Elective Compulsive Disorder

Patt Morrison in the LA Times diagnoses herself, me, and many other people with a new disease: Elective Compulsive Disorder. Fortunately, it's temporary.

This must be what it's like to be a lush. The ECD sufferer goes sneaking off when no one's looking, not for a snort of Stoli but for a quick hit at a polling website.

Nothing's too minor to obsess over. You learn that Nebraska and Maine allot electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all, and off you go on a Google-quest for voter registration stats in Omaha and Bangor. You sign up for alerts about election-day weather forecasts in Ohio. You don't give a hang about who wins the World Series, except that they're both swing-state teams and how would that affect voters' moods?

I completely understand this problem. Thank God Andrew Sullivan blogs on a constant basis, otherwise I don't know what I would do. The NYTimes doesn't update fast enough for me. Washingtonpost.com? Ha! This was the worst possible time for HSX to be down, because I was lacking access to my favorite other computer-based obsession.

It's probably a good thing I don't have cable, or I wouldn't be getting anything else done.

Just a few more days.

Of course, then I'll probably go into withdrawal.