Writers stuff

This morning I broke the 20,000 word mark on the National Novel Writing Month piece I started a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the goal is supposed to be 50,000 words, not 20,000. And I'm afraid I've backed myself somewhat into a corner narratively. I may have to take a break and actually do a little planning ahead.

The NYT published this piece the other day about writers who move "out" to Connecticut, and a young woman garnered lots of press for being brave enough to open an independent bookstore in Greenwich Village. And on Sunday the Chronicle published this nice reminiscence of Nobel Prize author Issac Bashevis Singer.

On Wednesday in San Francisco, Michelle Tea hosts another literary soiree:

a glamorous and exciting benefit

for the glamorous and exciting Heather MacAllister.



Wednesday, December 1st

El Rio

8:00pm

$5-20. Even more if you're loaded. All cash goes to Ms. MacAllister.



-with-



the delightful musical stylings of GLASS BALLS featuring Tara Jepsen & Brian 

Whitty. spoken word from LAUREN WHEELER guranteed to boot you in the behind. 

she's a lady. she's a monster. she's LADYMONSTER and she tells really nasty 

stories. CREAMY GOODNESS will have you dancing. yum. totally true tales from 

the psyche of SHERILYN CONNELLY. magnificent literary maven KATE BRAVERMAN 

will read to you. whoa. hosted by michelle tea. 

And while I'm at it, the next Writers With Drinks is coming up:

Saturday December 11, 2004:



      Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars, Years of Rice and Salt)

      Alana Devich (Comedy Studio)

      Nina Schuyler (The Painting)

      Lev (Tales of Mere Existence)

      Solidad deCosta (Orchids are Feral)



      At The Make-Out Room 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco CA, from 7:30 PM to 

9:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.

Polar express

Courtesy metafilter, I found this World Sunlight Map showing the part of the earth currently in daylight, including cloud cover. Nighttime is just a void. Useful for those transoceanic conference calls!

Of one pearl, each shining portal

One of the things I miss about going to the zendo every morning is doing my stretching across the street from the zen center, using the railing of a stairway in front of a neighboring house. At one moment, stretching out my back, I would always look up to the sky. Usually it was before dawn and I would look up to see a starry sky or a waning moon (or just fog). This glimpse of the outer reaches of the universe, before I went inside and stared for forty minutes at a shadowy blank wall, was one of the best moments of the day.

I was reminded of that this morning when I got up before dawn to work on my latest book. Part of the early morning chores are to let the cats out the back door into the garden; when I did so, I stepped into a cold shaft of moonlight cast by the moon, just a few days past full and beginning to descend into the western sky. The whole garden was drenched in silvery moonlight. It was a beautiful peaceful moment.

Then I went upstairs to the kitchen and ate pumpkin pie and worked on my book. I'm so grateful to have work now, and also to have a life that allows me to do things like go to bed early just so I can get up and do this writing.

I'm mister boring

Sometimes my life is just so fun, like when I get to do a reading or attend a social fête. Now it's boring, because all I'm doing is going to work and coming home. And: go to morning prayer Monday through Friday. Exercise and watch television. Surf the web. Some reading. Coming up in the next couple weeks, I'll do another issue of the church newsletter. But all in all, a mundane period.

I stalled on my November novel. It's awful hard to write about someplace you've never been. I find myself tempted to treat Bangalore as simply a dustier version of Niigata, Japan, the city where I taught English in the late 80s. (Man, a long time ago now.) But that's probably not such a great idea. What would make it interesting would be the particularities of the place, not the similarities. So I'm not sure how to move forward. Maybe just make it all very internal for the main character.

In any case, I'm entering another crunch time at work. I put in a full day Friday (the day after Txg) and a half day today (the day after that), so I'd have a lot of progress to show when people walked in on Monday. The project -- a training class in the company's software -- is due on the 15th. By the following week, things should be genuinely slower.

Those nutty antipodeans

How can you resist a story with the line:

We have all felt like kicking the koala suit guy wearing Birkenstocks.

You can't. You have to read the whole thing.

Buy something day

I get my goods here -- the jogging shorts are especially nice.

