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Governor James McGreevey of New Jersey retired yesterday (you may remember the brouhaha over his coming out back in August).

In the speech he gave before stepping down, he said (according to the New York Times), “I am not apologizing for being a gay American, but rather, for having let personal feelings impact my decision-making and for not having had the courage to be open about whom I was.”

Whom I was?

I have no problem with his being a gay American. I just can’t accept his grotesque hypercorrective use of the direct object personal pronoun.

At least, I couldn’t until I spoke with my friend L.N., who said, “Well, it’s obvious the Times just left out ‘fucking’ at the end.”

Here is a conversation E.S. and I had while we were in the mountains (before he made me touch moss).

E.S.: So when we have kids, should we adopt from China or Guatemala?
Faustus: You mean in the alternate reality in which I don’t hate and fear children?
E.S.: We won’t get them too little. We’ll just go to the adoption agency and tell them we wanted some hot teen or pre-teen boys.
Faustus: No. Absolutely not.
E.S.: Why not?
Faustus: Because by that time their minds will have been ruined by TV and video games. We’re getting them at birth and starting them immediately on Dostoevsky and Austen.
E.S.: I thought you said we weren’t getting them at all.
Faustus: We’re not. I was just enabling your delusion.

So here is the question that has been plaguing me all day: in the concentration camps to which all of us who aren’t white, rich, straight, and male will be carted off in the next four years to suffer the consequences of our president’s having bankrupted our country both financially and morally, will there be low-carb dining options?

‘Cause if not, I’m going to Canada.

Here’s hoping enough Americans are as smart as this fellow.

(Thanks to him for the picture.)

E.S. and I got back to Manhattan yesterday just in time for me to run to the drugstore to buy candy for all the trick-or-treaters who would be coming to my door.

Then, once I got back to my apartment with a grocery bag full of candy, I remembered that I’d forgotten to put my apartment down on the building list of people who wanted to be visited. This meant I was stuck with bags and bags of chocolate and no trick-or-treaters.

I put a pathetic “Trick-or-Treaters WELCOME!!!!!” sign on my door but apparently no one was convinced. And the chocolate called more and more loudly as the evening passed. I tried pretending it was moss but to no avail.

It’s a good thing the step class I’m teaching at Columbia starts next Monday rather than today. Because it’s difficult for an aerobics instructor to maintain credibility when he is A SPHERE.

Well, E.S. and I have returned from our trip safe and, by all outward appearances, sound.

This is where we went:

It was really all fine until we were walking in the woods and E.S. made me touch moss.

Okay, can people please stop sending me e-mails and handing me flyers and showing me signs telling me to vote in this election, no matter who I’m voting for, because this year it’s more vital than ever that everybody vote, and whichever candidate I support the most important thing is that I go out and show that support for him?

Because you know what? People who intend to vote for Bush should fucking stay home.

As of next Saturday, I am going to be teaching a regular class at Lucille Roberts Fitness for Women on Saturday mornings.

The name of the class is Butt & Gutt.

I’m really nott sure if I can handle thiss.

Okay, let’s say you’re blind. And let’s say you want to go to the movies. And let’s say you want to go to a foreign movie with English subtitles, like, oh, say, Hero. And let’s say that, since you don’t speak Chinese, you decide to bring a friend along to help you follow the action and the dialogue.

Do you think it might occur to her not to READ EVERY SINGLE SUBTITLE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE TO YOU AS LOUD AS SHE POSSIBLY CAN?

And, if it doesn’t, could you please sit somewhere other than RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?

You should both thank your lucky stars I interpret the Second Amendment very narrowly.

Well, I think that, in the end, I found the best solution. I made us a reservation at a place where we can go for a “hike” (whatever that is) and then come back and fall asleep in a canopy bed.

I don’t mind nature in small, controlled doses. I prefer it when it has been bent to someone’s will, but I suppose that for an hour I can suffer in silence. But sleeping on the ground makes no sense to me at all.

The only bad news is that we’re going on Saturday the 30th, and so I’m going to miss all the Hallowe’en parties.

But that’s okay, because I’ll be in my own costume, as someone who enjoys the Great Outdoors.

Wish me luck.