Today I went on a lackadaisical run, ate some crap, bought bananas at a store, and biked to a venue in my neighborhood to see a show but found that (1) I had forgotten my bike lock, (2) the bar was deserted and in some sort of industrial wasteland next to the Morton Salt Factory anyway, so I didn't want to stick around, and (3) it started raining. So God truly did not want me to leave the house this weekend.
Instead of enjoying the good weather while it lasted like any non-troll would, I watched Hot Fuzz twice (funny!) and then struggled to make my voice hit Db over and over again my room. I learned that the lowest note I can croak is D. I need to stop writing songs in Dbm. Anyway, the weekend's results are here. The first is "Two Days Too Long." It's self-explanatory; love and impatience. The second is "Katrina," a song I wrote for the editor of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel. She wore knee high boots and drank Naked juices slowly while conducting staff meetings during which people complained about how Christopher Hitchens had supported the war in Iraq and therefore did not deserve a column in the magazine. This was before the Internet had completely rendered print dead. I sung this song to her in December 2001, the first time, but definitely not the last time, I made an ass of myself in this fashion (love song, figure of authority). She seemed unimpressed. It was the Christmas party, and I had written about five songs that I and the rest of the interns performed. They were all love songs. I will slowly record them over the winter, so you can hear the songs used to serenade the rest of the editorial staff at America's oldest newsweekly.
Which reminds me. I haven't been writing new songs, just recording old songs. I need some new ideas. I think I'm going to write some children's songs. What are some subjects that children need to be educated about? How to check the sex offender registry? How to give the silent treatment? How to clean an abrasion?
Also, this has been said many other times elsewhere. Whatever! I am in love with Barack Obama. I didn't buy into the mythos until recently. You know, I leaned toward Hillary in the primaries because the Clinton legacy was so attractive until Hillary made those stupid comments about due process, so I didn't start paying attention to Obama until bar review this summer. And "hope" and "change" still seemed like sloganeering to me until very, very recently. I understand slogans. I understand advertising. I am an elitist liberal who believes herself to be more incisive than others and less susceptible to emotional manipulation, but in recent days I have bought what Obama's selling hook, line, and sinker. I feel like Obama's positivity is changing my primary behavior. I run faster when I run because I feel like that's what Barack would encourage me to do. There was a video clip on one of the five thousand blogs I cycle through once an hour, and then start recycling through at the top of the next hour - like the Golden Gate Bridge really, which is always being painted, because once the painters reach San Francisco they go back to Marin and start painting back toward San Francisco - anyway, the video clip was of Obama at a rally. He mentions McCain, and his supporters boo. Obama holds up a hand and stops the booing, and says, "You don't need to boo him. You just need to vote!" And then the crowd erupts in cheers. You see a mass of people flip instantly from an aggressive, sour antagonism into an action-oriented, optimistic sense of possibility. Obama did that! He did that in five seconds! I know there are risks with this kind of apotheosis but I really can't resist it. I spend a lot of time thinking about the idea of charisma but my thinking gets nowhere because I think of charisma as some naturally-occurring rarity like albinism that cannot be cultivated but merely bestowed, but Obama has made me think that charisma is like the Unicorn Tapestries in that if you work on it long enough you can make it happen. Because it doesn't seem like his charm is undeserved or descended from nowhere: you love him because you see how hard he works! Or, rather, I love him.
I am getting lots of derivative pleasures these days from the election. There's the simple pleasure of the gossip mill, stupid things that Palin said that day, the "Bristol" tattoo on Levi Johnston's finger, what Michelle wore on Leno, pictures of Barack holding babies, the swipes that pundits take at one another, etc. Then there is the referred pleasure from knowing that practically everyone important to me is following the gossip mill with the same fervor as me. TG apparently wakes up before work to check the blogs and news sites, then races home after work to do the same thing. I can send a text to BFFAEAE at any moment about that instant's news story and nine times out of ten she is reading the same thing. Then there is the second-derivative referred pleasure of shared anxiety brought on by the shared gossip mill. My co-clerk NU has to go to the dentist tomorrow morning; she's getting fitted for a guard against teeth-grinding, which she says is the result of anxiety about the election. Almost all of my Obama-supporting friends fear the implausible - another stolen election, violence, bin Laden's endorsement - and hedge against disappointment. RK says he wants to keep his expectations low because he doesn't want to be crushed when higher ones are not met. Then there is the third-derivative referred pleasure of anticipating relief on Tuesday, when all of this is finally over. And finally, there is the actual goddamn relief. I got one of the coveted tickets to the Grant Park celebration because KG at Obama HQ sent out an email as soon as the ticketing process opened up and I snatched one with my filthy paws. Now I get to debate whether I'll actually go. It's going to be 70 degrees in Chicago that day. But Grant Park is, say, a quarter the size of Central Park. It's surrounded by skyscrapers on three sides, Lake Michigan on the other. How can it possibly be secured? What if there are nuts in boats trying to ram up from the shore?? (I told SL about this fear. And then I realized what I had said. And then I apologized and said I don't often talk to people these days. I also told BFFAEAE and she said, unhelpfully, that if I am to be blown to smithereens in Grant Park then that's just the right way for me to die.)
I went down to Obama's volunteer site on Clinton and Lake just to see what I could see. I know what the fifth canon of judicial ethics says, so don't worry about that. I thought I might be able to buy a t-shirt but of course t-shirts are contributions, so instead I just picked up a few free stickers. Now there is a row of "YES WE CAN"s tacked to my bulletin board above my laptop. When I was writing my senior thesis, I kept a notecard that said "DON'T THINK, DO / CF. FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT" above my desk, for motivation. I am now five years older and can be slightly less cynical about my prospects. YES WE CAN YES WE CAN YES WE CAN YES WE CAN is now my preferred motivation. Am I a rube? A Branch Davidian? Who gives a shit! I am, above all, tired! Let it end!
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