Thanksgiving

Okay, so I guess I take back what I said in an earlier post about not being a fan of holidays. I freaking love Thanksgiving. This is because like birthdays, Thanksgiving gives me a chance to celebrate who and what I love. (I also like that it just means I get to eat myself into a food coma and drink wine and lie around doing nothing on a weekday. And Thursday is actually my busiest day of the week this semester, so I'm really diggin' the fact that I'm writing this from the comfort of my bed.)

So, here's a (non-exhaustive) list of things I'm thankful for, in no particular order:

1) My mom
...Without whom there would be no Thanksgiving dinner (or no dinner ever, for that matter). Who comes along with me on all my crazy adventures (i.e. "let's skip real life today and go see Michael Franti in Ann Arbor"). Who does all kinds of wonderful things; it'd take me a lifetime to list 'em all.

2) The "blogosphere"
I usually read a lot in the summer, but for some reason, that didn't happen this year. Instead, I watched oily pelicans on the news and when that became too overwhelming, I'd switch to The Golden Girls. Rinse, repeat. I was pretty bummed out about it. I did read a few books: short novels, collections of poetry, that sort of thing. But it didn't occur to me to ditch books altogether and turn to the Internet for good reading material.

Thanks to the "THIS IS WHAT A YOUNG FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE" blog carnival (held this past August), I was made aware of just how many blogs are out there. There are the big ones (like Feministing), and the funny ones (like Hyperbole and a Half), and then there are the ones written by college students procrastinating on their homework (ahem). It's endlessly interesting to me, how much is out there, and how many perspectives there are. I was telling my mom the other day about how much I love blogging. It's got me reading and writing again. I've really missed that. No wonder I'm happier now than I was at this time last year.

3) Everyone's support when I came out to my parents
Even though my parents are wonderful and took it well, telling them I'm gay was still one of the most draining experiences of my life. I was blown away by all the support I received from people who helped me through it: my fellow LGBT friends who answered my endless questions about their coming out experiences, people who listened even if they couldn't relate, and everyone who left comments on my Facebook page and here on Blogger. It meant so much. I say this because, to put it lightly, things haven't gone as well with my extended family. It's been really hard, actually, and I'm not ready to write about it yet. But suffice it to say that all the support I've received has given me the strength to deal with the reactions of those who haven't been accepting.

4) Angela
I met Angela in an English class earlier this year--right before I transferred to Wayne State. I was hesitant to make new friends that semester, because I knew I'd soon be leaving SVSU. Therefore, I was purposely standoffish. I regret that now. She has done a better job of keeping in touch with me since I moved than anyone else has (and that really says something, because I'm still very close with quite a few people from the Saginaw/Bay City area). But lately, Angela and I have talked literally every day, and she's coming to visit next month. It's wonderful, and I'm sorry that I was at first so hell bent on preventing this friendship from forming. Lesson learned.

5) Libraries
Okay, I know it's the 21st century and all, but libraries are awesome. I say this as someone who hasn't read very many books recently. I say it as someone who spends way too much time online. I still think libraries are fabulous. I hope they never go away. Also, if you live in Michigan and don't use MeLCat, you are missing out. Interlibrary loans = endless knowledge, endless geekdom, and endless fun...for free! This nerd is getting off her soap box now. But really, libraries win.

I should sign off now and help my mom do whatever she's doin' in the kitchen. Happy Turkey Day, everyone. What are you thankful for?

How I became a feminist

A week or so ago, I was poking around on Twitter and came across a link to this post titled "How I Became a Feminist." And I realized that while I've blogged quite a bit about feminism, I haven't actually written about how I got here in the first place.

I come from a very traditional family. My dad's the breadwinner, and my mom's always done the stay-at-home thing. I like to think that my parents might not have assumed traditional gender roles had they been given the chance to figure out what else was out there, though. They were both raised in very traditional settings, and married young.

Kids worry about all kinds of weird things. And because my parents were the people with whom I spent the majority of my time, I tried to picture myself in their shoes and worried incessantly about what my future would be like. Neither of my parents were born in the United States; they're not native speakers of English. I remember thinking that in order to ever be considered a "real adult," I, like my parents, would have to learn a whole new language/culture. And it scared the shit out of me.

But the funny thing is that in becoming a feminist, I've done exactly that.

