Today’s rain is the cold kind. Today’s wind is the blow-open-your-coat-and-drive-straight-up-your-sleeve type. All day, people made weather-related wisecracks. I never heard such groups for blaming their own grouchiness on a little hydration.

I love rain. I like the soft, wispy drizzly kind you find in Scotland and the Pacific Northwest. It hangs in the air and forms drops on the top of your hair. Sometimes it feels heavy to breathe, but I love it because it’s the perfect weather for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I can remember several very special days when I was able to take a long walk in weather like that and come home to something warm and filling.

I like the wild storms and the sideways sleet and hail balls. When I was 6 or 7, a period marked by the fact that I wouldn’t wear pants, my father used to convince me to sit on our blue porch swing during summer thunderstorms. Our pond water reflected the lightning and we could see white streaks above the hill across the road. I remember the goosebumps and my mom arriving to sit on the other side of me and keep me warm while we rocked and we all felt very in awe of the world around us. Moments of fearsome earth always remind me how impressive early humans were.

That was the setting for one of the interesting moments of my life. It was many years later, a few summers ago, when my dad and I were sitting on the swing during a brewing storm.

“How do you think you would have interpreted thunder if you lived a thousand years ago,” he asked, drawing air through the mild, woody cigars my mother and I love with a small pwah sound.
“Well, I would have had to associate it with something I knew through personal experience, right? And thunder sounds like a giant stomach grumbling. So I would have thought the gods were hungry,” I said. “I’d make a big feast to give them.”
My father paused for a pwah. Then two.
“I would have interpreted it as a sign of aggression and started a war on someone.”
Another silence.
“Yours was a very feminine reading,” he said, as the first raindrops began to splatter.

I think rainy weather has always been the source of my affection for cities like London and Seattle. I’ve been drawn to them for as long as I can remember and it’s not for the colonialism or fish. Part of it is the calming affect of rain. I like that it quiets the city — not like snow, which stifles. Rain makes the noises of a thousand neighbors softer, but adds a slight rhythm of its own. I like the fresh smell and the way it washes the sidewalks clean. I like knowing plants are being sated.

But mostly, I like coming inside while it’s raining. It appeals to all my homiest instincts — an opportunity to burn a candle, read a book and enjoy the quiet company of friends with some kind of simple, tasty meal. (Likely a carbohydrate.)

I am comforted by the idea that wherever you are, even if it’s not raining, because you’re reading this, you’re inside, warm and safe.

Now that temperatures in New York are tiptoeing towards a tentative 70 degrees, I am tempted to pack away my winter accessories. I will keep a few scarves to wear during the summer, so my separation with neckwear won’t be too difficult. Hats mash my bangs, happy to be rid of them. Which brings us to…. gloves.

I have never liked things on my hands. Most of my mitten memories involve getting wisps of wool in my mouth while I tried to eat snowballs. I bought a pair of fancy Italian leather gloves during college and stained them irreparably with sloshed coffee. They didn’t really fit correctly anyway. The palms were too loose and the fingers too short. The seams were too… seamy. The cuffs too wrinkly. Whoever created the phrase ‘fits like a glove’ must have been a professional wrist model because none of the ones in my life, well, did.

August
I visit anthropologie.com to buy some wedding gifts. Now. I bet you know at least one woman who is not-secretly obsessed with this store. The prices are Himalaya-high, but those designs…. ahh. I am lost for words. I don’t know how that store knows what I’ll like (since I have rather eclectic taste), but it does. From the mismatched kitchenware to the floral bedding and silky shirt-dresses, they know me. During my last visit I even found that they sold the perfume I wrote about a few weeks ago. Now they know my scent as well! It’s incredible.

So. The web site glowed before me. I couldn’t resist the urge to use my browser to, well, browse. And there they were. White leather scrolled with beautiful floral design and green vines. Lined with cashmere.

More than $100. I snapped my laptop shut.

