Tuesday 4 November 2008

Stick two

My last post spoke about self-referentiality. Just to show that I'm not entirely foreign to the phenomenon myself, here's a link to a post about The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories on One Story, which first published the title story. It's not quite a closed loop, but we're getting there.

Thanks, Hannah!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a funny story to tell you about voting last night with Austin. You know he just turned 18 on the 31st of October, but we had registered him in January so he would be all set. Well, we get to the polls and I had his voter registration card and passport....WRONG! Passport is not an acceptable form of ID because it does not have his address. Okay, give them your driver's license then. WRONG! He lost it last weekend. Ummm...so you have been driving without your license???? Okay, he just needs a utility bill with his name and the address. REALLY??? I can't get him to turn off the lights when he leaves or take shorter showers...He obviously DOES NOT pay the utilities then. That would be ME and they are in MY name! Finally...How about a bank statement with his name and our address? Bingo! I go get the statement and we move into our respective voting booths, side by side. I hear this whisper..."Mom...Mom!" I whispered back..."Austin, this is sort of like
an exam and you can't really talk to each other." He says " I know...I just wanted to say this is really exciting!" I smiled. When we are finished voting, I see him turning the ballot over and over as if he is looking for something. "Everything okay?" I ask him. "Yes, I am done, but...I can't find where I am supposed to write my name." I almost burst out laughing, but didn't want to embarrass him. "Well, it is not exactly like an exam," I told him. His question to me then was how were they supposed to know who voted???? I smiled and said "That, my dear son, is the beauty of democracy in our country. They don't."

Pretty awesome country we live in...NO matter who you voted for. And by the way...we cancelled each other out. I voted Obama...He voted McCain. Go figure!

It is a brand new day!!!!

Charles Lambert said...

Austin voted McCain!? Go figure indeed...

Talking about anonymity, did I ever tell you about the free mobiles a certain Italian political party was offering first-time voters... with the condition that they photograph their ballot paper, with the cross in the right place? What was that about democracy?

Anonymous said...

To be fair to Austin, I think he was struggling with pleasing his father and knew that I would love him no matter what. He seems to be very excited that Obama won. And relieved!

Charles Lambert said...

I think we're all relieved! Pity about Proposition 8 though....

Can't wait to see you!