put your hands into the big sky

Okay, after a night of Halloween candy gorging and attempting to write unbiased, uncynical headlines about tomorrow's election, I'm going to put forth a few things about this dubious time of the year.

This will be the first election in which I am eligible to vote. I wanted so desperately to vote in the last one, but though of age, I wasn't yet a citizen. I live in Florida and was consequently glued to the television through the endless weeks of recounts and pregnant chads and fraud allegations and remember so clearly my horror at how we arrived at the end result and deep resentment watching Bush's acceptance speech.

I had no idea of its ramifications. Four years later, we have a senseless war, a record budget deficit, a shredded First Amendment and half a nation of people willing to do it all for four more years. And I. Don't. Get it.

Why are people voting for this man? How are people supporting the regime that all but put the Constitution through the shredder, that sent hundreds of thousands of the very people they disenfranchised in a thousand ways, from cutting off funding for social programs to outsourcing jobs, to a desert halfway across the world on a lie? The man who let - yes, let - this all come about in the first place? I'm at such a loss as to just where half of this country has had their heads up for the past four years, because it sure isn't where fresh air and sunshine live.

I researched my county candidates and filled out my sample ballot tonight. I'm getting in line and staying as long as necessary to cast my vote tomorrow as soon as I get out of the tutoring lab. Alachua is a traditionally Democratic county, but the theme of this election, especially in this state, is that it counts. It all counts. I'm hard-pressed to come up with when it could've possibly counted more. Because while Kerry doesn't exactly light my fire, I am passionate about getting Bush and his power-happy, fiscally irresponsible, warmongering chronies out of Washington before they can do any more damage. And that's reason enough in my book.

I've been wearing a Kerry-Edwards pin on my bag for the past few weeks. I've been sneered at, taunted, and snubbed with pointed looks through the course of it. I've returned the courtesy exactly never, though mostly because I was too shocked to respond. I treat people who are cruel to small animals or bump into me without apologizing like that, not fellow classmates merely going about their day. I am afraid of what we'll wake up to on November 3rd. That's if we even have a president, which is a headache I refuse to start feeling until there's just cause.

Staci and I have decided that whatever else we do on Roommate Night this Thursday, there's gonna be alcohol, and we're gonna liberally toast either the end of the world or Bush's ass. But for now, I'll settle for surviving work tomorrow night. We've done election nights before, but tomorrow's gonna be something insane.

In other news, Dow Jones Newspaper Fund application has been mailed off, La Timberlake and Snoop would have me believe disco's back in style with their new song, Leonardo's made their outrageous garlic rolls even better, summer can go fuck itself, and this is really cool.

Quotes of the Day:

"Who here knows election laws?"
- Sports editor, to the newsroom

"If you are undecided, please, for the smallest remaining remnant of dignity in your family name, grab the person next to you and ask for help. It is not safe for you to be out in the city alone."
- Jim Ellis

[ETA: And wow. So, Simon LeBon can sing live, eh? Rawr.]

my digestion will improve, anyway

For all the hoopla, I've no salacious stories to tell about voting today besides having done it. walkingshadow picked me up from the tutoring lab at three, and we headed over to the Union, picking up Kerry stickers from the Gators for Kerry kids on the front steps and walking a big circle around the Bush-Cheney crowd, managing not to commit acts of vandalism on their vapid sign. We got in line, we got immortalized on film by Alligator staff photographer Nick, who happened to show up a minute before we did and was gone by the time we came back out about ten minutes later.

Filling out the ballot took longer than standing in line, which isn't indicative of turnout if the people in this town have gotten half the phone calls, have been subjected to half as many campaign ads (there was a commercial break in Leno last night that was singularly political ads), or you know, cared about the future of our country half as much as we do. And you know, whichever way you voted, I only hope it was an informed decision, and if you're not happy with the results, remember that this isn't the only time you can exercise your civil rights as a citizen. We're shareholders in something hugely important, and there's still a whole lot that can be done, that needs a voice, that should be advocated.



[/political cheerleading]

Hours-long lines, record high weather, a campusful of well-tread fliers and hoarse throats from weeks of rallies and speeches and intersection sign-waving and one last endless night at work, then we're spent. Hot and tired with nails chewed to the quick, but the whole situation seems a lot more trouble-free than four years ago and maybe, just maybe, we can start getting back to cursing the stupid tourists and crazy drivers instead of our neighbors.

Uh...

Where is my "too close to call" election? Almost from when numbers started coming in, this hasn't been anything resembling a close contest. Where is my drama? Where are my running-high tensions? Who were they polling for those 49%/48% numbers?

*sigh*

I could despair now, but they need me sane for those errant commas. Instead, have had a cigarette with Nick and went to town on a production employee's reporting paper, so at least there's that.