hmmm...posts getting sparser. i swear, i'm reading the paper and thinking about it each and every day. it's just a bit more difficult to find time to blog when i have a job that actually requires me to work while i'm there. work continues to be great and rewarding and otherwise a big breath of fresh air.

in other news, 204 fairmount now has more furniture than it knows what to do with. (since most of it is still sitting in the first floor, we could probably shake a stick at it, however.) alyssa's grandmother died this summer, and on sunday we received nearly everything that was in her apartment. we are grateful, and we are overwhelmed, and we have so many end tables and kitchen items that we're astonished. oh, and approximately a million towels.

look for a yard sale bulletin soon, people-in-philly.

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paul sent me a link to my column in al-ahram, which was published a bit ago but which is still very exciting to see.

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i'm currently *extremely* interested in the new round of spin emanating from the bush administration and its various cronies. (approval, according to time, is 52%; according to zogby, 45%. down he goes!) bush is busy declaiming about national sacrifice and the importance of nation-building, while donald rumsfeld tours the country telling us all that dissent inspires terrorism. that's right folks, we're going to do right by these people, in the sense that we get to decide what's right. as usual, the sum of all the messages is that we should shut up or be considered Very Bad People. and while i'm charmed to see the administration backpedaling so intensely about the nature and purpose of the invasion, i don't believe any of the touchy-feely, sacrifices-for-security talk for a second. i think that a more candid bush might agree with refreshingly unreconstructed florida congressman tom feeney, whose quote in the times yesterday was "i think we have an absolute responsibility to protect...american men and women over in iraq, but not when it comes to writing checks for their schools and health systems." oooh, lovely.