B.O. and the Campaign Trail: Part I

Friday, October 19, 2007

(No, it's not the name of an upcoming CNN special. But it could be. . . . I'm looking at you, Anderson Cooper! *wink*)

I'm still sort of new to this whole "politics" arena (I don't really count all the episodes of Crossfire, Meet the Press, The McLaughlin Group, or David Brinkley I watched with my parents growing up, I was just doing it for "kid points"). I mean, it is rough being unemployed--you really have to be choosy about your news sources. The novice wanting to become "an informed voter" can easily get sucked into reading hours upon hours of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Onion, and quickly slip into catatonic media overload once she realizes there's a whole other world out there of NPR news shows, pundits (or as I call them, "Those loud annoying men I wouldn't watch even if I had cable!"), and political bloggsters.
Personally, I choose to eschew all those methods (well, maybe I do occasionally glance at The Onion) and head straight over to the news I trust the most to report in easy-to-chew, artificially flavored pieces -- The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

STEVEN!! OMG UR RUnING FOR PRE$IDENT!! I M UR BIGGEST FAN!! U ROCK!! I M ONLY 15 BUT I WILL KEEP PLAYNG EMO MuZIK IN MY ROOM UNTIL MY PARENTZ MOVE TO SC & VOTE FOR U!!!!!!!!!!!!! COLBERT FOR PREZ!!!!!!!!

[Ummm. . . please help. I think rabid teenagers have hacked my blog. You kids stay on your own site! ]

But I digress. In an effort to become more "enlightened" about the candidates for the presidential election, and to become more responsible as a citizen, I've started to read up a bit on the presidential candidates. I consider myself to be an "independent," meaning I really have yet to wholeheartedly resonate with any of the 6 (10? 14?) political parties' platforms, and also meaning I have no clue who I am going to vote for when Arizona gets around to holding elections (and, consequently, after I get around to things like getting an AZ drivers' license, registering to vote, etc.). Apparently I'm "one of those" voters from whom the candidates are trying to get major support. How flattering! I did not realize I was so important! I am prepared to receive my free t-shirts, bumper stickers, Bahamas vacations, and campaign mugs, lady and gentlemen.

Plus, since I'm unemployed right now, I actually have time to hunt through the candidates' websites, catch the headlines on iGoogle, watch the candidates empty their pockets on TV on the internet, all those important things. Which was why I was delighted (OK, mildly curious) when I was job searching on Arizona State University's website and noticed that Barack Obama was scheduled to make an appearance on campus this week.

I quickly opened my calendar, slammed it shut once I realized that hey, I have no job, and RSVP'd for the event online, which, as "they" seemed to imply, was important.

***NOTE: THIS IS YOUR RAPID ENTRY PASS FOR THIS EVENT.
PLEASE PRINT AND BRING WITH YOU, OR YOU WILL BE ASKED TO
FILL OUT A SUPPORTER CARD.***

***For security reasons, please do not bring bags.  No signs
or banners allowed.***

Oh no! I thought. Anything but a supporter card! I diligently printed my RAPID ENTRY PASS, along with a campus map, and waited for "the big day". I would be ready, I vowed.

the last post about my trip (seriously)

Well, people have asked me a lot of the same questions about my trip, over and over, so here are a few of the answers to those questions.

A: Yes.

A: No, it wasn't as bad as I imagined, although sleeping became sort of a problem.

A: I listened to audiobooks. Also, the sound of one hand clapping. But mostly audiobooks.

A: No, I wouldn't recommend it, but it was a relief to stop seeing signs every 50 feet along I-90.

A: Ummm, sort of? I'm not sure what you were asking.

A: Well, between the coyotes and the kitten crawling on the outside of my tent, how do you think it was?

A: It made me feel like a half-pint again.

A: Beautiful! I loved all the colors!

A: My biggest question is, why we don't start carving more dead people's faces into mountains? Also, were boogers carved into their noses for authenticity, and is there a secret passageway to those as well?

