in honor of july 6th 2008 i decided to offer a short paragraph about my first voting experience.  (i think it was an old myspace post.   i used to clog cybersapce almost daily sometimes twice a day with my opinions and stories.  i think i stopped because i started hating myspace's cruel and inhumane marketting tactics.  and the macy's girt card virus was an assualt to one's eyes. day after day.
maybe i'll join face book.  i've turned down about 5 invites to the facebook world. but for the last two weeks i've secretly hoped to be invited again. so i could indeed join.   my only hope is that there is not nearly as much rubbish to sift through in order to complete my useseless and time consuming activities on face book.     face book i love you. where are you. come find me.)

the recent holidy reminded me of it.   its a voting story. nothing happens reallyso i supose its not really a story.  it starts as a story though but then just ends as a thought. 
it has nothing to do with this snake either. atiba took this of me in in miami last fall.   i love this snake. i forget its name.  its a good snake though.



    


OUT CHANGING THE WORLD. AS ALWAYS, ON THE FRONT LINES.

Today I walked into some trusty looking housing projects and
voted.


11/02/04

 Today Patrick, Tino, and I went and did some voting. It was a gray afternoon filled with mildly depressing wind and the comatosing awareness that our vote for President really didn’t matter since we live in New York and it’s well known that Bush never had a chance
here. Even still we ventured up the street to where Mapquest said our voting location was to carry out our civic duty.
    We came to the gates of the housing projects where my old neighbors would score their drugs. There were shitty looking signs with arrows everywhere that led us into the heart of the projects. Now to three skinny white non-native New Yorkers this was a lot like walking into those housing projects in the movie New Jack City where the crack factory was with all the zombies. It was intimidating to say the least.   I was intimidated. I wondered aloud if Mapquest was in cahoots with a bunch of kids that were luring idiot do-gooders into a mugging festival. I mentioned it to Tino and Patrick and they seemed to partially agree with my paranoia but we pushed on and followed the signs. I thought to myself "well at least none of us is wearing glasses." After doing a quick loop and letting out a few nervous chuckles we found out that we were where we were supposed to be and there was no ambush. It was a thousand degrees in there but there were only about 15 people. That was surprising since I thought everyone was going to vote this year. I figured this because Puff Daddy was on some real clever billboards everywhere that read “VOTE OR DIE”. Maybe the choice to be made was too overwhelming for most people. Whatever. The machines are made for short people. Apparently in the 1940's when these particular machines were manufactured the average American stood 5 foot 2 inches. I ducked to get inside then towered over the thing. I turned my first knobs and yanked on a big red lever and, well, I have to admit the red lever is empowering. It makes the same sound as a slot machine. You feel like you are really doing something. For a split second it’s a total possibility that the machine will solve all your problems. I voted for John Kerry and some other nobodies, and then some random woman who was running for judge. I voted for her because she was part of the Workers Party. The name sounded noble enough.  If I were running for something I'd run under the PARTY Party. I wonder how many people would vote for me just because they were psyched on the name? Especially if I were only running for judge.