Not at all as fun

As memory serves me, Halloween used to be more fun. I never got as much candy as everyone else, it seems, and I hoarded it for months, sorting and resorting it into styrofoam egg cartons. But I got to wear costumes, and shuffle around the piles of leaves on dark streets with giggling all around.
As I have aged, much to my chagrin, I find all holidays are fun because grown-ups worked at it. Shit, the amount of effort it takes to gut up an even half-way decent holiday is huge. I carved exactly one six-inch pumpkin, purchased approximately $12 of candy, and seasoned about one cup of pumpkin seeds. Not much, I know, but anything that does not involve a remote seems like too much work for me nowadays.

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon invading people's privacy by calling to convice them to vote against prop.2. I don't think I've ever been hung up on so many times in one day. I know that the effort is a complete waste of time, but I can't help feeling that I'll regret it if I don't do something, anything, in the final days leading up to the election.

There is no fucking way this amendment is staying off of the Michigan Constitution. I have begun the healing process by fanticizing about the ad we'll play when the dust settles. It would be several young, happy professionals (exactly the kind that Michigan is desperately trying to hold on to), telling about their productive jobs here (we could be first, I mean, a doctor and a social worker, that seems pretty good) and how they're planning on leaving the state because of the amendment. As the images faded to black, a phrase would fade in :"We're outta here, have fun aging alone!" or maybe "We hope you inhale your own vomit and die from pneumonia, you back-woods inbreds!"

Is "inbreds" a viable insult? It seems pretty good to me.

Shit, now I have to go hand out candy to these inbreds' ugly children. Nasty.

Time is not on my side

It slips past me when I'm not looking. Here I am, innocently exploring the dirtier parts of the internet, and suddenly it's getting dark out, my hands are wet and I don't know where I am. The dogs have been sighing for hours and I've yelled at them repeatedly but they still seem morose.

I agreed to go work the polls in Livonia, Michigan, trying to convince these shit-covered Michiganders to not pass a constitutional amendment taking away what little rights my 10-year relationship currently affords me. The last thing I want to do is spend 8 hours (you heard me), smiling at people who want me to not exist. Other people get angry at this, I find it more successful to turn that anger inwards till it becomes a nice mush of self-loathing and self-destructive behaviors. Mmmm...self-loathing.

Suffice it to say, it would have been behoovious for me to be working harder on my paper today, but I find it almost physically impossible to write more than one or two days before an assignment is due. Funny, that.

Other than the frequent waves of fear that are passing over me at another four years of evil, I am trying to find this election year kind of fun. You know, cider and donuts fun. The kind of fun when your dad let you pull the levers in the voting booth, the kind of fun when you line up with thirty dirty hicks in a town hall, everyone smelling more or less like manure. The kind of fun when its your first election and your candidate wins, and you can't believe the kind of power you hold.

Not like this year...this year I looked at the Green Party website and cried because I couldn't vote for them. This year I know that in a group of three people, two of them think I'm threatening their marriage. This year, I can't forsee hope on the horizon, don't see the economy recovering, don't see the value of my house rising, don't see a world developing in which I would raise a family. I'm thinking it's time to move to Canada at long last.