Sick of supporting sweat shops every time you buy clothes? Now you can fight back with every thread you buy. No Sweat Apparel has created the first casual clothing brand that actually fights sweatshops - by creating a viable union alternative that can and will transform the global garment industry. But only if concerned consumers support it. When you buy union-made you don't just support one factory - you build and strengthen the entire labor movement. Come now and see how you can help us change the garment industry - just by changing your clothes! No sweat. http://www.nosweatshop.com

Those nutty antipodeans

Been a while since I've posted something good from down under, but today's Sydney Morning Herald website is certainly worth it. One article is about a drug, delivered through a patch, that is supposed to help women "enjoy sex". Not enjoy sex more -- just enjoy it. Maybe the distinction isn't that fine there. And on the same page, a piece about a book titled He's Just Not That Into You, which has already been covered on USA Today, Oprah, and everywhere else. The article goes on at some length about the genesis of the title, mostly as an excuse to keep printing the line.

No, but ask me about Ohio

"You can't have a democracy across the country but, OK, not this city and not this city. That's why we're taking the city," the lieutenant said. "Imagine elections where you say, for example, Alabama can't vote?"

Knock, knock. Who's there? Fallujah. Fallujah who?

Terroristas to U.S.: got your chemical weapons lab right here, big boys.

And is this an Austin Powers movie or what? Where else would you find something referred to as the death triangle?

Got precious little done this morning on my novel. Sort of sat around with a headache and did internet research on Bangalore and other Indian topics.

Holiday plans

Wednesday night: do somebody a favor by picking their relatives up at the airport.

Thursday: Morning: work on novel. Afternoon: exercise. Evening: holiday dinner at Cris's sister's in a suburb.

Friday and Saturday: Full days at work, as much as possible.

Sunday: Possible half day of work.

Indianism of the day

In this story, a man explains why he helps with the child care:

‘"It has become a necessity now," he says, "when both of us work through the day, it no more becomes a forced affair."

Bangalore buzz, a news blog, is an excellent source of information.

Big push

In meetings today at work it was decided that another person and I would have to develop and deliver an entire training course in the next three weeks, with the actual training lasting two days and starting on Dec. 15. The CEO was in the meeting and he said something about very long days. I said I was copasetic with that, especially since I'm getting paid by the hour.

I did not say, "Dude! What about the groovy novel I'm trying to write??" But I'm afraid that's going to pass by the wayside a little. I will get up early tomorrow, though, and also try to get some of it done on Txg morning. But after that, and including the rest of the "holiday" weekend, I'm going to have to burn on this work.

That means either I'll blog more, as a way to relieve pressure, or much less, because I won't even be able to think about it. We shall see.

Driving home I heard the end of a K.D. Lang concert on the radio. She was singing Jane Siberry's gorgeous song Love is Everything, off Siberry's When I Was a Boy album of 1993. I listened to that album a lot when mourning Stephanie. Unabashed emotion is such a strong force and people are generally leery of it, usually with good reason, but when it is expressed as purely as on that album, it's really moving.

On the radio

Madonna was on Fresh Air this morning (it's broadcast at 9 a.m. on one of the local stations). I missed the intro and wondered who Terry Gross was talking to about sex and performing. The person sounded so arch and middle-aged; I guess at first it was Eve Ensler. When I heard it was Madonna, I was amazed; but then I realized that after a few years of living in the U.K. she has begun to affect a "cultured" accent that makes her sound a bit like Katherine Hepburn by way of Ohio. Just another facade.

Today on Talk of the Nation, they're doing a feature on National Novel Writing Month, in which I am pleased to participate. Though I haven't written for two days and I'm still only at 17,500 words.

No attachment

Though the title came to me in a dream, and launched me into participation in National Novel Writing Month, I changed the title of my NaNo today to Dear Prudence. I had already established that the characters were going to Bangalore, and were each (an American girl and an Indian girl) dealing with depression in her own way, and then I had in my mind that the Indian girl would have a charming habit of quoting Beatles songs. So the title was almost inevitable. And it's such a great title and a great song anyway.

I'm having fun with this. No way am I finishing 50,000 words by the 30th, though. I'm at 17.5K and averaging about a thousand a day. As I said to a guy I met in a bookstore, who is also doing NaNoWriMo, "It's not about finishing in a month, it's about giving you an excuse to start."

Coals to Newcastle

In today's Guardian, a British writer reviews the state of sex writing. Doesn't think much of it, but takes the opportunity to quote extensively from some of his favorite parts.

A day in the life of a conservative

Some twit writes:

I replaced the garage door opener... And finally... something really exciting.... I've just been tasked for my first operational mission.

Maybe they're sending him to the grocery store for some canned tuna.

