Wednesday, November 03, 2004

The end of day one.

I want to know what kind of sorry state I was in last night to generate such a stream of sympathetic calls and emails today?

Here’s the thing. As I told my walking buddy tonight, I’ve got something that all of you don’t have: I can set in place my hidden PRM (Polish Recovery Mechanism). PRM works really well for brooding Slavs who basically can’t believe there is a tomorrow, because when they actually do wake up to a new day they are pleasantly surprised.

And so then we work work work to put aside whatever was troubling us the night before. If that doesn’t help, by evening we consider downing gallons of vodka. I am happy to report that I am in control and not reaching into the liqour cabinet. Just a little low on leftover Halloween candy and Organic Angel Fluffs.

P.S. Today’s Daily Show is better than vodka. If you missed it, pick it up tomorrow at 6. Unless you’re not ready to laugh yet. I can understand that. I guess.

Musing, though not terribly amused, part 2:

Listening to the acceptance speeches:

It’s hard to be gracious while listening to Cheney gloat about the success of the Republican Party. I'll be gracious later, I just can't warm up to this man. Each time he appears on the TV I want to say "remind me again how many times you dropped out of college and grad school? Three? Four was it"

Okay, okay, come on, it’s been a long night -- let this post be just one last lapse into cattiness:

Ha ha, the microphone isn’t working properly, ha ha..

Hmmmm… Bush WANTS to say *thank you for letting me keep my job; I’m not so good at finding new employment. Man, I love my wife, I love my life, I love my routines and hey, I did again something that my dad failed to do!*

Bush’s one nod toward Democrats seems to be that he’s wearing a blue tie.

Prayer has been mentioned many times.

I’m sleepy. It’s like attending a boring lecture. I look at the computer screen and notice that my finger has been slumbering on the “r” key. All those “r”s look menacing!

I must have dozed off… Oh! It’s over! What exactly did he say? I'd make a terrible simul-blogger, I failed. Let me listen to the CNN commentaters and pick up the highlights. Whaaat? They keep going back to Kerry’s speech and his beautiful, emotional acknowledgement of the workers in his campaign! Wait, aren’t we supposed to be talking about the Bush acceptance speech? There we go again, the shot is of Kerry and Edwards on stage.

Oh, now I get to listen to live coverage of the speech made by a disappointed Tony Blair. *Damn,* he’s thinking, *my goose is cooked; now I have to stick by this gent and watch my butt get kicked around back home.* Wow, he appears unenthusiastic! Oh, Blair is slipping away from Bush – he is rejecting ‘military might alone’… he is talking about ‘poverty’ and making the 'Middle East peace process' a priority. 'Europe and America must built an alliance'… Am I hearing him right??? Bush will have none of it, I’m sure. *With us or against us* – those are George words. IS BLAIR EVER SO SUBTLY INCHING AWAY FROM BUSH? The international saga continues...

The speeches are over. Back to work.

Musing, though not terribly amused:

We have never thrown out a sitting president at wartime.

Do you suppose Hillary is suddenly hopeful?

You are not allowed to tell me what Kerry should have done differently.

The election results immediately translate into corporate profit and the impoverishment of the middle class: I have decided to keep cable so that I can laugh, at the close of each day, with Jon Stewart. Charter – thank George for my business.

I am scheduled to soon travel to France. I know I will be regarded separately from an administration that squeaked its way into office by the slimmest of margins. I hear people fretting about how “they hate us” and I know how inaccurate that is. They hate the Bush administration. There’s a difference. However, I wish they’d start making pins that say “I never voted for him.”

Tom reminds us of the magnificence of our Constitution. Especially the 22nd Amendment, Section 1: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.

Concession speech

I want to thank all Ocean readers who also cared deeply about the elections.

So how to deal with failure? Well, it places a burden on us, doesn’t it? A burden to be even better at life: even kinder, more empathetic to those who are immediately affected, less self-centered in our unhappiness, more outwardly-focused in our lives.

As bloggers, we, too, have a responsibility: to be even more skillful at story-telling, more rigorous and precise in our writing, sharper, more intelligent, funnier, honing in on the topics that interest and inspire us.

It would have been deeply satisfying to wake up to a different result. It was not to be.