So where exactly is it that I live, anyway?

Much the way it's been for most of my life, I do not always give the same answer when someone asks me where I live.

I grew up on Long Island. If the person who asked where I lived was someone who lived on LI, was from LI, or even knew the area in general, I'd give them the name of my town. If the only thing someone knew about Long Island was that it's the fish-shaped island sticking out of NYC, I'd just tell them I lived on Long Island. It saved the hassle of "Stony Brook? Where?"

Same goes for where I am now. I technically do not live in Madison proper. One of the residential roads on which I travel to get home is the dividing line between Madison and my town, according to the map. If we were to make our current domicile our permanent home (which we won't), our children would attend classes in the Madison Metropolitan School District. The old, abandoned railroad tracks not even a few hundred yards from where I sit right now are also a dividing line.

So I guess you could say I'm from the wrong side of the tracks.

And in this election cycle, I couldn't be happier - or at least I'll hopefully feel that way come Tuesday.

Call me old-fashioned, I like to go to my polling place on Election Day itself. I just wouldn't find the same level of satisfaction from completing my ballot at the city clerk's office or dropping it in the mail. But the stories I've heard about early voting lines in Madison being hours long make me (hopefully not prematurely) glad I live on the wrong side of the tracks.