Voting today

Since this blog is called Standard Bear, LLC - the name of our little production company - I should start this second blog by announcing (trumpets please) that the rough edit for Season 2, Episode 2 has just been finished.  I think it's very funny.  I can't wait to see it with music and cleaner sound.  Compared to last seasons horse and buggy pace, Sal is moving like the most expensive Acela train out of D.C. 

But today I feel like talking about voting.  I have to walk approximately 10 steps to get to my voting location,  and I'm lucky, because, at this spot in Queens, the volunteers always outnumber the voters.  I've never waited more than 42 seconds to vote.  I love it there.  When I arrive, everyone seems genuinely happy to see me. It's not like a coffee shop where I'm a regular at, or the restaurant where they know our names and generally what we order (there are a few too many of those), because there is no financial exchange.  Everyone is filled with the sense that as regular people, we have the power to do something about the world we live in.  Now, whether or not this actually happens, whether or not that little bubble we scribble in really changes those things we feel needs changing, or we're actually just slugging through a system that is set up for eventual failure (I work with some conspiracy theorists, and sometimes they get to me) that's up for larger debate, and one I'm not qualified to enter into.  I just know that as soon as I prove my signature matches, I am allowed to directly affect our district, our nation, and possibly, if our theorists are wrong, our world. 

Maybe the conspiracy theorists get to me a little, or I wouldn't have mentioned it, but that's why I like Propositions.  It's not about a person, who may change their mind based on circumstance, or financial and party pressure.  It's a Yes or a No.  I can say NO!  Or YES!!!  And it passes or it doesn't.  Sometimes the result makes me cry.  Prop 8 was a clear disaster.  But then we have new elections, and suddenly there's hope for a future of acceptance and love.  And maybe that's why I love voting.  I'm a big fan of hope, and you can really smell possibility in the air on Election Day.

I should mention that the coffee shop in which I am most regular at is one I used to work at, and I make my own coffee when I visit.  Sometimes I end up working for a few minutes too, when they get a little crowded and I don't want our conversation to be interrupted by customers.  

 The above is Sal and I on Halloween 2008, at my favorite coffee shop.  I just have a pumpkin shirt on, while Sal is dressed as a creepy bowler.  I had to fend the ladies off of him all night long.

This Halloween party, 2009, (I was Supergirl/Clarkette Kent, and Sal was a Samurai Mime) I really did have to fend the ladies off of him all night long. 

This last Halloween (three days ago) I went dressed as Tuzia, from the play Commedia Dell'Artemisia, which we performed on Halloween.  We have two more shows next weekend, and if you're curious: http://www.stolenchair.org/ 

Happy Election Day!