i like kerry a lot, but i don't know if he can win. electability sucks, but we have to take it as a factor. i'm still not counting out clark, and i think edwards stands a good chance. i think he's got more electability than anyone. but we'll see.

also, i think howard kurtz is way behind the loop in his wp media notes column. he's only noting now that the media doesn't like dean? i said that weeks ago. he only figured out a few days ago that election predicition stuff is pointless? BAH. clearly he wants to be the psychic politcal oracle, but sorry howard, that's been taken.

anyway, this weekend promises to hold some fun. tonight i've got an italian lesson with the lovely irina, a russian woman who met an american diplomat twice her age online in la russa, got married, moved to america, divorced him, and somehow became fluent in italian and english along the way. now she's dating an italian diplomat who works at the embassy. she is pretty kickass, if i do say so myself. i feel like i'm taking a college course or something. i'm currently reading a book called "mai sentita cosi' bene" - means "never felt so good." it's about 6 italian women who all live in paris and get together one night over dinner to gossip and talk profoundly or something about their love lives. it's pretty funny. or maybe i just think it's funny because i don't actually fully understand what's going on and am making up the plot as i go.

then after italian, i'm going to a bar called mcfadden's on pennsylvania. my friend has some sort of voucher where, from 6-8, i can pay a $10 cover and drink whatever i want. i'm a little scared, though. i was reading wp.com reviews of the bar last night, and at least 30% of them mentioned manhandling by the bartenders. i will try to stay on their good sides and not get in any bar fights. even if i could take them.

friday night, tommy, charles, my friend scott and i are hitting the 9:30 club to see the old 97s!! i am so excited because i have never seen them live, and because their last cd "satellite rides," was the cd of the summer in like, 2002? according to me, at least. if you like poppy twangy slightly-country music, you should pick it up. i always love going to the 9:30 club. it's a fun place. it has the power of making you feel cool. yesterday i picked up tickets to fountains of wayne in february. and you all should go too.

then saturday we're driving down to bryce for some skiing! julie's parents own a condo in bryce, and i spent almost every new year's there, from like 98-02. it was THE place for me, julie, jessica, lauren, glen, dokano, geremy, tom dixon and sundry others to pass new years throughout college. there were some pretty fantastic memories there. let me see...well, there is always the classic dancing to 80s music that jessica played on the crappy boombox. the picture of us all wearing ghetto bandanas, except we only had two bandanas, so we fashioned the rest out of dishtowels. the ski lift chair of death that nearly ending the promising ski careers of jessica and myself. endless nights of cranium and other board games! me, drunk, and yelling from the balcony at the snowblower man. me, drunk and yelling from the balcony at people going by on the lift. me...drunk. in general. grilled cheese sandwiches...do i vaguely remember one year david okano going into the bathroom and coming out wearing the large scarf lauren had made him as a diaper? it wouldn't surprise me. there was the fantastic evening when tommy, after we'd been dating a few months, came along to bryce, and i, being drunk and paranoid (sometimes that happens), convinced myself that he was in love with julie because they both shared a desire to go sky diving, spent the day skiing together (cos they are really good skiers and i'm terrible) and had gone to the store together to buy beer, and i spent an hour in hysterics?

see, this blog isn't all about politics - sometimes it's about painting a really unflattering picture of myself!

anyway, the brycers are dispersed all over the world now - jessica is in hong kong via hawaii, julie and i are in arlington, lauren and glen are in sf, geremy's doing a phd in electrical engineering at stanford, tom dixon has disappeared off the face of the earth but i hear he's running a company in reston, david okano is freaking married and owns a house in loundon county. sheesh. just a few years ago we were drinking pete's winter ale, falling down mountains and crashing the bryce resort's pricey new year buffet (and stuffing mini egg rolls and sausages in our pockets as we ran away. not that that was me. nope).

so, that was my little tribute of sorts to bryce. fare thee well, little condo.