Smells Like Happy

Now Featuring Less Retinal Damage, Altitude Sickness

Is it just me, or did breathing just get a whole lot easier around here? No more oppressive brown! Less eye-searing coral! Fine colors, but too much -- too much of them together -- is like eating cotton candy sprinkled with sugar and topped with chocolate ganache. And Nerds.

The flower stays. (BACK OFF, BITCHES, I LIKE THE FLOWER.) But I changed up a few other things, and if beholding the old look was like attempting to breathe atop the highest peak in the Andes, the new look is like breathing at sea level. The old look was giving me flashbacks of my collision with altitude sickness in Peru, where I grabbed a Quechua man by his lapels and deliriously begged him to sacrifice me to his crazy Incan gods. Or maybe I was hallucinating. Fun times!

Anyway. Sometimes I want to tell you about something that I love, because maybe you will love it and then your life will be perfect, but product raves would make a very dull main page for a non-product blog. So I'll mention those things off to the right. See it there? Up... to the... a little more... THERE. The first thing I love is quite fetching, and I urge you to click on it and buy it or something like it! But not too many of you. Because if you snap up all of the artist's merchandise, what will be left for me? I can't even believe you'd do that to me.

(No, go buy everything. She'll make more.)

That's all, I can't stay to chat. I'm stuffed on goat cheese cheesecake (I know!), it's storming (yay), Samantha Brown is in Edinburgh ordering a deep-fried Mars bar, which I must see, and I have NINE episodes of Mad Men to get through before Sunday's season two premier and AGH TOO MUCH TEEVEE TO WATCH.

Only Connect...

I was at dinner with friends the other night, and one friend remarked how much she hates people. In fact, she said, she's starting to hate people more and more. It was funny because she's not a sociopath. She was talking about work and bosses and the kind of people who say, at first meeting, "I AM THE DIRECTOR OF MANY IMPORTANT THINGS. AND WHO DO YOU PURPORT TO BE." And then they walk away.

That brought up something that I've been thinking about: I'm liking people more and more. I said this to my friends, with slack jaw, dopey grin and wide eyes. You know, the kind of look that would make you say, "Oh, no, you don't want to like me. I'm a terrible person," while backing up and fumbling for the pepper spray.

But you know what? I like those people too. Those funny, suspicious people. The ones who reflexively say to approaching, smiling strangers, "NO, I DON'T have thirty seconds for the environment. Jesus." I like those people because they want to be smiled at without being asked to sign a petition, and that's a legitimate wish. I like them because, like me, they don't know a single person in their whole apartment building, probably live a good five hundred miles from where they grew up, and quickly warm up to any genuine offer of community that they receive. I know this because they are human, and because I am too.

Only connect.

In cities full of strangers, it can be terribly difficult for two individuals to connect. All of the old guideposts are gone: We typically can't tell whether we have the same religion, or any religion; we can't tell what town we're from, but it's often not the town we're wandering around; we can't tell our political leanings or our economic status or our how nice we are to our parents (and that last thing is really the only one of importance in that list). Most of the time, our dour faces won't even betray our moods. Sunglasses hide our eyes. Headphones plug our ears. Purpose snaps our lips into thin lines. We walk quickly.

But we all crave the same thing: to connect. Even the ones who say they disdain people want this -- and if they're playing such offense, it's a sure sign that they really want to connect. This desire is coded into their DNA, our DNA, because connecting is how we humans survive. Evolution gave us this need for community, just as it gave us opposable thumbs and a narrow pelvis for walking upright. Generally, humans only isolate if they feel isolated, point if they feel pointed at, discount if they feel discounted.

I see it all around me, in strangers and in friends.

For a spell in my late teens and early 20s, that was me. I was an armadillo, a "little armored one." I suppose I felt isolated, pointed at, and so I reflected those feelings. But the very presence of my armor said much more about me than it said about anyone else.

I'm not like that anymore. (If you're very lucky, a bit of age will do that to you.) And now when I meet people whose defenses are clouding their base nature, I feel more compassion than annoyance. They're not bullshitting me any more than they're bullshitting themselves, but it's OK. I get it.

