Two Words

The only thing I'm not completely sure of is which two words.

They're either:

Stomach Virus or Food Poisoning.

(Looks more poetic when I divide the lines up, huh?)

Anyway, in either case, I have been sick for almost 24 hours, so I'm hoping that whatever the cause, it's gone in the morning.

Conversation with an Actual Voter... Kinda

I was so wrapped up in boasting about my own voting yesterday, that I forgot to mention something election-related that happened at the bike shop post office this week.

On Monday, the day before election day, a fit, mussed, fortyish looking guy, wearing a plain white undershirt and a pair of blue pajama bottoms-- flannel, large plaid-- came up to the desk waving the yellow envelope that held his early ballot.  He wanted to drop it in the mail.  Not so unusual, people had been dropping them off for a couple of weeks. 

But, since the deadline for mailing the early ballots had fallen on the previous Thursday, I thought I would be helpful and let pajama guy know that, for his ballot to count, he would need to drop it off at a polling place. He was not the first citizen to have missed or simply ignored the deadline printed in red capital letters on the envelope.  I had already let a couple of people know they would have to drop their ballots off in person. They had thanked me.

"Where is one by here?" he asked, giving me the impression that maybe he didn't know what a polling place was. 

"At the high school gym, over on 82nd, or the middle school, off Granite Reef," I answered.  He still looked a little mystified about the fact that his ballot couldn't just be dropped off in the mail slot.  He looked annoyed that I had stopped him, actually.  He just wanted to drop off the ballot and be done.

He took a big breath, and sighed, and said, "OK, I guess I can go by there now." 

"No," I said, "there's no voting today, so you have to wait until tomorrow." 

"Why?" 
Seriously, he asked me why he had to wait for Election Day for the polls to be open.

"They only have one Election Day, so no one's there for that now," I explained. 

"I can't just drop it off there? Won't they take it?" He was really annoyed now, wishing he'd never come in.  He could have dropped the yellow envelope into the mailbox in the parking lot and avoided this confrontational woman trying to keep him from voting...

"There's only voting on Election Day," I repeated, as though that would clarify things.  

"They only do it one day?" He looked disgusted, really miffed, as though something about having only one day to vote was deeply unfair.

"Yeah," I said, and because I couldn't help myself, I added, "that's why they call it Election Day." 

I don't think I was dripping sarcasm, exuding it maybe, but not dripping, for sure.  

He turned and shuffled away in his slippers, shaking his head about the stupidity of it all.  

I know now, from the results of the election, that he probably did get to have his vote counted.  

From the ice cream mogul my state has elected as the next governor to the evasively inarticulate gal we've selected to be our state superintendent of schools, to the prison lobbyist who will be serving as attorney general, the results are pretty disappointing from where I sit.  The current governor, Jan Brewer, beamed and fluttered her false eyelashes on every local newscast as the election returns came in last night.  The gal who rose to national  fame thanks to the viral image in which she popped her gum and wagged her finger in the face of the President, is apparently happy about the prospect of a slate of state officials who will ensure that Arizona will never escape her legacy of governmental buffoonery. 

On the upside, my town finally voted for a budget override that will put some money back into education. I'm going to take that as a victory, and try to ignore the rest for the next few years...

Full disclosure:  I confess to a nagging sense of judgement about the whole early voting thing.  I get absentee ballots-- you're out of the country, the state, what have you, you don't want to be disenfranchised-- but early voting when you're right here in town?  You can't take a couple of minutes to go to the polls on the same day as everyone else?  I'm sure there are good reasons for sending in an early ballot, so I know my judgey attitude is illogical, but still, come on, really?

Election Day

Yes, I voted today.  

I wish I could say it was a show of my optimism and deep belief in democracy.  Unfortunately, as I get older, it's a more curmudgeonly urge that gets me to the polls.  I have a vague, but persistent notion that I forfeit my right to complain about the foibles and mishaps of the local and federal governments if I don't at least do my minimal civic duty to participate in the process.  And I like to complain, I really do, so I put on my sweater and made my way to my polling place at the local high school gym this morning.  

