As of today, I am now eligible to serve in the United States Senate.

In other words, I have been whisked around the sun so many times that it’s time to update the tens digit in my age. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. Talk to me about it later, when I’m not banging my head into the wall over how much frustration November has caused me.

So, trawling the web today lead me to this SF Chronicle article: Prison guards move to recall Schwarzenegger

Union officials planned to deliver the petition to Schwarzenegger later today or Tuesday. The governor has seven days to respond, after which the union will file the petition with the Secretary of State to begin a signature drive for a special recall election, said Lance Corcoran, a spokesman for the union. The recall drive would eventually need 1,041,530 valid signatures to qualify for a statewide ballot.

Yes, I find it amusing that what the recall bringeth, it can also taketh away. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I don’t know if I agree; things are complicated in California already without throwing a volatile recall into the mix. OTOH, the prison guards have been working without a contract since 2006 and the state government is effed up six ways from Sunday. Hell, lesser transgressions are what got Gray Davis kicked out.

So in the end, I just find the whole thing amusingly funny.

[Unrelated: Maru, I saw your LJ comment. I haven’t unscreened it yet, because I’m still working on a response.]

With thanks to kunstler.com

Alright, gang, caption this shot.

[Edit: I note, for the record, that this is a photoshop — which I thought it might have been when I posted it. See http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/palin.asp. That said, when has a Photoshop stopped a good caption contest before? Thanks to and , who both pointed this out.]

One: I want to believe. I’m not sure I can. You see, I turned eighteen in 1996, but due to a quirk of calendars (My birthday falls approximately two and a half weeks *after* election day), the first presidential election I was able to participate in was the 2000 clusterfsck. And, in 2004, I let my hopes get too high only to be dashed on the rocks of reality. I’m not sure I’m over that. I understand Barack Obama is not John Kerry, and, despite the fact McCain votes with him 90+% of the time, John McCain is not George W. Bush. But I still expect the Republicans to do everything in their power to take this one away. And that scares me.

Because I know that truth number two is thus: The world is changing. Thus, the United States must change as well, or it will die. And as Obama put it so well last night, just because I’m somewhat liberal in my political beliefs does not mean that I hate this country and want it to die. Far from it. I’m glad a Democrat actually decided to point out that Republicans don’t have a fscking monopoly on patriotism in this country.

Anyway, short post:
1) I want to believe; I’m not sure I can.
2) America must change or America will die.
3) I love my country.

Anyway, I have to go up to Redding to go to my cousin’s wedding and hang out with the *ahem* more conservative members of my family. I’ll try to find internet from there; if I don’t, well I’ll see y’all after Labor Day.

So there’s a bit in my head that’s echoing around, to the rough sounds of the Antony funeral speech in Julius Caesar, that goes something like this:

“But McCain is against abortion
And McCain is an honorable man…”

Maybe if I find Copious Free Time, I’ll write the whole thing out.

Also — is ‘My Fellow Americans’ an acceptable substitute for ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen”? Discuss amongst yourself…

this is just a post to see if posting will make the archive plugin work. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

So, there I was, poking around LJ, when I found that had pointed at this entry of ‘s. (She apparently does them every month, if you’re feeling inclined to watch that journal.) Feeling somewhat like the universe wanted to say something to me, I posted a response that read:

I think I’ll be daring enough. The use will probably be a combination of one and four in your list, because I think I’m approaching a cusp.

And today I got my response. It read:

So there’s this Cell you’ve been in for a while, and it’s a comfortable Cell but as you’ve noticed it’s a little too small for you and… it would be nice to see the sun a while. The kicker is that you went into the Cell because it was safe. At the time, anyway. Now it’s just boring and you figure, “That thing that drove me in here is probably long gone.”

So you pop out of the Cell and right there, staring you in the face is a Murderer: that thing, that person, that situation that was trying to beat you down, smother the growth in you, steal some of the stuff that made life worthwhile.

“WTHBBQ!” you think, “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE GONE BY NOW.”

Now, I want you to consider the absurdity of this situation. You’ve been safe in here for quite a while, waiting for this Murderer to move on, and you were pretty sure he’d get just as bored as you were after all this time, and yet… he’s still out here. Except you’ve been indoors and he’s been skulking outside and he’s a little underfed and a lot bedraggled and he needs a bath and he looks less scary and more like a scarecrow…

So you say: “BOO!”

And the Murderer goes “!!!” and runs off.

Maybe the Murderer was dangerous back then. But… I think you’re bigger than him now. :)

I have a few ideas, obviously, as to what this might mean. I’d love to hear from friends, though, as to their thoughts, as those often offer clarity to my otherwise jumbled head. (That and my friends are just plain awesome at offering interesting thoughts to ponder.)

Just letting all two and one quarter of my adoring fans that my enemies have failed once again in bringing down my plane and I am back in Sactown.

More to be said about both inbound and outbound reading material when it comes up, and … I’m half-pondering an essay that seems to want to be titled ‘Why I hate being a neofan”. It’s nothing more than a couple stray thoughts at the moment, and I think I’m going to hold until I can rework a piece I wrote for my eAPA fanzine on Core and Big Tent Fandom and write “Belgium” for .

I also owe you all a worldcon report.

And I have to work this week. My life sucks.

But that’s about it. I yet live!

Me waiting for my flight at DIA.

I’ll have more commentary (and some pictures!) later this week. In the meantime, I think I just had the best week of my life. Thanks to my gracious host and his folks for having me.

I don’t know how long ago I stumbled upon Real Life Preacher. I know it was back before we even knew his name, back when his blog was on Salon, but it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that there was a guy, who claimed to be a real life preacher, and he was saying some incredibly moving and profound things. As somebody who came out of a fundamentalist Christian background and was wrestling with what her faith entailed, Preacher was a light in the darkness. He said things that were profound, things that helped me come to terms with my past and given me ideas. For that I can’t think him enough.

He’s hit another one out of the park with his most recent blog entry: Spam & Grey Poupon. He starts off telling the story of the time he put Grey Poupon on spam and his love of cake icing and his determined fascination with getting just the right bag of Goldfish crackers, and manages to take those things and fasten them together to make a profound point.

Go read it. It’s beautiful.

So the folks at work finally got back to me about whether I can take a few days off for vacation to go to Worldcon. The answer is yes. Flights are as follows:

 

 

Depart:	Tuesday, 05 August 08	Frontier Airlines
08:12 PM	Sacramento , CA , US (SMF)	Non-Stop / F9 0224
Arrive:	Tuesday, 05 August 08	Cabin: Economy / Airbus A319
11:25 PM	Denver , CO , US (DEN)	Seat(s): 17C

Depart:	Tuesday, 12 August 08	Frontier Airlines
09:35 PM	Denver , CO , US (DEN)	Non-Stop / F9 0221
Arrive:	Tuesday, 12 August 08	Cabin: Economy / Airbus A319
11:00 PM	Sacramento , CA , US (SMF)	Seat(s): 22C

 

And with the addition of Colorado, the only Western state I will not have been in is New Mexico. (I haven’t been to Texas, but Texas isn’t exactly what I call west.)