Grassroots....a love story

So after one of the worst days ever on Wall Street, the Saturday canvassing for Obama in New Hampshire does seem a couple years ago.

It was good, though, primarily because it bolstered my growing belief in the effectiveness of grassroot politics.

I first met with the Southie for Obama group a week ago; 15 of us showed up with the intent of not cold-calling voters, but calling folks who somewhere along the way gave their phone number and said they might volunteer for either the Democratic party or for Obama himself. We were each asked that night to call 25 people over the course of 90 minutes. I did that....left about 20 messages, got a couple wrong numbers, talked to 3 people who were thrilled that a neighborhood group was mobilizing.

Pat, our gung-ho lawyer-leader, said it best when "rallying the troops" prior to the calls. Going grassroots is about exponential exposure. Making 25 phone calls to get 3 volunteers is just that: 25 calls for 3 volunteers. But if 15 people make 25 phone calls for 3 volunteers, that's 375 phone calls for 45 volunteers.

So if those 45 volunteers call 25 people at 3 volunteers a pop? That's 135 more volunteers gained. Who could each pick up another 3 volunteers. And then when you're looking for people to call old voters or register new voters as the election nears, you've got that many more bodies to help you.

It worked to inspire me. It made me want to call those 25 people for 3 volunteers, thinking about how my phone calls would contribute to the emergence of 400 volunteers for the same purpose. Kind of the same theory behind casting your one vote among millions of others to effect a political change.

It was that same drive that propelled me about going up to Manchester, New Hampshire on Saturday. New Hampshire is the "New England swing state"...small population but a lot of clout, considering its role as one of the first doors for both Democratic and Republic party primaries. Since Massachusetts is considered a Blue State Extraordinaire, if you're Democratic and want to help canvassing voters, you're instructed to go 60 miles north and find out where the neighbors stand.

Seeing the hundreds of people milling in Obama's Manchester headquarters waiting for marching orders from dozens of volunteer coordinators.....thinking back to the exponential power of each person doing a small part. The sight alone made it possible for me to join forces with fellow Bostonian Tom -- an IT professional from Dorchester -- and to knock on 55 doors in the Belmont Street neighborhood that afternoon.

Twenty-two folks answered. Fourteen supported Obama; those who supported McCain (4) were not unpleasant about it. The undecided voters (4) wanted literature. Every one of those folks shook my hand and allowed me to introduce myself. Where no one answered, we left a flyer.....and I felt good about those....because even if people didn't read it, they knew the campaign had a presence and was working to be visible.

I'll admit I was ridiculously relieved when we were done after three hours, despite all of the positives. It takes more cajones than I first thought to feel so strongly about something....but to be able to articulate it to a stranger standing on their porch. Yet I had Tom with me. I had 28 other folks from South Boston who carpooled up with me. I had 100's of others throughout Manchester that afternoon.

So Grassroots 101 took me in last week. Will I continue with it? To be continued.....

Good things come to those who take their time

I came home this evening to find an unfortunate piece of mail waiting: official confirmation of my participation in the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon (The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America) on Sunday, October 5. As the cover proclaims: "this confirmation booklet must be presented to pick up your race number."

Ah. In reality, this confirmation represents a non-refundable $95 registration fee for a race in which I can't compete. If you just joined us, last week I began running after a 3-month hiatus nursing plantar fasciitis in both feet. More recently, both knees ache as if attached to a retired MLB catcher's thighs. I can't run the 2.8-mile Longfellow-Harvard loop on the Charles without pain....although it is improving.

The confirmation represents rashness. I registered for the Twin Cities just days after finishing the 2008 Boston. Ha! Waiting an extra week to see if my legs would be up for it with injuries? Pshaw. But I was afraid registration would close without me. For that, here I sit -- not only can't I run in the race, but I have to pay for it. And I have to read all about it because certainly they will continue bombarding me with literature on it for the next four weeks.

However. My weekend is shaping up beautifully on a number of other fronts because, for reasons ranging from coincidental to brave, I kept my powder dry.

1) A date. I think, anyway. The CFO has been wicked busy since Labor Day, he said, writing his mea culpa e-mail after being offline for 9 days. He wants to be social....with me....soon. I am agitating, once again, for martinis and shellfish at B&G Oysters, since I now have the Medal of Female Patience pinned to my breast.

