Voting, Hip Hop, & Partying (Surface Only)

I am Panera, writing a paper. Trying to, anyway. This is a distraction. Hopefully when I finish this, I can get back to my paper... I'm just not in the mood to write about nursing leadership.

I mailed our absentee ballots by overnight express mail this morning. They'll get there Monday, one day before they're due. It was so cool to review politics with the man. Looking up every candidate, reviewing their histories, where they live, and what they're claiming to be passionate about. Calling people who work with these people and asking them what they think (things like who's going to lead the power companies and community colleges, etc) I don't talk politics on this blog. Basically because I'm not all that interested.

I understand the smoke and mirrors of this so called democracy that has really been running like a dictatorship. But I vote anyway, especially this year. Because you gotta have hope. Like love, there is nothing left without it. After you find truth, and are all but mentally squashed by the negativity of what’s really happening in our world, you must find hope. Otherwise, you just close the shades, stay in the house, and die a long miserable life in the dark… in truth… in pain. Nah, I chose Hope. Between the two, what the hell do I have to lose? Rhetorical.

We’re debating whether we’re going to a brown folks party on campus on Tuesday. It would be so, so nice to go to a party where we aren’t one of a few in the place… so, so nice to hear hip hop on full blast, all night, instead of sprinkled between techno (which I hate) and rock (which I tolerate) and pop (which is ok). The hip hop they play between those songs is always the radio kind. Right now, I’m loving some radio hip hop, too, specifically the new T.I. album (yes I mean I love it, as I did another of his albums... you'd have to understand how confident it makes me feel to hear rap music- how invincible... "no one has a swagger like mine"and I'm gonna "live my life" wait a minute, you know what... I'm going to compile some lyrics that have been getting me through my last weeks here... yes I know, rap is so bad, please don't lecture me about sexism, I get it... we have a love-hate relationship) But Tuesday there’s a greater chance that I might actually get to hear some Blackstar, or Outkast or something. These are popular hip hop artists, too, but they don’t make the radio very often. So, we’d love to experience that before leaving this place, but there’s also some racist crap going on in the city involving another university around the road and of course our university has it’s own history of issues. So we’re thinking… do we really wanna deal with all this on Tuesday, or do we want to stay in and watch it unfold on TV? (The party has the potential to be easily targeted because it’s being thrown by the NAACP at a popular club downtown, on campus) I’m in the mood to party, but I currently have such a low tolerance for any drama.