Ruminating without Numerating

So much to say, Lone Reader!! First, is this a funny pic or what? "I'm voting the straight line ticket!"

Halloween
I did dress up as Velma on Halloween. It was pretty funny, because several friends who saw me didn't notice that I was dressed up - I guess I must usually look like a dork. (Do I normally wear knee socks and a miniskirt, people?) The kids had a good, albeit short trick-or-treat run. Somehow the fevers and sickness that prevented them from attending school did not impede their ability to beg for corn syrup.

I watched two scary movies: Squirm and Man's Best Friend. Campy, bad movies that were just about perfect. In Squirm, a downed power lines electrify the ground, creating killer worms. In Man's Best Friend, Ally Sheedy plays a reporter who, in the course of her anti-vivesection story on an animal lab, takes home a dog that had been genetically modified to be a vigilante killer. Wacky hi-jinks ensue. The best scene of all was when first the dog head puppet is eating a real cat, then the real dog is swallowing a cat puppet. High dollar effects, lemme tell you.

Sickness
Although my sickness remains, it is now manifested in an inability to regulate body temperature, a nasty cough and fatigue. I'm actually feeling much better, and for the first time in a month, feel like the end is in sight -yay! I also know that I don't have mono, HIV, strep, lupus, anemia, malaria, histoplasmosis or ebola. (Okay, they didn't test for ebola, but I'm pretty sure I don't have it.)

Soap Box
So it's election eve. I'm nervous, but also giddy. When I lived in Alaska, I voted for Bill Clinton. It was the first time I had ever voted for a winning presidential candidate. I remember seeing the returns and jumping up and down, crying. I called my friend Jenny and said, "It's really happening! Things are gonna be so different..." Three days later Clinton reneged on his promise to allow gays in the military, and this political naif was officially deflowered.

I miss those heady moments, when it seemed that real change was upon us...when it seemed like there was a possibility that people with a direct impulse for good were going to earnestly steer the country into the stark clear sunshine.

Fast forward and now I've got a 100-year-old house, an ex-husband, a blind geriatric dog and two amazing kids. Like anyone else, the world is truly too much with me at times, but I awake knowing that I am living an authentic life, engaged in the chaos and beauty around me. I've never been happier than I am at this very moment or more hopeful that, like the water lily arising from the muck, through this mire will come our essential goodness. It's not a single man who will change this country, it is us. With linked arms we can do anything.

I know you'll vote, Lone Reader, you're like that. Thanks for listening and love,
Velma