feeling crummy today, but here i am

your Life-Gem memorial will offer comfort and support when and where you need it, and provide a lasting memory that endures just as a diamond does. forever. totally creepy.

Violent dowry harassment is an increasingly visible phenomenon in India. just crazy.

spoon-face schumacher's new island (literally) get-a-way.

fantasy congress game - online. i wonder who'll have more fun playing now...

F1 theme park. enough said. i think.

President Vilsack? has a certain...ring to it, no? NO. no one will vote for a Vilsack for president. wrong? perhaps. so what.

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BOOK LIST:

1) A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin
2) An Iliad by Alessandro Baricco
3) Last Evening's on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
4) The City is a Rising Tide by Rebecca Lee
5) State of Denial by Bob Woodward
6) Iñes of my Soul by Isabel Allende
7) They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967
8) The Story of Salt by Mark Kurlansky

mostly a good bunch of books this time around. the new Isabel Allende was worth the library waiting list. whenever she writes about her native Chile, i know it's going to be excellent. last evening's on earth was very good as well. i got so worked up reading bob woodward's book that i (nearly) threw it across the room. and the thing is, i agreed with almost everything in it. it just irks me that he can be such a fair weather friend. you know, when bush was popular (still don't know why) he wrote a flattering book or 2 and now that the tides have turned, well...
the Baricco book about the Iliad was GREAT. i wanted so much to like Rebecca Lee's book, but i was not quite able to. it's a small book that promised - at least on the cover flaps - a big story. it even used the word suspense, i think. none of that. it was however, written beautifully. sounds contradictory, right? well, not in my head.
and i want to say something about Jed Rubenfeld's book (from the last list) called The Interpretation of Murder. GET IT! i forgot to mention it last time. it's got suspense, murder (duh!, hence the title) and Freud and Jung coming to America in 1909. much was based on actual fact with a grand story woven throughout.

¡Ya Basta!
go read - actually, go read outdoors. it's beautiful out.
even though i feel crummy, that's where i'm headed.