Early October

For two months, the gloves haunt me. They are fantastic, but so expensive and fancy. I’m not sure my heart or hands are in it. I try to be rational. I don’t even wear gloves.That’s too much money to spend on an accessory anyway, especially something I may not use. But there they are, little sugar plum fairies for my fingers. Dancing, dancing…

Late October

After trips to three different Anthopologie stores, I discover the gloves are only sold online. This is problematic because they’re sold in sizes, and I don’t know if my hands were medium or large. (Society always finds a way to remind you that you’re not XXS, even if you’re just measuring your knuckles.) I decide to buy both sizes and return the pair that don’t fit. With enormous anticipation of gratification, I enter my credit card number. The feeling lasts until I get an email saying the gloves are backordered.

December
They arrive! I consider tying a pink balloon to my mailbox. They are beautiful. And I am a perfect medium! They are beautiful. The gloves go with everything I own and best of all — they go with me. I quickly pack the larger pair, mail them back, square myself with my bank account and hit the streets. Life is beautiful…. until I lose them.

I know.

February
They must have fallen out of my purse somewhere between the subway and my office. (Or some thief is walking around with the most beautifully covered sticky fingers.) In my pain and rage, I try to buy another pair online. They are sold out. I re-visit all three Anthropologie stores. No luck. I mass-email my friends, telling with minimal tears the story of my wonderful lost gloves.

And finally, one gritty day, someone finds a pair in a small basket under a stack of clothing in one of the stores. They are purchased for me, and I gladly repay my friend, not even wincing when I realize I’ve spent 6 months and more than $200 on these gloves….

March

Now that we’re inching away from winter, I find that I’ll miss wearing my gorgeous gloves. But I’m glad to know they’re safely packed away until the next time it snows. Life is far less stressful when the only thing on my fingers is polish.

Everyone likes to talk about themselves, writers more than anybody. There’s something satisfying about describing the painful process of shoveling through the thoughts in your mind, flinging handfuls of sludge over your shoulder and hoping nothing good flies out with it.

Maybe it’s just because writers like to talk more period. (Talk in the sense of communicate — some of the very finest writers were mouth-shy. One of the best craftsmen I know stutters when he has to speak to an answering machine.)

New York has forced me to refine my tendencies to speech and silence. I natter less and glower more. I’m also more aware of the efficiencies — and deficiencies — of it all.

My work requires that I be on a conference call (which I secretly refer to as The Neverending Gory) with anywhere between 10-15 people, every day. For eight straight hours. We have a very high pressure job that’s time sensitive down to the hundredth of a second and a non-stop buzzing of noise in both ears that can’t be tuned out or you’ll miss critical information. The amount of chatter and our intense focuses occasionally lead to someone’s (my) joke falling flat or a question (mine) being unanswered. This is a very unusual situation. Imagine having 10 bosses monitoring you constantly and never knowing if they would answer when you asked an important question.

As a humor writer, I have some of the instincts of a stand-up comic. When I make a noise and I hear silence, something in my heart breaks off and goes tinkling to the floor. Being ignored at work (if you can call it that because everyone has a legitimate reason to focus on something else) has taught me to speak only when it’s really necessary. I’m less myself, but it makes everyone else’s life easier.

I called a girl last Sunday. We used to be best friends until we had a falling out my last year of college. In the four years we haven’t spoken, I got a Master’s degree and my first live-in boyfriend. She started teaching ninth-grade algebra at a school for inner-city Boston kids returning to class after dropping out, having babies or any number of disruptive things.

She’d deleted my phone number (I’m ignoring that, having kept hers all this time), so I had to identify myself when she picked up. I used my first and last name, to the person who helped me zip my fat-suit Halloween costume two years in a row. At that moment, more words were strange.

We recited paragraphs of our lives back and forth, taking turns, cracking innocuous jokes — the kind you’d tell your dentist or tax lady — and it felt a little stiff until the end, when I had to go.

