In an Effort to Get People to Look into Each Other’s Eyes More, and Also to Appease the Mutes, the Government Has Decided to Allot Each Person Exactly One Hundred and Sixty-Seven Words, Per Day

I didn't watch or listen to Obama's speech, I said. L didn't either, neither did K. We don't know whether D did or not: he was at home hoping his get me through one more storm, Lord sump pump didn't fail. L said, I can't remember seeing greener grass, greener leaves in September, then we were all comfortably quiet. How's the semester? somebody eventually asked and the other two mehhed. No one felt like talking. No one felt compelled to talk. K's husband called: find a different route home, and soon please, the main route is flooded. I mowed my lawn this past Sunday, I said. The sun hasn't shined since Saturday, the grass is neon green and needs cutting. L's partner txtd, Canal's closed. That's my usual way home too. She had to go across a jammed Key to Wherever Virginia, I needed labyrinth my way through NW and Bethesda to Kensington, Beach Drive closed. No time for a second round; no one had a chance to win the night's ridiculously priced scotch. One quick, gently quiet round then spooky drive home, a great uncanny night I'll always remember.

• An end of politics?
• F9U1C1K.
• F9U1C1K.
• F9U1C1K.
• F9U1C1K.  
• F9U1C1K.
• The neo-liberal mafia.
• The illusion of free markets.
• On the above.
• How to make your blog instantly popular.
• Tea Party's Cold War roots.
• Sabots and sans-culottes.
• Technoproles.
• Good-bye to all that.
• Bullshit.
• The Obama they elected.
• Shorter Obama job speech.
• Obama's speech at Your Fucking Washington Post op-ed page: Meyerson loved it, Milbank mehhed it, Rubin hated it, Dionne loved it, and the World's Shittiest Human would have hated it if he didn't have the day off, as anyone could have predicted.
• Gore's mini-obamapostasy!
• The ONLY THING the cracker base cares about is which mouth-breathing pig scares Liberals the most.
• K did ask me the traditional "how's blogging?" and I said "same," then when home, typed this into an email to a friend: I think the guy who claims to be an e-acquaintance meant that linking be blogwhoring - that's what was suspect, that I wasn't a tovarich, I was ginning for hits, not that I was an infiltrator, or anything like that. Just a slut. See, I've still problems thinking people understand my blog-speak. Happens in real life all the time too. This actually is one of my cruxes, and the main topic of just about everything I write: I think people know what I'm talking about when I'm abbreviating in advance. So, yeah: same.
• F9U1C1K.
• Top eleven existentialists novels?
• A great five minutes.
• A bell for every minute.
• Was in a meeting yesterday where a discussion on who should be the go-between between conflicting parties (guess who got nominated), so guess what's in my head:

THE QUIET WORLD

Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look

into each other’s eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred   

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear   

without saying hello. In the restaurant   

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,   

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.   

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,

I know she’s used up all her words,   

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line   

and listen to each other breathe.