A couple of important items of writerly note:

1) If you are in the Wantagh, NY area tomorrow night, you will want to go hear Ellen Meister speak about and read from her forthcoming debut novel, Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Ellen read and I can tell you it is a real treat. So don’t miss it.

2) Big CONGRATULAIONS to Patry Francis, who just announced her book deal. Way to go, Patry!

Yesterday was the memorial service for Allen’s grandmother, Evelyn. She was 97 when she died (just over two weeks ago). Evelyn was a life-long lover of reading and a woman with a non-ending thirst for knowledge. The last time she stayed with us, a year ago, she was reading a book by Charles Kuralt on his travels around the country. She was captivated by the book because one of her other passions was travel–not necessarily traveling herself (though she had) but reading about it.

Whenever I sat with her for her meal (breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner) she would talk about what she’d read in the Kuralt book or what she’d read in the paper (with her magnifying glass) or she would somehow relate the two. Even the last time we saw her, which was just a little over a month ago, though her mind was leaving her, she still had a book on her bedside table.

And so this is what I know, books never leave you. Even when most of those you grew up with have died and the friends you once knew are gone, you still have those people you hold dear, your memories, and your books. And if you have your books, you’ve always got an opportunity to learn and to grow, even when you are in your 90s.

And so, from one life-long reader to another: Evelyn, I salute you. And as for the rest of us, may we be so blessed to leave this world with a book we’ve been reading on our bedside table.

Is Pat Robertson out of his mind? Why, yes, it seems that he is–Evangelist says voters reject God:

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city,” Mr Robertson said on The 700 Club.

The cold is here. Or moving in. Seeping. I’ve been waiting for it. Anticipating it. And now, today, I am legitimately cold. My right hand is shriveling into a claw and yet I am resisting turning up the heat because I don’t want to use more oil than necessary so that those motherfuckers can’t hold our use of oil against us and drill in the arctic.

If it were not dark by three year round in the holler I live in, I would have solar panels. For sure.

Am not looking forward to snow.

But then when it gets cold like this and snow is on the mind you can do something gorgeous and self-indulgent (because you know how it will make you feel) like pour a glass of red wine and read The Dead (the best short story ever) and wait in anticipation of the last paragraph when your heart gets ripped out of your chest:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Paper Street Press has a redesigned web site (and it looks like their Fall 2005 issue–here’re some samples from the journal–is available for order). The site looks gorgeous. Go on and check it out.

The US is a country that does not value the pedestrian. There. I have said it.

Evidence of such:

Today as I was walking my dog–after at least an inch of rain last night–this woman chose to go THROUGH the pothole on the dirt road and drench us in water as opposed to avoiding it. Yes, she did stop and over a meek apology (first time that’s ever happened) through the window of her van, but I was still furious. Why? Because she was driving at too high a speed. You should not drive fast on dirt roads, you fucking dumbass. It is hard to stop and you put people walking alongside them at risk. Not to mention that they are riddled with potholes and you can get people and dogs WET!

No doubt she was in a big rush to get home and do her yogalates and was on her cellphone to save time and that three seconds she saved by spraying me and Darby with filthy water really helped her keep her day in check.

Well you know what I say to her, Buy me a new pair of pants, lady, because you ruined the ones I was wearing.

And this is certainly not the first time I’ve been drenched. I’m on the roads a lot. I walk my dog. I run. I get out and take long walks to think. To commune.

But people seem to find this odd. What are you doing walking? These roads are for CARS.

Oh yeah. Right. Sorry. Silly me. Please, spray me with that puddle for being stupid enough to walk.

The other thing is that even people who WALK and hike (you have no idea how many people do not know that the person going UP the trail always has right of way–it just makes sense) seem to have lost any sense of propriety.

People, you must walk AGAINST traffic. Do not put me at risk when I am out walking or running by walking with traffic. Because if you do, I’m just staying the course. Staying on my side of the road and it will be you and your silly-ass out on the road with the cars at your back. Every day I am met by adults and children (which worries me because they should be learning this now) walking with traffic and these are narrow roads with no shoulders.

