Hi. Anyone still here?

I did some blog maintenance today, because the platform was so old that all its security flaws had been exploited and stupid hackers were flooding my world with spam. I think that’s fixed now. I hope. I updated the platform to the most recent version my host provides, and I thought it was going to break everything because I was *so* far behind, but mostly it seems to have just boogered up some of the special characters. Sorry about that. And sorry for any other broken stuff you find.

I think I might be about to get back into the blogging thing. It kind of tapered off when I got, as Ani DiFranco once put it, “distracted.” But there’s now one fewer distraction in my life, and words are starting to circulate through my brain again. In a writing way, I mean. I didn’t stop speaking or anything.

Who knows, maybe there will even be a poem or two around the corner.

This little description coming up is going to make it sound like the last three years have been awful, or soul-crushing or something, but please don’t read it that way. Mostly, they’ve been good.

But now I feel a little bit like I’ve been smashed against a wall, or frozen in a clear plastic cube, or something, and I was watching the world go by — albeit from a limited perspective — and now I’m…coming unstuck.

Anyway. I just wanted to say hi. Hi.

From the woman who gave fish bicycles, to any remaining Hillary supporters considering voting for McCain:

To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, ‘Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.’”

(Gloria Steinem, that is, in the LA Times.)

Anyway, in other I’m-totally-behind-the-news news, apparently “Gilmore Girls” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino blogged the DNC convention for Entertainment Weekly. Most of it’s more thoughtful than this, but here’s a clip that literally brought me to tears:

The names “Obama” and “Biden” form an almost perfect anagram of Osama bin Laden. Simple solution: Obama should change his name to Smith or Williams. He’s always going on and on about changing things, so this should be no problem.

I hate Joe Biden.

I really don’t know anything about his politics, and I’ve never followed anything he’s done closely.

All I really know about him I learned from the John Roberts confirmation hearings, which I watched nearly all of. I remember nearly none of it, except that over the course of the blah blah blah and the blah blah blah I finally reached a point where I posed a danger to my TV every time Joe Biden’s face appeared on it. He was less blah blah blah and more BLAH BLAH BLAH. Like all the hot air he used to dry his hair had seeped into his skull and finally replaced his brain entirely.

I’m open to having my mind changed.

July 4th weekend spawned a variety of commentary on what it means to be “patriotic” — some of it thoughtful, some of it less so. I’m not sure where I’d fall in the mix, but my weekend was celebratory, and further endeared to me this place I call home.

We kicked it off on Thursday with a wine and cheese tasting at nearby Blue Bistro. They’re holding these events from 6pm to 8pm every Thursday in July, but this one was especially tantalizing, paired as it was with the work-free Friday following it. It’s $20 a person for samples of three wines and three accompanying cheeses. This past Thursday included a champagne cheddar served with champagne, a something something served with a something white, and a “true” Stilton served with a something white and sweet. You can tell how seriously I take these things. Seriously, I’m all about the tasting, less about the remembering. We’ll call it, “living in the moment.” And the moment was enjoyable, largely due to the company. The event itself was, well, not so much of an event. I pictured something with a little more ceremony, but they just brought out three glasses and a plate for each person, told us about all six of the items, then left us alone. I guess I was expecting each cheese to come out separately, and in retrospect wonder if that would have made it feel more ceremonious. But whatever. The full menu was also available, and both the red pepper bisque and the polenta — which they were kind enough to serve on its own, no order of less-stellar-salmon required — were outstanding. Their polenta must be half butter, but mmmm is it good.

After we finished our cheese, we returned to the house to continue the “wine tasting”, by which I mean the “wine overindulgence”. This was the first time we’ve had non-family at the new house for any length of time, and if we’d planned it ahead of time things would have been cleaner and more organized, but I also probably would have had less fun.

Friday was all about recovery, doing the cleaning I should have done before guests came over on Thursday, and then heading downtown to see Brasilian-by-way-of-Pittsburgh singer Kenia at the Hilton. Fun music, but we were both zonked, so we headed home relatively early, just in time to hear the fireworks but, due to the opaque buildings lining Second Street, not see them.

Fireworks then became the plan for Saturday, with my family scheduled to come for dinner and a short walk down to the river. At the last minute, though, I checked the schedule again, and saw that Saturday called only for “mini-fireworks” down at Vine Street — about a mile away. So we walked, and as we walked it became clear that I had not been the only one who misunderstood what and where the fireworks for the evening would be. For a while it looked like maybe we were going have them all to ourselves, until a clarifying announcement was made over the loudspeaker, and the droves began walking south.

