From TPM: I think Ron Paul just said that 9/11 was caused by excessive government regulation.

To be honest, my stomach turned over when the Republican presidential debate audience (twice) wildly applauded Rick Perry's record as the modern governor who has presided over the most executions. Unbelievable. Listening to this whole debate has been an exercise in suppressing my gag reflex.

I am sick, which didn't help the stomach-turning and gagging. Chicken noodle soup helped a little and would help more if I had a bottomless bowl of steaming broth. I should say that I am sick and pretending not to be eight hours a day because I don't want to be sent home. Paid leave (especially paid sick leave, which seems so elementary) will be a must-have in my next job. It's too hard to be without it, even as a childless and reasonably healthy young woman. I have chronic moderate-to-severe headaches, killer cramps, and an immune system not made out of bricks and Teflon (read: I get fairly sick fairly often, and very very sick about twice a year)--but I could have children in day care always hopping from one bug to the next, or a debilitating chronic disease or mental illness myself, and I don't, and that's just sheer luck.

Waiting for the bus this morning.

Why Autumn!

Bookend the day.

Last night, I wandered around my neighborhood eating German chocolate out of my jacket pocket. The fact that the packaging advertised the chocolate as "square" (and "practical") amused me; like billing a great poet as "tall," it seems irrelevant.

I am half in love with everything these days - the crispness of the air, the silvery pink skies that arch over my head as I walk to work every morning, the refreshing unpredictability of my job from one day to the next, the company of my coworkers, snuggling with Bernd as he tries to hypnotize me ("Sarahhhh, look me in the face..." a direct translation from German, I think, but it sounds completely silly in English), friends, fresh local apples and pears from the Co-Op, streets filling up with leaves as the trees empty out.

And half the time, I am pacing, trying to figure this world out. It's an interesting mixture of sweet contentment and squirming, restless discontent.





Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is one of the most engrossing books I've ever encountered.

Milwaukee weekend.

Cutest drunk person EVER. He giggles hysterically when drunk. And his dad is a major alcohol pusher. I have no idea how much beer those two drank Friday night at the Rock Bottom… I had one martini against my will (“This ‘Chocolate Covered Banana’ sounds really great when you say it out loud, but I can’t order this… they forgot a hyphen in the menu!”).

It's autumn. I am thinking all the time about the young woman I want to be, and how far I have to go. I think it will be a joyful journey, but along the way, I am running into contradictions.

I am reading hard books and struggling with what they tell me.

I am loving my job. Loving it. It has me rethinking my career goals, that's how much it's shaken me up this week. Mostly, I do research. I know that as soon as I know my territory there I'll want more responsibility. I'll want to be the one who jets off to conferences in Atlanta, Chicago and Vancouver, to listen and learn and share. This week, I am in love. I am paid to care about something WORTH caring about. What more could I ask for, really?