NP: Stone Temple Pilots, Thank You (CD)

Yay! My car! I sort of surprised myself with the warm fuzzies I felt while driving home from the mechanic. A harbinger of a return to normalcy? Or just an end to one period of extended waiting? Is there a difference?

Last night, the whole ordeal took a turn for the surreal, as the initial paint job was done, but they still had to buff out the bubbles resulting from the process. This was the fifth time they told me it would be done and it wasn't, and I had a rehearsal with Abi that required moving drums. The solution? One of the mechanics actually lent me his car, an old Cutlass Ciera that reeked of cigarettes.

Today, though, it's finally done, or at least done enough to finally let me have it. They got two left-sided turn signal covers instead of one left and one right, so I have to stop by tomorrow, but by and large, it's done. One odd little byproduct of the accident and the repair work is that all the presets on my stereo disappeared, no doubt due to extended time with no working battery.

Speaking of being done, stick a fork in my man Wes. This is the second consecutive presidential race where I've cared about the Dems enough to pick the wrong horse. That said, I don't think anybody really saw this Kerry resurgence coming, and in the absence of another strong veteran, Clark would have brought more to the table. Or, rather, he'd be able to trade on his military background rather than try to remember all the policy nuances his advisors poured into him in the early going. The really easy metaphor is to say that the battle on the ground turned out to be different from the one he planned for, and he wasn't well-equipped to change gears when the circumstances changed.

I'm still not convinced Kerry is the right guy to withstand the Bush-Cheney war chest. Or that a Kerry-led Democratic Party will represent me, the single thirty-something city-dweller currently without a job, as well as I might like, but there's still hope for John Edwards, and it's still better than the alternative. I think that, for his next trick, GWB is going to hold up a handwritten piece of paper and say "I just wrote on this piece of paper that I definitely showed up for National Guard duty, from which you can clearly conclude that I did show up, otherwise why would it say that on the piece of paper?" The sad thing is that I'd guess about half of Americans would nod their heads in agreement and go back to watching American Idol.

I was taken aback this morning when I went to see my doctor, and my blood pressure was actually better than my last physical, about three years ago. I guess I am good at handling extended periods of stress. Wound up skipping dinner, so it was nearly 24 hours on nothing but water. Naturally, I broke the fast with a DiGiorno pizza, instead of a more sensible chicken caesar salad. I have zero discipline these days, to the point where it's a bit upsetting.