The mini-fireworks were to accompany the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of the 1812 Overture at the conclusion of their performance. We got there early enough to hear the preceding song or two as well, stayed for the very mini-fireworks display, and then walked back along the river amidst an ever-thinning crowd while the loudspeaker intoned, “RIVERFRONT PARK IS NOW CLOSED. PLEASE EXIT THE PARK.”

And so fireworks became the plan for Sunday, despite that day’s pairing with the work-laden Monday following it. By this point we were really zonked; so zonked, in fact, that we got it in our heads that it would be a good idea to go to Toys R Us and buy bicycles. Yes, bicycles from the toy store. Whatever. We got two Schwinns, apparently models that are so low-end they’re sold only at Toys R Us and Wal-Mart, and aren’t even listed on the Schwinn website. However, they are cute as hell and have two wheels each, and they helped us propel ourselves from here to the north end of Riverfront Park and back again. I’m looking forward to travelling south from here as well, now that the festival stuff has vacated and that section of the park is again open to bikes. Just not for a few more days, until my legs recover.

Luckily, we didn’t have to walk far to get to Sunday’s fireworks. Actually, we walked several blocks further than we had to, in pursuit of a Brasilian/Bluegrass band playing the festival. The plan was to drop in there, then head up to Suba, and then make our way back to the river. We got waylaid, though, by a sign outside the Civic Club of Harrisburg, right next to the stage where the B/B band was playing, indicating that they were serving dinner. Dinner! The woman at the gate suggested that many people like to eat, then hang around for the fireworks. The Civic Club has a lovely lovely building and lovely lovely yard, and is located between the north tip of City Island and the Harvey Taylor Bridge. We were convinced.

According to our server and the menu, the Civic Club is open as a “restaurant” during the three major Harrisburg festivals — ArtsFest, American Music Festival, and Kipona. Food is ably prepared by Karen’s Catering, and apparently service is performed by members of the Civic Club. I still haven’t figured out what the Civic Club does, except that they have a lovely lovely building used mostly for weddings and banquets.

And a yard with a perfect view of the fireworks.

In case you were curious…

http://fldsdress.com/clothing.php?Cat=Underwear

So, we’re in midtown.

Our arrival coincided rather unfortunately with a spate of violence that I’m sure those of you who live in the area heard way too much about — but despite the coincidence, I swear, it wasn’t us. Anyway, the violence appears to have subsided, at least temporarily, following a number of arrests and the arrival of a fleet of shiny new police cars. Ah, Harrisburg.

Violence aside, I do have mixed feelings about the new locale. I love that we can walk downtown, or just up the street, for a fun evening. I love that we apparently know tons of people within a radius of just a few blocks. I don’t love that I worry about finding parking in a safe place if I get home after dark, and that our “yard” is a little concrete fenced-in strip comprising something like 10 square feet. I love the house itself, I just wish it came with two parking spaces and a beautiful-but-low-maintenance courtyard. I’ll keep dreaming.

In other news, I’ve been frantically cooking and consuming vegetables in a desperate effort to keep up with the weekly inundation. The highlight was probably zucchini & summer squash with garlic scape pesto. The low was probably today’s summer squash & beets scrambled eggs. I have a whole buncha beets I need to use up. I keep fantasizing about documenting the adventures, but, you know, I can’t even keep up with this blog, so that’s not very likely.

In their June 9th issue, Newsweek has an article entitled “Is Wal-Mart Too Liberal?“, examining conservative shareholders’ criticisms of Wal-Mart and ilk.

Here’s an excerpt: “…the right-leaning Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF), a tiny libertarian mutual fund, filed resolutions with 20 companies this spring, including Wal-Mart. Most of the FEAF resolutions argue that companies should be more skeptical and resistant as environmentalists push them to reduce their carbon footprint.”

It’s been about ten years since then-friend-now-ex-boyfriend Kevin Gaughen first got me thinking critically about politics, and, in doing so, inculcated in me some pretty strong libertarian leanings. I’m no longer a Libertarian (with a big L) in any sense, although I still have some attachment — perhaps mostly sentimental — to the libertarian (little l) ideals. I think actions like what’s reported above are a big part of why I’ve abandoned the big L.

In my mind, one of the foundations of the libertarian philosophy is the belief that individuals and companies can be more effective and efficient than government in addressing a wide range of issues. For me, Libertarianism was appealing because it included room to be voluntarily compassionate and responsible, without, as Rand would put it, the threat of a gun. But organizations like the FEAF, at least as Newsweek casts them, aren’t arguing against government forcing companies to be greener, they’re apparently against the greening itself, and maybe even against Wal-Mart offering better benefits to low-wage workers.

