I am in an abusive relationship with the month november

Every couple years, I let myself hope. I let myself be soothed and thrilled by the prospect of the independents, the young, the disatisfied making their voices heard at last. Every two years I look a grinning Karl Rove in the face and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan! I trust in THE LORD."

And every two years, I wake up to a sour morning in November with a hangover that only the truly pious could understand.

Why? Why do I let myself get yanked around this way? Why can I not merely accept the continued supremacy of the Republican machine, the 110% effectiveness of its fear- and hate-mongering? Why am I like the hero of the movie, three-quarters of the way through, when everything seems so dark, when he's struggling against everything and being taunted by the bad guy with the upper hand? "Join me," hisses the bad guy. "It's your only chance to win." "Death first!" the hero hisses back heroically, even as he's suspended over the shark tank full of apathetic voters.

I just don't want to be crushed again, is all I'm trying to say. In fact, I won't let myself see Borat: Cultural Learnings of Something Something to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazachstan UNLESS the dems manage to pull this one out. Only then will I be able to laugh freely at the foibles of red state America without stopping periodically to sob in my sleeves.

On a completely different note, I realized while talking to my oh-so-literate buddy Johnny that I'm a friend to books from virtually every period in recent history except 1850-1900. In a glaring omission, something about the writing of that era does nothing for me. Shelley is silly. Stowe is sentimental. The sermonizing of Wharton, Trollope, James, and ick! Dreiser all leave me cold. I can't immediately think of an exception or an explanation. If you can help, please! do.