Election 2012

Something that really struck me, about this election, was that the people I knew who desperately wanted Romney to win - they wanted it out of fear of projected or hypothesized catastrophe based mostly on conjecture/paranoia. Please keep in mind that I am often surrounded by very paranoid Cuban conspiracy theorists, ok - your mileage may vary. Living under a dictator who took everyone's land and escaping to a new place on a raft makes people do shit like hide their money in the walls because they don't trust banks - my father once told me he thought Obama engineered swine flu to kill white people, and he had points he thought backed this up.

I also have hardcore Birther Tea Party white folks on my facebook, from PATH.

ANYWAY, I digress. The point is, I am talking about my own personal experience, which has been that passionate Romney supporters who were deeply invested in this election cited fear of bizarre and unprovable things - we will all be on the streets within 2 years, if Obama is reelected! Obamacare will cause all hospitals to go bankrupt and close down! Obama is a secret Muslim here to topple the US economy from within! Gay rights mean goodbye American family! And while we're at it, GOODBYE US CONSTITUTION, HELLO MARXIST BLAH BLAH BLAH! Stuff like that. It's sometimes nerve wracking, because I'm talking about a lot of largely intelligent people, some of whom I respect as individuals - which is why I've read through far too many alarmist and wildly biased articles, letters, and so on, in an attempt to balance the effects of the "liberal media brainwashing" they're all sure I've suffered.

By contrast, the people who were very emotionally involved and Pro-Obama were deeply rooted in real life concerns that pertained not to theories about who is and is not evil in the middle east, or whether or not we are meant to be a supreme nation that rules over the earth for all time, but rather,

-they want to be able to marry the person they love
-they're students who don't want stafford loan interest rates doubling, and/or depend on the pell grant to go to school
-they have a transgendered child and are terrified of what will become of their life without rights, protection, etc
-they're county and state employees (firefighters, police, etc) who don't want tax cuts that mean layoffs
-they have a permanently disabled child, or a personal serious cardiac condition, or a fresh diagnosis of cancer, or an auto-immune disorder, and DESPERATELY want Obamacare in place for themselves or a loved one
-they're a woman who cannot believe the striking down of the Lily Ledbetter act, the gradual erosion of women's rights in general, and the dehumanizing rape talk of the GOP in recent months

As I watched, aside from my own personal interests regarding the whole thing, and my own hopes for our country as a whole...I just could not help thinking how much easier it would be to see the pro-Mitt people let down and disappointed. I mean. Fuck.

I suppose it doesn't hurt that there really are some vicious racists mixed among the pro-Mitt people I've been exposed to. I do realize that is not always the case, by any means...

Anyway...as a person voting in a key swing state, it's really amazing to feel that my vote really counts :D

It still gives me chills, the second time around, that people who lived through segregation have elected a black president. I got an email (a form email sent to many people) from Maya Angelou (who I've been a huge fan of, as a writer, since middle school) awhile back, about her personal arguments with Martin Luther King - he said there would be a black president in their lifetime and she said he was crazy, and she's so glad she's been proven wrong. It is just really something.

This victory speech is actually giving me chills :) I have not been a patriotic American for most of my life. I've more often felt embarrassed by our lifestyles and attitudes, and the dichotomy between how we claim to be the best and yet our education, our maternal and infant mortality rates, our overall life expectancies, prison rates and many other factors paint a different story :/ I've really only felt very patriotic a few times, two of the main ones being now, and 4 years ago.

Little as it has to do with his competency as president (let's not get confused), I still really enjoy Obama's cultural relevancy, for lack of a better way to put it... *I* relate to this man standing there talking about the single mother who raised him, and eat it up that he has a tumblr, gets photographed during vacation in a Spice Girls tshirt, is not afraid to dance with Ellen while he's on the show, and is brewing beer in the white house.

I also just adore his wife, and their family in general. I love the idea of a swing set within view of the oval office, and a garden planted out on the lawn.

I really wish he wasn't knee deep in Monsanto - that's one of several problems I have with him, that all boil down to "Well, he is a politician." I am not a member of a cult that sees him as some sort of savior. He can double speak and vague-talk-in-circles with the rest of them.

But I think he is part of a shift in our nation, from old white men with a lot of sexist, racist, bigoted views running the entire country and marginalizing everyone else. I think he stands for a lot of things that are not really him at all, but that he is a part of. And I believe his tears, during the possibly "last" speech before the results were in, were real.

I donated to Obama's campaign, money that we really couldn't afford but I felt glad to give. Our personal, family economy really does hang in the balance of Obamacare and the required infrastructure to set it up (healthcare IT).

