The World According to Chuck

Five-year-old Alex Barton was misbehaving in his kindergarten class, so his teacher, Ms. Portillo, sent him to the office. While he was gone, she had a little discussion with the other students.

When Alex returned, Portillo, who has been teaching in Port Lucie for 12 years, directed the youngster to the front of the room and “asked him to listen to what the children didn’t like” about him. According to Alex, the children complained that he “eats paper, picks boogers … and bites his shoelaces,” and Portillo herself said, “I hate you right now. I don’t like you today.” Portillo next “polled the class” about whether to let Alex back in. Alex lost the class vote, 14-2, and spent the rest of the school day in the nurse’s office. That night, Alex “did not eat dinner [and] would not sleep in his own bed.” (Link)

CBS News has more on the story, with video.

Alex is autistic.

There are circles of hell for parents of some children, where we wander in low light, tally up our mistakes and regrets and try to see in the dark. They are nothing, of course, compared to the places our children go sometimes. My son surely does. He has an excellent memory. Remarkable, even. He can tell you what he felt while teachers held him down. Other things.

There are also circles of hell I have reserved for teachers like Ms. Portillo. Just saying.

You might imagine you know what I feel when I read a story like this. You don’t.

I keep wanting to write a primer for those readers who don’t pay attention to U.S. politics, or maybe just keep an eye on it but skim the details.

The problem is, I usually start in Philadelphia in 1787, with casual conversations in Ben Franklin’s back yard over madeira (think Kool-Aid with booze). It gets longish.

So here’s the short version: Next Wednesday will be an important day.

The Republicans have a nominee. The Democrats have had an amazing, close race for the nomination between two historic candidates, but the Tuesday night election coverage is about to stop.

And what’s interesting (to me) is that we know pretty much what will happen, with one exception.

On Saturday, the Rules Committee will decide what to do with the delegates of Florida and Michigan, who had the temerity to move their primary contests up to January, in hopes of being influential (irony: This year, they should have stayed put. It might have made a huge difference). The Democratic National Committee said, “Fine, go ahead, vote all you like, we won’t pay attention to you. Nah nah. We’re not listening…” and the candidates pledged not to campaign there at all. John Edwards and Barack Obama even got their names taken off the ballot in Michigan. Clinton did not.

So, the committee will reinstate the delegates at half-strength (essentially making Florida more like Wisconsin and Michigan sorta Rhode Island).

On Sunday, Puerto Rico will vote for a nominee and Clinton will win, decisively but maybe not as huge as she likes. This is an esteem builder for Puerto Rico; they can’t vote in the general (i.e., real) election in November, but they like to play anyway.

On Tuesday, Montana and South Dakota will go into the win column for Obama, and the primary season is over. Obama will have won the nomination by virtue of getting a majority of the pledged delegates and the “super” delegates (mostly elected Democratic officials who get to vote and really, really don’t want to). Tuesday night or Wednesday, Obama will unofficially accept the nomination and praise Sen. Clinton, pledge to win in November, say some pointed but polite things about John McCain, and take a long nap.

And Hillary Clinton will have a decision to make.

So watch this carefully. It will be HUGE.

I like Hillary Clinton. I think she’s misbehaved during this season, but in a “politics as usual/winning is everything” sort of way. Some snark, some evasion, some really dumb statements. But nothing nasty, and I still like her and think she would have made a good President. And I can see her making a stirring, gracious concession speech, one that will be talked about for days.

Unfortunately, I can also see her doing something else. I can see her refusing to concede because Florida and Michigan have been gypped, she will say. All of those poor voters who took the time to vote and voted, as it turns out, mostly but not overwhelmingly, for her, are being disenfranchised, and until they get full delegates and voting rights at the convention the race isn’t over, not by a long shot. She’ll fight for them, all the way to the convention, taking it to the mat (or floor) if need be.

This would be bogus, of course. Mrs. Clinton is on record as supporting the decision to nullify Michigan and Florida, back when she was the heavy favorite. Again, this is just hardball politics.

But the Democrats have a history in years when there’s been wrangling and conflict at the conventions. That history is, basically, that they lose in the fall.

