game day

i'm sitting in ballroom in the basement of the century plaza hotel, surrounded by at least 200 volunteers, who've made more than 30,000 calls in the past seven and a half hours. the energy in this room is almost as exhilarating as the remarkable scene before me. just close your eyes and imagine a room full of 200 people, in all different sizes, shapes, colors, and background. accents a plenty, representing cities and countries around the world, white middle-aged business men in their suits and ties sitting next to young african american athletes in their ucla sweatpants. big-name actors camped out next to small store clerks, retired folks, and kids who've taken the day off high school. a room truly representative of the melting pot this country claims to be, making calls to elect Barack Obama our next president.

i'm pretty sure this is the most beautiful thing i have ever seen in my life. not just this moment, not just this day, not just this gotv weekend, but the whole thing. the whole journey. this campaign, rooted in the grassy knolls of every hill in america, is about folks of all walks of life choosing hope over fear, unity over division, and the promise of change over the power of the status quo. it's about all of us choosing america's better history. today.

no matter what happens today (though all bullshitting aside, i will be more devastated than i've ever been if we don't win this thing), something extraordinary has been happening in america these past twenty months. we've seen communities coming together for the betterment of neighborhoods, cities, the country, our families and our own selves. i've been here for nine months of it, have seen it with my own eyes, and felt something magical stirring in my own soul. this is the america i want to call home, americans i want to call my friends and family, this is a place i can be proud to call my country, and i hope and pray with every exhale of breath that we win today.

we have to win today. it's our time. it feels right. it feels necessary. it feels now. it feels like we really are one people, believing in and fighting for the country we can just glimpse through the tunnel of darkness, at the end of which lies that higher ideal where equal opportunity exists, and every american has the potential to be its best and brightest. and that together, we can do this. YES WE CAN!

we're almost there. it's 2pm on the west coast. i'm 10 hours into today. the polls will start closing in a coupla hours on the east coast. i'm reminding myself to keep breathing, and i'm fighting back tears with every ounce of resolve i can muster. the finish line is there. i can see it. i can feel it, the final stretch of a long and stormy race...

gotmfv

it's my 4th and final gotv for this campaign. i spent this afternoon and evening helping to set up for tomorrow and tuesday's big, official phone bank at the century plaza hotel. my job is the on-site motivator. cuz that's what i do best. and i have to be "on" for the next 48 hours. i report for duty at 5:30 tomorrow morning, and i'll be there till wednesday, getting out the mother fucking vote.

this is a real mixed moment for me. as i've discussed is great and painful detail in prior blogs, this gotv weekend marks the end of the greatest journey of my life. and that thought terrifies me. but i am so excited that a new dawn is about to break for america, and for me, that i look to tuesday with as much joyful anticipation as i do fearful.

i can hear and feel the excitement on meet the press, i feel in the air, i could see it in the faces of people responding to the shirts hallway boy and i wore today (we were obama'd out while running around), i feel it deep in my soul. i'm still scared shitless that dems won't get to the polls on tuesday, and even though it's frazzled at its ends, my faith is feeling very strong. and i feel that this isn't just another presidential election, it's not about a man running for office, but this is a time in america's fate where a new leadership is meant to take the reigns, a younger, fresher, open-minded, and courageously daring america, governed of the people, by the people, and for the people. the people of today. the people who see the modern world for what it is, who know and understand the internet, a global economy, and that diplomacy is a more effective means of spreading democracy than a damn stupid war. i mean, an evolved mind is a terrible thing to waste, especially for such nonsense as oil, money, and greed.

so, assuming my gut's not too far off, looks like the dems will have a chance to begin to crack away at the wall of shit george bush and cronies have built around america, and that a new light will soon begin to emerge. that can only mean that a bright new light will emerge for me as well...

i keep saying this, but when i look to my future, i still have no idea what to see on the other side of tuesday. no idea at all, cept for the very near short-term.

i will go back to my day job, which has been on the back-burner for the past few months and needs a lot of my attention. i've got a novel sitting on my coffee table that i'm committed to sending out by the end of this year (yep, december 31. right here, in writing, novel off my table, out of my hands, into the universe, by the end of this year). and i've got some loose ends in need of tying in my personal life. add to that, a resume tossed into the stack of wanna-be obama administration staffers, and i've got potential roads going every which way. it seems i am going to have to tend to some decisions, instead of jumping off cliffs and hoping for a smooth landing.

i know what i want. it's what i've wanted all along. i want to write, i want to travel a lot, and i want to do it with my lover and our kids. now i've got to make the desisions that get me there the right way... or i guess i could just close my eyes and jump off another cliff...

