I am going to attempt here to copy and paste a column by Patti Davis, Ronald and Nancy Reagan's daughter. For you Democrats, take comfort in her being famous for splitting ideologically from her father (and emotionally suffering from a lack of a bond with him because of their differences) and know that I'm not forcing a Republican ideologue down your throats here. But I may if things get out of hand. I don't know what that means. PS. This is probably illegal. Just in case, it's from Newsweek.

Where Were You?
There are times in life when you know that everything is about to change
By Patti DavisNEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

March 22 — Just before the war began, the skies over Los Angeles were bright blue, the way sky is supposed to be but isn’t usually anymore. Full, muscular clouds—white shaded with gray—scudded across, pushed by a strong, chilly wind. They were the kind of clouds that make you want to lie on your back and say, “Look, that’s a cow! And a whale! That one is a face!”

AFTER A STORM with near-torrential rains, everything had been scrubbed clean—the sky, the trees, buildings, cars. Sun glinted off leaves like gold slivers, so bright it made you squint. Such a sparkling, clean day could almost make you forget that, in only hours, the skies on the other side of the world could be raining death.

I memorized the details of the day, because I think one day in the future someone might ask me about it. What was it like just before? Did it feel strange? Eerie? I also memorized it because it seems to be the thing we do when the world is about to change, or at the moment when it does change. We all know where we were and what we were doing on September 11. Or the day Kennedy was shot, if you are old enough to recall that day.

From early morning, that day-just-before felt different, and I don’t think it was just me. When I went to the gym to work out, hardly anyone was talking. People seemed lost in their own thoughts, as if they had burrowed deep into themselves and didn’t want to be disturbed. Everyone seemed to sense that we were standing on a precipice, about to fall into some kind of abyss…and no one had any idea what it would be like, or if things would ever feel the same afterward.

There was a woman in the market stocking up on bottled water and flashlight batteries. And a homeless man sitting against the side of a building, with two signs. One said ‘Please help—need food.’ The other said ‘War is not the answer.’ There was my neighbor who said (jokingly), “I have some duct tape if you want it.” We both laughed, mostly because it wasn’t really funny. There was the young soldier, interviewed on television from his campsite in the Kuwaiti desert; he fought back tears as he valiantly stated his commitment to honor his government’s declaration of war. So young…if he were back here he’d be going out for a beer on a Saturday night.

In the days that have followed—the first early days of war—there was still that feeling of disconnect everywhere—the sense of waiting, dreading, not knowing.

There are times in life when you know that everyone’s thoughts—somewhere in their minds—are just like yours. September 11 was like that—the grief, the shock, the tears that wouldn’t be kept down. This war is like that, too. Politics might divide us, but we are linked in our fears of the unknown, in the terrible certainty that wars like this don’t just happen far away—they happen everywhere. The world has grown smaller, and in case you don’t already know this, there are “weapons of mass destruction” in many, many places. But you do know that—we all do. That’s the look we see in each others’ eyes—the knowledge that there is so much at stake, so much that can be obliterated, lost. We look into our children’s eyes, our parents’, friends who have laced their lives into ours in the fragile, but surprisingly sturdy way that people do. And we wonder where we will all be next month, next year. We memorize the sky, the sweep of wind. Because remembering might be important later.

When our lives drift happily across smooth waters, when we have the luxury of focusing on our own currents, we tend to forget how linked we all are—human beings in this big, lumbering world that never seems able to find its balance.

When I was a child, there was a boy in my class whose parents had built a bomb shelter in their yard. It was the 1950s. A World War had ended, but fears of Communist invasion had moved in. Chronologically, I just missed the “duck and cover” exercises, but I was there for the backwash of fear. One day, I was playing at a friend’s house and we were out in her yard on the swing set—whipping through the air, higher and higher, looking up at the deep blue sky as we curved up toward it. A plane flew overhead—a tiny gray shape in the endless blue.

“What if that plane was a bomber and we saw something falling from it,” my friend said, her pigtails whipping behind her as she swung through the air.

