The countdown on my phone says "16." That means four more days, then two days home, then four more days, then two days off, then four more days, then I get to sleep in my own bed with my own wife under my own roof for more than two days in a row for the first time in three months and more than five days in a row for the first time since May.

I decided to be the change. Now giving monthly to the ACLU, donated to 350.org and have signed up to volunteer with 350 and my local Democratic precinct. The Kerry Campaign did a really good job of turning me into a jaded mutherfucker but I'm thinking there's a chance to tear a bitch down. Not that my peeps did us wrong.

Need a car. The Stealth is demonstrating its desire to move on to a higher plane of existence. Sunroof leaks, which is no big in LA but a real problem in Seattle. Put it under a cover last month and the last time I came home the passenger seat had literally grown fur. Turn signal relay is shuddering, which is cheap, but the SRS light won't go out, which is a fuckn nightmare to chase down. And it's got a sticky lifter which really sucks as it had new heads not fuckin' 30k ago. But there's nothing out there that interests me and having been without a car payment for a number of years I'm not eager to go back. Still an'all going to the LA Auto Show not this weekend but next weekend so I can see all the mediocre rigs I can't afford. Honestly? I should probably spend the $600 or so it'll take to return the Dodge to driveability but you reach the point where throwing good money after bad starts to suck. I'm fortunate to be in a position where this is an academic problem rather than "oh shit I can't get to work unless this POS keeps running."

By the time the season is over I will have biked 3,000 miles. I don't, like, know the community of river rats that I ride past every day? But I know them. The ones that shit in the river, the ones that ride mopeds on the bike path, the ones that sweep the shallows with a push broom. The ones that hung this up the day after the election.

I wonder if I knew Alesando. He died last week sometime.