I’ve been slow to organize my photos from Israel, but here are some of my favorites from my trip.

I completely blame Steve Inskeep and NPR for my current obsession with Elvis Perkins. Ever since I heard this interview with Perkins during their coverage of SXSW, I’ve been listening to his new album, Elvis Perkins in Dearland nonstop. In recent conversations, his name keeps coming up, and I’ve found a few others mildly obsessed with him as well (about half of the people I know who went to Brown knew Perkins when he was there, and each has a distinct memory of him). Steve Inskeep, your influence knows no bounds.

But complicating Perkins’ twisted, dirge-like lyrics and soulful voice even further is his backstory, which is heartbreaking: His father, actor Anthony Perkins (of Psycho fame) died of AIDS when he was in his teens; his mother, Berry Berenson-Perkins — a photographer — was aboard one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. “The songs are their grandchildren they didn’t get to meet,” Perkins told Inskeep. “They strike me as offspring from time to time, and some of them on the new album sort of stare back at me a little funny.”

Perkins plays Iota in Arlington on May 19.

So I’m probably breaking the law by posting this, but honestly all of the photos they took of me during the Cherry Blossom run last weekend were pretty atrocious except for this one. Still, not feeling like I want one blown up on my wall either way. But it was my first big race back from a terrible ankle sprain last year (damn you Rock Creek Park!) and I was feeling good, so that’s a plus.

It was crazy crowded by the Tidal Basin on Sunday, but given the perfect weather, I didn’t really mind.

Out this month – my story in Marie Claire outlining the many many ways that you can manage your online profile. Cyber-stalking has never been so easy! Click here for more details.

Now I know why they’re called holidays. We’re just back from a trip to the Cayman Islands, where I swam with stingrays, pet turtles, made rope, ate fritters, rode catamarans, relaxed on the beach, and even got some stuff done for work. And now we’re back, having avoided the terrible weather from last week, and our tree is up and we’re headlong into Christmas preparations. Not a bad way to end the year.

Here’s a pic that Tim took of me before we set off for our sunset sail. I love this photo.

UPDATE: Here’s a quick roundup of some of the authentic finds I came across on my trip.

I’m watching the Greta Van Susteren interview with Sarah Palin and just got really frustrated when she got on the subject of feminism.

“I consider myself too, a feminist, whatever that means, I consider myself a ‘feminist for life’… I would like to see more of these feminist women open their minds instead of being narrow minded…I’d like them to be bold and brave and explore someone like me… a conservative who believes that government isn’t the answer to all of our problems.”

She then calls abortion a “litmus test” – which is funny, because her pro-life stance says that government should dictate to women exactly how they should solve the problem of an unwanted pregnancy. That doesn’t make sense. But I guess that’s not news.

So here Sarah, just in case you were wondering, this is the definition of Feminist, via Webster’s.

Main Entry: fem·i·nism

Pronunciation: \?fe-m?-?ni-z?m\

Function: noun

Date: 1895

For the last few weeks, I’ve inadvertently put some important things on hold until this Tuesday. Mind you, I’m not running for office, nor am I running a campaign, but this election has still managed to be somewhat all-consuming in my relatively unpolitical life. I’ve devoted a impressive chunk of my evenings to following the latest polling data and news (in a four-course menu consisting of Hardball, Countdown, Maddow and the Daily Show), that today, I actually started to feel twitchy at a bar when all the TV screens were turned to the Monday night football game. I realized I needed a fix, not unlike your common street-level addict. This, I realize, is becoming a problem. Thank god the election is only a few hours away.

I was in California at the beginning of this week, but was so busy talking with Alaskans that I barely left the hotel. (When I did leave, it was in the hopes of seeing the mermaids at Sharkees, but alas, they’re no longer there.) But I managed to get a short stroll along the water (where dolphins were running amok) and snapped this picture. It was the only point I felt like I was on the West Coast.

New York Magazine’s 40th Anniversary Issue is out this week, and in it I have a series of interviews with movers and shakers. Each weighed in on who they’d rank as the ten most important New Yorkers from the past 40 years. Judging from the names that cropped up again and again: Jackie Onassis, Michael Bloomberg, Martin Scorsese, Ed Koch, Jerry Seinfeld and Rudy Giuliani all are major players. Not that I need to tell you that.