Gonna try 'blogging from the cell on my lunch-break and see how this works. It's lagging pretty bad and I don't have access to a lot of the normal formatting options usually available from home, so that's already a couple strikes against it. But, oh well. It'll do in a pinch, I suppose.
I didn't sleep very much or very well last night. I was having some really bad stomach cramps/constipation issues, so I wasn't ever really comfortable enough to sleep. I watched three movies and dozed off a couple times, but never really could relax. I had to cancel breakfast w/ BRT this morning and I was kinda bummed about that. I haven't seen him much since he got back from Greece and I was really looking forward to hanging out with him. Sorry, B.
Needless to say, sleepless nights don't make for very productive days, hence the lunch'blog from the cellular device. I got a few things done with my budget before work, buy nothing I'd really consider an accomplishment. Given the amount of sleep I got and the way I felt when I finally woke up today, I figured I was doing good to make it to work on time in a clean shirt. Sometimes you just gotta take the small victories wherever you can.
I completely forgot about voting today. Not that I was registered or wanted to or anything, I just forgot that it was going on until someone at work asked me if I had and I had to think for a minute and figure out why they were asking.
I hate being asked if I voted, and not just because I never do. I hate it because it feels like I'm being asked what I got someone for their birthday; like you're only asking so you can find out whether or not it's okay to judge me. "Did you hear what happened to Pairsh? He got his legs cut off by the giant mechanical cogs of a clocktower." "Serves him right. I heard he didn't even vote this year!"
One thing I hate worse is the idea that "You don't get to complain if you don't vote," as if you don't get to have an opinion without a registration card. That's one of the many beauties of democracy: you're allowed to think whatever crazy thoughts you like and nobody gets to tell you that you're wrong, all they can do is out-vote you. It's a beautiful thing, these checks and balances.
But I think the thing I hate the most is the idea that not voting is tantamount to laziness and there's no category to distinguish those of us who have simply lost faith in the system. I don't vote because I don't WANT to vote, and it's stupid to say "it doesn't matter who you vote for, just as long as you vote." Politics is just another way of saying "us vs. them" and I don't want to have to fight against crowds and lines (two of my all time biggest nemeses) just to decide whether I want my next four-year-long turd sandwich on white or wheat.
All said, I don't mean to soapbox one way or the other, so please don't look to me to help you figure out what you should do. Truth be told, I don't really even understand how the American political system works in any real way. I just don't see how candidate A will have any more or less measurable impact on the things in life that are really important to me than candidate B will. I realize this isn't a very popular stance among veterans and poli-sci majors, so it's no coincidence that I typically avoid talking politics like the plague.
One of my major theories in life is that nobody listens to people who they believe aren't listening to them. I hate this theory, but I think it's true, and I've always seen politics as just another vehicle used to reinforce it. Maybe if someone came along who could talk about it with the kind of conviction that doesn't care whether anybody else follows them or not, I'd be a lot more apt to listen. In the meantime, I'd just appreciate it if my silent political statements would stop being confused with apathy. But then again, what do I really know about it?
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