“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m sorry too.”
“Things have really changed for me, especially since I got to New York, and I really miss you and I think you should be part of my life again.”

She was silent.

“I’d like to be friends again, if that’s ok with you.”
“That’s ok,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yeah…. I’m sorry, you have to give me a second.”

She was silently crying.

When we hung up, we used our names, full first, not our old nicknames, but not our last names either. Fewer words were better.

2010. The year of the wedding. At least for me. Rapidly approaching three years of post-college life has apparently scared my friends straight… into marriage. I know this is the first wave (I can’t seem to stop using war terminology when I talk about this) and more will come, but I yearn for the lull between.

The art of the wedding gift, similar to the knack of composing the perfect greeting card, is an area in which I consider myself fairly expert. My two rules: never buy something on the registry and never get anything new.

I haven’t always been fond of the antique. When I was 14, I chided my parents for their mismatched house decor. (You may feel more sympathetic if you saw the sousaphone hanging above our fire-engine red leather couch.) My exasperated mother asked just what I would like to change and after a few moments of thought, I exclaimed, “Well, at least have matching dishtowels!”

I can’t figure what changed between then and now, but in my own house, I’ve taken a more relaxed approach to decorating. And the other day, I looked around and noticed most of my favorite items are old. I have a 1956 Underwood typewriter that I adore, despite the fact that it hasn’t technically worked in a few months. (A user error — I loaded the tape incorrectly and now every two letters, it falls below the keystrokes. I’m sure it can be fixed, just not by an engineer like myself.)

Many of my books are old, including the 1962 Encyclopedia of Modern American Humor. The record collection I’ve built is mainly of my parents old vinyls. My mother contributed Blood, Sweat and Tears and Joe Cocker and my father let me have his Cruising ‘58 as long as I swore to give it back someday. (This column is also about the pleasure of possession.)

Yesterday I met a friend at the Brooklyn Flea, which is a three-story amalgamation of young t-shirt designers who all try to look like Elvis Costello and batty hoarders selling broken costume jewelry. I like flea markets and antique fairs, though I can never find a happy medium between haggling the seller until I feel guilty and being ripped off completely. I spent about $200 on two beautiful pieces of art, one of which I believe I’ll give to a pair of friends who are going to be married in November.

If I were getting married, I would want gifts like a washer and dryer, or other expensive houseware items. The rest I’d like to be fun pieces that reflect me and the person who gives them. I think this is much more meaningful than that set of stemware from Williams Sonoma. (But what do I know…. I drink out of something that half resembles a sippy cup.)

I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that something of yourself remains in the objects you use. When you buy a new cooking pot, you must first season it or the things you make taste bland. They lack depth and personality. But once you’ve used the pot for a few years, you build a relationship with it and you trust each other and the end result is a better collaboration than something new and sterile could have produced. (That and you ought to have learned to cook better during all that time.)

The one thing I’d hesitate to buy used — wedding rings. I love the idea of an old piece that’s been worn before, but I fear the other marriage’s problems would come along with the diamonds.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the groom in any of these weddings, just an attendee who comes bringing great gifts.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton knew what he was talking about. (With that many names, you’d have to, or else nobody’d get past the first syllable.) His phrase “the quiet simplicity of exquisite neatness,” while referring I believe to a gentleman’s clothing, has earned its merit in my life. Or as he may have spelled it, lyfe.

For a full week I have been lying on the couch, drinking Koolaid spiked with so much Emergen-C, it’s the texture of wet concrete. Coughing, moaning, sneezing, dribbling, shuffling, croaking. (Not THAT kind of croaking. Still here to blog, thanks.) During that week I have also begun playing a game called “Test the Cockroaches.” It consists of me, in my helpless state, leaving things on the floor for days and fearing the appearance of a roach but never mustering the energy to clean up.

