"Either all of God and all of you..."

“… or nothing at all!”

Thanks SK!

I’m tired. I stayed up until nearly 2am to watch election results, until I realized there would be no new revelations. Ohio was considered too close to call by CNN and Iowa had stopped counting because of machine “fatigue.” I had no idea that was a serious issue. And just across the river in my neighboring state, the state where my sister lives. All I can say is I am glad this wasn’t drawn out for weeks on weeks. But I am sad. Not so much that Kerry lost but that Bush won! By nearly 3.5 million voters. :( Where is the sense in that? And certainly, where is the sense in the fact that Kerry was within 200K voters of winning the Electoral College vote but losing the popular vote. Again I say – what’s the point of the Electoral College. It gives so much power to 8-11 states and candidates don’t even bother campaigning in the rest of the nation. If I were a Republican in NE I would outraged that Bush didn’t bother to come here and say thanks. It’s not like we’re in the middle of nowhere. Offutt Air Force Base is located in NE, and he had to land there to visit Council Bluffs . What is the US saying to the world by re-electing this individual?

My friend Alison was venting to me earlier this evening and she was just on a roll. I suppose I shouldn’t have encouraged her so much, but it was like a snowball gathering momentum going downhill. We fed off each other’s comments. I found myself saying things I normally wouldn’t. At least Obama won in Illinois, which is good news for Alison and her work on Capital Hill on behalf of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

I play sand volleyball on Wednesday nights. For the first dozen weeks it was pure joy. The last dozen have been harder. Everything looks brighter when you’re winning. It’s not like we are a bad team. We all contribute – some more than others – and we all have something to learn. I’m really starting to feel like I’m fitting in, but there are moments when I realize there is a bit of a disconnect. There were a couple moments when Laurie would look at me and very intentionally tell me she was “just kidding” about something. Perhaps it was the look I gave her and she misread it. Or perhaps I am sending off some weird, I’m frustrated and pissed vibe. We started a new session tonight – all indoor, but still on sand. And we won 3 of 4 games. It felt quite good.

Maybe Brian – my cousin - should design shirts for us. He’s working on a design for my sister’s boyfriend’s softball team. Why shouldn’t we have shirts?

I was peppering w/ Molly before the game (Brian’s fiancée). We have a nice, easy friendship. She’s started calling me “Cousin Jeff” which is a nice “pet name.” We share a lot the same interests, which make it nice to talk to her, but its one of those friendships that I feel is lacking. There seems no depth in the friendships I am forming now, and I can’t help but think it is my fault. At least Heather wasn’t there tonight. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or anything, but when she played w/ us last week, she was bad. I never thought I would miss Laurie’s presence on the court so much. Maybe what stings most is that I had a small crush on Laurie for a while but she seemed oblivious. And I asked Heather out for coffee and she turned me down. At least I had friends who were mad at Heather, on my behalf because I can’t quite get to the point of hating her for that. But I am petty and small-minded enough to ignore her as much as possible. It’s not easy meeting new people these days. And how true it is that we can be our own worst enemy and our own worst critic!

Alison wasn’t sure she had any faith left and I volunteered to give her mine, even if it leaves me w/ nothing. It’s all or nothing, and faith gets us through the nothing!