Sigh. Today is just...well...dreary. Even Parliament/Funkadelic isn't cheery enough.

It's started to pour here, and it's expected to rain - hard - for a few days. I really, really wish I had a bathtub, because with the weather looking so grey, I'd just hole myself up in there with some cocoa and a good book for a while.

Alas, today's the final runoff for mayor of San Francisco (good riddance, Willie Brown! Thanks for nothing!) and we have to venture out in the wet a bit later and do our civic duty. I never thought I'd complain about a race between two smart, young liberal candidates, but it isn't quite the "greater of two goods" choice that I had hoped for. Newson's somewhat smarmy, well-funded, and obviously ambitious beyond just the Mayor's office but he might take some positive, though unpopular steps towards making the city more liveable. Gonzalez is smart, motivated, and has some different ideas, but he's the worst kind of classic San Francisco bleeding-heart liberal who won't challenge the city to make tough choices. Honestly? I just want someone who will do a Daley or Giuliani and really take steps to clean up San Francisco's homelessness issue and growing crime problem. Chicago and New York have become lovely, beautiful, safe places to live, while the sidewalk outside my apartment just gets dirtier and less safe every day. San Francisco's the only city in the country where the councilmen will argue about a resolution to pick up human feces from the sidewalks. Just tell me who to vote for to make that better, OK?

Laundry's done, presents are almost wrapped, and if I don't get a job soon, I think I'm going to go mad.