vote early, vote often

scott and i voted early tonight. the polls closed at 5pm, so we rushed down the closest polling place at the budlong woods library and stood in line. there were about 20-30 people in front of us. i thought they would just close the doors and tell us remainders to go home, but they herded us into an adjoining room where we waited for our turn to vote.

it was all electronic touch-screen, which was pretty cool. none of those crazy chads to deal with, thank you very much. one of the volunteers said that this week they've had 500 people a day. and this is just one small library on the north side of chicago. the other 50 polling places were probably just as busy, if not more. the place downtown, as a woman in line with us commented, had "close to a thousand people" standing in line to vote at lunchtime.

it took about 40 minutes from start to finish. pretty painless, really. and now we don't have to get out of bed at 5:30am to get to the polls before work. scott's taking the day after the election off, to either celebrate or mourn. i'm hoping we're celebrating. i just don't think i will be able to handle it if mccain and his honey win.

but really, it doesn't matter who you are voting for, get out there and exercise your american right to vote. it's fun and civic all at the same time. and maybe, if you're lucky, you'll be in a booth next to a mother and her 9-month-old son who will happen to pull out the plug for a bank of electronic touch-screens. that was pretty funny.

i am going to put this up

by the thermostat:


it's been 35 degrees the last few nights and we still have yet to turn on our heat. i like that we live on the 3rd floor.

mashups

my sister sent me this link to these photo mashups:

http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/10/ghosts-of-mt-washington.html

i was intriqued and wondered if i could do the same thing with some photos of chicago. i came up with these:


old chicago

new chicago

then i tried to put them together. I'm not sure if i was as anal as the guy who did the mt. washington images, but i think it came out pretty well. the hard part was finding a simple, recent image of the chicago river. isn't that surprising? i think a good project would be to do some research on loc.gov to find some historic images of chicago and then go take my own pics that match up to the old ones and put them together. i'd really like to do a streetcar scene on michigan ave. good luck getting an empty-enough recent street scene to do it.

"women's health"

MCCAIN: Just again, the example of the eloquence of Senator Obama. He's health for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything.

That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, "health." But, look, Cindy and I are adoptive parents. We know what a treasure and joy it is to have an adopted child in our lives. We'll do everything we can to improve adoption in this country.

But that does not mean that we will cease to protect the rights of the unborn. Of course, we have to come together. Of course, we have to work together, and, of course, it's vital that we do so and help these young women who are facing such a difficult decision, with a compassion, that we'll help them with the adoptive services, with the courage to bring that child into this world and we'll help take care of it.

i don't know where to start. that he claims that democrats are all about "bigger government" yet want to regulate my uterus? or that in single hand gesture, i was marginalized by a 72-year-old man.

or that all of a sudden, every american who has an opinion on abortion is suddenly a doctor? as one woman asked on another blog's comment section: Julia says those would have been her options had her onset of HELLP happened before viability (-24 weeks??). If that is the case would that have really been a "late-term" abortion (not sneer quotes, I am really trying to understand)? When does a late-term abortion actually take place? And if you have placenta previa, wouldn't partial dilation cause the bleeding you are trying to avoid in the first place?

if you haven't been in that person's shoes or are not their physician, i just don't understand how anyone can question their choices. it's like asking someone, "can you describe what cheese tastes like?" or "can you explain the color blue to me?" is this country so filled with people who want to be right that we have to offer our opinions on such intimate, personal issues?

i love that it's 2008 and somehow, men still think us women are weak and can't make the right decisions for ourselves. whether it's about abortion or mental health or equal pay, we're still pushed to the side with a wave of their manly hands with the feeling of "don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

so, republican men, what should i wear tomorrow? should i get my hair cut this weekend? which book should i read next? i mean, since you're making decisions about my body, you may as well run the rest of my life. i was getting tired of thinking for myself anyway.

if abortion was a male health issue, it wouldn't even be up for debate. it would be 100% legal and that's the last we'd hear about it.

giving up

i dropped out of my organic chemistry class. it wasn't because it was hard, it was because it was taking up too much time. too much time to do what, you might ask? nothing much, really, but i just didn't look forward to going. getting up at 6am and getting home at 9 was stressing me out. i also want to focus on my health and nutrition and start cooking more. and i can't do that if i'm in class mon, tues, wed until 8pm.

i wrote my teacher and told her that i had to leave the class. i haven't heard back from her, but really, i didn't go monday, yesterday, or today and i didn't miss it. i feel it's the right decision. my sister said that i was burned out. how right she is.

from my husband during the debate

i have dingleberries with your name on it, mccain!

i love politics.

completely unrelated

i am back with my obsession with helen keller. don't ask. her life just seems completely amazing to me... to be totally void of all sight and hearing. all hearing is what really gets me. i can imagine not having sight... just turn off the lights in a light-tight darkroom. but no hearing. at. all. no muffled noises. no humming. even when you put earplugs in, you still get some vibration of your cochlea. according to the book i'm reading now, she was sick when she was so young, her ear bones didn't even develop. so she gots nothing.

she also had her natural eyes taken out when she was 30 and replaced with prosthetics because one eye was more prominent than the other.

she also had a younger sister and brother. and i'm tired of looking up their information, so i'm posting it here:

mildred keller tyson: born october 26, 1887; died december, 1969.
phillips brooks keller: born july 4, 1891; died march, 1971.

i had to find this info on the social security death index. sheesh.

side effects

they are coming back a little bit. i'm super-tired and still anxious. last week was pretty good in that i actually took the train from my home all the way to work. huzzah!