So watch for Wednesday. I have no doubt that Sen. Clinton sincerely believes that she is the best candidate, would have the best chance, and would be the best President. If she concedes, it will surprise a lot of people who think she’s ruthless, unconcerned with nothing but her own ambition, willing to take down her party’s chances in November for an almost nonexistent chance at reversing Obama’s victory, or at least ensuring his defeat and herself another shot in 2012. There are lots of people like this, and I look forward to them being surprised.

What I don’t look forward to is seeing them proved right. But that’s what to watch for, anyway. We’ll know in five days. Take that to the bank.

UPDATE: If you’re really, really interested in the whole Michigan/Florida thing, here’s a pretty good summary and explanation.

Beth and I talked about Lucas yesterday, and I mentioned that he had a Ulysses Complex.

I have no idea what that means, actually (Google gets me some psychobabble so I stopped), but I heard it somewhere. Maybe it was another Greek.

What I meant, though, was essentially that when it comes to Lucas, it seems that there ain’t no mountain high enough. Lucas was part of Beth’s Scooby gang in high school, and he managed to drag her along on some mini-adventures. Or at least that’s what I understand (First rule of Dads: Ask a minimum of questions, especially if you suspect it might involve your daughter illegally entering another country on a whim. That’s all I’m saying).

I not only admire Lucas for his sense of adventure, but I love the way he cracks open stereotypes. Lucas is the kind of guy who would drive a car with a bumper sticker that said, “Bush Is The Devil,” and if you looked inside you’d see it packed with hunting and fishing gear.

He also plays a mean viola and speaks about a hundred languages.

A while back I followed Lucas’ year-long stay in Europe by way of his blog, and lately I’ve been living vicariously through his reports from Chile, where he’s been working for a few months. Other people talk about going to the ends of the earth; Lucas just gets on a plane and goes.

His stay is nearing an end, so if you have any adventure in your soul check out his blog. Read back, too; he provides unusual and perceptive insight into other places that you won’t easily find elsewhere. And stay tuned: I’m sure he’ll be going some place distant and different in the near future. Mars, maybe. Nebraska, who knows?

You can also read his mom’s blog here, and learn about her recent trip down south to visit her wayward son. You will very much appreciate toilet paper from now on.

“You can’t tell how far a frog will jump until you punch him.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton. Yeah. I have no idea either. But I’m saving it for the day that I really, really need to use it.

Still have a few lingering questions about the skinny black guy with the funny name who’s running for President? What’s the deal with the Muslim thing, and the flag pin thing, and the hand over his heart thing? Does he hate America, or what?

Those and other questions can be answered! In about 90 seconds.

Link.

Mark Evanier has another one of his wonderful personal reminiscences, this time on Harvey Korman, who passed away yesterday at age 81.

Dick Martin, Sidney Pollack, Harvey Korman…almost like they die in three’s, isn’t it? (OK, that’s for my mom. Probably everybody’s mom.). I loved Korman on The Carol Burnett Show and in “Blazing Saddles,” and the news brought back lots of good memories, but I can’t compete with standing on Broadway in New York watching Harvey Korman spontaneously entertain under a huge sign featuring…well, just go read it for yourself.

When I slipped on the stairs in 2000 and broke my tailbone, I became something of a coccyx expert out of necessity (it took two years to heal). And “necessity” is an interesting word here, since the coccyx is, apparently, superfluous. Extraneous. An evolutionary remnant, or God’s sense of humor on an off day. All I know is that it really, really hurts if you break it.

Although there’s this tidbit:

Whereas babies born with six fingers or toes are rare, he says, the coccyx can and often does consist of anything from three to five bony segments. What’s more, there are more than 100 medical reports of babies born with tails (italics mine; not that they were necessary, either).

Read about Five Things Humans No Longer Need (hint: The appendix isn’t on the list. But then neither is William Shatner).

Have you ever inadvertently stuck a light bulb in a glass half filled with milk, put it in the microwave and turned it on? Yeah. I hate when that happens. Not to mention the thing with grapes.

Video enlightenment (67 seconds)

(Photo: Elise Amendola/Associated Press)

Mark Leibovich writes about Hillary Clinton’s recent tendency to end her long days with a libation or two.

On Wednesday night, after a late event in Rapids City, South Dakota, Mrs. Clinton strode to the back of her campaign plane nursing a generous tumbler of amber-colored liquid that turned out to be Maker’s Mark bourbon.

