Ah yes, I admit it. I have simultaneously been lazy and busy. Busy with work and another writing project, lazy with my blog. Poor neglected blog, no more pathetic whimpering in the corner, Mama's back.
What might I write about? Going to D.C? All right. By the week before election day, I was feeling as if I had overdosed on politics, and was having fever dreams of what Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency would bring. Seriously, it gave me horrible nightmares. I kept imagining the US morphing into the Gilead of "The Handmaid's Tale" with a cackling Sarah Palin ordering all the whores and dykes rounded up and put into sprawling re-education camps in Idaho, spending their days breaking rocks and digging up potatoes whilst clad in Amish castoffs, or big blue Taliban burkas. Sarah, of course, kept her three inch designer heels and miniskirts.
Enough of my fear of the right-wing, the point was I temporarily, at least had no desire to focus on any elections, national, international, local-nothing. I had no intention of going to DC...then, well, I hadn't been in many years...and my friend, Melanie lives there now...and look at the preparations...and it's historic...maybe...I might go?
Needless to say, by the time January rolled around I was fired up again. Let me say this as well, I hate, despise, abhor CROWDS. This was worse than the crowds at the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. Yes, I hate crowds, and yet I was there too. Perverse, I know.
When I think of it now, the day itself comes out jumbled, as a stream-of-consciousness.
We were walking shoulder to shoulder, and yet there were almost no arrests. People were smiling and laughing and talking to strangers. A German couple on the bus told me that they could now stop living in fear of our government. The irony of that didn't escape me. I met a Vietnam vet who works for the VA who came all the way from Alaska at Union Station. He is white, and lives with the Inuit. They hate Palin. Ancient black church ladies in big hats were crying as they rolled their walkers. A band from the town Obama's family came from in Ireland was there singing, and crowing. "Two Irishmen in the White House!" At the Washington Monument, the trees were filled with climbers wanting a better view. I am so proud of my country. Two million people came. So many parents brought young children. Two million. I wished my parents were alive. The temperature was nineteen degrees! People are singing Na na na, na na na, hey hey, goodbye to George W. Bush. And booing! Vendors were selling Star Wars Obama shirts: In a Galaxy ready for Change...The long, long walk back through the closed-to-traffic tunnels beneath the Washington Monument reminded me of The Stand. (I think of Steven King at some very odd moments) I have never been so cold in my life. We were outside for six hours, but even the children weren't complaining. I had no IDEA how many men find Michelle Obama sexy. I lost count of how many seniors I heard declare they never thought they would live to see this day...
