Yesterday morning introduced us to this fall's first frost. We were fortunate to get the kind that froze especially sticky and comes off only with hard scrubbing and early morning sweat.

I just realized that we probably forgot to turn off the heat this morning. We're trying to be very good about not having it on more than necessary, even (usually) turning it off at night (which I forgot to do last night after falling asleep accidentally). My dad would be very proud of how I've been keeping the temp around 55 when we're not home and might even overlook my forgetfulness regarding oil changes.

If you haven't read the obituary of George W Bush by Greil Marcus, you should.

While I'm handing out reading assignments, I also assign you to read this piece on Gary Snyder, his poetry and his focus on the ecological crisis. For those who may not be aware, Gary Snyder is/was a Beat poet, contemporary and friend of Kerouac, Ginsberg, etc. The character of Japhy (in Dharma Bums) is based on him, he was at Ginsberg's famous first reading of "Howl," etc. I wish this article had been around when I did my critical analysis paper on his "Smoky Bear Sutra."

This morning while carpooling to work Stacey and I were talking about how we both feel as if we've matured quite a bit since moving here. Granted, I was 24 when I moved here 3 years ago and she moved here only a year ago and is just 21 now so the situations are a bit different, but it's interesting to look at our development in thinking and perspective. She said that a few years ago she never would have thought of herself married and living in Omaha and actually enjoying a literature class and reading. As part of an education degree she has to take an Intro to Lit. class, a big focus of which is critical literary analysis. She's actually very naturally adept at that sort of thing, which surprises her much more than it does me. I guess it's something I saw in her before she realized it was in her. Then again, I also have a history of projecting qualities on others that I want to see in them, so maybe this time we both just got lucky. Speaking of lucky, we're lucky she has more common sense and is better grounded than I am. I'll spend hours picking something apart the same way I'd work on a term paper when all the situation really calls for is someone who can use eyes and common sense. We generally arrive at the same conclusion. She gets there much more quickly but I can spend an hour explaining it. We do well together that way.

Well, I've managed to make it through an entire entry without discussing or even really referring to the election. It's not that I wouldn't like to, but I've done so enough on the Vagrant board that anything I'd want to post here would need to be more general as opposed to specific to particular discussions going on in the forums.
I will say that I almost ruptured a larynx screaming at Jerry Falwell on Anderson Cooper's program last night. Luckily Ralph Nader was on later and the enthusiastic nodding did my throat good. I wanted to vote for Nader this time around but went pragmatic, hoping against deep odds that perhaps our semi-urban county would possibly squeeze out one electoral vote against Bush (remember, we can do that in Nebraska). The election commission probably won't have the numbers on how close it was in our county until next week but my guess is that it wasn't even close.

The soundtrack to this entry was provided by Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.