Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. October roles around, the first full month of Autumn. It is dark when I get up, except for the lingering light of the setting harvest moon. I've often wondered if I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is harder for me to get going during these shorter days. At work, I have a light that Kim got me last year to get more simulated daylight.

Work continues along an even course, but all my free time is getting sucked up with the election. There are roughly fifteen thousand voters in my district. Slowly, surely, I've been contacting as many as possible. Perhaps not as many as I would like, or as others would like, but I'm making progress, and the words of one friend stay with me. Elections are not sprints, they are marathons. I've built a solid foundation for my campaign. I've hit my stride. Now, just to keep the pace for the final month.

Besides voter contact, I've been working on refining my policy positions. One thing comes back to me from my years of writing, show, don't tell. At back to school night for Fiona, the teacher spoke about trying to get the kids to incorporate this concept into their writing. I've been thinking about it in policies as well.

How do I help connect people back to their community and to their government? By connecting more with voters, the community and the government. I try to keep this in mind as I attend events and meet voters personally. How do I address education reform? Perhaps an important part of this is to nurture my own love of learning.

Last night, I spoke with Fiona on her radio show about reading books on smartphones. She enjoys reading various books on her phone and I suggested tweaking it so she can get books out of the library or from project Gutenberg. I spent a little time getting some books onto my phone as well. Reading Margaret Fuller's Memoir may be more helpful in forming policy positions than reading many papers from various organizations.

Fuller is an interesting character and I'm enjoying reading her writing. She was part of the circle of Transcendentalists in Massachusetts during the mid nineteenth century. Here story and writing ads an interesting layer to the writings of Emerson and Thoreau. I would love to see explorations into politics, religion, literature, the arts and civic life that we saw from the Transcendentalists, perhaps with a touch of the Great Awakenings of the preceding years. Somehow, the political landscape today seems so far from this.

But the early morning hours are slipping away. It is time to get ready for another day and another month. Although it is not part of the great intellectual milieu of the nineteenth century, the old childhood invocation, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, harkens back to a time that perhaps, wasn't really all that much simpler, but still holds great appeal. May the month be lucky for all of us.