The New Yorker Spotlights Friends Talking in the Night Blog

Following Obama's announcement last night that his daughters, Malia and Sasha, will get to take a puppy with them to the White House, The New Yorker quoted me today in my capacity as White House pet historian. Take a look. And if you have any thoughts about what to name the new first pup, feel free to leave a comment here.

Thank you so much, New Yorker! 

Please Stop Distracting Me, I'm Trying to Read

Back in the pre-convention calm of August, I sat on the beach on Cape Cod, my head buried not just in sand but in a suitcase-size volume* of War and Peace. Since Labor Day Tolstoy's fictional account of 19th-century Russia, though a soap opera the likes of which HBO has never approximated, has not captivated me nearly as much as the daily--and sometimes, hourly--news. Between the presidential race and what's happening on Wall Street and Capitol Hill there's no doubt that we live in an eye-popping time. And whether or not there really is an ancient Chinese proverb to that effect, it feels like we're under a curse.

So cursed, in fact, that watching the presidential debate last week--you know, the pedantic one that felt like we were back in Al Gore's graduate class, An Inconvenient Truth--I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would want to be president right now. Between the country's money troubles, the energy crisis, our involvement in two wars, and whether or not we should talk to Iran with or without preconditions--we've made a mess of things. God bless McCain and Obama--those candidates with egos the size of California and Texas put together--is all I have to say. Someone has to have K-P duty. 

In a month this race that will have lasted 658 days will be over (unless we again find ourselves wrangling over hanging chads) and perhaps the national sport of watching Sarah Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric or otherwise proving Tina Fey to be the more prepared candidate will be over (and perhaps not). I will turn away from the 2008 version of the femme fatale that has so obsessed my friends and me (one even declared herself a member of the wholly fictitious Palin Anonymous just so she could stop watching YouTube and get on with her work) and go back to reading about Tolstoy's femme fatale, Natasha Rostov. 

But I think I won't be as wholly absorbed in my novel as before. I can't recall a single president who's had a calamity-free term so maybe we'll come out of the fix we're in just fine. I can't help but believe, though, that it's going to take all of us this time. If we'd just been paying more attention when promises like "shock and awe" and "Wall Street can regulate itself" were made, we wouldn't find ourselves living in times that are quite so riveting. 

  *Additional baggage charges may apply

Tell Me a Story

With two jobs, two kids, one marriage, and a teething puppy, life is hectic enough in our own family to have to worry about the jobs, marriage, and kids of another--particularly someone I'm unlikely ever to meet. But like many people I know, I've become obsessed with all things Sarah Palin. Partly, my impulse is the same that Southern writer Walker Percy described when he said we watch airplanes land just in case they crash. So I'm attuned to YouTube, the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, etc. etc. to learn the latest on Bristol's pregnancy, Sarah's rumored extramarital affair with Todd's ex-business partner, Troopergate--even Levi's makeover from grunge hockey player to Greenwich prepster--in case any of these makes Palin crash and burn, whisking her off the national stage that she was so recently air-dropped onto.

Deliciously scandalous possibilities aside,  we're still susceptible to people's stories, real or not. It's how we categorize people and file them away; it becomes shorthand for how we think. So Palin is reduced to the hockey mom who married her high-school "guy;" McCain, the ex-POW who spent five years in a box; Obama, the candidate raised by a single mom striving to give her son the tools to get ahead in life; and Biden, just a regular Joe. 

The stories that captivate aren't all political, of course. Consider my previously mentioned puppy. During the weeks this summer that I spent searching petfinder.com and other sites online for a pup, the only thing worse for me than a dog with a stupid name like Chewey and a boring story was a dog with no name and no story at all. Our pet's tale involves a dramatic West Virginia rescue, a doting mom, a dead-beat dad, hearty mixed-breed stock, and a litter of dumpling-like, playful, curious, innocents "who know only good in the world." 

Once we got her home, we changed her name from Biscuit to Mavis to reflect her country-girl roots. It turns out, though, that while Mavis is extremely sweet, she's probably not too different from the dozens of other puppies I bypassed. I'll bet they like to contemplate a butterfly just as Mavis was billed to do. 

Let Mavis's story be a cautionary one. In politics, as with house pets, the winning candidate should not be the one whose story tugs at the heartstrings. It should be based on the issues. Which presidential candidate do you think would learn to be house-trained first?