2) Recognition. My favorite theater company, The Longwood Players, just took home 8 awards at the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters award gala tonight. Including best musical direction and ensemble for She Loves Me, a show in April on which I was the assistant musical director.

For three years I've also been this group's rehearsal pianist.....a no-pay job taking up evenings for months at a time. This isn't necessarily my big Boston Musical Break Moment. But it was fun to get a slab of glass with "best"-something engraved on it....in a scene this big and talented.

3) Big-time B.O. So for two election cycles I have resisted door-to-door canvassing for presidential candidates. This is sheer fear, my friends, of being seen as an agent of harassment. But as you know, I've been sucked into a Southie for Obama volunteer group.....and I don't know if it was the Bud Lite or the camaraderie or the nausea at the political blogosphere that converted me at our meeting Tuesday night: I agreed to drive to New Hampshire tomorrow to do that which I most hate.

And lo, just today, from campaign headqarters: news that the candidate and his running mate, themselves, are holding a rally in Manchester, the very town I was to canvass.

So not only do I get to hear Barack Obama and Joe Biden speak in person, the rally is replacing the canvassing.

Score another point for patience.

Money matters (a lot?)

In May I went to Washington DC, where I went to coffee with a longtime friend, Alan.

Before explaining why this meeting is relevant to anything, let me give you a sense of our shared history: we met in 1993 on the staff of our college newspaper, The Concordian. Soon he became editor and developed a reputation as a liberal subversive...an intelligent smart-ass. Wore his hair and his cardigans like Kurt Cobain, played REM's Automatic for the People on a loop in the newsroom, and taught me chess at one of the first trendy coffee shops.....on University Ave in Fargo, and whose name I wish I could still remember.

I was pretty shy then, and pretty in awe. Alan is pretty bright. Our relationship has since gained nuance, but at the time I was just happy that he entertained me. For my senior writing seminar thesis I included a 30-page profile of him....and probably took it on just to have an excuse to sit with him while he manned his dorm's front desk, guitar in lap, theorizing and illustrating how REM's simple chords in "Nightswimming" were the basis of its appeal.

Post-college, our journalism careers wildly diverged. Me: features writer for a weekly in southwestern Minnesota....now working a low-level finance job and writing a blog about dating. Alan: managing editor of the University of Minnesota paper, business reporter at several dailies in the Midwest, promoted to cover the agriculture scene in Congress around the time of the original 9/11....talking to senators a lot, which he still does. Along the way he bought a pickup, moved to the political neutral zone, and won a fair sum of money on television game shows....Jeopardy!, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

You can tell I've written about Alan before, no?

The gist is that I look up to the man. And no matter how big a deal he has become, or how many times he hangs out with Trent Lott, he is still a small-towner from Motley, Minnesota. And he doesn't forget we are friends.

So, dragging my butt back to the point....I met Alan for coffee (at Caribou Coffee near the Capitol , no less) the Friday before Memorial Day. He'd been covering the 2008 Farm Bill, which had seen action two days before, so he was looped and caffeinated from a week of marathon voting sessions. We discussed his work for awhile; we talked about our respective running; we dipped a toe into presidential politics and quickly retreated; he noted, to my awe, that he hadn't yet spent his game show winnings.

Naturally, the conversation floated around to Significant Others....both of us still unmarried these 13 years since graduation. I, of course, referenced this lovely blog as evidence I was trying to secure one. Alan, on the other hand, was several months into a relationship that was tracking well....she had Midwestern roots, had lived abroad, worked in journalism too, generally had her stuff together.

Then he brought up the woman he dated just prior. All I can remember is that she evidently carried a large load of credit card debt. And how, among other qualities, fiscal irresponsibility made her unattractive as a girlfriend. Essentially saying: who wants to date someone whose bills you might someday have to help pay off?

There was a moment of silence. I contemplated my many, many, many thousands of dollars of loans and credit yet-unpaid...as well as a conspicuous lack of game show winnings.....

"Well I guess it's a good thing we're not dating," I replied.

I chuckled. He chuckled. We didn't go further.

If I had ever entertained thoughts of how by some weird karma I would marry this man, with that statement I effectively severed ring finger from contention.

