I have fallen off the blog bandwagon, and hard. I don’t know why but I’ve had a positive aversion to posting lately (lately, as in the last three whole months).

Anyway, I was one of the tribe who went to Pantheacon and I’m not sure what I can add to the already wonderful and brilliant descriptions and reflections on the experience. Honestly I think I’m still processing it all.

I’m still having weird and intense (though good) dreams about my covenmates every night and every time I take a nap; they are so intense that it makes me wonder if the people in them are having the same dreams…

I learned that I love my tribe so much it’s kinda indescribable, that it’s actually pretty damn ok to be the Tower, and that I look good in a corset (who doesn’t, really?). I learned that the rituals and performances my group did were some of the best in the entire Con.

The Devil and The Tower

I learned that I’m wiser and more dangerous than I give myself credit for. I’m not sure, but I think those are both good things.

I also learned that those PCon organizers weren’t kidding when they said you should eat at least 2 meals and get at least 6 hours sleep every day (I learned that one the hard way, I got a terrible, miserable cold the week after PCon), but it was fun anyway so who really cares?

And, not least of all, I learned, by missing a week of school because I was so sick, that my coven community is far more important than my school community because my school is full of shit 90% of the time (see, Thora, we totally agree about pretentious artist crap) and that I really don’t care about my degree anymore except that I’m planning on using financial aid to get to Italy this summer and I only have a year to go and I don’t want to be a quitter.

The result of all this epiphany is that I haven’t watched any of my Netflix movies in over a month and have certainly paid several times over to have simply bought them by now.

Ah well.

President-Elect Obama

Yes on 1A (high-speed rail)

Yes on 2 (humane treatment of farm animals)

No on 4 (forcible parental notification and waiting period for teen abortion)

No on 7 and 10 (poorly conceived and manipulative “energy-reform” propositions)

Yes on WW (restoration of state parks)

BUT (and it’s a BIG one),

Proposition 8 passed.

It passed.

I’d like to wail and wonder, “How could this happen?,” but, sadly, I know far too well how this could happen. Of course, it was soundly rejected by my home base, the Bay Area, and pretty much all up and down the California coast.

There are plenty of conservative, religious zealots in the Central Valley, though, and they think everyone should be forced to conform to their religious beliefs.

What about freedom of religion, you ask? Pshaw! Who needs it!

How about the separation of church and state? Sacrilege!

Why, don’t we live in a god-fearing christian country? Didn’t we add “under god” to our pledge of allegiance in the 1950s? Doesn’t it say “in god we trust” on our money? Don’t we still have a born-again christian for president for 3 more months?

I feel so, ugh, I don’t know…elated grim hopeful disgusted joyful depressed.

Some very dear friends of mine have been told they don’t count as much as Mark and I do because of their private, personal, completely loving and non-harmful to anyone, love lives.

Parents at Duncan’s school who volunteer in the PTA and act as room parents and willingly perform their civic duty have been told they are not deserving of the same rights that I have.

Friends, relatives, classmates, and many more people I don’t know, have been told they aren’t good enough to marry the ones they love.

Mark wisely pointed out that civil rights aren’t won in elections, they’re won in court.

That’s true, and lawsuits have already been filed.

Those couples who were married before the ban passed have been assured they would be “grandfathered in” and their marriages will still count.

The folks at No on Prop 8 have said that all the votes still haven’t been counted yet and there’s still hope. I want to believe them, but I fear it’s wishful thinking on their part. I guess time will tell.

So there you have it. The people have both renewed my faith and let me down.

That is, my peeps here in the Bay haven’t let me down, but narrow-minded people in other parts of the state and their fear and intolerance have betrayed us all.

When you start taking away civil rights, by constitutional revision no less, you head down a very slippery slope. Where does it end?

Let’s hope it’ll end very soon in the California Supreme Court.

But, YAY! Obama, still, you know?

There is still hope.

I always vote absentee ballot, but this time I dropped it off in person at my nearest polling place because I wasn’t about to take the chance that it could get lost in the mail. I mean, that’s never happened before (as far as I know), but this election is so crucial, I couldn’t live with any uncertainty about whether or not my vote would be counted (well…).

Now I just have to wait.

I can’t handle watching election results, never could. This year it’s especially bad. Watching the things I care about inch up or down as the votes are tallied? I can’t bear it.

AARGH! I have to find something inane to occupy me so I can get through the day…

The last time I was this anxious about an election was four years ago, and we know how that came out.
Duncan, on the other hand, was quite certain about what the results would be. Change is in the air for him, he is quite certain.

Maybe he knows something I’m just too anxious to feel.

Only time will tell.

Wake me when it’s over.