A: I don't remember -- it was dark, and all I wanted to do was get to the next rest area.

A: The new Norah Jones album, a $5 Johnny Cash CD, Plans by Death Cab for Cutie, and Queen's Greatest Hits.

A: You know, really, there were quite a few times when I wondered if I was actually moving forward, or if I would suddenly start careening backwards down the mountains. And then I realized I was still in fifth gear. . . whew, that was close.

A: I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I really am thinking you have confused me with someone else.

A: Nope, definitely would not stay there again. I think it was the fish smell that got me.

A: Honestly, it was sort of cool in a retro sandstone-chic way. Possibly the most bizarre (and costly) 15 minutes of my life so far.

A: It was sunset, and it was beautiful. Except for the part where I had sand in every possible crevice of my body.

A: I don't really remember the last few hours -- I had switched over to autopilot by then and let Frank bring 'er home.

A: Seriously, the man believed that SAU actually had a football team, and congratulated me on our undefeated streak. I hated to break the news to him.


Well, I hope that's covered everything. For more about my trip, click on the pretty little pictures somewhere off to the right.

To Wisconsin. . . and beyond!

Note -- More pics are up!

Well, after much threatening, I left Michigan. I went through da UP, dontcha know, which is a beautiful drive. I had to stop and get a picture of the Mackinac Bridge for the last time (at least for a while), as well as the site of the 45th parallel in Wisconsin.

I camped overnight in Manistique , Michigan. I realized this night one important thing: my imagination runs way too freely when I've been alone in a car with myself all day. I camped at a hotel/campground right by the lake (which, I'm pretty sure, had more customers for camping than for the hotel--you know it's a sketchy establishment when you go in to pay for your site, and the girl at the desk, who also happens to be running the restaurant, pulls a huge wad of bills out of her pocket, out of which she gives you your change). I had a new tent, so it took me a while to get set up, but finally I had dinner, and I laid down to go to sleep after reading for a bit. About half an hour later, I started smelling skunk pretty strongly. I started imagining different scenarios about what would happen if I inadvertently made a startling sound while I was asleep (answer: the skunk would spray the tent/my car/me, and I would be totally screwed, because who's going to let you wash off with tomato juice in their hotel? Plus, I wouldn't want to drive my car anymore because I would have to at least drive myself to the store to buy the tomato juice, thus "infecting" the car with skunkiness, etc. . . . ). The smell mostly went away, but it was still around, and I was wide awake. Then I noticed what I imagined to be the sound of animal-like sniffing outside my tent -- it was the skunk! It had decided to sleep by MY tent! What was I going to do?????

Well, I didn't have much of a choice -- I stayed awake all night. I had no good way of verifying my theories -- if they were true, and I tried to check outside my tent, there would be problems. I tried to go to sleep, but I was too afraid something would happen.

You might think I am kidding, but I tell you, I am not. I am truly neurotic, apparently, when left to my own devices. And this was only the first night of my journey!

Hence the pictures on the lake -- this was the next morning, when I decided to brave getting out of my tent -- slooooowly -- and looked around, and realized that the sound was the sound of the rain fly line rubbing on the outside of the tent (it was a new tent and I wasn't used to it yet).

Also noticed when I went to the lake to watch the sunrise -- a big, dead skunk on the road right in front of the campground, well within whiffing distance. So, either there had been a skunk in the campground, and he had met his doom (hah!), or, the smell had been the wind carrying the stench my way. At least there had actually been a skunk around -- I was only 98% neurotic.

I returned from watching the sun rise (hint: I took a lot of pictures of that -- you don't have to look at all of them) and sheepishly packed up. Thankfully, with a few nap stops, I made it to my grandparents' house safely. I stayed about four days with them, enjoying, among other things, various cheeses, my grandpa's stories about days back when everything was farmland, and sleeping inside a house, safely away from the reach of wayward skunks.

