30 September 2002

There are some advantages to being the child of Baby Boomers. I find myself humming "Why don't we get drunk and screw?" and of course think of Mom and Dad, because they own that album and I do not.

Mark and I went to Zachary's with Amber last night. Yum. It had been on the list once we discovered she has lived off and on in the Oakland-Berkeley area for several years and had never been to either Zachary's. Ack! So we enjoyed spinachy mushroomy tomatoey cheesy goodness with Amber and brought the leftovers home for Timprov.

Writing this book has become almost like reading a book: I sit down and do it whenever I want to, in whatever increment I feel physically capable of. It's neat. Write write write, book book book. Hurrah.

Routines, routines. I had forgotten that Mark was going in to work in Palo Alto today, so my entire vision of the day is jolted and strange now. It'll work out, but it just doesn't seem like Monday.

Evan's journal entry from last night gives us a lovely run down of how pointless and silly the small party candidates for governor in California are. I can hardly wait for his assessment of how pointless and silly the major party candidates for governor in California are! California politics are such fun. Perhaps tomorrow.

Or perhaps not. At the end of the entry, he says, "Of course, there's the fact that nearly every US government action in the last two years that that the Greens oppose is, in fact, a direct consequence of Green political activity." Wow, Evan. Nearly every one? Are you sure? Everybody repeat after me: "A Green is not a Democrat." Got it? Again: "A Green is not a Democrat."

I know, I know, I've heard it a million times from a million Democrats: Al Gore would supposedly have been much better for a Green agenda than George W. Bush. However much you believe this, it looks pretty clear that not everybody was sufficiently convinced of it. Several thousands of people were not convinced, actually, after eight years of an administration in which Gore was a top member. So. Democrats who believe the Greens were the key to Gore's loss are left with two alternatives: blaming and haranguing (or, in Evan's case, gently needling) Greens for the current administration, or lobbying their own political leadership to consider Green concerns more thoroughly. As a libertarian (little l!), I can tell you how helpful haranguing people is in getting them to vote as you want them to. Try it the other way, folks. Nobody owes your guys a vote.

Ah well. I finished Empty Cities of the Full Moon yesterday, and I give it a big fat MEH. Good concepts (prions and choreas), poor execution. I discarded another library book after three chapters (The Golden Age -- it just wasn't appealing to me -- but if one of you has information that it improves after the first three chapters, do let me know) and started reading David's Gogol short story picks.

And now I'm going to try to figure out what I can eat for lunch, and then I'm going to work some more and agonize about my ASF application. It asks for letters of recommendation. Sigh. In academia, people are used to writing letters of rec. In freelance writing, not so much so. I'm really not even sure who to ask. Editors? Fellow writers? Scandophiles? Former instructors? What's best here? I just don't know at all. And I have to figure it out soon so that I can ask people with a reasonable time frame left. Sigh.