Spent this weekend trying not to get swallowed up by this massacre parading as a war. Spent money on books, went out to the bar, cooked a meal of tortilla soup, beans, rice, and peach cobbler. I'm generally a lazy person but cooking can usually fool people that I'm energetic and productive, and in times of duress I get restless and need to do something with my hands. A measure of how helpless I feel is how successful my meals turn out. This meal came out particularly well, hence my complete despair. Incidentally, if you've never had tortilla soup you should. I recommend adding boneless skinless chicken breast and avocado. Consumption and consumerism are great comforts in a time of war. We can't have faith in abstract things as truth and justice, so we fall back to the tangible things; the feel of pages turning between our fingers, the rich taste of food on our tongues.

Forgive us.