I’m not a messy person. I’ve raised a few dust bunnies, but I really run a pretty tight ship. My friends always compliment me on the status of my home. And only one of my skirts has a soup stain on it. (It’s paisley, you can’t even tell!)

Nevertheless, I do live in New York. In an apartment building. And though I’m clean, I did have my first roach experience over the summer. I was eating watermelon and watching television. I left the rind sitting on a paper towel on my floor while the program finished. Shortly thereafter, my cat, James, started acting very strangely. (Which isn’t noteworthy for either of us, but well, stranger than normal…) I saw a black cockroach dart out from under the couch and onto the watermelon. James and I leapt in unison, him towards the exoskeletonic threat, me from it. I skittered into my bedroom. Then I laughed at myself, grabbed a shoe and went back. No roach in sight. Fearing to sit on the couch again, I cleaned things up and got ready for bed. James was still lurking near the couch but seemed quite frustrated at having no sign of the bug.

There was nothing left to do. I took a deep breath. I stood in the doorway of my own living room, James curled around my feet. I said, “Roach. I don’t want to hurt you. You can do whatever you want in my house, as long as I don’t see you and you don’t scare me. If that happens, I’m going to try to kill you. Ok? So keep to yourself and I won’t seek you out.” It’s the same speech I’ve been giving spiders since I was 12.

I turned on my heel and went to bed. A few hours later, I was awakened by James thumping around in the other room. I sat up, flicked on the light, sprang to the window and threw open the sash! I saw the roach zoom from the living room into the hallway and then into my bedroom. James was frantically swiping at it, while it hid in the dark space created by the door’s shadow. I got up, grabbed a shoe and together, James herded it towards me and I smashed it.

I know that it’s pretty impossible to live in New York, no matter how clean you are, and not have a few cockroaches. But in my current sick state, frankly, I’m not sure I have the energy to survive another. Edward George and his exquisite neatness be damned.

I don’t know where I pick up some of my habits. I suppose many of them are pop-culture parasites left in my skull like ticks under a sock. Others I consciously borrowed from my parents, heroes, cool kids. I even got a favored phrase, “Who, I?!” from Petticoat Junction.

Just goes to show.

One habit I’ve never been able to trace is one that has also been the subject of many conversations. Each time I get serious about a man I’m seeing, I buy a new perfume. The idea is to have a scent associated exclusively with him (and by proxy, that period in my life). I’ve done this as long as I can recall. It seems strange to many people, but to me, it’s a way of consciously setting myself up to remember.

Occasionally I take the fellow with me to choose the perfume. And actually, to be honest, sometimes it’s a lotion or a scented soap. Once I chose a wax balm. (Wouldn’t recommend it. The fragrance didn’t linger, and neither did he.)

I can feel you starting to judge me. You see this as some kind of bizarre reliance on a man, a sort of nasal-born separation anxiety. It isn’t. But I admit finding a perfume when I’m single is a bit trickier. I never know whether I should buy the one that smells like me or the one that smells like the person I want to be.

Walking into the perfume section of department stores must feel something like what Kipling experienced in his first boat ride down some jungle river. The sights, the noises, the smells, the ticking and chugging of the brain suddenly palpable… the scene overwhelms. And I assure you, no tribe of hostile natives could be ever more intimidating than an army of shiny-shoed Bloomingdale’s sales clerks, all bent on wringing your last dollar from you. And, as they expected, you will spend it lustily on a bottle of Vitamin C Pre-Liner Primer Tonic for the Eyelids.

