Voting

We have a primary election today. I have spent the last couple of weeks hanging up on phone calls that want to play me recordings from politicians saying either "vote for me" or "vote for my friend," because if I don't hang up I might decide I had to vote against the callers for interrupting me. And two weeks is time enough to decide to vote against every single candidate.

Instead, cattitude and I walked the couple of blocks to our polling place. We stopped outside long enough for me to ask our former assemblyman, Brian, why he's pushing this particular candidate for the state committee [1]; he'd called Cattitude about it a couple of nights ago, and me last night, but I wasn't up to taking the phone call. It seemed more or less plausible, so I voted for her. (Brian used to live in our building, now lives next door, and pays Cattitude for computer help now and then.) After talking to Brian, we walked into the building, and I said hello to Len, an old acquaintance who is now one of the election workers. He was sitting next to the voting booth; I gather from the conversation that he and his partner Alexei are still together, and he mentioned that another acquaintance, Sally, has left the neighborhood.

I voted (Eliot Spitzer, Mark Green, Brian's recommendations for civil court and state committee, and one randomly selected person for delegate to the judicial convention [voters are asked to choose five, but it works to choose one, or none]), waited for Cattitude (we use the same machine, because we live in the same place), and then we walked around the neighborhood before he went to the subway and I did my morning stretches and then came home.

Another gorgeous September morning, another primary election; nothing went wrong this time, unlike five years and a day ago, when I'd called in sick because I was being laid off so why push myself to go in when feeling unwell, but it was hard not to think back, with the weather so similar.

Even if I thought it would make a difference, I don't think I could bring myself not to vote, but maybe next primary I'll vote in the evening.

[1] Almost nobody cares about the state [2] committee, or knows what it is: it's internal Democratic Party stuff. I was boggled by getting a nicely printed flyer about that race in the mail.

[2] Yes, I misremembered this as county committee; corrected becaue I just opened a letter with no return address, and found it was a slightly belated "reelect me to the state committee" from this woman.

Voting

We have a primary election today. I have spent the last couple of weeks hanging up on phone calls that want to play me recordings from politicians saying either "vote for me" or "vote for my friend," because if I don't hang up I might decide I had to vote against the callers for interrupting me. And two weeks is time enough to decide to vote against every single candidate.

Instead, cattitude and I walked the couple of blocks to our polling place. We stopped outside long enough for me to ask our former assemblyman, Brian, why he's pushing this particular candidate for the state committee [1]; he'd called Cattitude about it a couple of nights ago, and me last night, but I wasn't up to taking the phone call. It seemed more or less plausible, so I voted for her. (Brian used to live in our building, now lives next door, and pays Cattitude for computer help now and then.) After talking to Brian, we walked into the building, and I said hello to Len, an old acquaintance who is now one of the election workers. He was sitting next to the voting booth; I gather from the conversation that he and his partner Alexei are still together, and he mentioned that another acquaintance, Sally, has left the neighborhood.

I voted (Eliot Spitzer, Mark Green, Brian's recommendations for civil court and state committee, and one randomly selected person for delegate to the judicial convention [voters are asked to choose five, but it works to choose one, or none]), waited for Cattitude (we use the same machine, because we live in the same place), and then we walked around the neighborhood before he went to the subway and I did my morning stretches and then came home.

Another gorgeous September morning, another primary election; nothing went wrong this time, unlike five years and a day ago, when I'd called in sick because I was being laid off so why push myself to go in when feeling unwell, but it was hard not to think back, with the weather so similar.

Even if I thought it would make a difference, I don't think I could bring myself not to vote, but maybe next primary I'll vote in the evening.

[1] Almost nobody cares about the state [2] committee, or knows what it is: it's internal Democratic Party stuff. I was boggled by getting a nicely printed flyer about that race in the mail.

[2] Yes, I misremembered this as county committee; corrected becaue I just opened a letter with no return address, and found it was a slightly belated "reelect me to the state committee" from this woman.