But it is bullshit nonetheless. And I'm pretty sure that the truly happy people in this world don't slog around in their own bullshit all day.

I often think we'd all be more connected and honest if we could get in touch our inner six-year-olds. Kids have no bullshit. They have no capacity for it. Kids are perfect. They smile when they want to smile, cry when they're upset. Even when a child is touched by ugly circumstance, her core is clean and honest and, usually, available.

I was perfect when I was six, and I bet you were, too. At six, my mistakes were innocent, my intentions were pure. At six, I was always in love, with everything. With dolls, with boys, with patent leather tap shoes and a pair of pink shorts that said "Buzz off" on the back pocket. With a Laura Branigan record and a microphone. With Miss Spain, who was my teacher, not an Iberian beauty pageant winner (but every bit as extraordinary to me). I rang neighbors' doorbells and performed choreographed dances when they answered. They cheered.

Now, I try to keep one hand on that girl at all times and let her lead the way. Because when it comes to connecting, she knows what's up. She's my touchstone: If it works for her, it works for me.

That's why I made a decision, about a year ago, to walk around with a smile. Just a small, pleasant smile. And it changes things. People smile back, automatically, because we're programmed to exchange these nonverbal communications and to accept kindness at face value. In urban life, we build little walls around our humanity and staff those walls with little guards in little watchtowers. But when somebody smiles at you for no apparent reason, your little guards freeze. Confused! And before the guards can issue orders ("MAINTAIN! LIPS! DO NOT BREAK FROWN FORMATION!"), you have smiled back. And god damn it if everybody doesn't feel a tiny bit better.  

This meandering manifesto is leading to something that you might have figured out ages ago. Or maybe you're still not getting it, but here it is: It's not about you. It's about us.

Maybe it took me a little longer to figure that out and incorporate it into my life. I feel a little silly saying that.

But here it is. And here's what I'm doing with it.

1. I'm matchmaking. My relationships don't have to stop with me, so I'm spreading them around. Friends, acquaintances, colleagues -- I have so many good people in my life, and some could benefit from knowing each other. I'm being the conduit for their connections and watching what happens.

2. I'm advocating. I started a local chapter of an organization that I believe in very strongly. The people we help are in desperate need, and I have the ability to help alleviate that need. So I'm doing it. It's highly political (although something of a no-brainer for people on the left and the right, I believe). Maybe such public advocacy will mean that I won't be writing for major newspapers anymore. I don't care.

3. I'm investing in others. I've known about Etsy.com for a long time, but I've only recently discovered it. I'm blown away by the artwork and by the people behind the art. I'm going to buy exclusively handmade products as gifts for a while because I believe in supporting people who create, either to throw more good into the world or rid themselves of the bad that tries to creep in. And when a thing of art speaks to you, a thing born out of the head and hands of another, you can close the circuit. You can say to the person who created it, "You made something beautiful, and it makes me happy. I am investing in you." That feeds you both. It's a gift, the giving of which feels like, I don't know, waking up tomorrow and seeing on the front page of the New York Times, "WARM APPLE PIE, KITTEN SNUGGLING PROVED TO CURE CANCER."

Today I received a print that I ordered from artist Jeannie Lynn Paske, whose work speaks to me so deeply that I can't easily explain it. I envision a wall of my office lined with her prints. I don't know her, but I don't have to. I feel connected to the part of the artist that creates this art because it expresses something I feel in a medium I cannot master. And I feel grateful to her for making that possible. (Please go find some artists on Etsy who make you feel the same way.)

