My dad has used the same stationary for letter-writing for at least the past twenty years: lavender, heavy. His letters smell like cigar boxes, and he writes, as he always did, with a Mont Blanc fountain pen. When I was little, he used to draw on my brown lunch sacks with that fountain pen--the only design I remember clearly was of a clown with balloons of different colors, that spelled out "Natasha." There were others too, though, I just can't remember them.

My dad was always selfishly unselfish, if that makes sense. He never took care of himself, so from a young age, I thought that that was my job. He was busy taking care of me instead, in his own way. He's the 1970s intellectual preserved in amber, the absent minded professor who grew old in the wrong time, and who forgot to keep someone practical around to take care of him.

Moving is conducive to this kind of reflection--I'll be back to romanticizing other people's pasts soon enough.

not so sure about democracy

You know that slightly ill feeling you get when you're at the movies, and an incredibly stupid preview comes on and to your horror, your fellow movie-goers laugh, or applaud, or make other laugh-track-conditioned responses? I was watching John McCain give his "contrasting with Obama" speech this evening--he's a terrible speaker--and when his audience responded with the desired "boooo" or "yeeeeeah" or whatever, I thought to myself what a shame it is that they can vote.

(here's the speech I was talking about. The movie, as I recall, was "You don't mess with the Zohan.")