I can't bear to watch our country flush itself down the toilet. You're a bigger woman than I am, Laura.

To people who have gone the Craigslist/Freecycle route: has it be an annoying process or fairly painless? I'm reluctant to go that route because I'm not sure I want to let strangers know things are available at my address, and there's not a lot of "doing things for the good of the community" spirit around here. It's more "Hey, I can get something off that person for free or cheap!"

Which I guess tells me I should continue to make bi-weekly runs to the thrift stores. Or bite the bullet and just throw things out.

Honestly I am more worked up about the Governors races than the Senate. I'd like to have some Governors that won't keep people from voting in 2016.

Ha! My father had a story about working a poll in Chicago when he was in college, and when someone brought up a Republican primary ballot, they assumed it was an error and threw it away!

I'm sure I've told this story before, but I was once in line behind a guy who couldn't get the lever voting machine to work and then finally leaned out of the booth to say "Oh, I know what the problem is - I'm a Republican!" Liberal bubble, I love you.

There were three proposals in NYC that I forgot to research before I went to the polls, so hopefully I didn't misread anything and vote the wrong way. Otherwise I'm straight down the line Working Families Party. (Same candidates as the Dems, but I like the local flavor.)

Down here in Texas, I'm sure we'll continue our trend of electing smug, hateful white guys.

I'm worried about both Governor's races and Senate. Cause if the Republicans take the Senate and pass a bill to cut social security (i.e. chained indexes for inflation) there is a good chance Obama will sign rather than veto them. So far he was prevented from cutting Social Security by grassroots pressure on the Senate. Which won't do a thing if the Republicans are in control.

Oh and for people who think it is wrong to describe Obama as a lesser evil because "nobody is perfect" there is a difference between imperfect good and a conservative Democrat. Obama supported cuts to Social Security cuts. Staying in Iraq as long as he did, and then in Afghanistan as long as he did along with intervening in Libya and Syria (all under his watch) has a lot to do with the increased power of Isis. And then the idea that thing to do about Isis is more bombing- Yeah cause that has worked so well in the ME since 2001. Yeah he campaigned more less on that, but does not make him a good guy any more than Reagan was a good guy just cause he governed to a large extent the way he campaigned And on civil liberties he has prosecuted whistle blowers to a greater extend than any President - and did so contrary to the way he initially campaigned. Note that all this stuff other than Social Security was completely under Obama's control. When it comes to military interventions, spying and persecution of whistle blowers nobody can make a president do any of those things if he chooses not to. And on Social Security, thank the triple Goddess that it was not under his control, cause he would have done a deal to cut it if it had been.

And I still agree that he was a far lesser evil and McCain or Romney. Things would have been many time worse if they had been in the Oval Office. But that is more or less the definition of a lesser evil no? If the things under his control are bad, but not as bad as they would have been under the other guy.

There was a lone candidate for the Pirate Party on the ballot, but as I actually do like the job the unopposed Dem is doing, I didn't give her a vote in solidarity.

Now I have settled in with junk food and wine because I apparently can't stop myself from watching returns all night long.

I'm going to try to watch the circus, but it's already starting out kinda painful.

To people who have gone the Craigslist/Freecycle route: has it be an annoying process or fairly painless?

I've had a couple people who were a bit annoying, but it has worked out. Overall it's been successful and I'll continue to use them. My most successful Freecycle connection was an engineer who was tickled pink to get a free boxful of old electrical engineering books. I didn't think anyone would want them because they were so outdated.

Voted. I think I was probably about as informed as I was ever gonna be despite my lack of preparation. If there is evil stuff hiding in the propositions that sounded good to me, oh well.