Wow, someone must like me. I let my membership lapse years ago, but early this week/late last week someone paid for a gift reactivation of my account. This person didn't reveal him- or herself, but thanks! I look forward to reconnecting with some of the people with whom I lost touch.

In the meantime, I've got a couple of web sites (both political in nature) that I'd like to share with you. They are:

Liberal-Pride.org

www.Progressive-Independence.org

I added a new gallery for pictures taken on my new company-issued cell phone. I uploaded three images I took Saturday of two of our seven cats, Echo and Patch. You can tell they're siblings, because their markings are so alike.

I started my new job at Cleveland Tenants Organization today, as an Americorps VISTA member. Last week I got to go to Chicago for three days of pre-service orientation (PSO). I stayed at the Wyndham O'Hare hotel, and let me tell you their food is excellent! All the VISTAs who attended, and I think there were something close to a hundred and fifty, were fed like kings and queens. I had the best damned cornbread I've ever tasted at a Chicago hotel. Anyway, I got my e-mail set up and CTO today, and before long I'll be getting my own company cell phone! Plus I get to work with some of the same people I worked with on my state representative's campaign this year.

That's all for now. TTYL!

UGH! I am sick again; I don't think I ever really recovered from the cold I had last month. I think it may be a sinus infection or worse, bronchitis. Certainly I've been coughing up all sorts of green, nasty stuff. The problem is, more often than not I hack up a lung trying to expel the gunk from my body, but just as it comes up the muscles controlling the swallowing reflex kick in and back down it goes. Then there's the sticky, green, nasty gunk I'm blowing out of my nose. I sound like a freight ship's horn every time I blow my nose.

Yes, I am describing things best left undescribed, especially to those reading this who've just eaten or are planning to eat very soon. My apologies, but I need to vent and this is my venue so...

On to something that is not gross.

About a week and a half, two weeks ago I met this gal on MySpace. We've been hitting it off pretty well, exchanging messages and chatting on the phone a few times. She's divorced, and is going through a lot of issues right now, so plans we had to meet over coffee fell through. Bummer, but I sent her a message saying if she's not ready to hang out yet that's fine and to let me know when she is ready. I seem to have scored some points doing that, because she sent me a reply back saying she's impressed at my preceptiveness. So we've agreed to stick with the MySpace/phone conversations for the time being.

It's really weird though, how much Candi (that's her name) and I have in common. Especially family issues. We both have bitch-mothers who treat us like dirt and for whom everyone has to walk on eggshells to avoid setting them off; we both have fathers with whom we get along better, and who have had bypass surgery for heart conditions. Then, of course, we share many of the same favorite movies and music. We're both Taureans, and we both like to experiment in trying out different foods from around the world.

Hopefully we're able to meet sooner rather than later, because I have a feeling we'd get along very well. So we'll just have to see what happens.

I am waiting on word from Cleveland Tenants Organization about when I begin my new job, and when I'm supposed to leave for Chicago for the training session. Supposedly I'm going this month, but I just got off the phone with the guy who's a director there, and he says it may have been pushed back to December. He'll get back to me later today, and tomorrow or Thursday we'll fill out the paperwork (W-4's, direct-deposit form, etc.). Slow going, but at least it's going.

Anyway, that's all the update I have to post. Later!

You cannot begin to imagine how much I'm laughing inwardly right now. I say Inwardly, because I happen to be sick right now with a hacking cough and can't really talk much -- if at all.

Why am I laughing to myself, you ask? Because the U.S. House of Representatives has gone back to Democratic control after twelve years, and the Senate may follow suit depending on how the recount in Virginia goes. As I type, Democrat Jim Webb -- a former U.S. Navy Secretary -- leads over Republican incumbent George Allen by a razor-thin margin. Webb appears to have roughly 8,000 more votes than Allen, but this could end up in court ultimately, with the winner being determined as late as December.

This victory has Bush shitting his pants so badly, he had Donald Rumsfeld step down as Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld's temporary replacement is a former CIA director, and depending on how the Senate goes confirmation hearings could get downright nasty -- and not necessarily in Bush's favor.