In this election, as in the last, school funding was my pet issue.  Though I live in a community which has a lot of children who attend public schools, the voting population seems be comprised of single young adults and retirees who shudder at the thought of their tax dollars being allocated to the education of future tax payers. I say those retirees may be well out of it, but those young singles better be planning to move somewhere else when they need to get expert medical help in twenty years.  I voted for school funding because, at this rate, our children will go back to doing their figuring on slates that they bring to school themselves for the few hours it can be held open, given budget constraints. This year, one day a week has been shortened and music and art have been slashed because funding can't be found. 

Seriously, if I wanted my children to be philistines with extra free time, I would home school them.  

Of course, there were major races for governor, attorney general, senate and house seats, etc.  I had some strong ideas about these, and voted accordingly.  But there was also the whole back side of the ballot, which I confess I almost missed.  It was a list of judges, with the question of whether each of them should be retained.  It must have been over twenty people I'd never heard of and had no opinion about. I know that displays a deplorably casual attitude about civic affairs, but honestly, if I'm not arguing a case in front of them, or waiting for them to hand down my sentence, how can I really know whether any particular judge should be retained?  Oh I know, I could research their judicial records, but for that many judges, I would have had to start reading before they were even put on the ballot.  That just seems excessive. Since I hadn't done the research, I skipped it.  Being a lazy voter is one thing, but actually making uninformed choices just felt wrong. 

I think that yawning list was strategic though, because at the end of it, there was a little proposition asking whether we should increase legislative pay... Yeah it was buried under all those judges.  Had I actually marked all of those lines yes, I could have easily rolled right along and done the same with this proposition and voted a pay raise for people I've been complaining about since I voted in the last election. Oy! 

I must say I'm looking forward to the return of ads for low cost accident lawyers, pay day loans, and heating and cooling specialists, now that the election has passed, but that's likely to be the biggest immediate benefit.  I fear that the election will not really go my way, my vote notwithstanding. But believe me, tomorrow and every day until the next election, I will be exercising the right I earned to complain, because hey, I didn't vote for this!

All the Glorious Colors

This looks like the ones I used to do as a kid.
Sometimes they had black velvet flocking...

I found myself coloring the other day.  Not sitting down with the girls and doing a fun art activity, but by myself,  in a rare moment when I was actually alone, and I felt like I really couldn't do anything else, and no one was expecting anything else from me. The girls had recently gotten some folders and a notebook printed with intricate patterns ready to color and the notebook, covered with a pattern of black and white swirls which formed concentric circles, beckoned to me.  The markers were right there. Charlie Rose's insightful interview with Benjamin Netenyahu ended and Sesame Street came on, but I didn't notice until I looked up from my work and saw Big Bird talking with kids about the many glorious colors of their skin.

I had to go to an appointment before I was finished, so I left many of the circles blank.  The girls couldn't believe I was the one who had colored-- they accused each other first, but then decided that I should finish it, since I was already doing a good job.  I should hope so.  Even though I'm out of practice, I have been coloring for more than forty five years. For several years when I was in grade school, big Doodleart posters with intricate designs just begging to be colored often featured as prizes in all kinds of school contests.  We would hang them on our walls and work on them for weeks until every blank spot blazed with color.  

I think something is wrong with me.

But I don't think I'm the only one.

Doesn't everyone else out there feel overloaded sometimes?  Maybe a lot of the time? I think I feel overwhelmed six or seven times a day, sometimes before lunch.  I didn't feel overloaded when I was coloring, and that is something worth repeating. 

I don't often tune out the world and pick up markers though, because I usually-- no really, I always-- feel so guilty doing something that is essentially unproductive.  Then I saw this article and I felt better, because it turns out that coloring not only relieves stress, but exercises our brains because it combines the logic of form and pattern with the creativity of color as we make choices to mix and match different tones.  It was on the HuffPost, so it must be true. 

