal with what I percieve to be some serious problems with the contemporary USA, but I think compassion and reaching out to the "other side" would be a start. We are all American, people. We have profound disagreements about what that means and what it means we should do, and I'm sick of seeing our strengths as a country turned inward so we can savage each other. There must be a better way than the current divisiveness and strident voices. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." Think about what hedda62 is trying to do, and look at norabombay's reaction to the election, and think of Jim. Follow the links from coffee_and_ink.

I think this may be the year I join the college Democrats. Or maybe the Republicans, to figure out how they think. Either way, it means I'll be attending more obnoxiously time-sucking meetings, but... civic duty. I do not want to move to Canada, the winters would kill me.

(Is a reluctance to move patriotism? I've spent a long time cultivating my jaded and blase edge, I'd hate to lose it now. Curse you, election.)

I'm getting political in frustation. The system's not working for me, at least; it's time to fix it.

In other news, I slept terribly Sunday night, and woke up Monday morning with a sore throat. Oddly, the cold has lead to me getting more sleep than usual, because my body whacks my intentions upside the head and forces me to take some down time. This has not necessarily improved my mood.