She sits on her front porch regularly.  She thinks she knows her neighbors well:  The couple next door that are having health problems, the woman across the street whose brother is living with her until his home is finally repaired from Katrina, and the neighbor catty-corner from her, Mike, who lives upstairs as he works on an addition to the back of his home.  Mike also owns the house three doors down from her.  Mike’s son, Jared, used to live in the second home; he is in his forties and rumored to have a slight mental disability.  Jared now lives in the front of Mike’s home because the second home is in disrepair.

Jared drives up to his father’s home and walks inside without waving to her.  Moments later, he returns outside with a green ceramic plate in his hands and walks to his far neighbor’s house.  She wonders what Jared is doing.  Do her neighbors share dinner every night and she not know it?  Is he going to get dinner and bring it back to eat alone?  If he’s eating at his neigbor’s, does he have some weird phobia about using others’ plates?

She hears voices and looks to see her neighbors talking.  Jared’s hands are empty; the far neighbor is holding the green plate.  There was nothing psychotic about the mystery; it was nothing habitual.  It was just a guy returning a plate to his neighbor.

Jared then hopped back in his car and drove away from his father’s home.  He did not look across the street to her.

While in the office yesterday, I remembered my sister was taking Sun for the night.  I had forgotten to give Sun an extra hug.  When I got home yesterday evening, the house was quiet.  Quiet like it just isn’t anymore; quiet the way it used to always be.  It was serene but hollow.

CS and I made reservations for dinner at a restaurant friends had given us a gift certificate for last Christmas.  We were shown to a small table with a white linen tablecloth.  I didn’t even think to look if this place had highchairs.  We ordered a bottle of wine.  And we talked; we talked about politics, the economy, our jobs, our very lives, and, of course, we talked about Sun.  We talked and talked.  Just the two of us, without interruptions to get food to Sun or move things out of her reach or entertain her to keep her from getting too loud and disturbing other diners.  No, it was just us, a couple.  It was decadent, like having my entire body dipped in chocolate.

But I couldn’t help but feel like I was visiting someone else’s life.  Like the life of the friends that gave us the gift certificate, who don’t yet have children.  They, like we used to, go to such restaurants at their leisure.  They don’t give thought to whether it is too quiet a place for a baby or whether the menu will have something a young toddler would eat.  Ah, that freedom!  How I miss it.

Having Sun was the most positive life-changing event of my life.  And I count my blessings every day.  However, there are victims to having a child: quality time alone with your spouse; quietness.

I took great joy in knowing I would not be awoken early this morning by Sun.  But my internal clock went off just the same.  So I groggily lay in bed.  Relishing that I could hear birds chirping.  I haven’t heard the birds in over a year.

Last night my Republican brother and Democratic husband and I watched the Vice President debate.  My husband truly thought Palin would be reduced to tears, poor fool that he is.  My brother and I both felt Palin would do better than she’d shown in her Couric interviews but that Biden would win the day.

It took us three hours to watch the 90 minute debate.  We kept pausing (I love you, TiVo) and commenting.  And rewinding (oh, yeah, she called him Obiden).

In the end, the three of us agreed on virtually every issue, the causes and even the solutions.  My brother and I simply disagree about which ticket is likely to accomplish those solutions.  My brother is concerned Obama will infuse too much government into our already money-strapped, incompetently-run government.  I feel McCain will keep his focus on Iraq and not the home front.

But the debate.

There’s one theme that is arising as a result of the crashing economy, and frankly, the positions of both sides piss me off.

Here’s what Palin said last night:

We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let’s do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don’t live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we’re taking personal responsibility through all of this.

At this point, I was silently applauding her.  Good! Place blame squarely where it deserves to be.  Let’s admit that we Americans bit off more than we can chew.  But then Palin continued:

It’s not the American peoples’ fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.

What? Yes, to a not small degree, it IS the American peoples’ fault the economy is hurting.  It’s their fault to the extent they got into houses they could ill afford.  Yes, the banks are at fault too.  But if we are going to start taking “personal responsibility” and stop “living outside our means,” then we need to accept that we, in part, put ourselves in this boat of economic crisis by living beyond our means.

My ire isn’t just with Palin.  On a similar topic, here’s what Biden said:

What we should be doing now — and Barack Obama and I support it — we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you’re paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe.  That would keep people in their homes, actually help banks by keeping it from going under.

What? Bankruptcy courts should be reducing the principal owed on a home to keep the debtor in the home?  And to help the bank/creditor from suffering?  Um, not so fast, Joe.  Ain’t nobody offering ME—a person who IS living within my means and NOT making bad financial decisions—a reduction on the principal owed on my home.  Why would or should we (at our expense) award these debtors and creditors who are SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for the mess they are in?

