Tomorrow the election. I have an election booklet here that talks about candidates and propositions and suppositions and it is going to take me the evening to read it and think about it and one hopes, make valued whiskey and water judgements. I'll vote for the laws that allow more guns, of course, some decisions are no brainers. I'm getting older and need plenty of protection, what with the crime rate here in Oakland. You get older, you hands develop a quiver, your eyes lose their shine so you need automatic fire and plenty of ammunition.

Have you considered moving to Oakland? Plenty of murders on any given day here in Oakland. Might think about that before moving. Do you have children? Seattle talks about the rain, the never ending rain. It rains every day, you understand, every day, every night, in the summer, in the winter, in the spring. A day or two of sun in the summer. Here in Oakland we stress death. Keeps the rents down. You want to keep the rents down. Things are too god damned expensive.

Then again rain is not death and murder. Less humor when it's real, when it's out on the sidewalks. Here in Oakland it's jobs and drugs. No jobs. You want to eat, you got to compete. If you sell drugs, you hang out with thugs. And you use the tools to discourage fools. Not much on the ballot about drugs, though. Add a hundred policemen to the force. Not sure what that has to do with drugs. The demand for drugs. The dealing of drugs. Has a lot to do with putting people in jail. Has a lot to do with getting people elected. Has a lot to do with those who think more jails will keep kids drug free and in school. But then I wander. Those two whiskey and waters.

I'm sitting here not wanting to wade through this voters pamphlet. Other people are sitting elsewhere not wanting to wade through this voters pamphlet. So we do and we don't. How much thinking can you do in a night? Hard to vote when you don't. Think. Kids and drugs? Rain versus murder? Can't read the pamphlet while I'm writing.