And around the country in various states we have gay marriage laws passed, a first openly gay senator, marijuana legalized -

I've never smoked pot, ok - I'm 31, can you imagine? But the point is, I really believe the war on drugs is hurting our country and keeping Mexican drug cartels alive. Criminalizing pot is just ridiculous.

I keep hearing Craig Ferguson say, "It's a great day for America..." like he does at the beginning of every episode of his show, in his thick Scottish accent :)


Homeschooling moms - you can go here and download a printable map of the US that shows electoral college votes. I'm planning on using it as a way to keep kids' hands busy while we talk politics around the table, tomorrow - http://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/FINAL_template_set2_electoral_college_map.doc

Up, down, all around...

My last couple of days have been extremely hectic and fraught with extremes, albeit in mostly good ways. They've also exemplified the ways in which Grant and I make awesome co-parents and life partners.

Monday (after getting Isaac and Elise up and to school, and waking my other kids with some instructions), I had a meeting with another author and some employees of my publisher, with a Miami Herald photographer, at Books and Books in Coral Gables. Grant was working from home, so I didn't have to feel awful about leaving anyone and going far away. It was interesting - parking was easy, photographer was interesting and we talked at length because one of the people we were waiting for got in a car accident (she's fine). Picture setup was a little cheesy, having "events" is cool - you know.

G picked up Elise while I wolfed down lunch, and then we picked Isaac up together before heading around to do all kinds of financial errands (bank, paying our insurance, this and that). Incidentally, I scored a lovely antique porcelain 18" doll, with fabulous details and red ringlets, for only $15!! This doll has bloomers OVER lace tights, under her layered dress - Elise is going to flip about it, for Christmas... Then we decided to take the kids some treats, and surprise them that we were going to Santa's Enchanted Forest.

It was so good - Elise was enraptured with the cheesy displays and animals there, Ananda was so happy she was actually demonstrative AND LETTING ME FILM HER ANTICS (<--O_O) as she and Aaron gangnam style'd all over the park like fools (often with strangers joining in spontaneously), everything we ate was yummy and Isaac got on stage during a show where they called for volunteers. It was not at all busy, being a weeknight in early November, and the weather was PERFECT. Splitting up and rejoining with subgroups of big and little kids made things really simple.

We skipped last year, and somehow that meant everybody can ride everything now, basically, and nobody's afraid of anything, and we realized we have no idea how to carry everything around a place like that without a double stroller.

Aaaand then we stumbled out to the parking lot, tired and subdued, to find one of our van windows busted out and our GPS and phone chargers stolen. They also scattered my makeup case all over the asphalt. So Grant got all the glass out of/off of the van while I called the police and put a dvd on for the kids.

FYI, the cops told us they're getting multiple calls every night from outside of Santa's because people are breaking into cars there regularly. We got our Saturn broken into AND PEED ON about 8 years ago O_o

Yesterday there was no school, and we let everyone sleep in since filing the police report after Santa's pushed bedtime back really, really late. I went up to my classes while he called around and found someone to fix the window as cheaply as possible, worked and got in line at our polling place for us both. By the time I arrived, he'd been there for over an hour. We got to talk for about 15 minutes before they called us back, and then I dropped him off/picked him up at the glass place with the second car and we went and had free things at Starbucks with our "I Voted" stickers, before coming home and rallying our kids to go help Laura and Frank move. I got her kitchen cabinets' contents into reusable shopping bags and her hangers and things into trash bags while he helped move heavy things and made a food run for everybody.

Their new, rented house (they close on their house's sale tomorrow) is pretty great. It's in a really strict association I could never deal with, with very small lots I wouldn't like, but I can completely see it through their eyes and be psyched for her. The whole place is dominated by this enormous, beautiful dark wood, stainless steel and granite kitchen, and they have crazy upgraded details like hummingbirds and passion vines painted all over their guest bathroom. It's an easy place to feel safe and secure while Frank is on 24 hour shifts and she's there alone with the kids. We all ate a triple load of Pollo Tropical in her new dining room, for dinner, with some of Frank's firefighting friends who were also there.

Then I stayed up half the night alone, excitedly online-interacting with lots of people while the election unfolded, and then slept half the day away after taking Isaac and Elise to school.

So. I suppose I'll go now, and take Aaron and Jake - the former to ballet and the latter to some kind of "Mom and Jake" only date, while Aaron's dancing.

Miscellaneous Pics, Volume 1 of 3

( Random stuff, tea time, the Spooky Symphony, Everglades - 26 pics )