I would say this is just a quick little post, but we all know it won't be

Knowing you have a problem is the first step, and I know I tend to get verbose. However, I still have a bunch of work to do, so I'll try to be brief.

First, OMG Otherworld rocks. If you haven't done it yet, do it next year. Seriously. This is by far my favorite thing that I do all year, and it doesn't involve yarn or fiber of any kind. And y'all know how much I love yarn. To get to spend time with this amazing group of people is such a tremendous gift...I can't believe Kit and I were so lucky to find this. Now that I think about it, the two best things that ever happened to me were a combination of blind luck and the internet (the other one being Kit) (yes, my kids are also two wonderful things in my life, but I count them as part of Kit). Thank you, intarwubs!

Second, election stuff. I think it's pretty clear where my political affiliations lie, but that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to direct you to a post that one of my favorite authors made on his blog the other day (his is also not party focused, but rather election focused). He expressed what I think are some pretty good thoughts about voting (or not) and since he took the time to write it all out, I don't have to. Go read it here. Go on, I'll wait.

I also wanted to mention another election related post I read recently, wherein the poster asked his readers to comment on the issue(s) they were focusing on to choose their candidate. The only restrictions were to be polite and to use a positive rather than a negative (IOW, he wanted people to justify why they liked Obama's economic plan rather than why they didn't like McCain's, for instance). The first one seems pretty obvious to me -- I mean, nobody wants to actually start a flame war in their comments. Well, most people don't. Not the people who write the blogs I read, anyhow. But the second one kind of threw me. I certainly believe that people should be informed (see link above), but I also believe that--as long as you are indeed informed--voting against someone's policies is just as valid a reason to vote for someone else as actually voting for the other person's policies. To go back to the f'rinstance I mentioned above, I might not think Obama's economic policy is the end-all, be-all but I think it's a damn sight better than McCain's. So am I voting for Obama's policy because I think it rocks? No, obviously not. I'm voting against McCain's policy because I think it sucks more than Obama's (NB: There are a whole lot of reasons I'm voting for Obama and not McCain, but as I said, that's not what this is about). Voting for the lesser of two evils is better than letting someone else decide which evil we're going to have to live with for the next 4-8 years (FWIW, I actually like most of Obama's policies, but again, not the point).

Finally, I'm off to Rhinebeck tomorrow for an all-day spinning class, so hopefully I'll have pretty pictures of Yarns I Made All By Myself(tm) to show you soon. I'm not as excited about this as I was when I signed up for the class. I blame Otherworld, because I know that no matter how awesome the class and the people I'll be meeting tomorrow are, they won't hold a candle to my Otherworld peeps. Yes, I said peeps.

posted by Laura Y. @ 4:03 PM