Warning: Political

I've become a bit more...undecided within the last week. I keep hearing I'm in a swing state. Four years ago, our electoral votes were decided to Al Gore by only 4,000 votes. Which has me thinking.

I am a Libertarian. I like the principles behind the platform, even if I think implementing the platform would throw the country into immediate chaos. So I'm just as guilty as straight-ticket voters: I vote for the party, not for the individual. I justify this by the knowledge that my candidate will not win. I feel like I am saying more with my vote that I'm willing to 'waste' it on a candidate that has no chance than vote for someone who doesn't stand for what I believe in.

However, this year, it's a bit different. It could be a close race. My vote might actually make a difference. So now I'm in a quandry: do I vote my conscience, or do I vote Bush out of office? I don't think he's the evil bastard he's made out to be, but I think he was completely and utterly wrong to invade Iraq, and I can't stand that he might get away with it.

I may end up waiting until the day before to decide.

Question: Why does the computer in the next room interfere with my AM radio reception? Every time someone turns it on, there's a high-pitched tone. It's very annoying.

Ron White was awesome. He's coming back to Cedar Rapids in December, and I'm seriously considering going again if I can get better seats. We were in the first row of the second balcony, and it was just a little bit too far away to see his facial expressions, which is half the comedy right there. I can't imagine how bad it was up in the third balcony.

If you haven't seen him in The Blue Collar Comedy Tour Movie or on Comedy Central, check him out: www.tatersalad.com. He said he found out recently that "Drunk in Public" is the single most downloaded piece of comedy so far. No wonder. Hee!

Another shopping story: After my haircut, I went over to the women's clothing section, because I need dress pants. No other woman in America obviously has my measurements, because I can never find pants that fit both my hips and my waist. To my astonishment, the size 12s fit me around the hips, much better than the size 14s. I was very excited: if I could find a pair where I couldn't fit another person inside the waistband, I would have my first pair of size 12 pants since high school! Alas, I ended up in the junior's section, because they don't make low-rise pants in women's sizes (the lack of waist simplifies my 'fit' search immensely). I ended up going home with a size 15. [pout] I look great in them, but I can't deny I would like them even better if there was a '12' inside rather than a '15'. Horrible, isn't it?

Two Pictures

First of all, I have barely left the couch for two days. Great stuff, I'm telling you. Today, I did make it out and about. I had a hair appointment. JCPenney's was having a color sale, so I used it as a catalyst to indulge my thinking about trying to de-emphasize the ever-increasing white hair count. Self portraits are never easy, and the lighting on this camera is non-existent (but I appreciate it nonetheless, because without it, you would see nothing). It's a lot lighter than I expected it to be, but I kinda like it. I was also shown the wonders of straightening irons. Pfft. Who ever thought with my hair, I'd need a straightening iron?

I also went back and bought the rug. After two days of thinking about it, I decided that since I did really like it, and who knew if I'd find anything I liked as well when I was ready for a rug, I should just get it now. And besides, when I went back, it was 20% off. Bonus! Fortunately, it looks pretty good on top of my carpet. I will eventually be tearing out the carpet and refinishing the floor underneath, but not soon.

There's even more colors in it than I remembered, and there are soooo many ways I could go in decorating my living room. You also get a glimpse of my 70's couch on the right there. Yes, that is red and gold velvet!

I am officially on vacation! I ran out of things to do today, and told Gary, "If you want to find some things for me to do for the rest of the day, I would be ecstatic to be able to take the rest of the week off. So he did, and I am! I'm so psyched!

My plans are to sleep, veg in front of the TV (Popular: Season 1 left Hodgkins, IL for Coralville at 2:54 this afternoon - don't you just love UPS tracking?), do a little shopping, hit The Java House on Friday morning for Talk of Iowa, and okay, I'll probably clean my house. Saturday I'll probably head home to watch the game, since it's a 2:30 kickoff, and I have to be in Davenport that evening for Ron White. !!!!

And I haven't done a quiz for a while, this one's stolen from Meghan. Maybe my sister and I have more in common than I thought:

Your True Sign Is Cancer

Cozy
Moody
Romantic
Traditional
Ultra-Sensitive
Unable to Let Go
The Most Loving Ever
Intuitive and Imaginative


What's Your True Zodiac Sign?