4. I'm creating. If I can give someone else that sense of connection, it will all have been worth it.

5. I'm forgiving. That's a verb, not an adjective. Forgiving is such an active task, sometimes requiring constant renewal. People don't always know what to do with you when you try to connect with them. Maybe they're lost. Maybe they're just not interested. Maybe they're hurt and messed up and temporarily closed for business. Regardless, when I feel let down -- especially when someone lets me down repeatedly -- I have a choice: I can get sad or angry, and swear and denounce; or I can step back from the situation and wish, with a heart full of kindness, that they can conquer their demons. I've learned -- and I promise that this, more than anything else I've said, is absolutely, immutably true -- that other people can't be made to fix themselves, no matter how much I plead or shout or persuade. No matter how much I try to connect. And I've also learned that anger blackens the heart. So when anger tries to move its big, ugly, stinking baggage into my heart, I say, sorry, all I can offer you is the couch. For one night. And I'm not feeding you.

 

Like I said, maybe you integrated this idea into your life a long time ago. Maybe you think it's nonsense (I think you're wrong). Maybe you're seriously afflicted by a lack of connection or maybe it amounts to nothing more than a minor annoyance in your life. Or maybe you, like me, benefit from the occasional reminder that the world is out there, waiting to connect with you.

If you're walking the world with a scowl, let your lips step out of formation. Your mental guards won't shoot.

If you're slogging around in your own bullshit, maybe after years of feeling disconnected and discounted, well... that's harder. I know it is. But just realize that it's a choice. A conscious choice. And once you realize that, you will have no one to blame but yourself -- and everyone to thank when they accept the hand that you reach out.

One Year

And a very good one at that.

Seven Things

You know what happens when you're away for a long time? Either you return with a lot to say, or you return with nothing to say. And yet again I flout convention by having a lot to say about nothing.

1. I've been busy reading. Thanks a million to everyone for your book suggestions. I haven't read any of your books yet but I now have a few in my possession. I took CrystalMK's suggestion and picked up Outlander; I also took Librarian Girl's suggestion and bought The Well and the Mine. Some I had already read (loved The Awakening, Katie), and I'll come back to the other suggestions eventually.

2. Oh, wait. I was about to tell you what I've been reading. A couple of weeks ago, I finished one of the best books I've read this year: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. You know how sometimes you just can't say anything about a book because your adjectives will somehow cheapen its beauty? Right-o. Anyway, I'm now reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. I'm not emotionally involved with it yet, but he's always a showstopper, that Chabon. Every few pages, my eyes screech to a halt and backtrack a few lines to savor a particularly good sentence.

3. I have something else to say about books. I love the smell of a new book, the feel of smooth, unread pages. And when I'm done reading them, I love the sight of books on my shelves, each one full of adopted memories. But mostly I buy books new because it is very hard to write a book, and I want authors to get a few well-deserved pennies from my purchases.

4. I went to Tim Russert's wake today. What you didn't see on the television was the man with his guitar, sitting just to the side of the casket. And if I could pretend that the whole thing was mundane before I stepped into the refectory -- photographers and reporters everywhere, policemen directing traffic, heels killing my feet -- when I stepped inside it was all stripped away by the softness of the guitar. It was terribly, terribly sad. For a small time, I had no introversion, only a longing for human company. I had no individuality, only a desire for the commonality of human experience. All of us perfect strangers, linked together by another perfect stranger. But somehow it works. Nevertheless, I resisted giving in to the experience entirely -- I would have felt so foolish greeting his wife and son with tears on my face while they flashed smiles and made pleasant, kind conversation so gracefully. And that is the origin of this hole in my lip, the creation of which is the only thing that enabled me to shake their hands and say, "thank you for doing this," like a normal, dry-faced stranger. Russert went to the bat for the public every day, and his family was incredibly gracious to give the public a chance to say thanks when so much private grieving awaits them.

5. So Obama got the nomination. And now that I say that here, I realize how incongruous this blog is with my everyday life, with how I spend my time and where I direct my thoughts. I'm a total political junkie, but I haven't really cultivated on my blog the kind of audience that will be interested in reading about that. Unfortunately, very few people in my life are as interested in politics as I am, and that's maybe not a good thing. I have only one friend who absorbs -- for better or for worse -- as much political news as I do. And that is why we send each other 30 emails a day, some of which are one-word exclamations of "YESSSS!!!!" and "NOOOOOO!" and require no further explanation. The election process this spring has been taking up a lot of my attention, and maybe that's why I haven't been blogging. I've had much to say, but to whom shall I say it? Other than the TV, I mean. And other than my cab drivers, I mean.

