Voting

I couldn't be more happy to vote. It isn't just because I want to do my civic duty -- I actually just want this whole thing to end. When hasn't the election been in the news. End it already. Although I have a definite interest in the outcome of this election (and I don't think that anyone can possibly separate themself from it), I couldn't be happier that there is finally going to be a resolution. I just hope that it comes tonight or tomorrow and not a week or two from now.

The first time I voted was during the 2000 election. I was in college and getting together to watch the country lit up red and blue as various states were decided was a lot of fun. It was probably because my friends had a keg. Almost everything in college was made fun. I remember having beer after beer, playing games of baseball and actually having some intellectual arguments about politics. I don't think that I had ever had that before. Although the result was foreboding and unprecedented, I wasn't as pessimistic as I would be eight years later.

And in only eight years the mood is so much different. How the hell did it come so far? Desperation is a stinky cologne, and America can't get the stink off. New York voted for Obama to pour on the tomato juice. Is that metaphor going too far?

Either way, voting is more of a relief than elation. I am not deluded enough to think that this one vote will change everything. Maybe it will be good that more people came out and voted and some things will change. But to me the bottom line now is for people to shut the fuck up and get back to making this country great -- by working hard and earning it.