Spinning on that dizzy edge

1) The obscene weather, with ridonkulous humidity and high temps pushing the heat index past 100 degrees.

2) The fact that it has to be said OUT LOUD that separating families and putting kids in cages is bad. This should be a commonly understood truth. THIS SHOULD BE OBVIOUS.

3) Needing to demonstrate about #2 outside during the stranglehold of #1. (My sign: "Shame on the Kidnapper-in-Chief! Keep families together!")

4) Having my empathy button mashed so hard, and my civic pride overwhelmed at the hundreds of people around me, that my face kept leaking in public. Mild benefit of #1: at least I was already flushed and sweaty.

5) Being accosted by an older white dude-bro who smugly informed me and my friend that it was pointless to protest because the USA is a corporation now. (We noped right out of the "conversation" with His Smugness when he tried to label Obama as a communist. UGH.)

I am home and inside now, luxuriating in my AC, feeling about as solid as a boiled noodle, but pondering going back out to complete some more Pokemon Go tasks and do the grocery shopping.

...In a while. Maybe.

Well, that was different!

I made it to the polling place a little after five this afternoon; I was unexpectedly joined by my husband and the Emperor a couple of minutes later. The line was longer than I've seen in quite a while, so I was glad I was there to help out with Emperor-distracting. (ASD+ADHD = really bad at waiting patiently and quietly in line.)

Then, just when we were a couple of bodies away from the front of the line, the power went out, and the emergency lights kicked in. There was a lot of confusion and people holding up cell phones to see what was going on. I had a couple of small flashlights in my purse, favors from the wedding we went to last month. I gave one to the election judges at the computers, who eventually announced that people were welcome to stay and keep voting if they wanted, as long as they could provide their own light. I signed for my form and voted with the Emperor's "help" in holding the flashlight ("This is not a disco - please keep the light still!"). My husband followed right after. The young man at the scanner flicked a lighter to show people where to manually feed their sheets into an open slot, so they could be counted later.

Thus was voting accomplished!

Then we got home to a dark house. *sigh* At least I could rustle up some flashlights and candles pretty quickly, and cook dinner on our gas stove. The power came and went several times, leaving me very nervous about the contents of my fridge and freezer. I was very happy that the rain had stopped so the sump pump in the basement took care of all the water before the outage, and that the outside temp was pretty mild so we wouldn't get too cold in the worst case scenario. I put the Emperor to bed, and came downstairs to call a friend a few blocks away to get an online report from the power company. After we'd been chatting a while, the power came back on, and has been on for a couple of hours now. I think it may have stuck this time. *knock on wood*

Now comes the nail-biting wait to see how the results come in for the House and Senate. I'm very lucky that I live in a firmly Dem state, so the Senate and Governor slots are safe, but ugh, it looks like the local Republican Rep held onto his seat. At least this means an end to the non-stop political ads and phone calls, at least for a while.

ETA: FUCK ME SIDEWAYS. The millionaire Republican won for gov. Excuse me while I go cry.

But you can't make him stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

The latest missive from my *head-asploding* Republican Rep: ( THE STUPID. IT BURNS. )

I generally love October - Autumn is settling in, the leaves are changing, and the end of the month brings both Halloween and the Emperor's birthday. By the final week, he's practically vibrating out of his skin. Now that I have his birthday party booked and invitations sent out, plus his costume all planned, I should be sitting pretty.

But this election shit is threatening to make my head FUCKING EXPLODE.

I have an Obama sign in front of my house. I wouldn't vote Republican in a normal year. But this year, when women's rights are currently being nudged at swordpoint off the Tea Party ship, almost nothing could convince me otherwise.

So when the mudslingers are sending daily flyers in the snail mail, attacking the local Democratic candidate for Congress by slamming his support of "Obamacare" and asking "Can you imagine living in a country where a panel of 15 bureaucrats could limit your access to medical care?", I want to march into the headquarters of the so-called "The New Prosperity Foundation" and scream. What the fuck else do you call it but limiting my access to health care when you want to defund Planned Parenthood and mandate women and their doctors entirely out of controlling their own medical decisions?

AAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

I'm sorry - I don't normally post political stuff. But this is the kind of fuckery up with which I will not put.

I've tried really hard to avoid talking much about politics here. I'll be voting for Obama, and as much as I'm scared of The Other Guys winning, I don't know what I can do to convince other people to vote for my guy, or at least not vote for The Other Guys.

But this? This is one of those things that gets lost in all the crap about pigs and lipstick. This is what I want to hear people talking about: actual content, not spin.

Post the following in your LJ, and see if you can help to spread the message:

"...the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. " New York Times op-ed piece, 9/15/2008

Paste that into a word processor, blow it up to 60-point font, print off ten copies, and leave them around. Tape them to light posts, slip them between magazines at the grocery store, post them on public bulletin boards at the grocery store or coffee shop, leave them behind on the table when you leave a restaurant.

Don't make a scene, and don't violate anyone's personal property. Just leave them where people have to read them, even if it's as they throw them away.

Don't put any extra commentary on the sheets, or if you do, keep it to something like "copy this and pass it on." This is not a pro-Obama campaign, it's pro-dissemination of information. The media isn't doing it, so we will.

When you're done giggling at the word dissemination, e-mail this to your friends in red or swing states and see if they can do the same.

We need to reach people who aren't on the Internet, and don't follow blogs, so hard copy is the way to go. Ten copies. Reach ten people. Spread the word.