Well that worked out. Sleep, from 7 until now, nine hours and facing the world anew at four in the antemeridian. Now, a cup, and some brain maintenance. Friday.
But first a necessaries run. I note: the price of gas has dropped below a buck ninety. Also, as the third COVID wave begins, nobody is giving the slightest fuck or wearing a mask, except me. Also, it’s down to 45 degrees in the predawn; that feels crudely cold, and the feel of warm burrito eggs cooked by someone else for me is soothing to my throat.
The noon report is that my body took advantage of feeling so good by demanding another four hours of sleep. I don’t think that’ll fuck things up too badly, but if it does I’ll just stay up all day tomorrow too. Rawr.
There was a moment today where a slightly crazy person wanted to stand in my driveway for a while. It had something to do with wanting revenge on the rather cringy neighbors behind me for allegedly stealing something. Okay. Whatever. The point is, she looked at my place, and she said, “This is a really nice setup you have here”. I think the admiration was sincere, and it made me look around me with fresh eyes for a moment. You know, given this town I’m in, given all the other places around me for blocks–she’s absolutely right.
I feel a little kingly, even if my royal lands are one step above a landfill. I’ve got this shotgun castle, so hell yeah.
Also, I learned today that my ballot is waiting for me over in Prettytown.
In recent days I’ve leaned hard toward voting for Biden.
Today I saw this and wavered.
The point that got to me was the idea that Biden-voting was just the feel-good-about-yourself thing to do. A bit of virtue signalling.
What’s funny about that is: It’s the exact same argument I was using to justify a throwaway third-party vote.
And both things … are true.
There isn’t any real choice here.
Voting for Trump is out of the question. But beyond that, none of the options change anything, except just maybe how you feel about yourself.
I’m leaning back toward a protest vote because it fits in better with my new desire to unhook from the system completely.
The purest way to do that would be to not vote at all. But I’m unwilling to abstain completely because of some of the local races and some of the ballot propositions.
I could leave the Presidential blank, but that’s pointless too.
It’s a very weird path I’ve taken, to being a genuinely undecided voter in late October.
There’s some sort of meta-symbol in it about my entire life path, too.
I’m also giving some weight to what my family would want me to do, which of course means a Biden vote.
Someone told me recently that the reason to go Joe was that Anything Else was a vote for Trump, hell, two votes for Trump.
Which, with all due respect, is the worst kind of in-the-system centrist horseshit.
I voted Nader in 2000, and I am unashamed. My vote, filtered through the electoral college, had nothing to do with Bush winning.
I voted Green in 2016, and that vote did not by any logical stretch of imagination contribute to Trump’s electoral college victory in any practical way.
In between, I voted for Obama, the first time, and that vote changed nothing. I voted against him, the second time, and that vote changed nothing.
This time I’m in a swing state, and I think it’s for the first time.
I doubt my vote will change anything even now. There’s a very small chance that I’m wrong about it though. For the first time.
It comes down to balancing that fact off against how my vote makes me feel.
I don’t want to be self-indulgent about it.
No matter what I decide, I almost surely will be anyway.