The closer the Hawaii week looms in my schedule, the gladder I am that it’s almost here. The next two days in my war-hawk-populated workplace are going to be bad enough. If there weren’t going to be auditors in the place forcing us to behave, I would feel like handcuffing myself to my chair to keep from throwing down with the large woman across the aisle. I’m making myself take half-hour lunches so that I’m not in the vicinity of the TV when people are bitching about the fact that some people have opinions that don’t match theirs and are allowed to express them. I’ll have to post instead of talking as this thing drags on, I guess. It’s just unnerving when going to choir seems like it’ll be less stressful than surviving a day at work.

Now this is really unusual: Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is standing by his criticism of President Bush’s diplomacy.

Usually when a high-profile politician or activist says something unpopular they make some lame excuse about “well, what I meant was…”

You rarely hear someone say “I said something stupid,” and hardly ever do you hear them say “I said it, and I meant it.”

It reminds me of a story posted on This Is True a while back about a French politician who was spotted in the audience at a cabaret show that included male nudity. True editor Randy Cassingham summed up the response as “Yeah, so?”

Well, deadline day is today, the U.N. is in all likelihood not going to budge, and we’re due to leave for Hawaii on Saturday. Makes for a very freako situation. Welcome to my life.

Kelson and I were discussing this last night and decided that if anything happened between now and then, we weren’t getting on the plane. Now that it’s about 95% likely we’ll have to fish or cut bait on that decision, I’m thinking we’re probably no more in danger on the plane than either here or in Hawaii. First off, Hawaii is U.S. soil. There’s not a lot of other soil around, really. Plus, it’s already been bombed once, and as Lilo says, “It’s nice to live on an island with no major cities.” Second, there aren’t many tall buildings in SoCal. Sure, somebody could crash the plane into Disneyland, but what a way to go. Third, and probably most important, security is going to be on red alert from today forward, no matter what happens. It’ll probably mean I have to wear a non-underwire bra at LAX and mail my Swiss Army knife to the hotel, but I’d like to see a terrorist try to get through. (Try. Not actually do.)

And if they shut down air travel when we’re due to come home, well…..see above.