Canvassing on Halloween

We have been giving out candy all night. The first family that came to the door gave us a "Yes on 3B" flier and asked us to vote for the schools. Later in the evening, an entire contingent of children wearing Obama for America buttons on their Spider Man, ghost, and skeleton costumes, came to the door.

I've never seen Halloween campaigning before. It just speaks to how important this election is to people. Nobody wants to take off even a kids' holiday because we need so much.

Cindy McCain Inspired Me to Go Dark

I just couldn't stand watching Mrs. McCain's hair any longer.

Bad Dream

The alarm went off this morning but I kept sleeping, though the radio was still playing. I was in that sleep/wake state that you have early in the morning when you really are not prepared to face the day -- sort of wishful sleeping.

I was still in that state when NPR began its story on the hypothetical Supreme Court case, McCain v. Obama. It is a project going at some university to help clarify election law in case of a 2000-esque result in the upcoming election. (I think that was what it was, I was asleep).

But as I lay there asleep, absorbing the story on the radio, I was convinced, CONVINCED, that it was the day after election day and we were still waiting for results. I really believed that. The weird thing about it was how it made me feel -- so scared and sad. Somehow deep in my sleep, I recognized all of those awful memories and feelings from 2000. The aftermath of that election was just the worst, most divisive time for our country, and even in my sleep I knew I didn't want to go through it again.

Vogue Calls Election For Obama

The November issue of Vogue arrived in my mailbox yesterday. On the cover there is a headline that says, "4 Generations of Biden Beauties: All the Vice President's Women."

There it is.

Ask Not What You Can Do For Global Warming...

Here it is, October 18 and I'm still hauling in tomatoes. Like, hundreds.

Last weekend, when it was obvious that the first frost was on its way, I went out to glean all of the green tomatoes I could find. I figured that there would be a few that we could set in the window until they ripened. It took me five trips to bring them all in and still there were a bunch on the vines. Not just green ones, but big fat, red ones ready to eat.

It isn't just tomatoes, either. The basil was still alive, and the rosemary looked positively robust. I chopped the basil down to an inch of it's life, and cut the rosemary down to half. The strawberries -- strawberries! -- were producing like they never did this summer. There were six little, tiny berries on the vine, each packing a wallop of flavor. And folks, in Colorado in October, I picked two huge, ripe cantaloupe.

I covered the plants this week to keep the frost from them. I had no time to get to them all week, but this morning I went out to see if everything survived. The basil was touched, but still fragrant, and everything else was still going strong. It took me three trips to bring in the tomatoes and I can't tell you how heartsick I was to find that I'd missed quite a few red ones last Saturday. Those tomatoes had over ripened and were squishy, but then there were others that were perfect, ready to eat off of the vine and perfectly red all the way through.

I've been spending a good part of my Saturday mornings these last few weeks chopping up tomatoes and freezing them for the winter. I dried the rosemary and basil for a few days in the fridge and they, too, went into the freezer. I'm wondering how long I can keep the tomatoes going by just covering them with our old sheets. It's going to be almost 80 today here. I know that we have always had beautiful Indian summers here, but I think the climate crisis is affecting Colorado. Calderoj and I are turning into urban farmers. Our tomato plants might just feed us through the winter.

Joe Biden's Sympathetic Nodding

I only got to see thirty minutes of the debate last night as I had school. But DU had the debates on in the Moot Court classroom, so I stopped in there between classes. Honestly, I was hoping for good entertainment. Poor Governor Palin, so hopelessly average, can't put two sentences together. And then there's Our Guy, Senator Biden and his plagiaristic past (embarrassing) and his plainly stupid present. He recently said that when the stock market crashed in 1929, President Roosevelt got on T.V. and calmed the nation. (More embarrassing).

What I saw were two very rehearsed, professional-looking people doing their best not to screw it all up. The Senator was keeping his foot out of his mouth and the Governor was doing her best to remember what she'd memorized earlier this week.

