One of those days that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, that circles back and back on itself. I spent all day working furiously and had nothing to show for it at the end. I gave up tickets to see one of my favorite bands to stay at the office and fight with the printer. It jammed every 150 pages. I was trying to print 4000 pages. That’s a lot of paper jams. To un-jam it, you have to take all the pieces out, one by one, and pry at the hot metal with poor scorched fingertips. Then: place everything back inside, walk away, wait ten minutes, go back, and try not to weep. Jammed again.
It is hard to feel like you are changing the world when you are pulling ripped paper out of a machine for the tenth time in an hour.
I am sick and tired. Only twelve days left but it feels like an eternity.
EDIT: Just to throw salt in the wound, my google weather just told me that it is currently 72 degrees in San Francisco. I am huddled under four blankets and drinking hot tea and I AM STILL COLD. UGH.
EDIT2: And then I watched the video below and felt better. Twelve days.
One of my friends was looking for websites that laid out why Clinton supporters should now support Obama. As it turned out, she couldn’t find any. Instead, she created one.
http://www.beyondhillary.com/
Beyond Hillary gives easy-to-follow comparisons of the policies advocated by Clinton, Obama, and McCain, and addresses many issues of concern to Hillary supporters. I think it’s a great site and you should send it to any Clintonite friends who are wavering about their support for Obama!
Personally, I love that I have friends who will see a lack like this and fill it. Good work!
Also, I hate cable news. They have so little to say and so much time to say it in.
I thought Michelle Obama gave a great speech. She seemed very natural, very intelligent, very authentic. She completely obliterated the image the Right has tried to create of her. I felt moved and excited, and I want her to be my First Lady. Or heck, I thought a few times how great it would be if she ran for president. Hilary did it!
In general, I think they could use more policy and less discussion of how Barack believes in change. I mean, that stuff gets me, but a lot of people still think that he has no specific answers, just rhetoric. Also, people don’t understand the gulf between Barack’s policies and McCain’s. The media doesn’t cover it, because all they care about is the horse race, so the DNC needs to use this opportunity to say it themselves, when people are listening: Barack Obama has strong plans and policies for how to bring change, and McCain has weak plans and policies that mostly follow what Bush has done to get us into this mess. And they should give specifics! They should not drone on for hours about the details, but they should give specific examples about the variation in their tax plans, and McCain’s terrible positions on women’s issues, and so forth. I know I am more interested in policy than the average person, but I think they need to draw a concrete contrast.
Yesterday morning I got up early and went to the Seattle airport to catch my flight to New Jersey. I had a planned layover of an hour in San Francisco and I’d fantasized that my second flight would be delayed and maybe I could have lunch with some of my former coworkers (the office is ten minutes from the airport). Well the airlines did me one better: my first flight (Seattle to San Francisco) was delayed and I missed my second flight altogether. The United personnel gave me a few options: I could take a red eye flight, leaving at 10 pm and getting into Newark at 6 am; I could fly through Chicago; or I could take a flight today. Waiting nine hours in the airport, making an extra connection even though it hurts to walk (sprained ankle), or spending a night in San Francisco with my friends? The decision was easy, to put it mildly.
What a wonderful day, in the way days in San Francisco are usually wonderful: I had lunch with my coworkers, as imagined; I sat in my old kitchen filled with afternoon light; I had seasonal local vegetables for dinner in a hip diner; I ate an ice cream cone; I had a few beers. Of course the reason all of these things were so wonderful is that I did them with my friends. My lovely, smart, funny friends who welcomed me back with open arms. How marvelous to pop in for a day and rejoin my life (almost) as if I never left. I know three months is different than three weeks, and when I come back for good some things will have changed. But the fundamentals will remain: good people, good food, good life.
In the meantime, I am excited to start campaigning. Two people at the Seattle airport yesterday told me they thought we had two bad choices in the presidential race. What are you talking about? I wanted to cry (but didn’t due to an inability to marshal arguments in a state of extreme exhaustion as well as a desire to disengage). Can’t you see that Obama is different than the candidates that have come before? Sure he has his problems. He is human, and he makes bad choices sometimes; he is a politician, and he makes political choices sometimes. But he is smart. He understands nuance. He has good, detailed policy positions. He ran a brilliant and well-organized primary campaign. And he is a fresh start. Electing a mixed-race man named Barack Obama is a rejection of the politics of fear and division that we have lived with for the last eight years (longer, really). He can’t fix everything that has gone wrong under Bush, but he will make a good start – better than anyone else I can imagine.