Mrs. Clinton steadied herself between two seats and held court for the diminishing pool of reporters who are accompanying her campaign in the last days of the primary season. Fernando Suarez, an “embed” for CBS news who has been traveling with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign since October, asked Mrs. Clinton if she had ever been to Mount Rushmore before ­ as she had been earlier in the day. Mrs. Clinton said she had in fact.

“Before you were born,” she added, looking at Mr. Suarez, who is 29, and noting that “I did a lot of things before you were born.” She swirled the bourbon in her glass and nodded mischievously.

“And thank god you weren’t around,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “Or I wouldn’t have enjoyed any of them.”

This makes me like her a lot more, somehow.

Michael Kinsley imagines Scott McClellan’s inner monologue:

And another thing: If I did not support the policies that I advocated—important policies, vital to my entire philosophy of government, such as making things up and challenging the patriotism of opponents—why didn’t I say something at the time? As I used to tell me, my door was always open to myself. But as far as I know, I never uttered a peep of complaint or disagreement. And I ask you: Who would know if I didn’t?

Spot on. I know expecting someone to raise a hand and say, “Hold on, boss. We can’t just lie to the American people about war. People can die and stuff. I mean, dude. I can’t work here under those conditions” is a fantasy. I just wish we didn’t have to listen to mea culpas while woulda-coulda-shoulda guys get rich.

Unfortunately for Mr. McClellan, currently the best way to sell a book is to appear on The Daily Show. Let’s hope Jon Stewart is in a bad mood that night.

“Why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he’s raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.”

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, back in 2004 when Richard Clarke’s book about his tenure in the Bush administration was released. McClellan, of course, has a new book out, none too kind to his former boss.

A Brit comes to America and discovers the ultimate truth about cowboy boots.

I had previously wondered, while watching No Country for Old Men, how actual people rushed about the desert in these boots. I now discovered why - they are uncannily comfortable and amazingly cool (in both senses). Fired up by this, when I got to a cowboyish city I bought a new pair - even more comfortable - and then ordered a custom made pair… I now intend, if possible, never to wear anything else on my precious feet. One London friend was shocked - ‘but they have those bits that rise up your legs.’

OK, you won’t but you should. Just take four minutes and watch this wonderful mashup by a creative guy, combining Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal with Fred Astaire, remarkably edited from “Daddy Long Legs” and “The Band Wagon.” That’s Leslie Caron at the jukebox. Just four minutes.

At the four-minute mark, of course, Cyd Charisse starts dancing, and then you’re in for the duration.

Link.

Seattle waterfront, 1869.

Really. 1869.

(Click to see larger. Thanks to VintageSeattle.org, a great site)

My weekly column is now up:

There is a conceit, among those of us who have seen our share of birthdays, that we own our history, that we are sole proprietors of what happened when we were there. We scoff a little, condescend or at best minimize what younger generations think they know. This is a bad bet, I think; memories are tricky things. I can attempt to enlighten you about the economic downturn of the early 1970s, for example, which I remember anecdotally and can cross-reference with any number of cultural examples, but this is coming from a guy who hasn’t seen his car keys in a while. Skepticism may be in order.

You can read the rest here, and also witness the local attempt at Web 2.0, or some such thing. You can even comment now. Someone should do that, just for fun.

No, wait. EVERYONE should comment. EVERYBODY DO THAT RIGHT NOW. C’mon, it’ll be fun.

I stand by the piece, of course, because I’d look pretty stupid if I didn’t. For those of you who just don’t like to click on links (and how did you get here, hmmm? Hike in?), I expressed my opinion that Hillary Clinton made a mistake in using the A-word in South Dakota (or anywhere, but she was in South Dakota at the time). Assassination. Looks like an unforced error to me.

She didn’t need a gaffe to seal her doom, assuming that escaping six more months of campaigning is doom, but it didn’t help. My feeling still is that she simply was using the 1968 trauma, the murder of Robert Kennedy, as a reference point; I don’t believe it was code, or deliberate or even unconscious.

Ask me when Saddam Hussein was finally captured in Iraq; go ahead. On December 14, 2003. How do I know? It was the day before my father’s funeral, because I heard the news in the airport. I know my father was buried on December 15 because it was also my daughter’s 19th birthday. And so on. This is how we remember stuff.

