To sleep,

Perchance to dream*

Thankful today that, in general, I get enough sleep.

It’s on my mind, because Tuesday night, I did not get enough sleep. And I’m a little ticked off about that.

See, I started the evening with the firm intention of awaiting the outcome to the election. I was aware that meant it could be a very long night, but I was game. I wanted to know what happened. It seemed to me to be infinitely more desirable to be disappointed (assuming disappointment was the outcome—and it was 50/50, you know)—infinitely more desirable to be disappointed and then go to bed than to awake to disappointment.

There was always the chance of a joyful outcome, too. And how much better to end the day on a high note than to miss all the excitement.

Having reviewed these possibilities exhaustively (2 or 3 seconds, at least), I decided to stay up and see what happened.

All well and good, and the election was called remarkably early. At something like 11:15 pm, it looked like I would be heading off to bed.

Then there was a little problem with math over on the losing side, and we were suddenly looking at—we didn’t know what.

Now, a person cannot go to bed with the spectre of that famous photo of Truman the morning after the 1948 election hanging over her. She has to stay up to see what’s going to happen.

The result was that I didn’t get to bed until after two a.m.

You wouldn’t think that would be a big deal, but I’m neither as young as I once was nor,apparently, as resilient. I am certainly not as used to staying up late as I had been in the past. (56 hours without sleep is my limit. After that, I start to hallucinate. I know this from experience.)

Anyway, the election ended, the speeches were made, the pundits talked…and talked…and talked, and eventually, I went to bed.

I didn’t have to do anything important today, so it’s no bit deal that I’m tired and unproductive and have had a bit of a headache all day, but I do realize I need to be thankful for those days—and nights—I get enough sleep.

If you’re thinking about pulling an all-nighter sometime, I encourage you to think again. You might get more done if you take time to take a nap.

Try it. You’ll like it!

* Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1

And now?

Here we are.

With any kind of luck at all, we have a clear winner in the U.S. Presidential election. I’m writing this as the returns are coming in (what? you think I get up at the crack of dawn to do this?)

At just about midnight, all the major networks have called the race for President Obama. However, the Romney campaign is not conceding, at the moment.

It doesn’t look like they have a path to victory where the math is possible, but they’re holding out. This seems to be part of a trend. Facts don’t count. We don’t believe data. We don’t believe science.

I wonder today, on this Wondering Wednesday, why anybody wonders why we have a problem with education.

However, it is fair to make sure that the votes have been counted. I’m okay with that, although I’d like to be able to go to bed knowing it’s settled.

And I wonder if this—once it is settled—means that we might get an actual working government where people realize not everybody can have exactly what they want and compromise is not always a bad thing.

Because there’s one thing I don’t wonder—and that is that we cannot go forward if people don’t get out of the way.

I’m going to bed thinking and hoping that this is a good day for the United States of America.

(UPDATE: It’s 1 am and Mr. Romney has conceded. It is over, and it is a good day for the United States of America. I still wonder if we can move forward, but I have higher hopes than I did yesterday.)

Now what happens?

I’m seriously wondering.

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Welcome to the horror show this Wondering Wednesday has become. Because I am seriously wondering this, and it is a serious thing to be wondering about.

What’s gonna happen to our election in the wake of Hurricane Sandy?

Many, many states have early voting. 32 plus the District of Columbia. Reports, so far, are that 15% of voters have already voted with an additional 18% estimated to vote prior to election day. That’s a lot more than have ever used early voting previously, but it’s not everybody.

A majority of states—all but 2—are supposed to have in-person voting on Nov. 6th. (The 2 are Washington and Oregon. They vote entirely by mail. Who knew? Other than, I guess, people who live in Washington and Oregon.)

And a majority of states should have no problem with their in-person voting on Nov 6th.

But there are a few states that have been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. Major damage to infrastructure and transportation. As I write this, there are twenty to twenty-five thousand people trapped in Hoboken surrounded by flood waters and downed electrical lines. The mayor has asked for the National Guard to supply some equipment that might make rescues possible in places where the city’s payloaders are too big to fit through narrow streets.

It doesn’t sound like they can find tens of thousands of their citizens let alone provide polling places for them by next Tuesday.

New York City and parts of Long Island are without power with some restorations projected to take 7 to 10 days. The polls had massive voting machines when I lived in NYC—and I seem to remember hefty power cables snaking around the church basements and high school cafeterias. (I also remember a very heavy and loud clunk when you pulled the lever, though, so maybe it was all more mechanical than electrical?)

You used to sign in to vote in massive bound books which had a copy of your signature from your previous occasion of voting. Were all those books on high ground?

So what happens? If the records are soggy? If the subways can’t get voters where they need to be? If there’s no power for the machines? If the voters are missing in Hoboken?

Is there anything in our Constitution that covers this?

We can’t disenfranchise enormous swaths of the electorate. Or can we?

And who gets to answer this question?

I think we should all be wondering.

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Election

To sleep,

And now?

Now what happens?