Nothing to say right now

That's right...I have nothing particular to write about. I probably should rant about our probably Secretary of State and her less than honest performance as National security advisor, but I just don't feel that particular bile rising.

The tennis courts outside my window are covered with rainwater. We have a nice moderate drizzle going now. Water, water everywhere.

I could rant about the faculty and what they don't do, but I've done that already today. I'd bore myself to death.

I looked at real estate in Eagle Rock, CA just a minute ago, and saw a 980+ sq. foot scumbox for $479,000! What? For that? Living in the SF Bay Area I shouldn't be surprised, but I can't help it. Not only that but the murder rate is more than twice the national average. Maybe that's an LA County figure. Oh well. We ain't going there yet. Maybe not at all.

I sure would like a ride to my car, but I ain't gonna get it. So its a nice stroll through the rain for yours truly. I'll soak my shoes, and the first 9 inches or so up from the cuffs of my trousers. Strange little dirt specks will appear on my trousers. Maybe they are animals that grow to life as the water hits cotton canvas. If I don't get them off my trousers they will eat their way through and into my flesh. They will burrow into me, find their way to my digestive system and grow to full maturity in my intestinal villi. During the next faculty meeting, I will be seized with an awful spasm like John Hurt in "Alien" and a shambling, miniature homunculus will pop out of me. It's bug eyes will glare at the assembled multitude, declare them to be charlatans, and go skittering out of the room, laughing insanely and yelling for its publisher.

OK, time to go home. I feel the lines slipping loose from their mooring.

Yyyeaahhhh..Inaugrification

Mhmm. Yeah, I can't seem to get to excited about the inaugural. Hip Liz's poem says it best. Maybe it's because I'm just too damned busy at the job. Or maybe Daring Dayton is just sucking my energy with his nearly perpetual motion. I speculate on these things because any one could be the cause, but I suspect its more that these things affect my willingness to get really angry and frustrated. After the election, which was a stone downer for me, I was drained. Despite a majority of disapproval for what our narrow-eyed fratboy in chief has wrought with the economy and the war, people still voted for him (allegedly) enough to get him back in there. I just can't take the time to dwell on the disconnect there. What are the American people thinking? They mostly don't approve of what Bush has done with maybe the two most important issues we face. Do they think he'll have learned something and change his ways? If that were the case, his cabinet would have changed dramatically, as would his running mate have changed. Cheney is something straight out of democracy's darkest nightmares. Here's a quote from an interesting interview with this arrogant VP, who I think cares less than nothing about what happens to the average American, in which he refers to the War Powers Act of 1973:

"That made a change in the institutional arrangements that I don't think is healthy," the vice president said. "I don't think you should restrict the president's authority to deploy military forces because of the Vietnam experience."

Oh yeah, Man. Just toss out those checks and balances. That would fit nicely with everything else about this presidency. Even though Bush obtained a vote from Congress approving the use of force, you'll note that Cheney thinks that kind of careful approach to military action and all it's horrible consequences is unhealthy.

Perhaps it's just beaten me down. I have a bunker mentality now. Just hunker down, and try to not be noticed and raise my son and love my wife, and try to be healthy and somewhat principled and hope the next four years passes quickly, and that someone in Congress turns out to be a little more moderate...and hope against hope that as a republic we aren't, as Hunter Thompson described a motorcycle accident, cartwheeling across the land with our head in our hands, ending up with our national bones broken and our scalp laid open.

So, I didn't watch the speech except what little I got on the news. I saw Bush give his usual stilted, school assembly type delivery. There was more nonsense about the march of freedom, unity, blah blah blah. Coming from him and his speechwriters, it means absolutely nothing.

Here we go again

How's that for a cheery greeting to the new year?

That's about what I can muster. Daring Dayton is cutting teeth. My Lovely Wife is up late writing lectures. I stay up watching an old Woody Allen movie.

I sleep from Midnight to about 2:30 , when Dr. Perfesser Wife arrives with Daring Dayton...I think. Now I don't know if that's correct. Anyhow, she is freezing, the little Buccaneer is whimpering and crying, and tylenol is called for.

Sometime around 4AM I return to the Arms of Morpheus. I might as well have not bothered. I am trashed. There is a band if dullness over my eyes, like an invisible, heavy mask of old silicon rubber. My arms are heavy and slow. My feet, encased in sturdy Red Wing boots against the rain that has not arrived, are like two dumbells attached to my ankles.

Maybe in the next few days, I will hit this page with a happier note. This one ain't unhappy, mind you, it just ain't in general. Sometime soon, I will scare up some enthusiasm for something. Maybe someone will read about it.