So Much To Say

There are so many serious things I should be blogging about today. For example:

1. Two cases, Booker and Fanfan, have been decided, and the Supreme Court has radically changed the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Some of you who know me from my life outside of this blog (is there life outside of the blogosphere?) will recall that I take a serious interest in sentencing, especially in the way the Guidelines are constructed and used. In brief (very brief), the Sentecing Guidelines are a series of rules requiring federal judges to give specific sentences to defendants. Judges were constrained by the guidelines; they could not use their discretion to decrease a sentence if, say, a man filed an incorrect mortgage application in order to get refinancing to pay for alterations to his home made necessary by the fact that his profoundly retarded daughter had to leave the rehabilition facility that had been caring for her. That, by the way, was an actual case of mine.

In Booker/Fanfan the Court has ruled, essentially, that the Guidelines should be just that, guidelines, not hard and fast regulations. (For more information on this, in a readable format, go to your local library and pick up a copy of my novel, Daughter's Keeper.)

I think this is without a doubt the correct resolution of the case, and I'm terrified of it. Now, with an entrenched and emboldened Republican majority in Congress, I fear that their reaction to this case will be to make life even harder for defendants and judges.

Keep your fingers crossed.

2. Prince Harry has proved, once and for all, the importance of genetic diversity in the breeding of human beings. I, for one, am responding to the latest proof of his blithering idiocy by requiring my children to marry outside our genetic cohort.

3. Human Rights Watch has just issued a report condemning US actions in Iraq and elsewhere. Surprise Surprise. Thank you, Militiary Intelligence, Rumsfeld and cronies. Next time a US soldier is tortured you can congratulate yourself on doing your bit to decimate the Geneva Convention.


But I don't want to blog about any of that. I want to blog about something else. I want to blog about The Person With Whom I Live and how goddamn irritating he can be sometimes. I want to blog about how maddening it is to live with someone who immediately gets to his feet when dinner is over and rushes to the computer in the kitchen to choose music by which to clean up. This decision invariably takes precisely the same amount of time as it takes me to actually clean up the kitchen. So I load the dishwasher, while The Person With Whom I Live waffles over whether Keren Ann or Fountains of Wayne provides the best clean up music. The Person With Whom I Live hovers over the keyboard, scrolling through itunes, and invariably decides that he must purchase something new, something especially composed to assist with the cleanup. By then I have swept the floor and wiped off the counters. The Person With Whom I Live finally chooses a Shonen Knife cover of a Carpenters' song, just as I am squeezing out the sponge and turning on the dishwasher. When The Person With Whom I Live is confronted about this incredibly aggravating behavior of his, he replies, "Just give me a walk on this one." Thus, a situation is set up by which I am the unreasonable bitch for not "giving him a walk," and he is the reasonable, sensitive soul. I am seriously considered smacking The Person With Whom I Live upside the head with a frying pan.

This, by the way, is the same person who decided that it would be fun to give Zeke a buzz cut ... with his beard-trimmer. I came home from the gym one day to find Zeke sitting on a chair, hanks of hair at his feet, gaping bald spots on his head, and The Person With Whom I Live mumbling, "Don't cry. When Mommy comes home she'll tell us how to fix it."