early voting

this afternoon i spent 2 & 1/2 hours in line at my local library to get some early voting done. can you believe it? i went with a book, thankfully, one gifted from patty ("american wife") and it is actually very good - loosely based on laura bush's life, correct? its very dramatic actually, and curtis sittenfeld has a way with getting you when you least expect it. i was very very very (let me emphasize) happy to be reading it, of course, but not so happy to be on a long line with a merry group of argentinians behind me, yapping the whole 150 minutes. no joke. a little intense. they were very happy with each other though, it kind of made me sad that i didnt have anyone to wait in line with.

the drama of the day occurred with some "democrats for mccain" who were saying barack obama was scary because of reverend wright, generally, that barack was against white people, unpatriotic, terrorist, etc-- the underlying view being that having a black man in the white house would mean he would infiltrate it with his spooky black possee (al sharpton, wright, etc). one older lady in the crowd kept calling them racists and then saying, "hillary would not be proud of you!". kind of adorable. there was also an obama volunteer who was probably our age, who was walking by and making sure the crowd was ok-- he would call the mccainers racists, and then they would call him the obama nazi, which, given their racist sentiments, was even more oddly out of place.

to be honest, i was (1) shocked that they were even allowed to be campaigning there, but i guess it was more than 100 ft from the polling entrance, and (2) it made me feel very uncomfortable.

not because anyone was going to make me change my mind, but you know, i think by the time you've gotten to the polling place, you've probably made up your mind, and it feels creepy for people to be bantering on about politics. a little weird. plus, not to mention all of the black people & hispanic minorities (although, a majority here) in line where the dems for mccain had huge signs with rev'd wrights face on it, calling him unamerican, terrorist, etc. it just seemed very, wholly inappropriate. im all for free speech, political voices, all of that, i just dont think it needed to happen when we were all trapped there in line. tense. thankfully, i could bask in my semi-true fiction book and try to avoid the controversies.

still, can you believe it? waiting that long? seems insane. when i finally got in there, we had to pass over picture ID as well as our voting-registration confirmation slip, which was aptly confirmed via computer. then, had to sign one of those electronic pads, like for a credit card purchase, before getting a large envelope with two voting forms inside. the actual place where you went to vote was a little cubby hole-- no curtain, like in new york, but rather, a little area where you took a pen, and actually filled out the voting form. it reminded me a little too much of exams, you know, scantron action. plus, it was a long form and there were people like 5 inches behind you, waiting, and then literally within 5 inches on either side of you. with crying babies, people who were chatting, or didnt understand, etc etc etc. chaos!!! no wonder no one votes in the rest of america. what an ordeal. what do you say to an elderly person who wants to vote? hang out here in the sun and wait for 3 hours because we will give you bottled water? wowza. after i was done bubbling in my form, i then had to go to another area where i fed my forms into a large computer. i mean, in a way, very high tech right - sign on electronic key pad, verify i can vote by computer, use a computer to tally the votes... on the other-- bubbling in with a pen. interesting experience, to say the least. makes me appreciate those old lever booths back home, where you can actually have a curtain between you and the rest of the crazies. at least there will be no "hanging chads" this year. i guess they gave up on that system once it horribly failed.

thats all the excitement over here. its been a gray, gray weekend and sadly its already dark now. i think next weekend is daylight savings? i could use a little more vitamin d in my life.

xo