Although feminism was not a part of my upbringing, it entered my consciousness when I was still very young--long before I had a word for it. I distinctly remember being in the first grade and going to a friend's house after school to play for a few hours. I was surprised to find a babysitter there instead of my friend's mom. I'd never had a babysitter before, and asked my friend where her mom had gone.

"She's at work," my friend replied (with a tone suggesting I was an idiot for not having known that instinctively).

She didn't know it, but she had, in only three words, eliminated the anxiety I'd felt about my future. I didn't have to grow up to be a stay-at-home mom. Maybe that meant I didn't have to be a mother at all. Maybe I didn't even have to get married. To this day, I think this is the most liberating realization I've ever made: Holy crap, people have all kinds of ways of going about things; there are choices.

From that point forward, I looked for affirmations of what I'd discovered at my friend's house: that as a female, I was equal to males and wasn't limited to gender-specific roles in society. This was hard to do, being that I was an elementary school student with a limited vocabulary. (Feminism? What's that?) But I got lucky anyway. I grew up in the 1990s--a time when women dominated the music scene. My mom was a big Tracy Chapman fan. And I don't even think she paid all that much attention to the socially conscious lyrics, but I couldn't help but take notice. I've always had a fascination with language, and can't deny that those lyrics shaped the perspective from which I viewed the world.

I finally came to identify as a feminist as a high school senior. I have my friend Stephanie to thank for that. She had transferred from Interlochen Arts Academy, where she'd focused on her poetry. That year, I was the editor-in-chief of Looking Glass, the art/literary journal at school, and Stephanie joined my editorial staff. We were also in the same AP literature and creative writing classes.

She and I entered the same poetry contests and submitted our work to the same journals. We were both recognized with Detroit Free Press Writing Awards and placed in the Albion College Michigan High School Poetry Contest. We were on the school poetry slam team, and got to compete at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.

Because of that, Stephanie and I got to spend a lot of time traveling around the state together, and I took advantage of every opportunity to pick her brain. I was passionate about writing, but she brought something to hers that was missing from mine: focus in terms of subject matter. She viewed the world through a feminist lens, and was able to articulate everything I'd believed in all my life, but had never had the words for.

Armed with what Stephanie had taught me, I enrolled at SVSU. Not having her around actually gave me the chance to further develop my own views. And the classes I took gave me a safe environment in which to do that.

I took a zillion English classes at SVSU, but none of them had anything about gender or feminism in their titles. Still, many of my professors did an excellent job of integrating feminism into their classes--such an excellent job, in fact, that I craved more and was disappointed when I had trouble finding it. Most of what I learned about feminism during my years at SVSU came from the English classes I took, rather than classes such as The Psychology of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender.

And so I learned firsthand what makes women's studies an interdisciplinary topic. I find it impossible to separate feminism from any of my other interests. It's a mindset, a lifestyle. I don't think I ever "became a feminist," exactly. I just learned that there was a word for my version of common sense. I try my best every day to use that word well and often.

What's funny is that even though I've openly identified as a feminist for quite a few years now, I'm still surprised whenever I hear anyone refer to my "reputation" as such. Maybe that's because of the negative connotation. Again, I don't separate feminism from anything else I believe in or do. It's not like I'm this average, ordinary woman with a "secret life" as a feminist behind the scenes. Please.

I'm still learning, and will be as long as I live. That's what's so incredible about it. I'm in awe of just how much I don't know. Maybe that means I'm still becoming a feminist (which would explain why I can't pinpoint the moment when I "became" one).

On driving and living

I mentioned in an earlier post that I hate driving. Most people think that's because I'm a hippie and driving is harmful to the environment. That's true, but there's much more to it than that.

I hate the act of driving. At first, I was eager to get my license; the idea of independence thrilled me, and I took driver's ed at fifteen like everyone else. But I quickly realized that driving made me incredibly anxious, so after I got my learner's permit, I kind of just "forgot" about it and let it expire. This wasn't a big deal to me until my peers started getting their licenses. At that point, I started to feel like I wasn't measuring up because I had failed to meet this milestone of getting my license at sixteen.

Around that same time (my junior year of high school), everyone was starting to freak out about college applications. My parents and teachers noticed that my GPA/ACT score didn't match my work ethic. I took a ton of AP classes and worked as the editor-in-chief of my school's art and literary journal. But my GPA didn't reflect that because I kept failing my math and science classes.

