I've been sick. Really sick. The first time I've ever had an illness that could have become quite serious without treatment.

Last week I started having trouble catching my breath. By Friday night I had a fever. Saturday my voice disappeared completely (call me the Hoarse Whisperer). By Sunday I was coughing, but not coughing anything up...the kind of desperate, spasmodic coughing that results from an obstruction to the airway, and not from a throat inflammation. It felt like crazed weasels were trying to escape through my sternum using teeth, claws, and a white-hot railroad spike.

By Monday morning I was getting winded walking to the kitchen and back. So I went to the clinic.

It's never good when the doctor listens to your back with his stethoscope and says "whoa".

Then he listened to my chest and said "wow, you really need some medicine". He said I had some severe bronchial infection...the kind which if left untreated can move into the lower lungs and become pneumonia. He gave me some pills and an inhaler, and was I ever glad for the inhaler, because over the years I've become rather fond of breathing.

By Wednesday the weasels had left my chest and I could walk to the DVD store without pausing every ten steps. Boy did I watch a lot of DVDs.

Thursday brought a new set of problems, so I went back to the clinic. The doctor listened to my chest again and told me it was improving, then checked my throat and told me I had a terrible case of strep throat. Go me!

That night I was sitting at my computer and had placed my juice glass into my favourite glass teacup. I remember thinking "I shouldn't leave those like that, the cat will knock them over." This is dangerous thinking. When you start thinking "I shouldn't do x, because the cat will do y", then the cat has won and you are its slave. So I left them, because my bed was closer than the kitchen and I only had so much oxygen.

The morning of Friday the 13th started looked to be quite the hellish end to a hellish week. You already know that I woke to a crashing sound, and inevitably the cat had knocked over the glasses. She had been after pens. Why cats love pens is beyond me, but there were some near the glasses, the glasses went down and basically turned to powder amongst my computer cables. So I'm down on my hands and knees under my desk, wheezing, to assess the damage, and Little Miss Smashy runs up to see how much glass she can embed in her soft little paws. Perhaps she should learn her lesson, I thought momentarily, but then I remembered vet bills.

I got the glass cleaned up, took a few hits off'n my inhaler and went to brush my teeth. Now my bathroom is not large. But it's in quite a large place, up off the ground floor, and I clean regularly. There are a lot of surfaces in my house and in my bathroom. So why in the nine levels of Hades did an earwig choose the bristles of my toothbrush to cling to and die?

Now I don't like killing stuff. No mercy on mosquitoes and houseflies, and I'll dispatch things cats have half-killed or club a fish I've caught. But I'll put spiders outside, and even the slugs in my garden get to drown in beer instead of eating poison. But I have a particular revulsion for earwigs, even though I know they're harmless. They're just...gross. It's not the pincers. It's the fact that they're sort of translucent and don't look fully developed somehow. Anyway. Not in my house, and definitely not on my toothbrush.

And speaking of disgusting little creatures, the day did not improve when I saw that the Conservatives were gaining in the polls.

I like to make my political choices based on policies, but it's a rare thing that I get to vote for a party instead of against one. The Conservatives scare me already, and their leader just looks plain evil. I mean, our cousins to the South elected a leader who looks like a chimpanzee, but at least he just looks stupid...if I'd never seen him before I'd probably think he'd be an OK guy to drink a beer with. The Conservative leader just looks scary. Beady little ice-blue eyes.

Our election is in nine days. The governing Liberal party has been in power for eleven years and won a minority government the last time. They're seeking to strengthen their position, but a slew of controversy has allowed the Conservatives to gain. They're not even the Conservatives anymore, though. When the Liberals took power, the last Conservative government was so corrupt and awful that they didn't even get official party status. The Bloc Québecois became the official Opposition, which marked the beginning of the extreme political polarization we see today.

There was another right-wing party even more right-wing than the outgoing and dwindling Conservatives. The Reform Party/Canadian Alliance had been gaining in popularity in the absence of another right-option. The old Conservatives at least had tact, and the good sense to keep religion out of politics. Without a functional party of their own, the old-school Conservatives Grit their teeth and joined the Liberals, reluctantly went over to the upstart Reformers, or stubbornly stuck to their old party; slowly building it back up, which they eventually did.

The Right was split, and the Conservatives and Alliance eventually merged. The Conservatives were still badly wounded from the Mulroney years, and needed the strength the Alliance had in the West. The Alliance were still seen as crazy right-fringe nutbars in many ways, and needed the legitimacy of the old Conservative name. So now we have the Frankenstein of the right, with the old Tory name, run by a fundamentalist Christian. And they're somehow gaining in the polls.

I don't think they'll win. I hope they don't win. If they do win, they won't get a majority. But let me tell you what a Conservative victory would mean, without even thinking too hard.

- the dismantling of our flawed yet vital universal healthcare system
- privatization everywhere, even for major utilities which should not be run for profit
- increased tuition costs
- the dismantling of a nascent universal childcare program
- abandonment or stripping of Canadian compliance with the Kyoto Accord -abandonment of pay equity initiatives
- reopening of the debate on same-sex marriage and rights
- greater integration with the American economy (which is no great shakes these days)
- greater integration with the US military

Without intending to make this an anti-American rant, I should say a few things here. In the past, the Conservative leader has supported the US war in Iraq, and would have sent our troops into that horrible quagmire. We've already got American Customs at Vancouver airport and a US DEA office here. When my office rented speedboats for a fun outing, we were told we weren't allowed in the waters off the airport. Why? HOMELAND SECURITY. It's not even their fucking homeland. I'm not anti-American. But I am very pro-retentionofCanadianautonomy. Do we want leaders who will align us even more closely with a government most Canadians abhor? One that's considering putting up fences along our border?

Actually I like that last one. It'll let us control the fugees when the fundies start shooting heathens and coloreds and ay-rabs and such.

I'm lucky enough to live in a riding that is solidly third-party, so I can actually vote my conscience and not just against the Conservatives. The Liberal party has a lot of flaws, that's certain. I'm left-wing, but I'm no bleeding heart, and I truly believe that what the Conservatives will do to this country is monstrous. So if you're Canadian and you're reading this, please consider carefully before you cast your vote on the 23rd.

And watch your toothbrushes for earwigs. That can only be a right-wing plot.