M.’s aunt, uncle and cousin from KL were back in the Bay Area. Whilst here, they stay with a high school friend of the uncle’s, in a typical suburban family house that is much like my big bro’s own playhouse. A drive from the big city, well-stocked, comfy and with all manner of entertainment.

They brought along another couple with whom they are partnering in a business, who hadn’t seen any of the sights.  So, we spent the weekend eating Asian food, talking about the business venture, sight-seeing and eating Asian food.

Here’s me, I believe looking like some kind of famous bridge docent:

M.’s taking the picture.  What this picture really needs is a bit of a visual intro, but I missed the shot while thinking about it rather than taking it.  You see, the Golden Gate bristles with tourists on any given weekend, and a large percentage of them are from areas east of Europe and west of the California cost.  However many countries there are in Asia, they be representing bridge-side.

And, there I was.

While driving up and down, up and down, up and down and over and across the San Francisco Bay quite a few times this weekend, I finally finished my ballot. 

We are heading out and away from the primaries on Friday to the other side of the globe, so we will be absentee voters in this race.  While the polls are reporting and the counting goes on, remember us as they talk about the millions of “absentee ballots,” now re-branded as vote-by-mail, not yet counted in Cali next Tuesday.

(Here, where people make programs and computers for a living, voting by mail is pretty dang popular.  Somewhere, somehow, tucking a piece of cardboard colored in with black or blue pen, licking it shut, stamping and tossing it into a blue box on the corner seems safer than using a newfangled machine that hackers have proved oh-so-compromise-able.)

M. has already been researching how we can tune into the crazy wacky fun of Super Tuesday.  (By the way, note to all TV talkers every-fucking-where, calling it “Super Duper Tuesday” just sounds so fucking indescribably lame. Please stop.)

We should be in Kuala Lumpur, but I’m not sure.  When the last polls close at 8 p.m. PST Tuesday, it should be 12 noon on Wednesday in Malaysia.  I’m confused, as I think we may already be hopping into his aunt and uncle’s minivan and driving from KL to Penang, because Super Tuesday will be Wednesday, the eve of the lunar new year, when the Chinese New Year-ing festivities shall commence.

Starting the new year and trying to monitor the primaries is likely to drive M. to distraction.  To say he’s wrapped up in the race would be an immense understatement.  He’s obsessed.

Somewhere in Malaysia, there will be at least one “Barack Obama ’08” t-shirt, and my man will be sporting it on his back.

Cumulatively, we’ve watched days of hours of minutes of eternities of coverage, swapped news links, youtube videos, blog postings, read most major news stories and finally did our ballots yesterday and mailed them off to the county.  I was undecided until minutes before envelope sealing.

In the end, I listened to the fire in the belly of our former president, William Jefferson Clinton.  His passion, his anger, his parsing of words, like “rolling the dice” and “fairy tale.”  And, I voted against his wife.

As much as I want to see a woman get ahead, I am fucking worn out and tired by all of the bullshit and lies and grandstanding.  We’ve been doing that for eight fucking destructive years.  It’s easy to believe that old Bill and Karl Rove are spiritual twins.

Oh, and, ah, feminist-wise, someone relying on both her husband’s old job and his current-day bullying, is, ah, not the kind of chick that does it for me. I mean, Phyllis Schlafly has a following and a career and ovaries, and I wouldn’t give her the time of day.

Like a whole lot of people I want to believe that maybe there is something else.  I want to think change could happen as Barry Crimmins, who hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid yet like me, wrote here. Caroline K. helped push me over the edge.  And today her uncle closed it.

I mean holy shit.  Ted Kennedy is speechifying all positive-like and forward thinking and inspirational.  There is something in the air.  Could be political shit, of course, but at the moment it’s smelling sweeter. Check this endorsement from the SF paper.

(Sorry to Dennis Kucinich.  I know you and I are kindred spirits, united on such things as policy and progressive ideals.  We were meant to be together, you and I.  Like a poor girl in a Dickensian drama, I went not with love but with strategy.  Barack has a chance of making history, Dennis, and selfishly I want to be a part.  Maybe we could each send him a pocket Constitution.)