Day 15, Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

I'll be honest, not a lot happened today. I was supposed to have a dental checkup at 2:45, but that got pushed back to Thursday, so today was unexpectedly free. We decided to just take it easy, or maybe I did, because Mom still did a million things. Regardless, we didn't even leave the SCCA House.

I did some writing, briefly helped with laundry and the making of soup, and basically spent the day in computery repose. Mom did laundry (in one big go, there are eight free machines downstairs), made soup, answered somewhere in the vicinity of a million emails, read her book, wrote her journal, Skyped and chatted amiably with everyone who came her way.

I did get a hold of Comcast, and I am going to be getting wonderful, blessed, high-speed internet set up in my room on Saturday. Boo. Yah.

I also did something I promised myself I wouldn't do, which was discuss politics with Americans, but luckily everyone that I talked to thought their system was as much of a Gong Show as I do, so crisis averted.

I almost decided to start talking politics here, in this space, just now. In fact, I had a big thing written up, but that's not what this space is for; it is for updates and goings on. Let's just say that I am cognizant that the Democrats are actually not a liberal party, and are in fact slightly to the right of the center. It's just that the Republicans are so far off in coo-coo-bananas right wing territory that the Dems seem liberal, by comparison. It's like the GOP keeps forgetting that women and brown people can vote, you know? 

Whoops, talked a little politics anyway. Screw it, then, let's keep going, shall we?

It's actually quite strange, talking politics in America. People pause and look around before speaking, afraid that someone might hear them, whereas in Canada, I feel quite comfortable telling anyone who will listen the myriad reasons why Harper is a dick and why his people don't care about you.

So far, right-wingers seem a lot more open initially, but once someone who leans left finds out that you share their views, it's like a floodgate opens and they are so happy to talk to someone who seems sane, in their estimation. The lefties are more tolerant, the righties more reactionary, and no one wants to start talking about politics with a stranger because that might mean that you can't be friendly with someone who is, in all other ways, a compatible human being. One of the guys I've met here actually lost his job because he dared to hold a political view contrary to that of his employers. Thirty-somethings feel disconnected from their parents, who staunchly hold to politics that haven't been updated since the seventies. And hell, I'm in Seattle. It's pretty liberal around here.

"You can trust the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried every other alternative." - Winston Churchill