So I watched the interaction between them. I was particularly interested in seeing what Senator Biden was going to do in light of the fact that his opponent is a woman. Ordinarily, I don't see why it would matter that she is a woman. The Speaker of the House is a woman, for goodness sakes. But there has been this weird use of the word "sexist" lately. I am perplexed as to why it has been suggested that Senator Biden had to be careful not to look sexist when debating Governor Palin. It was suggested that he might be too aggressive. I don't get that. Isn't it sexist to suggest that Governor Palin is too delicate to be debating a man? Should she worry that he is going to be mean? Is he going to reach over and tug on her hair?

Now, don't get me wrong. I think there has been some misogyny in the campaign, but particularly in reference to Senator Clinton being like a school marm or a shrew. Governor Palin has been lucky that her serious lack of substance makes her a mockery, so no one has had to make ad hominim attacks on her womanhood.

Governor Palin is many things, but she certainly isn't delicate. And when she's scripted she's a pretty good public speaker. Add to that that as a high school debate coach, I see boys and girls in deathmatches against each other all the time. The girls expect no favors for being female, and the boys certainly don't hold back on their attacks. Debate is about winning.

So it interested me that Senator Biden, in his effort to show respect to Governor Palin, listened intently as she spoke and even added nods. You know those nods -- the ones that men are supposed to use when listening to women, to show that they have sympathy, that they "understand," and that they are "there for" them? Clearly, he had been coached. Some one on his campaign has read Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.

The nodding was artificial. Why do the American people expect sympathy and "understanding" in a presidential debate? Nodding in deference to your opponent's gender in a debate is demeaning to your opponent, not respectful. If one of my boy debaters did that in a round against a girl, I'd bench him.

Adam Smith's Invisibility Cloak

The financial crisis is the invisible hand giving us a slap down.

Renowned Social Sciences Magazine Makes Several Literary Allusions

The Economist makes three literary allusions in its September 20th edition. On page 19, in an article on the state of global finance today, can be found two headings taken from Yeats "The Second Coming," "The blood-dimmed tide," and "The centre cannot hold." But the real beauty of these headings is how they tie to the front cover, which is the crisis imagined as a "widening gyre."

President Clinton Put His Arm Around Me

It's true. President Clinton put his arm around me.

Several months ago Calderoj was asked by somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody if his company would do a web site for the Clinton/Gore Reunion at the DNC. He said yes, of course, and the perks turned out to be tickets, admittance to the VIP room, and a picture with Bill Clinton.

The party was at Coors Field on Wednesday night after President Clinton addressed the convention. Calderoj and I attended with his business partner and his girlfriend, the lovely KT. There were a lot of people there whom I did not recognize because of my decade-long television hiatus, but Calderoj spotted them immediately. Joe Lockhart was one of them.

Apparently the organizers were very happy with their web site, because they made sure we got right in to the VIP room. When President Clinton came in, he was like a creature from another world. The crowd parted, and his white crown of hair looked like a halo -- I am not kidding -- this was the affect.

We waited in the receiving line. I don't know why other people were there. They must also have been donors to the event. When he got to us, we were introduced as "the people who did the web site." This introduction embarrassed me slightly because, technically, I'm just the girlfriend of the guy who employs the guy who did the web site.

We shook hands with the presdient and then he said, "Well, let's take a picture." Reader, when President Clinton takes a picture with you, he puts his arm around you. So Calderoj and his partner were to the president's right, and KT and I were to his left. It was so cool. Check back on Jennikissedme in a week or so to see the picture.

After the picture we were so excited that we interfered slightly with the Secret Service. We kind of got in between them and the president for a few seconds. They were very gracious about it, though. Nobody was wrestled to the floor or anything.

