Snippets

I've been busy. It's no excuse for avoiding my public. Do I have a public? How many persons do I need to constitute a public?

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Condoleezza Rice is coming to Bucknell next week. On Friday the 13th, no less. One must register online to receive an admission ticket, one per person; members of the public need to register in lottery fashion to be eligible for a limited number of randomly-drawn tickets. The event will be simulcast in the chemistry auditorium. . .

I am thinking about getting a ticket. I am thinking about rushing the stage and giving our Secretary of State a decent haircut.

Okay, I don't really know how to cut hair. But if I did. . .

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When Deirdre was in Macedonia for the Struga Festival (surreal gig), she met an interesting Macedonian poet and encouraged him to send her some work. Which I eagerly asked to see. Which excited me very much when I read it. Which excited all the editors at last week's meeting. I'm truly delighted to say we're going to publish five poems by Nikola Madzirov in our 30th anniversary issue.

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My sister was in a coworker's car the other day--this was somewhere in Ohio or Indiana, I didn't ask--when they noticed a big gob of black limos taking up half the freeway, trailed by a helicopter. It was Dubya's motorcade. Sis, thinking fast, yells to her friend Get in the fast lane! (I didn't even know you could do this with The Motorcade). As their car pulls alongside Dubya's limo, my sister leans halfway out the window, arm extended, waving an emphatic single-finger salute in a circular motion at the Big Cheesy. She fucking flipped the bird at the President.

You go, Sis.

Here in central PA, when Dick (Cheney, but he'll always be just Dick to me) came to town, the Secret Service hauled off a woman (a white-haired sixty-something-year-old woman) and interrogated her for hours, simply because she had held up a protest sign.

As the old bumper sticker goes, I love my country but I fear my government.

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We cleaned up the terrarium this weekend and got Randy a couple of pitcher plants--wee ones--to see how they go. He wants to find some sundews as well.

We put the laundry room storm windows back in, always a sign that fall is definitely here. I've been taking cuttings, repotting some plants to bring inside, giving others away. I'm hoping that we won't have frost for a few more weeks: the pineapple sage is covered with buds, but needs at least two weeks before it will bloom. I plant one every year--they're not hardy this far north--and if we're lucky, they're completely covered by mid-October with bright red tubular blossoms. I've even seen late-season hummingbirds checking them out. So neat.