I have a confession to make.
My name is Laurie and I am a political junkie. Reformed political junkie. When I was a reporter, I spent several fascinating nights at various county headquarters, covering races for President and Congress and school board and dog catcher. When I left the paper, I worked as a campaign volunteer and poll watcher. It was fun, but rather all-consuming and did not lead to much fiction writing. I swore off the hard stuff a couple of years ago when I decided there was more to life than stuffing fliers in mailboxes.
So I quit cold turkey.
Well, I fell off the wagon last night. Stayed up much too late watching returns. Found myself analyzing the numbers and poking through tea leaves trying to prognosticate about 2008 and debating the choices of tie colors worn by reporters and irritated that CNN could only find one female commentator. Hello? CNN? Girls vote. We have opinions, too, and some of us are wicked smart about it, and so please hire a couple more next time, OK?
Today I am climbing back into a state of political junkie sobriety. I vow not to track the minute-by-minute changes in the VA and MT senate races. I promise not to scan the Internet for Nancy Pelosi’s plan of action. I will focus on my art and my job and my mail pile.
(I am, however, still trying to find out the status of the proposed Mexico, NY water district. Does anyone know?)
More coffee, BH.
What are you doing tonight? Want to hang out? Meet me at Storer Auditorium, on the campus of my alma mater, Onondaga Community College, at 7pm. I’ll be the one up front, blabbing into the microphone. If you are an LJ-reader, please let me know.
Don’t you worry at all–
Your books reach and affect (in good ways) more young people then any promise made by any political jaw flapper anyday….
I’m going to try to overcome my current vicious spate of depression/panic/anxiety/agoraphobia/SAD to come out and see you tonight. I should be done reading Fever by then – it’s brilliant. When you wrote it, did you get to use primary sources for the quotes at the beginning of each chapter – the actual letters themselves? The research must have been fascinating.
I know I shouldn’t feed your addiction but the DSCC just released a statement announcing that both Tester and Webb won their races. Woohoo!
Isn’t asking CNN to hire more female commentators a lot like asking the boys to take their “No Girlz Allowed” sign off the club house door?
OhmyGAHD.
I’m not even American, and I spent all day stuck to my computer, watching Virginia’s trends with 50% of the vote in, 70%, OH MY LORD, 85%! It’s the little state that could.
This is riveting, riveting stuff. HOW can you quit that?
I stayed until 1AM. I slept through Algebra. 😉
-Wes
I stayed up late watching returns too. XD
And I totally noticed the lack of females on CNN. They do have very cool technology though!
Go Democrats!
celebrating right with you!
Hi Laurie,
After celebrating the votes, I decided that rather than waiting to share Thank You, Sarah! I would fit it in today and then suddenly both 1st grade teachers said – read it to ALL of our kids. So we loaded up the rug with 50 + kids this PM. They were totally enthralled. This great text had strong conversation points. They were amazed at Sarah’s tenacity and we had some great ‘character trait’ discussion! We tied this into yesterday’s voting and the fact that many of our young ladies had accompanied families to the polling places. I would love to hear some of the dinner table conversations this PM!
so I’m not the only one? perfect! now all I have to do is write a couple of YA novels…
Hilary Rosen held her own on MSNBC. She’s a former Dem. consultant.
It’s their Painted-on-Face Norah O’Donnell pretending to be the Chief White House expert that drives me mad. She is a spokesmodel for the White House. And nothing more.
Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC– can never tell if she believes what she says.
Candy Crowley on CNN: a joke. Uh-huhs her way through everything. Has a secret crush on Wolf Blitzer, I’m sure.
It’s painful to celebrate when nearly 3000 of our kids are dead. For Nothing. Still, my heart is filled with joy for the New Direction we are about to follow. I wish no ill on anyone–except those who thought torture is a good thing.
The party’s over. Thank g-d.
I debate the color ties commentators wear, too. It usually just makes me even more delirious.
On Hardball, really early the next morning, after staying up all night, Chris Matthews said tiredly something along the lines of “It’s been a great night covering the midterm elections of 2008. I mean 2006 . No, 2008, I was right the first time.” It was kind of funny- you could tell he was really tired.
I just felt the need to say that I love how you said “wicked smart” in this entry. Massachusetts readers appreciate your word choice!! 🙂