I also don’t believe, by the way, that it was exaggerated by the media or the Obama campaign. I watched the video again last night, and it’s jarring. I understand how people could jump to conclusions.

It looks like it’s dying off now, despite all the fuss, and despite Keith Olbermann’s rant on Friday night, on MSNBC. I like Keith but he looked like an idiot, foaming at the mouth over an incantation of forbidden words.

And if, God forbid, something were to happen to Obama before the general election, Hillary would look like the worst kind of ghoul, no fault of her own. Sigh. It just wasn’t her time, I guess.

Anyway. Have you commented on the column yet? Go do that.

Another nice remembrance of Sidney Pollack, this time in Slate.

On an upcoming episode of The Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes,” we get a look at the final carb frontier. Nerd out.

Jacob Weisberg paints an interesting picture of John McCain from last summer, when he was everybody’s first choice to be last. It’s a nice portrait of a funny, frank man, and it reminds me of why to so many Democrats, for so long, McCain was the Republican they loved to love. Politics, sheesh.

Like this:

Left-over pizza

Still tastes just great they say. But

I can’t confirm that

More.

2008 is already the worst year for tornadoes in 10 years in the U.S., and we’re only halfway through.

And nobody really knows why.

Paul/Jill,

I just wanted to let you know that I will not be able to come into work tomorrow. Something came up at home and I had to go to New York this morning for the next couple of days. I apologize for the delayed notice.

Kind regards,
Kevin

This was the email that Kevin Colvin sent to his bosses at the bank he works at (although the present tense may be optimistic on my part) recently. It was a fib, as it turns out; he actually went to a Halloween party, as you can see:

Lying makes baby Jesus cry, as we all know, and Paul Davis, Kevin’s boss at the bank, apparently got suspicious and did some searching, finding the above photo on Facebook.

“Mr. Davis’ response was swift and, well, perfect. Attaching Kevin’s incriminating photo to an e-mail and BCCing the entire company, he responded:

Kevin,

Thanks for letting us know—hope everything is ok in New York. (cool wand)“

(Link to article)

And if you want even more laughs, here’s a hilarious British video of the consequences of Facebook and other social networking. Trust me; it’s very funny.

It’s dangerous out there, or it can be, depending on your definition of scary stuff. On the other hand, if you venture online with personal information, as a lot of us do, I have sympathy if you get burned but, you know, not that much.

There’s the recent New York Times Magazine piece by Emily Gould, a 26-year-old former Gawker.com writer who suffered some discomfort because she had a big mouth (or whatever) when it came to her private life, and now has some (lots, actually) thoughts on the whole thing:

Of course, some people have always been more naturally inclined toward oversharing than others. Technology just enables us to overshare on a different scale. Long before I had a blog, I found ways to broadcast my thoughts — to gossip about myself, tell my own secrets, tell myself and others the ongoing story of my life. As soon as I could write notes, I passed them incorrigibly. In high school, I encouraged my friends to circulate a notebook in which we shared our candid thoughts about teachers, and when we got caught, I was the one who wanted to argue about the First Amendment rather than gracefully accept punishment. I walked down the hall of my high school passing out copies of a comic-book zine I drew, featuring a mock superhero called SuperEmily, who battled thinly veiled versions of my grade’s reigning mean girls. In college, I sent out an all-student e-mail message revealing that an ex-boyfriend shaved his chest hair. The big difference between these youthful indiscretions and my more recent ones is that you can Google my more recent ones.

There’s been a fair amount of bitching and moaning about this in the blogosphere, most of it opining (as I do) that tough, this is the price you pay and by the way, hello? Karma sucks.

(Meg Fowler has a well-thought-out take on this situation, and also from a SWF POV; read her and not me on the subject.)

My point in all this, though, is that I’ve been writing about my personal life (or oversharing, depending on your take) in print and online for seven years now, including five years in this wacky blogosphere, and I want to stop now.

Or cut back, or move on, something. It’s not because of privacy; it always seemed easier to my lazy self to just lay it all out there rather than edit, even though I’ve tried to be discreet at times and avoid hurting feelings or violating someone else’s privacy (and failed at all, from time to time). But in the past year or so, the thrill is gone. Or the angst is gone, or I’ve run out my string. Or I’m just bored with my own life, which is not such a bad thing.