I thought libertarianism was about opposing government mandates, not opposing voluntary social responsibility.

CNN, The New York Times, and others are reporting that Hillary will announce the suspension of her campaign on Saturday.

CNN has a pdf of the letter she sent to her supporters announcing the, erm, announcement.

I’m so glad that she has decided to do this graciously. Watching her speech on Tuesday night, I thought she was about to endorse Obama; I was pretty stunned when she said she wouldn’t make any decisions that night. Now I feel like maybe I’m giving her credit for more grace than she’s actually shown because the threats for continuing the fight were so awful. I suspect just a few days from now, though, I’ll be happy to hear that she’ll be Obama’s running mate.

So here’s the thing — it sucks that Florida and Michigan decided to ignore the DNC’s rules and move their primaries up. My understanding is that they knew it would cost them seats at the convention.

I should probably preface this little rant with the disclaimer that I hope to vote for Obama (again) in the fall.

If the DNC had said, “Oh, we’ll seat everyone, regardless of when their primaries were held,” and were now considering taking away states’ delegates, I’d be pretty outraged. On the other hand, since the DNC said, “These primaries are invalid,” and the “playing by the rules” thing to do was to boycott the elections, it now seems…unfair…to then seat the delegates from those states. The counterpoint, of course, is that no one should be denied a vote simply because their state party ignored a fairly arbitrary rule.

But. An election in which one candidate doesn’t even appear on the ballot — not because he didn’t have the support, but because he wasn’t supposed to campaign in the state — doesn’t sound to me like a valid election.

In my mind, the ideal solution would have been for Michigan and Florida to hold do-over primaries later in the season. Oh well.

I received today a very inspiring email. “I really miss your blog,” it said, and that was it. I thought about hitting reply and saying, “Me too,” but thought instead that I would just bite the bullet and write something (very) slightly more substantial, and post it — wait for it — to my blog.

So here it is.

I used to spend hours surfing the web and reading news stories looking for things to blog. Now I stumble upon something cool, or hear an interesting story on NPR, and think, “I should blog that.” Of course, I never do.

I used to think this blog was mostly an exercise in narcissism, but I think one of the biggest differences between my life in the blogging-days and my life in these non-blogging-days is to do with the extent to which my attention is focused inward, rather than outward. Those days, I had very little in my own life that was fulfilling or interesting to me, and I was passionate about widening my view, about seeing and understanding (or trying, at least) the things that mattered in the larger world. These days, I have a pretty full home and work life, scads of entertainment options (more on this later), and I have this sense that it’s time to work on understanding what happens next for me. Also, I have more disposable income, so surfing Amazon.com is now less frustrating than surfing NYTimes.com, which is largely just depressing.

The past few weeks, my Amazon time has dwindled as my Monster and Craigslist time has grown. Yes, I’m on the prowl for a job. I’m hoping for something with a title like “Business Analyst,” but I’ve sent resumes off for some totally unrelated things, too. I want something that stretches my brain, requires creative problem-solving, and has room for growth. Know of anything?

Entertainment. In the past few months I’ve acquired a Wii, an Amazon Kindle, and now a Wii Fit. I’ve got fun stuff to do out the wazoo. Next month, I get a new house, in midtown Harrisburg, in which to put it all. (We’re just renting, so I don’t really get the house, just use of its walls for a year.) Today I got an entertainment hybrid, in the form of the first round of the summer’s CSA share. Maybe doesn’t sound like entertainment to you, but I had a blast this evening looking up recipes containing mesclun mix, radishes, spring onions, and more. I was going to include a link, but apparently WordPress is broken, and when I link to things, it doesn’t display anything I’ve written after the tag. Anyway, making food utilizes those creative problem-solving skills, and they’re quite yummy.

Food and video games aside, I’m really enjoying the Kindle. It’s exactly what it’s intended to be, and it’s enhancing my experience of the world. I’m reading way more since I got it, because I never have to decide which book to take with me, and I have Newsweek wirelessly delivered every week, so I’m getting print news in a way I haven’t done in years. If I could blog from it (I suppose I could, just not easily), maybe you’d be reading more updates.

The Wii Fit is fun, too, in very different but still wholesome kind of way. Today’s only day two with it, so who knows if it’ll last, but I’ve never enjoyed fake hoola-hooping in my living room so much. The gluteus maximus is a little sore, though.

This is probably a very different sort of blog entry than the kind today’s emailer was envisioning that he missed. Maybe there’ll be something more relevant to other people’s lives later. Maybe not.