Ohio elected its first Democratic governor in sixteen years. We elected our first Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Howard Metzenbaum and John Glenn retired. We elected a Democratic attorney general and a Democratic state secretary. And we managed to pass an increase in the minimum wage!

Ohio has gone very much Blue, with the state legislature still under Republican control. Nevertheless, the majority party now has fewer seats. And we have a bit more power now to affect the apportionment board in drawing up legislative districts.

Republican Joe LIEberman, unfortunately, won his re-election bid. As you are probably aware, he lost the Democratic primary to challenger Ned Lamont back in August. The ever-selfish LIEberman then stayed in the race as an "independent." Independent my scarred ass! The guy is a fucking rubber stamp for George W. Bush, and if Virginia's U.S. Senate seat does end up in Democratic hands you can bet dollars to doughnuts LIEberman will caucus with the GOP just so he can fuck over the party he turned his back on one more time.

But you've gotta laugh at the Shrub right now; he's shitting his pants on television trying to spin the Democratic victory and make thinly-veiled demands that they continue to submit to his will. Yet he had to dump Rumsfeld, to whom he promised job security for the duration of his regime, just so he can cover his own ass by appearing to make a change at the Pentagon. In fact, however, the only real change will be the face and the name of the guy fucking over the Armed Forces. Bush is desperate, and the stench of fear hangs over him like a pall. Hence Rumsfeld's resignation. Not even one of The Big Four is safe from Bush's games of save-ass

Democrats won back power after twelve long, gruelling years. They won, despite what I'm sure is rampant GOP electoral fraud, because Americans have had enough of the corruption, deception, criminality and treason coming out of Congress and the White House. We were sick of our wages remaining stagnant while the very wealthy got even wealthier. We were sick of deficit-spending as far as the eye can see. We were sick of a Congress that was nothing more than a rubber stamp for the far right.

And so we turned out in droves, We the People of the United States of America. We turned out in enough numbers to counter the Republican Party's electoral fraud. We told Katherine Harris and J. Kenneth Blackwell that election-rigging does not get you cushy seats in the Senate or a governor's mansion. We told rubber-stamping liar Mike DeWine his non-existent services are no longer required, or desired.

I am laughing my sick ass off, because for the first time in nearly six years I have hope again for the future of our country. And because I am having so much fun watching the treasonous little Shrub squirm as he contemplates what will happen to him once the official investigations and indictments and impeachment proceedings begin.

Happy Halloween!

Well, the last couple of days have me feeling much better than I did Saturday. Today I had to rake and sweep up leaves, and other assorted yard-crapola. A rotweiller that came after me October 1 in my own front yard showed itself a little way up the street, and we called animal services. Turns out several people have reported the animal, which has been roaming the neighborhood with a smaller dog. Both appear to be nearly-grown pups: the rotweiller's tail isn't even clipped so it's quite distinctive. That thing is gonna hurt somebody unless it's caught.

I also managed to distribute the campaign literature I was supposed to deliver Saturday, but couldn't because of the weather and my sickness. It was something like 75 degrees out today, but that weather isn't going to last. Tomorrow: rain, rain, and more rain. And oh yeah, rain.

I'm running a viruc check on my computer. MySpace was all buggy yesterday, and I seem to have picked up a virus or two dozen.

I don't normally complain when I'm under the weather, but right now I'm fighting off a cold and nothing I've taken so far seems to relieve its symptoms. I've drunk down three, maybe four tea/honey/lemon juice/blackberry wine concoctions, which are usually pretty good for fighting colds. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have very much effect this time. Neither has rubbing Vic's Vapor Rub into my chest and throat. Maybe I'm coming down with the flu?

Like I said, I really don't normally complain when I get sick -- mostly because I know people who are in much worse shape than I am, or they have someone close to them who is. Put into context, I really can't complain without coming across like a crybaby. But right now I'm sick, bored, and -- to be perfectly honest -- feeling pretty lonely, and no one seems to be available to talk on the phone or through IM or Chat.

So here I sit at my computer, suffering pretty much alone. And useless, because I was supposed to help distribute campaign literature and put up yard signs today but can't because of the weather and my illness.

Okay, this rant is finished.