The night before the full moon. I stood outside for a bit, it felt cold enough to see my breath. I couldn’t mind you, it just felt that way. I’ve got that ‘thin blood’ that regional lore says you acquire after a few summers, its probably about 45 degrees. Locals are wearing coats that wouldn’t be brought out in the Midwest until just before the holidays. We’re cold wimps.
Standing outside I was reminded of how perfect everything is. The election process is going through the political equivalent of a ‘1,000 year flood’, but the mechanisms are in place to handle it, or at least to bring the republic through it. There may be some damage to some personalities and careers, and one or both of the parties may shoot themselves in the foot rather seriously. Perhaps that will just give space for new personalities and political parties to take their places. A terrible thing happened when the COld War ended and we lost the enemy without. Now some seek the enemy and can only find it within. Classic dualistic thinking which keeps us locked in a situtation where one has to lose so another can win. Though I’m sure another form of collective insanity will take its place, I think it will be a good thing when the last of the Cold Warriors passes from the scene and we can lose that projection.
Of course we can grow individually and work our way past those things via whatever path we chose to follow. They all lead to the same place eventually. But politics only stirs the passions and keeps one rooted in the lower regions where the choices are fight, feed, or fuck. (small apology) Sadly I can do nothing but bear witness to the growing insanity. I cannot affect it. Perhaps they will listen to older, sounder voices within both parties, they need to. We have things to attend to.
It is just becoming a very surreal day and my imagination takes me strange places …
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? “Stephen Kamsler shares this actual quote from American television last night: ‘Next on CNBC, Jesse Ventura, Phil Donahue, and Jerry Falwell join Geraldo to talk live about Ralph Nader.’ We guess Gallagher and Carrot Top had previous commitments.” via Zeldman.
Happy Birthday André!
I’m home today, the Preserve observes Veterans Day.
Small victories: I wasn’t really paying attention and had forgotten that today was the Friday in the ‘every other Friday’ cycle for recycling pickup. I was looking at several plots of my thesis data, mentally comparing the published results from elsewhere to my site. What is similar what is different, this must be noise - parsing information from data from observation remembering the tendency in the squishy ’sciences’ to think that if you can make a plot you’ve done science. The cat is sleeping curled in a ball, burrowed into the rumpled covers on the unmade bed. Keats the Corgi dog is sleeping nearby where I’m sitting, if someone is home, he wants to be where you are. Suddenly, I realized the noise outside was the mechanical symphony of the recycling truck’s arrival to our little street. I hadn’t put anything out and since few houses on our cul-de-sac participate in the program, they could be gone in seconds if no recycling was at the curb.
I jumped up and ran out of the room where the computers are, heading for the garage where the stack of recycling bins live. Old sleepy dog awoke to truck noises outside and the big human running through the house. I don’t know what is happening, but clearly the presence of the fearless Corgi-Dog is needed! He jumped up (you have to look close with those short legs to see if that has happened) and did something I’ve never seen him do before. He threw his head back and howled. Kind of a Welsh tenor I suppose, but pretty respectable nonetheless. Having shouted his barbaric yawp (sorry Walt), he did a reasonable imitation of hot pursuit in that curious hopping run he has. Out into the garage we went, with him barking with excitement and while I was crying “Yes! Yes!”. (We’re easily excited around here.)
And there it was across the street, revealed as the garage door rose, the evil red, white, and blue noisy thing. Keats stopped in the middle of the garage floor and howled again. I clapped my hands and said something like “Good dog!”. At least he was being active and acting interested in things. Well, he howled again, really long this time. The situation began to take on a surreal quality as he howled for a fourth and fifth time. He never does that!
I half expected to turn and see a mass of reddish-orange Corgis rounding the street corner, pumping their little four-inch legs for all they were worth, summoned to what must be the Corgi Götterdämmerung. By this time the recycling truck was in front of our house. One of the crew dropped down off the back of the truck chuckling. He pointed to Keats as he headed to the bins, “That one is a character, am I right?”.
“Ohhh yeah. He certainly is.” 
So he got a dog treat and will probably sleep all day after all that excitement.
The small victory is that the recycling got put out. How is your day?
back to lurkage. Pax.
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Happy belated birthday to 
Best of luck, health and stamina to 