After work today, I came home and picked up Janet to head to the post office, and afterward I stood in line to vote early. The polling station was in downtown Cary, and the line went down the side of the building. We slowly inched forward into the building. A voting official came up and told us what the procedure would be: since we were voting early, we were essentially filling out absentee ballots, so we needed to also fill out an absentee form before we got our actual ballot. Janet and I said goodbye at the door (since she couldn't vote), then I filled out the absentee form, gave it to a woman who checked a database for my name, then I gave the form to a man who gave me my paper ballot. I connected all the arrows for the people I wanted to vote for with a black felt pen, then slid the ballot into the optiscan thingy. I snagged an "I Voted" sticker then walked out and met back up with Janet.

Here's me, proud of my civic duty:

fig. 1: A proud voter, pointing to his sticker

And here's a closer shot, which also showcases my beautiful button:

fig. 2: Down with Dubya

I did my part for the democratic process. Now it's your turn. Be sure to vote by Nov. 2 so we can get the monomaniacal crusading idiot out of office.

Thank you.

***

For the 2004 NCSU Fiction Contest, I'm submitting to both the short story and short-short categories. For the short-short, I realized today that I could assemble five of my Mythologism flash pieces into a pentaptych which still maxes out at 1200 words.

Here's where y'all come in. I think I have a good idea of which pieces to include, but I'm interested to hear what you think. Let me know which five you think are my strongest, and maybe what order they would be good in. The comments are yours. Thanks!

Now Reading:
Leviathan 3 edited by Forrest Aguirre and Jeff VanderMeer

Stories Out to Publishers:
10

Books Read This Year:
58

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
30