Happy Election Day!
What may be one of my least favorite days of the quadrennial.
I mean, it's cool that we're going to be getting some new guys and gals in power and all, and I'm actually a little bit hopeful that many of the guys and gals I want to be in power will be when all is said and done, but the pomp and circumstance of announcing that just really annoys me.
I blame it on 2000. I was home sick from work that day, and spent it sleeping off whatever it was I had. Woke up just in time for the early election returns to start trickling in. And somewhere around 2 or 3 am realized I had to be at work the next day, so it would be best to get to sleep right around then. A painful experience all the way around.
So in 2004 I started a new tradition - election night is now movie night in the SwankPoet household. We can go catch a show in naive bliss for a few hours, and when we get home there's a chance we really won't have missed anything, because the outcome is still as up in the air as it was before the polls opened. We saw Ray that year, it was a really good movie.
For a while there I was thinking 2008 might be different. There is less likelihood of a close race, and more likelihood of celebration. But just to hedge our bets, a movie seemed like a safe choice. Our choice of movies was somewhat limited this year, as we limited ourselves to the shows playing in the Living Room Theaters (21+ with leather recliners!) at our favorite theater. W is not going to help me in my escapist fantasy, and a movie whose description includes the sentence "As she pushes authorities to keep looking, she learns that in Prohibition-era L.A., women don't challenge the system and live to tell their story." isn't the right pick either. So we're going for Zack and Miri Make a Porno. It's Kevin Smith! And it's supposed to be good! And even bad Kevin Smith (Jersey Girl) will get my mind off election night for a couple of hours.
The correctness of the decision to go ahead with election movie night was reinforced yesterday. As people were all aflutter about the fact that in a mere 30 hours results would start trickling in. At least one of the local news casts will start their coverage at 3 pm, one hour before Virginia's poll closes. And remember, Virginia is one of the swing states this year, so imagine how much droning they will do about whatever those results may be.
Ugh.
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