Day 65; Election Daze and Opiate Nights

Fatigued from the shock surgery on my poor infected and opiate-dazed system, I realized that yesterday I wasn't getting much done.

Apart from voting.

Other than that, it was the kind of day when you bend over to pick up a newspaper and then stand half-erect in the hallway with your mouth hanging slack, wondering what you were going to do with it. Build models of the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria? Create a miniature reconstruction of the earth's atmosphere? Uhmmm. . . .hm.

So I took my mega-doses of amoxycillin and wearily got dressed. Found my voter registration documents, a passport, two bills with my name and address on, a New York Magazine and a bottle of water, and headed out for the Goddard Riverside Community Center. This time I knew there'd be no problem--I'd planned ahead and was going during the slow hours of the day. I'd checked out the locale in advance, so no wandering around.

Only, there was no one there. Or rather, when I pulled open the bullet-proof doors of the building, I found several painters at work, and a secretary looking at one of them flirtatiously. No lines, no pushy volunteers, no people apart from flirter and painters. They told me the voting was around the corner, at P.S. 58. Okay--walked down there and found the full voting system set up, including old-style booths with curtains and big red levers to pull. I began to get girlishly excited.

But the sign said District 10, and my papers said District 9, "Goddard Riverside Community Center". Oh crap. Went to the volunteers and showed them the paperwork that I'd so vigilantly had sent to me. They said that people were voting at the GRCC. I said, No--Flirting and Painting is going on there. I was told that I couldn't vote at District 10, had to vote at District 9. At . . .well, you know where.

Finally a small woman with the compact form of a fire hydrant dashed up. Her name tag said MARIA, and every other tooth was missing in her mouth, which told me that she has known pain. She gave me random papers and then looked at mine, all while telling me that she had so much energy that none of the other volunteers could keep up with her!! A glance at the other volunteers faces showed this to be her own rather positive spin on the situation. She then took back the papers she'd given me, grabbed my hand, and said we were going back to the GRCC and sorting this out--they'd been sending people there all day and they'd been coming back saying they couldn't vote--let's go let's go let's fix this right now.

She pulled me back to the Community Center, we saw the same secretary (who now was toying with strands of her long dark hair as she coyly told her painter that he was fucked up on fumes), and Maria stormed up to her. Within 12 seconds it was all straightened out: There are 2 GRCC's, within 5 blocks of each other, both with the same name and primary address.

Of Course there are.

I bid adieu to Maria and rinsed my mouth in some salt water as I headed for the polling place. Here, after a wait in line with nervously excited ladies wearing hemp clothes, older women in tweed jackets and hair helmets, and an intriguing amount of rastafarians (could this area be where musicians choose to live!? If so--excellent!), I reached the front of the line. An angry putty-faced man glared at me and my papers and looked me up in the book. "You're not there."

Well, I'm here--and here is my voting card and address change documentation.

"You can't vote here."

I looked around and saw that I was in District 9, and that a neighbor of mine was standing on line eating a bagle and reading P.G. Wodehouse.

"Oh Yeah?"

I pushed past him until I saw someone who looked both competent and important. Explained my situation and ended up sitting at a table (not a lovely curtained booth), voting by means of an: Official Standby Ballot for voters for the General Election

November 4, 2008

City of New York

County of New York.

My work was done. I pushed out by the crowds and walked home, trying not to cup my hand over my swollen mis-shapen jaw. As I walked, dazed by pain and opiates and stress and sudden oral surgery, I foolishly thought to myself. . .I am America--infected and tired and hi-jacked by combative, destructive, extremely costly forces that are sapping my energy at every step.

And I'm so tired. But we've cut the infection out.