My whole life, I’ve been fascinated with the electoral process.  Its always been so exciting to me to be able to vote for the president of the United States.  There hasn’t been a presidential election held on my birthday since the day I was born, and so it shouldn’t be surprising that this year’s election is like the election to end all elections for me.  This election is so important that I’m doing what a lot of people who are voting for Obama are not: I’m still paying attention.  And, to be honest, I’m pretty disgusted by what I’m seeing and hearing.  I’ve been meaning to document some thoughts about the election here, but its kind of tough to keep up with all that happens, so to start with, I’d like to just quickly mention how wonderful I think the voter registration effort in VA has been.

Almost every day, I have run into several people at the metro stations asking me if I’m registered to vote in Virginia.  Yes, I actually have begun to find them slightly annoying because, yes, I registered, 10 YEARS AGO.  But aside from my very slight annoyance, I am so proud to see people taking action out there.  I certainly hope its enough to get the job done for us.  The thing is, I don’t remember seeing these people out every day 4 years ago.  They might have been out there, but I think I know why I don’t remember them.  Four years ago, we thought everyone had already figured it out.  We thought everyone had figured out that Bush was bad.  I mean, it was obvious, no?  What a bad, bad day that was.  So I think people are out there in force to make sure that they do their part.  To make sure they do everything they can to get people’s asses registered.  I certainly hope it makes a difference come next month.  Only time will tell.

So I’m starting over.  From scratch.  It’s weird that the more I became a writer in the office, the less I wanted to write for myself.  A lot of people say this happens.  I never thought it would happen to me.  So, where have I been?  I’ve been thinking.  Less doing, more thinking.  Probably not the best thing to do when you call yourself a writer, but that’s where I was.

In my early 20′s I found it entirely appropriate to rant about anything and everything that moved me at the time.  That turned out well to some degree, and some of it just embarrassed me later on.  However, if that was the greatest sin I committed in my “youth,” then I guess by most standards I’m still pretty squeaky clean.

What do I hope to accomplish?  I’m not sure yet.  I know that applying to graduate school to be a writer will cause me to have to actually write.  Even if, and inevitably when, the spirit doesn’t move me to do so.  So I figure the best place to start would be to start over and to start better.  I read something today where David Duchovny quoted Samuel Beckett, saying, “fail again, fail better.”  I realize not everything I write will be perfect, or riveting, or hilarious, but I recognize that I need to make an effort and make time for myself to do the thing that I enjoy doing in a medium that does not include legal news.

So here I go again, some what not on my own, going down a new road.  See you guys tomorrow.

-K