My friend Nicole made the best parchment-wrapped white fish tonight for dinner. Before that we made gingerbread, played Scrabble and drank good champagne. I love being in San Francisco with friends and no responsibilities, just enjoying life. When the new year starts this life ends…

I compare it to a jet on the runway, engines running and ready to take off. As of January 1st the engines start. After that it’s my last semester at NYU, then my internship and LSAT prep class, then moving back to CA, then law school apps then the LSAT and then onward. Once the plane begins moving down the runway and reaches a certain momentum there’s no stopping the forward movement.

 Thanks Dlisted!

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today at a campaign rally in Pakistan.

I’m not going to join in the general chorus of eulogies to a brave and strong woman who sacrificed her life for democracy. Bhutto was corrupt, her family was corrupt and she was a relentless self-promoter, often to the detriment of those in Pakistan who weren’t and who offered a better hope for change than herself.

Still - by the standards of that wretched nation she was better than most. Her murder isn’t entirely surprising. After all Al-Qaeda has been saying it would kill her one way or another. The sad thing about terrorism is that the terrorists only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky every time. Today’s was an unlucky day for Bhutto but there will be many, many more days and luck is on the side of those opposing terrorism.

Another effect of this tragedy is that it exposes the Bush administration’s inept foreign policy regarding Pakistan for the farce that it is. Instead of cultivating a new generation of leaders in Pakistan who were untainted by the past we stuck with the tried and true - the elite kleptocracy who have used the Pakistani people for their personal gain while doing nothing to halt that nation’s slide into anarchy and chaos.

Pakistan is faced with a growing insurgency in Baluchistan and along the border with Afghanistan. To the east lies its ancient enemy India. To the north is Kashmir - a perennial sore point between India and Pakistan and which peripherally involves China as well. Add to this witches brew nuclear weapons and Islamic fundamentalism and you now have the perfect storm. A perfect storm which we should have been prescient in predicting but instead have followed the old, outmoded rules of “an enemy of an enemy is my friend.”

Nothing more starkly outlines what I have been saying for over a year - that America’s foreign policy elite is being drilled and schooled in failed theories which don’t account for the new century - than this debacle. We’re backing the wrong horse because we have no other horses in the game. How the Bush administration failed to see that if it pressured Musharaff to bring back Bhutto without the United States providing for her protection the US would quickly end up with a dead woman and an angry anarchic nation on its hands is beyond me.

Perhaps it’s time to look further, deeper beyond the obvious. If the Bush administration knew Bhutto was in danger when it pressured Musharaff to allow her to return to Pakistan then maybe it has something to gain by her death and the chaos that will surely follow. Nothing else can explain this monstrous mistake or the complete idiocy of this administration’s policy on Pakistan.

As usual my absence from California has allowed our household staff to get a bit out of control. I open cupboards and random plastic dishes tumble out. I move the toaster and discover a rich layer of crumbs underneath. In short - the housekeeper has been taking liberties during my absence. I tell you - sometimes it feels like she should be paying me with all the work I do getting her to do her job correctly! I prefer a hands-off approach to managing the staff but I can tell I’m going to need to be a little more hands-on while I’m here.

In addition I fired the gardener in October and didn’t hire another one until now. In place of our previous gay, Argentinian gardener we now have a lesbian, Iranian gardener. I’m sure she’s going to be a lot more reliable than the last kid - she was here today and I’m quite pleased with her work.

When I entered the covenant of Abraham I chose my Jewish name to be “Zivka,” which means “wolf” in Hebrew. I’ve always felt like the lone wolf, alone but continually occupied with my own ideas and thoughts. I’ve never been lonely, instead I’ve been OK being by myself. From the snowy San Jose mountains of Colorado to the frozen streets of Manhattan I always keep my own company, allowing few next to me and even fewer close by me. All my life people would refer to me without me asking, as “the lone wolf.”

So it’s fitting that my Heeb name is “Zivka” and that’s also the name of my beautiful little cat. Zivka stays here with my boyfriend (Hebrew name: “Gershon”) but he waits for me to return and every night that I’m at my home in California Zivka sleeps at my feet. We’re two brothers together, sometimes alone but never apart.

State Senator Carole Migden is one fierce cancer lezzie but she’s also one dumb cunt kook.

