Anyone who hasn't done so should read the following URL.

I'll wait.

Now read this, too.

Done? Good.

I'm not going to get on a soapbox and start ranting a la Dennis Miller here, but I am going to say this.

Every year, every day, every minute more and more of our fundamental rights are taken away from us.

The vast majority of people don't even realize it.

This country has a wonderful little safety feature, somewhat akin to a built-in revolution every four years. It's called an election. It's a chance for every person in America to wake up, stand up, and in every combined voice and dialect in this land, say, "We will not take this anymore!"

When that right, the right to freely choose our own leaders, the right to freely choose our own destiny, is the one being not just taken, but stolen from us, it's time to stand up.

It's time for a change. I, for one, don't intend to wait for the election.

It may seem useless, but write your congressmen and women. Write your governor. Write your newspaper. Write your locals news stations. Write your cousin in the sheriff's department, but for god's sake, do something.

Don't just stand there and let this shit be pulled on you.

Go make some noise.

For all our sakes.


The following links are designed to assist with getting word out of this grotesque situation with our voting systems. Please put them to use.

www.verifiedvoting.org
www.jbs.org/visitor/congress/cgcontact.htm
news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=diebold&btnG=Search+News
www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78 (working)
www.kepplerassociates.com/speakers/harrisbev.asp?2 (a bio on the reporter who has called this attention by posting the story below on her blackboxvoting.org site, which is now working again.)
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm (how to contact your senators)
www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html (a media contact list. This story needs coverage on national media outlets.)
petition.democracyforamerica.com/page/p/verify?source=google&subsource=10 (a petition for fully accountable voting systems)


Important!

Read this link. It's posted above, but dammit, I want to make sure this gets noticed.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78

It is the story that I had posted in this writeup before. Since the website is now working, the story has been removed from this daylog until I can secure permission from the author to repost it.


This isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Craigslist posting:

$650 - You'd have to be NUTS, but it's worth a shot (Gramercy Park)

Date: 2004-09-01, 1:49AM EDT

The lease says it's a one bedroom. It's not. It's really a divided studio - one long room with a half wall. One room's mine. The other could be yours if you've got the stomach.

Just so you know what you'd be getting yourself into: it's an amazingly cramped space. Privacy is non-existent (barring the bathroom - yes, it has a door. And a lock!) We'd be in each other's company pretty much 24 hours a day. If you want to be alone at all, you'd better get used to reading by flashlight in the tub (the faucet of which drips). We could hang a curtain or something, but...then you'd be living in a cave - the windows are in the other room.

If you own ANYTHING apart from clothes and such, you're simply not gonna have room. I got dibs on the closet. Maybe. I'll fight ya for it.

Oh, and I work the night shift, generally getting home around 1am and not even thinking about sleep until sunrise. The music almost never stops. Luckily, the walls are solid rock. Unluckily, that'd help you not one bit. Quiet simply doesn't exist here, at least when I'm around (which is quite a lot).

Neat freaks (or neat people in general, or, really, anyone who distinguishes between a soda bottle and an ashtray) are not encouraged to apply.

Speaking of ashtrays...I smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish, generally simultaneously, and no, I don't go outside every time I need a cig.

Did I mention the cats? Guess not. There are two of 'em, both extremely friendly and cute, but still.

The only reason my former roomate and I could pull this off is because we were practically identical except that she was, um, a girl (sort of). But she had the gall to fall in love and move to Texas. Bastard.

- - -

Ok, so there are some advantages. It's in a wonderful neighborhood in a gorgeous building with easy access to everything - laundry across the street, 24-hour delis, a pharmacy on the corner, super easy access to the 6 train and more Irish pubs than it'd be wise to shake a stick at. Lots of good people (generally dropping by at 3am with forties and merriment) and all that. There's even an art deco fountain across the way, tends to lower the temperature on the block a few degrees from normal and you'd never notice it unless you were looking for it.

Cost is half of everything, which amounts to half the rent ($650 a month each) half the electricity and half the net access. Everything else is included - water, heat and dry wit all free. No pets, please - believe me, I've got enough. Bring a dog in here and it'd probably get eaten by the cats, collar and all.

Move in date's October first, or earlier if you'd like. It's either I find a best friend extremely fast (like, yesterday) or I move to...somewhere else. And I really like this place.

So. Any offers?

Map: 26th st. and 2nd avenue
this is in or around Gramercy Park
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests



Yes, I actually posted this. T'will be interesting to see what kind of responses I get, if any.
Oh, and noding this was HER idea. Shoot all insults her way. I'm sure I'll hear about 'em anyway.