“Wouldn’t it have to be lower?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. Just, what if? What would we do? We don’t have a bomb shelter.”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“I’d go find my parents, I guess, and warn them. And then just hold onto them.”

I’ve thought about that a lot lately—about children looking up at the sky, waiting for something to fall from a plane, wondering what to do, where to run. No matter what any of us would like to believe, war is about children every bit as much as it is about soldiers.

Something has been set in motion now that none of us can stop. It matters little anymore if we support the war or oppose it—that is not what will ultimately define us. We will be defined by how we live our lives in the midst of this troubling time. If we can keep hold of that quiet connection between human beings, the pause in our busy lives that lets us look into the eyes of another person who is just as frightened as we are, then we have snatched something golden and pure from the shadows of war.

Tom Petty: American Girl

Well, I've been yelled at, been threatened with bodily harm and reverse psycholog-ied into putting up a much more recent post. I just checked and cannot believe the last post was March 3rd. Shameful....

I still have my 25-page paper to work on for tomorrow (done so far: title page and most of the research), so this won't be long.

I had a pretty uneventful break, which is exactly what I wanted. But the creature comforts (or evils, maybe) of home really reached "fever pitch" (a book I need to get back into) this morning when my mom came into my room at 7:15 and looked at me and said "Why is your stereo blinking?" Which caused me to actually sit up, open my eyes and look. It turns out the power went out at some point and then I fell back into my bed yelling "I hate this place!!!" It was reaaaaaaaaally early in the morning. My mom got faux-pissed and said I hate you too and I had to explain what I meant and why I said it. What pains me the most is that she knew exactly what she was doing, manipulative woman she is, by speaking to me and thus waking me up two hours earlier than I had planned/wanted to get up. So, it was my pleasure to leave. Plus our kitchen is still under construction and it was hell retaining a semblance of normalcy with tarps and dust and shit everywhere. Though it is coming together, I can't wait til Easter when I come home and its all good and done. I was there for about fifteen days total and couldn't take it any longer; God only knows what its like to go through it for the full month they have already. Should be done in a couple weeks Julie says, which is translated to the end of this week. Roughly.

Pat McGee Band: Who Stole Her From Heaven
Stroke 9: City Life

This song is one that I used to play "DJ" during second semester senior year with Mary and Becky. Simpler days, easier times. I'm really looking forward to this summer. The freedom, the bars, the trip to Vegas, the hopefully lucrative job/internship, the fast and wicked times. Maybe a jaunt to Boston to visit Cindy, maybe finally getting TiVo. It will only get warmer from here on out and I love Springtime because the world seems to come alive again after a long dead winter.

Over break, I saw a movie that the more I think about it, may upon second viewing, be added to my list of all time favorites: David Gordon Green's "All the Real Girls." Terrific Evanston theater, validated parking, seats with arms that go up and rock, the silent, incubating feeling of being one of few people staring at the screen and kind of being on the inside if the movie's good.

Also went to Madison with my Dad and Michelle. We went to three bookstores and M and I really soaked up our dad's credit quickly. I read an entire Peggy Noonan book since Wednesday. It was excellent, as usual.

Jason Mraz: The Dreamlife of Rand McNally

Everyone, download whatever you can by this guy. He's gonna be huge. The next big thing, mark my words if I haven't already told you.

Michelle's birthday is coming up in 18 days, and I don't know what to get a 15-year-old. If we were Mexican, I'd be in deep shit since her 15th would be the American version of sweet sixteen. But I'm tired of the tired DVD's and CD's and pop culture shit I've been getting her for years. People, you have your ears to the 15-year-old-girl's grindstone much more than me, so feed me ideas. If I get nothing, I will get her a pink Minnie Mouse watch I got as a consolation Carnival prize. Sorry, Rob. Yeah, right, Mary, like that would ever happen.

More to report, from the front lines, in the next blog. I'm simply wiped out right now. And I am not looking forward to typing all night. I may take the two point deduction and turn it in on Thursday. Always a possibility.

Godspeed, John Glenn,