She recently sent a letter to our two Federal senators asking them to halt the killing of non-native deer species in Point Reyes National Seashore. See - these non-native deer are decimating the park by vocariously consuming native plants and trees which results in starving the native species of deer. In addition the non-native deer carry a fatal disease which would kill the native deer if it were to spread. So sensibly, the National Parks Service hired a contractor to shoot and kill the deer and then remove their carcasses and donate the meat to food banks and to the California Condor recovery program.

From the National Park Service:

Axis deer and fallow deer are extremely disruptive to the natural ecosystem at the Seashore. Some of the more serious effects these non-native deer have include competition for the same food and displacement of the native tule elk and black-tailed deer. Recent information indicates that the presence of these invasive species is greatly suppressing native black-tailed deer, a keystone species at Point Reyes. Fallow and axis deer also have potential for transmitting paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease) and exotic lice to the native ungulates.

Non-native deer damage riparian and woodland habitats and have indirect impacts to the native wildlife dependent on this habitat. Loss of riparian habitat can affect a number of threatened or endangered species, such as the California red-legged frog, coho and Chinook salmon and steelhead trout.

Carole Migden has decided she knows better than the assorted biology Ph.D and Masters-degree holders who have long warned that non-native deer are destroying Point Reyes and that if they escaped out of the park they would threaten native California deer species all over the state.

She’s listened to those grey-haired hippies who wail over deer carcasses and feel at one with the non-native deer which are now being blasted to smithereens by the Fed’s hired guns. These hippies feel such pain for the non-native deer but seem to not give a shit about those native deer and plant species which are being destroyed by the non-native invaders. And as always Carole “Can’t stay in one lane” Migden is there to cravenly give in to yet another fringe constituent group instead of listening to the reasonable voices of those concerned with an entire ecological system vs. one tiny, invasive group of pestilent animals.

Poor Carole. I think those cancer meds are still effecting her sense of judgment. Last time she was crashing into the guardrail and smashing into the back of cars, this time she’s involving herself in something about which she knows nothing and in the process threatening the health and well-being of California’s ecosystem. The sooner we get this braid-dead twit out of the Assembly and replace her with the wise judgment of Mark Leno the better.

I have my final final today and then tomorrow off to San Francisco until January. It seems like it wasn’t long ago that I was in California because it wasn’t, like only three days.

I arrived back in NY late yesterday afternoon and was immediately consumed by exhaustion despite taking advantage of the lay-down beds in United’s PS First and sleeping for three hours on the way back. I went to class, turned in my paper, came home and was in bed by 8:00 PM where I stayed until around 6:30 AM this morning. Jet lag sucks.

In addition I believe I’m exhibiting the first sign of aging. The knuckles on my pinkie fingers have been aching for weeks. At first I thought I strained my fingers somehow but then the dawning realization came over me - arthritis. My grandmother and mom have it in their hands also. I’m unsure if this is the cause of my discomfort but it’s a shocking and sobering reminder that my precious youth and beauty are one day going to be overwhelmed by the sands of the hourglass of time. Until that day - the day I lose the battle and become boring and stale like The Angry Young Man all the old people I’ll continue to fight my hardest to maintain my beauty, my precious beauty…

My good friends Caroline and her husband Ryan came over this evening to make dinner for us. It was amazing - broiled chicken with squash lasagna - absolutely fantastic.

Then on to the real action. We went out to Pink tonight, which was great fun as it always is. Props to Sophia for making me feel like the most honored guest of the night - one of the many reasons I love this club so much. The music was amazing, the crowd good and the drinks strong. All-in-all another fun night at one of the best clubs in the US.

Afterwards we went downtown for some “after-hours” party. Perhaps I’m spoiled by NY after-hours or more likely I’m just being snobby and bitchy but the pathetic excuses for after-hours I’ve been subjected to in San Francisco the past week have been pretty horrendous. Friday night was some party in SOMA which featured an ear-splitting sound system, fat girls from Vallego and “oh so risky” Tecate beer in cans which were shockingly served after California’s absurd 2:00 AM cut-off.

Tonight’s after-hours was far worse. As a matter-of-fact it was so horrible that after seeing the gross crowd waiting in front (and despite being assured I wouldn’t have to wait in line) my friends and I decided to leave before we even got to the door. The after-hours held at Maison Twin Peaks was far superior and featured choice hits by fabulous singers like Juice Newton and Diana Ross.

Done. Now comes revising and making perfect what is already pretty damn good.

Time to have some fun this weekend.  Back to NY Monday then back here to San Francisco Friday morning.