I feel like I haven’t written in weeks.

My hands fumble on the keyboard, unaccustomed to the demands my brain is placing on them. They used to be faster and more accurate than they are today.

I look at the last post I wrote and I see that it was not even a week ago. Ummm… speaking of that last post, are ANY of you participating in the Gratitude in 100 opportunity? (See, by using the word “opportunity” I avoided the word, “challenge” which shares the same character in Chinese. I’ve also linked to the post three four times in this paragraph.)

Today! It is here, finally: Election Day. I can’t quite believe it. HALLE-FRIGGIN-LUJIA. Now the phone will be silent. Now the television will revert to its normally scheduled finger pointing, president bashing for a country more divided than ever.

A friend said to me yesterday that he feels sorry for whomever wins the presidency; at least the “loser” will get his life back.  Amen.

If you’re not American, you have NO idea of the onslaught of the political ads we who live in swing states must endure. Thank goodness for DVRs. I’d never get through an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent with my beloved Vincent D’Onofrio without the ability to scan through the ads.

Today is also Tuesday Morning Press #4. I didn’t post a Press last week because Sandy the Superstorm was flooding my mind and my heart. I have less than an hour to post this so I’m cheating a little. This is my status today from Facebook (which I have removed from my phone for the time being until I feel like putting it back):

Today is a big day in America. We get to cancel out each other, pick one guy over the other, write in a candidate of our choosing if we so desire. This is the reason we left England! Most of all, we end the nonsense of all these ads and the petty b.s. of it all for at least a couple more years. 

To me, it’s not just presidents who make our country great, but it’s us. We can get up off our asses.

Stop complaining, be a part of the many-stage process by voting. Who cares if your guy wins or, not. Voting is just a step, one of many in being American. If you don’t vote, you are wasting my time if you complain about anything.

The biggest changes of all that I would like to see: the end of the electoral college, SuperPACs abolished, the end of the two-party system and a nut-free, gluten-free, soy-free, wheat- and dairy-free, cookie handed out to everyone who votes. Oh. That would be the sticker. Unless it has soy ink or gluten in it.

Vote. It’s closer than you think. Your vote is your voice.

But I truly believe all of that. I am not a gun-toting, rootin’-tootin American, but if there’s one thing I say to my kids every time they moan and groan about the inequity of being a kid or something like that, I say this: “You woke up in America today. You are lucky. Shut your mouth, find something else to do. Clean up a park. Borrow a book free from the library. Walk to West Virginia without documentation.”

If you do nothing else today, be sure to vote. DO IT.

Thank you.