Nudged!

[darkemeralds]

serenity_valley hath nudged me.

::waves at serenity_valley::

She noticed that my last post was eight weeks ago. Here's why:

1. Deadlines
2. Another hard drive crash, this one unrecoverable
3. Economy
4. Leg-warmers
5. His Dark Materials

1. Three weeks of deadline-meeting work on the project, involving evenings and weekends--I mean, evenings and weekends actually spent in the office. Working. It throws a person off, you know?

2. It's amazing how oddly floaty and cut-off I feel, having lost all my email and about a year's writing. Fifty bucks' worth of backup software and an hour's attention could have prevented this. Again. But no. Denial is a powerful force. I have finally established a regular backup procedure.

3. I'm starting to understand what "fixed income" means. The spending power of my salary has stagnated for years and is starting to creep backwards. So I'm eschewing both driving and restaurants. I've been spending a lot more time cooking and not-driving than I used to. Given number 1, above, there have been days when I've brought my breakfast, lunch, and dinner to work with me in a bag. On the bus.

4. My dancer niece tells me that leg-warmers are back in style. Oh yay. So I started knitting her a pair of stripey wool ones. And now I'm back on an obsessive knitting bender.

5. I've been listening to the marvelous audiobook version of Phillip Pullman's fantasy trilogy for the last few weeks. It's a challenging story that takes up a lot of mind-space. I want a daemon of my own!

And also? Dumbledore is gay. How cool is that?

Comments

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how many times I thought about the backup procedure you described to me last time my computer crashed. I thought and thought...

I'm concerned that even when it is 2009, there will be no change. I've gently stopped hoping for Gore now. I don't like my other apparently-viable choices (though Dodd has impressed me lately). I see no Sign of Spine. Do you? Who do you like for the nomination?

HDM is so wildly and blatantly anti-religious and thinky and deep and imaginative and startling that it overwhelms its own storytelling defects with its sheer brilliance. I think you'll enjoy it--but it ain't no Harry Potter. You think devilish satan-worshipping wizardry worried the wingnuts? Hoo boy. And polar bears.

Re Dumbledore: I'm still waiting for the far-more-obvious Sirius/Remus love to be authorially confirmed. But yes, it was hard to avoid the implication that Dumbledore had been in love with Grindlewald, and I celebrate JKR for putting it out there.

[serenity-valley.livejournal.com]

Dodd has been really impressive lately, I agree. No chance in hell, but my respect for him his grown quite a bit since he started his campaign -- his latest is actually the most recent in a series of really smart and savvy moves. Who knows, maybe he really could be a contender?

But no, Edwards is and has been my guy since the 2004 primaries. He's made some missteps and I don't agree with him on a few things, but I think generally, he's a great candidate and could be a really terrific -- and soundly, genuinely progressive -- President. He has been speaking up, and speaking up regularly and loudly, about the war, FISA, torture, wiretapping, the economy, taxes, education, and of course his signature issue, poverty. That makes him the first candidate since Roosevelt to make tackling poverty a true cornerstone of his platform.

And of course, he's the ONLY candidate with a complete and comprehensive universal health care proposal. Not only that, but universal health care proponents have endorsed his proposal enthusiastically (check out Ezra Klein on this topic, as well as his study of the Edwards proposal for more info, and he has links to other sources and whatnot). What there is of Clinton's is almost a straight up copy of Edwards' (and his was announced and posted on his site months before hers). Obama says a lot of platitudes that are sure to get applause and states the obvious that we all agree about how insane our healthcare system is, and does some handwaving, but as for a real plan that he's put out there for critical examination? Nada.

But you know the media and how they decide who the frontrunners are and how the race will be defined and blah blah blah...Edwards can't seem to crack through that. (And in fact I've read several insider baseball type stories that reporters don't like him and don't like that he won't play the game with him, so they've cut him out of their little junior high popularity pageant.) They've decided on their narrative of Clinton vs. Obama and nothing's going to break them out of their little feedback loop. Edwards does have a very real shot of winning Iowa, but if he doesn't, I think that'll be the end of his candidacy (although the Feb 5th "national" primary might put him back in play, especially with Nevada; don't even get me started on the Iowa/New Hampshire thing).

And you know Al Gore has been and always will be my hero and my long history of loving him unreasonably, but I've known since the 2000 election that he wouldn't run again. I think that race broke his heart and I think he's finally made his peace with it. He's moved on and I think he's decided his role in saving the world is going to be different. So as much as I love him, and would campaign until there were blisters on my feet for him, I know he won't run.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

You're a persuasive Edwards promoter! Of the Top Three, I like him far and away the best. Your assessment of the fixed narrative of political mainstream journalists seems very apt. I've been terribly frustrated by the presumption of a nominee almost a year before the convention.

I'm just so hungry to hear someone speak truth! To answer questions! To respond to middle-class America, or what's left of it. Remember when Bill Clinton was first running for Prez? What was so stunning was that he actually answered questions that people asked. Even hard questions by adversarial journalists. I'd vote for and donate to anyone who would just do that. I miss it.

Now that the "Draft Gore" DailyKos diary stars have left my eyes, I see Gore as being hugely more powerful working for climate change out of the White House than risking his life and honor in it. Still...

::sigh::