Low Tech Election Night

I just spent a half hour or so trying to get to this page so I could update my blog, and it seems my browser suffers from the same problem as my dad's browser: no toolbar. Some updates to my software may be in order. And me no longer living with a technical wizard.

But it's election night, which makes me very unconcerned with posting links at the moment. I'm stressed. After I voted this morning, but before work, I was in Kopi cafe getting a scone and a latte for breakfast when I overheard a guy say, "I just hope the election is decided tonight. Even if Bush is elected. I just can't handle the trauma of another fiasco like we had last time." I thought about it a minute and turned to him and suggested that, perhaps the trauma of another election fiasco would be significantly better than the trauma of four more years with that chuckling frat boy in the Oval Office. But there were intelligent conversations today. A few months ago, one of the guys who panhandle on my way home from work called out, "Support a Democrat. Give some change." I gave him some change, because I appreciate a clever panhandler (perhaps too much) and didn't give it any thought. But I passed him today on my way home and stopped to ask him if he had voted today. He had. In fact, he told me that he was among the only ones voting in his precinct who got his ballot right on the first try. Anyway, we chatted for a bit. He told me he almost voted for Bush--which made me bite my lip bloody--but that he went with Kerry in the end. It was a good conversation, devoid of the usual panhandler/giver dynamic. A conversation between two Americans about their experience on Election Day.

I'm off to Bonnie and Darcy's house, to gather with some comfort food, some good wine, and some good friends to pray to whatever gods we can muster and sway this election to our favor. Tomorrow a new day dawns, no matter what happens tonight. I have to remember that.