Robocalls are a stupid invention.

Have I mentioned before that I live in Massachusetts? I'm sure I have: I'm generally proud to be from this state - We're at the forefront on gay marriage, we beat the rest of the country to universal health care, and we've decided that R's are a completely unnecessary letter of the alphabet: what's not to love?

However, I would like, very much, not to be living in Massachusetts this week, as there is a big Senate race on right now, and the candidates - what with their commercials and 9 Robocalls a day and their constant bickering - are both driving me up a wall. Also, for some reason that is completely unclear to me, a Republican has a pretty good chance of winning Ted Kennedy's old seat. In a state where there are 3 registered Dems for every registered Republican, it boggles the mind. As Stephen Colbert said last week, this is definitely a sign of the coming Apocalypse...

And, of course, it gives us a prime opportunity to screw up the rest of the country, because if the Republican candidate wins, he'll be #41, thus blowing the Democrats' "super majority" (not that they've been able to accomplish anything with the super majority, but still). So goodbye health care bill: we've got ours, so the rest of you can just suck it. That seems like some great Massachusetts liberalism in play right there.

Anyways, I don't usually go off on political rants here, because, well, I have to defend my hippie-commie-liberal-pinko ways enough in person, so who wants to start something here, but I have to write something, because this kind of stuff makes me stressed out. I have to not listen to any of it, because attack ads (from my candidate, especially) and obviously, horrifically untrue statements (which I have to say have been more from the other side this time) make me want to throw up. It's like when I was younger and somebody would start picking on somebody else or my parents would start screaming at each other - it wasn't my fight, & you don't want draw attention to yourself, but you kind of wish you had the courage to just step in and say "Shut it! You're wrong, and you're mean, and there's no damn reason to be... Now play nice or walk away!" Play nice or walk away: why is that such a hard concept for people? Especially politicians? (And is it any wonder teaching kids to be nice to each other is something that attracted me so much?)

And also? Calling people 72 times in one weekend is not going to convince them that you understand their problems and will be there for them. It will convince them that you have no fricking clue what it means to be a human being, and that electing you is not their best decision. If you were smart, you'd start reading Facebook: more than half of my Massachusetts friends spent the day complaining about the calls they've gotten this weekend: either the number or the attitude of the callers themselves (pushy, much?)... I'd say every single status update today was either about the snow/ice or these calls. Ah: the phone rings again, I kid you not. And it's nearly 9 at night. I wish my eye was better and I could just read a book, shut off the whole rest of the world.

Let's see if I've unpacked my Firefly dvds, shall we?

I would tell any Massachusetts readers I have not to forget to vote tomorrow, but I think there's a slim chance of that happening.

I'm going to try to bribe my sister and her husband to vote, instead.