The first thing I overheard in line at the extremely busy Leisure World Starbucks this morning was how some guy's brother-in-law worked as a poll watcher for years and learned firsthand how many dead people come out to vote. The next guy said the Kennedy-Nixon race was won by dead people.

The tone these things were said in is hard to explain. Humorous compassion for the dead? Trying hard not to be one of them? And to make it look easy?

Nah...not quite.

If nothing else, the morning regulars at the Leisure World Starbucks show the fuck up. I sense they'd call any other way of being candyass, college kid, something like that.

If anyone's wondering where the next Orange County open mike should be, this is it. (And it should be a morning one.)

This is actually a really good idea. Please, someone, take it.

Last year around this time I started kind of feeling...roses.

A children's theater in La Habra was doing "The Little Prince," and I was thinking about trying out for the part of the rose. I bought a rose bush, and asked people to call me Rose. I didn't end up trying out for the play (it was too far away without a car), but the name stuck.

The rosebush didn't do very well. I'd been good with plants before, but not last year. Plus I couldn't get the watering right, it was always too much or too little. Holes spread through the leaves and the flowers got moldy.

By last month it really seemed dead. The orange hips looked like accusing birdheads. Everything else'd fallen off.

A couple weeks ago, though, for the fun of it, I dug a hole in the ground between the shed and the fence, and a neighbor helped me transplant the rosebush into it. (A tough old bird. I offered him gloves but he said that'd take the fun out of it.) We protected it from the lawnmowers a yard or so around with a nifty kneehigh fencey thing.

Now it's budding, all over. Much lusher and more confident-looking than I remember from last year.

It reminds me of a children's song my dad wrote a few years ago about the springtime. There's a line that goes, winter's not that strong

All my life I’ve been interested in other people’s stories. I’ve wanted to know them, understand them, feel them. When I grew up and got into politics, I always felt the main point of my work was to give people the chance to have better stories.

I just heard Bill Clinton say that in his biography on cd.

It's so weird...I had that sense, while Clinton was president. And that that might be one of the few things a president honorably and uniquely (as opposed to the financial powers controlling the role) could do for his or her country. To hear him confirm it, wow.

Damn it, Lois, I said it in 1997, and I'll say it again. Al Gore is a sacred text from the 36th century!

Today's crush is on Louie Armstrong music!




Brittleness, weakness, selfishness and plans, quietly take their leave and go.

I hope to have such strong arms someday. I think you have to do a lot of exercises!

Sometimes the answer is Louis Armstrong.



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