My imaginary online friends

I love linking to lesbians, sex workers, counter-cultural sex revolutionaries, and the like. But is it just me, or is Blogger unbelivebably slow today?

Working on my NaNo, I did 1500 words this morning. I'll never finish by the end of the month, but I'm determined to finish the book and write on it every day until I do. I did skip a few days this week because I just had to sleep until 7:00 a.m. instead of getting up at 5:45 to write. Then this morning I took one of Cris's ritalin so I could catch up. Here's hoping I can do another 1500 words while she's still in bed.

Speaking of flushed with success...

Jerry Falwell, the very living definition of a modern Pharisee, has announced the rebirth of the Moral Majority group. Hmm, maybe ACT UP is due for a rebirth, too.

"People are saying 'We want good toilets!' because toilets are a basic human right and that basic human right has been neglected"

Flush with success, Experts Gather in China for Toilet Summit.

Veda very shining

There are so many shiny objects in the world, and none really does what I want. Here's what I want, all wrapped up in one:
- 40 GB capacity mp3 player
- AM/FM radio
- flash drive capability

Basically I'm talking about an iPod with an AM/FM radio in it. Because sometimes I don't want to listen to "my music," sometimes I want to listen to NPR or the ballgame. Why is this so difficult?

Actually I already have a small belt-riding AM/FM radio, headphones only. It's 1/3 the size of an iPod and I guess I could haul around both of them. But why is it so difficult to combine them? There's no market? Come on! Hundreds of millions of people with CD players in their homes and cars still listen to the radio several hours a day.

Free sex for anyone who can place the title of this entry without using a search engine.

Our friends the police

Really funny story about how a young mother, who can't get her toddler to keep his seat belt on, gets help from a stern police officer.

Ten-hour day

Got to work at 9:30 a.m., left at 7:30 p.m. It's release week, or at least it's supposed to be, and I'm the only docs person. So I'm pretty much responsible for problems with the docs. It would go much easier if I didn't encounter unexplained problems. Like: This morning I did a clean install of the latest build of the product, then later in the day I tested a certain feature. Didn't work for me at all. Complained to my boss, who tried it on his machine; worked fine. No explanation available. It's that kind of thing that really wears me out -- when not only do things act in a contrary manner, there's no apparent reason for it.

In the midst of all our preparations for the release, we went yesterday on a bus to the Napa Valley to a winery owned by the company's Chairman of the Board, a tech industry lion who made all his money with a different company and is involved with us because... I'm not sure why. Anyway, we went up there to celebrate an important business deal. I spent the whole ride up there grilling the Indian guy, Vinay, on the geography and culture of Bangalore, where the characters in my novel-in-a-month are headed. I had cause yesterday to cite the Slut Manifesto, and today I was stunned to run across the very blog of Lizzard Amazon, its author. That's going up on the list of links honto pronto.

Why we fight

Another reason to love the internet: Years ago, I ran across a hilarious essay which posited that sexual relations between men and women followed the law of supply and demand, and created the memorable phrase "pussy commodity" to refer to women's place in the scheme. I needed to cite this essay today, and Google instantly provided the source: the Slut Manifesto by Lizzard Amazon. Utterly great. Unfortunately, the real identity of Lizzard Amazon has not been revealed; the most we can know is that she published the zine Vanilla Milkshake, where her screed was first published, in Austin in 1991. (And for further inspiration, see the classic SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas.)

Drug trip

Just back from my root canal experience. Gave me an excuse to take a day off work, so I spent the morning working on the church newsletter, then rode BART over to Oakland where the endodontist's office was located. The guy was a pro, finishing is just over an hour. Then Sara picked me up and took me home -- awfully nice of her to drive over to Oakland and back just for that. I didn't go for the nitrous this time, just a Xanax and a couple Extra Strength Tylenols. All in all I feel surprisingly lucid, though I'm sure that's perfectly delusional.

Seems strange to take off a day in the final crunch of the release at the d.b.t.s., but actually it gives them a chance to review my docs, which are basically done except for their comments. Then tomorrow is another day off, because it's a company fun trip to a St. Helena vineyard owned by the Chairman of the Board, so we can celebrate a big business deal. The only problem with all this time off is that I'm still on hourly, so that's $500 a day down the drain. Then next week is Thanksgiving, so that's another two days shot. Still, the job's going well.

