A vacation from politics

I should, really. You're all 100% right. My time in the mountains has been lovely, and very relaxing. Really. I'm not kidding, I have been relaxing.

I am staying with my second family in a house that has never once been locked. I think that is hat is so cool, I just can't find the words to describe it.

Today I went down to Boulder to meet a friend for lunch. I hadn't seen her in a long time. She took me to a yarn shop.

I had never been to a yarn shop, and honestly I didn't know there were so many kinds of yarn. I liked the yarn; I still can't knit.

Most of you have heard my knitting story. It starts with a 19-year-old Koogle wanting a sweater she has just seen in a music video--when Koog was 19, there were actual videos on MTV, and some people in them wore sweaters.

I knew my mom had knit things in the past, so I figured she could teach me. This was not an easy proposition. I just couldn't grasp how sticks and string were supposed to get together to make a cool sweater.

After about two hours, Mom gave up. "Koog," she sighed. "You have to be at peace with the needles."

And that pretty much sums up my whole childhood, as well as most of my life. Although I have been at peace with some things, those things are few. Peppermint tea is one of them, and I hear the kettle whistling.

Partly Connected

But being out here in the heartland without cable TV, I realize how it is possible to consider yourself well informed, and yet not be able to name the Super Big Democratic Presidential Field.

I've been out here since last Saturday, and I'm not convinced I remember them all. See, the local newspapers cover... local news. One becomes accustomed to living in a place that the world centers around, like Washington or New York, and then one thinks it's weird that Boulder's Daily Camera puts "national" news on the inside pages.

Local TV covers all kinds of crap, which is why I don't watch it at home. Local news in Washington is all about the suburbs, because nothing locally important ever happens in Washington.

So, since I'm staying in a house with no cable, which has been very enlightening, I have learned that babies should not eat prunes with pits; and that college students think shuttle buses are icky.

But I still don't know if John Kerry is still running for president.

One more voice in a weird chorus

Sometimes when you're doing something a little off-beat--say, pointing out that Wesley Clark could just as easily be a Clinton stooge as a free-thinking individual-- it's good to have William Safire and the New York Times on your side. Because, seriously, they have a much wider reputation than I do. And I still said it first, the day Clark announced, before the same thought started apearing in other places.

In my mind, everybody who points out the Clinton-Clark axis is doing a public service.

My Last Urban Nerve

It makes you want to take a bus to Iowa just so you can slap somebody and tell that person to get with the program. I guess it's a good thing that somebody gets a chance to ask real questions and stand right in front of the guy while he struggles to figure out what he wants to hear. On the other hand, I am deeply concerned that the only people with that kind of access are rural white folks.

The reason nobody seems to put any emphasis on the state of America's cities in this election cycle is that the closest thing to a big city in Iowa and New Hampshire combined is Des Moines. I know some really wonderful people from Des Moines. They all live in Washington now.

So, public transit? That's not an issue. It's important, but it's not going to play in Manchester. Urban infrastructures, like schools, hospitals, government office buildings? Right. Nobody cares about that stuff in Cedar Rapids.

I know I don't care as much about farm subsidies as somebody in a rural state does, but I am aware that my tax dollars are in those farm subsidies, and that I should pay attention. I know that whatever pesticide runoff there is from the nation's farms to the nation's rivers is eventually going to end up in my water supply.

Yes, I know full well that Iowa and New Hampshire get to decide who's going to be get to run for president in both parties; and I know what their issues are, but I don't think they know all that much about mine.

Somebody I know suggested that the first primaries should be rotated so that everybody gets a chance to be courted. I happen to think that's a great idea.

I would like to nominate Maryland, which does have a lot of rural parts, but it also has Baltimore, a big, urban city. Pennsylvania would also do very well, so would Texas, Missouri, even Georgia.

The way it is now just seems wrong.

before - after