So I’m sitting in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on the first Sunday of Lent, preparing to go up, along with every other person in the New York metro area being baptized Catholic this Easter, one by one, to sign our names in the book and transition from being “catechumens” to being “members of the elect.” I’m sitting there in my suit and tie, overwhelmed by the number of people and the diversity of the crowd and the beauty of the moment. But I’m also steeling myself as I have done at various stages along this nearly year-long path in anticipation that THIS Catholic situation will somehow offend my morals or beliefs. I’m assuming this because I’m outside of the cozy liberal enclave of the Jesuits, out in the messy mainstream Catholic world. I’m assuming this because a lot of the catechumens here are from the Bronx and Staten Island. I’m assuming this because I am about to hear a homily from Cardinal Egan. I know next to nothing about Cardinal Egan except that he was appointed by Pope John Paul II and is one of a few cardinals on the highest canon court of the Church. So I’m expecting something uncomfortably “conservative”—whatever that means.

The Gospel reading, which corresponded to baptism and the beginning of the forty days of Lent, is about Jesus’ forty days in the desert and the temptations that were put before him. Cardinal Egan welcomes us and talks about the Church’s delight at our decision. …

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Mostly I love seasons, nature, cycles, and this is where I live so this is where I’m experiencing that. But I guess — in the snow series and this one — I’m also looking at the juxtaposition of nature with ultra-urban culture. (That sound like an artist explaining their work. Ick. These are just snapshots. Look at the pretty pictures, k?)

Proof that you can make a business of anything. The bigger question: What were they doing on St. Marks, a few miles from anything corporate? My guess is a paranoid consipracy theorist on my block decided mass shredding had to happen immediately.

Last week in NYC we had a blizzard with a foot of snow, single-digit temperatures and 50mph winds. It's funny. In Maine, that would be unexceptional, but down here it's just shy of the apocalypse. It's like when I was growing up in NY and would laugh when Southerners had freezing weather and an inch of snow and everything shut down and cars were sliding off the roads left and right. Now, having lived through a half dozen winters in Midcoast Maine, I watch fellow New Yorkers prepare for storms and cold with bemusement. Ya call this weather?! Sheesh. Also their understanding of cold weather dress is so uninformed. Every time I go out in sub-freezing weather here at least one if not several people say something about my being underdressed, when I'm the warmest one there. They all have puffy parkas or bulky wool coats and all the accessories. I'm wearing what I wore to feed the sheep at 7am in 30 below in Maine: t-shirt under a double-thick sweater under a lined barn coat, plus cap, neck warmer and mittens. (The actual items. There's still straw dust in the pocket of the barn coat a decade later, which makes me smile.) I don't think it's possible to be cold in that, with all the layers trapping warm air. But they think you have to look like the Michelin Man to be warm. I actually miss the severity of weather up north. It feels real. Something about respecting nature …

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I always think it's cool when New York has a blizzard. People walk in the street, things slow down, people seem festive. When I left earlier, around 6, the snow was falling hard, cars were slipping around -- it was cool, and I didn't have my camera. Later we were tromping around the Upper East Side throwing snowballs at each other and I didn't have my camera. Well, I took some when I finally got home at about 1am. The snow had calmed down, but it was still pretty.

A new TV ad campaign by the United Church of Christ (including the Congregationalists) shows a conservative church with a velvet rope and bouncers turning away anyone who is gay, non-white or weird looking. The ad says, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we. No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here." CBS and NBC have refused to air the ads. "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," says CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks." NBC, home of Will & Grace and Queer Eye, just said it was "too controversial." You can see the ad at http://www.stillspeaking.com/default.htm If I were a member of a conservative church where only blonde heterosexual couples in blue suits and pink summer dresses with perfect children were welcome, I'd certainly get the message from this ad that I was being criticized. I could understand if a network feared their wrath and didn't want to show it for that reason. What's disturbing about the CBS response is that they cite the executive branch's opposition to gay marriage as the reason it's "too controversial." So apparently, they're saying that since the President opposes gay marriage, this is the official baseline for our society, and …

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As I talk to friends and read blog entries about trips to visit family for Thanksgiving, and decompress from the visit I just had from my ex-wife on her own way to a Thanksgiving feast with her new partner's family, I'm struck by the fact that while I feel melancholy, it's not over my family being gone, it's over not having a partner to share the holidays with. I'm a sentimental ninny -- I will go on a Christmas window outing every year, decorate a tree, see Handel's Messiah, and generally enjoy strolling around my East Village neighborhood streets where trees and lampposts are strewn with strings of little white lights and boutique after boutique offers the perfect gift for that hard-to-get-a-gift-for friend. The nip in the air, the smell of soup, fogged windows from warm bodies inside: all put a smile on my face. For me, the holiday season never led to suicidal states. It was always a Good month, annoyingly interrupted by a few one-day family events. Those days could be horrific, but I didn't generally blame the season for them. Family holidays have faded into background memory. My family of semi-choice is more fun. But this year, despite my life being good, and despite its being the fourth holiday season in a row that I'm single, it feels different. I think the fact that my life is good may be the reason my singleness is more problematic. These last few years, I have given the holidays far …

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November 7, 2004

I did not work for Kerry, though I was hoping he’d win. I’m in politics, and I used that as an excuse—I was already working for the cause, so I didn’t need to also work for Kerry. But the truth is I had no desire to. When Dean was running, I found time to help his campaign; somehow, I didn’t find that same time for Kerry. This despite my intimate knowledge of the stakes involved.

I have been in formal and informal meetings these last few days that inevitably turn into post mortems on the election, and several times I’ve heard people echo my reaction: annoyance at the fact that I ever let myself be OK with Kerry being the candidate. When this whole thing started, Kerry was down near the bottom of my list (just above Gephardt). I made myself see things as positively as I could and hoped his wishy-washy style was tied to his role as a senator—that once he was President he would change gears—but I honestly doubted it. The flip-flopper charge against him started in the Dean campaign and I agreed with every word. Sure it’s hard to have to defend a Senate record, with all the inevitable compromises. But many aren’t as muddled as Kerry’s, and maybe the Senate isn’t the right pool to pull presidents from. Maybe it happens so rarely for a reason. But in the end, I speculated that Kerry might be the Democratic …

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This is really fascinating and made me feel a lot better. There have been all these maps all over the media showing the vast red expanse and little strips of blue on the northern coasts. This map is the real story though. Regions are distorted to match area size to population, and shades of purple represent mixed red/blue for areas where the vote was close, most of which show as red on other maps even though the republicans won my a narrow margin. Note that there are many areas that are heavily blue-Democrat and only a very trivial number of areas that are solid red-Republican. I looked them up on the non-baloony version of the map and the one near the top left that looks like a Star Trek Federation badge is Utah, and the vertical line to its right a bit is the vertical strip of South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and northwest Texas. The site where you can find this and the other views, and commentary about the statistics, is here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/. I sure wish our media treated things like this with an approach of helping people understand the data, rather than just spewing misleadingly simplistic facts.