* The kind, nondramatic way the henna artist responded to my gentle breakup text: "it was nice meeting you...thats fiiiinee" (She was at the party yesterday, and I'd planned to have her at our Diwali party next week too, but her work was different from what I had in mind.)
* The most perfect set of answers to a quiz about the British Romantics from a student in Gaza. They described "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" as "the quintessential romantic poem," which it certainly is.
* My seventh piece of handwritten mail urging me to vote. Some were postcards, this one was an actual letter. The Michigan vote will matter, and I guess it's making non-Michiganders anxious. (How I wish Harris-Walz had treated the folks from Uncommitted with more care and respect.)
* A weird Lord of the Rings meme At sent me at 5:25 am in the morning... I'm not sure why, but it's from my lovey, and sure, I'll take it!
Pic: I inscribed a walking path amongst the falling leaves with my rake and Max engraved his own tracks too.
21 comments:
I was just listening to a podcast that made your point about the uncommitted movement and the Harris campaign. To me, this is such a surprise-- of course she will be better than the alternative-- this is my frame that I can't see past. Perhaps the campaign made that assumption too?
I'm surprised and not surprised you've gotten so many postcards. I've written a couple batches to Michigan addresses this cycle. They both went to suburbs of Detroit.
I've probably written thousands of postcards but I've never gotten one. Maryland overall is light blue (though our town is dark blue). It could make sense to send postcards right now as we have a competitive Senate race this year and control of the Senate is at stake.
Was it Code Switch? If so, I heard that one, too. It was really interesting.
Well, I won't be getting any postcards! That's what happens when you live in Florida.
I don't know how Harris-Walz has responded to Uncommitted, but I can imagine. As usual, we're left voting for someone who's "better than the alternative."
I was just reading a thread about the progressive voting bloc in Michigan, and I'm still struggling with the material benefit of them either not voting, voting 3rd party, or worse, voting gop.
Living in Ohio, our big race is the Senate race, with Sherrod Brown the Democrat looking to get back to Washington. Ohio has swung so determinedly red that neither presidential candidate has even come here. And I'm not getting or writing any postcards/letters to Ohioans, either. We need Sherrod and Alsobrooks-MD and Tester-MT to get seats.
I was remiss in not mentioning your interaction with your Gaza student. I'm so glad you finally got connected! And the Irony is not lost on me that they are perusing the poem about not only being able to wander in a lovely setting replete with daffodils, but also being able to call up that setting when feeling fretful.
I sent letters to voters in Florida!
I wrote letters in Ohio too!
I wrote letters to voters in 5 states - MI, OH, FL, NV, and CO. Even in a red state, if you can encourage democrats to vote, they might sway down ballot races. That's the theory at least.
Of course Trump would be way, way worse--But 1000s of people have been mourning family and were not even given a chance to speak their pain at the DNC. There's a combination of disbelief/outrage/pain/humiliation in that and I think there's a real chance that of losing their votes. There are 100K to 1.5 million votes in Michigan at stake and Harris-Walz continues to not take them seriously/take them for granted. IDK.
Steph--I went and read the CodeSwitch transcript. It gave a good update. I really liked the This American Life episode I listened to: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/843/transcript
Thousands?!?! Wow, Steph! I've barely crested a few hundreds... I've written postcards to Georgia and Texas, primarily...
Jenny--Sometimes I feel we're the only ones saying this :). I'll be glad when the election is over!
J--Yay! Nance--I love Sherrod Brown. And although Mike DeWine is Republican, I like to think Yellow Springs (A's hometown where we lived for a while) made him a little bit less conservative. That or maybe Engie influenced him when she worked for him.
Nance--it is such a moment for us literature nerds, simultaneously so full of possibility and suffering...
J--I smiled every time I read you comments about the places you wrote postcards to! I wrote some, but it sounds like you and other people like Steph wrote a whole lot more! THANK YOU!!! Fingers crossed that it all pays off--I can't bear to think about the alternative right now...
Not in this election cycle, but overall, since 2018.
I have that TAL in my podcast feed but I haven't listened to to it yet. They tend to pile up.
I've done a lot for Florida, mostly trying to get people enrolled in Vote By Mail, sometimes for candidates.
Indexing a book sounds so hard. I have considered retagging my blog and it's an indexing project of a sort and I've decided I'm not suited to it. LOL.
I'm surprised, Engie--You seem quite methodical! It's definitely not in my natural skill set.
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