We're still friends, thank God.

All this came to mind because of a NY Times article suggesting that one of the best gauges of a successful relationship is financial compatibility. Those of you in marriages and shared households are most likely saying, "um, duh!" Take turns with the bills. Save for vacations. Live within means, and agree about it.

I concur with the concepts outlined therein. However, they also scare the shit out of me. And makes me wonder if in order to succeed in dating, I'm going to need a second job, stat.

Especially since I've been going out with a Chief Financial Officer. (Who, by the way, wrote this afternoon, and does want to go out again.)

Yikes, indeed.

Irony. Levity.

After staying up into the wee hours to write a missive about gut feelings when relationships are ending, I was pleased to click on the NY Times this morning and see that columnist Thomas Friedman has written a column using that same, visceral word. His argument is a horse of another color, of course, but does says much about the last 10 days in the election cycle, and gives a good theory for why my man seems to be swimming upstream against a tide of insignificant diversions:

"If you as a politician connect with voters on a gut level, they will follow you anywhere and not fret about the details. If you don’t connect with them on a gut level, you can’t show them enough details. Obama early on, and particularly with young people, connected on a gut level like no other politician since Ronald Reagan.

But in recent weeks, I feel as though he has lost that gut connection....Forget trashing McCain’s ideas. If Obama wants to rally his base, he has to be more passionate about his own ideas. I have long felt that what propelled Obama early was the fact that many Americans understand in their guts that we need a change, but the change we need is to focus on nation-building at home. We’re in decline. We need to get back to work on our country. And that is going to require strong, smart government."

Incidentally, I spent several hours last night at a trendy A-street condo for a call-a-thon with the Southie Volunteers for Obama. There were about 20 of us, all ages, armed with cell phones and lists of other folks in South Boston who might want to be recruited to volunteer. It was good to meet some friendly neighbors, and talk to more on the phone. The group of us made 363 calls to mostly positive response, and persuaded me that I should join them canvassing in Manchester, NH this weekend.

Political affiliations aside, it was a reminder that I should get more involved in my neighborhood, period. New friends are nice. New friends who live down the street are even nicer. New friends who live down the street who agree with your political views, of course, are the best! :-)

(Just wanted to act like a teenager for a couple minutes. Thanks.)

Meanwhile, I promised to not abuse this space with nepotism, but here is the latest on Henry. After all this drivel about love and politics, who doesn't love these baby blues?

(Especially if you're a Democrat....?!)

Insecurity in spades (a.k.a. gut feeling)

So I'm not writing the CFO this week. Not because I don't want to, but because he hasn't written me since Wednesday last. Not to plan a date. Not to say he was thinking of me. Not to say hello.

I wrote him Thursday, briefly. He had started a banter about Sarah Palin; in reply, I sent him a link for a parody website of the new Veep candidate, among a few other things. Still waiting for a return. And we're heading into next Wednesday.

Hmmmm. I dislike myself this way....in modified panic mode. Think back to our handshake that first date in which we agreed to always be frank. And here I sit, scared shitless to write and find out if he isn't planning to go out with me again. Pretty new at this casual relationship stuff.....is a week a normal time frame without communication? Maybe yes, although this follows two months of saying hello every other day.

Am taking the advice of three separate lady-friends.......do not write until he writes you back. Be chill. Be cool. It's casual, remember? But I am doing it again. Thinking through our date from two weeks ago and parsing the conversation, the kissing, the hand-holding, the door-opening, for signs of what caused his abrupt goodbye.

For what? I don't even know what I'd be looking for.

Ah. Silly female.

Some months ago (you may remember Another Man) I was in similar territory, just wearing winter clothes. Instant chemistry, instant pursuit....I met him in person and he tracked me down online. The next four weeks were heady. We wrote, we texted, we coffeed, we ran, we walked through a snowstorm at 2 a.m. on a Monday night. We spoke in loaded language and made plans for the weekend on Wednesday, then talked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of how we couldn't wait for our date.

