In this case I happened to be correct in presuming that you lack first-person experience with non-situational clinical depression over an extended period of time and with substance addiction.

You win?

Where I was apparently mistaken was in assuming that your interest was in being supportive in a helpful way.

I said I was sympathetic with your brother's point of view. I really don't presume to know what's going to be most helpful for you. I wish you good health and hope for your well-being and that is sincere.

Call it a flounce

Okay.

I haven't tried to persuade you to quit. (Though I wish you would because I care about your well being.)

This is really slick of you Hec, Totes slick.

At 41, I'm still waiting for grey/white/silver

Me too, at 43. But my sister only has a couple herself. My mother is salt and pepper, much futher ahead than my father, which started with his beard and then went to his temples.

the March was so stressful, I was not surprised.

You know that's not how it works, right?

Yeah, the SO's grey is all temples and beard. Which means when he shaves clean (or to his "jazz stache") and cuts his mohawk, he loses about ten years in an instant.

And wouldn't you know, the second to last item, I fill in the wrong bubble.

If you call them, they tell you how to mark the ballot and still mail it in.

Or, alternately, they lied to me. Which is why I documented the hell out of the call when it happened yesterday. It wasn't a race I am hugely invested in if that one vote is DQ'd because looking at the district lines, the guy I want to vote for is going to lose big.

Still, it took me most of yesterday to deal with all of the races and all of the propositions and measures. I cannot believe the average *California voter will invest that much time and that means people are voting sound bites or commercials. Scary.

*Are there other places that are so dependent on voter initiatives? Because that's sort of why I am electing people: to make and change laws. I don't have the time or brain to read every single piece of proposed legislation and not just weigh it but look for loopholes and hidden bits. I elect people. That's supposed to be what we do.

California definitely demonstrates that direct democracy is a stupid fucking idea when implemented on a large scale.

I agree. Mom and I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon going over the whole ballot. And the majority of it seemed like things I elect folks to do, why am I voting on this?? And yes, to think how many people vote based on a TV spot that is not accurate. Messed up!

California definitely demonstrates that direct democracy is a stupid fucking idea when implemented on a large scale.

We want to vote on every tax change (read: increase). And then, oh noes, it's a tax, vote noooooooooo!

So our schools suck and my town is scrambling for fire department coverage. Fire coverage! How is this America? Some things need to be whatever the community- or country-based version of crowdsourcing is. Like a Fire Dept.

I understand that people are concerned with their immediate needs. It's why there should be groups that look farther and broader and prepare for the possibilities like huge storms and people breaking into your home. Not voting on every thing because very few people plan personally on how to defend their homes from unexpected fire. We think (hope) that it won't happen to us. But it does happen, so it happens to some of us.

Agreed that the ballot initiatives in California are always a mess, but that's why it's important you vote. So we can outnumber the crazies and the outrageously uninformed.

We voted today. Hubby voted for Romney. He wouldn't have told me, but I did ask, even though politics is rarely a comfortable topic in the House of Neil. I actually stopped in my tracks, stared at him, then gasped "Why??" Turns out Hubby is suspicious of something he says he heard Obama say about future plans for tighter gun control. I knew better than to delve further, because it was being a good day up till then, and we never convince each other to change a position. I guess I should be pleased that he can still surprise me after 26 years.

Turns out Hubby is suspicious of something he says he heard Obama say about future plans for tighter gun control.

Seriously?

He heard that Obama said something about gun control? After three and a half years where he's said (and DONE) nothing about gun control?

I would be less appalled if Obama actually were campaigning for gun control or tried to enact legislation and it were a valid difference of opinion. Those exist and I respect them.

But I am less concerned with the whispered fears that maybe a potential president would try to take away my rights when he's never even hinted at it than the candidate who has promised that is his precise intention.

I swear, sometimes I think we might really deserve the government we get.

edit: that got ranty. I honestly respect people who vote differently than I do but I expect them to do it based on anything factual or idealogical. And the idea that Obama is a secret Muslim who isn't a citizen and wants to take away your guns? It's just not based on reality. We can debate fiscal policy, but we can't debate that Obama was born in Hawaii.