Election Night!

Following a long time custom that is in my genes (my parents were political junkies, too).  I watch the election, live texting to friends as needed.  While I await returns and watch endless coverage, I'm nervous, so I made some lists... kinda in the vein of Kelly's "Favorite 5"...

Check out how my brain works:

5 Heroines Tonight

1.Tammy Duckworth - Illinois US Congress

     Check out her bio sometime.  Amazing woman.  And, she takes deadbeat dad Joe Walsh out. 

2.Tammy Baldwin - Wisconsin US Senate

     Another Tammy!  Openly gay... would be the first openly gay woman in the Senate.  Opposed the   
    Iraq war in 2002, co-sponsored the bills to impeach Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales

3.  Elizabeth Warren - Massachusetts US Senate

     Defender of the consumer.  Wall St. Foe.  "Nuff said.

4.  Claire McCaskill - Missouri returning US Senator

     Conservative Democrat... not enough to the right for most in Missouri.  Running against the
     delightful mess that is Todd Akin.  If Missouri elects Akin, the state should secede.  They are not
     living in the same place and time as the rest of us. 

5.  Heidi Heitcamp - North Dakota US Senator

     Amazing woman, met her in collegem, worthy successor to Byron Dorgan.  A woman elected in
     ND?   Breast cancer survivor, champion of the EPA.





5 of this year's crop of villains (no need to give reasons)

Alan West - US Congress  could lose tonight
Richard Mourdock - US Senate  could lose tonight
Todd Akin   - Jailbird.  Throwback to an earlier century. ... could lose tonight
Paul Ryan - Good friend to Todd Akin.  Be very afraid if he wins tonight.  Dan Quayle looking good
Connie Mack - Florida idiot... too much to say.  Already the race called against him





5 Things if Romney Wins... I'll Get Over IT.  But these are my earliest fears:


1.  EPA Closed down
2.  Planned Parenthood Defunded, Govn't determines if hormonal birth control is legal
3.  Robert Bork selects the successor to SCJudge Ruth Bader Ginsberg
4.  Kids with pre-existing conditions and sons/daughters from 18-26 lose healthcare
5.  Neocons again get their finger on the "war button".  Torture is restored.



Best news commentator on politics for election:        Steve Schmidt.  That's right, Republican
    Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for John McCain. 

Best single happening:    Michelle Bachmann is never heard from again

Number of iced coffees today, so that I can watch the whole thing:    1 large, 2 medium

Maya Stein's list of wishes for the new year

I loved this.....

1. Wholeness, completion, and a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment, and fulfillment.
2. Hope, light, possibility, excitement, energy, whimsy, and moxie.
3. Calm, peace, centeredness, tranquility, self-acceptance, security, grace.
4. Health, vitality, movement, electricity, power, solidity, strength.
5. Magic, mystery, and momentum.
6. Faith, trust, and all permission slips you need to make the leap.
7. Love, comfort, and ease.
8. Delight, delirium, deliciousness, dippity-do-dah.
9. Freedom, opportunity, alternatives, options, a smorgasbord of good ideas.
10. Touch, contact, proximity, vulnerability, intimacy.
11. Taste, touch, smell, taste, and sound.
12. Eagerness, willingness, anticipation, optimism.
13. Radiance, beauty, and grace.
14. North, south, east and west.
15. Kindess, forgiveness, and softness where you need it most.
16. Sun, rain, wind, moon, water, stars, tides, rocks, trees, heat, snow, and all the geographies in between.
17. Flexibility, dexterity, subtlety, nimbleness, and nuance.
18. Simplicity.
19. Creativity, fire, and vision.
20. Humility and humor.
21. Community, company, circles to welcome you, family in all its forms and expressions.
22. The echoed ripple of all your skipping stones.
23. The heart of the matter and the matter of the heart.
24. Eccentricity, bedazzlement, extravagance.
25. Unexpected awe.
26. Blank pages and available words.
27. A feeling of more than enough.
28. Good posture, better skin, easier digestion, deeper sleep.
29. Someone who understands you perfectly. And someone whom you understand just as perfectly.
30. A song on the radio that was written just for you.
31. Something you created that makes you undeniably, unabashedly proud.
32. A closet cleaned out permanently, an old wound closed shut peacefully.
33. Spontaneous moments of wild, beautiful abandon.
34. P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E.
35. More occasions for celebrating.
36. A windfall when you least expect it.
37. More time than you thought you had.
38. A plant you keep alive, for once.
39. Errors in your favor.
40. The right kind of risk. The good kind of adventure.
41. Transcendence out of turmoil. Meaning out of mess.
42. Self-care, self-care, self-care.
43. Love of gray areas, in-betweens, halfway points, and almosts.
44. Saying it out loud.
45. Less sugar, more sweetness.
46. The recognition of how far you've come.
47. A filing system you can believe in.
48. More meat on the bones of your confidence.
49. Mornings in front of the mirror that make you say, "Yes."
50. Spectacular, unshakeable joy.
51. File. Edit. View. History. Bookmarks. Window. Help. And other metaphors.
52. The most intimate sense of knowing that everything is just right, exactly how it is.

Time for a blogthing!

Needed a good blogthing today!

Your Happy Word is "Hope"

You refuse to give up on anyone, including yourself. You see the best in others. You think happiness should be shared. You spread your message of optimism as much as possible. You will keep believing when everyone else has stopped. You think good will always prevail in the end. You believe if we trusted each other more, the world would be a better place. All we need is a little hope.

