The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little:

"My cow ran away last month, but she soon repented and was Barn Again." Har.

Seems a lot of us have flying dreams that base the experience on memories of swimming. For me, it's a motion I found very comfortable in the swimming pool as a child - floating face-down about a foot above the bottom, and progressing horizontally by pushing off with the hands. The commonality of this seems to say something disturbing, though - is it that most of us simply can't imagine flying sufficiently to dream about anything other than swimming out of water? Why is that, when the "dream of flight" is such an important human desire?

Now as for talking to oneself and voices in one's head, that I'm not surprised to see so widespread. The thing that worries me, though, is my tendency to come to a conclusion mentally, and then feel compelled to say it out loud as though to give the impression that the instant of decision actually coincided with the point of vocalization. Does that make sense?

In other words, I'm in the grocery, and I decide to buy a box of baking soda. I will then say out loud, "You know what? I should get some baking soda," as if I hadn't decided it in my head already.

Why do I do this? Who am I trying to fool? I have no clue. I'm comfortable enough accepting my habit of talking to myself - the thought doesn't seem properly thunk until I think it where my ears can hear it. That's fine. But why would I vocalize the thought in a way that deliberately misrepresents the thought? Am I an undiagnosed compulsive liar? Or am I just fictionalizing my life on the fly, like many other writers do?

(The difference between "compulsive liar" and "habitual self-fictioneer" is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)

Thanks to the magic of TinyURL (dot com), Greg's screen-warpingly long web address becomes....

http://tinyurl.com/4vy9d

! Ta-da !

(Why yes, I am a little snot. Thanks for noticing!)

Dru:

Educating people about expected life expectencies indoors/mixed in-out/outside (2-4, 4-6, 14-18)

Maybe I'm confused by your notation here, but that sounds backwards to me as compared to everything else I've heard. Isn't it indoor cats that can expect a much longer lifetime?

Elusis: I was hopeful on Tuesday night, especially when Fox31 news was saying that Boulder's late-to-finish count might end up determining what color Colorado went - because we all know that if it were up to Boulder, Kerry would have nine more votes and Bush would have nine less - but now the gap seems too big to me for Boulder to bridge alone.

My husband was looking hard tonight at CNN's shaded county-by-county map of Colorado and identifying the "swing counties" we could do some work in, in preparation for Election 2006. I've been reading the comments here and in Daily Kos to try to get ideas as to what that work might consist of.

I'm as befuddled as you as to the state race / president race split. I don't think the folks here were any less susceptible to gay-marriage-hate than in other states - you'll note Musgrave, who bashes gays when she should be building her district, won her reelection. Maybe our state races mostly took place outside of that argument, and Musgrave won because she forced her race back into it.

Another thought: maybe the "Bush is firm on terror" meme didn't seem to apply to senate and house candidates. And yet... The Salazar / Coors US Senatorial race was way closer than it should have been considering the Democrat was an experienced politician while Coors just about knows how to CEO a beer company. I can't believe that so very many people were won over by dumb name recognition alone. Coors was trying to model himself after Bush (get them terrorists, cut more taxes) while Salazar was trying to model himself on Kerry. Their race very nearly panned out accordingly. So maybe there isn't as much cognitive dissonance between the presidential race and the other races as there appears to be.

As for 36, I voted against that one, and the Boulder Daily Camera's editorial about it is probably the best explanation of why. I mean, I laughed at the name "Coloradans against a really stupid idea," but I found the Daily Camera piece more convincing. I mostly took offense at the retroactive timing - I wanted our votes to go to Kerry, but I didn't want it done by playing what I considered dirty pool with the state constitution.

Anyway. If you're interested in getting together with us and some friends to discuss how best to court the "swing counties," drop me an email.

Elusis:

Especially when my "red state" sent a new Democrat to the Senate, and a new Democrat to the House, and sent control of our state legislature to the Democrats, and passed a clean energy bill and a tobacco tax, and came within spitting distance of sending that freak Marilyn Musgrave back home where she belongs.

Howdy, neighbor. So which part of this deeply indigo state are you from? I'm in the bit that won't be done counting its votes until next week - due to highly accurate paper ballots and something like 80% turn-out in the polls.

I'm actually really proud of Colorado after this election, for all the reasons you mentioned. I'm mentally drafting a barrage of letters to Senator-Elect Ken Salazar as we speak.

Jo:

Incidentally, for the first time ever in my experience, there were US border people doing an exit check on the train back to Montreal. They didn't do more than glance at my passport, but they were asking Americans around me where they lived, what their jobs were, and how long they intended to stay in Canada, and checking their return tickets. This was ten minutes before the Canadian border, and the Canadian Customs and Immigration inspection there.

I've been hearing quips about "The Republic of Gilead", but this anecdote is the closest similarity between real life and The Handmaid's Tale I've heard yet.

My husband and I are already talking about "How long do we stay and fight," and "what's our sign that it's time to get out," and "where do we go if Canada and Mexico aren't far enough?" I'm thinking that passage of the Constitutional Restoration Act in the Senate is our red alert; appointment of new SC justices before said Act can be challenged is an evacuation notice.

But we are going to fight. We're taking a little time to gather a battle plan, and then we're joining the fray. I'm heartened to know that we're in good company here.

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