Okay, so this is sort of thing happens to a lot of people. Not everyone is good at everything. But in my case, the disparity was huge. On paper, I looked like a C student because I'd get A's in one area and F's in the other.

I was born with a condition called Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension, which, from what I've heard and read about it, affects about one in every 1,000 newborns. Basically, I resisted "switching over" to breathing outside the womb (AKA using my lungs). Obviously, those who don't make the switch die, because you can't stay alive if you fail to use your lungs. I'm writing this, so clearly, I made it, but not without the help of a long hospital stay.

I can blame my epically poor vision on the damage that was done to my optic nerve as a result of the oxygen deficiency. I'm legally blind in my left eye. Those who love me affectionately refer to my left eye as "crooked" or "droopy." It's pretty funny-looking, and I actually keep it closed most of the time (those who have ever paid attention to me while I read know this). My glasses seldom leave my face.

I don't know who decided to explore the connection between my difficulty learning to drive, grades, and medical history. But at any rate, in May of 2006 (when I was seventeen), a psychologist came to my high school and administered a ton of tests, among them an IQ test. I'm cynical about IQ tests, but the results were interesting. Verbally, I placed in the 98th percentile (which is pretty damn sweet). Spatially, however, I placed in the 2nd percentile. The psychologist said repeatedly that she had never before seen such a huge disparity. And the disparity was consistent with my grade point average: On paper, I placed in the 47th percentile overall. But that speaks to neither my mad skillz verbally, nor my epic failure spatially.

Armed with those test results, I went to see a neurologist, who ran tests of his own and discovered that the part of my brain responsible for spatial functions had literally shut itself off. This too, he determined, was a result of the oxygen deficiency at birth. This means that literally everything I've ever done spatially, I've learned with parts of my brain not meant to learn those things.

Badass, yes?

People have asked me if I'm bitter about not figuring this out this until I was almost done with high school; I would have been eligible for a whole lot of help had it been discovered earlier. But whatevs. I try not to dwell on it too much, because I can't change how it happened. And besides, because I had no idea that it was "physically impossible" to learn certain things, I learned 'em anyway--or tried my damndest to, at least.

And I did get my driver's license, by the way, in August of 2008. I was nineteen. It's really hard to live in Michigan without one, for one thing. And as much as I love the people in my life, I don't like relying on them for much.

But I really limit my driving. I'm terrified of freeways, which makes visiting my friends in Saginaw difficult. When I lived there, getting my car to join me took the effort of both my parents. My dad would drive my car up there, and Mom and I would follow in hers. They'd leave my car at my apartment, and both drive home together. If nothing else, I'm very lucky that they've always been so accommodating. They tell me they'll continue to be as long as I try and always do my best. And I don't know how to live any other way.

It's weird. I realize more and more that the only reason I'm such an anxious person is because I have failed over and over again to fit into boxes. There are so many ways in which my life hasn't played out the way I was told it would. I didn't get my license at sixteen. I won't graduate from college within a four-year time frame. Grandma's dream of watching me get married and have babies is totally never going to be fulfilled.

I wish I could say that I'm happy and comfortable with all of this, but I'll admit that I'm not. I'm working toward that. But it's all part of the process of "unlearning." My own experiences have taught me that many of us are a lot braver/stronger than we'll give ourselves credit for. Sometimes it takes tremendous amounts of strength just to keep our heads above water and do what's expected of us as people.

Getting my driver's license was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Accepting/respecting my own personal limits is still really hard for me. But it's part of life, so I do it.

And this is why I'm such a big fan of small victories. Because they're not really small victories at all. Living isn't easy. But as long as we're doing it, we've got reason to celebrate.

Birthdays

Anyone who has known me for a while knows the following things about me:

- I'm not religious,
- I have a creepily good memory for dates, and
- I am particularly fond of birthdays.

I'm not that into holidays. People tend to chalk that up to my not being religious, but even the non-religious holidays don't get much attention from me (as I mentioned in an earlier post, I haven't celebrated Halloween since I was still young enough to trick or treat).

The exception to this is birthdays. My favorite holiday is your birthday.

