He walks like his legs are broken and he talks like he’s never spoken
State employees are all a-gripe today after governor elect Eliot Spitzer failed to reward them with a day off for the death of President Ford. “Aw, man,” my coworker Joy intoned loudly, having heard the radio report on Friday. “I knew I shouldn’t have voted for Spitzer. That JERK.” Meanwhile, federal employees have procured an additional day off, extending the New Year’s holiday for one more day. News reports of Gerald Ford’s death were followed by the hilarity-producing descriptions of his mediocrity and the accompanying footage of how clumsy he was, the BBC providing you with a montage of Ford falling down the stairs of Air Force One, and random other acts of clumsiness. As an additional coup to his tenuous legacy, the BBC then showed the Saturday Night Live clip of Chevy Chase falling over his desk and onto the ground, in some slapstick portrayal of the late president. “That just goes to show you,” I told A., “no matter what you do you will always be remembered for the ways you mess up.” The video clips articulate this perfectly, and the nightly new ingrains this in the national consciousness indelibly. And the state employees are just way less forgiving, I can assure you. As I write this, my coworker Joy is intoning small curse words under her breath as she date stamps the wrong document.

It is a new year. I woke up in bed New Year’s morning with the vague feeling of chagrin as I remembered the events of the night before, and then tried to forget. When the clock struck 12:00, I got up, passing some girl in the kitchen, and retired to my room to vomit in a garbage bag. It seems like a particularly sordid way of bringing in the new year. And it seemed to imbue a sickly sense of things to come. Future outlook: le bad. It’s nothing presidential, though, I guess. But I could have used another day off.