This house has many hearts.

Haunted House week at Uberstott continued with a power outage Sunday that only affected half the house, in such a way that some rooms such as my office were totally without power but other rooms some outlets worked and others didn't. Out of six light switches, one would turn on a light. Coffeemaker: on. Microwave: off. Fridge: cold air coming out of one side but not the other. Scarlett got home when almost everyone was asleep and walked around flipping switches not understanding because clearly some lamps were on, afraid we'd all somehow vanished.

Today Dad gave me his tarot deck from the 70s, which is the first time I've ever heard about Dad having even a passing interest in tarot or in fact anything occult, despite the fact that the rest of the family frequently discusses Ouija boards and the like, and even though I've kept a tarot deck or several around for at least the last 14 years. Man of mystery.

Absurdity and the Sublime

You know the architect Renzo Piano? I wish my name was Renzo Piano.

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I've been impersonating Scott Brown lately, our senator in Massachusetts who is not John Kerry. We elected him to replace Edward Kennedy because we were annoyed at Martha Coakley, which puts him in a weird spot as the only Massachusetts Republican in national government, House or Senate side, with kind of the knowledge that we put him there as a protest vote and a wish that we would actually like him, but not enough spine to vote in ways that would make us like him and make national Republicans dislike him. Or that would make national Republicans like him but us dislike him. He just wants to be friends, y'all. He is more like a Miss USA candidate than a Senator.

My impersonation doesn't really sound like Scott Brown or move like Scott Brown, and obviously there's no physical resemblance. It's a Bob Dylan I'm Not There Scott Brown. Mostly he tries to not take a position on any issue while trying to also imply that he is someone who takes strong positions on things. There's a lot of "my opinion on this hasn't changed" without saying in the first place what that opinion is. There's also a totally fabricated affection for 7up.

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I've decided to grant myself a fictional lordship as the Doober of Peeps.