Yes, people of social media, I have a voting plan. My voting plan is that I voted a week ago. Like, I get that we need to push the message but Lord, if I never hear the words “voting plan” again in my life it will be too soon. (I signed up to phone bank for Biden in Michigan and did training, and “voting plan” came up in the training. I was able to phone bank one night, and then the hurricane came and took away power and internet. So, oh well. Maybe the 17 messages I left on people’s voicemails on one night of phone banking reminded 17 people to turn in their ballots. Even if it’s just one, it was worth it.)
More importantly, this morning I am making an Election Day plan. I have voted in (counts on fingers, furrows brow, does some math) 6 presidential elections. (I turned 18 too late in 1996 to register, if I recall correctly – I know I did not vote in the Dole/Clinton election.) In 2000, I was living in Australia at the time of the election (I voted absentee) and missed the whole hanging chads debacle Thank You Jesus. I would love to go splash at the beach in Curl Curl and drink a 4X beer to escape today’s stresses, but alas, such a long flight Down Under during the ‘rona would not be advisable.
So instead, today I am going to give social media a miss. I might check out Jessica Yellin (News Not Noise) on instagram occasionally, because she delivers news in a grownup, non sensationalized way. Otherwise, though, I am going to practice discipline and not look at people’s breathless hot takes on all the various platforms.
Instead, today I am going to work really hard on staying as Zen as possible. I have already done my Divine Hours prayer. I think I’ll start the day with some coffee, and do a pilates class online (my teacher is named Jessica Lazer, aka Sweet Tooth Simone – she’s amazing, you can look her up on youtube). Then a Peloton app stretching class that I love – it involves jamming your knee into the opposite calf and if you do it your life will change forever, I promise. (I do not have a Peloton bike, but I do have a login for the mat classes). I plan to meditate for 15 minutes at some point today. There will be lots of water, and fruit, and veggies on the menu – we are having Thai black pepper chicken for dinner. I do have to work of course as well. I’ll bill my hours as required, lots of calls today. The boys are home (STILL) since it’s election day and their school is a polling place. HEAVY SIGH.
It’s been a long four years and while I’m not sure Biden will win (it’s likely, but after 2016 I’ll never be sure of anything again). But right now I’m feeling like we can handle whatever comes. Deep breaths, and hope for the future.
Ooh, ooh – I forgot to mention – I signed up for NaNoWriMo! And I bought Scrivener! It is possible you are scratching your head at this, so to explain – NaNoWriMo is a 501(c)(3) – the name is short for National Novel Writing Month. I don’t know tons about it, except that people commit to writing 50,000 words of a novel and writing every day in the month of November. (I always thought this was an odd choice of month for an American novel-writing challenge, seeing as how it contains Thanksgiving, but there you go.) Signing up is free, and basically then they just heckle you each night to be sure you did your writing that day, and you can engage with others on the site for encouragement. The reminder has been helpful.
Scrivener is a powerful word processing tool which, frankly, I could see using for writing briefs for work, it has so many amazing features. It’s fifty bucks for a lifetime license to use Scrivener, and everyone I know who has bought it and done the tutorial on how to use it thinks it’s great. So far, I have not written any words for my novel but I’ve started some research. The setting is Pompeii, or Herculaneum – it will be a few years before the Vesuvius eruption that took those cities out. I actually double majored in college, in theater and in classical studies, and I can still read Latin pretty well (I also learned Greek, but do not remember a dang word of it – I can recite the alphabet, but that’s about it). I find the Roman empire fascinating, and I think I could make a piece of historical fiction set in Pompeii interesting. I think. Maybe not, as I go along perhaps it will morph into something else, and that’s ok. Right now I’m reading a lot of Mary Beard (a classical scholar) and brushing up on my Roman history and noodling around with character names, and it’s exciting and fun! Makes a nice change from studying coronavirus guidance, which is what I’ve been doing night and day for work for eight months.
Anyway, I’m off to do my self care routine. Be well, take care, and let’s hope that love wins today.