Then we had that date and everything changed. While it was going, it felt perfect. For me, nothing was wrong. But at 6:30 the next morning, something was. We woke up, and we were tired, but he was weird. Even though he kissed me goodbye and said he would write me, I was already afraid. And for three days I vibrated in a bubble of stress....one girlfriend might remember a mid-day anxiety attack she helped me through.....wanting him to go back to sweet-talk, giddiness, walking through the snow.

He eventually wrote, and we eventually went out several times, but that date, indeed, had been the last hurrah. It never, and still has not, returned from awkwardness. As he later admitted, some of it had to do with me; much of it had to do with him and things I had no way of controlling. Until I got over it, that did not stop me from dissecting that date at least 768 times in my head or with friends, trying to figure out where I had screwed up. How one person could be so involved in wanting to be with someone else.....and the next minute be so dis-involved.

How shitty of a date could I have been?

The CFO is another story altogether, that is wickedly clear. We made few promises other than to be frank and to not take things too seriously. For all I know he is over his head in work. Or his mother is sick. Or he is sick. Or Cambridge is under 4 feet of water and his power is out.

But, I feel the same way I felt that week in winter....I've already dissected two weeks ago Wednesday 25 times. The minute I stepped out of his car I felt different. Like I was going to start feeling like this. Unsure. Awkward. Too afraid to keep the vow of frankness and just the hell ask him how he is.

Yuck.

Spam in the City

I tried to be positive tonight. Tried to go onto match.com and write flattering missives to my dream man when not really in the mood. (Sauteeing eggplant, green beans and canned tuna for my spaghetti sauce had approximately 100 times the appeal. Which I did first.)

Nonetheless. Before commencing my search, I opened my inbox to see if, by chance, someone might have thought to write me first. Three "winks" awaited me.

Ah, winks. My favorite. The equivalent of waving at the hot chick on the platform from a closed-door subway car as it pulls away.

I clicked on the first. No photo, which annoys me, but isn't a dealbreaker. He was 42, has an MBA, and likes everything that everybody should like: dinner with friends, his nieces and nephews, running and hiking, watching television. Standard stuff. A potential red flag in his last-read book: Alone in the Wilderness, about Dick Prenicke's 30 year solo existence in the Alaska wilderness.

Someone who likes an awesome book about solitude....just what everyone is looking for in a mate. Although I think I found a true red flag......he's looking for a "morning person." Yikes.

So I clicked to the second, from a man in Jamaica, Queens, NY.....and shortly thereafter, the third, from Kansas City, KS. Both were 42. Both looking for someone between 35-60. Both widowed with children not living at home (although, where were they then?). And both contained this killer profile info, truncated about 10 lines in for your sanity....

About my life and what I'm looking for
this a try. I am a 42year Old man. I just want to find one good real woman that knows how to treat a real man (Because I know how to treat a woman) I am a decent looking Man anThis is the first time, which I post my self on the internet (feels funny), because I normally meet people in person, but I guess it should not be a problem to meet the right person. (Yes it is) so I give d have a good heart and soul (sometimes to good that’s what people say) I am carring, very open & honest (I hate lies ) truthful, very romantic, funny and adventures love to do things, but also relax, love to cook, listen to soul, jazz and R&B, watch good movies etc. romance movie and my favorite is Love don't cost a thing and I am hard working and very ambitious, but know when to stop and take time for you.If you are looking for a good Husband and success relationship, call on me no games I will treat you like QueenThen maybe I am the one.......

My first Nigerian Scam lovers!

Hot, baby. Hot.

Wicked insomnia. Again.

Will not eat the rest of box of GoLean. Severely tempted.

I love the pictures my sister sent over of my new nephew, Henry. I should look at them for awhile now since I don't get to see him for three more weeks.

Will listen to one of the greatest set-pieces in modern music, Bach's Art of The Fugue. Calming, soothing. Quartetto Bernini does a particularly nice job with it....although Glenn Gould and his magic hands are more fun to watch.

Will not post awesome Judith Warner New York Times blog piece (see "Domestic Disturbances") about Sarah Palin in this space. Trying to return to non-partisanship for sake of diverse readership. Save it for the Facebook page. Where I hope everyone naturally goes immediately from this link.

Henry is blonder than any baby I've seen. He has his dad's hairline and his mom's Larson potato nose. Awesome photos.