And from time to time, as I wander the Web, I’ve had a funny thought, which is: You should really blog.

Seriously, I mean. Blog the way bloggers I love and read blog; not journal, but comment, link, point, assess and make fun of stuff. It’s even occurred to me that I could start another blog, or maybe several, but then the laziness factor kicked in. Besides, this is my place, with my name on it and everything.

This is a political season so of course there’ll be politics, and mine shouldn’t be a secret (fan of Obama, not happy with Hillary, disappointed in McCain, but overall mostly just enjoying the show; no bitterness or clinging for this boy). But there are other subjects, and I’ll still blog about my lawn and my dog and the people I love (like — Beth just got a new apartment! In Cambridge! Near Harvard! With room for three guests at a time! You should go visit!) from time to time. And if I drum up some angst, I guess I’ll angstisize from time to time.

So we’ll see how it goes. I may lose you all; I may gain others, I may get no readers at all. I have no investment, actually, in numbers or comments or stats, although those can be interesting and nice. Mostly I still want to share, but this time less about me and more about what I’m seeing, if that makes any sense.

Thanks for reading so far, anyway. And if this doesn’t suit me, I’ll fold my tent and go into fulltime janitor work or something else, but in the meantime you’ll be seeing some activity here, and it will be, more or less, more like me.

And unlike Meg, I have no problems posting about religion. Sex, either.

No wand jokes, though.

James Wolcott, from his blog, on director/producer/actor Sidney Pollack, who died yesterday at the age of 73 after a long battle with cancer:

And when it comes to pure comedy, Tootsie, sure, but let’s not forget Pollack’s recurring role as Will’s philandering father on Will & Grace, where he conveyed a sense of grounded gravitas even at his most foolish and dissembling, trying to appease both his bimbo mistress (Lesley Ann Warren) and his imperturbable wife (the great Blythe Danner). The body of work remains and the best of it will endure but his death still feels wrong–a life-force like his should have had still longer to go.

If you want more on Mr. Pollack, here’s a nice piece in Salon on him.

Digby gets angry at John McCain’s (and Pres. Bush’s) opposition to Jim Webb’s (D-VA) GI Bill, because they say it will discourage reenlistment (McCain has offered alternate legislation, which ain’t going anywhere, that makes college benefits for vets a sliding scale. Sort of like at the public health clinic).

Right. We should be generous, but let’s not go crazy. Those bastards who think they deserve to have the government pay for their college after just a few years in uniform simply don’t deserve it. Sure, they may put themselves in the line of fire in Iraq or Afghanistan for a couple of tours and maybe they work for peanuts and their families are on food stamps while they do it. But that’s no reason for them to cheat the taxpayers by taking a college scholarship when they are needed indefinitely in the war zones. They’re nothing but a bunch ‘o big babies.

Angry AND sarcastic, I think I should add. Sometimes people can’t tell.

I don’t know how we missed it, those of us who faithfully watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation” back when it was cool and cutting edge. Now somebody with a video editing program and lots of time on his hands shows us what they were really talking about.

(NOTE: Safe for work, as long as the speakers aren’t too loud; it’s funny how innocuous lines don’t come off that way when you have a dirty mind.)

Really. Watch it.

Link

I always wonder about this, usually in the drive-through teller line at the bank. Should I turn off the engine? Would it save gas, or take more to start it back up? What to do? And WHERE’S THE DAMN DEPOSIT SLIP?

OK, now I have an answer (which is, turn it off, but then you probably knew that).

For those of you following the current waning days of the Democratic Party primary season, you might (depending on your point of view, of course) be aware of the big ol’ fluffy straw man the Clinton campaign has constructed; that is, Sen. Clinton and her surrogates are claiming, relentlessly and aggressively, that various unnamed sinister forces are trying to “push” her out of the race. This is just good politics, of course, and I don’t blame her at all, but it’s amusing just the same. No one’s pushing. Stay, compete, hang in there — the damn thing’s nearly tied, after all, although Obama is going to take the nomination. But by all means stay and fight; certainly the news media will miss you when you’re gone and don’t want you to go.

So here’s Bill Clinton on Sunday:

“I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running. … I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out.”

Whoops. The Jed Report decides to enlighten him with some sweet memories of 1992. It’s fun to read, no commentary necessary.

