Our Best Work of 2007

The Little Endless Storybook. by Jill Thompson.

Dreaming of You

On New Year's Day, I asked each of the four of us to self-select our own best piece of the year.

We call ourselves a political blog. And we are, mostly. But our very best work, in terms of what we like and what you like, has a decidedly personal flavor.

We're proud of our first six months. We've genuinely enjoyed settling in. And we look forward to spending 2008 with you.

Here, alphabetically, are what we consider our best of 2007. Please feel free to tell us which posts you would have selected, and why.


Hubris Sonic
Camp Followers and PTSD Fakers

So, apparently I am faking my PTSD. Apparently the twenty fucking years its taken me to stop figuring out whether the person who is walking past me is going to try and kill and how can I kill them is all fake because my mother breast fed me or something. The years of insomnia and flared tempers to the point of violence is all faked because I am not macho enough. I guess I didnt drink enough tequila, shoot enough people or screw enough prostitutes in central America to be called 'a man' in these keyboard cowards eyes.

Jesse Wendel
“I'll Make You Love Me... Bitch.”

Warning: People triggered by stalking or cutting, this likely isn't for you.

I sent repeated drunken emails telling _____ _____ I was in my car, bleeding, both arms sliced wide fucking open with whatever I had handy -- knife, razor, multi-tool -- in the late spring/early summer of 2002, after my suicide attempt. The first month I even drove by her place a few times in traffic flow.

Lower Manhattanite
“Do you understand where you are?”

There was a note about the local nightspots. Namely, that there were none. Save for the juke joint down the road a piece across from the “Fish Shack”, and of course, the few spots some 35 minutes away in Wilmington. But one of the note's points of interest got some of the young people going. It stated, that after 8:00 P.M., NO ONE WAS TO GO DOWN ACROSS THE RAILROAD TRACKS, PAST THE GREEN HOUSE (an actual green-colored house), AS THAT WAS THE DEMARCATION LINE BETWEEN FREE-GOING COUNTRY, AND KLAN TERRITORY.

Sara Robinson
My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

My dad, who died five years ago Wednesday, was a cowboy. A real one, complete with beat-up Stetson and muddy ropers and a Ford pickup and an ancient blanket-lined Levi's jean jacket that smelled of manure, leather, horse sweat, and tobacco -- the distinctive aroma of all cowboys, the one that's rubbed so deep into their sunburned hides that it doesn't come out no matter how long they spend in the shower or how much Old Spice they try to mask it with. Dad's been on my mind a lot this week -- well, Dad, Jefferson, and George W. Bush.