5 November 2002

There's my civic duty, done. Matt and I went and voted before we went to work this morning.

Pathetic. The senate race is between the incumbent and two independents no one has ever heard of, and the House race is uncontested. I eenie-meenied between the two independents, and wrote the other in for the House race. My pathetic protest vote in a strongly military area in a strongly conservative state.

And then the other issues. I'm waiting for them to add a bubble to the ballot that says, "I couldn't care less" for some of these.

And the issues that we're only voting on because our state constitution says we have to: Yes, by all means give to the schools the money we set aside to give to the schools. Yes, by all means give to the parks the money we set aside to give to the parks.

And then there's this election's hot-button issue for our area: Should we raise the sales tax by 1% to finance a laundry list of road constructions? It seems reasonable enough on the surface - but the number one construction project, both in cost and in the order they plan to do them, is pointless - it'll bleed traffic out of one part of Norfolk and feed it back into one of the already-existing and overcrowded bridge-tunnels. It might move the traffic congestion around a little, but it's not going to get rid of it.

(I'm likening it to having one of those colds where one nostril is completely clogged, and the other is okay, and when you roll over sometimes everything will drain to the other side of your head. For a brief instant, you can breathe normally, but it doesn't fix the problem. The analogy is a little gross, but so is the traffic around here.)

So much for that idea.

I might as well have not bothered, but Matt's sense of civic duty is stronger than mine, and he keeps me honest.

I will say one thing for this restricted internet crap... I'm finding lots more time in my days to work on the novel. Yesterday I wrote another 1500 words, and set up the possibility for yet another future novel. I think we're up to seven, now... At least we're not ending any of them on cliffhangers, and we're doing our best to make sure they can be read individually.

I'm also reacquainting myself with Minesweeper and Freecell. I'm about to start working my way through the Freecell games one at a time, just for the amusement value.

Bored? Did I mention I was bored? Or did you just guess?

--Liz