Despite Them, I Am Happy Dancing.

      . . . . Despite all the obstacles put up against it, and many of the obstacles put up deliberately, to keep me from voting, yesterday I managed to Early Vote.

I Voted!

I Voted!

I Voted!

They really don't want me to vote, despite being in a state that never counts for primaries because we're too late in the travesty called a process, and we're considered a 'safe' blue state.  Though, ya, we're not that safe for blue in reality because most of all it counts on the vote of NYC -- and that doesn't include rabid red Staten Island filled with cops, haters of diversity, etc. -- and now big chunks of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and suburbs, some closer to the City and some further away, that rabid religious sorts have declared not only NYC, but not America, but independent rumptubtupshoggoth Country with their own laws, not ours.

Between shoggoths destroying the USPS, and the New York Board of Elections which is the last remnant of Tammany Hall, all nepotism and utterly incompetent and corrupt figures -- I couldn't even get a ballot, despite in early September hand delivering in person to a post office person our filled out census form and our requests for mail-in ballots.  There was no record that I'd even requested one on the Status of Application tracker.  

Early voting began last Saturday.  Three lines, around and around and around, the blocks, 5 = 6 hours waiting lines.  The Board of Elections, you see, looking at polling places, decided to assign the polling places in districts with the fewest number of election day voters the largest number of voters from other districts for Early Voting, because for Reasons, all voters couldn't vote in the places they always vote which are in their precinct and district.  So the Barclay Center polling spot in Brooklyn, in the sports stadium, had no voters.  Whereas mine, in the basement of  church had thousands and thousands.  And every day MORE voters waiting to vote than the day before.

But yesterday, it was cold, pouring rain all day (Hurricane Zeta, which knocked out New Orleans), wind.  I'd run some errands, walking to the polling place just to see how things were -- and no wait.  Down into the basement I went.  Then. oooops. the machine that is supposed to scan my ballot, then allow me to vote on the screen, then scan it again, and then print it out malfunctioned. It would neither read nor let go of the ballot.

"Gee. Hmm.  This one's been acting up all day."

I was there for a very long time, surrounded by people -- in masks, but still -- right in my face, as they tried to fix it.  Finally it worked again, and I was able to take the printed out ballot with my vote choices on it to another scanner to be recorded.  I dunno.

But, in the end I got the vote in, and I got it in in person. And then el V went and did the same thing.

This has been hanging over me for weeks and weeks, would I be able to vote or not?  So much contradictory information, such as if one had applied for a mail-in ballot, whether one had received it, or not filled it out, one would not be allowed to vote in person. Nor could I get any information from anybody at the Board of Elections, even though I was on hold never less than 40 minutes any time I called them.  One really believes that the New York Board of Elections doesn't want anybody to vote, indeed, just resent the shyte of anybody wanting to vote, or even voting, because, you know that's work and that interferes with them going to the gym and shopping and watching netflix.  Not kidding.  Read that about them in the New York Times this week.

Maybe, if the NY Assembly this year stops being dominated by rethugs we can reform the BOE here?

Anyway -- October has been a month all right.

Postmambo/CUBANola New Orleans Reconnect all three weekends was an unqualified success, even with a hurricane in the middle so one of the day's activities in Arcadiana had to be rescheduled for the next weekend.  But New Orleans dodged the bullet yet again on Delta.  It took what may be the final of the 5 to hit Louisiana this season, Zeta, this week, to get NO.  Our peoples all seem to be OK, without loss of home, though certainly loss of power. Still very lucky, that it moved fast and got outta there, and it was wind mostly, not rain.  If it had been one of the crawlers filled with all that rain, New Orleans would now be history in the present and the future, as well as history in the past.

All this has made the month go very quickly, though looking at the first weekend of October from the last weekend of October, that first weekend seems months ago.  The first week of this month I got my hair cut and styled, got a flu shot and a pneumonia shot.  Had a phone that did not work for shyte, which didn't help with my calls to the Board of Elections or getting the doctor's appointments since stupid T-Mobile's signal just didn't happen here in the apartment, and then last week the phone muted itself and refused to ever unmute again even outside.  So had to get a new phone again, which at least seems to be allowing to me and receive calls inside the apartment. A good thing as of today the temperature at waking was 38°

Soon will begin work on the next installment of this sort of travel immersion project, because the Travelers want it.  Also some universities want some version of this for a course. So, though very tired, still working.

But, you know Fauci says we're probably unwise to expect any "semblances of normality" until 2022.  And we won't have them then either, unless we vote, and vote in vast numbers.

It was so cool when I went out today to see the numbers of the Young with their "I Voted Early" stickers on their masks!