Wonder: how possible that both cats have been sleeping without interruption for the last four hours? From where comes their exhaustion? Did they spend the day watching the Dow Jones drop 345 points....drops away from a flush into bear market territory? Do they have to get up in the morning and talk to clients about it?

How is it possible that Henry is sleeping in all these pictures? He's all of an hour old in this one and looks positively cashed out. He instead should be kissing his mother for the 26 hours of labor required for him to arrive.

Will NOT get sucked into checking the Times website every five minutes to see if the major columnists have reacted to John McCain's acceptance speech. This wants to be a non-partisan blog.

Although, damn, Paul Krugman has already outdone himself....who, like me, can't for the life figure out why everyone is so angry.

Wow. Four hours does not a night of sleep make. It didn't last night and it won't tonight. And I'm not even the new mother.

But Henry sure looks like he's worth it. Good night, sweet nephew!

Single in the City

***Note: Early Thursday morning I had wicked insomnia. Wicked. Until 4:30 a.m. and even then it wasn't good sleep. Something to do with eating a half-batch of chocolate-chip cookie dough and digesting comments on every politically-affiliated story on the New York Times website on a politically significant night. Somewhere in the midst I wrote the entry below but my computer battery bailed before I could post. Today I read it and am not sure I mean all of it. But I did sign up for the Obama event and, as of Thursday night, still plan to go.

Readers of this blog.....you know my political affiliation, as clearly as I wear it, but I've been determined to not get into drag-out partisan battles in this space. It is about the ups and down of dating.

Tonight, speakers at the Republican National Convention made me feel soiled for being a) educated; b) living in a city of diverse cultures; and c) a member of the media. They were sarcastic, angry, and mocking. They appealed to the basest instincts of fear. And what troubles me the most is the joyous manner in which the crowd egged on their anger.

I have to put in a plug for the RNC, though, because I suspect their anger may fuel my social life. Never before have I wanted to get more involved in a political campaign than this moment....Republican party leaders drive to make us fear each other has driven me to want to fight the fear.

I signed up today for an Obama in Massachusetts organizing event this weekend. To learn to knock on doors, make phone bank calls. Both of which I dislike.....but think I owe it to myself to try. And who knows, maybe I'll meet some folks who aren't so damn angry.

Self-vetting

So here we are, September 2.

In this single girl's land, the beginning of a new month is like New Year's Day. Resolutions galore. Beginnings of new months after major seasonal holidays cultivate even more self-reflection....and depending on the state of the union, self-flagellation.

Several times today I caught myself lecturing myself (thankfuly inside of skull and not out):

1) Why haven't you been working hard, or working at all recently, at match.com?

2) Why did you eat half a box of GoLean cereal at 2:30 this morning? And how about that entire bag of Reese Pieces on the way to Hudson last Friday?

3) Why suddenly start taking the CFO seriously when up until last Wednesday you were the coolest cat ever to go on a fourth date? Where did all the analysis come from?

4) Why get so steamed up that the abortion issue has to overtake YET ANOTHER presidential election, as if it were the only issue in the country, as if it is the status of that viewpoint and that viewpoint only that makes one worthy to govern and the last 18 months of campaigning are being flushed down the toilet? And when are you going to actually give a head butt to the the next anyone who use the phrase "ready to lead"?

Yeah. I feel pessimisstic and bloated tonight.

Good to know I can go to bed and wake up on a day a little farther into the month.

Weekend news blotter

Welcome back from the weekend....and it was a notable one for myriad reasons....

1) The 1991 Mazda 626 survived a 620-mile drive through multiple mountainous valleys and back....the only downer being that its driver forgot the gas cap in East Hartford, CT.

2) New Jersey is a fine, green state. The Hudson River Valley is a fine river valley. I have friends in both places who were fine hosts.

3) This was the nicest weather weekend the Northeast U.S. has seen all summer. Hands down.

4) Sarah Palin? A political and personal mess unfolds and even this vehement Democrat feels for a family forced so harshly into the spotlight.

5) My nephew Henry was born on Sunday morning. I've yet to meet him, but have already heard word that he is cuter, blonder and taller than his 35-year-old aunt. His arrival is a definite cause for rejoicing. Thanks, Missy and Chad, for the good work!

Back to our regularly scheduled single-girl programming tomorrow.