I think it's somewhat representative of how my brain has been operating lately that I managed to write two journal entries over the Thanksgiving holiday, but then forgot to post them when I got back to Minneapolis.
More on that later. My brain, I mean.
In other news, it's nice to see snow on the ground, even if it is but a dusting.
Four days to New York. I've already started packing.
10:56, Saturday evening. It's Thanksgiving at the Danielson's, and Christmas too. Today was the only full day the entire family would be together this year, so we took the opportunity to have both holidays at once. Good food, presents, and lots of photos.
Oh, and my brother proposed to his girlfriend.
The obligatory ring photo:
The wedding will probably be in July.
I always knew he'd go first.
Anyway, in less spectacular news, this afternoon Mike, Kristine, my mom and I headed up to Green Bay to take in the Lambeau Field stadium tour. It was a pretty cool tour, although I suspect the guy leading it may have been mentally unbalanced. After that, we had lunch at Kroll's West (best burgers in Wisconsin) and did a little shopping at that showcase of Northeastern Wisconsin fashion known as Bay Park Square.
Beyond that, there's not much to report. I hung out with Ben and his family again last night, a visit that primarily consisted of another trip to see The Incredibles. (Note to self: You have a lot of movie entries to do.) Tomorrow it's back home to Minneapolis, possibly through some snow on the way.
You know, for a day in which I really didn't do anything, I'm absolutely exhausted. More later.
4:26 p.m., the day after Thanksgiving. I'm sitting in the guest bedroom at my parents' house, trying to sneak in a quick journal entry before my brother and his girlfriend arrive here from their flight up from O'Hare.
It's been a good trip so far. Thanksgiving was pretty low-key, as our family has been waiting for Mike and Kristine to get here before we actually celebrate it. (Hence, the big feast will be sometime tomorrow, and dinner Thursday was Italian beef sandwiches made by my mom.) After hanging out with my folks for a few hours, I spent the evening visiting with Mel. There may have a been a bit of a pretense of not ending up at Country Kitchen in Manitowoc, but as it's really the only place open on a holiday evening here, that's where we found ourselves discussing life and politics over tea, soda and fried cheese sticks. Things seem to be going pretty well for her. She finds law school down at Marquette to be quite challenging, but really seems glad that she's made the jump. She seems to have some hesitation about the huge tests she'll be taking at the end of the year—for a number of classes she'll only be taking only one test the entire semester, and they'll determine her grades for each of the courses—but I have a gut feeling that she's going to do fairly well.
After Country Kitchen, or The Bitchin' Kitchen, as it was often referred during our high school days, we headed over to Capone's, a relatively bearable bar near swanky downtown Manitowoc. There, we discussed more of the same while getting our clothes full of cigarette smoke.
Today I spent much of the afternoon hanging out with (Biker) Ben and Beth. We had lunch at the best Chinese place in downtown Two Rivers (also the worst Chinese place, as it's the only Chinese place in the city), and spent the time discussing the typical—their kid, inbred Two Rivers city politics, bad Two Rivers urban planning decisions (a video store parking lot across from the central park square, for example), PIXAR, and the shooting deaths of six hunters in northwestern Wisconsin.
Those deaths have been quite a topic since I got back. I missed visiting with my uncle Pat as I drove across the state, but, according to my parents, he's convinced that the group of hunters shot first. "You think they have rednecks down south with the black people," he said. "We have the biggest rednecks in the world right up in that part of the state." Apparently he's hunted up in that area a number of times, and hasn't always been impressed with the other hunters he's encountered.
Today, Ben seemed to have similar sentiments. While he wasn't sure whether it could be classified as self-defense or not, "probably the only thing he's guilty of is being a better shot than the other hunters." While I'd like to think most hunters would be more like my uncle—hard working, Democratic union guys who enjoy getting out in the woods a few times a year—I have to admit I've been wondering the same things since this entire mess started. It'll be interesting to see what the investigation turns up, but I get the feeling Vang's conviction may already be a done deal.
But enough about hunters and the stupid things they do to each other. It's 4:53 now. I'm going to go hang out with my dad until my brother and Kristine arrive. Tomorrow will bring a good meal and possibly a trip up to Green Bay to tour the renovated Packer stadium. And Sunday will bring a drive back to Minneapolis.
