BROKEN WINDOWS

Saturday, December 27, 2003

I'm back. For a moment, at least.

We got in from New Jersey yesterday afternoon and this evening we fly to San Diego. What a crazy schedule! It's left me with a bit of a cold. Oh well.

I'll be back with regular posts on January 5th. Hopefully I'll get a chance to write a thing or two from California in between now and then, but who knows!! We're headed down to Baja for a few days then up to Pasadena for a close friend's wedding. It'll be another crazy week, I fear.

A few fun things we did in Jersey: drove by a ridiculously lit up house owned by an Elvis impersonator somewhere near Wayne (it's famous -- really); ate delicious bagels from Sunrise Bagels in Montclair; rode the train down to Penn Station and spent a day wandering the streets of the Village; ate and ate and ate at one family get together after another in north Jersey and south; met a man who used to live in New Orleans and renovated one of the 5 star hotels down there (he worked for a "boss" who was one of the seventh richest men in the world...hmmmm! Yes, he's sicilian...); and of course we ate at a "diner," one of New Jersey's many 24-hour restaurants. I put diner in quotes because S and I always argue over what a diner is. In the midwest, a diner is a restaurant made from an old diner car (or at least looks like one), hence the name. In Jersey, it's any place that's open 24 hours. Sometimes they're decorated on the outside with chrome to look like a dining car (on steroids! They are often huge.). I had a pastrami on rye as any good diner-goer should.

Jersey is an odd place. Pleasantly so. You can't turn left, you can't pump your own gas, and you have to buy liquor at a liquor store. And the place is full of trees. Really. It's lush and woody and feels remote at times. There are hicks in Jersey, as anywhere else, but there they talk like Joey Soprano. Ha!

Thanks for all the comments, everyone. And Yan, I will post more photos this coming year, I promise!!

Happy new year.

11:08:20 AM |

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Preach it, Sister Vowell	7/16/05
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Doc's thoughtful question and a couple of other reads	7/16/05
Friday Baja Blogging	7/15/05
The rise of Christian Fascism: the Blue Voice on Pat Robertson's anti-semitism	7/15/05
Operation Truth needs our help	7/14/05
"Am I Next?": The endless tragedy of a futile mission	7/14/05
Hey France: Happy Independence Day, Y'all	7/14/05
The compounded tragedy of a young man's murder	7/14/05
Seven more...	7/14/05
Word of the Day for Wednesday July 13, 2005	7/13/05
Will someone please get Tom Friedman a dictionary?	7/13/05
Jeremy's rant on Op Truth	7/12/05
Karl Rove has got to go	7/12/05
Beauty and the injection of violence	7/11/05
Excellent Sunday Reading	7/10/05
"The Stain of Torture"	7/9/05
Swerve Left on how to stop terrorism	7/9/05
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A love of violence and a fear of death	7/9/05
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Friday Baja Blogging	7/8/05
From the vault	7/8/05
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The sudden rupture of nostalgia	7/7/05
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Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" Is Genius	7/6/05
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Eric Alterman goes off on Stingy America	7/6/05
Sarah Vowell in the New York Times	7/6/05
Exvotos and Giving Thanks	7/5/05
Thank our Liberal Ancestors Today	7/4/05
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The warped use of rhetoric to defend the indefensible	7/4/05
"Remember Petey"	7/3/05
The Bush Administration: Balancing Facts with Fiction since 2001	7/3/05
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The casualties of war	7/2/05
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Friday Baja Blogging	7/1/05
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Rieckhoff on Bush	6/30/05
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Paul Rieckoff on Bush's Ft. Bragg Speech	6/28/05
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Sam Hamill on Poetry, War, and Protest	6/28/05
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The Nightmare	6/27/05
Deconstructing Michael: Ignatieff on the Butcher's Block	6/27/05
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Michael Smith on Downing Street, from the LA TImes	6/24/05
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Fighting Myself	6/24/05
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Granta's "What we think of America" and Mishra's article on jihadists	6/17/05
The Chicago Tribune is pathetic	6/17/05
Joe Conason on the press's coverage of the Downing Street Memos	6/17/05
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Operation Truth's Jeremy Lewis on the Downing Street Memo	6/16/05
Email from S	6/16/05
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Radio, Radio	4/17/05
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The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill	4/4/05
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