I went on scent mission today, looking for a solid perfume for several upcoming trips. Solid perfumes come in small jars with screw tops, and they’re great for taking on airplanes. They feel like a thicker version of honey, and as I was instructed, all you have to do is dab a dot onto your “pulse points,” wherever they are. (I stared at my particular sales clerk, thinking I must have left mine at home today…)

After an hour standing at a white counter with Janis (who does not appreciate Joplin and does not know any song lyrics and does not want to talk about it), I was convinced that choosing between 30 different scents would throw anyone into an identity crisis. I liked tuberose, but it reminded me of the word tuberous. Wild orange smelled like cider on winter nights, but also like a grandmother. My neck hurt from craning to sniff. I kept dropping the thousands of white paper strips that Janis handed me after spraying them with something I just had to try. Dazed and blurry, I clutched the counter for support. Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing here? And more importantly, what smell expresses me?

I settled on a beautiful round jar comprised of bergamot, gardenia, iris and white musk. Still not sure exactly what that says about my personality, but I’m fully convinced that any man would be lucky to catch a whiff.

I was given a book and I broke its spine.

It is a gold book of haikus with a lacquered cloth cover. It says “Lotus Blossoms” in clear silver type on the outside and “To Molly, Happy 2008!” on the inside. It came from some family friends, and I cracked its back about a year ago. Not having much of a taste for poetry (and being even less interested in cryptic absurdity), I am surprised by how often I turn to it for advice or inspiration.

Tonight, these lines, by Buson, seem appropriate:

Icy winter night…
I unfreeze the writing-brush
with my two good teeth

Last week it snowed in New York City. Oh, we’d had spritzes in early December, but these fat flakes were the season’s first real snowfall. It started while I was at work. I sit by a large window, and the blinds are controlled automatically by our facilities manager, who has them timed to go up and down based on the amount of glare we have on our computer screens. When the blinds and the snow began falling at the same time, I was ordered to sprint down to the manager and request a clear view of the windows so we could watch.

The first snow I ever saw here was the day I arrived last year. I was staying with a friend who lives in Turtle Bay, a small neighborhood in Manhattan. She took me for a walk through the city at night. Some of the Christmas decorations were still up, and we went from couture feather dresses at Lord and Taylor’s to glittery gummy bear statues outside the Gap. But my favorite part was the Diamond District. We turned down a sidestreet and were surrounded by stores devoted only to diamond jewelry. I looked down and noticed that suddenly the sidewalks had a high content of mica, making them sparkle. At the same moment, it began to snow icy crystals, the kind that burn when they hit your skin, but look beautiful passing by.

Between the shimmering jewels, sparkling sidewalks and flashing snowflakes, I felt truly overwhelmed. For me, being overtaken by curiosity and joy while teetering on the brink of not coping is a New York-only experience.

It’s a city that feels like it’s seen it all. There’s no crime gruesome enough, no sound loud enough, no street busy enough to really blow a New Yorker out of the water with novelty. But when it snows — when it really snows — the sidewalks get covered. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can make the first set of footprints on a few squares. And when that happens, you are a pioneer. You are thrown back to New York’s first days, when people tramped, instead of shuffling. I’m prone to romanticizing the past (who isn’t?), and I’m at my blissful worst when the snow stills the city and I can break my own path.

It’s almost as satisfying as a great winter haiku.

This story was published by Bloomberg News on January 30, 2009. Molly interned for Bloomberg News from June to August in 2008 and from January to April in 2009. She covered the commodity markets, livestock derivatives, government bonds and foreign exchange. Molly was hired to the speed desk in March 2009. This is one of her favorite stories. It appeared on TOPWW, Bloomberg’s worldwide front page.

Bond Traders Lament Possible Demise of Early Closes
2009-01-30 19:58:11.180 GMT

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) — Bond traders, facing the threat of
abrupt firings, vanishing bonuses and volatile markets as the
U.S. economy weakens, are lamenting the possible demise of the
tradition of leaving early the day before holidays.

About 1,400 people have signed an online petition
protesting the cancellation of so-called early closes on Dec.
26. and Jan. 2. More than 30 people signed last week, even
though the petition was for the recent Christmas holidays. An
introduction says, “During 2008, there were only two words to
look forward to in fixed income. They were ‘early close.’ The
emotional damage incurred by this late change won’t have a
financial match. Change it back. Make us feel like somebody
cares about us.”

