and we're back

Well, we're not both back. Alison is up in Washington, so from here on out, anything written here will mostly reflect what's going on down here in Portland. It's been 2 weeks since I arrived. The job search is a bit slower than I anticipated, but it's okay. Things are moving forward and looking up, so I expect I'll have something in place within the week. But it's boring to talk about work, so fortunately I don't have any work to talk about. I'm just going to use the excuse like John McCain would in this situation: that I don't need to focus on the task at hand (in my case, working and in his case, debating the issues our country faces) because I have to focus solely on ONE thing (in my case, doing nothing and in his case, solving our country's economic crisis). Don't get me wrong, the crisis is an important issue and coming up with a bill to bailout Wall Street that includes good policies and oversight is also really important. But we have 98 other senators that can work on it. Besides, it's not as if Obama's not working on it; He's been on the phone with Henry Paulson every day. As Gov. Rendell said about the issue of delaying the debate, “What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday?”

While I tried to keep politics out of the blog as much as possible during the road trip, now that I'm here and unemployed, it's really the only thing I think about and the only thing I seem to get emails about. One I got this morning was a piece written by Anne Lamott. If you're not familiar with her work, get familiar with it. Though, I have to say, I've mostly read her earlier stuff that she wrote before becoming a "reform Christian." But I've heard her recent work, more focused on faith, is really great. The piece I read this morning said that we should be talking ABOUT Obama and not hating on Palin and McCain so much. She's even gone so far as to not only vow to not say Palin's name anymore, but not to even mutter the word "lipstick" until this is all over. I like what she's getting at, but if I follow her suggestion, it's going to put a huge damper on my plans for a Halloween costume.