I freaking love voting. My polling place is at the Swinging 60s Senior Center, and that just makes the experience all the more awesome. Last time I went the seniors were having a dance. This time it was just lunch time, but Barry Manilow's "Mandy" was coming through the intercom. Even at 2 in the afternoon there were a good number of people streaming in to vote, even though this is NYC and the D ticket was a projected winnner by several percentage points.

I moved to NYC in 1997, and my entire voting life has been here, so I thought those 50s crank turning voting booths were what everyone used. Not so! My seniors center is quite old fashioned I guess. And the last few times I've been there my name hasn't even been in the book so I have to fill out a form by hand. I kind of like doing that- but they just hand it to me out in the open, so everyone working there and the people in line see who I vote for. Now, I'm the kind of person who doesn't care if everyone knows and I'll tell everyone who I voted for, so I don't really care, but it does seem... wrong. I have heard that some places have computerized booths, but I've yet to see anything like that. By the time I do see one they'll probably be being phased out while the new "mind reading" booths get installed.

CA had some good ads, and I was psyched to see Jerry Brown running since he was my top Presidential choice in 1992. I followed him so closely and was really sad when he blew it and Clinton won the party nomination. TV trivia! On the first real world they do some campaigning for Jerry Brown because Norman loves him. Anywho, my favorite ads in CA are the ones that use footage of Arnold from movies as though that was him in office. Then, I came back to New York and saw a golden one: (new yorkers, it's the one with the lieberman impersonator driving into a wall over and over again) Mike's only problem with this ad is that they should have gotten someone who can do a better Lieberman.

Mikki showed me this horrorshow of an ad: Scary! It's both so ridiculous that it seems made up, and made well. Like he hired some young director to make it. I particularly like the space ships on the old fashioned tv.

I guess the election went okay. I stayed up late to see what would happen with those close races in Virginia and Missouri (if MO goes Dem. I will be sooooooo happy!) but then they were saying it would be days so I just gave in and went to sleep.

In a bit of a tangent, but still talking about something political, I am excited about the movie "Bobby" that Emilio Estevez made. When I first learned about Bobby Kennedy I was 13 or 14 and in an American History class. A bit of background- I was raised in a very liberal family in a very conservative state. I can clearly remember when we'd have those fake school elections for President and Bush would win like 80% of the vote and I'd try to rally people for Dukakis and get told that poor people will never work if we keep giving them money etc.... from other 10 year olds. My childhood was 2 Reagan terms and 1 Bush Sr. term where my dad was constantly mad and my grandparents were watching the states they grew up knowing as blue... turn red overnight. I was pretty outspoken about my political leanings, despite being surrounded by ultra-conservative children.

Back to the point- When I read about Bobby Kennedy I LOVED HIM. Big time. I wanted to read everything I could and since I had memorized the presidents at one point, I knew he wasn't on the list but I didn't quite know why. I braced myself for hearing that he lost in the end and that it would be sad. I wished that my generation had an awesome politician like this to look to (granted, Brown and Clinton were winning primary elections at this time and things were looking up). I wanted him to win so badly, so when I read that he won the CA primary, I was genuinely excited despite the fact that it had happened more than 20 years before. And then, I read that he was shot. Just like that. I was shocked! I wasn't anywhere near being alive then, and this news shocked and upset me. It was all over, just like that. In a split second. I was devasted.

A lady who was there that night (and has a character in the movie) described it as "having the rug pulled out from under an entire generation." I love that description, even though it is sad.

If I was this devasted reading about it so many years after the fact, I can't imagine how hard it was for the people living then, who thought he was their hope. Does anyone feel like that about any politician anymore? I don't think so. And I really think that the world would be a much different place if he hadn't been killed that night.

Anywho- hope you voted!