but today i had to stay home. a small fever (probably not a side-effect), but i'm just tired of being sick all the time. sometimes i think my train of life has derailed. isn't that deep? now i feel trapped in this condo, in this city, in the same job. and really, the job isn't that bad. i just hate the commute. and there's no reason why i should hate the commute.... nothing has ever happened to me on the train. i think it's just the time it takes. the older i get, the more i hate to wait for anything. i can't stand the following things:

waiting in line
being stopped on a train
being in meetings
stopping to talk to people i might know on the street that i haven't talked to in a while
being stopped in traffic
going to job interviews

i hate feeling trapped. but i can ride in elevators and be in smaller spaces. maybe i hate to be held up by other people. i hate the human race in general, so it probably stems from that. maybe some day i won't have the abhorance of the predictable assholishness of human nature.

what's been going on

so i've been trying my hand at antidepressants (AD). my first attempt was a week ago monday. the day before my period. after i had a heinous day at work. i was up at 1am, sweating my nuts off. yeah, i had them, but these AD made them melt away. anyway, after the hot flash went away (about 15 minutes), the nausea set in. like a vomiting dusk. and didn't rise until the next day at 2pm. nausea like, "can't smell food without wanting to hurl." i went to work late and then went to my lab, which goes until 9pm. ha! i left at 8, since i still felt pretty crappy. i didn't take my meds that night. i said, "screw it, i'll wait until the weekend to make myself feel like crap." so i called my doc, he said to halve the dose and give it another shot. so i did just that.

and it worked like a charm.

i don't know if it was because it was a full dose, because it was the day before my period, or what, but man, i was totally freaked out about taking that half dose. but the side-effects were totally gone. thank god.

now i'm tired. so tired. but i'm hoping that by the time my next period rolls around, this is all balanced out. i don't want to be up all night, fighting the urge the puke.

less disappointed

thanks, liz, for being more well-read than i on obama's take on gay marriage:

liz has left a new comment on your post "disappointed":

IMHO...he really has to say he opposes it to get middle america to vote for him, and I don't mind that. Here's the important thing:

Obama says that he personally believes that "marriage is between a man and a woman" but also says that "equality is a moral imperative" for gay and lesbian Americans. He advocates the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because "federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does." He supports granting civil unions for gay couples, and in 2006 he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In March 2007, Obama initially avoided answering questions about a controversial statement by a U.S. general that "homosexual acts" are "immoral," but Obama later told CNN's Larry King, "I don't think that homosexuals are immoral any more than I think heterosexuals are immoral."

disappointed

i am watching the VP debate. i just learned that Obama and Biden don't support same-sex marriage. why don't they come out and say that marriage between a black man and a white women (or visa versa) shouldn't be supported? i mean, come on. why can't see that this is just another hold-over from the religious right? that in another 10 years, we're going to look back on our fears and ask, "what was the big deal?"

by the way, Palin: it's "nu·cle·ar," not "nu·cu·ler." sheesh. you and the bush administration make a great pair.

and why is it so hard for them to answer a damn question? "what's more dangerous? a nuclear iran or an unstable Pakistan?" neither one of them answered that. "what promises did you make that you're not going to be able to fulfill?" also unanswered. what i loved the most is that palin wouldn't even answer a question so she could refute something that biden had said. she just can't get off the energy thing. oh, and what state are you from? alaska, you say? and you also say that there's oil in alaska? huh. i didn't know that.

and biden brings up a good point... how much different will mccain's policies be from bush's policies? SO TRUE!

more to come later...

seizures

i don't know if you know this, but i love anything medical. i try to learn all i can about anything that comes my way, including medications, conditions, outcomes. i have blog links for several sites that talk about child leukemia, diabetes, pre-eclampsia, premature babies. i also read a lot of ER docs blogs, including WhiteCoat Rants. and one thing i've learned through out my readings, is that you NEVER put ANYTHING in the mouth of person having a seizure. i have gotten into arguments with friends over this. and since i'm not a doctor (yet), i don't really push.

but here it is, from the ER doc's mouth. an especially don't use a shoe:

A little free advice to those trying to help seizure patients …

I have never heard of a seizing patient swallowing their tongue. You may force the issue if you shove an object in their mouth, but the tongue will still be there when patient is done seizing. Seizing patients often bite their tongues - usually on the tip or on the sides. If you see blood coming from a seizing person’s mouth, chances are that is what happened. Those wounds hurt for a little while, but they heal.

Trying to shove something into a seizing patient’s mouth may damage their gums or their teeth, could compromise their breathing, may get stuck in their throat, and probably won’t do a whole lot of good. Don’t do it.

The first thing to do if a patient is seizing is to take your own pulse. It’s scary to watch if you haven’t seen it happen before.
Then do what you can to keep them from injuring themselves. If they are near the edge of a wall or there is a sharp rock on the ground nearby, try to help the person avoid it.
If the person vomits, roll them on their side so the vomit can drain out of their mouth and they don’t choke on it.
If you’re concerned about the patient’s condition, then call 911. Better safe than sorry.
Don’t put yourself in danger when doing any of the above.

There are many types of seizures. After a “grand mal” (”shaking”) seizure, the patients are usually “spent.” They often appear to be in a deep sleep and may snore. They are difficult to arouse. Very rarely is this a “stroke,” although it may appear that way to people who have never seen a seizure before. Read about what happens after a seizure, called the “post-ictal” period, here.

Oh, and keep your shoes on …

Can’t imagine what it would feel like to wake up from a seizure with the taste of crabgrass, shoe rubber, and dog manure in my mouth.