"Give me liberty, or give me death!" -Patrick Henry, 1775

I!

Am!

Bored!

Picture, if you will, me saying this while stomping my feet, arms folded, scowl planted on my face and threaded through my eyebrows.

It's been three days since I had surgery, which should come as a surprise to few of you as I've worried aloud for three months that I was dying. Aside from the prospect of having something really wrong with me, I was worried that I'd gone to rather great lengths (Mongolia, for starters) to follow a dream that would end in...well, end, period. 

As it turns out, my concerns were very much grounded, but I'm going to be fine. However, there is a catch. I can't do anything for three weeks. Huh? You mean, I have to be off my feet?

Well, you know what that means. It means I've been sitting here in my apartment doing what an un-busy person does: procrastinating and thinking about planning a revolution. No, that is not hyperbole. I'm alternating sitting and lying here, not looking at the massive, gargantuan editing task before me for The Book, but I'm trying to stir up cinders of Patrick Henry (from American primary school days, you'll remember him as the man who angrily uttered, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"), and start a revolution against what our country is undoubtedly about to befall itself to. 

Incidentally, I'm also mangling sentence structure: "befall itself to"?, but I'll blame that on the Vicadin.

Recently I met with a man, a distinguished older gentleman who does not give out business cards, and knows a lot about everything, more than just in his field of expertise, which is investigation. This man said to me, "This is not the 1960's. People are not angry enough. Without a lead on anger and outrage, Obama does not stand a chance with polling numbers that roughly match McCain's." 

In quick succession, I became angry and outraged. I wrote a blog post! I emailed people! I broke a rule about donating to a political campaign! 

And in just as quick succession, I received an email from an American friend I traveled with while in Mongolia, who commented on my rage: "The salient point here," he began and from here on I won't quote him (I just had to begin with his turn of phrase, because it is always so clever), is that we'll all go back to work on November 5. We won't begin a campaign to wage war to bring to a premature end to the people that this country has elected into office, whether we like them or not.

Well, then, fine. But what am I supposed to do with all my extra time sitting on my haunches, not editing, not working, and not feeling satisfied with where our country is going?

I can satisfy myself with just one more twinkle from the past, this one from 19th-century French diplomat Talleyrand, who said, "Treason is a matter of dates." 

Without the ability to stand for very long, I humbly declare myself an armchair revolutionary. Unless someone can give me a better idea of what to do with my time?