770 Days, 10 Hours, 45 Minutes, 26.7 Seconds

Osama. Obama.

770 Days, 11 Hours, 11 Minutes, 40 Seconds

A headline this morning about Obama's visit to New Hampshire. The primary's over a year away but he's begun officially exploring. As has Hillary. Hillary – do they always have to acknowledge a woman by her first name only? Posters all over the lawns upstate – Hillary. She recalls a bumper sticker from ten years ago: Impeach Clinton. And her husband. But now she's driving around the country also, just exploring, possibly even in a Ford Explorer. That bumper sticker would have deteriorated years ago, that car probably in the junk heap. Her 1990 station wagon totalled in 1999, while Clinton was still in office. She didn't exactly total her car, it saw a guard rail it liked and wandered over. And even then the engine kept purring. Hillary. Bill. Barak. Osama. Guard Rail. The world seemed safer then.

770 Days, 11 Hours, 23 Minutes, 57.1 Seconds

Almost to the end of the double sevens. Almost to the end of the bowl of nuts set out for company. Clearing the coffee table for the first time in a year. Or almost clearing it. Cheese, sopprassetta. Green cocktail napkins, since it's almost Christmas. Flat bread. Word Perfect keeps flagging sopprassetta as a misspelled word, but she can still taste it. At three a.m., her blood already soaring, she couldn't resist a few salted almonds and brazil nuts. Then a few more. Then to bed with the usual nut headache. She wakes up with another headache. Dumb luck.