The Treasury Department asked the Securities Industry and
Financial Market Association, the main trade group for bond
dealers and investors, to reduce the number of days traders
leave at 2 p.m. instead of 4 p.m., according to Reuters. SIFMA
has 12 early closes scheduled for 2009. Stock and derivative
traders do not officially leave early before holidays.

“We’ve had this for so long, I don’t see the benefit in
changing it now,” said Frank Randazza, vice president of sales
at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Pittsburgh. “Go on a non-holiday
weekend at two o’clock and tell me how much activity you’re
seeing anyway.”

Bonus Backlash

SIFMA will announce any changes to the calendar “in due
course,” said Washington-based spokesman Travis Larson. SIFMA
dropped its early close recommendations for Dec. 26 and Jan. 2
to be in harmony with the futures market.

Jenni Engebretsen, a spokeswoman for the Treasury in
Washington, declined to comment.

The possible ending of the tradition comes as Wall Street
suffers from a backlash over compensation as governments
worldwide bail out financial institutions. Banks handed out
$18.4 billion in bonuses in 2008, the sixth-largest pool at New
York City financial companies, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli
said yesterday. President Barack Obama called the bonuses
“shameful,” while Senator Banking Committee Chairman
Christopher Dodd of Connecticut vowed to use “every possible
legal means to get the money back.”

“Wall Street is reeling right now,” said Bruce Foerster,
president of South Beach Capital Markets in Miami. “Congress is
in the early stages of remaking the industry, and these morons
are whining about two hours a couple times a year? They’re out
of touch with reality.”

‘Making a Statement’

Treasury raised the issue because of the additional amount
of debt needed to be auctioned to fund the deficit, traders
said. The government will announce on Feb. 4 how much it will
sell in 3-, 10-, and 30-year Treasuries the following week.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the 17 primary dealers that are
required to bid at the auctions, estimates the U.S. will likely
borrow a record $2.5 trillion this fiscal year ending Sept. 30,
almost triple the $892 billion in notes and bonds sold in fiscal
2008.

“They’re talking about auctions being the reason,”
Randazza said, who has worked in the bond market for 20 years.
“We never have auctions on Fridays. The early close is usually
a Friday. It doesn’t make sense. The Treasury is saying they’re
going to monitor the markets more than they ever did, and that’s
what this is about. It’s about making a statement after all the
disasters in the fixed-income market.”

Job Losses

Banks and financial firms have fired 265,000 people since
the collapse of the subprime mortgage market triggered the
financial crisis. Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. failed, while Merrill Lynch & Co. was taken over by Bank of
America Corp. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley converted into
bank holding companies. Employment in New York City’s securities
industry fell to 168,600 in December 2008 from 187,800 in
October 2007, a decline of 19,200 jobs, or 10.2 percent,
DiNapoli’s report found.

The potential change in the holiday schedule will not
affect most traders’ hours, according to Raymond Remy, head of
fixed income at primary dealer Daiwa Securities America Inc. in
New York and a 26-year trader. He said his staff will probably
finish working when the futures markets in Chicago close.

“Our take here is ‘whatever,” he said.

I was 22 when I took my first solo cab ride. I was 22 and a half when I hailed my first taxi. I was 23 when I was first certain I was being ripped off by a driver. ($25 to get from Park Slope to Bushwick? Really?)

There are no taxis where I come from. There are trucks. And 8-wheeled trailers. And four-wheeler ATVs. Growing up, the closest I came to a yellow cab was sitting in a bucket seat surrounded by peeling buttercup paint on my father’s farm-use vehicle. In a small town with no public transportation (aside from school buses), there was no need for taxis. Everyone had their own wheels. And you better believe tractors count.

After I left the county with no stoplights, I moved to Washington D.C. Then Chicago. Then New York City. As I gradually increased the size of the population around me, I also increased the frequency with which I take taxis.