Voices of youth

Last night I went again to the monthly Writers with Drinks reading at the Make Out Room. Continue to be astonished at the number of people who crowd into a bar and listen quietly and respectfully to literary readings -- there must have been 150 people there. And a huge majority of them are in their 20s and 30s, rather than old farts like me and my friends who gathered there. Best of all, it's close enough to my house that I can walk to it, and that's always a good idea.

Best reader was Myriam Gurba, who read from a (seemingly) autobiographical novel about growing up mixed-race Mexican and Asian in Southern California. Usually I am bored with memoirs of childhood and "how weird my family was," but this was beautifully written and truly rollicking.

Earlier in the day, which was a gorgeous 65 degree sunny fall day, I took a walk with my friend Sara around nearby Bernal Heights Park, just up the street from my house. We met when we were in Street Patrol together, back in the early 90s, after which she became my informal writing coach and also hosted a regular group of "Sopranos"-watching writers and journalists. A great friend.

OK, it's Sunday morning and I came in to work at the d.b.t.s. I better get to it.

The governor is a big goofball

Got to be the nuttiest picture of the day: Schwartzenegger in Japan. Seems the Japanese have no prayer of pronouncing Schwartzenegger so they characteristically abbreviate it to "shwa" and add the diminuitive "-chan." Equivalent to calling him Schwartzie.

Hold your head up, whoa

A little dental problem that began cropping up 10 days ago suddenly got worse last night, and I woke up with a toothache at 4 a.m. I guess it beats living in Fallujah and being mortared out of bed, but otherwise, a toothache is not a good wakeup call. But this afternoon I can report a successful test of the pain-relieving qualities of Extra Strength Tylenol.

Speaking of drugs, Salon had an entertaining piece about Provigil, the stay-awake drug developed for the military which is now coming into wider use. The article included a nice shout-out to Erowid, which the article accurately describes as being like the reader reviews on amazon.com, only about recreational drugs. Includes several references comparing the drug to Ecstacy and various forms of speed. Strangely, the guy never seems to have thought about simply cutting the pills in half if they string him out so bad.

Where the peering never stops

Yesterday I came home from work quite tired. Despite the fact that it was after 8:00 pm I ate some dinner and then got on the treadmill at 9:00 for my usual 4-mile walk-jog. I turned down a date with a good friend, that's how serious about exercising I was. By the time I got off the treadmill I felt less tired and weary than I had all week. This is why I hate exercise. How come I feel less tired after I do 4 miles than I did before I started?

Stranger yet, tonight I came home a little earlier and a little less tired; I had spent an hour less at work. I got on the treadmill, did my 4 miles, and felt better than I had before I got home -- but not as good as I felt the night before when I started out absolutely exhausted. I really don't get it.

At work I'm not done with this release yet but they're already having me help plan training courses for after the release. I guess that's a sign they want me to keep working there, which I'm grateful for. In any case, I'm very glad I have this new novel project to focus on.

Speaking of turning down dates, today I was forced to turn down a reading gig that would have been hugely fun. Last Gasp, the classic underground SF publisher of comix and outré stuff, is sponsoring a reading next week for one of its authors, J.T. LeRoy. The famously shy wunderkind won't be reading; Last Gasp's own Bucky Sinister is putting together a cast of readers to do the reading for him. Unfortunately I have my writer's group that night, so I had to demure. I did confirm a reading in Alameda, though, in February.

The descent of winter

Yesterday, drizzle
today, a downpour
things haven't changed
despite the election, death
and remembrance are still in style

But my bright yellow rain slicker
protects me from all evil

WCW I'm not. Thanks for your indulgence.

Proceding apace on my new novel. I realized the other day that I need to move a couple main characters to Bangalore so they can open an offshore customer service office. Unfortunately I know very little about Bangalore that hasn't been published in the New York Times. However, the company I work for now has a development office there, and I tried asking people one day at lunch. Didn't get much information out of the Indian guys before one of the white guys changed the conversation to skeet shooting. I found out a hell of a lot about skeet shooting and very little about Bangalore. Guess I'll have to take a different tack.

The horror, the horror

You know what's great about the internet? You can follow events back in that asspit you went to high school in without ever going back there. This just in: some fatal stoner -- oops, I mean "considerate and loving" young man -- disappeared with his punky 13-year-old grilfriend. Meanwhile, a man was arrested for having "non-consensual"... something ... with his underage stepdaughter, and a woman who didn't want to "participate" in a "swinger's party" got whomped in the head with a 2x4 "from the pier." Man, all the pornography I've written about that place just pales in comparison to what really goes on there.