Now, maybe Biden meant tack on another 10 years to the debtor’s mortgage to reduce the principal payment.  But I suspect that is NOT what he meant.

My point is, it seems both tickets are clamoring to help these shaky homeowners and the banks that got them into these homes.  I don’t mean to sound elitist or harsh, but I have no problem, NONE, with these debtors losing homes they bought at arms-length fair market values.  People lose homes all the time.  They don’t become homeless; they become renters.  I rented for years because I couldn’t afford to buy a house.  My parents didn’t help me get into my home; the government didn’t help; my neighbors didn’t help.  I bought a home only after I could afford to do so.

Owning a home in America isn’t a right.  It’s a privilege.  A privilege that comes as a result of saving money and paying a note.  I resent that our government—again, both sides are for this Bailout and mainly they state their reason for supporting it is because it keeps families in their homes and banks from failing—is stepping in to help mainly the Americans that are not fiscally responsible stay in homes at the cost of those of us who are fiscally responsible.

It really makes me want to miss a payment on my house note.

Most people in my little world are voting for Obama.  And those voting for McCain tend to have very different opinions about how our country should be run.

My brother has very similar ideologies as me.  Neither of us are necessarily voting over abortion rights, labor rights, immigration, or health care.  We both are primarily concerned about the Iraq war and the economy.

To hear him and I speak, you’d realize quickly we agree on what the problems are.  We tend even to agree as to what needs to be done to fix them.  Yet, he’s voting McCain and I’m voting Obama.  He calls me Obama Mamma.  I just call him and laugh.

He thinks Obama is a great orator and showman.  He thinks, though, that Obama is all words and no action.

I think McCain is sincere and patriotic.  But I think McCain will follow the path of Bush: All attention on foreign policy while things here in the country deteriorate.

My brother makes one very strong point.  He tells me that our family has never been as well off as we are now.  We’ve been in America for 100 years, and it is just our generation that has graduated from college and may have substantial estates of worth to pass to our children.  It drives him crazy to hear people complain about how misdirected Americans are.  He says we need to travel the world to realize how great America is.  Strong point, indeed.

But I do disagree.  Yes, overall my family is in better financial shoes than it’s ever been.  But at what cost?  Our unhealthy dependence on oil is now costing us billions of dollars a month in Iraq.  We wouldn’t be in the Middle East if there wasn’t oil there.  And there’s also the issue of the oil’s effect on the environment.  I personally would like to take care of the world I live in so that my child and her children have a world to live in.  And Obama’s position is more in line with my philosophies than McCain’s.

Me? I want a safe world.  A safe America.  One that allows you to pursue your dreams and not be persecuted because of your religious beliefs (or lack thereof), your sexual orientation, or your country of origin.  My ancestors were born in Germany.  And Spain.  And Canada.  Then Louisiana.

And my brother will tell you he wants the same thing, a safe America.  And, he’d say, to have that safety, we need to press on in Iraq.  I disagree. Well, I agree that we NOW need to press on.  But we had no business going there in the first place.  No business other than finishing Pappa Bush’s unfinished business.  And now we are at risk if we leave prematurely.  Again, Obama’s position is more in line with my own philosophy than McCain’s.

My brother admits he is unsure of why the economy is faultering.  Partly due to government, partly due to a free market.  He’d say don’t have Congress do the Bailout as it was voted on Monday.

But I say that the economy is a result of the loosening of regulations over the financial institutions.  The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act went a long way in hurting our economy.  And now we are in a crisis of epic proportions.  A crisis that is DEMANDING government action.  Government action that is being rushed.  Rushed like the Iraq war was rushed. Ah! But the people are balking!  Fool us once, shame on you.  Fool us twice, not so much.  Now we fear our government and are suspicious when Bush says, “We must act now.  Trust us.  It’s for your own good.  We will take care of you.”  And THAT is a problem McCain is inheriting from Bush, whether fair or not.  Because at the end of the day, all signs indicate that McCain would do what Bush has done.  One needs only look at how McCain’s voted and not by what he says now to see that.

Both McCain and Obama are for a Bailout.  I am against it.  I may be wrong, but so far no one has been able to fully explain to me just how the markets will fail without the Bailout.  No one has been able to tell me how that will impact my job, my home, my life.  And no one can explain the $700 Billion figure that was apparently pulled from a hat.  McCain, I fear, just doesn’t understand the economic situation, and Obama is generally for more government involvement.  I don’t want more government in my life, I just want the government that is in my life to be competent.  But at least Obama is following the line I’d expect him to follow. McCain? Why isn’t he saying let the market take care of itself?  That’s the GOP line.  I like knowing where I can expect my President to fall on an issue; I like some level of certainty.

