Missouri Election

I'm in a solid Red State. If the legislature stays Red, the GOP is going to get to redistrict, on the basis of Trump's corrupted census. This depends a lot on Proposition 3, and I hope it loses, because the GOP redistricting will keep Missouri red for the foreseeable future.

 

I encourage everybody to vote for Nicole Galloway and a Democratic state Rep. She's so much better than Parson. Missourians are unaccountably preferring Windows 3.1 over the latest iPhone. I've made up my mind: I won't phone bank after all, but I will donate to her campaign. 

 

 

Election Jitters and Health

I'm frustrated and on-edge. I'm waiting for election results, and I'm waiting on my biopsy. If it's not why they think, h. pylori-- stomach ulcer bacteria, the diagnosis will enter the twilight zone.

 

It might seem like moderately inflamed stomach would be painful, and yes, I guess some people experience pain with it. Actually, the main symptom is the stomach acts like it doesn't know what it wants. At night, I'll go to bed and take Tums for reflux. Twenty minutes later, I'm starving and I eat literally like a pregnant woman: pickles and butterbread seem like Fillet Mignon. Fifteen minutes later, I go to bed, only to have reflux again. I have to pop Tums to quiet it down so I could sleep.Then I'll wake up with phlegm in my throat and no voice due to GERD. I have to take Tums again.

The election: 3 days. Just 3 more days. I said before that the texbanking is completely done. They try to persuade us to phone bank. I HATE PHONE BANKING. And I'm terrible at it. But I might go for it Tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday just to keep myself busy. I encourage everybody to vote for Nicole Galloway and a Democratic state Rep. She's so much better than Parson. I've made up my mind: I won't phone-bank after all, but I will donate. Galloway is so much better than Parson. Missourians voting for him over is like voting for Chester Arthur instead of George Washington (if we can break history a bit).

As for the elephant in the room, the Biden-Trump choice, I don't understand why any person in all of humankind would vote for Trump. It depresses me. I do believe that only the darkest cynicism explained it. The cynicism that started with Vietnam and Watergate, which has congealed since then.

But Charlie, people say, Trump's not that bad, and it's not the End of the World if he wins. He'll ignore both COVID, and far worse, climate change. If he wins, it will literally be The End of the World. The only question then is if you have the reserves of morbid curiosit--and the tolerance for grief-- necessary to stick around to witness it. I did the first time he won. I don't if I could find it in myself again.

A collage of this time in my life

Wednesday I got a rejection notice for finished piece that I'm most proud of. A rejection is always a disappointment. However, this was about the most encouraging rejection a writer could ever receive.

"We thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, we will not be publishing your story, "The Light at Grandmas," as we felt it did not quite fit the theme and tone of our magazine.

We would love to read more of your work, and we invite you to submit to us again in the future!

Thank you for your time and your submission. We wish you and your loved ones good health, and we hope to hear from you again!

Victoria Elghasen & Michelle Baleka

Editors
Déraciné Magazine"

A shoutout to Victoria and Michelle for the rarest gift of encouragement from a publication editor(s). I won't forget them, and I will submit more writing to them.

I had thought the story was perfect for they're magazine, but they know what they want. I'd like to think what really doomed the story is that the protagonist is a child, and they had a story in their current issue that involved a teenager at his grandmother's house. That was probably was too close to the same song for the same gig.   

I just woke up. I'm missing my neice's wedding, but it looks like I'm out of it today anyway. Fact is, she's already married. They were supposed to have the ceremony in late March. And you know what happened then. In the meantime, they held a Zoom wedding. I managed to miss that by having the time wrong. This is the "contractual obligation" ceremony because they can't get their deposit refunded. 

The rest of the family is there, while I'm at home recovering from upper and lower GI's yesterday. The anesthetic has left me reeling, trying to find all the pieces to the rest of my consciousness. It doesn't matter. I don't want to catch COVID at the wedding and then spread it to every voter and worker at the precinct, if I actually get called. And I need to buy a suit that actually fits my current body configuration. I'm hoping to do that with the stimulus funds, if they ever come. 

I spent a lot of time this last week asleep, finally kicking my insomnia, then sleeping off the anesthetic. The insomnia is caused by my stomach troubles. What they found was my stomach is inflamed for some reason. Whatever chronic bug it is, I know I'll have to see a gastro specialist, and it will probably require a round or two of antibiotics, because a gut infection is the only thing I could think of that causes such local inflammation. If it lives in stomach acid, it's a tough bug. 

I haven't had any time for fiction writing since I began working for this election. I know I've been writing this, so why not fiction? Creativity requires a lot of time and focus. I know there are prolific authors like Stephen King, but he realized early that he loved to write. He wrote his first story when he was eight, and was writing since. I didn't know I wanted to write until I was twice that age, and by that time my basic skills in grammar and style were already poor. A poor grade and high school, ADHD and its social, emotional, and intellectual complications doomed any effort. Now, I'm setting an ironclad deadline to complete the novel: May 1st for the draft, August 1st for the final. If I don't meet the first one, it's time to pull the plug.  

