Archives for November 2005

California did good, didn’t it? No on EVERYTHING! Take THAT, Arnold. I
was immensely cheered this morning, driving home, thinking about my
home state and how well it did, although by the skin of its teeth.

It does make me wonder, though, how a state’s population can reject gay
marriage initiatives, but still be liberal enough to understand that
some girls WILL have abortions, whether they’re safe or not. Oh, well.

On the gay civil rights front: Go Maine! Texas, you make me ashamed and
sad (although I know my loving liberal Texan readers got out there and
voted!).

There. The political section of this blog is now over, and we can talk
about sensitive things like feelings. And how I miss Lala and I think
she’s been well enough Buddhist for a while, am’nt I right? How much
levitating can someone do in a week? (Don’t freak out – I don’t think
she levitates. Rides a skateboard pretty well, though.) The dogs and I
are ready for her to come home now.

I just started my weekend, and I didn’t do it well. I got off at six,
home by seven, in bed by eight, and I meant to just nap a little. I got
up at three! That’s a Real Sleep, which means that tonight’s sleep will
be rough, and I have to get up at five in the morning to make it to
work for an all-day mandatory training class, which eats into valuable
weekend time. But god bless overtime.

I’ve deemed today my do-nothing day. I’ve already slept most of it
away, and you know what I’m going to do with the rest? Nothing.
(Nothing being knitting/spinning and watching Tivo, the best kind of
nothing.) If I sleep tonight, great. If I don’t, at least tomorrow is
only training and I can’t kill anyone while on the job.

I have this new Hotel Theory, which I’ll explain in the next post. But right now I have big nothing plans to put into place….

1. Heard while walking into the coffee-shop: "The best thing to do is get all your rain-gear on, go out into the woods, and THEN eat the shrooms."

2. I know you’ve donated to everything this year, but there are still three million homeless people in Pakistan from the recent earthquake (17,000 children killed alone), and the winter is coming, fast. The fabulous Jessica has set up a donations website here. Knitters rock, I tell you. But you knew that.

3. I’m almost caught up on email and I found the local burrito shop, so I’m taking a HUGE burrito in to work with me tonight. Mmmm, carnitas.

4. Almost time for work, which I really like. Last night I realized I was working six different radio channels at one time, speaking on all of them, following the traffic on all of them as best I could (I missed things – the fast pace is difficult, but I’ll get used to it). I love that I like a challenge. I hate that I need to be perfect, even when I’m new at something. Working on that.

5. Coffee is GOOD!

6. Eventually, I am sure I will get a google hit for the first item on this list, and I’ll get some dumb email from someone asking me where to get shrooms. Dude, read the whole list. Don’t send that email.

For scale:

    Miss Idaho, next to  handspun

I’ve been grumping around all day today, and for most of the day I didn’t really know why. It was kind of overcast outside, not the kind of day that inspires much movement. Usually it would have been a good day just to sit and knit, but my new work week starts on Sunday, and that means that Sundays are for sleeping in and making sure laundry is done and that I have food in the house to take with me. Not a brainlessly lazy kind of day. But that wasn’t enough to explain my dark mood.

I finally figured it out at about 2pm. I’m surprised it took me that long, but it did. It was obvious, that’s why I missed it.

Lala’s gone for a week and a half, and with my work schedule, I won’t see her for almost two weeks. She left yesterday.

Duh. It took me a whole day to figure out why I was stomping around the house, displeased with chocolate and yarn alike. I’m an idiot.

I knew I would miss her, but I thought it would be easier. I thought I would be decadent and lie on the couch, eating Snack Food (crackers and cheese and salami), drinking red wine until three in the morning, knitting and watching crap TV. I did that last night. But I got sleepy and went to bed at 10:30. Dude. Way to party while the girlfriend’s gone.

I have the dogs, though, and that’s fun. They’re mopey, too. They laugh and jump and love on me, but their eyes stare blankly out the windows as soon as we stop playing. Is that her? Is that her? Is that her?

