Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: Close-up on my "I VOTED" sticker.

Here in Saint Paul, the mayoral election isn't nearly as exciting as it is over in Minneapolis, but I have always voted in all so-called "off" elections. We did NOT have police reform on the ballot, only rent control. Even so, at 7 am, as the polls opened, our polling place was hopping. Often Shawn and I are the only people in the building besides the poll workers, but this time there was a steady stream of folks coming and going.  That was nice to see. Perhaps people are staying involved, even though the former presidential administration has been defeated. 

Last night, I attended the MinnSpec writing spree at 6;15 pm. I had a forgotten that November 1 would be the beginning of NaNoWriMo for every writer ever. Most of the folks who showed up were working on that. I have nothing against NaNoWriMo but it has never worked for me--except to demoralize me, because I inevitably fail to make word count. But, I got some writing done at the spree/sprint, which was good. I don't know why these kinds of Zoom "accountability" meetings work for me, but they do. I signed up to go to the one in the middle of the month right away, too.

Halloween was surprisingly nice for us. Since it was on a Sunday, we spent the day putting up decorations and carving pumpkins.


Image: My silly-face pumpkin for Halloween 2021. 

We made a giant sign to put on the door that was readable from the sidewalk that said, "We are masked and vaccinated. Trick-or-Treaters welcome." This seemed to encourage people to come onto the porch and knock on our door. We had almost as many in-person visitors as we would have had on a normal year--which is not to say very many? Our house is in a very cut-off neighborhood, being between the highway and University Avenue in one direction, and Fairview and Snelling in the other. (Out of towners, all those streets are very busy throughways.) We rarely used to get more than a half-dozen, even before the pandemic. That's about what we got this year--maybe even closer to a dozen. I did answer the door masked, and so we got to see a LOT of very smols. I was surprised how many parents were also dressed up? There was a cute set where the little was dressed as an angel and the parent was dressed as a devil. I had another very one little one who didn't want to leave our porch because we have a lot of decorations that will light up or which are motion activated and he wanted to stay and play with them all. It was pretty darned adorable.

Meanwhile, I roasted pumpkin seeds and dressed up to answer the door. I have a go-to costume, which is basically a character from Bleach, so I just pulled that out of storage. 

So I feel like Halloween, for us, was pretty much back to normal. 

In other news, I am starting to contemplate how to find myself a group to watch and discuss anime. I had a small gathering that was working, but they have shifted almost entirely over to C-dramas. And, while I have nothing against Chinese live-action, it is not Japanese anime--which is my first and only love. I joined Anime Twin Cities some time ago, but I'm not terribly active there because they don't actually talk about anime that often?? (Seriously, it's mostly gaming and cosplay.)  I miss having people I can talk to about this stuff. 

I'll be at CONFabulous this weekend. It's a virtual con, but I'm on at least one bit of paneling and I'm going to be gaming Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which I'm pretty excited about.  If you're curious, here's their schedule: http://confabulous.org/wordpress/schedule/

The sticker on my coffee cup lid this morning asked me: "Do you know who you're voting for?" On Facebook, I answered this way: "My answer: so many--my trans and queer friends and family, the immigrant and refugee students and their families that are my son's colleagues at school and who still want to come to this country to make it a better place, for women and men who have been abused and should be believed, for black lives that matter, the environment, democracy, and... oh, you meant on the ballot?"

Because, yeah, I've known who is on the ballot for some time and (thanks to naomikritzer), I've had a cheat sheet in my wallet for months.

The coffeeshop I got this cup at, Claddaugh, has a sign out that says, "'I Voted' sticker = free cup of coffee!" Mary, the owner, told me that someone harassed her barista and said, "You can't do that; it's illegal." Of course she can. Mary isn't telling anyone WHO to vote for and rewarding only the answers she likes. In fact, if someone looks at "I will reward you if you vote" and sees something partisan, that tells me A LOT about which side of the divide THEY are standing on. It's kind of amazing that one of the things we are fighting for right now in this election is the idea--which should be a basic and AMERICAN value--is the right for every citizen to vote. 

This morning at my polling place, I got a little teary-eyed. There were people occupying any space they possibly could to vote. Rather than wait to vote with a privacy screen, people were sitting on the floor and filling out ballots. This is _mid-term_, people. The last time I saw this many people so anxious to vote was in a presidential election which I don't want to name for fear of jinxing it (but which had the slogan HOPE). I was telling my friend in Wales that Shawn and I have showed up to mid-term elections (in a state that has one of the highest voter turn-outs in the nation) and looked around and wondered if we'd come on the wrong day it was so empty.  

The guy in front of me had his ballot rejected by the optical scanner. He was able to put it in and have it count, but the guy in line behind me (an older black guy) joked about a "conspiracy," we all laughed in a ha-ha-ha-TOO-SOON kind of nervous way, even though Minnesota is possibly the single safest place to cast your vote in the country because we DO have state-constitution mandated paper ballots that (as Al Franken well knows) can be hand-counted in case a recount is necessary. It can take weeks (even months), but voter intention is clear and preserved on PAPER. Frankly, I have no idea why other states don't insist on this.

We also have voting day registration, with some of the fewest requirements nation-wide. A REGISTERED VOTER who is your neighbor can vouch for you. That's _all_ you need, if you literally have nothing else. But, most people have some form of mail that shows where they live -or- a driver's license or student ID (or a provisional one) with their current address.

When people wonder why we have such good turn-out here, I'm sure that's part of it. It's ridiculously EASY to vote here. There is early voting, plus employers are required to allow all their employees time off to vote.

But, Minnesota is one state. I can only pray that the rest of the nation is doing its part.