I don't know why this is, exactly. It's partly because my brain works just like Facebook: The clock strikes midnight and I think, "Okay. Today is November 18. This means it's my cousin Sandy's birthday. And I'm jealous of her, because she shares a birthday with Margaret Atwood."

But I also really like birthdays because I just really love that it gives me a reason to celebrate the people in my life--their quirks, in particular. My friend Travis is a huge biology nerd. The year he turned nineteen, our mutual friend Tracy and I went online and bought him a couple of giant microbes. He wrote on our Facebook Walls when he received them in the mail: "Thanks for giving me mono and the flu!" The lack of sarcasm made the twenty or so dollars I spent on his gift more than worth it.

I am, admittedly, perpetually five years old about my own birthday (WHICH IS NEXT MONTH, YO). People keep telling me I'll get over it once I get older, but I hope that never happens. I think the fact that people have always been so good to me on my birthday adds to why I extend that to other people. I'm a pretty noisy person--it's quite easy for people to figure out what makes me tick. But even so, it means a lot when someone does something for me that they couldn't have done if they didn't know me all that well.

So this is why I love birthdays: It's my excuse to party err'day. :-)

Livin' the dream: Amelia meets Michael Franti

I'm not kidding when I say that I have a list of people I'd like to high five before I die. Until today, Michael Franti was on that list. But I checked his name off today. :-)

I went with my mom to Borders in Ann Arbor to see him. Some things are just worth skipping class for. And because I didn't have to work today, I saw this as one hell of a great opportunity to have some fun.

I first clued in to Michael Franti around the time he stopped wearing shoes (circa 2000). I didn't really understand the political significance of it then. I just thought it was cool, and told my mom that I was going to stop wearing shoes. Her response? "Amelia, you're eleven. And you live in Michigan. It snows here. No."

And that was that. I zoned out until about 2008, when All Rebel Rockers was released. And I've been a fan ever since.

I could write out every detail of the 40 or so minutes of awesomeness, but thanks to Borders, I can just show you what you missed:

Watch live streaming video from borders at livestream.com

My favorite parts:

The interview segment between the first and second songs they played--particularly the part about oranges. It's the little things in life, man.

Watching the kids dance around to "Say Hey (I Love You)." I'm a big fan of the girl who rocked that spontaneous solo. She's the coolest.

The best part for me was how it ended. I loved the last song that they played; I wish it had been included on the latest album. I found it so incredibly fitting; I came out to my parents just last month, and attended this show with my mom. And that song was about how it's okay to love whoever you choose--as long as you're loving, not hating, it doesn't matter.

The whole day was great. Afterward, I bought a copy of The Sound of Sunshine and got it signed. And Michael Franti gave me a hug. :-) There's photographic evidence of this; I'll put it up soon.

I'm in love with the world today. I hope you are, too.

Compulsory heterosexuality (and other things I don't like)

Someone asked me via formspring recently if there was a definite moment when I figured out I was gay, or if I've always just kind of known. In the two weeks since I posted my answer to that question, I've been thinking about a lot of things.

First, here's how I answered the question:

While I don't recall a specific moment when I "knew," I definitely had to go through a process of becoming fully aware of it.

In middle school, girls my age started getting boy crazy and I just wasn't into it. I thought for a long time that I was just a "late bloomer." It took me quite a while to realize that I was actually attracted to women, and that my attraction to them explained why I wasn't into guys.

And so I actually feel like I missed out on a lot in middle/high school, because I dismissed a lot of the things I was feeling instead of experimenting the way most of the kids my age did. For this I blame the idea of "compulsory heterosexuality." As a friend pointed out to me, our culture just doesn't provide us with the tools to deal with anything other than heterosexuality. So at that age, it didn't even occur to me to consider the fact that I might be something other than heterosexual. I just figured that if I was patient, I'd eventually find a guy I liked.

And I did, or rather, I met a guy who liked me, and went with it. I was sixteen at the time. We told everyone we were an item and I distinctly remember feeling extremely relieved. By that point I'd started to think that I might actually be gay. I probably would have come out a lot sooner had I never met him. I was discouraged from trusting my instincts, because they didn't match what I'd been told about how my future would play out.

In the weeks since I posted my answer to that question, I've been thinking about how "compulsory heterosexuality" affects everything, especially what's most important. And I can't get over how unfortunate that is.

