It’s been a week since I last wrote in here. A few things of note in the past week.

First, Al Gore finally conceded, meaning, in my opinion, he conceded to Bush’s stealing of the election. It’s funny — all this talk (on both sides) of “the rule of law” and “letting the people’s voice be heard,” yet Bush is taking office because he won by an antiquated technicality that delivered to him the presidency even though 300,000+ more people voted for Al Gore. “Duuh-beuw” is taking office even though 300,000+ more people essentially said, “We’ve heard your proposals and we say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ We want the other guy.” The majority of the nation — however slim that majority might be, it is a majority — said, “No, Duuh-beuw. We don’t want you to run our country,” and his response is, “Well, tough. I win — I got them there electoralistic votes that I needed, so screw the will of the people! It’s time for ‘The will of the Bush!’” Such a fucking idiot we have elected. “We?” Of course not — I didn’t vote, so I suppose I can’t really complain. But still — Duuh-beuw? That dolt.

Now, on to other news. I ordered a camera this week.

I wanted to get just a body and order a lens separately — the f/3.5 28–105 lens. However, they didn’t have just the body in stock, so I got the kit, which comes with an f/4 28–90 lens. I’m a little worried about having a lens that slow — f/4 is nasty-slow. I can order a f/1.8 50 mm for about 80 bucks, though, so I’ll mess with this lens and see what I think and if I feel I need a faster lens, I’ll buy that one.

Other news — I called Jasiu Monday. He was, to say the least, surprised that I called him. And I have to admit that I was a little surprised at his lack of enthusiasm when I explained why I was calling. Anyway, he answered in the affirmative. “Myślę, że możemy.” He wanted to talk to Sojka about it, though. I was supposed to email him concerning this, but I can’t get his address right. I guess I misunderstood what he said, or wrote something down incorrectly.

More interesting things this week — on Monday (or maybe it was Tuesday) Val and Kali called an impromptu editors’ meeting to discuss what we’ll be doing once Kali leaves. They’ve hired someone to be “Director of Editorial Services” or something like that. Whom did they hire? Natalie. Starting 2 January, she’ll no longer be Western Civ’s content developer; she’ll essentially be our boss. Matt Maslin and I were talking about this Friday night at Chhavi’s party and we both agree that this is a very good thing.

Lastly, Chhavi and I had a party Friday night in celebration of her birthday. Drew came — the first time since he got off the bus in Jabłonka that we’d seen him. I talked to him for about an hour, all told. The real story of the evening, though — or at least, so I’m told — was my drunkenness. In short, I got blitzed. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever been that drunk. Certainly not since I came back from Poland, and I’m not even sure I got that wasted there. I was completely aware of how drunk I was, and I was actually feeling the pain I would feel later at that moment — sort of hurting in anticipation for how much I’d really be hurting later.

One last thing to write about: Michelle is, indeed, coming up for a visit. She arrives Friday night. Chhav leaves tomorrow morning. Alone, with Michelle, for three days and four nights. I want to write, “That could have been deadly at one point, but hopefully now I know nothing will happen.” But is that quite true? Rather, is it true that, given the opportunity, I would pass it up? I guess I’ll find out soon enough.