Dandelyon's Worlds

I'm feeling the knots in my back relax.

I remember sitting listening to a rich man talk to the lawyer I worked for about 20 years ago. He was talking about sports and elections, and saying the older he got, the less he cared about the home team and the more fascinated and focused he became on elections. Which football team wins affects the mood of a day or a week--who makes our laws affects everything.

My Angel and I have a tradition of going in to vote near the end of the day, and keeping a record of what number is written by our names in the book. Usually the turnout in our area is dismal, probably due only in part to the number of non-citizens who live here. Today, we got there at about 6:20. There was no line, but there were a lot more people there than usual, including a table full of people registering to vote. (Wisconsin lets you register and vote the same day.)

We were #432 and 434 in our ward/precinct. The nice young lady behind the desk said, with a big smile, that they haven't had a break all day!

We had three instead of the usual two precincts at our polling place. We were #695 and 694 placing our ballots in the box. The other two precincts were in line with the usual voting numbers for our precinct.

Both numbers were substantially higher than at any previous election here, with Obama's last run for President being the next highest. Somebody must have really inspired the voters in our neighborhood!

Although I haven't always agreed with the people I've talked with about this election, I have been heartened by the fact that people care.  They're paying attention and they care who we elect and I find that very hopeful.

And I am so, so glad to have candidates I believe in elected this time!  Not only Obama, but also Tammy Baldwin, who is soon to be the first female Senator from Wisconsin and is the first openly gay person elected to the U S Senate. 

I am also so very glad that it looks like we will not have to spend weeks worrying about recounts and possible lawsuits. 

The election results I'm hearing today makes me believe that the world I live in is changing for the better.  Slowly with many stumbling points, but still in the right direction. 

Soon, the once and future President will speak, and then I'll head to bed to dream of a world where people in love can marry regardless of sexual orientation, where skin color and gender don't limit a person's success, and where people who are willing to work can earn enough to support a family.

I've been looking at my cell phone and saying, "I love living in the future" for a while now.  Maybe before I die I'll look at demographic data and be able to say that about social issues too.

I'm not holding my breath, mind you.  But tonight I'm cautiously hopeful.

 

Yes, I know, technically it's spring. But that's still just a technicality.

The news is full of wonderful, encouraging news. Unemployment was up again last month (no surprise in February), 51 percent of the jobs lost were womens’ jobs, and 95 percent of the new jobs went to men.

From my personal experience, there seems to be a slight increase in job listings, but so far no increase in phone calls responding to my resume, which is to say, I haven’t gotten any calls since early January.

All of this is complicating the fact that it’s the end of the “allergens collect in the house” winter heating season, so I'm using up a LOT of Kleenex (which is distracting as well as time consuming). And the Kleenex doesn't keep the allergies from making me tired.

Have I mentioned how much depression and being too tired resemble each other?

I’ve got lots I want to get done, and it's really hard to get started, especially on housework (since that puts my nose into the thick of the fight, so to speak) and on creative things, which go SO much better when one has a little energy. I sure hope the weather gets better soon. I know from past years that being able to open the windows and air out the house will help.

In better news, Torn World is currently #6 on the Top Webfiction Website! It’s wonderful to see the banner up, but even better that people looking for things to read might stop by and check us out.

If you enjoy my Torn World stories, please consider stopping by the Top Webfiction site: http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=torn-world is the link to vote for us. You can also vote for other cool things, like Addergoole, Spots, and Shadow Unit—and a lot more. Your vote is counted as of the moment you vote; the default page counts votes in the last week, but you can change that and see how many different people voted for a project in the last month or year.

I plan to start posting this link during each Muse Fusion, and also whenever I post a draft of Torn World work here, so those of you interested in voting can do so easily.  And thank you to the people who do bote.

I hope to hear from you!  So what interesting, thought provoking, or inspiring things have you come across lately?

I sacrificed most of my lunch hour to NaNoWriMo, was really pleased with what I'd written, went to save, and the computer turned itself off. It was on the little fan stand. It should not have overheated and shut down. Eventually, after working the whole afternoon and driving home, I found I hadn't lost everything--the autorecover had saved at about 150 words in. I lost probably twice that. Better than losing all of it, of course, but it's still frustrating!

So, after discovering what I'd lost, we went off to vote. There was almost nowhere to park! Very unusually, our polling place was busy. There was a line at the "register and vote today" table. Heck--there WAS a "register and vote today" table. I'm sure it's been there before, but even during presidential elections, I don't remember seeing anyone using it, much less a crowd of people. My Angel was 177, and I was 178, which doesn't sound high, unless you realize this is a precinct where in primaries they don't always make it into double-digits.

So now I get to worry about the election results. And all too soon, I fear, about the results of the election results.

My Angel and I went to vote in the primary and were greeted very enthusiastically by the poll workers.  In our precinct, she was voter number 6 and I was voter number 7.  At the machine (two precincts are at the same polling place in our neighborhood) I was number 8 and she was number 9.

The poll workers were joking that they just might hit double-digits by closing time at 8. 

Clearly, the people who worry that one vote doesn't count for much should vote in the primaries.

Foodie-friend is very much a Lovecraft fan.  He went to vote in his black t-shirt-with-Elder-Sign and black leather jacket with weird buttons.  At his polling place, he was #666.  Of course, they keep those little slips of paper with the election judges’ initials, and he didn’t have a camera, but still, he said the little old lady looked from the number to him, and seemed to be thinking something along the lines of "yep, that's voter 666 all right".

At least that number didn't go to someone who'd freak out at getting the number of the beast...at his polling place, anyway. For us, all went smoothly, as expected.  There was someone outside the school giving directions (!) and several people hanging around as observers.  For the primary, when we arrived after 7:00 p.m. (less than an hour before closing) we were #12 and #13.  For the election proper, we arrived substantially earlier, around 4:00, and were #268 and #269.  What a difference in turnout!

After, I got a call from someone doing an exit poll, but they'd filled my demographic already, so I only got to answer the boring background questions.