My parents ended up coming out a couple of days behind me, which was good, as far as more time spent together, but also made saying goodbye a little harder -- more people to avoid making eye contact with right before I headed out the door, once again trying not to cry long enough to gas my car up.

new pictures

You can (finally) start checking out pics from my trip on Flickr.
Click here to see the beautiful pictures my new camera took -- a big thanks to the staff at SAFMC for giving me the camera as my going-away gift, and another big thanks to Sam for gifting me a Flickr Pro account -- without which I would not be able to post all my pictures at once.
You can also get to my Flickr page by clicking the picture badge that shows up approximately down and right from here on this page.

adventures continued

I spent about a week at home with my parents. Some of it was spent re-sorting, re-packing, and re-wondering why in the world I had so much junk. Much of it was just being with my parents, doing the normal family things we do, which was wonderful. It was also great to see my Grandma Jeanette and Grandpa Jim -- family friends who live by my parents, who actually used to go to Arizona almost yearly, staying in the exact same part of Phoenix where I now live. And I continued to take in the scenery -- last looks at the wide, flat farmlands, the sunsets, Lake Huron, the house blessedly out in the middle of nowhere that Grandma Jeanette & Grandpa Jim live in, and that I remember so well from childhood. I wondered if I would ever return to it since they are trying to sell it and move into an apartment.
I (finally) finished packing my Jetta, and then another departure came, this time just a temporary parting from my parents, since they would be coming out a few days later to my (biological) grandparents' house in Wisconsin, the first stop on my "adventure." However, this one brought tears, too, which I didn't expect, since I haven't really lived in my parents' house since they moved there -- they moved while I was in college, and I spent the summers every year afterward on campus, and then was living in Jackson by the time I graduated, so it was more of "home because Mom and Dad live there," not because it was somewhere I was familiar with, somewhere that I had a history. The concept of home is something I've been thinking about over the past few months, as it has necessarily evolved into something new, something I haven't yet settled on in my own mind, as I've moved from house to house and state to state. I think at this point, my tears mourned leaving the last piece of "home" I had, what that meant, and the reality that I no longer would live close enough to drive home on the weekends.

elle dee's adventures -- leaving jackson

The next few posts will be a recap of my journey from Jackson to Phoenix -- for all of you who have been wondering, "Where is she? Will I ever hear from her again?" I am actually now safely in Phoenix and getting settled, thanks for wondering, here's the story, and be sure to check out the pictures as they're posted.

It seemed like I was never going to leave -- I had tried all week to get things tied up at the church, and still had some loose ends to finish up, including getting the rest of what I needed out of my old office. Plus, I still hadn't packed my car up by the time I got to Tuesday, the weekend had been a whirlwind -- my going away party, my last Sunday at church, moving freshman in at SAU (note to self -- had a good time, but do not sign up for things like that when you're moving the next day)-- it was all this huge, surreal blur.
But, leave I did, after a long weekend of goodbyes. I somehow managed to cram every nook and cranny of my Jetta full of stuff that "just had to go" at least home to my parents' house, with a substantial pile of things that my friend with whom I'd been staying agreed to take to Goodwill (thankfully). And, appropriately, it was both dark and rainy once I set out. I tried to at least not cry while I was ordering Taco Bell to go, which I barely managed to do, and then as I cruised up 127 I couldn't help it anymore. At a certain point, I couldn't tell if I was having a hard time seeing the road because it was raining so hard, or because I was crying, or both. Then, I sort of started laughing at myself -- I had put in a Queen's Greatest Hits CD that Sam had sent along with me, hoping it would sort of distract me a bit from all the emotions going through my heart -- and here I was, crying, with Queen in the background, two totally different things going on at once, and it was just funny once I realized it.

Leaving is hard, my friends. I think I probably looked like I was taking it all in stride, but I think that was really due to the fact that I was living in a certain degree of denial, and the drive to my parents' was the first piece of reality hitting.