I know I'm always on about how weird the US seems after my time in Germany. Being here for my first Thanksgiving since 1999, however, is pleasant.

In 2000, we stir-fried some turkey and then went to a pub and watched soccer. I'd paid way too much for a can of yams at the "American store" downtown and we ate them. Shortly thereafter, planning to meet an American friend in Amsterdam, she asked if we wanted anything. Yes! CRANBERRIES! She delivered, along with some maple syrup, and we had great cranberry sauce...in December :)

In 2001, we did nothing on Thanksgiving itself, because my expat club put its Thanksgiving dinner on Friday for some reason. It was overpriced, catered with only a vague degree of American accuracy, involved an auction and the fairly intrusive selling of raffle tickets, and began with a sanctimonious Christian prayer. Not exactly how we do Thanksgiving in my family. Don't get me started.

This year, instead of (mostly unsuccessfully) jumping through hoops to get the food I craved, I walked right into Star Market and the first thing I saw was yams. Cranberries, right there, two bags for $3. Cream of mushroom soup and French fried onions in a can! Yeah!

And it's snowing. Something else northern Germany couldn't do right, because it never got quite cold enough for substantial snow that stuck for more than a day.

Cranberries. Yams. No cold rain. No need to participate in clubs of people with whom I had very little in common, just because they spoke my native language. I wouldn't trade my 18 months in Germany for anything, but right now, I'm giving thanks that I'm back.

Did you miss me? If so, you'll wonder why, after this long pop culture digression.

The Wall Street Journal is full of surprises. For one, at least one of their writers has not only read, but written WSJ commentary about, Kurt Cobain's journals. While I don't share the slightly judgmental tone, I agree that Cobain seems to have been even more screwed up than any of us could have imagined. I mean, read the Journal column (or the Cobain diaries) and then tell me it's remotely surprising that this guy took heroin and blew his face off. It's almost enough to make one sympathetic towards Courtney Love, though one must also wonder why she didn't do more to get him some help.

I've also got to agree with the Journal's criticism of other reviewers: why whitewash Cobain's troubling rants just because he was a great musician? I guess it's hard to admit that maybe one of your heroes shouldn't have been a hero. There do seem to be an awful lot of people out there who worship Cobain like Ellie in "About a Boy." (The book, not the movie. Semi-obscure reference, but I can't think of any other way to describe it.) I'm smack-dab in the middle of the Nirvana demographic, and I like their music, but I'll be damned if I'm getting into celebrity worship of Kurt Cobain -- or any other celebrity, to tell you the truth. As the cliche goes, they put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.

Clearly I'm not a die-hard Nirvana fan, because I had no idea there was a missing song, "You Know You're Right," out there. I also had no idea it was getting released until I saw the video on, get this, VH1's Top 20 Countdown (shoot me. Oops, bad taste, considering the subject matter.) To squeeze in the commercials, VH1 cuts some videos short in their countdown show. This time, they faded out of "You Know You're Right," leaving the already-creepy (in context) and unfinished song and video looking and sounding even more creepy and unfinished. Icky. As for the song, I'm glad I hadn't been waiting for it, or I would have said, "That's it?" But middling Nirvana is still better than good Creed -- and I'm sure that's what both Courtney Love and the surviving members of Nirvana were thinking when they agreed to release it. There's a whole new generation of listeners out there who were in grade school in 1994 and don't know that "Teen Spirit" was a gimmick deodorant. Damn, I feel old -- not to mention filled with useless trivia.

That said, the Journal column also noted that "the banality of our random musings" in diary entries "is painful to behold." Um, yeah. I was just leaving.

As an update to Rick's rant below, I feel I should note that even if every single Jill Stein voter had voted for Shannon O'Brien instead, O'Brien still would have lost. So even you believe in spoilers, Jill Stein still didn't do it. There's no one to blame for the new schmuck in the statehouse besides the schmuck's voters and O'Brien's pathetic campaign.

Guest rant by my hubby, which he also sent to the Boston Globe. Read A vote for Stein is a vote for Romney first so you know what he's talking about. (And when are they going to come up with something better than "A vote for [Green candidate] is a vote for [Republican candidate]?" Yawn.)

My vote is just that, my vote

Joan Vennochi, in her "A vote for Stein is a vote for Romney" editorial today, misses the larger picture of why some voters are choosing a third party this year. We are disaffected for a reason, and neither the Democrats or the Republicans are listening.

The attitude of "vote for the lesser of two evils," rather than the more logical, and inherently democratic, choice to vote on one's own principles, is one of the more glaring failures of the current two-party domination of national and local politics. Another is the continued ploy of both Republicans and Democrats to campaign towards the center, regardless of an individual candidate's own beliefs. This tactic alienates liberals and conservatives alike, and is the real reason Gore lost the 2000 election. Don't try to pin that one on me. Sure, I voted for Nader, and Gore still received the electoral votes in Massachusetts.

Although I detest such labels, I'm sure that some would call me a liberal. I certainly share liberal opinions on the various social and economic issues bandied about during this election. I am voting for Jill Stein on Tuesday not because of my political leanings, but rather because she and the Green Party offer the only gubernatorial candidate who has consistently conveyed views that match my own. I concede that Shannon O'Brien might as well, but I have no basis for that judgment. I have received a clear, concise message only rarely from O'Brien's campaign. Often, she has chosen instead to complain about how bad Mitt Romney is in contrast. How does that win my vote? If the Massachusetts Democratic party had chosen a more compelling candidate, perhaps we wouldn't be having this conversation.

If the state of Massachusetts elects Romney, that fault lies entirely with Shannon O'Brien and the Massachusetts Democratic party, not with me and my fellow citizens who vote Green. I will have no guilt or remorse about my votes, because I will have voted on my own principles and not the dictates of a given party. Instead, on Wednesday, November 6, I will dream of Vermont governor Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

Thanks for reading.

Rick Hayes
Dorchester, MA