SJ Rozan

At least, so says Booklist!

I put the air conditioner in this morning. (Yes, by myself! Strong like bull, dumb like ox!) Two hours later Bella the Cat came strolling into the living room. She jumped on the table and found she can’t see out of that window anymore. She gave me a baleful look. Then she discovered the thing blocking her view blows cool air right onto her mat. Now she’s settled in. (And please note she’s got the remote so I can’t monkey with it.)

I’m a straight white woman. I thought the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act was a disgrace, and I think today’s DOMA decision is marvelous.

And who knew there was a “SCOTUSblog?”

10:06 am

The New York Times

Supreme Court Rules in Gay Marriage Case

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Wednesday that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

From SCOTUSblog

Roberts dissents. Scalia dissents. DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. The opinion and its holding are confined to those lawful marriages.

From the decision: “DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty.”

SCOTUSblog quotes from the decision:

“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others.”

Hot off the presses! Books, not ARCs. Will reveal more secrets of the cover and insides later, but this photo just in from Sam Cabot’s mad publisher and I couldn’t wait to show you guys!

Have a Kindle? In celebration of the first day of summer, my haiku book, 211 HAIKU is free free free for download for the next five days.

Young robins chase mom,

Startle cardinal from branch.

Catbird sits and stares.

Pawlonia pods

Have all opened, dropped their seeds.

But yard’s been mowed. Mulch.

No clouds. Sun pours down,

Throws tree’s silhouette across

Diamond-studded grass.

Was in a funk this morning, couple of things not going my way. Not even including the Spurs losing to the Heat last night — I get my adrenalin level and heartbeat way up for a game like that, but I don’t, in the words of one of my nephews, get all angsty once it’s over. Anyway, that was me today, grumble grumble grumble, and when I got to Grand Central there in the tunnel were the Ebony Hillbillies rocking “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

I couldn’t find a video of them doing it, but here’s Marty Robbins, whose performance was where I learned it. I think the album was called “Hell Bent for Leather,” though I can’t believe they’d have used the word “hell” in a record made in the fifties. Anyway, when I was a kid I stole it from my father and played it until it had no grooves left.

Okay, I’m still in a funk. But it’s a much better funk.

…saturating the market for me and Carlos Dews running our Sam Cabot mouths — which market I imagine is fairly small to begin with — here’s the link to where you can go and see the video clips if you’re not on Facebook. You’ll always be a clip behind this way, but believe me, this stuff keeps.

Sam Cabot made a roller coaster!

Especially when it’s incomprehensible. Parked my block one behind the other are six polished-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives brand-new Buick Cutlasses in six different but quite adult and serious dark colors. They’re still wearing their Michigan dealer plates; clearly they arrived by truck. Why? My first thought was, to film a commercial, but there’s no sign of film crews anywhere in the neighborhood. As swag, the grand prizes in some event, some awards ceremony? But six of them? And it’s Tuesday, who does big ceremonies on a Tuesday? No one seems to be watching them, keeping them from the vicissitudes of New York traffic: cabbies, skateboarders, dogs peeing on their shiny tires. Life is just going on around them. What gives?