2nd post of the day: Politics

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNN) — Sometimes you stumble on stories. Thursday was one of those times.

We were outside Veterans’ Memorial in Columbus reporting on early voting. I approached a man with an “ I just voted” sticker on his lapel to ask him whether he’d encountered any lines. The “lines weren’t bad” he said, with a broad smile. Lines were the last thing on Aaron Wheeler’s mind as he explained why he drove 600 miles back to his old hometown from Virginia, where he moved this month, to vote in what he called “one of the proudest days” of his life.

“My family has been Republican for three generations,” he said, but “I knew I had to change and vote Democrat in the first time almost ever.”

Wheeler said he was one of about 16 black Republican delegates at the 2004 GOP convention, and was proud to support George W. Bush.

This time, he said, he did not attend the Republican convention –and decided he would go one step further and vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

What’s influencing his vote? The economy was one factor, he said. But said he he made his decision “when I saw Barack Obama beaten down for no reason by negative things by Palin.”

Wheeler reminisced about marching with Martin Luther King as a boy, and referred to the slain civil rights leader when he told me he voted for Barack Obama… “not just because of his color….but in the words of Dr. King, the content of his character.”

“Tears come out of my eyes as I cast my ballot,” he said. “I voted for Barack Obama today.”



I'm filling out my ballot tonight!!!

Death

I went alone this morning, overcast and gray. I was feeling the hectic rush and wanted to steal away. There is only one place I know of that will make you feel alive and fill you with a sense of peace at the same time. I walked through the gates of St. Boniface to be met with the pleasant feeling of the sleeping. The noises of the city are somehow blocked out for me and I felt myself meandering slowly down the narrow asphalt path. One of them caught my eye, literally. I swear, had it not been stone, she would have blinked. I looked at her, and she me, for a minute until the call of the crows distracted me and I moved on.
Quiet.
Names carved in stone, faceless statues worn by years of harsh climate, the slow erosion that time brings, the eventual death of even our death-markers, gravestones that once stood proud crumbling in the gray light.
How can death be this simple, this quiet? I see a few other people scattered about, paying their respects to the dead, but other than that I am alone. I keep walking, and soon I find myself utterly alone and surrounded by nothing but bones buried, held safe by stone and chains.

The buildings rise out of the ground and make me wonder who inhabits them. Who planned them out and decided what they would become. I'm sure that some of you have started to think about your own demise. What will your stone look like? Flat in the ground? I will prefer a stunning statue, rising out of the ground, graceful, eerie, peaceful, energetic, immense. I want the viewers of that statue to wonder who I was and what possessed me to create such a piece. I want an angel, spread wings, perched ready for attack, or flight. I want a serene smile on her face and an open book clutched in her hand. I want tousled hair and a flowing toga. She will be barefoot, obviously. More details to come as my life fills up.
Some of the graves are stunning in their simplicity. The names become the focus, the forefront. Others chose a sarcophagus, rising out of the ground. Simple stone statues, the obvious religious figures, angels, Jesus, on and on. This is a Catholic cemetary.
It was beautiful. Green, covered with the orange leaves of fall, gray sky, gray stone, they rise to meet each other and blend together.

There are couples buried together, families. Even in death, they find peace at their side. The idea of this is a romantic notion to me. To want to spend so much time with someone that you are willing to lie for eternity with them. It's beautiful. Of course, the soul has long passed and there is nothing left but the fragments of your earthly vehicle, yet think about the lingering of yourself. To say that you wholly disappear is not a correct assumption. Your soul may take flight but your presence stays on. That's for me why the graveyard calms me, keeps me at peace. I am safe there. They are safe there. There is a mutual understanding between the residents, a sharing of space and of time.
Try it. Some morning. Go alone. Let them guide your thoughts as you wander, look at names, imagine faces. They were once just as much a person as you are now, with hopes and dreams and inside jokes. They loved and lost, just as you have and will. Be at peace, knowing that they are as well.



Be at peace and feel alive. That is the most you can do.

EDIT: two of the pictures, the one with the hands and the one with the snow are from Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado. The other two are from St. Boniface Catholic Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.
I did not take any of the pictures, rather, I lifted them off of Google.com.

picture

I finally did laundry. It's strange to wear clean clothes, I'm not going to lie.

This picture is me and my friend Mike at the boys' house for one of our friend's birthday parties last week. Picture taken by Emily, Hunter's ex-girlfriend.

I'm going to see ballet by myself tonight, which may or may not be excellent and or terrible. The tickets were ridiculously expensive, $30 for a show at Columbia, and I'm hoping that I at the very least enjoy it. Then I have to write a review of it for ballet class and get that turned in.
I'll be taking the train downtown tonight, something I haven't done in a very long time. We'll see, though. I may actually end up just driving and leaving the car parked somewhere along the road. It's on South Michigan Ave, so parking on a Thursday night isn't going to be all that great, but at the same time, it's going to be cold, so I won't want to walk the five blocks that it is from the train.

Oh well.
Things are well, though. Last night was just a Katie and Emily night and we watched "Interview with a Vampire" and hung out. I was exhausted. It's finally catching up with me. I'm impressed that it's taken so long. Three months.
Tonight, there will be revelry; it is my last free Thursday night/Friday morning for the foreseeable future. I will have to wake up at 7 from now on to babysit by 8:30. Tonight, after watching the dance, there will be fun. And it won't stop until it's over, which will hopefully be never.
Ah, in my dreams.
Have a great Thursday, everyone.

Life is Rad.

Life is rad.
Tonight, we are having a sort of potluck dinner at our house, which has been in need of company for quite some time. We are making spaghetti, salad, garlic bread and smores. Then we are going to watch the Broncos beat the Patriots.
Last night I was informed by the boys that they like playing football with me and that I have a good arm.
But things are well. Halloween plans have been laid. I hope it will be a success. Fruitypants is going to be a priest, apparently.
I will post pictures of tonight, hopefully. It will be the first time in awhile that we've had people over and I'm excited.
I have to watch a movie for Cinema class, but I'm putting it off for the game.
Laundry, finally, will get done. It feels like it's been years since we've done it. No quarters = no clean laundry.
Aunt Jan, the sheep sheets are a hit.
Grandma Mary sent us a waffle maker, which is awesome.

The picture is of the sunset last night.

Both ballet and mock trial are FAIL. I'm done with both of them after this semester.