I didn't give the folder back to the girls, because they want me to finish it.  Now I'm thinking maybe I'll get my own markers, so that I can keep the points fine and remember to put the caps on-- something the girls can't always do.  I still have the lingering mark of an apple green permanent marker on the sole of my foot from when I stepped on on it in their darkened bedroom the other night. Classy, right? 

Hey, I think you can still get those Doodleart posters on Amazon... 

Just An Ordinary Day

Once again I find myself trying to get this in before the end of the day... Maybe this is my writing pattern and I should embrace it, instead of fighting it.  

This is the thing though, the days just seem to disappear. Especially the weekend days.  I start the day with a million and two things to do, and by the end of the day, I still have a million on my list. Today, Delia wasn't feeling well, and even though nothing really seemed to be wrong and she wasn't running a fever, she still threw up.  She felt much better afterwards, of course, because you always do, but there is no way to convince an eight year old, or even a forty-eight year old, that that is true, until they've yiffed, and feel incredibly relieved. 

Still, I got our bedroom closet in shape, and moved the stuff we had been storing in our room into new storage places.  I threw away a bunch of stuff-- old mail, daily school papers, unusable craft items-- and that always makes me feel like I've done something.  I cleaned the girls room, partly because I was afraid to face the onslaught of genuine contagious illness with the room still a multi-layered mess.  

Everything is easier to face without clutter.  I know, because I've faced lots of things, usually in clutter.  

And of course, I had that nagging, back of the mind worry about the kids being sick that doesn't actually have anything to do with the kids.  I had to be thinking about what I would do if Delia was really sick and couldn't go to school tomorrow.  Because I have to work every day this week.  How's that gonna work? No sick days, no personal days, because actually, I work part-time.  

I have been working more at the bike shop post office lately, and find that, though I am glad to have the extra money, I really feel cranky about having to be there so much.  What a first world whine, right? "Oh poor me, I have to go to work almost forty hours a week." I know that, given the economy and my circumstances, I should be happy to have a job close to home.   But still, I feel like I can't get anything else done, and I feel like, after all those years of going to school, maybe having a full-time, low-paying, relatively menial job is not what I signed up for.  And I can't stand the fact that I worry about more than the kids when they look like they might be getting sick.Especially for a job like this, where my main contribution to the betterment of the world is the smooth acceptance of items for the mail.   I hate that I hope they're not really sick so I don't have to call out, and I won't lose the pay, which I'll really need if they're sick.  My head spins sometimes.

And yet... now the kids are in bed, and I'm headed there soon myself. And we all had enough to eat, and even though I had to borrow some money, we paid our rent yesterday. It was a beautiful day here in Phoenix, because the weather has cooled to the seventy degree temperatures we love to enjoy while much of the rest of the country starts thinking about where their snow boots are and whether or not they have salt to throw on the front walk in the morning.  When Delia wasn't feeling sick, she was playing with Fiona on the balcony in the fresh air.  They must have gone ten whole minutes before the bickering started. 

So yeah, it was a great day off. Glad I got to write about it.  Hope you all had a good Sunday too. 

Writing Reboot

It's ten minutes before nine here, so I guess I could have waited a bit longer to write something today, this first day of November.  I mean, hey it's already November 2nd in some parts of the country.  No matter. I am taking advantage of the quasi-official November Blog Post a Day challenge to try to get back into the habit of posting on the blog.  The summer hiatus turned into a genuine fall slump, as far as my writing goes, but November always offers a chance for writing renewal because it is the month that someone decided that if they wrote enough each day, they could have a finished novel at the end of the month.  The quality of the novel is not assured, of course, but for so many writers, talent will never be an issue because they will never get anything on paper.  I understand their difficulty.  

Enter NANOWRIMO-- National Novel Writing Month-- during which budding authors can feel some solidarity with other struggling wordsmiths who may be toiling in solitary obscurity as they all try to get something down on paper.  Of course, no category of writer wanted to be left out of this chance to grab the brass ring and get all creative this month, so the novel writing challenge has engendered poetry writing, essay writing, and yes, blog posting challenges in which writers can get writing tips, encouragement and nagging reminders all month long-- whatever it takes to get our butts in the chairs and some words on the actual (or virtual) paper.  

