I met Bill Nye, the global warming guy.

Herman Cain went from "That guy who debated Clinton?" to candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States of America to frontrunner in that race to the "Cain Train!" to walking embarrassing quote machine to "Sexual Harassment Train" to "Whatever happened to that guy who debated Clinton and then ran for president?" That took place in about nine months.

But all was not lost. Along the way, Herman met a great gang of people. And as they say, what's important is the journey, not the destination. Let's look back on a scrapbook of Herman Cain's two semesters spent studying abroad in Legitimacystan.

I was extremely honored to meet Trace Shelton.

I promised I would pass along the esteemed former surgeon general C. Everett Koop's concerns to my campaign manager.

As I told Mr. Puck, the more toppings a man has on his pizza, the more manly he is. Wolfgang agreed and told me his restaurants definitely don't serve any sissy pizzas.

Now why on earth do newspapers keep getting skinnier while I keep getting chubbier? You can use that one!

I told President Bush my Anita Hill joke.

Congresswoman Bachmann taught me how to eat fried chicken on a plane.

This is my I.R.S. face. Hhhrrrrrmmmmmm.

It didn't occur to me until now, but "Trump" is an onomatopoeia.

Now that I'm out of the race I can say this: If Newt just pulled his pants up he wouldn't look so hefty.

When I meet really smart people, I like to rest my chin in my hand, like how a sniper steadies his rifle. Because that's what my mind is, a sniper rifle.

My detractors liked to paint me as a pawn of white conservatives. And then when I spend a whole afternoon with a black Iowan, the media looks the other way!

This nice woman kept coming to my events and bugging me for a photo. So, here it is.

When you run into Jon Voight in Israel, you know the path He has chosen for you is right and justified.

You know they've got Pillsbury in Israel? Crazy!

I don't know what this crazy world has in store for me next. But whatever it is, I sure ticked a whole bunch of things off my bucket list this last year. You like the hat? I think I'm going to stick with the hat.

There are even more wonderful photos of this year on Herman Cain's Facebook page.

Abe Sauer is the author of the book How to be: North Dakota. He is on Twitter. Email him at abesauer @ gmail.com.

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A cat. [PICTURE]

TAGS: CATS, CAST, CSAT, TACS, SCAT, SACT, CATS AND THE CITY, SEX AND THE CATS, CATS AND TORNADOES, OSAMA CAT LADEN, KITTENS, FELINES, SEXY CATS, HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, CATS FOR SALE

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For some perspective on this view out the window: that shed is 7 feet tall.

Looking at the garage, it seems like we're all going to be here a while.

Tea?

Abe Sauer is staying in.

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When I first encountered these stories or rumors or fables, it was during a period not only of youthful skepticism, but also when, owing to other “obligations” (as we used to refer to them), I had lacked the time (or really, the inclination) to look for this mysterious landscape, and so it remained undiscovered and possibly fictive, at least as far as I was concerned. In the spring of 2011, however, not long after the fighting stopped, and as soon as it was warm enough, I went outside (i.e., I left the “shelter”) with a plan to be more systematic. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to find this place, or what exactly I intended to find there, but even the possibility of its existence seemed to offer a kind of relief or possibly condolence during what we all understand were difficult conditions, to say the least.

I began at what remained of 155th Street and each day walked from one side of the island to the other. (It’s not as far as you might think.) I went back and forth, observing what remained of the city, most of which was deserted except for the stone towers and the corpses, which like those littering the mountains of Tibet were (owing to the “methods utilized”) “frozen” or paralyzed in a posture of death or “departure.” I was not deterred; by now we’ve all seen enough of these soulless bodies to be largely impervious to the instinctive terror such sights presumably would have provoked in all but the most callous of us a few years ago; then, too, the facial expressions of these victims or “casualties” (to use the official terminology) were uniformly serene, which I understand is cold comfort, but like most during this “emergency phase” I took what solace I could find.

Already the vines were beginning to stretch down from what I presumed to be the long-uninhabited regions to the north, wrapping their tendrils around the carcasses of rusting vehicles and the frames of broken doorways and widows. Soon, I thought, these streets will resemble those of Coba. Although I sometimes heard (or possibly imagined) the rustling of leaves and the crack of branches (noises quickly supplanted, at least in my ears, by the pounding of my heart) I saw no sign of animal life.

I continued to work my way north, deeper into the woods, where I passed a large house filled with broken glass and unlit rooms. I remembered hearing it described (in whispers) by two men I had observed years earlier while feigning sleep on the A-train. Fear hovered over this structure like a miasma, and as I edged past, I peered in to the rooms and observed the vaguely horrifying and decaying detritus of lives abandoned in a second and forgotten for an eternity.

The air became heavy and wet; it wasn’t so much stagnant as undisturbed. I had never felt more alone but was no longer afraid, and perhaps even transfixed by the dazzling effect of the coruscating light filtering through the canopy. The path narrowed and led me through an arch; here I detected (or imagined) a susurrus wave of disembodied voices, speaking in a language I couldn’t begin to understand. To them, I suspected, our lost cities were nothing more than anthills.

A stone lion greeted me with blinded, doleful eyes.

His twin brother had been decapitated.

I carefully walked up the steps, which were buried in leaves.

I arrived at the ruins of what appeared to be a small mansion or perhaps a guardhouse that had apparently been inhabited by the “Karma Police.” (I suppressed a shudder.)

There was no roof but the foundation seemed solid. I entered and stood in the middle of the room. I resisted the temptation to remember anything from my past, knowing that here, for once, it was irrelevant.

The sempiternal buzz of the eldritch voices reached a fever pitch. I looked out the window into a clearing, where I had had a foreboding sense of being judged. I was both a spectator and a participant in the assembling tribunal; civilization had vanished, and only the pillars remained.

Matthew Gallaway lives in Washington Heights and is the author of The Metropolis Case—which is available now! Perhaps you read its glowing, stunning review in the Times this week?

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Next: "IT'S A TRAP!"

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