I like cabs. They generally make me carsick, but I find that they’re a great place to have… moments.

One of my favorite rituals was taking a taxi from Midway airport up Lake Shore Drive and to Lincoln Park, where I lived in Chicago. My apartment was about three blocks from the water, so most of the trip was spent with glorious high rises on my left and steely Lake Michigan on my right. I usually flew back in the evening, so all the buildings were lit, and most of them were close to the road. I loved feeling the dark, moving expanse of the lake on one side and catching glimpses of fancy art and track lighting on the other.

It was on that same Lake Shore Drive that I was once taking a cab with three visiting friends. It was a frigid — and I mean bone-freezing — January day and we were off to meet other friends at the Shedd Aquarium. We’d taken the bus downtown, but due to my er, miscalculations, we overshot Shedd and couldn’t bear to stand outside waiting for a bus in the opposite direction. After an icy ten minutes, once our arms were frozen in an upright position, a cab finally stopped and we clambered in, all yodeling for the driver to turn up the heat. It couldn’t have been ten minutes later that we merged onto Lake Shore Drive and blew a tire. The driver pulled over. Philip, one of my friends, gallantly offered to help repair the tire. Rachael, Jen and I stayed in the car. Philip and the driver soon gave up and we were told to get out and find another vehicle. Chivalrous (and shiver-rous) Phil stood on the narrow strip of snow beside a streaming highway for almost 20 minutes trying to get an empty cab to stop on the side. Finally he did. Memories.

I’ve been in cabs that hit other cars. I’ve been in ones that came so close to crashing that one of my impeccably mannered New England WASP friends, who never says anything more offensive than “oh, shoot” exclaimed “Jesus Christ! Are you a maniac?!”

I was in a cab, coming home from a bar with a friend I was preeeetty sure was intrigued when I invited him back to my apartment. “Two stops,” was his only response.

A taxi was taking me to a cocktail party (I was wearing impossibly high heels, poorly suited to subway surfing) when I found out one of my best friends was engaged.

As I get older and spend more time in transport in taxis, I can’t help but feel a fondness for them. They’ve been around for some of my finest moments.

This story is unpublished. It was written for a class while Molly was attending Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

The 2008 presidential candidates have turned to sports in an effort to appeal to reticent voters. A recent debate allowed the contenders a chance to express their personalities, off the campaign field.

Candidates from both parties appeared in front of a live audience to argue the most important issue that divides them – which sport should become the national pastime if every baseball player failed his steroid test.

John Madden moderated.

MADDEN: I’d like to remind the audience that to win, each candidate has to score more votes than the other politicians. Now, let the games begin!

H. CLINTON: This whole debate is rigged against me because I’m a woman. I’m invoking Title XI.

MADDEN: That was a great individual effort, but let’s keep our eyes on the ball. Senator Barack?

OBAMA: Hussein’s in my name; lacrosse is my game.

MADDEN: For any viewers who aren’t sports fans, that’s where players invite strippers to a party and then everyone runs up legal bills.

OBAMA: That’s only one aspect of the game. I learned to play from my mother, who was from Kansas but identified with Native Americans, Africans, Asians, West Kvetchians, East Taboulians and Tiger Woods. Lacrosse transcends all borders. It’s the choice for people of all colors, sizes and races, which this race is not about.

H. CLINTON: Is not, too! He’s agreeing with me again.

MADDEN: Senator Clinton, you look like you’re ready to run a punt return. Back to you.

H. CLINTON: There’s no going back, John, only forward. I don’t dwell in the past. I don’t care about that hussy hairdresser in Little Rock or the bottle blond in Reno. If elected, I pledge to do away with interns in the White House on day one. I’m more experienced about the dangers of interns than all of my opponents combined. I’m not riding on my husband’s coat tails –

MADDEN: We call it horse collaring, Senator.

