New Shawl 

I smell like DEET…ahh the smell of summer.

* Random political thought: Why doesn’t Obama pick Al Gore for veep?  I know that my knitting blog, which has three readers, is the most influential place to put this idea. Anyway. My suggestion for McCain is Condoleeza Rice. Or Joe Lieberman.

* Random political thought #2: Oddly, the most thoughtful column I read about the weird use and connotations of phrases like “white working class”  was in AM New York.  

* Random weather thought: Heat waves reminds me INXS’ Never Tear Us Apart. I’m not totally sure why–since I am somewhat notorious for my lack of pop culture, particularly music, knowledge–INXS made an impression on my brain, but there you go. By the way, one of my friends calls Never Tear Us Apart “the middle-school dance song.” “Don’t ask me / what you know is true / Don’t have to tell you / I love your precious heaaaart” Ha! Now it’s stuck in your head too.

* Random summer thought: That INXS song always reminds me of a summer I spent in Boston.

* Random summer thought #2: That summer always makes me think of all the John Updike I read that year. Favorite John Updike book: Too Far to Go.  

* Random John Updike thought: When I waited to have John Updike sign his book of collected short stories a few years ago, I waited in a very very long line, and one woman said, “Reading one of his stories is what made me realized I had to get divorced,” and then a man in front of me said, “Really? One of his stories was why I decided to get married.”

And on that cheerful (or not) note…here’s to knitting on the subway, a surpringly air-conditioned oasis in the sweltering city.

Posted in personal, Uncategorized at June 12th, 2008.