And that’s the difference to me about our two candidates.  Obama has a Big Picture of both America’s foreign affairs but also the very real and threatening  problems afoot in our country.  McCain has a precise and very clear view of the foreign policy and feels that issue is second to none in his role as President (and is probably the better man for that part of the job), but his grasp of the local issues just isn’t as crisp as it needs to be.  And seeing his selection of Palin makes me seriously question his judgment in selecting advisers if he were President.

What’s your opinion?  Am I missing something?  If you post about this, please leave a link in the comments so that we can read it.  Is anyone still undecided?

I met Captain Sarcastic in September.  We began to fall in love in October.  Ten years later, the early days of Fall still remind me of that last time I fell in love.  Those early sweet days of courtship.  It saddens me that I’ll never fall in love again.  Sure, I re-fall in love with CS from time to time, but we all know really falling in love with someone brand new is unlike anything else in the world.

So I am very grateful for these early days of Fall to remind me of the nectar of the sweetest, most carefree and empowering days of my life.

New Orleans really doesn’t have seasons (well, we have crawfish, shrimp, oyster, and hurricane season, but not the traditional four seasons).  We have hot, and we have cold.  And the in between days range about 30 a year.  Today was an in between day: mid-80s. Yeah.  BUT there was NO humidity.  It was a divine day in the city.  And Sun and I got out in it.  And though this is her second Fall, it’s the first where she’s sort of interactive.  And I am spending this Fall falling more deeply in love with her.  Her laugh, her sweetness, her wide-eyed view of the world.

Love, and the falling in thereof, comes in many facets.  I had no idea that I’d get this joy a second time ’round with my daughter.  Thank goodness for me not knowing everything.  The surprises these days are all magical.

Today, as the Failout bill, well, failed, and the Dow was plummeting, someone twitter that they were “sitting quietly waiting for the world to end.”  And that got me thinking.  What would you do if you knew the world was ending tonight?

Problem is, if we were told that news TODAY, we’d be in full denial and would go about our business into the abyss unawares.  So I thought, fine, let’s suppose we were given notice three months in advance.  And hundreds of scientists confirmed that, yes, now a month later, the world is in fact going to end in two months.

So hypothetically, you have two months to live.  What do you do?  What would I do?  Would we continue our normal lives hoping the scientists were wrong?  Would we feel that we’d better keep our jobs?  Or would you say, SEE YA!  And so I thought, hmmm, what WOULD I do?

Here’s the logician in me.  I start to think it through realistically.  If I quit, I’d be one of the last to do so.  And so by the time I quit, everyone else would too–cooks at my favorite restaurants, pilots of planes that could take me all over the world, gas exploration folks such that we’d have no fuel for our cars.

So, here I would sit with the world ending.  And I can’t eat at Galatoire’s or fly to Europe or even drive to New York City.  So, is that what I’d regret?  That I was “stuck” home?

And then I smiled.  I live in my most favorite city I have ever been to.  I am married to the best guy I’ve ever met.  Sun? Yeah, best daughter evah.  You see where I am going here.

So maybe I don’t care so much if this Failout doesn’t come to pass.  Or it does.  I have all I need to live blissfully.  And let the dust settle where it may on those who WILL suffer as a result.  I have empathy, of course, and won’t turn this into a political post.  But I never realized that I DO live like the world could end tomorrow.

Do you?

After a rough start, I did it!  I stayed offline for a week.  It got easier each day, and by today I wasn’t even itching to get online.

So, what did I learn?

I learned that I go to bed several hours earlier when I am not online.  Gaining those 2+ hours of sleep has been wonderful.

Being consistently away from the computer gave me TIME.  Time to read (yanno, books), time to plan and throw a party, time to spend with my family.

What did I miss?  Here’s what I wasn’t sure about.  I missed googling things (and admit I had to bend and do a few, but just a few!, searches).  I also really missed Twitter; I missed twitter a lot.  But I also learned that I had let my time spent on Twitter become a bad habit.

And I missed reading your blogs.  And again, although I missed it, I learned that I spent too much time with blogs and not enough time with my family, books, knitting, writing….

So although I really, really, really missed Twitter and reading blogs, my time doing both going forward will be less.

I will continue to write on my blog as well as on a new project offline.  But my priorities have been readjusted.  This is a good thing.  And I hope my writing and my topics going forward reflect this new insight.

