Goodbye October.

Morning run and three days after Halloween, still millions of multicolored candy wrappers entangled in brown fallen leaves on the sidewalk.

Can I Buy You A Drink?

As of 11/01, Meg-a-mart is 21.

Brief and Wondrous.

So I was robbed yesterday. Not like gunpoint robbed or a home break-in, but car windows shattered and immediate wham bam Walmart charges robbed. It's more unsettling than I thought. And I shouldn't have left my purse in the car.

I really miss my stuff. But then again, it's just stuff.

It's caused a million inconveniences. But then again, just put your head down and get through it.

I really hate the person(s) who did this. But then again, life's not fair. And life's not fair for anyone. There's no excusing it, but still. Who am I to judge what brings people to the mini van robbing level.

I spent the rest of my Sunday reading, because I'm convinced it's better GRE preparation than any vocab flashcards. I finished The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Strong, vivid, Dominican writing.

They got into the habit of talking on the phone a couple times a week, about nothing really, spinning words out of their everyday; the first time she called him, offering a ride to SAT class; a week later he called her, just to try it. His heart beating so hard he thought he would die but all she did when she picked him up was say, Oscar, listen to the bullshit my sister pulled, and off they'd gone, building another one of their word-skyscrapers.

Comparison.

Hopefully, tomorrow Maine will become the first state in this country to approve same sex marriage by voting NO on question 1 in a statewide, popular vote.

Now for a disturbing advertising showcase on the issue: compare the first commercial with the last two. Scary. Also a scary lack of minorities in all three, just say'n.

My Kind of Halloween Movie.

(Hocus Pocus).

Friday Night Lights.

If I haven't made it crystal clear, I love good television shows. Just love them.

In elementary school my family and I stayed in Odessa, TX once during a road trip, and I clearly remember this flat, empty town and its huge high school football stadium with unreal lights that lit the thing up like an alien spaceship. That image has always stuck with me, just so romantic and mysterious and sad.

So naturally my most recent addiction has been Friday Night Lights - I just finished the third season.

Not only is the story line and acting spot-on and the filming beautiful, but the portrayal of a small southwestern town is so authentic - not cheesy or overdone.

Instead of a mocking parody, the show takes things like the football culture, high school, the isolated ignorance, the alcoholics and abuse and meth labs, the religious devotion, the "everyone knows everyone" aspect, the poverty, the fact that so many soldiers come from this type of background, etc. and raises it to an entirely different level by taking the time to understand the people and the environment and the meaning behind it all.

Anyway, I fell in love with the characters (oh, Tim Riggins), realized how important integrity is and re-examined some of my own prejudices and misunderstandings. Pretty powerful stuff.

Randolph Bourne in 1917:

"...a rational nation would have chosen education as its national enterprise. Into this it would have thrown its energy though the heavens fell and the earth rocked around it. But nations...they act within their most irrational rights when they accept war as the most important thing the nation can do in the face of metaphysical menaces of imperial prestige."