Later, when the president worked the crowd at the party, it was like watching a rock star. People just crowded around him. He kept moving, of course. If he didn't he would never have gotten out of there. But as long as he was there, the crowd looked like this slow-moving hurricane, with President Clinton as the eye, and the people who ran the country in the 90s swirling around him.

Chelsea Clinton was there, too. Hillary was not; the president explained that she had found it necessary to retire for the evening. She was wearing what I think was a Phillip Lim dress with large, gold polka-dots on a blue field. She looked great.

I was wearing a blue charmeuse Narciso Rodriguez sheath, Steve Madden peep-toe booties, and carrying my Alexander Wang clutch.

Two Operas

We were in Santa Fe for a few days last month to see the opera. Specifically, we saw two operas, Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, and a 21st century opera called Adriana Matter. They were both well-staged, sung, and acted, of course. Santa Fe doesn't do anything half way.

I liked Billy Budd, but was not wowed by it. After seeing Paul Bunyan a few years ago at Central City, I was expecting more. Paul Bunyan was brilliant -- its American themes captured so perfectly (an accountant going to Hollywood to be an accountant there? Of course!). Billy Budd, not so much. Perhaps the two Britons who created the piece -- both incredible talents -- Britten himself and E.M. Forster (imagine my surprise) -- were just not ready for an American novel yet. There was much more emphasis on duty and honor than there was on the struggle between good and evil.

Adriana Matter was a masterpiece. I had chosen it because Peter Sellars was directing, and I felt I couldn't go through life without seeing one of his productions. Beyond Mr. Sellars' excellent staging, Adriana Matter had everything you could ever want in an opera: war, rape, deceit, the possibility of patricide, atonality.

But the best part of this opera was not anything that a human could engineer. The evening was typical for Santa Fe in July -- wet and cold. For this reason I really don't like the outdoor venue in Santa Fe. Indeed, I wouldn't attend the opera there if it didn't stage really good, new, and interesting stuff. But just after we were seated for the second act, when the singers came out into a set built to indicate a war-ravaged city, the fog began to roll in over the stage. The mood it created was both dark and thrilling. I have never experienced anything like it.

To Billy Budd I wore my gray, Grecian dress by Lanvin with Steve Madden open-toed booties in neutral suede. To Adriana Matter I wore my brown Rick Owens rocker dress with Tara Subkoff suede open-toed, wedge sandals with ankle ties, and a Stella McCartney oversized sweater coat. I carried my cobalt-blue Alexander Wang clutch both nights.

Peter Sellars wore a red kimono top over black pajama pants.

Esquire

So. About a year ago, Calderoj and I were driving down I-76 toward Brighton. I don't know what we were talking about, but it might have been a recent Supreme Court decision, or even it could have been me sharing about one of my greatest regrets in life (we were a new couple then) -- not having bought the Supreme Court paper dolls I saw at Waldenbooks back in 1993.* Anyway, I just remember saying, "Being a Supreme Court justice would be the best job in the world." After all, what could be better than thinking and arguing about ideas all day long and then writing about them? What could be better than having a direct affect on people by turning theory into praxis?

Calderoj said, "You like reading huge amounts of really dry, complex material?" He didn't know me then.

I responded, "I went to grad school for English because I like literary theory."

This was enough for Calderoj. "Why not go to law school, then?"

Dear Reader, it was as if the Angel Gabriel had possessed Calderoj; for Calderoj's suggestion sounded to me like a message from the Almighty. In fact, it was at that very moment that the idea of being a lawyer began to grow in me.

Indeed, why not? The LSAT? The expense? The time? My non-traditional age? My current career? All of that is bosh -- excuses not to shift into another shape -- excuses not to see another true incarnation of myself.

Dear Reader, this moment was momentous. I do not remember what I wore that day.

With Calderoj's help I did nicely on the LSAT, found the money, remembered that when Mozart was my age he was dead for two years so I'm living on borrowed time anyway, and figured out a way to teach high school and study law concurrently.