So even though I have taken on extra hours at work, and am still the mother of four children, two of which (two of whom?) are still young enough to need daily feeding and bathing, not to mention homework assistance, I am jumping back into blogging with the intention of writing every day for a month. After that, I should have formed the writing habit again, and I should be unstoppable... right. At least for now, I should have plenty of ideas saved up from all that time I wasn't posting, right?  Uh, yeah, for so sure. 

I guess all I have left to say for now is, "See you tomorrow."

Thinking writer image from here

It's Not All About Me This Time

I seem to have a lot of trouble blogging lately.  That makes it sound like maybe I've been writing something else, though, so in the spirit of full disclosure, I think I should say, I've had a lot of trouble writing lately.  Like, at all.  Even my shopping lists have been ineffective, gamely started on our kitchen whiteboard, sometimes transferred to a sticky note or the back of a coupon, only to be consigned to the bottomless chasm that is the bottom of any bag I carry anywhere.  I find them later, always after returning from the store, only to have them taunt me with the essential items that are, without fail, missing from the shopping bags.  Cheese! Napkins! Coffee! (And if I got coffee, I forgot cream. Oy!)  To-do lists have been equally futile. I noticed, looking back over the past month or so, that tasks carried over from day to day, sometimes disappearing for a day or two only to top the list again and spend another week undone.  Kind of demoralizing.  It's been a slump, but I'm determined to come out of it.  School is in full swing, and the little post office is getting busier, so I'm going to try to let the momentum carry me along. 

I'm at the post office now, as I have been every day this week, and I have to say, I'm over it.  Over writer's block. Over the post office, over working, over still being pretty seriously poor, work notwithstanding.  

I am not the poster girl for the power of a positive attitude.  

As I weeded out my email inbox in an effort to continue to evade writing this blog or anything else, I got to a note I had gotten in late May from a woman named Heather von St James in response to the blog.  She is an amazing survivor of mesothelioma cancer.  Mesothelioma strikes people who have been exposed to asbestos over long periods of time in their work environments. Heather was apparently exposed through secondary contact with asbestos via her dad, who worked construction when she was a kid. Heather got the diagnosis eight years ago, just three months after the birth of her daughter.  Mesothelioma patients are usually given about 15 months to live.  She has beaten incredible odds and survived, after major surgery to remove her left lung.  Take a minute.  Wow, right?

The  Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance has a very informative website that tells all about this rare, yet completely preventable disease. Heather had asked me to help her meet her July goal of educating 300 people who had never heard of mesothelioma.  Well, clearly I missed that window of opportunity, but Heather was gracious about it, and I am hoping we can help her cause at least a little bit.  Her very powerful story is available on this website.  Watch it, and please share it so that Heather can get the word out about mesothelioma, and more importantly, about hope.  The video shows her baking with her lovely daughter and offers commentary from her and her husband about what it was like to get such a dire diagnosis and how they managed to defeat the odds. She says in her video that she has been "accused of wearing rose-colored glasses," all her life.  Well, luckily for her and her family, and all of us, she's still here so we can see how great they look on her.  

And if that isn't enough to grant us some perspective, I ran across this the other morning, first in the Huff Post, then in facebook feeds of several friends and blogs that I follow.  This is the final post from a mom named Charlotte who blogged through her battle with cancer.  She prepared it knowing that it would appear after she died. 

Charlotte reminds us all to embrace life and live it as fully as we can.  I'm pretty sure that doesn't include cranking about work and writer's block and feeling poor.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't include any self-pity at all.  I often start writing about something that happened to someone else and turn it so that we can all see how it relates to me.  I'm glad that today, I managed to start out with myself and take it up a level to talk about other people, Heather, and Charlotte, who can teach us all something we need to know.  


Picture of typewriter from this page. Picture of Heather von St. James from the mesothelioma site.