I fell in love with an area rug today. One of our clients, an interior decorating company, had a ribbon cutting for their new showroom. As I was browsing the samples (and thinking $50,000 would come in handy about now), I saw the rug. I wished I had the Pen Cam with me - which is working now by the way. It must have some lesbian porn filter built right into it or something.

It was a multi-color pattern in large triangles shaped into squares. It was in rich reds and greens and browns, and was oh! so soft. I could decorate a living room around this rug. It is making me seriously consider ripping up the carpet in my living room and refinishing the hardwood floor underneath, just so I can have this rug.

I could call it my Christmas present.

Rebecca quit yesterday. Although this greatly reduces my chances of having to go to Indiana, it also means I am now the only full-time staff person in the office. I will again be saddled with the majority of her workload. Fuck.

I'm still working at the nursing home, and it struck me today that the great majority of people the elderly have left in their lives is their children. I had to fight the urge to cry right then and there. I remembered all the times my grandparents posed for pictures with all their grandchildren, and it struck me how much I still want that. Sure, I make noises about being a sophisticated single and growing old alone, but mostly to protect myself from disappointment. I have what? ten good childbearing years left? I'm running out of time. My mom isn't going to live to see my children grow up. Dude, now I *am* crying.

I think, deep down in my heart of hearts, I still want to be Mom when I grow up. And now that I'm realizing I *am* grown-up, I'm disappointed that I'm not. Is not wanting to be lonely a bad reason to want a family? I think that is what I am most afraid of. Death, public speaking, heights, spiders, clowns...I'll take them all on if it means I will never be lonely again.

I am auditing a nursing home this week. As I walk the halls, I see people in various stages of lethargy and I contemplate my own mortality. I hear the 'activities' going on in the rec room nearby: what kind of existence is it when all you have to look forward to are Bingo, sing-alongs and the occasional visitor? And death. As much as spending my days watching television and lounging in bed appeal to me right now, I know I get bored of it quickly.

My grandmother, who will turn 94 next month, finally moved into a nursing home a couple of weeks ago. My Aunt Carol has been taking care of her, and it's gotten to be too much for her as grandma loses more and more of her mobility in interest in the things that are going on around her.

I don't want to grow that old. Sometimes I wonder if it would be so bad, to be diagnosed with leukemia at 50 and know you will live another 15-20 years, and you won't have to live out how many days, months or years in a nursing home. Me, I think I'd like to go out in a blaze of glory at 80. A bungee jumping malfunction or a spectacular motorcycle accident.

Quality of years is way more important than quantity of years, I think. No one wants to live out the rest of their lives like that. It makes me feel so sad, that all these women (and they're mostly women) have lost most of the people in their lives: their friends, their husbands, their parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and most of the people they grew up with. And now they play hangman and do crafts and the highlight of the month is when the little kids come and sing to them.

Why does it matter, indeed. If it ends up like this, why does it matter.

I completely forgot to take pictures. I still can't upload them to my computer (Ken, help!) so it wouldn't have done much good, but I would have at least had them. Oh well.

It was a fun game. We did win, but didn't make the spread. I had also forgotten that we won last year. Completely. *Sigh* But Lew and Ashley and Nicole came up the night before. We didn't go to bed until after midnight, and I was woken up at five after six. Traffic was crazy. My usual tailgaters left their hotel at 6:30 and didn't get here for two hours (normally a 5-10 minute drive). The lot at the end of the street was full by nine. For the two strangers I parked, I got $40 a piece.

I saw a poor kid get a ticket for underage drinking at 7:45 in the morning. And I saw at least one guy led down the street in handcuffs. There were so many people on my street the lot at the end started charging $5 a head for people just to walk in. I walked down there afterwards, and I couldn't believe the number of empty beer cans there were. I wonder how many thousands of dollars were spent on beer for that day. I'd bet it's upward of into the tens of thousands.

And really, what is up with these girls in short skirts? To a football game? No wonder Ken has problems. There was this one girl standing on the sidewalk in front of us, and she reached to itch. Todd said, "I wasn't looking." Kristen said, "I was."

But there were these two ISU students with capes. They were so cool. I told Kristen we should be superheros for Halloween, so we can wear capes, too. This idea has possibilities. I still want to go to the fabric store and look at the costume catalogue. I like to look at the baby costumes, at least. They're always so cute!

Heat exhaustion again, so I'm taking it easy this weekend again. The next home game isn't until October 2nd, so hopefully it's the last case I'll have this year.

