i got up early-ish (after a terrible stress dream about missing my first 501 class because i stayed at work late... WORKING, yikes on so many levels.), scrambled desperately to find my passport, failed and decided to show them my tax forms if they didn't believe i lived on east 117th street. fortunately, that was unnecessary, i just had to sign a card stating i was, in fact, myself. it was nice. all the older volunteers were very sweet. i again puzzled over the weird machine they have here in the city, and after about 2 minutes figured it out well enough to pull the level and record my vote for barack obama. i guess hillary is SOL if she was relying on me to be in her creepy white woman army:
"Hillary has a reserve army of poor, single, white women whose support is intense and unwavering."
yikes. i did not volunteer for that duty. can i return my draft card some where? or burn it with my shitty paystub and leave the ranks of poor white single girls forever?
i am actually getting excited about Barack Obama and this democratic race. i tend to avoid getting involved too early because i hate having my hopes dashed at the last moment (like many of my generation, i think), but i really really like obama. i love that he's choosing to help define our country's very fractured immediate future. i am trying to be eloquent here, in a region where nearly every better writer than myself has tried and failed. yes, my generation tends to be one of immediate gratification and shortened attention spans... but i see such geniune passion and excitement from my peers regarding Obama, and i think that passion is a shared reflection of the man... it just genuinely makes me excited for this race. yay new york, yay super tuesday, yay united states of america!
i've been mentioning voting to all my co-workers, so hopefully a few will head to the polls after work. and hopefully no polls will be destroyed by frothing, rampaging giant-idiots fresh from parading like a bunch of ninnies down broadway. ed koch was right, go parade in new jersey. boo, hiss.
to be fair, i probably would make fun of the pats fans' inevitable, self-righteous rioting in boston as well. probably. but it would have been different because it would have been MY drunken assholes rioting.
sidenote: how fucking great would a bloomberg/barack presidential race be? the answer is TOTALLY GREAT.
also: does it bug anyone else to have the US political system be referred to as a democracy? i seriously can't hear that without replying (either to myself, or to the television screen, or, horror, to my unfortunate conversation partner) 'it's not a democracy, it's a democratic republic, we elect officials. this isn't ancient athens. WE'RE not developing and voting on policies, NOW ARE WE!?' although usually i leave off the part after 'officials', unless i want to get my ass kicked. but i feel the need to be specific on this point, because while i may tend to avoid political thinking in my day-to-day life, i feel it is never beneficial to smooth over specificities for ease of description, ESPECIALLY in the political realm. a semi-socractic, definitely-biased dialogue to demonstrate my point:
'well i think this way, and that's okay, because we live in a democracy!!!11! goo america!!!1'
'no, we don't live in a democracy, and if you do want to think that way, that is great, but you will need to research and find a candidate that represents your ideas well enough for you to support with your vote. because at the end of the day, our American system, while certainly flawed, is about compromise and dialogue of opinion.'
'omg i luf the giants luz moar beer plz!!1'
okay, i have wasted plenty of time with this today, i have work to do before my first 501 class at 6 (which i will NOT be late for, and which will not be inexplicably held in a sunny victorian house without an elevator, which halfway through turns into the newer constructed area of my old middle school), and then dashing to harold night afterwards. improv and voting, what a day!
1 comment:
I hope your class went well!!
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