Having finally received my new book Joyful Origami Boxes yesterday, I brought it along with me this morning to the voting station. I figured it would be good to have just in case I had to wait in long for a long time and felt like doing a spot of origami. As it turned out, since I went out to vote at the ungodly hour of 6:45am, the lines were very short – just four people ahead of me for my ward.

I’ll admit it, this was my first time ever going to vote. I just haven’t believed in any of my choices for government leaders up until now. I came of voting age when the younger Bush was in office, and even before that held a mental notion that politicians in general were out to get as much as they could out of the system before retiring, an opinion which has held true on every occasion in local politics during my 13 years in Louisiana. When we finally could be rid of Bush and Obama ran the first time, I didn’t see hope as much as smooth-talking. I greatly disliked McCain (and obviously hated his lunatic running mate Sarah Palin) but saw no clarity in either campaign, so it just didn’t seem logical to waste my time when neither person was the right pick.

Now it’s four years later, and I have a much clearer concept of what kind of leadership it takes to run our country. I happily cast my vote for Obama. My first vote ever, and I know it went to the right place. The rest of the votes on the ballot today were nowhere near as clear, and as I read through the names and amendments, and thought back to associated news stories, press snippets, and cocktail conversations, I was just as sick as always to have to pick one liar and cheat over another. I dunno, guess you can’t win them all.

Anyway, without turning this into anything too far from lighthearted, I’ll continue with my origami tale. After voting (which took all of 15 minutes!) I decided to go get a nice cup of tea (Irish Breakfast…mmm) and half a bagel at Mojo, a nearby coffee shop. It was still early enough to grab a table, so I sat down and enjoyed my tea while trying to make some things from my new book. The first project, a plate surrounded by heart shapes, was a complete bust because I couldn’t understand the illustration of one step, so I’ll go online tonight to see if I can find another diagram or video. Instead, frustrated, I ended up going back and starting from the very beginning of the book with a docking box made by folding two pieces of paper and then interlocking the pieces. It’s simple, fun to fold, and also very sturdy. My folds were a little off, so the inside bottom of the box is buckling a little bit, but I know how to fix that next time. Here’s a video of the exact box pattern that I followed if you’re interested in making your own.

Overall I’m very pleased with today’s project, and also happy that I did it at the coffee shop. It’s been an interesting morning, considering that I’m writing this at 8:15am, almost an hour before my normal wake up call! It was nice to be a morning person for once (though don’t expect repeats).