Personal: November 2007 Archives

According to the latest Field Poll, I am one of a shrinking number of Californians who still votes the old-fashioned way -- by showing up at the polls. Since 2002, the number of absentee voters in the Golden State has tripled, and absentees cast 47 percent of the ballots in the last election.

But call me a young fogey (it won't be the first time), I just can't buy into the idea of mailing in my ballot. It feeds too many of my paranoias:

• What if my ballot gets lost in the mail? At least when you enter your choices into a machine, you know they've been received.
• What if I change my mind after I put my ballot in the mail? If I vote in person, I have up until the last minute to reconsider my decision.
• And what happens to that satisfaction of having completed one's civic duty? Do you really feel like you've participated in the great American experiment simply by licking the seal of an envelope and dropping it into a mailbox?

Never mind that I've never lost anything in the mail before, that I've never changed my mind about how to vote in the final weeks of an election, and that, really, my sense of civic fulfillment from voting ain't that grand in the first place. (I refuse to wear those "I voted" stickers; they just seem too self-congratulatory.)

Still, the mail-in thing's just not for me. Maybe it's generational. Growing up, only seniors and shut-ins sent in their ballots. Besides, in our paperless age, doing anything by mail seems so retro. Heck, I don't even deign to pay my electric bill through the USPS -- why in the world would I choose my president that way?

Now maybe if we could vote online, or text in our choice, I could get on board with that.

But till then, my poor precinct workers are going to have to put up with seeing me, Election Day after Election Day ...

I'll be AWOL for a few days as I go under the knife to get impacted wisdom teeth yanked. But afterward, while recuperating at Chez Bridget, I plan to read Slash's autobiography -- and, as a colleague pointed out, it will probably be that much more interesting since I'll simultaneously be taking Vicodin.

Don't worry, Chris, I'll give you a full book report on the backstory of GNR after I get back! That which I remember, that is...

In Friday's paper, Daily News staff writer Dana Bartholomew wrote about the holiday family form letter: that annoying piece of paper tucked into greeting cards that hints at major dysfunctionality by painting one's family with an impossibly perfect brush. Nowadays, it's also known as the thing I don't read. In fact, the weight of a card can often indicate if there is a stiff, 8 1/2x11 sheet folded into fourths lurking within, thus giving the recipient adequate warning.

Really, when did a holiday greeting turn into an attempt to gloat mightily about all the attributes that make you and your kin so much better than the recipient? I don't buy the excuse that this is an opportunity to catch up on the year in review, considering that e-mail has made keeping in touch year-round so much easier. Why not just say Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah, let the recipient know that you're grateful to have him/her in your life, and sign the card? How about using the time that would have been spent crafting the family letter trotting the clan down to volunteer at a homeless shelter, and then resisting the urge to gloat about your charity later to everyone on your Christmas card list?