nekosensei

Let's see. What have I been up to in the past week?

On Saturday, I went to davimye and Nikki's wedding, and had a blast. There was lots of dancing involved. Some of it was very silly.

On Sunday afternoon, I went to Milwaukee, WI for a day-and-a-half of canvassing. I checked in at the hotel in downtown Milwaukee, dropped off my stuff, and headed over to the Obama headquarters for the four to eight o'clock canvassing shift. I ended up getting lost both heading to the headquarters and coming back. Downtown Milwaukee is confusing, and it doesn't help that my navigation system didn't bother to tell me when to turn until I was right on top of the intersection. And in most cases, it was a one way road, I was in the right hand turn lane, and had to turn left...or something stupid like that. Grr! Stupid nav system and confusing city streets both get an F.

It turns out that my canvassing shift ended early at six because there were four of us and we were pretty fast. And it was a good thing that it ended when it did because it was raining and I didn't have my umbrella. I left it back at my car at the Obama headquarters because it didn't look like it was going to rain. Doh! After canvassing, I went to dinner at a greasy spoon not far from my hotel. Oh...the parking garage was also mostly full because there was a Beastie Boys concert at the stadium not far from my hotel.

That evening, I went back to the hotel, surfed LJ on my Iphone for a bit, read Watchmen, and then went to sleep. I had multiple bizarre sleep paralysis dreams that evening starting at about three thirty in the morning. I'm not sure if it was because I was being weird because of the Ambien, my hotel room was weird, or both. Let's see. I was startled awake by a gun shot. Then, I had all kinds of sleep paralysis dreams in which I heard a voice that imitated my mom or dad's voice. I heard it on the right hand side of me and it was saying random nasty shit. Like most sleep paralysis dreams, I couldn't turn my head to look at it. I tried to tell it to "shut the fuck up," "fuck off," and "go the fuck away," but of course, I couldn't open my mouth to make any noise. All I could make was a nguh nguh sound. I also dreamt that some dude in a suit floated across my room and out the window. Strange. Very strange. At some point, I woke up and was able to move. I turned the light on and left them on until I had to get up.

The next morning, I headed across the street to the same greasy spoon for breakfast, and then checked out of the hotel. I went back to the Obama headquarters and once again, I got lost in downtown Milwaukee trying to get on the expressway. In my defense, my nav system wasn't really being clear on what ramp it wanted me to get on, and the numbers it gave me weren't matching up with the signs I was seeing. I made a second pass and eventually figured out where I had to be. *growls*

At night o'clock on Monday morning, I went to the headquarters and noticed that they had a tv crew. Something was going on, but I wasn't sure what. Before we got our instructions, the organizers there started clapping and then told us they had a special surprise for us and that a local celebrity would be visiting us. It turns out that it was the Wisconsin Senator, Russ Feingold. Oh yeah, and I suck because I had to ask someone who that was. No one bothered to tell us mostly Illinois people that he was a Senator. He talked for a bit, and after he left, the organizers gave us our instructions. Instead of canvassing, we had to hang leaflets on doors in one ward telling people where they had to go to vote and what time the polls were open. This made a lot of sense because I doubt, it being a Monday during the day, that many people would be home to talk to us. In one neighborhood, I ran across one lady who was edging her grass using a weed-wacker. She told me that she didn't want a leaflet. You know, it's not a good idea to quibble with someone holding a weed-wacker, so I went on to the next house. :)

We dropped off leaflets until five o'clock in the afternoon. I wanted to do the four to eight o'clock shift again, but between not getting much sleep the night before and walking around the entire day, I was sore and exhausted. I checked out, donated a bag of chips to the cause, and headed out. (Oh...and they gave those of us who had canvassed for two days that weekend a t-shirt. Heh heh). I decided not to stay later because I had to drive home and I didn't want to fall asleep in the car. Also, 94 south of the Wisconsin border scares the crap out of me because it's under construction and the lanes are uncomfortably narrow. Hmm...I must be slightly claustrophobic when I drive. To keep from dozing off, I lowered the temperature in the car and blasted the music. I also sang along to the music most of the way home. You can't possibly fall asleep in the car when you're too busy signing, right? Oh...and for the first time ever, I ended up not getting lost near downtown Milwaukee. I must have learned my lesson after the first dozen times. :)

On Tuesday, I voted. I felt like I was going to tear up when I filled in the bubble for Obama/Biden. I was voting for the first serious black contender for president. I also ran into one of my neighbors who had a McCain/Palin sign in front of their house. She greeted me with, "there's my opponent!" wtf? Then, she asked me if there was a long line. At least she was being nice about it. I did teach that day, but I let the class out early so that they could vote (a few of them hadn't yet) and I could get my butt downtown to the rally. doomsey drove us to Forest Park, and we took the L downtown. On the way there, we saw a huge parade of police cars from the western suburbs-- Villa Park, Glen Ellyn, Wheaon-- heading into the city. We noticed that some of the cars had tape on their windows to reinforce them...probably because they expected rioting if Obama didn't win the election. They got off at the exit onto Western. I tried to take a picture of it, but failed. It didn't occur to me until later that I could have taken video and it would have turned out better.

doomsey and I got off the train and met sailatinu, who also had tickets, and his girlfriend. Then, we got in line and made our way through the myriad of security checkpoints we had to go through. Let's see. They checked tickets and ID twice. They also made us take off all the metal we had on and go through a metal detector. Then, we picked out a space in the crowd, and waited. Before we got into the park itself, we would hear a cheer from up ahead of us, and then later, we learned that Obama had gotten Ohio or another state on the eastern seaboard. Eventually, we got into the park, took our place in the mob, watched the CNN feed that had on the big screen in Hutchinson Field, and waited. At some point, sailatinu left to get us all water, which I really needed because my throat was parched. (It turns out that I was coming down with a cold). Just before ten o'clock at night, they called Virginia for Obama, and there was a huge cheer. sailatinu later quipped something to the effect of, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," which amused the people standing around us. Not long after that, the polls closed on the West Coast. They then announced that Obama had won the election. The cheer that went up was tremendous and I recorded some of it using my crappy digital camera. We listened to McCain's concession speech, and later, Obama's, which I also recorded snippets of. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the stage because the tent for the media was in the way. If you jumped above the crowd a bit and were lucky, you could see the top of someone's head. After the speech was over, doomsey and I headed out. The crowd was so huge that it took us quite some time to get out of the field. We also walked ten blocks to avoid the crush of people getting on the L. Oh...and as we were pulling into Forest Park, somebody noticed that Obama's motorcade was passing by on the expressway. I was busy surfing LJ and didn't see much of it. I only caught the tail end of it, and wasn't fast enough to get it on camera. Shucks.

My back was killing me from all the standing we did, but all in all it was a great experience. I was happy to be there in the crowd to witness such an historic event.

The rest of this week was spent getting caught up on work because I didn't get much accomplished last weekend. I am mostly caught up now. I also got sick. I was okay on Wednesday, but Thursday and Friday was when things really started getting crappy. Last night, I must of slept eleven hours, not including the nap I took in the late afternoon / early evening on Friday. I'm doing a bit better today and I was able to get a bunch of stuff done today. This afternoon is the costume party at voidness' house, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to stay. For one, my voice is shot. (Lately, it seems like I lose my voice every time I get sick). I might end up spending a good part of the evening in the corner knitting, but I'm not going to be able to do a lot of talking. And, of course, I can't drink either. :P

Anyhow, that's what's been going on with me. One of these days, I'm going to have to post pictures of the rally and of the Halloween pumpkin I carved a few weeks ago. Only, not today because I have to get dressed up for tonight. Later!