Recovery

Hooray, the internet works at home again. More posting follows.

Yesterday I met Shannon for coffee at a place downtown near her job. Actually neither of us had coffee, we both had mineral water; it was 5:30 pm, after all. Shannon is working on some very interesting stuff, but she hasn't posted about it so I won't go into it. I met her at the writers group I'm still a part of but which she quit in order to turn her novel-in-progress into the very interesting stuff.

I think her blog is so funny. It was part of the inspiration for the novel I'm working on this fall.

You can't turn around these days without tipping on another article about how depressed -- blue, get it?! -- Kerry voters are about the election. Meanwhile I like this news: Kerry is said to be ready for another run. Re-defeat Dean!

Just as long as they voted Kerry

What's the new craze in the Twin Cities? Mexican Coke! No, not that kind of coke.

I'm working. Really

Sorry to be dull. I really am putting in a lot of hours at work, and during my spare time I'm working on my National Novel Writing Month work. Do you want to know the title? The Moony Trail of Starry Shine. The title came to me in a dream, and I started from there. The title sounds silly, but think of it as a sort of ee cummings/J.D. Salinger mid-century thing. Even though it is set in 2004.

Every novel project has its moments of serendipity, and I've already had my first one. I threw in a secondary character named Chandra, wrote three pages about her, then checked the internet to make sure there really is such a name. Yes, and it means "moon." Chandra has suddenly become much more important in the book.

I'm up to about 6300 words. Track my progress (scroll down to see the word count and an excerpt).

L.A. is huge

Jamie pointed to this page of statistically-based maps showing election returns county-by-county, with population size reflected in the size of the geographical area. On this map, Cook County is larger than many states, and Los Angeles County is enormous. I also really liked the New York Times' maps.

Get back to work, slacker!

We have been without the internet at home from Wednesday on, a situation that will likely last another few days. So the frequency of posts on this blog have gone down. Sorry. It wasn't just post-election depression.

In fact, my post-election depresion is over. I woke up early on Friday morning with an idea in my head and started writing a new fiction piece, probably a novel. That makes two novels I have going at once, but the other one is much more ruminative and depressive, and I just can't get into that head space right now. This one is perkier, it's sort of a chick-lit thing. But also very San Francisco 2004.

One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with it was just to keep from getting dragged down by the election results, on one hand, and by my new job, on the other. The new job, plus the commute -- it takes me 35 minutes to get down there in the morning, but almost an hour to get home if I leave during the 5 o'clock hour -- are leaving me pretty bushed when I get home. And yet I haven't been unaccountably sleepy, and in any case last night I slept a good eight hours before getting up and doing another 3000 words on my new piece. Hey, it's National Novel Writing Month -- why shouldn't I contribute?

After some errands, I brought my laptop down to Maxfield's cafe at 17th and Dolores, where they have free wi-fi.

What happened to 'I feel your pain'?

Bill Clinton has a message for flummoxed Democrats: Stop whining. "'The Republicans had a clear message, a good messenger, great organization and great strategy,' he said. 'The Republicans did a better job of turning out those who were already registered who hadn't voted' as well as bringing out their base."

He might have been talking about the sentiments expressed in yesterday's NYT in an article which looked at reeling west coast leftists, who were quoted saying things like "I am depressed, but I am also just really angry at the rest of the country's ignorance" and "I am sad that America is asleep at the wheel." The article also compared yesterday's funereal protest march in San Francisco to a scene from Night of the Living Dead. Ouch.

Trying not to grasp at straws, I still must note:

Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican, will become chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and yesterday he warned the newly re-elected president not to assume he would rubber-stamp court nominees. Specifically:

"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

Fucking Iowans!!

Final Iowa results show Bush won, it was reported today. Fuck! What's the matter with them!?

Four more years, plus however long the Supreme Court appointments live,
plus however long their decisions stay in effect, plus the duration of negative
environmental effects, plus... plus... plus....

I've seen a good deal of bloggers and people quoted in the newspaper giving a message that essentially boils down to "don't mourn, organize." And indeed, what I feel like doing is giving as much money as I possibly can to MoveOn.org or whoever. But what strikes me this morning is how all the extra effort put forth this time wasn't quite enough.

