Momentous

May marks the one-year anniversary of this blog. Not that, you know, that's such a huge deal, but I thought it warranted a mention. What is a huge deal is that today, I got to cast my vote for a woman for President of the United States. I know that Hillary's chances look slim, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate her staying in the race long enough for me to have the opportunity to vote for her. A lot of people say she's hurting the party by remaining in the race. Let me tell you something: If the democratic process hurts the party, then it isn't much of a party to begin with. Politics is changing, and the old farts and the media need to accept that. I think the country is better for having had a real, honest-to-goodness primary race. No matter how you voted, if you live in Kentucky and voted today, then your vote was a momentous one. Well, if you're a Democrat anyway. If you're a Republican, then congratulations, you got to vote for another old white guy. Don't you feel just grand?
Kentuckians almost never get a say in Presidential nominees, but voting in this primary was particularly gratifying. Actually, I am always gratified by getting to vote. I am a blind woman. For most of this country's history, I would have been denied the right to vote, but not anymore. Today, I went to my polling place, chatted with the nice poll workers, and was shown to a talking voting booth that I could use independently. Independently! There is much wrong with our country, much that I hope our next President will work to fix, but today, I voted. Independently! Even ten years ago, that was not a possibility. It's proof that things can change. Think about this: A blind woman voted at a talking voting machine and had the option to cast her ballot for a woman or for an African American. How can you read that sentence and not feel a sense of national pride? It isn't often that I feel optimistic about the United States, but I absolutely did this morning.
If you live in Kentucky, please get out and vote today. And no matter where you live, if your reason for not voting has to do with your registration or some such technicality, please make it a point to rectify the situation by November. We have all heard time and time again that people fought and died for our right to vote. I think we hear it so much it's a cliché, meaningless. But I know the meaning. Today, I voted independently, and it meant a hell of a lot to me.

A Public Service Announcement

Calling all bloggers. If you have word verification enabled on your blog, I cannot comment. Yes, there is a link to listen and type, and yes, in theory that should work, but it doesn't. It's a matter of switching from navigation mode to typing mode, and apparently Blogger.com, A.K.A. Google, didn't consult the makers of any popular screenreaders before programming their "listen and type" word verification feature, because-- let me repeat-- it doesn't work! Blogger.com, if you're paying attention out there, you've got a problem, and it makes you look like an idiot. When people comment on my blog, I very much want to reciprocate by commenting on theirs. It's blog etiquette, right? So this word verification crap is making me appear unmannered and impolite, and I really don't like that. For those of you who have word verification enabled, why? Do you have so much spam traffic that it's necessary? Did you even know you had it enabled? Have you got a fear of blind commenters? So I'm asking you, if you don't need it, turn it off.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I actually got some of my holiday shopping done this weekend. Trust me, this is not like me, but thanks to a serendipitous trip to Kohl's, where there happened to be a killer sale, I got lots of my list knocked out. It also helped that Michael's siblings decided not to exchange gifts. Woo Hoo! That's four people off my list with one phone call. And I got cheap gifts for some of the other people who fall into the "obligatory" category. Now, I can shop for the people I genuinely want to buy gifts for.
So I'm interested, who's on your obligatory list? Those people you'd really rather not have to spend time and money on? Don't worry, I won't tell.

One Month on Blogger, Is Anybody out There?

today, I am a blogger for a month! Go me! Well okay, it isn't really a month yet, but I go to the "view my profile" link on my blog and it tells me that I have been on Blogger since may 2007. and now it's June. so for all blogger cares, I've been blogging for a month. Why, you might ask, do I visit the "view my profile" section of my blog? Presumably, I know me, right? well, that is where I find out how many people have viewed my profile, which is just now the only indicator I have that anyone is reading my blog, and frankly, that isn't going so well. 11 people have viewed my profile, and I'm pretty sure I'm nine of them. Why, you might wonder, don't I just get one of those site statistic program deals to tell me with far greater accuracy how many people have visited my blog? As it happens, I'm not what you'd call techno savvy. There is a reason I fell in love with a computer science major in college. the way to a man's heart might be through his stomach, but the way to mine was through my hard drive. (You there, out of the gutter!) So I haven't exactly figured out the whole website statistics game. Until I do, I'll just keep viewing my profile. If you're reading this now and that page says that 100 or more people have viewed my profile, it means that I all of a sudden got very popular-- or more likely, very bored.

Blog Therapy

A few weeks ago, I was out of town, at the hospital having my regular six-month scans. I already knew that surgery was imminent, it was only a matter of how soon. It was early in the morning, 3 a.m. I didn't want to wake my husband, but I could not continue to lie in bed, alone with my thoughts and the too familiar specters of fear and anxiety. I got up and logged onto the internet. I surfed my usual blogs-- those of people I know outside of the blogosphere, and those of people whose writing voices and willingness to share their day-to-day with me makes them people that I enjoy having a visit with. And suddenly, I was home. I might as well have been sitting on my couch with my laptop, which is my usual Sunday morning routine. The dread was gone. It had slipped out, defeated, without me noticing. What the future held for me got lost in the mundane details and sometimes profound musings of the strangers I know so well.
Now, I have joined the ranks of the bloggers (somewhat belatedly, I realize) because their is power in the written word, no matter how it's written or how it's delivered. Power for both writer and reader. Power to touch, comfort, move, amuse, and to both provoke thought and to hold thought at bay. Not one to regularly leave comments to my blogging friends, may this serve as my thank you.