Here we are, firmly in November.
We set back the clocks on Saturday, and now it gets dark at 4:30, which always gives me a claustrophobic, restless feeling. I have come to the conclusion that I am neither a morning person nor a night person. Instead, I am a day person, and when the dark comes, I am ready to kick back. This is fine when it stays light out until, say, 7:00 p.m. But when the dark comes at 4:30, it’s too early to relax for the evening, and in addition, it makes me fidgety to be inside so much. Therefore, as soon as I am finished with the copy editing of Library Lost, I will be spending some part of every day outside. Being outside helps with the fidgets.
Speaking of Library Lost, I am coming down the homestretch with copy editing. Wowsah, what a job! Fortunately I have the patience to go over the book line by line. Many times. I wish I could get it right with one pass, but there you are.
This weekend, at a craft fair, there was another first for me. A young man who was about thirteen came to my table and told me that he liked Maya and the Book of Everything so much that he did a book report about it for his English class. Readers, I have been book reported. Holy cats, I was thrilled.
In the United States, tomorrow is Election Day, and it’s going to be a nail biter. As I have written in previous posts, I am heartbroken about the direction this country has taken—the ugliness, the racism, the threats, the lack of tolerance and compassion, the total disregard of the environment.
There are some—a minority, I hope—who think it doesn’t make any difference as to which candidate wins. How wrong they are! And I can use the small state of Maine (population 1.3 million) as an example. Because of our current governor and his refusal to accept the Medicaid expansion money available through the Affordable Care Act, 70,000 people in our state have gone without health insurance. These are people who earn too much to qualify for standard Medicaid and too little to qualify for subsidies from the ACA. They are caught right in the middle.
How many people died because of our governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid coverage? How many went to the emergency room, thus driving up the overall cost of healthcare?
In each Maine gubernatorial election—alas, our current governor won two times—if the other candidate had won, then those 70,000 Mainers would have had health insurance. This is but one issue of many where there has been a sea of differences between the candidates, and the same is true with the current election.
So out Clif and I will go tomorrow, to cast our votes and hope, hope, hope that we have come to the turning of tide.
Notes From the Hinterland 