Wistful Election Roundup

I'll leave it to the pundits and analysts to delve into the numbers and statistics relative to Election 08. None of that is going to stick with me; I can tell you that now. What will are the memories of how it felt. All day yesterday, people were excited. They were smiling at the thought of going to the polls and casting a ballot, finally being allowed to say something, after years of watching the country slowly twist into something none of us wanted. The relief and excitement that swept over everyone when the results came in declaring Obama the winner was overwhelming. I sat on the couch next to my mother who cried from the second it was announced until Obama wrapped up his speech an hour and a half later. People screamed on streets, hugging and yelling, even diving into the occasional urban water feature . For me, this election was about getting back something we never should have lost in the first place: pride in where we're from and confidence that we have a government that is working for the greater good of the country and the world. And this is just the beginning. Obama makes people want to be better citizens. He already ran a pretty flawless campaign and mobilized voters to a point we didn't believe possible, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

In the meantime, I am going to revel in my memories of yesterday.  The electricity in the air when voters breathed a collective sigh of relief, the shared sense that we all have something to hope for, and a real chance at getting it, made me so glad that the first presidential election I could vote in, was one that has meant so much. 

I apologize for what you might be subjected to

After my colleague posted a record six blog posts in one day, undoubtedly a result of her pre-election frenzy, I am feeling inspired. You may remember I set a goal to reach 20 blog posts in 30 days. I am three days from my deadline and have fallen sorely behind. But my competitive spirit almost always gets the best of me, and I'm determined to hit the big 2-0. As a result, I apologize for the quality of what might come out of my mouth (fingers) in the next six posts. But let's be honest, it's not as if you came here for insight or good writing. TISH TOSH. 

Anyway, the esteemed Connie has a sidebar in her blog about the ways she knows election day is approaching. This list essentially serves as a way to  enumerate her various psychotic behaviors that nearly always center on politics, government, and the media's coverage of both. While compared to her, I am positively casual observer of politics, I still consider myself more involved than the average American. When Bush was re-elected in 2004, I was so destroyed and disappointed, I stayed home from school the next day in a vegetative state. An emotional coma, we'll call it. So, I suffer too at the hands of our electorate. So Connie (hat tip), I blatantly plagiarize your idea below, thus reducing my editorial standards to zero. 

Here's my list of Top 10 Election Season Impulsions

10. Hours have past and I am still on Pollster.com. Sometimes, if I'm really in the zone, I'll even make my own Excel graphs. 

9. I find myself longing to live in swing state so my monologues don't fall entirely on deaf ears in America's bluest state. 

8. I refer to newspaper columnists by first name in conversation as if they are my friends, much to the confusion of everyone who wonders whether there are any 20-somethings named Maureen anymore. 

7. I plan my wardrobe around having something blue to wear every day leading up to Election Day, and wear my gap "Vote" t-shirt long after it's developed that unique ripe smell. 

6. I base my faith in the future of journalism and youth political activism solely on the sky-high spirits of the team over at Politico.com

5. I actually raised my voice and pointed a finger at a stranger in a supermarket who said she was voting for Palin because she couldn't have Hillary. 

4. I fantasize about being a part of conversations between Michelle Obama and Jill Biden. 

3. In the break room, people know the channel has to be CNN or MSNBC when I'm around. Similarly, an idle moment spent at my internship is dedicated to reading wistful election-season roundups. 

2. I have stopped reading Gawker, Dooce, and other sites with the fierce regularity I used to in order to sharpen my election acumen. If you know me, you understand the depths of this personal sacrifice. 

1. Despite spending three days a week as an editorial intern at a magazine, my life plan (full disclosure: it changes every 3-4 days) no longer includes publishing of any kind, but rather a life of public service. 

Assigned reading

A round-up from where I've been on the Internet and what you might have missed.

A Rolling Stone profile of David Foster Wallace, famed author who killed himself in September after decades of battling debilitating depression. This is the most thorough, well-researched, and beautifully written profile I've read in a while. The piece is long, but more than worth it. I read it in two sittings and cried at the end. It makes for an absolutely aching look at a life that ended in a way that seemed inevitable to everyone who knew him, which is the most heartbreaking aspect of the whole story. I get the sense that the writer absolutely nailed this story in a way that happens hardly ever.