What's Your Happy Word?

Blogthings: Discover the Parts of Your Personality that Have Been Hiding

For Lexophiles

A big thanks to friend TedF for this. I found it amusing and witty. Decided to grab it and post, since I've been dormant on the blog for a couple of weeks and am just gathering new steam!

Lexophiles = Lovers of Words

> To write with a broken pencil is . . . pointless.

> When fish are in schools they sometimes . . . take debate.

> A thief who stole a calendar . .. . got twelve months.

> When the smog lifts in Los Angeles . . . U.C.L.A.

> The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes .. . . was on shaky ground.

> The batteries were given out . . . free of charge.

> A dentist and a manicurist married. .. . . They fought tooth and nail.

> A will is a . . . dead giveaway.

> If you don't pay your exorcist . . . you can get repossessed.

> With her marriage, she got a new name . .. . and a dress.

> Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you . . . A-flat miner.

> You are stuck with your debt if . . . you can't budge it.

> Local Area Network in Australia : . . . The LAN down under.

> A boiled egg is . . . hard to beat.

> When you've seen one shopping center . . . you've seen a mall.

> Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was .. . . resisting a rest.

> Did you hear about the fellow whose whole left side was cut off? . . . > He's all right now.

> If you take a laptop computer for a run you could . . . jog your memory.

> A bicycle can't stand alone; . . . it is two tired.

> In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, . . . it's your Count that votes.

> When a clock is hungry . . .. it goes back four seconds

> The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine . . . was fully recovered.

> He had a photographic memory . . . which was never developed.

> Those who get too big for their britches will be ...exposed in the end.

> When she saw her first strands of gray hair, . . . she thought she'd dye.

> Acupuncture: . . . a jab well done.

Pearls

It's odd how some visual can spark a memory with me... in this case, the oversize pearl necklaces worn by Cindy McCain during the RNC last week. I have a beautiful strand of normal size pearls that I treasure, but haven't worn in years. They were an 80's thing. Cindy looks like she loves hers, and loves the ostentatious large size of pearls. Not for me.

Anyway, for a long time, I've written for a site called Pearlsoup. Although I visit from time to time, I've left Pearlsoup and taken most of my writings down after about a 5+ year of biding time in the community. I'll admit that I gave up on ever being able to have a site where people agreed to disagree with respect; and that the most virulent of the disrespectful people there stalked, goaded, and finally ended my continuous presence there.

Struck by both thoughts, I remembered a small poem that I loved writing that used the lovely word "pearl", and went it search of it today. I entered it in a women's poetry contest in 2005 and won an honorable mention. Once I knew the outcome, I was free to post it anywhere else, but I don't remember ever doing so... and FOUND, it is here again:

Strung Like Pearls


Strung like pearls, they shine
Luster catching light…
Your words woven freely together
A gift to me, your poetry.


I wonder if I’m worthy
And then I know that it is more than that.
Inspiration, I just may be;
The prize that helped you find your voice again.

May it never be silenced.

Enjoy. I was happy to find it again.

My "whatness"... Quiddity

In philosophy, quiddity is identity or "whatness," something's "what it is." It comes from the scholastic Medieval Latin term quidditas, "essence," from quid, "what." Quiddity describes properties a particular substance—like a person—shares with others of its kind.
Unlike quiddity, “haecceity” denotes the discrete qualities, properties or characteristics of a thing which make it a particular thing. Haecceity is a person or object's "thisness,” referring to aspects of a thing that make it a particular thing, while quiddity refers to the universal qualities of a thing, its "whatness", those aspects of a thing that it shares with other things.
What we are in common with others, what we are distinct from them. And, finally, what we are.
What is my whatness? And yours? A fox has fox-ness, a crow has crow-ness, and we have…what? What makes you you? Is it possible to answer that question except as “you” is in relationship to other “you’s”?
Rarely, I imagine, is the word “quiddity” used in an obituary (something to aspire to!); that of poet Ted Hughes’ was an exception: “He wanted to capture not just live animals, but the aliveness of animals in their natural state: their wildness, their quiddity, the fox-ness of the fox and the crow-ness of the crow.”
Poets, it would seem, are dipping pens into inkwells every morning after their black coffee and scone corner to do just that: capture quiddity. Ironically, then, quiddity itself is the essence of their work to capture quiddity, an infinite regress of quiddities, a word that quite stops looking like itself once you write it a few times.
~from the 37 Days Blog

Marion found this for me last summer and I posted it on my old blog. Since that time, I've had a lot of days, where, in the midst of the day, I've tried to define my "quiddity", at least on that particular day. So, I resurrected this thought.

I'm a poet, and this morning, after my coffee (with cream), instead of messing with my inkwell, I used another important part of my "whatness", my desire to solve puzzles. Perhaps this lifelong love of puzzles (my family used to do jigsaws together) along with the puzzle that is Scrabble, along with the reading of mystery thriller after mystery thriller, is part of my "whatness". It sure was today!

I don't keep puzzles and rarely do them at home, but a dear friend sent me a lighthouse puzzle, and I'm pretty consumed with lighthouse pictures, so I went at it vociferously in my kitchen. Rain, thunder and lightning abounded (the kitchen nook has big glass windows on two sides, looking out into a beautiful wooded area) while I worked away at my task. I finally disconnected myself (more after dinner) to accomplish errands, laundry and a little cleaning.

A lovely, relaxing weekend. Part of my quiddity!