So, with that, happy Thanksgiving, and more later.
A high of 35 today. My brain says snow, but the calendar says Thanksgiving. Traditionally, this would be the evening I'd head across Wisconsin to my parents' place, but for a variety of complicated reasons I won't be making the trip until tomorrow morning. It's probably for the best, I guess, as I won't have to battle the multitudes of insane drivers and deer often found roaming north-central Wisconsin at night.
For some reason it hasn't completely registered on me that the holidays are actually here. There were telltale signs all over today, of course, including a trafficless commute this morning and an empty parking lot at work, but part of me still expects to get up tomorrow and go through my regular weekday routine. Instead, I'll be heading to Two Rivers, kicking off a month-and-a-half period where I'll likely be traveling or playing host every single weekend.
I'm not complaining. It'll be good to see friends and family (my brother and his fiancee will be in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving), and I love to travel. But you know what I have planned for the second weekend of January? That's right, sleep.
In other news, I had a fruit smoothie for lunch today. It had an orange in it.
As it happens, I'm allergic to oranges.
I'm not quite sure why I did that. Hopefully the sweating, sore throat and burning eyes will subside before I try to go to bed.
It was good, though.
That which is interesting I shouldn't really write about.
That which I can write about isn't really interesting.
I've been fighting a cold since Friday, and this morning it finally won a decisive battle. I'm at home, alternating between naps, coughing fits, working, and playing on the computer. Regrettably, there's not much else to report. I'm too busy to be bored, but not relaxed enough to be interested.
Next week it's back to Northeastern Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. A week after that it's off to New York for four days, and later in December it's back to Wisconsin (again) for Christmas. No plans yet for New Year's, nor for the entire new year, for that matter.
2005 is only 44 days away, and it's starting to loom very large.
The three of these don't build a coherent narrative, but anyway...
Daniel Burnham once said people should make no little plans. The problem with that, of course, is that big plans are often too complex or aggressive to ever have any real chance of actually being fulfilled, especially by just one person.
And especially by people like me.
On days like today, my future seems little more than a pipe dream.
This is turning out to be a dreadfully uninspiring month.
Working through my sorrow Wednesday morning, I found myself reading quotes by Jefferson.
"Politics, like religion, holds up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error."
That said,
"When patience has begotten false estimates of its motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality."
And finally,
"A first attempt to recover the right of self-government may fail, so may a second, a third, etc. But as a younger and more instructed race comes on, the sentiment becomes more and more intuitive, and a fourth, a fifth, or some subsequent one of the ever renewed attempts will ultimately succeed... To attain all this, however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood and years of desolation. For what inheritance so valuable can man leave to his posterity?"
And with that, I'm going to try to stay away from politics for a while.
Michael Moore had a good little essay on 17 reasons not to slit your wrists following Tuesday's disaster. Excerpts of two of my favorites:
Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
So, uh, no mandate. (Not that I expect the Bush administration to interpet it that way, of course.) And then there's this:
Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal.
Heh. Hope is still on the way, I guess.
Four more years. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck a thousand times FUCK.
Also, at the request of Ailla: FUCK.
And finally, from Zosia: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.
Super-crappy non-election news: First Avenue falls into bankruptcy, closes indefinitely. Fuck.
As we tumble into the evening, I'll be keeping an eye on the usual suspects—CNN, NY Times, ABC, PBS, The Guardian, Washington Post, Slate, BBC News, and, uh, FOX—but will also pay a few visits to sites like electoral-vote.com, MetaFilter (especially threads 36688 and 36692), FARK and the Electoral College Meta-Analysis. For state-specific news, I'll be watching some of the larger papers (and paper-related sites) in some of the battleground states:
Outside of that, Poynter has a long list of relevant sites for the evening.
I am so stressed out about this right now it's unbelievable.
One final reason to vote for Kerry: 100,000 civilians may have died in the Iraq conflict.
A couple of my entries from the end of of October seem to have gone AWOL. Not quite sure what happened there.
in transit—a lame attempt at a homepage since 1996—is a service of Mark Danielson and nonlocality.com.
© 1996-2005 by Mark Danielson. All rights reserved unless specifically noted.