Sunday

It's Sunday morning. In two days, two unfortunate things will occur.

First, and most personally, I will have to get up at 5AM, spend a tedious day at the polls, stay late to process the large number of absentee ballots, and then drive through the horrible construction out to the county elections office to drop off the results. And second, I'll tune in to the national results to see how badly the Democrats have been thumped. That they will lose control of the House is likely; that they will lose control of the Senate is possible. I find this to be very disheartening. I am not sophisticated, politically; I tend to think that Democrats have the right idea about how to run things, and to find that the majority of my countrymen think otherwise -- the results of dealing with two horrific problems bequeathed by the Republicans -- is, as I say, disheartening. The sole bright spot of late was the turnout for the Rally to Restore Sanity. Would that it is effective.

On the positive side, I think I have a grasp on a problem I've had in understanding a specific tense in French - the Passé Composé, a form of past tense. I am going to backtrack in Rosetta Stone today to see if that is the case. It will be tedious beyond imagining, but it is something that I need to do if I am ever to speak French adequately - something that, at times, I despair of ever accomplishing. That I absolutely get no feedback from our French guest of this past summer sometimes makes me wonder why I bother trying to learn the language, let alone, contemplate going to her home. It is entirely possible that if we do go, she will completely ignore us, or, at most, give a polite nod at meals. And that, only if we're invited to stay at her parents' home; that's not a given. I think it's just that I'm stubborn, and, when it comes to wanting certain people to like me, stupidly persistent.

I started reading a novel, Prospero Lost, by L. Jagi Lamplighter. It's a fantasy, but it's not bad. And I'm rereading 19, A Story, which I like tremendously for all of its dated style. I had a brief telephone conversation with the author, once, and had the chance to meet him, which never happened. I'm a little saddened by that.