Someone put together a Sarah Palin's greatest hits video on YouTube, which I posted originally, but then I listened to this, and found out it was real. I actually feel bad for our Alaskan mental midget:




New York Magazine compiled a photo slideshow of the best doggy Halloween costumes. You can be the judge about which dogs you feel most sorry for.

And this week's "What the fuck" science moment, scientists want to put robot ants on Mars to build houses for us.

You're so vain, you probably think the Super Bowl is about you

A gal named Amy Borkowsky is single and desperately seeking a husband. She is in her 40s, and living in New York, where she says it's harder to find a guy than TV shows like Sex and the City make it seem. Her solution? Raise $3 million so she can advertise herself in a commercial during the Super Bowl.

This is a horseman of the apocalypse. This woman is asking people to give her money so she can advertise, and in my mind humiliate, herself in front of the tens of millions of people who tune in to watch the Super Bowl. In the LA Times article, someone criticizes her lofty goal, noting it seems like such an act of desperation; but I was struck more by the mindlessness of such shameful self-indulgence. What makes you think you deserve people's money? Have you exhausted every other avenue? How did you possibly arrive at this as a solution to your dateless existence?

Three million dollars is a tremendous amount of money. If Amy was so determined to get herself a public audience, I wonder if she ever considered something other than blatant self-promotion. The thought of this much money being given to a woman who wants nothing more to do with it than buy herself some ad time and try to catch a man, who's probably a six-pack deep, stuffing his face with nachos and salsa, is mindboggling to me.

I am glad to report she has only raised about $2,800, according to her official site. Now, I could maniacally rattle off some statistics about how many hungry people could be fed with a cool $3 mill, or how many children could receive life-saving medical treatment for conditions no one in the U.S. typically dies from, but tonight I am feeling weary of the world, so I am just going to paste a little image I Stumbled Upon recently. May it sock Amy in the gut as forcefully as it did me:

Abandoning my sense of self in the name of reality TV

I promised myself that I would never, ever, under any circumstance, watch Dancing With the Stars. I resented everything about it--the fact that it was on two or three times a week, contributed absolutely nothing to any meaningful social discourse, was a flagrant display of mindless entertainment. I, a rhythmless individual, know nothing about dancing and wasn't looking to develop an appreciation. I thought it was stupid, and everyone who watched it needed to get a life.

But this season, in complete abandonment of my dignity, I have become engrossed. I mostly blame my mother, who is perhaps the show's most rabid fan. She watches every episode with a notebook in hand, in which she records all of the couple's scores, which dances they did, and her own observations about their performances. She flips back and forth maniacally, comparing numbers week to week and muttering in a fashion reminiscent of Rain Man.

At first I only watched because she likes the company and kept hounding me to give it a try. I hated how they stretched everything out over two-hour episodes two nights in a row, and the manufactured suspense that was required to do so. I thought the contestants were obnoxious and the judges amateur. Then, something in me changed. A switch went off, and there is nothing more I can say to explain it. Deep inside me, buried beneath years of fretting about weighty problems like health policy and and food crises, is a girl who loves the glitz, glam, and dazzling electricity of a well-performed Jitterbug. Now I look forward to Mondays and Tuesdays, even though every time I tune in I feel like maybe I'm losing a little piece of any intellectual prowess I once had.

I guess part of it is the fact that I am away from school this semester, living at home, and I have more time to watch TV. So I don't really have to be selective in what I watch. Part of it is that, even though I hate using this as an excuse, it is purely escapist entertainment.

Do you think less of me? I had to tell you someone that I watch this show. I had to get it off my chest. There is something so theraputic about watching 300-pound Warren Sapp do the rumba to Beyonce's "To the Left." It makes you forget, for those four minutes, about student loan payments, genocide, and Sarah Palin's woeful inadequacies. Staring in awe at co-host Samantha Harris's ridiculous toned arms makes me feel a) like a fatty b) motivated to refresh my physical fitness goals. I get a perverse joy out of hearing Julianne Hough discuss the details of her medical problems in great detail and wondering about why the doctors have made certain choices. Is this all so bad? Tell me it isn't. I have never seen an episode of The Hills, Flavor of Love, or even My Fair Brady. So can't this count as my first offense? Let's brush it under the rug, and until then, I promise not to write about Dancing With the Stars ever again. Unless I get some type of unexpected feedback that tells me you want weekly recaps. In which case, in the interest of service journalism, I could bring myself to do.