My Response to the Election Results My Response to the Election Results My Response to the Electio

I bought an iPod.

I've decided that I cannot wrap my head around what it means that W gets four more years. I can only take pleasure in knowing he won't have Ashcroft around. Beyond that, I'm overwhelmed.

I am not in touch with the America that won the election. I don't get it. I don't understand the emotions and sentiments that gave us W again. Then again, Kerry was dull. I guess we'd rather have a clown bully than a sack of stone.

LiveJournal has been an explosion of wailing and toothgnash this past week. After a while, I turned off. I didn't want anything to do with what many of you had to say. It wasn't that I agreed or disagreed. It's that I found myself saying "Shut up! America takes one look at us and votes redneck! Williamsburg doesn't need hipsters and neither will Somerville in five years. I hate myself for wanting to be mediocre just to have company!"

I've concluded the best thing I can do is work on myself, heal myself, ignore anything that depresses me, treat myself better. I need to get out of my increasingly dull job and its commute to outer fucking space. Christ, I drive so far that I have to change radio stations.

87.9 FM is still empty on both sides of the Mass/NH border. This is the default channel for the iTrip, the FM transmitter that plugs into the iPod. This lets me tune in the tunes and tune out society for forty minutes each way.

I'm alone at my new job site. The man who was a close friend at the old site seems much more intent on climbing the corporate ladder here. He doesn't ignore me as much as he tunes me out. No one really knows me in Manchester. There are far more salescritters in this office. It's very impersonalizing. I no longer feel necessary in this place. Why have I been killing myself for these people?

So I'm going to start a proper job hunt or this winter will suck too much. I need to make a break with my self-victimization.

I had some visitors this weekend. We bonded again. They're both conservatives, but they're definitely compassionate. They're really good friends. We drove out to Long Island and had fun with medievalsweetie and her boy, as well as graciana. Then we swung by the pad of Mr and Mizz dobrovolets and liberated Flushing of a slot 1 Celeron 400 that I can hardly wait to try overclocking! We learned how evil Connecticut can be as we tried to find a sit-down meal near Stamford. I have another story about that for later.

So far what I've noticed about the iPod is that Apple is a little too convinced that this device doesn't need a manual. I mean, you can figure it out fast, but it's hard to guess how I'd, say, delete songs that won't load or create ratings or playlists within the device instead of having to plug it in. I mean, shit, it's a small computer, right? I should be able to control it, tell it things to do.

There is a large cult surrounding this device but most of it seems fascinated by the artifice instead of the function. The fans feel liberated by toting their music around. However, they have no desire to hack the box. C'mon! It's a computer -- it needs hijacking.

More later. I'm alive. I want to feel better. I'm not a normal American but I'm still American. I don't have a delusion that I'd do well to escape. This is the nation where I can make a difference once I figure out how to change myself.

-"Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you"