6. I am doing a lot of work, so much work, and some of it is even for me. Some of it is for a dear friend. More and more of it is for pure enjoyment. And while the economy is in the crapper and Midwestern rivers are swelling to Biblical proportions, I feel quite lucky indeed to be doing work that I love in a clean, well-lighted office. An office that has a stuffed money hanging from the doorknob. Stop hatin'.

7. What is your summer going to be about? I toyed with the idea of my summer being about gratitude, but that feels too accepting. Too content. Then I considered making my summer all about STRAWBERRIES!, but I can never eat them all before they start growing hairy. Which means I would totally fail at my summer on, like, day three. That's why "integration" is my watchword. My summer is going to be about better integration of my daily life with my goals and my values. I think the Oprah-esque way to describe this concept is "authentic," but Oprah isn't my style. "Integration" has a geeky, wonky edge that I can jive with. So what's your watchword? Anybody going with "bacon" this summer?

Surprised By Love

I'm skeptical of hype. If everybody's looking right, I generally look left. That's partly due to my contrarian nature and partly due to the idea that interesting things happen when nobody's watching and, on the other hand, predictable things of questionable motive happen when everyone is watching. Sometimes this tendency protects me from annoyance and sometimes it deprives me of joy, or at least makes me a latecomer to the party. This is all an overly analytical way of leading up to my point, which is that I finally read the entire Harry Potter series, and HOLY MUNDUNGUS, I LOVED IT.

LOVED. LOOOOVED. Are you getting this? LOOOOOOOOVED.

OK, it's true: I'm one who falls hard for, um, lots of things. Where overexuberance is the charge, I will not only confess but also gladly emblazon my chest with a scarlet O.

I loved this series so much that I've been sad ever since I closed the last book. The story line was so engrossing and the characters were so knowable. (It's plot-driven fiction, for sure, but the characters are quite well developed.) Go read the books if you haven't yet. Just take my word for it and keep going -- they get progressively darker and the stakes get progressively higher.

Of course, if you think that such a popular series is inherently unworthy reading, that it must be too commercial and unsophisticated to meet your towering literary standards, then you are a snob. And also probably late for tea with A.S. Byatt. (P.S. Don't be a snob.) (P.P.S. Maybe skip the MFA.)

Alas, it's time for me to move on. I've had a couple of weeks to get Harry and that world out of my system but it hasn't been easy. Surely people who love to read understand what I mean, right? I was at dinner with a friend who is an occasional reader and I confessed that it took me these two weeks to feel excited about reading anything else; my friend did very little to hide her reaction of bewilderment. Oh, come ON. Like I'm the only one who ever doodled "Mrs. Atticus Finch" on her notebook and wondered how Scout and Jem will react to having me as a stepmother?

Anyway, Amazon left a box of sustenance at my door today. I'm on to "Then We Came to The End" by Joshua Ferris, the first chapter of which I've already enjoyed thanks to my husband's new Kindle. (Also love.)

What are you reading? Give me your recommendations. Help me through Harry rehab, lest I run back to book five for a late-night fix.

A Little Therapy

Whenever you need to feel better about the pathetic state of the world -- impending nuclear war, erosion of freedoms, death of all that's good and decent, et cetera, ad infinitum -- here's what you do: You invite a toddler to spend the weekend, squeeze her fleshy little upper arm every hour (give or take ten minutes), and color. With crayons.

 

This is Alise. If you don't know Alise, please read this. It's the best way to quickly acquaint yourself.

But if you can't be bothered to read her fascinating ideas on children's privacy rights with respect to popular blogging practices, I'll tell you this: She's the daughter of my friends Mindy and John. She's also a double PhD who wrote two dissertations: "Mass Media and the Rise of the Infant World View," followed by "The Secret Lives of Puppets: Social Darwinism At Play." Both successfully defended.