My favorite pair of socks have a hole in them. I am so very upset. These are the best pair of socks I have ever owned. My roommate in graduate school gave them to my for my birthday. She gave me a bunch of things related to hiking, because this was right before the Great Grand Canyon Debacle of '01 (read that as 'aught one' - it's more pretentious). They're made of SmartWool, and are so, so comfy. There is nothing in the world like putting on a new pair of socks. I bought some socks when I went shopping with Chelsea, and when I put a pair on to try on shoes, and they hugged my feet so friendly-like...ahhh. It's one of life's little pleasures. But regular socks lose their elasticity after a while. These SmartWool socks, they're like putting on a new pair of socks every day. I mean, they're stained blue from the Great Grand Canyon Debacle of '01, but even though they look a little funky, they still give my feet hugs every time I put them on.

I had a nice, calm post about yoga all planned when they had to go and piss me off. At 4:50 this afternoon, I get an email message from someone in the Indianapolis office saying I had to overnight a couple of forms to them so they can do a background check. WTF?!? Turns out, I'm supposed to go to Indianapolis for two weeks sometime this fall and help them with some big project, and no one told me I'd been volunteered for this.

And they wonder why they get zinged all the time for poor communication! For one, I hate being told things like this without even the illusion that I have a choice in the matter. Not a "Would you be willing to go to Indianapolis for two weeks to help them out on a big project?" And I would take a couple of days to get used to the idea, and then I might say "yes" because I'm a push over team player like that. But to have to hear it from some random person in the Indy office, and then, "Oh, yeah, we should have told you it was a possibility," AAARRRGGH!

Second, I don't travel well. Vacations, I can handle, because usually I'm excited about where I'm going and there's adreneline and that helps me through. But business travel sucks monkey ass. I don't sleep well, I get constipated, and I get irritable. And for two weeks! I have plans! I have football tickets, theater tickets, hanging-out time! I can deal with being away for a week, though I despise being stuck with these trips soley because I'm single and don't have family obligations. Despise...hate...loathe. None of these words are strong enough right now. I'm seriously considering looking into filing a formal complaint about being discriminated against because I'm single.

I...HATE...BUSINESS...TRAVEL!!!



Now. I'm going to go watch Teacher's Pet and try and calm myself down.

And then Blogger wouldn't publish! I'm about ready to kick its ass.

Yesterday was the first football game of the season. I love Hawkeye football. I can't stand professional ball, and I'm not too into any of the other sports, but it would be a sacrilige to live where I live and not love Hawkeye football. I live very close to Kinnick Stadium, close enough to be able to charge an arm and a leg to park cars on my lawn. I started getting some regular tailgaters last year, a couple of Suburbans from Estherville. They are really nice, and I now tailgate with them regularly. They feed me and pay for parking! What a deal!

I still haven't gotten Ken's camera set up on my computer, but Leah took some awesome pictures last year at the Homecoming game. This is my street on a football Saturday:

There is a rather large field/ravine at the end of my dead-end street, and they make a killing parking cars down there. 600-700 cars at $20 a pop...makes my six cars look puny. There has been talk of cracking down on people who park cars on their lawns, making them pay a permit fee or something. I haven't heard anything official about it yet, so I figure I'll keep doing it until I hear something. It pays for my season tickets anyway, and then some. I try and do something fun with the money, but I feel bad doing it this year, since I put so much of the repairs and the computer on my credit cards. Maybe I'll just say I bought part of my computer with it, because really, the computer is fun.

My seats are on the north goal line, right across from the student section. This is my fourth year in that spot, and it's nice to make friends with the people around me. Some people have held those seats for over 20 years. I actually sat down in the wrong spot yesterday, and didn't recognize anyone around me. I felt kinda lost. And stupid, when I realized what I had done.

Kinnick:

They did a "Throwback Game", celebrating the Stadium's 75th anniversary. They did the uniforms like they were in 1939, the refs wore knickerbockers (if you thought refs were hard to take seriously before...), and the poor cheerleaders had to change clothes at halftime, because it was so hot. I ended up with my third case of heat exhaustion this summer. I drank tons of water, and wore a hat to the game, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I was still out of it for the rest of the evening.

Next week is Iowa State. My brother is coming down, I have an extra ticket for him. This year, we're going to win. We're at the end of the longest losing streak to our intra-state rivals ever. This year, it ends.

Bum-dum-duuum!