H. CLINTON: Whatever. The point is: I don’t need him. I can do this on my own, without coarse hollering!

MADDEN: So what should our national sport be?

H. CLINTON: (A familiar raspy voice rises from the front row, but is inaudible on stage.) Boxcar. Smartcar. Sportscar? (A large grey-haired figure bounds onto the stage.)

MADDEN: It looks like the crowd factor is coming into play.

B. CLINTON: She means NASCAR.

H. CLINTON: Right! Remember how America rallied after Amelia Earnhardt’s tragic death in the last lap of the Daytona 900. And what a catastrophe that was, one which the junior Senator from Illinois did nothing to prevent. (B. Clinton tries to grab her microphone. They struggle.) We were united in tragedy – black, white, puce and aquamarine. Now the American people need an experienced leader. One who can drive the country in the right direction! One who can cover all the bases and knock the puck in the hoop and kick a triple axel through the uprights when the game’s on the line! Americans need –

B. CLINTON: Me! Her! Us! I mean, the country needs a Clinton. Well, it depends on what you think mean means.

H. CLINTON: Will security please get my husband out of my limelight?

MADDEN: It looks like a tooth-and-nail kind of game, folks, as the Democrats are forced to burn a timeout while Mr. Clinton is escorted into the locker room. Let’s try one of the elephants.

MCCAIN: My friends, America’s national sport should be hunting terrorists. This position makes me the most conservative candidate in this race. I am also the oldest and only one who didn’t go to Woodstock. I’ve been on the front lines of scrimmage more times than any other person here!

MADDEN: What an offensive move. Any thoughts, Governor Huckabee?

HUCKABEE: My faith is part of who I am. It’s not a game with me. My faith is more solid than any nine-iron, but lighter than any ping-pong ball. It’s tougher than astro-turf and stickier than resin. It’s…

MADDEN: Your sport, Governor? The ball’s in your court.

HUCKABEE: Our national sport should be tennis, which I was never allowed to play because it involves rackets, which are associated with organized crime, which I’m against. Also, the players make sex noises every time they hit their balls. Still, tennis is the sport for me and every committed evangelical who thinks there’s only one way to swing.

MADDEN: But why?

HUCKABEE: So we can clean it up! For a start I’d ban same-sex doubles. I’d also ban mixed doubles, except between a married man and his wife.

ROMNEY: I’m in favor of doing nothing. Staying the same, but changing too. I lowered taxes in Massachusetts and I raised them too!

MADDEN: Let’s get on the same page, candidates. Focus on the task at hand.

ROMNEY: I favor vigorous personal exercise. Like splitting stocks. I also favor piling up dollars.

MADDEN: I hope our viewing audience appreciates the tenacity of these politicians and their performance tonight. It’s stuff for the highlight film, folks.

OBAMA: I’m in favor of all kinds of athletes. Running backs –

MCCAIN: He’ll run backwards!

OBAMA: And short stops –

MCCAIN: He’ll stop short!

OBAMA: And rowers and curlers and pitchers!

B. CLINTON: Pitch her and pick me! I can start before day one!

HUCKABEE: I question the former President’s family values.

H. CLINTON: You’re a rightwing nut!

ROMNEY: I’m more of a rightwing nut than he is! No dancing at my White House. No inhaling on my watch.

MCCAIN: I’m not a liberal like these other candidates. I’ll stay in Iraq until h-e-double hockey sticks freezes over. We are all God’s children. Even the Clintons.

MADDEN: This place is pandemonium! We’ve got some strong candidates for this year’s draft, so we’ll just have to see who comes out on top.

And in a photo-opportunity finish, the candidates, moderator and former President Clinton linked arms and sang one rousing round of “Take Me Out to the White House” before the cameras stopped rolling.

Perhaps the nature of this event signals a new era of political campaigning and a new, important role for sports in American society… but let’s not count our field goals before they’re kicked.