I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for John McCain during those five years he was a POW; can’t begin, won’t try. And over the years I’ve read a lot of stories about how that experience shaped the man he became, including the politician, all of these good and honorable things. It was a piece in The New Yorker, actually from 20 or more years ago, that first brought him to my attention and made me think he was cut from a different cloth that most people in Washington.

But politics is a strange business, just full of compromise and contradiction, and the senator now has a lot more exposure. This from an interesting, although not particularly flattering, article in The American Prospect:

When John Kerry made his Vietnam heroism a centerpiece of his 2004 presidential campaign, his colleague John McCain thought it unwise. “I said, ‘Look, you shouldn’t talk about Vietnam because everybody else will. Let everybody else do it,’” McCain told the Washington Post. “In my [2000] campaign, as you know, I didn’t talk about it because I didn’t need to.”

McCain was half right. It’s true that he didn’t need to; in that campaign, as in this one, reporters seldom forgot to mention that McCain was a POW in Vietnam. In fact, according to Lexis-Nexis, in the first three months of 2008 over a thousand newspaper articles mentioned that McCain was a prisoner of war. Journalists often use “former POW” in their stories as an identifier on par with “Arizona senator” or “Republican” — even when his years in Hanoi have nothing to do with the issue or event being discussed. But when McCain asserted that he “didn’t talk about it,” he was being either strikingly dishonest or simply delusional. The truth is that he brings it up all the time.

Earle Hagen, the composer of “Harlem Nocturne” and countless movie and TV themes, including the Marilyn Monroe film “Let’s Make Love” and The Mod Squad, That Girl!, Gomer Pyle, I, Spy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show, has died at the age of 88. Here’s the AP obit, if you’re interested.

What interested ME, though, wasn’t just that his music has filled our homes and ears for so long, but that Mr. Hagen not only wrote the theme song to The Andy Griffith Show, which I assume you’re humming right now and will be for the next several days…but he also whistled it. You know, Andy and Opie with their fishin’ poles, walking down the road? That was Earle. Way to up your royalty checks, dude. I’m a little awed.

I know I have at least one reader in New Mexico, so this one’s for you.

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they’re allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.

(Link)

I seem to be remarkably happy these days, which apparently has a effect — I don’t feel like writing, and when I have to write it comes out amazingly…lame. Almost random. As if 100 monkeys were given their very own licensed versions of Word 2007 and after a century of messing around (mostly with graphics) they came up with a James Frey novel, except with better punctuation.

My happiness, I think, is a result of the daily bilateral therapy I engage in, by which I mean walking. After the big push of last fall, I spent four months or so continuing with regular exercise but in a reasonable way — an hour or day, pretty much. A change in sleep schedule, late nights and relative boredom resulted in some questionable dietary habits, so I started increasing my calorie burning to keep up with my calorie enjoying, and then a couple of weeks ago I felt something was missing. Something important. Besides money and adulation, I mean. And a couple of molars. Some hair in the back.

So I decided discipline was needed, and since I have a low tolerance for ambition I just decided to walk 10 miles a day and see what happened. Mostly I was just looking for the elusive Ice Cream Allowance, enough exercise to offset some Rocky Road, but it seems to have elevated my mood.

“Bilateral therapy,” by the way, is the subject of a book I’ve been reading, “Walking Your Blues Away” by Thom Hartman. Julie bought it for me, although she wasn’t concerned about me and the blues; I think she had just heard me talk about walking so much that she thought a book might shut me up. Ha. Like that’s going to happen.

Hartman’s theory (I think, so far, from what I’ve read) is that the act of walking results in both hemispheres of the brain working in tandem, thus allowing us to work stuff out more efficiently. I should probably finish the book before saying more.

At any rate, I didn’t have the blues but now I sure don’t, and I’m thinking the walking is the cause, although it might be less neurology and just the fact that I’m in fabulous shape. And I am. For an oldish American, anyway.

So that’s why I’ve been away from the blog. Life on the road, pumping out the endorphins, building up muscle tone, soaking up some reluctant rays, talking to dogs and horses and fellow walkers, and occasionally indulging in graveyard shift ice cream because I deserve it. Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggonit, people like me.

Now I just need some monkeys, and I’m good.