Here's the thing: I wasn't sheltered from the idea of homosexuality. I knew, as a middle school student, what that meant. But couldn't have been taught that it was normal/acceptable. Had I been, I might have started to question my sexuality a lot earlier than I did.

Instead, I saw homosexuality as something distant from me. I didn't grow up knowing anyone who was openly gay. And so I couldn't imagine that anyone near me might be gay, let alone that I might actually be.

I didn't come out to my parents until just last month. I'm twenty-one, and in my fourth year of college. They were very accepting, but I know that they only reacted as positively as they did because by the time I finally worked up the nerve to tell them I'm gay, I'd experienced two things:

1) I'd first had a boyfriend and not enjoyed it, and then
2) I'd had a girlfriend and known that it felt right.

As grateful as I am that my parents accepted what I told them, I know for a fact that had the above conditions not been met, they would have told me that I was just still just questioning myself, and dismissed what I told them.

On my end, two conditions had to be met before I would give my parents the news:

1) I waited until I was out of my teens. I felt that the older I was when I told them, the more credibility I'd have.
2) I waited until I was more emotionally stable than I'd ever been. I had wanted to tell them a year earlier than I did, but decided against it because at the time, I was struggling for reasons entirely unrelated to my sexual orientation. I didn't want my parents to think that my sexuality was a contributing factor to the problems I was having at school, because it wasn't.

But this is both unfair and stupid because no one should have to legitimize their sexuality to anyone, or be "emotionally stable" to explore it. And they shouldn't have to literally "rule out" heterosexuality first, either. The fact that I feel like I have to first prove to people that I'm a good, functioning person before I can reveal my sexual orientation to anyone just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me.

But that's the way it is. We've still got quite a ways to go on the road to achieving equality. Homosexuality is still presented to our youth as something that's "different from the norm." And yeah, the majority of people aren't gay. But as cliche as it sounds, unless kids are taught early on that "different" isn't automatically synonymous with "weird," they're going to have a hard time accepting it. Because once you're taught certain things about the way the world's "supposed to be," it's hard to unlearn that. This is why it took me such a long time to come out of the closet.

I regularly babysit two girls, ages four and seven. They're awesome; I love them both. But I can already see how they're being conditioned to just accept certain things as the norm: namely that girls should look and act a certain way, and that boys should look and act a certain way. (Oh, and that they're better than the black kids two houses down. I wish I was kidding. But I digress.)

If we want to be honest, it kind of makes me wonder why the hell I even bother. A lot of people my parents' age (40s/50s) have told me that "my generation" is the one that's going to fix things. But we're still raising kids on the system that's doing all the damage. It's disheartening.

I have this really cool magnet. It's pink and there's a blonde girl on it. The girl is saying, "Mommy, when I grow up I want to help smash the white racist, homophobic, patriarchal, bullshit paradigm too!"

The world needs more kids like that. And they shouldn't wait until they grow up. They can start now.

Things I'm incredibly excited about

1) This morning I booked a flight to Oklahoma to visit my friend Sarah, who's living there while she finishes her MFA at Oklahoma State University. I'm really excited about it; I haven't seen Sarah since December of 2008. She is one of my favorite people; we met in 2005 as students in Mary Ann Samyn's poetry workshop at the Controlled Burn Seminar for Young Writers. Since then, we've done a good job of keeping in touch, even though we've never lived in the same city (and now don't even live in the same state). When I was still in high school and living in Grosse Pointe, she was in Saginaw. The year I moved to Saginaw to start college, she moved to Marquette to get an MA from NMU. And now I'm back in Grosse Pointe, and she's in Stillwater, OK. But at the end of January, I will be in Stillwater, too. :-)

2) In an earlier post, I mentioned that Michael Franti is on the list of people I'd like to high five before I die. I spent an entire week trying to win tickets to a pre-concert meet and greet through a local radio station, but was unsuccessful. Well, my hope has been rekindled! Turns out Michael Franti will be hanging out at Borders in Ann Arbor on Monday, 11/15, playing a few songs and signing albums. (And hopefully giving me a high five!) Oh, man. Power to the peaceful!

Growing up in Grosse Pointe, AKA "capitalism personified"

I live in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, and have most of my life. A friend of mine once referred to it as "capitalism personified."

