Well, I was thrilled, the night before, to get a voice mail message from the editor of newspaper A, saying they were going to publish my letter entitled "Hitting the Third Bumper." So I called him today and to my great distress, I referred to him by the name of the editor of newspaper B, as both names were swimming in my head, and because I originally wrote the letter for newspaper B, didn't hear from them, and then sent it to newspaper A as well. I also called him to express interest in writing for them. He was very gracious, actually, and allayed my fears and complete embarassment. I will call him later in the week. I used to like newspaper B more, but I have been reading them both for a little while now, and I like newspaper A a lot more than previously.
Yes, all this sounds very cryptic, and I will be more revealing once things are more settled.
Well, it was Election Day, and in the apathetic atmosphere that clouds our society, voting is practically a motion of activism.
I had dinner with Lothlorien and Nicole, both of whom were recently out west, in the Bay Area and LA respectively. Nicki has a project that is "at a very exciting stage" as we say in AbFab, and is looking "v. v. good." But being a good citizen, I had to leave at 8 pm to go and vote.
Now you would think that getting from the Chelsea-Flatiron borderline to the Upper East Side would not be so difficult or time-consuming.
Wrong...
I got out at 59th and Third Avenue, thinking, foolishly, that the bus would show up regularly as it usually does. It was delayed, and then en route to 75th Street, we had to pick up a wheelchair passenger. I opted off the bus and ran the rest of the way from 70th Street. What I do just to vote.
I spoke to my belle soeur (sister-in-law--a term I hate), after helping her to place a kitten she rescued, and she said, "I have to consult on my voting choices with your brother to make sure we don't negate each other." I thought this was hilarious and I said, "Hey, I'm voting too. Does that make me the tie-breaker? You do realize that there are some other people voting also, you know!" We must've laughed for five minutes straight.
I vote at Robert Wagner Junior High School. It might be an IS now, but you get the idea. Very often there are wackos running the polls, but the women there tonight (and at the primary) were very nice. Usually something goes very wrong and a team of people have to deal with my malfunctioning machine. Last time, in September, I nearly moved the machine a few feet while attempting to slide the big lever over to the left, and the little levers did not move at all.
Last time the women said over and over again, about my Biblical personal name, "Seth walked with God." Frustrated with the machine, I came out from behind those green(ish) curtains and said, "Seth walked with God, but he had trouble voting." This time it went off without a technical hitch.
I have a long "yellow-dog Democrat" history that in recent years has gotten less yellow and more doggy. Two years ago, after a demoralizing conversation with my then uberboss about my then-newer boss, I was so sick of the "establishment" I voted for the Socialist Workers Party. They normally get 15,000 votes, and that year they got 15,001, and as Tony says, they are probably still trying to hunt me down and indoctrinate me further. Frankly, most people I know didn't vote for Clinton or Dole, but for crazy Ross Perot, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, or the others.
So, here's how I voted. I was so disgusted by the Elmer Fudds (Pataki, Vacco, and Vallone) there was no way I would ever vote for them. So I voted for Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis because it might help make the Greens a party in NYC. There was no way I would vote for Betsy McCaughey Ross. "Even her husband won't vote for her," as Tony would say. I voted for Schumer, because I like him, and because I hate D'Amato so much. The "putzhead" and "waddler" comments about two Jewish politicians, to a Jewish audience, no less, shows the complete arrogance of a bigoted three-term senator who is clearly vainglorious.
I almost voted for Catherine Abate, who ran as an Independence candidate after losing to Spitzer, but voting for Spitzer helped oust homophobe Vacco, famous for firing all the gay lawyers on his staff when he became Attorney General, and for making anti-latino "bodega/banditto" comments as late as the last fortnight, during his campaign. I also voted for Carl McCall for comptroller. Carolyn Maloney (D) had no real competition for her Congressional seat. I voted for the poor doomed guy running against Ex-Lax King Roy Goodman, the state senator who, when I saw him in the 68th Street IRT Station, looked like he died five years ago and forgot to tell his campaign manager.
By the way, Catherine Abate's impossibilty of winning was such a foregone conclusion she was on NY1 during the returns commenting on how Spitzer would have to beat the lamentable Vacco--both of whom were her opponents. Her appearance, while wonderful, was also such a wonderful absurdity. Perhaps she will be both a winner and loser in bitchy Andrew Kirzman's weekend wrap-up of the political scene.
I tend to vote for Democrats who run under other parties simultaneously, so I voted for some people as their "liberal" alter-egos. Imagine my surprise when Tony told me that the Liberal Party in NYC is actually fairly conservative. I nearly fell off my figurative chair. Hey, at least I'm not voting for the parties whose symbols are ganja leaves or the hideous little fetuses.
The woman who had me sign in reminded me, "You know you just made it, right?" Yes, I did.
I then went straight to Hell--I had to buy something at Duane Reade. It's my image of Hell. Waiting for all Eternity on a line there as the cashier struggles to check you out. There was a gay couple on line behind me, very absorbed in what to buy, like the cello tape "with extra wide thickness." I have never turned down extra wide thickness when it's presented itself. I did not tell them this, but I did share my vision of hell. They concurred and added "with Rod Stewart singing `you're in my heart, you're in my soul' " and we had a good laugh. I bought my water, made it out of there, and thought, "there is a God after all!" (Another AbFab quote.)
At home I watched Spin City and was pleased to see Michael J. Fox's character going to a therapist and discussing his homophobia. He was able to accept Carter being gay, but not his old friend's coming out. This reminded me of the guy on the bus on Hallowe'en, who could accept gay strangers and clients, but freaked over an old girlfriend being a lesbian. Funny how gayness is practically acceptable until it hits home.
Guess what? You all know someone gay. We're not liberal abstractions. We're real. If you're straight you have to realize this; if you're gay, you have to make people realize this. Our lives matter. Yet so many people don't know what's happening. At least three people I know missed the headline/opening story coverage of the 19 October police-protester clash. One friend I really respect had no idea who was running for which office. "So do we have a new mayor?" I was fairly aghast, actually. This is what happens when you don't watch TV or read the papers. But every citizen gets a voters' guide in their mailboxes. There's no excuse. Very few people knew about the Alaska and Hawaii ballot initiatives about same-sex marriage.
Just how many freedoms, or single one, will we have to lose before we finally figure out we should have been paying more attention to the world and not just our immediate surroundings? Is it any wonder such low voter turnouts are anticipated? Of course politicians in general have fostered this environment, but vigilance is required in a democracy.
Of course, there's that alternative view we get from Kent Brockman on The Simpsons: "Democracy simply doesn't work."