Today I burned my 2004 election dreams.
I'm not sure whether this is worthy of a diary or not, but I figured if anyone else in the world would get any benefit from this it's the people here.
More after the jump.
Today I burned my 2004 election dreams.
As I'm sure is the case for many of you it's time for spring cleaning here at chez KMc. This something that happens every year and usually isn't much of a reason for comment. This time it's different. This time I had to confront the broken dreams in the basement.
In the very furthest corner of the basement, in the storeroom behind the project boards was my stack of homemade Kerry signs. Hand painted on cardboard they replaced the three I'd purchased in quick succession as the local wingers waged war on my political opinions.
A quick précis: Two were stolen and one was defaced with hate speech and human shit. My local police were helpful and angered on my behalf but unable to do much besides take reports and express sympathy. My eventual solution to the problem involved locking the signs to my porch with steel cable, tiewrapping thistles to the posts, and attaching the signs themselves with glue and tape far stronger than the cardboard. That ultimately stopped the thefts, but there were seven more attempts, each followed by swearing and yelling when the wingers encountered the thorns and the end of the cable.
These signs represented my resistance to the wingers and despite their incredibly bedraggled state at the end of the election I was unwilling to part with them, hence their storage in the basement.
Likewise the walk lists and flyers I accumulated as a MoveOn precinct coordinator. I had no use for them, but they were too precious to my sanity to let go.
Until this week.
Now I know that I have finally started the healing process. My first post-Bush letter to the editor appeared in the local newspaper last week - I was a regular before the election - and it generated my first post election diatribe response. I'd forgotten how much I missed those. There's nothing like incoherent winger ranting, complete with terrible grammar and the obligatory anti-Clinton reference, to let you know that you've poked them where it hurts.
Informed by that small triumph and with cleaning to be done I finally fished out all of my 2004 gear and sorted it. That which can be used again went into storage for 2006 and 2008. That which could not and was non-toxic went into the fireplace. I know that I should have recycled some of it, but somehow burning felt necessary, a sort of ritual cleansing. It was the right thing to do. Watching hundreds of little pictures of George Bush go up in smoke helped to ameliorate the pain of the big Kerry signs going as well. It reminded me that no matter what else happens politically between now and 2008, George is a lame duck. And, in my house at least, he's flamed out.
So with George behind me, spiritually, if not yet actually, I can plunge into the breach once more.
My but it feels good to be back.
P.S. I saved the Bush Cheney sign the Winger dumped on my front lawn New Years Eve complete with fireworks for a special occasion. I don't know what that's going to be yet, but I'm sure BushCo will give me one.