MoveOn, Americans Coming Together, and all the 527 orgs -- not enough.

Bruce Springsteen, all the rappers, the Dixie Chicks, Rock the Vote. All the efforts to mobilize the "youth vote" of under-30-year-olds -- not enough.

Fahrenheit 9/11, Control Room, the Comedy Channel, Salon.com, and all the satire and artists' activism -- not enough.

A presidential candidate who was a war hero, with no skeletons in the closet, contrasted with an incumbent who clearly dodged the Vietnam War and is an admitted alcoholic -- not enough.

What will be enough?

Fever dream

Last night I went to bed about 11:30 pm in San Francisco, listening to NPR coverage for as long as I could stand. Little happened after 11 p.m. California time; aside from waiting for states like Nevada, the closeness of Ohio was clearly not going to be resolved anytime soon.

About 2:20 a.m. I woke up to the noise of conversation outside. I could only hear occasional words, and what sounded like drunken sobbing. After listening for a few minutes I realized I was hearing several people on their way home from an election coverage-watching party, people who were dismayed about the state of things. They needed to process before they got into their cars or walked home. Judging from the little I could hear of their conversation, it was clear they had reason to be unhappy, but I couldn't quite tell what it was. The clearest thing that came through was the sound of a woman crying heavily. They hung around outside the house for fifteen or twenty minutes, processing. The woman kept crying.

It was a surreal experience to lie in bed and listen to that. I was torn between leaning out the window and telling them to pack it in, and going out there and commiserating with them.

When I got up this morning, it was still being said that Ohio might be disputed, but only a couple hours later as I drove to work, it was clear everything was over and Kerry was about to concede.

Here are a few points of analysis I have, written before reading any other analysis, really.

Who will lead the Democrats?

Kerry looked like a reasonably strong candidate. A moderate liberal, a war hero, a long record of public service, no skeletons in his closet (though that didn't stop the "Swift Boat Veterans" et al. from making things up), and a rich wife. He wasn't as colorful as Dean, but I felt much more comfortable with Kerry, who was certainly more colorful than, say, Gephardt, whom I looked upon as being another pale Mondale type. Whatever his weaknesses -- and those will be discussed ad infinitum in the next months -- Kerry looked like a winner compared to Bush. And yet he was obviously no Clinton -- for better, and mostly for worse.

So who's up next? The only person the party is really excited by is Barack Obama, and it's too soon for him. Hillary Clinton is a logical choice, but I don't relish the degree of hatred and divisiveness she would provoke from the Republicans, who hate her out of all proportion. That only leaves Edwards, and unless he has strengths and charisma he has been hiding in favor of Kerry, he doesn't excite me too much either.

The problem with Iowa

This year the Iowa caucuses were effective in puncturing Dean's candidacy and raising up Kerry and Edwards. And people said Iowa Democrats tend toward liberal candidates, somewhat to the consternation of DNC types. And yet Kerry lost Iowa, it turns out, 50% to 49%, or by about 13,000 votes. My question is, why the fuck are the Democrats so dependent on Iowa in the first place? I think they need to make a conscious decision to negate the primacy of the Iowa caucuses and take it back to New Hampshire. (Of course, Kerry only won New Hampshire by 1%, or 10,000 votes. But the tradition is there. They can't just pick a new state.)

The Gavin Newsom factor

Last Feburary, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom mad history by permitting 14,000 gay couples to get married in the city -- a decision that was later overturned, but not before it electrified the Republican base, which responded with 11 anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives around the country -- all of which won. Since "moral issues" turned out to be so important to a strategically large -- surprisingly so -- evengelical turnout, can it be said that the fright the Christian Right received in the spring came back to haunt the Democrats in the fall?

That's not to say I think it was a mistake to marry all those lesbian and gay couples. Every step forward for justice and human rights is the right thing. It's never a mistake. We have to take our lumps and keep pushing forward. But this is also a reminder that no matter what we think is the right thing in massachusetts or California, it's likely to scare the shit out of people in the Midwest (not to mention the South, which as far as I'm concerned is simply lost to history for decades to come).

This raises the specter of that broad, broad red stripe up the middle of the country. As a book title had it this year, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Why do people in the Midwest and the Plains consistently vote against their own economic interests year after year after year? Because they're scared, says conventional wisdom. They're frightened by change.

