The pictures are all I can feel

Okay, no more politics for a while. Certainly not the mopey kind of politics.

I’ve been getting into Flickr recently, at least as much as I can get into it without shelling out for a full membership. As I was uploading pictures, it occurred to me that I can use it to show you guys pictures that my feeble powers of description are unequal to. So here are some visual blasts from the blog past, pictures that you’ve had to imagine up until now:

Here’s a picture of me as Waldo at Halloween 2003 (Waldo after he’s lost his hat, that is)…

…here’s some 30 of the 56 plastic dinosaurs Lauren won at the Nickel Arcade in Portland, decorating her room…

…and here’s what gummi worms look like when you leave them in the car during the killing heat of Coachella. I wish I could tell you that when the contents re-solidified, one of us didn’t eat it like a big gummi worm latke, but someone did. I cannot tell a lie: it wasn’t me. Perhaps the culprit will identify himself here.

Well, that’s all for now, and photo-wise that’s all until December, since I’ve reached my Flickr upload limit for the month. I can’t upload more photos now unless I pay for a full membership. I’m not going to do that, right? Low on cash as I am? Of course not. …Right?

I wouldn’t live there if you paid me

Feeling a little better. Even the most sensitive liberal can’t mope forever.

Kindle linked to a map by someone suggesting we reconfigure the borders in light of Tuesday’s results. I’m linking to it here because it’s really funny, but also because it effectively makes a really sobering point: you really could mush all the red states together and make one big gay-marriage-hating super state. The only Bush state not connected to another one is Alaska. John Edwards wasn’t kidding when he said there were two Americas, but why is that one so big?

This is why, despite all the criticism of the Kerry campaign that we’ll hear over the next few weeks, I really wonder if Kerry could have won this one, at least using the resources and knowledge he had when he was nominated. I don’t mean to be fatalistic–I’m sure there’s some way that the Democrats could have pulled it off, especially with the benefit of hindsight–but probably 90% of the electorate had their minds made up from the very beginning, and just enough of the remaining 10% was too scared and too born-again to vote for Kerry. Short of nominating Joe Lieberman, how do you appeal to those people?

Reading the shellshocked columnists at the New York Times (even William Safire seemed to be trying to spare everyone’s feelings), there were a couple points that stood out. Thomas Friedman wrote, “Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago – as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.” That to me is exactly right, which is why those initiatives banning gay marriage were such a smart move. One side is fur the destruction of marriage, one is agin it. You’re not one of those faggot-lovers, are you?

Maureen Dowd ridiculed the idea that the President was going to try to be bipartisan–if he didn’t try after losing in 2000, why would he try after winning this year?–and pointed out that division is essential to the Rove strategy: “The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule.”

So that’s what we’ve got: city versus suburb and country. Secularists versus religionists. Metrosexuals versus homophobes. It’s not a battle over policy, it’s a battle over geography. And we’re losing.

(At least this has been good for my blog. It’s been pretty bad for my homework, though.)

Update: Like twenty minutes after posting this, I see that The Onion has added a headline: “America Comes Out Agin The Gay Marryin’.” It’s gotten to the point where I quote the Onion before I read it.

This crown of shit

Whenever I say something bitter, my instinct is always to come back and say, “Well, it’s not that bad, I guess, I just wanted to let off steam.” I half felt that way when I went to bed last night. But now, with a full night’s sleep and time to think it over, I realize that it is that bad, and all I’ve got is a further elaboration of everything I hate right now.

I hate all the fantasies I allowed myself of Kerry winning. I was going to call up everyone I knew to celebrate. I can hardly stand to write e-mails about this right now.

I hate everything that Bush got away with. I hate that we came so close to convincing enough people that he was a disaster, and they still went with him.

I hate that all the conservatives were proven right. Sean Hannity had a countdown on his show of the number of days until Bush was re-elected, and he was absolutely right. And I hate that all the smartasses and cynics on the left–the people who never read the news or the polls but still said, “Oh, Bush will win” with total confidence–are proven right too.

I hate that nothing went right. Tom Daschle lost. We lost to a racist in Oklahoma and a doddering lunatic in Kentucky. In California we lost the attempt to reform the Three Strikes law, for God’s sake. A friend’s mother ran for State Assembly as a Democrat. She didn’t win.

I hate that I have to go about the week and talk to people about this. I hate that I can’t stop thinking about it.

I thought we were going to win.

What in the world is going to happen?

Twirling towards freedom

We lost the House and the Senate, badly. In the electoral college we’ve got yet another false hope, falser than false because it’s obvious how this is going to go. And 51% of voters decided on four more years.

I have nothing good to say about anything right now.

I’ve coughed up scarier stuff than that

Gentlemen, behold: My 2004 Halloween costume! Duffman! OH YEAH!

By my reckoning, my top 10 Halloween costumes:

1: 2002. Aquaman. Bleached hair, dishwashing gloves, tights, green underwear, orange shirt with drawn-on scales.

2: 2004. Duffman. Trucker hat, sunglasses, cape, muscle shirt, runner’s belt with Budweiser.

3: Circa 1989. Shark. Full-body cloth shark costume.

4: Circa 1987. Trapjaw (villain from Masters of the Universe). Papier-mache Trapjaw helmet.

5: 1998. Georgie (droog from A Clockwork Orange). Top hat, white shirt, white jeans, jock strap and cup (as a codpiece), steel-toed boots, cane. Accompanied by Alex, Pete, and Dim.

6: Circa 1992. Serial killer. Plastic knife, fake blood, Albert Einstein mask with balloon inside (held as a severed head).

7: 1999. The Dread Pirate Roberts. Black head scarf, black eyemask, black gloves, black shirt, black pants, boots, sword.

8: 2003. Waldo. Round glasses, red-and-white striped shirt, jeans. No hat.

9: Circa 1991. Death. Red plastic skull mask with cowl and hologram eyes, robe, scythe.

10: Circa 1990. Pirate.

Man, what a great holiday. A number of my friends have already outgrown it, which strikes me as such a shame. Admittedly my maturity level might be a little low on this score–for instance, Halloween is the only time I enjoy clothes shopping–but a really well-chosen and well-executed Halloween costume is a chance to show off your craftiness (D+) and nerdiness (A+) all in one. Some people customize their computers, I dress up like superheroes.