I woke up this morning in New Jersey, spent a lazy half hour reviewing my dreams, thinking about a story I am working on, and generally drifting in and out of reality. I took a shower. I read the front section of the New York Times. It was too hot to read in the greenhouse, where my grandparents usually eat dinner, an airy glass room off the study with wicker chairs and two passionflowers currently on the vine.
Near the end of the front section, my grandmother came in and we discussed the use of her car. With a little negotiation about how she would complete her errands, she agreed that I could use it to come to Philadelphia if I wanted to. I checked on housing: I have a place to stay tonight and tomorrow, at the least. Nothing was holding me back. So I packed a bag, and I drove to Philadelphia.
The second world was the Obama state office. This is not the office that people can walk into – or the one I originally walked into. This is the serious office where the serious business of running the Pennsylvania campaign goes on; that is, it is the office where everyone is very very stressed out and has a Blackberry. I am being overdramatic – there are lots of young, cool people – but it felt very different from the environment I have been in, or even from a work environment in California. Everyone just has too much to do and not enough time or brains to do it – which is why I am here. So I stayed until 10 pm and then snuck off (my boss, the Youth Vote coordinator, just emailed me at 12:30).
I got half-lost on the way home and called my host for directions. He directed me home but added that he was going to see some Brazilian music that was on my way if I was interested. I was feeling exhausted and wound up, and I thought: a drink and some music might be nice. The music was upstairs in a bar – an Ethiopian restaurant was downstairs. The upstairs space was tiny, with the musicians crammed into a corner, a little bar, and four or five tables. There were probably fewer than 30 people in the room total. It was dark and the walls were painted dark pinkish red, with white Christmas lights and funny signs hung around them. The people looked like those I would encounter in the Mission (in San Francisco): a collection of overgrown beards and skinny jeans, thrift store dresses and funky earrings. I squeezed into the back, by the fan, and watched the white twenty-something musicians sway and shimmy and sing. My host showed up a little later, and knew everyone at the bar, but made a point of chatting with me and introducing me around.
This host is a friend of a friend, and they (there are three roommates) have an extra room in their house – filled almost completely with a double bed. I am staying here for a few days at least, and he said that I could make this my home base though they had other people coming once in a while and I might have to shift around. He left me a public transit map, and a schedule of events at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival (he is a photographer, and obviously embedded in the indie art scene). I think I will like to be here, swinging between the intensity of the campaign and the different intensity of a new city, a new place to explore.
