Office Pleasures

I love shredding stuff. I get so much shit in the mail with my address and information on it, and being the smart little credit report protector that I am, I shred it. It's so satisfying sticking all that nasty potentially dangerous paperwork into this toothy maw and hearing the grrrrrr sound as the machine chews it all up.

Feed me!
Does it have to be paper?
Feed me!
Does it have to be 2-ply?
Feed me, Clara...feed me all night long!

I also love walking into the kitchen for coffee and seeing a box full of goodies...muffins and bagels and whatnot. It's like finding a dollar bill on the ground.

From today's LTTE section of the New York Times

President Bush opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Then he supported it. President Bush opposed the creation of an independent 9/11 commission. Then he supported it.

During the election of 2000, Mr. Bush opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, denounced nation-building and said gay marriage was an issue to be decided by the states. This was before he signed McCain-Feingold into law, invaded Iraq and called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

It is time for the media to stop propagating the myth that John Kerry is a morally equivocal flip-flopper while excusing the president's reversals as mere political pragmatism.

And even better:

In "All Things to All People," David Brooks writes, "There were so many military men at the Democratic convention I almost expected John Kerry to mount the stage in full body armor and recite the war speech from 'Henry V.' "

That indeed would have looked foolish, not anything like landing on an aircraft carrier in a jump suit under a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished."

Beautiful.

And might I add, it looks especially foolish from a man who never actually, you know, fought for his country.

Come, civil night...

I'm schlepping out to the 'Boke this evening for the audition for the Shakespeare tour-thing at DeBaun. The monologue needs to be <2 minutes, so I decided to do part of the "Gallop apace..." starting with "Come, civil night,/Thou sober-suited matron all in black/And learn me how to lose a winning match..." I wrestled with whether or not to do Helen's speech, starting from "First then--She mothered the beginning of all this wickedness..." and ending with "I, sold once for my body's beauty stand accused, who should for what has been done wear garlands on my head." It feels stronger--the urgency is more clear. But I love the different changes of mood I experience with the Juliet passage; I love going from the overwrought-ness of "and when he shall die,/Take him and cut him out in little stars" to the multi-faceted realization of "O, I have bought the mansion of a love" to the impatience of "So tedious is this day..."

I worked on both of them last night, and really got into the Juliet. I had a hard time falling asleep after that.