All of this means that in addition to all of the things that I already am -- teacher, doggie mommy, girlfriend, daughter, sister, friend, fashionista, aristocrat of taste, Pilates enthusiast -- I am also going to be a lawyer.


*Another of my great life regrets is not having bought Vivienne Tam's Mao skirt when it was in the Neiman Marcus catalogue back in the mid-90s. I am sure I could get these items on eBay, but then how could I savor the regret the way regret is meant to be savored?

With the Nation's Premier Style Arbiter Behind Them, How Could They Not Win?

Andre Leon Talley is a Vogue editor and stylist who makes it his mission to advise up and coming African American public figures on style. There has been speculation in the press that he is advising Michelle Obama. He is not. In fact, he gave her what, in the fashion world, is equivalent to an endorsement of her husband's candidacy. He said, "[L]et me go on record saying that I have never, ever given her any advice on what to wear. To put the record straight, I think that Michelle Obama does not need advice."

Dear Reader, the day that Andre Leon Talley says this about me is the day I go to fashionista heaven. There is just no greater compliment regarding one's sartorial choices. True, Michelle Obama was just added to the International Best Dressed List, but this list is widely known as a sort of popularity contest, as in "who looks good enough to be seen boarding your private jet." (By including Michelle Obama and not Cindy McCain, Vanity Fair itself endorsed Barack Obama). ALT's compliment is the real thing.

Garden

So. Having dropped off a bunch of clothes that I never wear, I was walking out of the consignment shop today and I saw that it was raining. I was so surprised that I thought in French, "La mousson a arrive." For it is 17 July, and it was about 4:30 in the afternoon, and up until then the day had been oppressively hot. But the rain was cool, and in the great, front-range tradition, lasted for about five minutes.

Something about it inspired me, though. On my way to my next errand I remembered that there is a small public garden just next to the amusement park and just off the bike path that goes along the river. I have wanted to have a look at it for a while, but I never made a time, and whenever I am passing by it seems that the garden is closed -- it closes at 5pm each day, a travesty if you ask me. The hours just before the sun goes down are the best times for walking in gardens. I had twenty minutes.

Centennial Gardens was designed and is maintained by the Denver Botanic Gardens. It is laid out in a formal style, and the signs in the park refer to Versailles and to Kensington Gardens. However, the designers have taken care to use native plants or species that do not take up much water. The hedges are made of native fernwood and mountain mahogany. One section is comprised of lavender plants (and, it looks like, bees), and one has huge rose bushes. Instead of cypress, there are juniper.

The gardens are laid out in nine equal squares, with a colonnade stretching down most of the east side of the garden, and bosques of linden on the north and the south sides, respectively. The linden smell wonderful. I walked through the whole garden, then sat underneath the colonnade and enjoyed a rare 5pm breeze.

For the most part I was the only one in the garden. I saw several groups of people stop in and look from the front, but they left quickly, I think to ride the roller coaster. The only other people in the garden were a middle school-aged couple, the girl sitting literally astride the boy, who lay in the grass under the lindens. When I walked by them, they looked at me with huge, sheepish grins. Then, for the rest of the time I was in the garden, they kept looking over toward me, as if I were some figure of authority from whom they were trying to hide their bad behavior. "When is she going to leave?" They looked like they were saying. "It is irritating trying to have to pretend to be doing nothing." Such behavior is archetypal in gardens, I know.

Respected Social Sciences Periodical Condemns Often-used Literary Device

The following conversation took place in our kitchen on the evening of July 1, 2008.

Me: The Economist has come out against the use of the omniscient third-person narrator.

J: (Clearly weirded-out) What? So, does that mean that it isn't going to use that point of view ever again, or has it published an editorial railing against it?

