So this morning I got negged at the polling both because if you change your party affiliation, it doesn't go into effect until after the next general election. Apparently this is designed to prevent people from doing exactly what I tried to do, which is changing parties just so you could vote in a primary.

The funniest part was of course the white haired ladies in charge at the polling center. Clearly old ladies are at the helm of the civil infrastructure of American voting. Sometimes, based on who gets into office, I think they may be the only people in the country who vote!

But they kept calling me dear and were flustered by the confusion I caused when I wasn't in their books. One lady asked me if I was sure I wasn't a Republican! I just looked at her with my eyebrow raised like "whadoo you think?" But then another lady explained why it was I wasn't eligible to vote in the primary. She actually said it was a "slap on the wrist" for changing my party affiliation. Ah, the American electoral system. Nothing like freedom of choice, eh folks?

Well it is over two months late but today I will finish my Moby Dick paper. That friggin whale just keeps slipping away. Here is some mad Ahab for y'all:

"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare?"

Good question.

In other news, yesterday I tried oil painting for the first time in years, and it was just as frustrating as I remember it being. After three hours all I had was a blue grey blob. Most of what I have painted in the past has been water color, and oil painting mixes with that experience about as well as, well, oil and water. But I'm not really that frustrated. I was thinking "well, like all great human endevours which amaze us when done well, oil painting is really hard." That makes sense to me. As I'm getting older I'm less and less surprised when difficult things are difficult, and that difficulty frustrated me less because of it.

What else... went to the pink in search of art instruction, but my teacher wasn't there. where is he? he must be somewhere. "I miss you"... Moriah and I had an awesome time as usual, and we ran into Rachel so it was a regular group thing. The company of fine ladies kinda makes up for my lack of man flesh. But not totally. Nothing personal ladies, that's just my biology.

I think I may drive to Ellicott Creek Park now before the sun goes down. Funny how the car substitutes more and more for actual body movement.

Then tonight, more painting, the concluding paragraph of My Moby Dick Opus, and of course the oscars. Viggo will have to stand in for an actual human once again...

Hey I like the linking right to our journals feature. I was just working on my homepage, old and crummy as it may be, when I saw the linking thing. If anyone is interested in reading old crummy poetry or looking at poorly photographed artwork, or in otherwise analyzing my psyche circa 2000, please feel free to follow this .

I've been reminded that I haven't written in over a year. I can't say that I had nothing to say. There is the ghost of a journal about skiing, but it's been exercised. When you fall you will always fall on the part of you that has no meat, which is our missing tale. Lucy is the oldest one still standing.

The limit of anything is where it becomes something else. Otherwise there would'nt even be continuity, there would only be stasis. Ex-stasis means moving on from holding still, moving out of the body. The horizon is someone else. Difference is the source of imagination.

Could it be that the possible 44th president of the United States is a reincarnation of the 16th? Creepy...

Also, some (selective, since its a poll) good news from Polling Report.com

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. Jan. 22-23, 2004. N=1,006 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Suppose the next general election for president were being held TODAY and you had to choose between George W. Bush, the Republican, and [see below], the Democrat -- who would you vote for?" If "Other" or "Undecided": "As of TODAY, do you LEAN more toward Bush, the Republican, or [see below], the Democrat?"

Bush John Kerry Other
% % %
1/22-23/04 46 49 5
1/8-9/04 52 41 7

In case you were in doubt this is to serve as my official endorsement of John Kerry for President 2004!

Also, a good Kerry page is actually his senate home page:
Brother won three purple hearts in Vietnam then came home to Capital Hill and testified in the Senate against the war. What more could you want in a president?