I would put it more strongly, and I'll bet they would, too. It's not just fear, it's disgust. Cultural conservatives feel deep disgust at homosexuality, atheism, and other bogeymen; this visceral reaction is what drives them to the polls, it's what drives the rage expressed on talk radio, it's what keeps the whole culture of right-wing conservatism alive. And I don't know what to do about it. As someone who's done his personal best to expand the envelope of what can be talked about, especially with regards to sex, I have no regrets about "rampant _____" (insert right-wing bogeyman here). I wish people would simply grow up and become more accepting. They just aren't doing it as quickly as I want them to.

That's all I'm saying for now. I have to get back to work.

Sick with anxiety

Forty minutes before the polls close in the East; forty minutes before the media start naming obvious winners (Kerry in Mass., for example). Still at work here on the West Coast, I both want and don't want to look at the results on the internet. If New Jersey went for Bush, for example -- the example cited by most media as a harbinger of a Bush victory -- there's no way I could work. And yet if NJ went for Kerry, I'd just want to know about New Hampshire and Florida and everything else. It's the Red Sox syndrome -- you don't feel secure until the final out; they could still blow it. I don't want to get any news until I'm in the car onthe way home, but that's 90 minutes from now. Can I stand it?

That's what I get for being early

Showed up at my polling place at 6:50 a.m. this morning. I thought maybe I would spend some time in line. But I didn't expect the poll workers to be utterly unprepared.

I walked in there behind two women, who were really the first voters. We found the poll workers -- all working class women in their 20s and 30s -- sitting around the school cafeteria chitchatting. Nothing was set up. Seems the poll workers were under the impression that the polls opened at 8, not 7 a.m.

Well, I was prepared to wait. But the women in front of me, and the people who came in just behind us, had many comments. That got very middle-class upper-achiever about it, fretting that if they were organizing it -- or even just helping -- this would never happen. I could tell that these were a bunch of high-powered office workers, managers and the like; it was all they could do to keep from jumping in and setting up the voting booths themselves.

It didn't really take the poll workers too long to get it straightened out. I was handed my ballot at 7:24 a.m. Of course it was imcomplete, and I had to ask for the rest of it -- twice -- when I discovered the state and local ballot propositions were not on the ballot sheets I was given. In any case, I got out of there ten minutes later. Not that big a deal, really. There were about 40 people in line at that point, by the way.

More on the wonderland that is Wonder Valley

From time to time (as recently as Oct. 29) I post about my friends down in the desert. It seems the news media is getting closer and closer to discovering their patch of desert, and not necessarily in a good way. Today the LA Times ran a story on the controversy over desert shacks -- the mostly abandoned cabins put up over the last 50 years by homesteaders. My friends Perry and Christine, both artists, are quoted as being pro-shack. On the other side are people with (I suspect) a secret pro-development agenda who think abandoned shacks are eyesores. Christine's comment at the end of the piece suggests the inherent conflict. The anti-shack people want their land values to go up; the pro-shack people -- artists and desert rat types -- want things to stay pretty much the same.

The remarkable thing about this whole story is how remote Wonder Valley is. It's on the far, far edge of the town of 29 Palms, which is the last town on the highway until you go about 100 miles farther down the road to the Colorado River. Yet even here there is now development pressure. Related is how the Bureau of Land Management treats off-road vehicles, which some people like to bounce around the desert without concern for anybody else who might be there, much less the wildlife.

These conflicts happen because of the peculiarly American attitude that anyplace out in the country that hasn't yet been developed up the yinyang must officially belong to no one and can thus be treated as a blank slate on which to project all your hopes, fears, dreams and desires. If you like to tear around in a dune buggy, there is "nothing" out there. If you like to meditate, there is "nothing" to disturb you -- yet those two occupations are mutually exclusive, based on a delusion that the desert (in this case) is nothing, nowhere, empty. Like I say, typically American.

Dept. of 'Wouldn't it be pretty to think so'

Electoral-vote.com has Kerry leading 298-231 in the electoral vote this morning, based on polls taken over the weekend. According to these polls, Kerry takes all of the big 3 swing states and the entire upper midwest (except, of course, for solid-red Indiana). I think that's pretty much the outer end of possibilities. Still, it's nice to gaze upon. Just go back to that website anytime today you feel down.

In news closer to home, I got a nearly ecstatic email from my friend Marilyn, a writer who may very well be on the edge of real success. She only hints at it in her blog, but she received many hopeful signs over the weekend. And hopeful signs are what it's all about today, folks.