I finally put my money where my mouth has been for the past four years — I donated money to get Bush out of the White House. On Mo's recommendation, my cause of choice was MoveOn PAC. If you haven't already, I think now is a great time to make a contribution. And if you have a blog or even just a mouth, encourage your friends. A whole bunch of $25s makes a whole bunch of noise.

All eight weeks of my new puppy:

She's called Dobbin.

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. That's not strictly true. You can go home whenever you like. I'm just not sure that you should.

Okay, I know, what Wolfe meant is that in deciding to venture back, you will find that you don't fit the way you did. Home, whatever that means to you, could be a shrine to the past, every detail pressed flawlessly in the pages of time, but your experience of it will never be the same. You are too tall or too jaded. You can't sit in your childhood swingset because you spill over the sides and you've developed a sense of mortality. We will never feel the freedom of flying again, uncolored by the knowledge of broken things and bruises.

I went home last month. I flew to Milwaukee and traveled through my childhood chronologically. I'm not insane. Well, I am, but that's not why I did it. My parents' twenty-fifth anniversary passed recently, and my brother and I crafted a true masterpiece as a gift. We made a video documentary with interviews of our family, friends, and each other at various locations of family milestones. It made more sense to move sequentially, and we did, driving Andy's swanky British sportscar through the halcyon days of youth.

It was lovely to be home and more than a little painful, and my childhood homes felt like movie sets, to varying degrees. Memory, the collage of recollection and photographs, wasn't enough to tie me to the space around us. The houses looked the same, the air smelled right — everything was there but the piece of me I thought I left behind. I could remember being there, but I couldn't remember what it felt like, and I was acutely aware of all the ways I didn't really fit there anymore.

In any case, it's a good thing I went. The video was a hit. My mom started crying about 30 seconds in, and my dad made noises that were supposed to sound like allergies, but we all knew better. They think my brother and I are the best children ever. Anyway, Thomas Wolfe also said "Look homeward, Angel," so it's not like he knows what he's talking about.

Scott came to visit me eleventy thousand years ago, and we had a grand time. Something about his camera was amiss (or just missing; I can't recall) so we shared mine. The film lingered in my camera all this time, and I finally got around to getting it developed. I like this one best:

In other news, I added a few new pictures to photogratify. You can see them if you like!