Election Stress

I worked damn near solid for close unto 5 hours. By the time I was done monitoring my people, everyone was starting to filter on home. The gang in the bullpen was redefining "hardly working" -- did I mention that those lucky stiffs get internet access out there? The only webpages in evidence, though, were plastered over with various shades of reds and blues, and tension mounted as voting scores mounted.

The supervisory contingent of my workplace, by and large, is very much against Bush.

I declared my intent to either go home and celebrate, or go home and get very, very drunk.

The election's hanging fire in Ohio, so the celebration and/or pity party must perforce be put on hold. That doesn't stop me from self-medicating with fanfic of dubious content, however.

I couldn't even write when I got home, that's how stressed-out this is making me. I do not think that Bush is good for this country or this world. I do not think the man is sane or stable. Like 'Song said, this is time to get the madman away from the big red shiny button.

*looks at BBC*

Well, bugger. 274. And Kerry's conceded. Bugger.

Here's for the home crew ready standing by for what cleanup action can be cleaned, then.

iresprite, as linked by shywickedpixie, has cause for optimism: "Eight years of one leader will not destroy my country. Those of you who live in countries that have been around far longer: I'll bet you've had leaders in your past as bad who have hung around for a long time."

I know there's a strong feeling of "OK, he's in, there's nothing more we can do, and it's all going to go to rot and ruin," and there's that little voice in the back of the head saying, "If it's all going to rot and ruin, I hope it goes soon and quickly," and the voice behind that hoping it actually does get as bad as or worse than we feared just for the "I told you so!" factor.

I hope Kerry is still insisting on getting everything counted. There were days of wrangle over Bush vs. Gore. I would like to imagine that there could be days of polite -- no hanging chad, please! -- counting of ballots that people cast in the hopes that they could make a difference.

I think that despite Bush's demonstrated morals, there's still a lot that can be done. Crying and screaming won't get it done, though it sure is satisfying to scream sometimes. (The bathroom at work got treated to my favorite curse, which is in Chinese, and for proper effect needs proper volume and shrillness; othercat can attest to the power of this curse. The literal translation is "This cannot happen," though idiomatic translation puts a lot more profane intensifiers in. )

If we can't stop the trampling of civil rights, women's rights, and international goodwill, then at least we can hang on to every last shred of them that we've got, and scream bloody murder.

Childhood Friends

Something I was writing put me in mind of a childhood friend, the son of one of my mother's friends. We made "spruce-cone bricks" out of spruce cones and mud, memorably, and fireweed goop, and had all sorts of fun times.

I Googled him, and evidently back in 2000 he presented a paper that he and several other underclassmen wrote. Congratulations, Geoff...

Heavy fuel

I have stocked up on chocolate, and poured myself a glass of soda and wine cooler. That's about as heavy as my fuel gets, but I want to run cool...

Still at 10 pages. Not a good creativity day for volume, but decent for the plot file. I work with two files -- the story proper, and the outline/idea file. When I'm stuck for continuity, I map out something in the plot file.


The fax machine now also rings. Quite the noise when there is a call.

Blocking

Not the writer's block sort, the actions that go with the dialogue. I had a theatre class or two, and we learned that if you just have talking heads, you have a really weak acting job. The same with writing, I decided, and went back through all the conversations in ectogenesis and added blocking.

The result was astonishingly good. I evidently have a bit of a talent for comic timing.

Now I'm going back through the lunch scene just here and adding in Beatrice's lunch, so she's not just sitting there doing nothing while Ben runs off at the mouth about everything and anything just because he's so sodding drunk he can't tell his arse from a canary.