When I realized writing was my vocation, the one thing I emphatically didn't want was to the stereotyped unstable artistic type. It doesn't matter because that's where I am now. I took a wrong turn somewhere.  

After today, I'm going to be textbanking for the Democratic Party six hours a day until November 2nd. Anyway, I have to take the online poll worker quiz by tomorrow. So, I have to go through the material today. By November 4th, I hope this 4 year nightmare will be over. But this election will hardly be the end of our country's troubles. Biden and Harris and the other people elected will have their work cut out for them fixing all the things Trump has broken.  

I'm afraid that they will try to return things to what they were before. If they do that, we'll get another authoritarian, one smarter and more ruthless than Trump in ten years. I hope they realize with the rest of the country that the only way to fix the system is to turn left. The reason why I'm supporting them is that the only viable way Left is through the center. Under most circumstances, that's an unsafe and illegal turn. We could only hope we don't crash in the process.  

Damn this election! Take me back to 1999

 I couldn't sleep for about a week. Then I dropped everything late yesterday, lingered in a low state of existence, and went to bed.

I slept! I had almost forgotten how it felt. It was wonderful to take a vacation to the Sandman's realm for a while. Then, wouldn't you know, I woke up, and immediately got tired again.

My psychiatrist recommends that I think about happier things. My siblings suggest that I avoid thinking about Trump. Instead, I'm doing text-messaging for Show Me Change. I love it, but doing it sleep deprived is close to Hell, if not in Hell itself.

My moods have gone from ecstatic as it looks like Trump doesn't have a chance, to sullen when I think he might win despite all the eggs he's laid and all the public shitting he's done. The four years under Trump has been like a nonstop night terror, where I try my best to wake up, but can't move to do it because an orange, 6' 2" troll with bad hair is sitting on my chest. My real wish is that I'll wake up and find it's 1999, and the last 20 nightmare years since Bush v. Gore never happened. Then I'd party, like it's 1999. 

So, I got a good, long night's of sleep last night. But I got up tired anyway. Figure that. Maybe I just want to sleep more, take another vacation from this world of the shattered future. The complete reverse of the one I let myself think we were going to have in 1999.

Greene Power

Robert Greene's book, The 48 Laws of Power, is a moral minefield to read, the sort of how-to book I hope to never follow. If it were named The Satanic Bible instead, nothing in its pages would surprise you. I could also be subtitled: The Sociopaths' Handbook. I've noted before that power in human affairs can be defined as the ability to get people to do your will.

Greene's complete bibliography includes:

    1998 The 48 Laws of Power (with Joost Elffers)
    2001 The Art of Seduction
    2006 The 33 Strategies of War
    2009 The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)
    2012 Mastery
    2018 The Laws of Human Nature

As you could see, Greene's focus is on the morally borderline, but important qualities in human relations. Obviously, he's a student of social philosophy, I don't have a better term for it. He's extremely well-read and has a BS degree in Classical Studies.

For those of us with normal brains, and/or moral principles, it's an important  read 48LoP just for defense against life's power players. It will educate you on how people gain power, and you'll be able to recognize a slew of deceptive and unfair methods. The 48LoP are useful  in con-games, politics, business, just about everything. They've also been employed in every type of society, every type of government. It even applies to Siths, as the first law is, "Never outshine the master."*

Greene gives diverse, exhaustive, historical examples of from many times and many cultures, and even from fiction. He breaks his examples down into "Observance of the Law," "Transgression of the Law," and even "Reversal of the Law," to cite situations when there are exceptions are called for. A few of his laws don't allow any exceptions, such as "guard your reputation with your life," which he says are so important there are no times when a reversal is recommended.

 The book has affected the way I look a politicians. I hadn't read too deeply into it in 2016, but the little I had read helped me predict Donald Trump's election and his actions in office. I could see that the president-- who isn't a reader and isn't very bright--has some laws that he follows reliably. He observes them either by instinct, or maybe by advice from his father. They've served his him in his rise to power very well. Yet, there are many he breaks that are now going to cause his downfall.

         

SETBACK (UPDATE: RECOVERED)

 

This mid-afternoon, I received a humbling reminder of why I'm on disability.

I've been text-banking for the Democrats and the Galloway campaign. We started on a different campaign with a different procedure. I hit a mental wall, was unable to understand what I knew were simple instructions. Subsequently, I had an anxiety attack. I had to tell the supervisor I couldn't finish the text batch, I logged off, and threw myself into bed.

This hadn't happened in so long, I let myself think I was finally over them. My constant efforts to avoid these events, have steered my life since early childhood. They've closed off whole friendships and life-options. The first time I had one was drawing a picture in kindergarten. I never tried to draw again. They've buried me under passivity, depression, and shame. 

This time, unless I can pull myself together, this might cancel all my plans for political volunteering for the next month.

That I'm cracking under the stress of this election--it's critical importance, and all of its bizarre twists and turns--has occurred to me.  

UPDATE 10/17/20: I recovered from that crisis by later that same day. It's incredible what a long nap does for me. I also have to give credit to my regimen of psych meds. But man, things looked terrible for a few hours.