The chicks are TOTALLY going to dig this.

It's become unbearable.

The only thing worse than waiting these 5 days until the election is being in a country where, surprisingly, people are allowed think about other things.

I've become a social pariah at dinner parties; if anyone dare utters 'America' I climb onto my soapbox, start gesticulating wildly and throw out overarching truths about the election. 

"La base américaine est un MYTHE crée par Karl Rove en 2004...!!"

I never realized how much I enjoyed pontificating until approximately August 2008. I mean, how DARE they have an opinion, they CAN'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN. No non-American (save for maybe, Iraqis and Afghans, and a smattering of other nationalities..) understands the trauma of 2004! 

I don't care if you read the NYTimes MORE often than I do, WERE YOU IN PALM BEACH COUNTY IN 2000? I DIDN'T THINK SO.

I have become a woman obsessed. I compulsively reading every online media source that even vaguely provides information on the outcome.

Blogging about this any more would just feed the cycle of insanity. To distract myself, and you, kind reader, a potpourri of life these days...

1. Oh angst, thy name is some dude named 'Aaron'



Waiting in line for my flight to America the other week, I became aware of this gentleman in front of me. Fat, plumply, large, loud, American and about my age. He's wearing a backpack with HUGE tags from various ski resorts in North America. Now, we all know how I feel about self-glorifying skiiers. This guy already was already creeping up the douchebag scale.

Then, seeing a way to skip the line, picks up his backpack and says to the patiently waiting queue:

"AU VWA, SUCKERS!"

...it was precisely at this moment, when I was silently willing his head to explode that I noticed his HAT. Fresh off some Oktoberfest (totally AwEsOme wOoOo) drinking tour, he felt the need to BUY and WEAR a hat with a Little Plush Beer Stein glued to the side.

Not only that, the Little Plush Beer Stein had a plume attached, representing, of course, beer. On a hat. I never thought one sartorial object could say something so clearly, but apparently this hat CAN say ' I enjoy the fact that I have a beer gut at 21, don't shower, and have the intelligence of a raccoon. Also, I really enjoy Phish and Guster."


2. Where have all the Good Men Gone...?



...they've been processed, canned and sold for 2 euros at a market in Belleville.


3. For Your Moment of Zen, a great moment in the history of American song, brought to you by A.W. and M.K-S, at the Morikami Gardens in Delray Beach...

"French public said to support Obama's exit strategy"

...toward a lasting paix in Iraq.

Putting the "ass" in "canvassing"

As a general rule, I prefer "grumpiness and cynicism" to "hope and ideological motivation."
But the idea of Barack Obama as president makes my Eurosnobbish heart warm over. So, finding myself in South Florida a few precious weeks before the election, I decide to talk to strangers and get heatstroke--for the cause.

I show up to the Obama-Biden headquarters located in the Bermuda Star of David of south Florida: the intersection of Delray Beach and Boca; a half mile from the Kings' Point complex, and East of the everglades.

I'm greeted by a 20-something at the door, cute in a sort of annoyingly motivated sort of way. "WHAT AN ADAWRABLE BOY!" an 80-something volunteer would exclaim later. (I was waiting to hear "I'm gawing to intraduce him ta my granddawtah!" but alas...)

I say I'm willing to canvas, and he shuffles me over to a table with an attractive middle aged woman. I ask where she's from, she says Boston. Originally? Lebanon. I'm immediately excited; start talking about my aborted year in Beirut, etc. Then it occurs to me...

...They're sending a blonde and a Lebanese woman out to canvas in Boca Raton. Boca. Raton.
The 'more pro-Israel-than-Israelis' heartland. The Hilary-or-die democrats. The target of the Great Schlep!

Nevertheless, we pile into my car with Obama buttons and our mail-in ballots, and get assigned to a neighborhood picked at random.

Knocking on the first door, we speak with a nice, young black guy about mail-in voting. We chat, he fills out a mail-in ballot request form.

As we're leaving, my canvassing partner declares in a loud voice:

"WHY THEY SEND US TO BLACK NEIGHBORHOOD, BLACKS ALREADY LIKE OBAMA."

I mumble something about pushing early voting and we keep going. We knock on a couple more doors, everyone is really nice and receptive, and I'm feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about America, racial harmony, and the future of the world as a whole. THEN Faiza offers another piece of wisdom:

"BLACK PEOPLE WHY THEY ALWAYS SO ANGRY?"

"What's that?"

"FOR EXAMPLE THAT BLACK MAN HE LOOK SO angry LOOK AT WAY HE ANSWERED THE DOOR..[continues rambling]..."

"(Silence)....uhhh..."

REALLY, Obama volunteer?! Although tempted to point out the obvious--that we were volunteering for a man who happens to be black, and in fact the old white man is the 'angry' one, I was shocked into silence. I'm willing to accept that I didn't understand the nuance of what she was trying to say, but I think I got the gist of it.

Clearly, her feet are in the right place, but I don't quite buy the "I'm voting for Obama, so I can be as racist as I like." It's worse than the "Some of my best friends are...(black/gay/et al.)" rhetort, which has never held any water, and is even sadder on the eve of this election.

Sad, strange, or just plain depressing, the experience is noteworthy because the first place I have heard pretty openly racist remarks firsthand was....with a volunteer for Obama.

Oh, America.

UPDATE! Well, hello, Gawker, way to reiterate the scary/fascinating phenomenon of Racists for Obama