Of course, that's a lot of work to do before turning 2, so she had never visited Washington, D.C. We took her around the city and showed her a monument or two. We also took her to the Cherry Blossom Festival parade, where Abby Cadabby was scheduled to appear. Abby is apparently a member of the cast of Sesame Street and a fairy godmother in training. Alise very much respects Abby's theories on the function of folk magic belief among human children, and I think she was hoping for a minute alone with Abby to discuss those theories. So she was really disappointed when Abby and all the other Sesame Street people just walked by and waved like we were all drooling, empty-headed babies. How insulting! "I'd expect that from Elmo and Cookie Monster," Alise said, shaking her head, "but not Abby."

But we approached the situation philosophically; Abby Cadabby has to make a paycheck like everybody else. Alise said she'll try to engage Abby in written correspondence, which might enable Abby to respond on her own time when The Man isn't forcing her to pander to babies with hypnotic, doe-eyed expressions.

We tried to show Alise the cherry blossoms but, alas, they bloomed a little early this year. We settled for tulips at something called the Tulip Library, which was FULL of hundreds of brilliantly colored tulips -- and did not at all amount to settling, in my opinion.

Alise said she'd never seen such springtime magnificence as we saw in the Tulip Library, and that this was unlike any library she'd ever closed down at 1 a.m. after a long night of studying.

Then we went back home and cleared our heads with a power nap followed by some intense coloring.

Dude, coloring is therapeutic. For people like me, anyway -- I just stay inside the lines that are already drawn and I pick whatever color I feel like. Purple eyes! Green noses! I don't think, I just do, and I feel like a carefree kid again. But Alise is a passionate colorer. She disregards useless conventions such as lines. "How can you create art within the confines of someone else's framework?" she asked. And I had to admit that she might be right.

Then I asked for a red crayon, and do you know what she did? She handed me a green. Point taken, young master. Point taken.

But Alise wasn't all seriousness. We found a bit of Curious George programming on TV and she was so happy about it that she was reduced to baby talk ("Jooj!") just like she reduces me to baby talk ("Aliiiiiiiiisey!"). We all have our buttons.

Then she grabbed a phone charger, ran up and down the hall a few times, and showed that she can be a wild child with the best of 'em.

RAWWWR. It's like that scene in "School of Rock" when the Jack Black character takes the Joan Cusack character -- the principal -- to a bar. He gets her good 'n' drunk so she forgets her primness and starts babbling about Stevie Nicks and belting out "Edge of Seventeen." If only Alise's academic advisors could have seen this!

We had a toddler in our house for only two days, but those were some nice days, let me tell you. She was a breath of fresh air and totally made me forget that poor children go hungry and doggies get hit by cars. Her upper arm? Sweet Jesus. Just try to give it a squeeze while maintaining coherent thought. I challenge you.

When Mindy and John weren't within earshot, I offered Alise a deal: Stay here. Stay here and we will let you play in the office with which you are so fascinated. It's yours! You can go out on the patio whenever you want, as long as you wear some kind of safety harness, and we'll dance to Vampire Weekend every day until you get sick of it.

"Oatmeal every morning?"

"Yes! Yes, and those cheesy goldfish crackers too. For lunch."

"I prefer the Dole fruit bars. And I get to climb on the coffee table whenever I want?"

"Of course! We'll put rubber bumpers on the corners."

"Don't insult me."

"Sorry, it's just... your muscle tone and coordination. They're still developing. But whatever, no bumpers. Do we have a deal?"

She thought for a moment. "Look, it sounds nice -- and I totally appreciate the coffee table thing -- but I'm afraid it's just not possible."

I sighed. "Nana?"

"Yep," she nodded. "You're nice, but you're no Nana."

So Alise, Mindy and John returned to their home and their Nana and GrandBob. And I sit here with nothing but memories and her leftover YoBaby (vanilla and banana) to comfort me as I wonder what else I could have done to sweeten the deal.

Sigh. I guess we'll always have D.C.

That's Democrazy, Yo.

