I guess I passed a milestone this week. As the winter closes in, Provincetown gets a little bleaker each day. It’s truly odd living in a resort town. From 50,000 inhabitants in the summer to 3,000 or so in the winter, it almost becomes a different town as autumn ends. The cafes close down; the stores shut; there are times when I almost feel as if I’m on Survivor, as each friend or acquaintance gets kicked off the island. To add to the weirdness, they’re currently constructing the town’s first real sewer – so much of the main street is dug up, with sand and soil in heaps and tracks all over town. Squint your eyes and the winding, uneven, muddied street could be of a century ago. But the solitude is also intoxicating. As I write this, I’m looking out at the dark bay, a lighthouse blinking in the distance, in my room on a wharf which has just had its water supply turned off to keep the pipes from freezing over. The boyfriend, beagle and I now live in a friend’s house nearby, with water and a fireplace. I make a short walk each morning to the water’s edge to begin the work day. It’s simple living – but I am extraordinarily lucky to be able to live and work this way. And after twelve years of continuous living in Washington, it’s healthy to take a break, to get some distance. When January comes, even the boyfriend will have to leave and we’ll resume the long-distance thing. But I’ve decided to try and stick it out here by myself. I have a few friends still around, a dog, a fireplace, more books than I could possibly read, and cable television and DSL. More and more people are living here in the winter and I don’t feel like a true townie in any sense until I’ve lost my Ptown winter virginity and stayed through the dark months. Besides, I’m going to be forty next year (gulp) and some solitude – which is different than loneliness – can only do me good. With the blog, it’s also impossible to feel that lonely. Which is why, today, I’d like to say thanks to all of you for making this whole enterprise possible and coming back day after day to check in. Have a great Thanksgiving.
IDIOCY OF THE WEEK: My take on the West’s apallingly mealy-mouthed response to the Muslim Miss World riots is now up on Salon.
JOE CONASON AND CHARLIE BROWN: Reading the pristine partisanship of Joe Conason is always an enjoyable experience. But reading him yesterday called to mind the old Charlie Brown and Lucy cartoon strip. Charlie Brown knows Lucy’s going to snatch the ball away at the last moment but he still kicks. Same with Conason and the other members of the cocoon left. He still doesn’t know why Bush is popular. He’s even reverted to the “he’s just a nice guy” theory that bedeviled the Left under Reagan:
Where have we heard this all before? When Ronald Reagan was president and then won a landslide reelection, the voters felt a similar ambivalence: liked the man, disliked his ideology and agenda. A reader explained this recurring, baffling phenomenon: “Americans usually vote for the friendly guy – Ike vs. the intellectual Stevenson, Truman over Dewey, gush Bush not bore Gore, Reagan over naggin’, JFK over Nixon, Carter over Ford…. It is a bit like those high school class [presidential] elections – the vote goes to the nice, social type, not the socialist …”
Memo to Joe: don’t you think it might have a teensy-weensy bit to do with the fact that the country is at war and most voters approve of Bush’s handling of it? And don’t you think it might also have something to do with the fecklessness of the opposition (as you’ve admitted before) and even, God help us, the tax cut which Democrats want to take away from people? Oh well. Worth a try. Beside this, what does it say about some liberals’ view of ordinary voters that they honestly think people vote for someone’s personality alone? Such condescension toward the electorate is a big part of their problem. You’d expect the Left to get over this after Adlai Stevenson, but they just can’t seem to do it.
WWJD: It seems that parts of a reader’s letter I posted on the question of “What Would Jesus Drive?” were lifted from this site, OffKilter. True credit goes to Roy Rivenburg of the Los Angeles Times and Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle. I had no idea; and apologize for inadvertently running their material without credit.
The Dish 