Hmmm. Ten days since I have been here. I am having issues with the management of time, which is odd since I could not be described as being 'busy.' Still.

This weekend I went skiing, which was sort of like dealing with a headache by learning the drums. It was so cold it didn't matter, and it was well worth the 72 bills (!) Stratton charges for a ticket just for the privilege of removing my frozen boots at the end of the day. Plastic: not warm. Perhaps this is why winter clothes are not made out of plastic.

Back at the ranch, there is a gang of Irishmen of questionable immigrant status putting a new roof on our garage/shed thing and also making the back stairs safe for people to walk on. Last week, when they started, I left the house with two workmen atop the shed. I returned to find five of them on a new sturdier roof. Keep in mind that the roof is about 10x15, so five people barely fit up there. Also, they were - I kid you not - dancing and singing. Oh, the Irish. So jovial.

On to politics. Thank god that the Pats are in the Superbowl so primary news is kept to a minimum. Bostonians certainly have their priorities straight. What news I have seen is disappointing. Why is it that, once every four years, everyone in New Hampshire, half of whom work in Massachusetts, insist that they are somehow different and more simple and honest and able to detect crap than everybody else? I know some people from New Hampshire. They have the same accent as Massholes, they speak the same language (Frappe, anyone? Water from the bubbluh? A little tawnic?), and they drive as poorly. Not to mention proudly flying flags to show their Patriotism (I'm referring, of course, to suction-cup Patriots flags that go on your car window.) Friends, Iowans might be different, for all I know, but I can tell you that New Hampshirers are pretty much the same as you and me, with fewer taxes and two days less spring and fall. Enough already.

And here's something else: I am sick and tired of being called "ordinary" by these fellas and being expected to take it as a compliment. When did this happen? Does it apply anywhere else?

Phil: How was the movie, Bill?
Bill: Ordinary. Oh, I mean, ordinary!
Phil: Terrific! Wanna see it again?

Phil: Sox look pretty ordinary this year, eh?
Bill: Wicked ordinary! F the Yankees!

Phil: So, what did you think of my fiancee?
Bill: Phil, I have to say she's even more ordinary than the last ordinary girl you were dating.
Phil: Don't I know it! Wanna be my best - oh, I mean, ordinary - man?

I am hereby declaring myself a not-ordinary American. The first candidate to personally acknowledge this will get my vote.

Note: In the interest of participatory democracy, I also have some backup plans for choosing a candidate.

Cold damn. It's way, way below zero here. Like, two or three degrees. But still. It makes your face hurt to answer the door. But we could have it worse. I heard some guys on the radio who monitor the weather station on the top of Mt. Washington. It was 40-something below up there, with a wind chill, the QB rating of weather, of 82-below. (Actually, as of this writing, it's 88-below. Actually, says the handy glossary provided, it only feels like 88-below. Comforting.)


Do you know what 82-below is like? As in, how it's different from, say, 25-below? Or 55-below? Here's an example: the weather guys took a bucket of water outside. They threw it up in the air. Nothing came down.

I mean, except for the bucket. Even at 82-below, buckets will not disappear. Sorry to disappoint.

Now we have tenants. One, really, but her boyfriend is on winter break from college and so it has been two of them for a few weeks. They enjoy a pleasant afternoon of techno music. Mmmm, so much techno. My favorite part is the bass.

In the basement, we have Hindu spiritual music. It sounds like a Water-Pik practicing for its bar-mitzvah. It is the sort of noise that you don't hear, really, until the house is quiet and you are ready to go to sleep. Then, by God, then you hear it.

We are the dorm parents. Do not do any underage drinking around us.

Ok, I've sufficiently recovered from both the flu and the thrill of football victory to reappear. Lots of fascinating things are going on. We've started an herb garden, and the seedlings are giving new meaning to my life. That meaning is showing itself in the form of my getting up every twenty minutes to see if they have grown. Whoever it was that used "watching grass grow" as the uber-form of something boring didn't know what the heck he was talking about.

Letters from Barcelona Line of the Day: I was speaking to the building administrator at a local church, conducting an interview for a story on wedding customs. She told me that her church wouldn't be a very interesting place to feature, because their traditions were the same as everybody else's. "You know who you should talk to," she said, "The Jews. I heard they break things at their ceremonies. They're, like, breaking things all over the place."

What could I do? I talked to the Jews. Turns out she's right.