So here we are. April 15. Have you paid your taxes? Oh, GOOD. Because now the country can pay for a bunch of stuff, like infrastructure and social services. And even though you probably don't feel like you authorized those expenditures, you sort of did. You elected the people who authorized them. And in our representative government, that's the way it works. Yay democracy!

Except here. In Washington, D.C., the city that perhaps represents better than any other city all that this nation stands for, we have no representative government. And BOY, did I pay some taxes, yo. Yay democracy!

Oh. Wait.

We have no senators. We have no voting congressional representatives at all. We have Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is allowed to sit at the table with the big kids and raise her hand when she has something polite to say. But when it comes to voting and actually, you know, mattering, she has to keep her hands firmly in her lap.

Did you know this? You probably did, even if you didn't realize it. That's what happened to me when we were considering moving here. "One hundred senators, two for each state, but D.C. isn't a state, so... oh. OH."

If you care, you can read a little more about it here. And if it really gets your undies in a bundle and you happen to live in one of the states whose senators are using all kinds of funny filibustering hijinks (silly boys!) to block legislation that would give li'l D.C. voting representation, you can maybe call those senators. Tell them to quit playing games or you'll go to the press with proof of their, uh, mafia ties? Indecent liaisons with high-priced hookers? Undocumented lawn care specialists? Indecent liaisons with low-priced hookers? Third nipple? Just keep shouting them out until you hit a nerve.

(No. Don't do that. That's blackmail! Blackmail is not nice. But effective. But not nice! Try threatening to TP their houses with that super-cheap, one-ply crap from Costco the night before a good rain. NOT SO FUNNY NOW, IS IT, SENATOR.)

Who Are These People?

I know I'm not the only one receiving a flood of spam allegedly from Russian girls who want to have my baby.

"I Think that there has come time when each person in this world reflects to create happy family for a birth in the future of remarkable children which will be surrounded with caress and care of parents."

It goes on, and it's signed "Russian girl IRINA." The suspicious JPEG pinned neatly to the top of the email suggests that IRINA wants to show me her ample bosoms and maybe eyeliner application skills. But I know that she, who probably isn't even a she, really just wants to hijack my computer. The goal is probably to slow things down and cause me mild inconvenience until I do a system restore.

If you're trying to bring down the financial institutions of the Western world or steal my credit card number, I see how that can be accomplished with nefarious programming. I get it. You're really into jihad, or you really want a new big-screen TV. But who spends days programming viruses that mildly inconvenience a few people?

I've been saying that a lot lately, in various situations: Who are these people?

My parents visited this past weekend, fluffy white dogs in tow. And during our visit to Mount Vernon, some woman beckoned a security officer and told him that one of our dogs had pooed on the presidential lawn and that we had not cleaned up. The dog had not pooed anywhere. At all. And I had to fight the urge to track down this lying woman and command both dogs to poo on her face. I successfully fought the urge, because I am not one of those people. But she, apparently, is.

Who makes up shit about dog shit?

Last week, we watched the 4.5-hour mindfuck that is "Bush's War," a PBS documentary about the run-up to and execution of the Iraq War. The documentary is brilliant and shocking and deeply reported; it's the facts that pour into your ears and mix into a combustible solution of lies and then explode your head into a billion pieces all over the living room couch. I'm one of those annoying People Who Do Not Allow Talking during certain programs, but again, I couldn't stop asking The Mouse: Who are these people? These people who run our government and hijack our government and send boys to die in a hot, dry, sandy hell for the privilege of escorting a private contractor's load of supplies?

"Nightmare at Guantanamo Bay" on 60 Minutes pushed me past my limit.

I know that a lot of people have outrage overload, which is why we don't act all that outraged. Once you hit overload, you acclimate. If the madness of the world won't go away, your brain has to somehow make that madness normal. And normal isn't so bad, right? It's just the way things are.

But when a little computer programming mischief makes me question human nature, I think that's a sign that I've gone beyond outrage overload. I've reached outrage fatigue.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to an acquaintance about how The Mouse and I eloped. She asked why, I glossed over the religion thing, and she pressed for more. I groaned inwardly, because -- although I don't know her well -- I know that she is an avid church goer.