a life coming to an end

it's been a very long time since i lost someone i love. my mamaw-daddy died when i was 11 (i think), and i still remember that pain. i mean, it's hard not to be crazy in love with a grandpa who never would've believed any person who tried to tell him i wasn't who hung the moon, and even though i was only a kid, there are times today i can go back to that loss, and feel as sad and confused as i did in the days following his death (which itself followed a very long and painful battle with lung cancer). the most beautiful and surprising thing about that loss - 23 years ago - is that it was the last for me.

i was at hallway boy's last night when i got the call from my mom that my other grandpa had been admitted to the hospital, and wouldn't be going home...

what i felt in that moment, in the hours that followed, and what i still feel today, is very much a mixed bag. on the one hand, we should all be so lucky to live a long, healthy, happy, fulfilled life as my pa has had. he's 87 years old, until very recently had been jovial and sprite since the day i met him, way back when i made my grand entrance, in november of some unnamed year in the 70's :). he was (and is) as proud of me as anyone ever has been, and i of him. he's a good man, my pa. and he's had a really good life.

on the other hand, his life is ending, and it breaks my heart. it hurts to know that in a matter of days or weeks, i will lose someone who has been one of my life's greatest driving forces. he's always been there for me, supportive of my endeavors, and probably my biggest fan. and he's going to be gone. i can't help but selfishly be sad for my own loss, as well as the loss my granny, my brothers and cousins, and my mom and her siblings will all soon feel. it is just sad. and it hurts.

last night when i got the news, i'm glad i wasn't alone. i'm glad hallway boy was there to comfort me, to encourage me to talk about my pa, to tell him stories about our trips to the donut shop, and that drawer full of molding donut holes i collected during his frequent visits to my hospital room after my car accident. but it was hard for me to be true to my emotions with hallway boy, because i'm trying so hard to keep me close to the vest. i mean, i tried so hard to be strong because i didn't want to cry in front of him. he knew it too, he saw me fighting back the tears, and finally told me to let go, "it's okay to cry". and i did and the floodgates opened. and he pet me while i cried, and comforted me, and told me it's okay to be sad.

the mixed bag here is that i'm not really sure i am ready to be so vulnerable with him. i mean, maybe it's time. we've been dating for a few months now, maybe it's time to start knocking a few of those cinder blocks to the ground. but i feel safer and my heart feels a bit more secure, when i keep a good distance between hallway boy and my emotions, when he doesn't see how much i feel (i.e. _everything_) and how much more of a role my feelings play in my decision making than things as silly as reason and sense. playing the tough girl helps me keep me closer to me, even if it isn't really me, and it scares the shit out of me to let him see the emotional volcano that lies below the surface of my "baller" exterior... or maybe it's just that he scares the shit out of me...

"we're both mavericks"

O
M
G

denial ain't just a river in egypt... mcsame appeared on this morning's meet the press, ranting like a madman, turning every conversation into an opportunity to issue an ill-advised smackdown on obama's tax plan, turned a blind eye toward every damning poll, and praised his vice-presidential candidate as a, "dynamic person with executive experience, leadership, reform, exactly what waRshington needs. i'm so proud of the way she ignites the crowds [uh, more like racially incites crowds], the way she has conducted herself is incredibly admirable... we're both mavericks".

hmmmm. i've been wondering if mccain regrets his decision to invite palin to join his ticket, but it sounds to me like he's still her biggest (blindest) fan. but why should i be surprised? the republican party put the biggest dumbass on earth in the white house two terms in a row, and sat back while he made a fool of america by waging tyrannical wars, as though imperialism were the tried and true means of spreading democracy, flushed our economy down the toilet, set mandates that encouraged our auto industry to bury itself in suv manufacturing while the rest of the world moved toward fuel efficient vehicles (clearly an insightful move by a harvard-trained business genius), and created the largest discrepancy in wealth in this country since the gilded age. ya gotta love a government that ignores the lessons of history, because it's either too dumb to see its own limitations and ask for help, or too greedy to care.

and then that same party goes on to find the only dipshit on earth with the ability to make george w. bush look like he has a single working brain cell in that monkey head of his. and they make her the vice-presidential candidate, to the oldest ass presidential candidate in history. i'm not complaining, though, because i want the fools to lose, and i want to see their party implode completely, and have to send the next eight years figuring out the way the world really works today and having to reinvent themselves in a newer, fresher identity, one that will be able to move the country forward in a changing world (i may be a democrat, and a liberal one at that, but i am an american first, and this republican party is made up of blind fools who cannot see that we live in a global market that requires greater governmental involvement and that needs to change if we're to make real progress).

i'm only going to touch all of the clips from interviews with mccain the past several years, that show a clear trend toward flip-flopping on many issues, from agreeing with bush, to being opposed to reducing taxes, to being in favor of spreading the wealth, but i will point out my favorite line in mcdenial's interview with tom this morning, "we're gonna do well in this campaign, my friend".

uh huh, we'll see about that, maverick...

The Cure at Troy

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted or endured

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
Double take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightening and storm
And a god speaks from the sky.

