politics as usual

I don't pretend to know whether President Obama "deserves" to have won the Nobel Peace Prize in the adolescence of his presidency (I'm timing this assessment on dog years, by the way), but I can say this:

For those of us on the left, debating the merits of the committee's decision is futile. And for our chums on the right (if such they can be called), denouncing the president with derisive mocking hardly seems to further the peace dialogue. Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland put it this way, "The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world." And, while there are certainly human rights activists toiling worldwide to fight for this (perhaps making more tangible—albeit less visible—strides), it is hard to deny that Obama did make a global ripple in the pond that touched the hearts and ideals of billions.

I prefer to look at it this way. This award is not based on his presidency, per se (a presidency that is nowhere near complete and therefore impossible to judge on the whole). To quote Bob Kerrey, "It's honoring the country. The Nobel committee couldn't award the peace prize to the voters of the United States, but that's what they are doing. It's an award Americans should feel good about."

I am certainly appreciative of what Obama has accomplished, even if that was little more than an innovative PR campaign for the United States.

puppysitting

This little beast is in my charge until next Saturday. She's the gentlest, snowiest fuzzy little pig-fox I've ever seen and she has one blue eye and one brown.

She was also up half the night wondering where her moms were (she has two) and why she'd been left in this new place with trains rattling overhead.

Between the click clack of her paws doing laps around the apartment, Peter Pan's incessant snoring (what is this new phenomenon?) and my misguided decision to set my dishwasher to run at two in the morning (it chugs to life with all the subtlety of a freight train), I didn't get much sleep.

However, once the reveille sounded at 6:45 and I cleaned up her puppy puke (poor thing is still anxious), I took her for a long walk. Must say, my neighborhood is lovely in the mornings...

shredding paper

Someone told me once that a day is a battlefield. Today, for example, you take the field—you versus all the gods of Wednesday—and may the best woman win.

Some days are better than others, some worse. But, much like baseball, there are certain contests that cannot decisively be called. Those days are a tug-of-war of minor skirmishes, dull scrapes and lesser victories. No one bothers to keep score until one side guts the other in an unexpected blow. Then your Wednesday becomes Antietam, for one side or the other.

But this was just a Wednesday. My victories were shallow, but they were enough to carry the day.

this from the boyfriend

"Why can't you just be a slutty witch for Halloween like all the other girls?"

la diritta via era smarrita

Last night some animal woke me up. Or else I dreamed up some hideously menacing animal noises, some duet of lowing or growling with a higher-pitched whine building in the background. It sounded like screeching, like pigs being butchered. Or a coyote braying. And it was getting louder and louder.

Anyhow, I woke up in terror, right at the crescendo—presumably to go outside and rescue whatever it was from harm—and there was nothing but dark. Dark and Peter Pan snoring next to me, sinuses straining.

Maybe the red curtains are giving me hellish dreams?

the long, dark teatime of the soul

I know I keep saying I am done with New York. I gave myself a year to make up my mind. But already I suspect I'll need more time—particularly if I continue this love affair with my new neighborhood.

Sunday was a blur. It began with Peter Pan needing to be let in at 6:34 am (Yes, I latched the door on him when he wasn't home by 2 am. Yes, I am a bad and passive aggressive person.) Then there was sheet changing, brunch with my dad and the buying of bamboo for my windowsill vase. But I spent the afternoon soaking in the last flash of summer sun, alternating outdoor locations for the semi-sacred ritual crossword hours between the park and my balcony, where someone started playing godawful acid rock and I was almost chased away by my neighbor's yipping rat dog.

The bloom still being on the rose, I found these things charming.

Most people might take annoyance at the sounds of my neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. It is an atonal symphony of church bells, child squeals, trains rattling over the bridge, trains braking at Ditmars, the reving of muffler-less engines, and the landing and taking off of airplanes. But I find it oddly comforting.

This, my friends, is the pleasure of having your own space. Perhaps too much solitude in said space, but that is another beast to conquer...

write this above her bones

Yeah, so this week. Not the best.

Let me preface this by saying that nothing happened to me. This marks one of those strange moments in life where the world starts sucking chunks for people around you, people who are near or dear to you, but you are expected to hold it together. Because, really, you are fine.

I can be a rock star. I am a twentysomething urban female with all sorts of sublimated maternal instincts. I'm a hair-holding, kitchen-cleaning, cookie-baking, flower-buying coordinator of efforts large and small. I have the luxury of being in a place to help those in trouble (be that a fragile mental state or multiple broken bones and cranial bleeding). So that is my plan. Asked or appreciated or otherwise.

For the purposes of my own sanity, I will concentrate on the fact that October has arrived, heralding my very favorite season with its signature bite in the air, its melancholy and its pumpkin spice lattes. My apartment continues to be an oasis, however sparse, and every night the smell of bread baking manages to waft up to my living room from the bakery around the corner. Things aren't half bad.

[ Sidenote: I never imagined I would be called "boring" for spending weeknights on my couch with a bottle of Malbec and the first season of the West Wing on dvd. And yet? Boring. Net regrets: 0. ]