It seems as though I have been wrestling with Cupid ever since the first pubic hair reared its ugly little head, moving girls from the category of 'icky' to just plain wowza!

Most of us overcome our initial shyness, meet up with someone we synch, and there is a moment where they look into each other's eyes and see eternity. Or maybe two people find companionship and then realize they can't bear to be apart. Whether eros precedes agape matters little, the point is that at some point two people realize they are right for each other, that they have found something worth struggling and working for.

That's how families are born. They aren't born in the back of a pickup, though drive-in movies may play a role. They aren't about drunken debauchery, though life partners should debauch a bit. You can't import one from Eastern Europe. Families are born when two people commit to each other, and agree to bend themselves because they become more as two than they were as individuals.

I have seen them in my life. I remember two aged couples, with Alzheimer's Disease and incontinence, holding hands, reluctant to be parted. I have seen it two men, as one sat by his partner's dying bedside. I have seen this in some of my friends, how they attend to each other, how the presence of their spouse seems to brighten their face. They are not two, they are a team, and there is no 'I' in team.

I have never been one of those people.

I have fallen four times in my life. The first time was with Lisa. She was tall and wore tight jeans, tight rugby shirts, and never a bra, which showed her eternal pokies to great effect. She was brilliant and outrageous, and she fucked everyone but me.

In fact, my relationship with her could hardly have proven more humiliating. I was a virgin back then, never dated, utterly clueless about women. I made one pass at her, slipped my arm around her to caress the small of her back. She stiffened. I interpreted this as 'no' and stopped.. She turned to me, said, "If you aren't capable of good healthy sex" and ran fast as she could back to her dorm, leaving me shaking my head in confusion.

Two weeks later we were at a bar. I was with my friends. She was with her date, the man who had asked her out because she put out. Buzzed she came up to me, sought me out, found me, and asked, "Why do you like me? Why do you care when I'm such a shit?"

I wish i had just grabbed her and kissed her. Instead I tried to logically explain my feelings. She ran and a few minutes later she was in her date's arms, his tongue down her throat. Once again I found myself crushed, utterly confused over what had just happened.

I didn't understand until years later. Back then I didn't know what abused people looked like. I now realize Lisa didn't know what real love looked like. Her father had just left her mother for a new, status wife. She was hurt, bitter and deeply angry. She lost herself in sex and drugs to fill a void in her heart. I understand her actions toward me. I represented danger to her, because I actually cared. If she got involved with me, her feelings would follow, and in her experience, love hurts.

I hope she became a Jesus Freak. This was in 1977, not long before AIDS appeared on the horizon. The path she walked lead to death, either by disease or suicide. I fear she has died.

Next I loved Karen, the first woman whom I had real chemistry with and returned my attention. But she was wiser than i. I wanted too much from her. She left the moment i used the 'L word".

Then I loved Stacy. She wanted a boy toy. Instead she got a romance at a time of her life when romance had become synonymous with pain. I wanted a wife. We parted for years, but now we're friends. Friends with some special memories that aren't unpleasant for either of us.

Finally, I loved Elaine. I met her at a science fiction convention one week after she left her husband. She was beautiful, intelligent, feminine and the first year was magical. She was the only woman I ever brought home to meet Mom and Dad. But that too failed. She is the reason I call myself Transitional Man.

In June i met someone new. A widow. Brilliant. Articulate. Passionate. We spent the first day we met playing footsie. I'm older now and know enough not to get my hopes too high. But I had real hope.

But Cupid once again reared his ugly head and bit me. Soon after Stacy I dated a woman named Tara. She came to my house with a cold sore on her lips. I asked about it. She replied "It's just a sore. Don't worry about it and kiss me."

To my eternal regret, I did kiss her. Repeatedly.

Since 1991 I have suffered from periodic outbreaks of oral herpes. Never have I passed it on. When I feel the 'tingling' begin that signals the start of an outbreak, I declare myself a 'smooch-free zone". I didn't pass it to Elaine, or H, J, L, or D, or any of the other women I have been with since that time.

But my new girlfriend has had an outbreak. Even though we did not kiss at our last meeting, though we certainly did touch. She thinks it came from a towel or something. Now she's rethinking the whole relationship.

I can't blame her for being frightened. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Perhaps her hopes are are less high than mine, despite our obvious chemistry. She is more liberal than I. I camp, but at race tracks rather than campgrounds. There are a million reasons to break up with someone, and only one good reason to stay together. Maybe we could never have made it.

Such thoughts are little comfort when irony strikes with a red hot poker.

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