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth cry
Of new life at its term.

-Seamus Heaney

yeah, what he said, vote NO on prop 8!

Recently the LA Times published a full-page ad from S.R. Grubb in support of Proposition 8, the ballot measure that would prohibit marriage between non-heterosexual couples. The ad suggested that somehow such a prohibition would safeguard “straight” marriages and was what Jesus would have us do. As I reject both suggestions, I am compelled to respond.

I am a 54-year old straight male, married to my one and only wife for the last 14 years. In 14 years of marriage my wife and I have dealt with the strains that afflict any marriage -- demands of too much work, too little money, a child to try to raise to be a whole person who values the good in everyone. Along the way we have had our share of disagreements, some quite vocal. Never once did we argue about the behavior of other consenting adults unrelated to our marriage. Put most simply, it is not a threat to our marriage that others with different sexual preferences than our own would seek to express their love using the same terms by which my wife and I have tried to do these past 14 years. Quite frankly, I cannot understand how that is a threat to anyone's marriage -- and indeed, I have never once heard anyone claim that their heterosexual marriage was undone because a homosexual couple was allowed to wed.

I am similarly unimpressed by the ad’s selective citations to the Bible, for as it is well known, "the Devil can quote scripture." Rather, it is worth noting two things: First, the citation to Matthew says nothing about homosexuality -- and indeed, Jesus never said *anything* about homosexuality. He did, however, have a great many things to say about not judging lest you be judged and loving your neighbor.

Second the citation to Leviticus is not persuasive. Jesus frequently ignored or flatly contradicted Leviticus as not binding upon the New Covenant that he brought forth – for example, think of his rejection of the Levitical admonition of "an eye for an eye" and replacing it with tolerance and acceptance of those who do you ill -- "turn the other cheek."

At bottom, Jesus preached love and acceptance of our brothers and sisters. I doubt sincerely that He would approve of the New Law that the ad’s author advocates out of prejudice thinly disguised as Christianity. As for myself, I will vote No on Proposition 8.

(this was a letter to the editor of the LA Times, written by my friend Jim Jenal)

the calm before the storm...

or just a lone night of calm in the midst of a storm?

i am at home tonight, curled up with a good book (yes dad, tom friedman does write good books), in an apartment bereft of the bother of another (for the first time in weeks), ignoring the news on television and the internet, steering clear of my campaign and work inboxes, and simply enjoying the energy of me, in the solitude of my own soul (well, and that of hot, flat, and crowded).

i've somehow even managed to empty my head of the noise of the past several days, weeks, and months, so that even my fingertips tell a tale of calm. with the election but two weeks away, it's hard for me to find peace, and even harder to find a breath of life outside the madness. even when i'm not inundated with emails, calls, responsiblities weighing atop my shoulders, stress about what i haven't done enough of, or the cries of help from states far and wide, i still feel it all. it's all in the air about me, the energy overwhelming any chance i have at a moment of solitude and peace. but tonight is different. tonight is mine.

it doesn't mean that tonight i haven't been stopped in my tracks by the reality (i have bumped into a calendar) that in 14 days, my life's purpose these past nine months will come to a screetching halt. 'tis something i try to push from my thoughts every day, because its verity terrifies. push as i may, it's still there. it hovers, it floats in and out of my consciousness, settles in at night when i close my eyes, inflitrates my dreams and those long moments of darkness sans sleep at night. it catches me off guard when i inhale a lovely scent of jasmine (though out of season now, i do have some bottled jasmine lying about), take a deep breath, or feel a tear of stress roll down my tepid cheek. never far from my idealism, hope for the future, or ever-adjusting confidence that 15 days from today, i will wake to the dawn of a new america, is the fear that for a girl who's spent her whole life searching for a way to make the world a better place, and found it in organizing communities around a presidential candidate, that once the candidate is the president, i'll have lost my means to that end which has brought such beauty and meaning to my life.

i mean, then what?

i'll go back to work. get back to writing novels i don't have the balls to sell. see if i can't get back into my circle of friends (i do miss you guys). focus more on my budding romance. celebrate my birthday. sleep in on the weekends. read a book. watch some television. see a movie. buy a handbag. maybe play some goofy golf or some skee-ball. maybe i'll even hop on the freeway and go ride a roller coaster. go back to life as usual. a life i always enjoyed, but never felt quite measured up to my greater ideal. has my search for my greater ideal been satisfied by a nine-month march through the ongoing battles that've made up this historic campaign? can i return to life as usual without feeling the loss i fight off now, in these final days of my life's greatest journey?

the hopeless optimist in me knows that the end of one journey marks the beginning of another, but the very teensy slice of realism can't help but wonder how any journey can surpass the beauty and wonder of the one i'll soon be ending, and there's just no denying that i'll never be satisfied with less than the greater ideal i've been being these past nine months...