Isn’t this the most love-lorn, pathetic thing ever? It’s not like I even see La much — our schedules have been pretty out of whack. But at least I COULD steal an hour or two last week. This week, she’s being all Buddhist-ey up north, and I totally support her in her enlightenment endeavors. But excuse me as I pout.

These help, though:

And this does, too — a pic of Lala buying flowers for sister-in-law Won-Ju (check out her amazing artwork!) before an art opening, in which she had a piece!

I don’t know other people STAND to be around us. But this was really funny.

https://rachaelherron.com/i_dont_know_oth/

How is it possible that I have nothing deeply and velvetly chocolate in my house? I just searched, and there’s nothing. Some old chocolate covered raisins. A box of brownie mix (don’t think I didn’t consider it). Not even any good cheese, which, you know, can stand in for a chocolate craving if you eat enough of it at one time. And if you chase it with chocolate.

The biggest question is why I keep looking. Like it’s going to change. I keep wondering if there’s a cupboard I haven’t checked, or a bag somewhere in my closet with that last hazelnutty bit of creamy chocolate heaven.

Dude. I’m so headed for the emergency chocolate chip bag right now. You know the one. I don’t normally fiend like this, but I’m dying here. I’m too tired to drive to the store. Those last seventeen chocolate chips are going to have to work for me right now. A lick and a promise, and the good stuff will have to come later. What I wouldn’t do for a box of Cadbury Creme Eggs right NOW. April can’t come quick enough.

https://rachaelherron.com/how_is_it_possi/

So California’s having this special election on November 8th. I hadn’t been paying attention, I was just waiting for my absentee ballot to show up in the mail (in California you can register permanent-absentee, and there is NO excuse not to. Laziness at its finest. Your ballot shows up a few weeks prior to the election, you read it in bed, you vote using the pen you find by rummaging in the nightstand drawer, and pop it in the mailbox. No driving to the ballot-box, no dealing with traffic and lines, just you and your mailbox).

It wasn’t until this week that I realized how close the election was to being here, and that I hadn’t seen my ballot yet. Then I realized the awful truth – I had moved at this time last year, having already mailed my ballot right before the move. So when I did move, it didn’t register (heh) that I should update my mailing address. Mail forwarding has, of course, been halted a year later, and I realized that I wouldn’t be getting my absentee form, and because I’m permanent absentee, I have no polling place.

Here’s my admission:

I had decided I wouldn’t vote.

For the first time in my adult voting life, fifteen or so years, I wouldn’t vote. It was only a little state election, no one would notice. I felt twangs of guilt that I tamped down by walking into another room and forgetting what I’d been thinking about. That’s not hard for me to do. Wait. What were we talking about?

But it was niggling, and then I was made aware (thanks, MC!) of what exactly Prop 73 was about – it proposes to force teen girls to tell parents/guardians before gaining the permission to get an abortion. Guess what? It sounds like a fine idea – it would be right and good if a scared girl felt comfortable talking to her mother, telling Mom that not only was she sexually active, but she was also pregnant. But it won’t happen. Girls WON’T talk to their parents, they’ll go online and find ways out, and California will be facing a coat-hanger epidemic. Young girls get pregnant. They have abortions. No matter how you feel about the rightness or wrongness of that, those two facts won’t change. What will change is their level of safety in California if this passes.

According to polls, it’s a close one, and it’s GOING to pass, tragically, with only six percent separation. You know it’s not the liberals who get out there to vote on things like this, it’s the conservatives that get off their butts and get out there to the polling place.

And I was almost one of the liberals who couldn’t be bothered. THIS close. I called the registrar of voters in my county this afternoon (phone number easily found online) and screamed at the startled office worker, "HELP ME! Can I still vote? Please please please?" They said sure, come on down to the office and you can vote here.

If you don’t know where to go, call your registrar. Unless your state/city isn’t having a November election, in which case, just make sure you’re registered for next time and then get yourself some ice cream and pat yourself on the back. Me, I’m going down to the office on Friday afternoon, and I’m voting.

It was so close! I was almost a non-voting loser! Whew.