You ALWAYS must walk against traffic. It is unsafe not to. There. That is my parental moment of the day.

And while I’m at it, walk SINGLE FILE when others are sharing the sidewalk, trail, etc with you. Do not fucking continue to walk two or three abreast as you see me and my companion coming at you (even if we have moved into single file, which we would have). How DARE you? And this is not just young people. I’m met by this group of women walkers in their 50s and 60s who should know better who refuse to give way on the sidewalk. But I make them do it anyway because it’s rude.

This is me, heading at you, running at top speed, against traffic, with my elbows out.

WATCH out.

This was a lesson I learned as a small child from my mum, “Walk single file girls. Don’t walk two abreast girls. Single file. Single file.” And we did.

Because we cared about the comfort of others.

And I still do.

But afterwards I fume at the arrogance, the uncaring of people who think it’s more imporant to drive top speed on dirt roads and spray unsuspecting people, than it is to slow down to a decent speed.

My god. It has happened.

I am officially a curmudgeon.

Mississippi Review‘s new issue–The New America–is live and it features work by such people as: Bill Moyers, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky.

This is the best news I’ve heard in a long time:

Dear Myfanwy,

This is just a quick “thank you” note, in case you haven’t already seen the good news. Late last night, the House of Representatives dropped plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

TrueMajority members sent 40,000 messages to Congress over the weekend, insisting that at least this one last wild place be saved for purposes other than filling gas tanks. Despite heavy pressure from deep-pocketed industry lobbyists, your voices were heard. The provision to sink wells into the wildlife refuge has been stripped from the budget bill. Here are a couple of news items with the details: “House Drops ANWR From Budget.” Anchorage Daily News, 11/10/2005; “Alaska Drilling Plan Shelved.” CBS News, 11/10/2005. There is a chance this bad idea will rise from the grave one more time; if it does, we’ll let you know so you can quickly act.

And this is just the latest piece of positive news. As you already know, last month after TrueMajority members urged the Senate to support an amendment banning the use of torture by American forces, that body passed the torture ban by a huge 90-9 margin. We still need to repeat that victory in the House to make the amendment law, and we know you’ll be ready when that time comes.

The best thing we can do to ensure more victories is to bring more friends into the fold. To celebrate saving the refuge, send this link to 5 people you know who also care about America’s future — it invites them to sign up for action alerts, so next time we’ll be even stronger.

http://action.truemajority.org/TrueMajority/join.tcl

Watching Washington for you,
Darcy Scott Martin

p.s. — a special thanks to you folks in Montana, New Mexico, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon — those states had the highest percentage of TrueMajority members who sent message to defend the wildlife refuge!

Ms. Lori reviews Jarhead (and makes me laugh because she is very funny).

The Surviving the Workday blog has a new feature: Ask the Theologian. And what should you ask? Questions that are workplace and spirituality related.

Laila’s reading last night was, as expected, superb. She read two excerpts from Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, focusing on the character Aziz. The audience was captivated.

And so was I, but I was also the dufus who shut off her cellphone just as the reading was beginning but who hadn’t changed it so it didn’t make noise as it shut down. So there were several seconds–which felt like hours to me–of a loud chiming coming from my person. In addition, my camera has a CRAZY flash and so at one point I believe I might have blinded Laila (you will not be seeing that photo because her eyes are closed, as are the eyes of everyone in the audience because the flash was tantamount to a nuclear explosion). Still, my unfortunate gaffs did not deter Laila from giving an excellent reading and from answering some lively questions from the audience afterwards.

Reading alongside Laila, was Christopher Castellani from his book The Saint of Lost Things. I found him utterly charming and shall be buying his book for sure.

After the reading, we went to dinner with Laila, the utterly delightful Xujun Eberlin (Xujun’s most recent published story can be found in AGNI 62) and her husband, as well as the very cool Bookdwarf and her partner. It was a fun night and I’m so glad we made the trip to Cambridge to celebrate Laila and her book.

Have you ever seen or had an experience with an endangered species? Did the experience move you? Would you be different for not having had it? If so, help save the endangered species act and tell you story here.