It’s so nice to have my fingers on the keys again!  Oh, internet, you are an underappreciated friend!

I have been feeling this coming on for a while.  I need a break.  An announced, clear break.  Maybe it’s the election.  Maybe it’s my writing.  Maybe it’s my attention span.  But for whatever reason, I need to shut down and turn off the computer.  All of it.  No blogging (writing or reading), no e-mails (other than my work account), no twitter (gasp!), no Googling.

For one week.

When I return, well, I can’t tell you what to expect.  Maybe I will slavishly read every post of every blog I keep up with.  Or maybe I will mark all as read and start anew.  Or somewhere in between.  Or something completely different.  That’s the point.  I need to regroup and decide where my time is best spent.  What will I miss?  What won’t I miss?  What matters to me about my blog?  Is it the number of comments I get?  The number of hits I receive?  The ad dollars I earn?  Is it really about my writing? Or is it maintaining contact with the friends I’ve made? Or is it none of the above or something I have yet to fully realize?

The weather has cooled a bit here in New Orleans and is begging for me to be in it, outside.  And I have several projects on the home front I want to tackle, as well as a new writing project to which I want to commit serious time.

So, starting tonight at midnight until next Saturday at midnight, I am going offline.

Be well and wish me luck.

I have been a bit consumed with the upcoming election.  I tend to be apolitical.  But over the years, I have begun to be dissatisfied with certain things and I am one of those that feels that those who complain without attempting to improve things can just shut up.  So I started to educate myself on the issues.

I won’t pretend that my feelings for Bush are anything short of fear and loathing.  And his administration has made me leary of the entire Republican party.

Let me back up.  When I was 18 and registered to vote, I wanted to register as Independent.  I was young and knew what neither party stood for.  The Registrar told me that if I registered Independent, I could not vote in that year’s primaries.  I misunderstood and thought he was telling me I couldn’t vote in the election, not a party’s primaries.  So, following my parents’ path, I registered Republican.  And voted Republican.

Then I went to law school and began to learn about the Supreme Court Justices and which party appointed them and how they ruled in cases.  And a change started.  And I became a swing voter: I voted for Bush over Clinton.  Then for Clinton over Dole.  Then Bush over Gore.  And even sighed relief on 9-11 that Bush was in office.

Then that change that had started in law school crystallized.  The lies began.  The lies that cost the lives of American soldiers.  And worse, the confidence of Americans in trusting their leaders.  And the lies have never stopped.

So then I voted for Kerry.  And watched the polls be manipulated for a second time and Bush win again.  And the lying continued.

And now Bush is leaving. We have waited so long.  But what a sad state of affairs he is leaving America in.  What WILL be his legacy?  The Iraq war?  The faltering economy?  The impotent FEMA? So many to chose from.

And now we have to decide between McCain and Obama.  When Obama first came on the scene, I was as skeptical of him as I am of any politician.  But he is articulate and informed.  And when McCain was named the Republican nominee, I was pleasantly surprised.  I liked McCain.  He had a good, strong reputation and was a well rounded person.  And then I got down to business and started to really educate myself on these men, their platforms, their pasts, their future intentions, their behavior during the election, their selection of running mates.

If you follow me on twitter, you know clearly for whom I decided to cast my vote.  The refreshing part is that this is truly the first time in my 20 years of voting that I am voting FOR someone and not AGAINST someone and am not just selecting who I think will do less harm to America.

I will not spell out what the platforms are, where the lies are, which tax plan is more economically sound, although I could.  I will not disparage he who I am not voting for.  I will not ask you to vote for who I am voting for.

All I ask is that you truly educate yourself on the issues, the men (and woman), and the lies.  Watch Fox AND CNN.  Better yet, go online to factcheck.org or to each nominee’s website.  Rise above the rhetoric and spin.  Question. Question what matters to you.  Question where each really stands on those issues.  Question the source of your information.

And if you don’t bother to educate yourself objectively and thoroughly, then, I ask you to shut up.  And maybe even stay home come election day.

But this change that I speak of in my title, it isn’t in Washington.  It’s with me.  I am done trying to illuminate and educate folks that don’t bother to research and be objective.  I am done debating these folks.  I am done knocking my head against the wall only to have these folks whose minds were made up before the nominees were selected continue to ignore facts and overlook lies.

I wrote about the Great Storm that hit Galveston one weekend in 1900.  Ike is feeling eerily familiar to that storm.  Click here to read that post.  And then pray and/or hope Galveston fares far better this time ’round.