Wednesday, October 22, 2008

seasonal musing

Is it election day yet?

The campaigning has receded to a dull, annoying buzz in my ears. I care as much as I ever did, but thinking about it has worn a blister on my brain. When I’m flipping through TV channels, the very sight of McCain or Palin or even my guy causes a stab of pain, like when you slip into the same shoes that raised the blister in the first place. I just can’t look anymore. I can’t think about it anymore. And I don’t matter. I’ve made my choice, nobody needs to persuade me of anything. Besides, I still live in Texas where my vote is likely to be a formality.

I’m confused about the whole idea of undecided voters, though. How can you be undecided between these two candidates? I suspect the undecideds are Republicans who see the obvious problems with their ticket but are struggling with the idea of crossing the aisle.

Either that or they’re idiots.

I’m not reading a lot about the economic crisis either. Again, not that I don’t care but at the moment, it’s way too big to wrap my little mind around. I don’t know yet how it will affect me. Will I be waiting in a bread line? Selling apples on a street corner? (And might that be more lucrative than freelance writing?) Is someone going to take my house away? At the moment, nothing has changed for us except the contents of our IRAs, which is scary, but I’m not looking until all the wild swings stop. Right now, we’re as broke and as rich as we ever were.

I may learn something this weekend, at a conference for travel writers, since many of the editors attending work for publications about luxury travel. While I think the depression will have to reach breadline proportions before people give up travel altogether, I suspect the trend of the last decade towards increasingly over-the-top luxury in travel is about to screech to a halt. With that, magazines such as Travel & Leisure might have to rethink their mission. Perhaps it’s time to start a magazine aimed at rail-riding hobos…Bandana-on-a-Stick Traveler.

At any rate, all this stuff is about to be steamrolled by the oncoming train that is the holiday season. The Halloween season started weeks ago. Target’s shelves have been merry with Halloween trimmings since September. Do you have your Halloween wreath hanging? Is your Halloween tree up? Do you have your Halloween whoopee cushion? Yes, really. I found one at Target, bought it for MsKrit as an early Halloween present.

That’s the full extent of my participation in the holiday. I’m back in Halloween Grinch mode. As always, ours will be the house with the lights out and the door locked. Trick away, you can’t scare me. Until Nov. 4.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ugh, yes, I'm sick of the campaigning at this point too and am realllly happy election day being less than 2 weeks away. My brain finally exploded when Joe The Plumber was on every news show for about a week, while the media was camped out on his porch.