"Why wouldn't you get baptized?"

"Because I don't believe in it."

"Well, what are you?"

"Atheist."

"Oh...... Really?"

She spent the next few minutes attempting to uncover the rotten root of my godlessness somewhere deep in my past. I spent the next few minutes doing everything I could to tiptoe around the issue. I do not debate the merits and demerits of religion with strangers, rarely even with people I know. It's a one-way street to a flooded cul-de-sac. But the result this time was that I tiptoed too lightly, was overly deferential, and she interpreted my views as things that I resent, things that hold me back, things that make me sad. She looked at me sorrowfully, as one might look at a heartbroken child, and told me that her god would give me blessings.

I despise feeling misunderstood, but I let it go. It wasn't her fault.

Today, I was telling a good friend that I sometimes feel that transcendent happiness may be more accessible to people like that acquaintance -- people who believe in a god or a divine purpose or an afterlife. I do not want blind faith, I find it dangerous and counterintuitive. But I do admit that blind faith in some omniscient, omnipotent divine being might be quite handy in the battle against outrage. Why be outraged if everything has a purpose that we can't know?

That's overly simplified, of course. Most of my religious friends will say they are also outraged at the world because they believe in free will, and the world is full of assholes who exercise free will in a most despicable manner.

Which puts us all, once again, in the same pitching boat. A boat that has been commandeered by a gang of people we don't know, don't recognize. Who are these people?

I give my time and my money to causes I believe in. But even those efforts can feel hollow. And I don't know what to do about that. Sometimes I long to see outrage on the faces of others. I ache to hear it in their voices and feel it in their words. There's nothing so unifying or comforting among humans as a shared extreme emotion.

So if you want to come over, we can take the elevator to the roof. We can scream angry, improvised poetry through the night air. We'll be able to see the White House and the Capitol Building and the monuments to the people who died for purposes both right and wrong, but our words will likely reach only the next block where the same homeless man sleeps on the same park bench every night. We can scream at them, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, WHO ARE YOU, and no one will answer. We won't have changed anything, least of all the propensity for bored, pimply-faced teenaged boys to write silly email viruses. People will still lie about dog shit and weapons of mass destruction, and then volunteer the idealists to take the bullet. In the shadowy corners of our government, people will still be tortured and denied due process and sometimes killed.

But maybe we will feel better for having screamed side by side. For having defied the isolation that comes from watching 30-second clips of enraging news stories that are bookended by commercials for cars and bacon burgers and shampoo. For having connected in an honest, feeling way that seems increasingly infrequent but is as important as ever.

I don't know about you, but I really need that.

You Just Might Learn Something

I have some amazing friends. I'm not saying they're more amazing than your friends. I'm just saying... they might be.

Anyway, these friends of mine do some cool stuff. And when I think you might like to know about these cool things -- or I just want you to BUY something from my friends -- I'm going to share them with you.

So my friend Beth Finke. She wrote this wonderful book called "Hanni and Beth: Safe and Sound." It's a nonfiction children's book about Beth's relationship with Hanni, her guide dog, and I recommend that you parent-types pick it up as a bedtime read. The illustrations are beautiful -- all soft and done in oils. My sense is that kids will love it because it's about a dog (KIDS LOVE DOGS), but it covers the life of a dog and her human in a way that most kids have never heard. I think all of you librarian types (and I know I have a few of you as readers) should put it on your shelves. The School Library Journal agrees.

I learned a lot about guide dogs from Beth's book. For example, you're not supposed to address a guide dog when the dog is working. Did you know that? I didn't, but I do now. Which is why I'll never again give Beth a big ol' kiss on the cheek and then stoop down and shout, "HI HANNI!" while I hysterically clap my hands and stomp my feet. And Beth will never again have to scold me.

Hopefully, anyway. I have a hard time ignoring dogs, and I'm not nearly as well trained as Hanni is.

In Case You Haven't Seen It

Star Wars, as recapped by a 3-year-old.

Thanks, Ward.