Post-Halloween

We've opened the doors at Monster Halloween, Tuesday following Halloween. Election day. An hour and a half after opening, we have had exactly $19.38 in sales: a butterfly costume with wings, and a small butterfly-like mask. Almost everything is 50% off, but there has not been a rush of Halloween fanatics clamoring for deals, like I thought there might be. About three people have passed through the doors. There is about to be one more sale. $33.12. Chuck, a vendor at Star Trek conventions, purchasing three Spock ears, an Arwen necklace from Lord of the Rings, and a ceramic dragon. There is another woman now, looking at a ceramic carousel.

What a relief, not having to be constantly gearing up for ever and ever increasing craziness. To sit and not feel rushed. Though it is past Halloween, I have dressed up. I'm wearing a frilly shirt, a tan bandanna, with a colorful sash holding my pine swords; the pirate Sir Vis. I have not dressed like this before. I'm hoping to dance later today, with the swords, in the street. In honor of the election, the choice between one unpalatable party or another, a choice I will not bother to make. I vote every day, with every dollar. Just as everyone else does, consciously or not.

We are probably looking at two years of legislative gridlock, a Senate and House of Representatives at odds and viciously so, even as the country sinks deeper into debt, and energy resources become increasingly expensive. The election after this one, two years from now, a full presidential election, will come in the midst of apocalyptic hysteria, with the sun eclipsing the center of the galaxy on its 26,000 year cycle. I expect the shift from party to party to be as frenetic as the weather, and increasingly unpredictable. We are in the twilight of American Hegemony, the twilight of global trade. What a brief and glorious period it has been. I saw pomagranite seeds for sale at the market this morning. Buy them while you can.

The challenge now will be to keep the doors open without bleeding money, while giving the staff a short opportunity to make a little more money, before there is no more work here and they are left to find other work in an increasingly unforgiving economy. I expect to take two months off while I figure out how to heat my house, how to manufacture goods in China without getting taken, how to convince an international food product manufacturer to sponsor someone I care about, and to write a sequel to my first book, the latter which I hope to make available as a free download soon. That, and how to make money teaching others how to tend one's dragon.

A couple of more sales, for a total of approximately $300. A man with an "I voted" sticker just came in asking for fake boobs. We didn't have what he was looking for.