The Libertarian party just nominated Bob Barr for its presidential candidate. As late as last week, I checked prices for flights to Denver to see if maybe I'd go on impulse. I'm not kicking myself, but it turned out to be another exciting nomination process (it took six ballots for Barr to eke out a majority over Mary Ruwart), so let's say I'm at least a little wistful. Bill Redpath, the chairman of the committee, looks great, surprisingly. I know him to talk to from his days as Virginia delegate, and when I last saw him, he was waxy and dandruffy and I thought the chairmanship of the party would probably induce an early heart attack. But he looks great, the job must agree with him. Anyway, I like and admire Mary Ruwart and she's been at every convention I've been to since 1998, but I can't say I'm upset because Barr will automatically get more press than she would. And maybe he'll even get some votes, as you can't say there are any other even remotely libertarian candidates in this year's race.

My friend Lorna from Maine is in town this week with her family, and together we walked out on our first Broadway show Thursday, Mary Poppins. I never liked the movie as a kid, I thought the dad was mean and I didn't really know what Mary's deal was, what her powers were other than packing large objects into a carpetbag. Lorna's five year-old daughter conked out as soon as the lights came up at intermission, I leaned over and said, "Everyone in this show's an asshole," to Lorna, and she said she felt bad suggesting we leave, but I was all for it. We woke up the kid, asked how she liked the show, then had a couple glasses of wine back at the hotel and gabbed into the wee hours.

Before that, we took the Staten Island Ferry back and forth so Olivia could see the Statue of Liberty fairly close. She also got a big steaming pile of New York crazy when a woman started screaming at us, "I'm glad to see you believe in adoption." (Lorna's kid was born in China.) She went on at length about the virtues of adoption and asked if Lorna planned to take her "back where she came from", to which Lorna said she didn't know. Olivia just curled into her mom's side, shyly. "You have to learn to just say 'mind your own damn business,'" Crazy said, "when someone like me asks you how it feels to be adopted. It's no one's business." I should have run interference for my visitors, herded her out of Olivia's hearing. Who knows what any five year-old would know about what adoption means or whether her mother would take her back where she was born? (I told her New Yorkers were famous for yelling out their opinions to strangers, then distracted her at the window with the sight of a cruise ship.) Oh, and did I mention that this woman had a hole the size of a quarter right between her eyes? I thought it was down to her skull, but Lorna believes were were looking at pulsing, wrinkled, frontal lobe. I guess that's why I didn't leap into action; I was staring at it like the eye of a cobra. I never saw anything like it.

Hey, big boy! Yeah, you.

Okay, I got no game. And right now, I have conjunctivitis, which makes me look like the resurrected dead, this pic is from the gala.

Jesse O'Dunne keeps calling me. He's been calling for a couple of weeks, usually after ten, and always looking for Emily. When I recognized his name on caller ID the second time he called, I told him he had the wrong number. "But this is in my fave five," he said, and he's been drunk dialing me ever since.

Last Saturday was the Hope Lodge Gala in Minneapolis, and here I am with my bro and sis at the staging house, and that's me, with the back of my Dad's head, apparently super-psyched about the Sauvignon Blanc. The gala was the whole reason for a trip to Minnesota, but the week was jam-packed with talkin' and jokin' as usual. I was picked up by my friend Karen1 (not to be confused with Karen2) and we spent a surprisingly fun afternoon in a coffee shop playing with coloring books. My friend Sue took me shopping for the gala outfit Thursday, and although it was grueling, I really liked what I wore. The next day I hanged out with my brother (really? "I hanged out with him"? Hung sounds better, but I don't think it's right) and we saw "Iron Man" twice. Sunday I floated on a boat with my cousin Jim for three hours and then met some people for the contractual Mother's Day dinner. Monday I had a dinner party for my friends from St. Kate's, and Tuesday was Dad's day, marred by a developing cold that forced me to nap through several hours of our quality time.

Too . . . tired, can't . . . blog . . .

Well, I'll tell you this one, with Hurculean effort. I was on the subway last week, near a couple in their 80s (judging by my 70-something parents). The man had just come from the doctor, where he was told he wasn't going to get his cataracts removed. Then they started talking about what movie they were going to see. The wife suggested "Baby Mama" based on TV commercials she'd seen, but the husband knows someone who thought it was silly. The wife consulted the paper, grumbling about how they never tell you what the movie's about, everything used to cost a nickel, etc. "Oh, what's that one about some people on Guantanamo?" Now, if I hadn't been on my way somewhere, it would have been hilarious to follow them off the train, sit behind these people, and observe their response to "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay", but I couldn't keep mum. "I don't think you'd like that one," I said. "Oh? What's it about?" "It's about two guys who smoke a lot of . . . marijuana. It's a teen comedy." "Oh, thank you," they said as we pulled into Jay Street where they were getting off. "Well, 'Baby Mama', then," they agreed.

Which, really, they probably didn't like that one much better.