Blue Wave

Best birthday present ever! I'm still absorbing it, it so completely exceeded my expectations.

Some of what I'm celebrating:

Texas and South Carolina and Kansas - the inroads into red states is amazing! Not just the Senate races, but tons of governors and state legislatures (including breaking the Repug supermajority in Missouri).

It's giving me so much hope to see that America is not as awful as I was afraid it was. The anti-Muslim ads in Michigan and the horrible attack ad in Ohio didn't work!

Exciting to see so many people vote, especially young people; the demographic shift, especially among Hispanics and young men; the way money didn't make the difference, in Texas particularly.

It's the DEI election: Native Americans, trans people, Black and Hispanic people (especially women) getting elected all over the country, many firsts (shockingly in 2026 imo)

The way Trump just accepted the results without much except disclaiming responsibility. This is a useful guide to what Dems should do next:

My (rare) response to a FB post

 

Of course this sounds like a reasonable analogy. But as a progressive Jew in America who has had many, many conversations with other progressives about Palestine, I can attest that the pro-Palestinian arguments shift almost immediately to anti-Jewish comments based exclusively on stereotypes, such as Jews control the media. 

I've stopped engaging in this conversation because it is pointless to try to have any sort of nuanced conversation about Netanyahu being a bad leader, American Jews don't vote in Israeli elections, there aren't nearly enough American Jews (2% of the US population) to control American foreign policy (the US supports Israel because of oil and Evangelical Christians' obsession with the so-called Second Coming, not because of AIPAC and certainly not because they GAF about Jews), etc, etc, etc. 

Most people who chant "From The River To The Sea" have no idea what that means (it means kill all the Israeli Jews). 

It's exhausting.

Crash & burn

 Ugh, perfectly awful date (only my second one this year) tonight. Guy talked the whole time; asked me maybe 3 questions in 3 (grueling) hours we spent together. I finally started just saying stuff, and he paid no attention to anything I said, never asked a follow-up or showed any interest in what I had to say.

Then he leaned in to kiss me when we got to my car, but I dodged him, said thank you, and walked away; he stood there a moment and then audibly said "interesting." Like I owed him a kiss? Ew. Yet another red flag in an evening full of them (here's a couple):

He belongs to the Single Professionals group out in OP, told me he dated several women in that group (he's been divorced about 5 years), and recently joined 3 online dating sites (apparently ours is the first date he's had).

Among the many many many observations he offered over the course of the evening was that he doesn't like city dwellers, which is a completely bonkers thing to say to your date WHO LIVES IN THE CITY.

I actually messaged him when I got home and said thanks for the evening, but I love living in the city, so clearly we're not a match.

Only positive of the whole evening was he paid for a mediocre dinner and there's enough leftovers for a mediocre lunch.

One other weird red flag: when we were arranging the date, he asked me for a suggestion, I gave Ragazza, which he didn't want to go to, so then I suggested JJ's, but he didn't like the menu once we got there. He wanted to go to Cooper's Hawk, but insisted it was on the far side of the Plaza (it's not); we started walking and I suggested 2 places a block away (O'Dowd's, which I have been to, and Gram & Dun, which I have not; both very nice), but he didn't want them either (so this is a total of FOUR suggestions by his date that he objected to); we ended up walking to Cooper's Hawk (4 blocks away) in the unpleasant heat, because that's where he really wanted to go all along. I would NEVER consider dating a person like this (besides his utterly disrespectful conversational style and the fact that he is crushingly boring) - persistently disregarding the preferences of his date is a total deal breaker.

Back in the saddle

 I had a lunch date today (the first date this calendar year, unbelievable!) It went exactly like all the rest of them: he talked the whole time. At the end, he said he's not very available and might be moving abroad. 

I'm not totally sure how to take this. He has an unusual schedule because he works long and inconsistent shifts. Either he's trying to get out of staying in touch, or he just wants to make sure my expectations are appropriately low.

He's a nice guy, I wouldn't kick him out of bed, so I wouldn't mind trying a second date (I'm really trying to have appropriate expectations...I want an immediate spark, but maybe the absence of egregious red flags and The Ick is enough). 

Anyway, I gave him my number, it's up to him now if he wants to reach out.

More online dating scams

 For the second time in a month, an eHarmony match contacted me on my WORK email (with the same subject line). I Googled it and got the advice that scammers use reverse image search to find you on LinkedIn or your company website.

The first guy told me he had met someone, and wished me good luck. 

The second person seemed legit - his email sig showed him as a real estate agent, with a local phone number (and, I checked, a LinkedIn profile), but I still don't want to engage with him this way (he says he's not a paid member and can't see my eHarmony messages). I'm debating about reporting the profile, since it seems likely it's not real.

Why am I paying all this money to eHarmony? They have terrible security for the price.

Unserious as usual

 I wasn't really feeling this guy anyway, but then he got on this thing where he wants all the tea from my divorce, weird, and then he suggests I'm deperate and hopeless? wtf? 

Whatever dude

 You've got to have balls the size of Texas to call me patronizing after posting this comment. 

(He only post comments to my FB page a couple times year and it's always to denigrate me in some way...)