Me: It's part of one of it's book reviews. Let me read it to you. "The omniscient third person can often be a tedious fictional narrator. Authors tend to use this device when they want to show off their keen sense of the complexity of human nature -- their insight into the thoughts behind the words, the pain behind the sneers. But what could be more tiresome than a perspective that floats from head to head, with every character well-perceived, fleshed out and sympathetic? Surely, it takes much more restraint -- and far more faith in one's readers -- to place the full heft of a book in the bumbling hands of an unreliable first person."*

J: Wow.

Me: It's clearly drawing a line in the sand.

J: Right over Dostoevsky's face.



*The Economist, June 28-July4, 2008, uncredited book review.

Zeitgeist

We've been watching a lot of The West Wing on DVD lately and now we're into the 7th and last season. It aired originally in 2005-2006. The main story line is about the election for the president who will succeed President Bartlet, and the two competitors for the office are respectively, a Democrat who wants to talk to the voters like they are intelligent and capable of understanding the complexities of political policy, and a Republican with a long history in the Senate who is not loved by the right-wing of his party. Did I mention that the Democrat is also a member of an ethnic minority who eschews the idea of being the "minority candidate?"

I am not the first to notice that this election looks a lot like the election we are having now.* However, I am wondering if the resemblance between this fictional election and our real one is not entirely coincidental. I am not proposing that this is a conspiracy, with plot lines written by Hollywood screenwriters, nor am I suggesting that life imitates art. Instead, I am wondering if this similarity is a product of the spirit of the time. I am wondering if this election is not about two men with ambitions to lead the country, but is really about a nation and its need to see its long-felt desires given form and played out in a national drama.

Now, you may be thinking, isn't this what an election really is? A set of narratives about a particular country that compete for prominence? And aren't the main characters, who are both the protagonists and the antagonists depending on the narrative, supposed to be well-drawn and their arguments multi-layered and nuanced? And isn't it the one who understands us, our contradictions, and what we strive for the best the one who should triumph in the end? Isn't this what happens in all elections?

Perhaps, but never before the 2008 election did it feel like this for me. Perhaps, back in 1992 it felt a little like this, but that election was really just a challenge to what had been incumbent for 12 years. The 2008 election isn't like that. We have to go back to a time before I was born to see an election in which at least one challenger was not a part of the previous or incumbent administration. What that means is that in some way, for the last two generations, we were always voting to oppose the previous rulers. Now, we have two new guys with two new ways of seeing things. We are being given something wholly different than we've been given before, and that is exciting because it means that we are in the midst of a real shift. The campaigns are right: whatever we choose next, it is going to be a change. What is completely amazing, is that The West Wing articulated everything we wanted well before the campaign began.

*If you Google The West Wing, you will come across this idea very quickly. It just proves exactly the observation that my friend Herm once made -- you have this really amazing idea that you think is entirely original, and then you read about it a week later in the "Picks and Pans" section of People.

Vegas

I arrived in Las Vegas last night. I'm here for work, which means that I am here chaperoning teenagers. Because I'm a consummate professional, that means no drinking or gambling, though I have reserved the right, through a blanket, anticipatory apology, to swear -- especially while driving.

This, of course, does not mean that on some night off I can put on my watermelon-colored, Catherine Malandrino dress and go somewhere -- anywhere without kids (still no drinking, but I don't like to drink anyway unless I'm with people I trust -- really, just with Jeff -- because then I know I'll get home safe).

That isn't to say Vegas isn't about kids -- just about adult kids. The place reminds me of Disney World, Epcot, an airport, and Casa Bonita rolled into one. First of all, it's all so big. I mean the scale -- everything looks like it's been built to one and a half scale. I feel Lilliputian walking along the strip, or pulling up to my hotel.

Then there's the hyperreality of it all, if I can borrow a word from the great Umberto Eco. Everything is so realistic, in only that artificial way that realism can suggest. But that same realism suggest surrealism -- especially when you realize that you are actually being just swept along in this place -- literally. Everywhere there's an elevator, or an automated walkway -- they just take you from venue to venue, most of the time before you even know you are leaving one to go to another.