Read "Sunnyside" about Charlie Chaplin and his Hollywood, his era, the surroundings of the WWI and movies in the beginning! You'll love it!

...read some of the books that Salon has been recommending for Summer reads. I've been pretty pleased with the ones I've read at y'alls suggestion thus far.

I'm also on vacation. I'll have more of what Joan and I are up to on my blog.

Today Joan and I did a bicycle built for two tour of the big island. I'm not saying which one. She insisted on steering.

Laughter, the best medicine, and don't forget to dance.

she's shacking up with o'slimy somewhere in the Cattyskills.

No! Do not be reading this you are on vacation!

We'll be fine.

I think.

You are with either Armey or Tancredo, right?

Joan I hope your enjoying your I'm sure much needed Vaca..but please don't come back in a teary eyed news conference upon your return telling us that in reality you were wisked away in a powerful whirlwind romance with an unknown right wing neo con and that you are officially divorcing The Chris Matthews Show because you can no linger espouse the common sense, intellectual, strategic, doctrine of The Barack Presidency and that you are rolling with the right wing drama queens who keep shooting themslves in the foot in propping themselves up to be THE NEXT Republican candidate for President..yeah right..good luck..

I will need to find the Salon reading list. I suspect it's slightly different from mine. :) You never know, I might pick out one of its books and even learn something new.

I'm very bullish these days about my candidate "taking the next step," as they say in relationship TV shows. Since last year, I've thought this rivalry has the makings of Ali/Frazier, or Bird/Magic. Win some, lose some, but have a good time along the way.

Joan, enjoy your time off. Thanks for making space for contrary opinions - and enthusiasms.

Joan didn't tell us where she was on vacation. So let's hear some guesses. Eventually maybe she'll tell us where she went, and we can declare a winner.

POSSIBLE LOCATIONS OF JOAN WALSH:

-- Canada, possibly to renounce her U.S. citizenship

-- Mexico, on a Montezuma's Revenge diet

-- Touring Napa Valley in a limo with Salon's staff

-- Paris for a romantic rendezvous with Keith Olbermann

-- Rome to visit some actual salons (those were in Rome, right?)

-- Manhattan/Brooklyn so Rebecca Traister can make her gnocchi (where IS Traister?)

-- Indonesia to get indocrinated in a madrassa just like Obama

-- Washington D.C. to perform a New Age healing on Hillary Clinton's elbow

-- Peru to build the Salon logo as a Nazca line

-- Ireland to research the geneology of Bill O'Reilly and make sure she's not related

-- Alaska to shop for any clothes Sarah Palin has taken to the thrift store

-- The Maldive Islands with only Chris Matthews, her toothbrush, and a bikini

Says she is hiking the Oregon Trail but has really taken an exotic location trip to Guam.

I like that answer. (And I want to hike the Oregon Trail!)

But I have a question for Joan Walsh when she gets back. Joan: I just watched the movie "Swing Vote" starring Kevin Costner as a man whose vote will determine the presidential winner. It wasn't too bad, and at no point did Costner jump a jetski into a floating compound while shooting crossbows a mohawked pirates, so that was a plus.

Anyway, throughout the movie various political pundits showed up in cameos, doing their "shows" as if the movie's fiction was real. Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, Larry King and even Arianna Huffington showed up to "report" on the situation with Kevin Costner and his adorably precocious whiz-kid daughter.

My question is this: As you rise the pundit ladder, will you be willing to perform as a fictionalized version of yourself? Maybe there will be some political dramedy starring John Cusack and Julia Roberts, or something, and they'll ask you to act in a fake debate with a right-wing blowhard. Will you do it?

Because if so, I can't freaking wait!