Accurate? Yeah, basically. But weirdly enough, as a kid, I thought we were poor. Why? Because the majority of my wardrobe came from K-Mart. Smart move on my mom's part; why buy nice clothes for kids who are just going to outgrow them anyway?

Anyone who has seen where I live knows that I sure as hell didn't grow up poor--not even close. Or if we are, in fact, drowning in debt (which I'm pretty sure we're not), we're still living really comfortably. My sister and I each have our own balcony off our respective bedrooms, for crying out loud.

It was weird to grow up thinking I was poor and then realize that I actually have way more than many (if not most) people do.

That realization came long before I moved to Saginaw in 2007. Actually, I don't doubt that my awareness of it factored into my decision to move to Saginaw, of all places. I guess I just wanted something a little more normal.

Let me explain why it is I once thought we had so little. Many of the kids around here had literally everything and more (not that I can remember now what kinds of toys were popular in the '90s). Plus, virtually every vacation from school (Christmas break, mid-winter break, spring break) meant I'd chill at home with my books and toys while my classmates went to Hawaii or Florida or in some cases, Europe. Obviously, that wasn't everyone's experience. But enough people did that on a regular basis that I felt as though I didn't measure up.

I realized quite some time ago just how ridiculous that is.

So I've really struggled with the fact that I'm from Grosse Pointe. I try to avoid talking about it. The "Hometown" section of my Facebook page is blank. It is something that I'm almost cripplingly insecure about. Just talk to anyone who has ever asked me where I grew up. I beat around the bush like nobody's business. I get really defensive about it. Shit, even right now, I'm being defensive about it.

One of the best books I've ever read is _Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie_. Corrie grew up in Olympia, Washington, was incredibly aware of how privileged she was, and understood that as someone who had so much, she had a certain amount of responsibility to those who weren't as fortunate as she was.

And I think part of why I struggle with my hometown is that as much as I hate this place, I've been here long enough to notice that a decent number of the people who live here realize this about themselves. Some of the most generous and creative people I know live in Grosse Pointe.

And so I try not to make generalizations about this place, because I know that for one thing, there are some great people here. And furthermore, I know that it's hard to be a great person in a place like this. I'm definitely not there yet. I'd like to be. I'm working toward it. But I'm definitely not there yet. If I was, I wouldn't find it necessary to write a blog post like this. I wouldn't give disclaimers to my friends who visit from Saginaw, and I wouldn't get offended when those people comment on what they see when they come here.

What prompted me to write about this in the first place: Last summer, a friend of mine who lives in Cass City told me that he had to volunteer at a Tigers game for his fraternity, and asked if he could crash at my place rather than drive all the way back home so late at night. I told him that he could. It was nice; we drank beer, caught up on things, blah, blah, blah.

Last night he told me that he plans to drop out of college (he's currently a student at SVSU). I told him that I wasn't sure how I felt about that. For some reason, whenever I hear that a friend of mine plans to drop out of school, I feel tremendously sad, even though some of the most amazing people I've ever met have done that (including my mom). I didn't mean to place judgment on his decision, but I think that's how he took it. He said something like, "Well, unlike you, I didn't grow up in Grosse Pointe. I'm not as lucky as you are. I don't have as many options as you had when you fell apart last year. I have nothing, and no one, to fall back on."

I can't disagree with that; he's right. I had a lot to fall back on: namely parents who are both financially and emotionally supportive.

If nothing else, though, at least I can say that I'm aware of how much I have, and am trying to make the most of that. Let's be honest: A year ago, I was profoundly unhappy and seriously considered dropping out of college to live in the Yukon with my mom's free-spirited older sister. But I realized how much of a cop out that would be, especially given that I have the resources to stay in school. So I stayed.

At least Grosse Pointe didn't shelter me. At least it didn't make me greedy. I'm getting there. But I still have all kinds of guilt that I need to get rid of. And I know that until I can rid myself of that guilt, I can't really live the full kind of life I'm striving for, which means, ultimately, feeling lucky instead of guilty, and using what I have to help those who don't have it.

Vote!

Just a reminder that tomorrow, Tuesday, November 2, is election day! I'll be voting. And you should, too.

If you live in Michigan, you can view a sample ballot here.

And if you, like me, have a slightly vulgar sense of humor and lack of tolerance for those who don't vote, click here.

See ya at the polls!