I am on Twitter now, by the name of "cheekywee."

Come and read my banal minutiae! And I shall read yours!

Hello. I am a neglectful journal-keeper. I feel appropriately bad about this.

Moving on.

I was making a playlist sort of for the year. For the end of the year. Titles I was considering for it included "Good Job--You Survived Most of 2008!" and "Congratulations! You Have Made It Through A Totally Nuts Fucking Year! (A Playlist.)" But then this whole insane Blagojevich thing happened, and the soon-to-be-former governor handed me such a great title.

Nothing But Sunshine
1. Dr. Dog - The Rabbit, the Bat, and the Reindeer
2. Anathallo - The River
3. Chapman & Brocker - Chimes
4. A.C. Newman - There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve
5. The Twilight Sad - That Summer at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy
6. Silver Jews - Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer
7. Headlights - School Boys
8. Malcolm Middleton - Stay Close Sit Tight
9. Dillinger Four - Gainesville
10. The Foxymorons - I'm Still in Love
11. Grampall Jookabox - The Girl Ain't Preggers
12. Good Shoes - Photos
13. Birdmonster - Born to Be Your Man
14. Frightened Rabbit - Floating in the Forth

How are things with you?

So I'm planning a road trip for early January, and I just noticed something: it is now possible to drive from New York to Los Angeles and drive through ONLY TWO RED STATES. (AND ONE OF THEM SPLIT ITS ELECTORAL VOTES.)

Now, I'm probably not going to travel that route, but it's POSSIBLE. It is possible.

I find that very very very goddamn exciting.

How stoked am I about Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff?

OH MAN SO STOKED

(In case you read this journal but don't actually know me at all, I LOVE Rahm Emanuel way more than is healthy.)

I am so proud and excited and thrilled right now. And, let's be honest, gloaty. If you have any clips of Bill Kristol crying, babbling, inconsolable, send that shit my way.

BUT NO BEING BIGGER THAN THAT RIGHT NOW

I am so happy. We did good. We did the right thing. What a novel goddamn experience. And in the first presidential election where I could vote, I got to vote for Barack Obama. And he WON. And he is going to be our president very, very soon.

My night has been all crying and screaming and dancing and hugging. Everyone you see on the street tonight (in Boston, anyway) is your friend. We are all cheering together. What a great fucking time.

So I think he just won. Ohio you guys. Ohio everybody. Good job Ohio. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry, in the best possible way.

Returns starting for real now oh my god you guys oh my god

I really hope I don't puke from nerves today.

Also on the subject of election-stealing: I think that Steve Schmidt, cue-ball-headed McCain flunky, tacitly admitted that Gore won. Take a gander, everybody.

“The McCain campaign is roughly in the position where Vice President Gore was running against President Bush one week before the election of 2000,” said Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s chief strategist. “We have ground to make up, but we believe we can make it up.”

So what is he saying here? Is he saying, "McCain still has a chance to narrowly lose, as Gore did in 2000!" That's not particularly inspiring for the Republicans. I think he's saying, "McCain still has a chance to win, AS GORE DID IN 2000! Btdubs, if my guy wins, he will actually get to serve in the office to which he was elected."

Full article here.

You may have heard about Michele Bachmann recently. She's the Republican representative from Minnesota who seems keen on becoming the next Joe McCarthy. She advocated, in vague but nonetheless terrifying terms, that Obama and other elected Democrats be investigated for anti-Americanism. Like Mel Gibson, she has a history of saying crazy shit, but no one noticed until the crazy shit involved the phrase "sugar tits."

But here's a FUN video from 2005 in which she demonstrates her understanding of French culture and politics. And, oh, her deeply-rooted racism:



So... here's the thing, Congresslady. Well, here's ONE thing of MANY that you got drastically wrong. "Suburb" does not mean the same thing in France that it does here. You talk about rioting youths in French suburbs with the apparent amusement of someone who is imagining the cast of Leave It to Beaver lighting shit on fire. INCORRECT. Please go read this Wikipedia article. Read it yet? No. I can hold on. It's cool; I didn't expect you to be a super fast reader. Okay. Now you see that, while there are rich French suburbs, the suburbs in which those uppity Arab kids were rioting are the fucking PROJECTS. THEY ARE NOT CUDDLY SUBURBS. THE YOUTHS ARE NOT DISAFFECTED THE SAME WAY THAT THORA BIRCH WAS IN AMERICAN BEAUTY. LEARN SHIT ABOUT PLACES BESIDES ST. CLOUD. Okay. Go now. Go and eat a crêpe or something as a form of cultural education. Thanks.

Moving right along: the last few days have made me more afraid than ever of a McCain victory. One reason for this is that his campaign has been so hilariously inept lately. I've been having a lot of fun laughing at them. I had a lot of fun laughing at Bush in 2000, and then he... well, he lost, but he got to play President anyway. This made me feel really gross. All the funny jokes about Palin spending $150,000 on clothes in a month, including avant-garde men's attire that doesn't really seem like the First Dude's style and that could not possibly be worn during campaign appearances, will stop being funny jokes if McCain-Palin wins. They will instead become the tragic clippings to which I cling as I sob loudly and rend my garments.

The other big thing that has me nervous about the election is McCain's pulling out of Colorado. He is depending on winning Pennsylvania to make up for probable losses in Colorado as well as states like Iowa and the News (Mexico and Hampshire). But, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Obama is up by 11 points in Pennsylvania--a more sizable lead than he has in either Colorado or New Mexico (+5.4 and +8.4, respectively). Add to this the importance of the economy to Pennsylvania voters and the sizable union presence in that state, and one must ask, "How in FUCK does McCain think he could win that state?" And the simplest answer I can think of (and the most dependable tactic for the McCain campaign) is: "By stealing it." So please reassure me, everybody, that November 4 will not be Massive Voter Disenfranchisement Day in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.