First, yes I'm from Alaska, yes I vote in Alaska and no - I'm not happy about Sarah Palin. I could write a thousand posts about this choice but I'll leave it to the voters to to work it out on their own. One thing that does bother me about all the coverage though is this constant clamor of "she's ordinary - she's just like us". When did we decide that ordinary was a good thing to have in a president? When did we decide that extraordinary - for our leaders or ourselves - was something to avoid?

Some days I just don't know what to even hope for anymore.

Gustav was scary enough but now Hanna and then Ike (?) And the guy from the weather channel tonight hinted at Josephine, who I'm assuming is a disturbance but not yet a storm but might become one. I do not miss living on the coast. It is beautiful - a childhood on the beach is not something to easily dismiss - but man, the stress of hurricane season these days is not how I would want to spend my late summer.

I'm still running - not quite the times as required but getting there. Today was ten straight minutes then a walk and then five more minutes running. I'm supposed to run twenty-five minutes next time and I don't know - that's a lot of minutes! But I figure if I made it ten then I can make it fifteen for sure and maybe a bit beyond it. Twenty-five is not impossible anymore; it will come eventually. (Which is amazing when you consider five minutes seemed impossible just a couple of months ago.)

The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard is Eddie Campbell in all his whimsical glory. It manages to be both serious and silly at the same time and as always will provoke deep thoughts on just how original a story can truly be. Expect more on that in my November column (all graphic novels).

Being Caribou is the sort of hardcore nature title that makes you realize just how much some people are committed to understanding and saving wildlife. The author and his wife followed the Porcupine Caribou herd from Old Crow, Canada into the US and the calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Yes, Sarah Palin wants to drill there.) It's not much of a political book, it's mostly just some serious animal study and tromping through the absolute boonies and studying animals in the actual habitat. I still can't believe they survived some of what happened to them (bears, wolves, blizzards, raging rivers - we're talking wild). Formal review on this one in October. (Oh and how cool is this - there's a children's version of the book too!)

I just started reading In Hovering Flight from Unbridled Books and it is fantastic. I seem to be preoccupied with birds lately - the new Peterson's guide, Tim Gallagher's new title, Falcon Fever and then the usual ton of wildlife books for my son. In Hovering Flight is a novel though, about a bird artist and ornithologist and their daughter. It sounds slight when I explain it that way and I'm too early to suggest any major plot points but it's gorgeously written and very compelling. It makes me want to keep a field guide. I don't know what I'd put in it, but the more you read about people who it means so much to, the more you wonder just what you're missing in not carefully noticing all those birds.

Yesterday was the day for Wicked Cool Overlooked Books and I missed it. I'll post on it Monday to get back on track. (How can it be September already? Man - I feel like I need to Christmas shopping or something so I don't fall behind........)