Now that you're properly briefed...
So my birthday (Wednesday) was pretty atrocious. I had a peanut-butter-and-marshmallow-fluff sammich at midnight, but that was about the high point. That, and I got to meet The General.
C_____ M____ and I got packed off at an early hour to UNH to help them set up for their event. We were worried about filling the 300-seat room. There were 550 people there before we stopped counting. Finally managed to find an overflow room to accomodate them all. Helped the advance people play riot control. Got menaced by a Dean goon and annoyed by Kucinich and Larouche hippies. When people were pissed about not getting in, I told them I was a staffer and it was my birthday and I wasn't allowed in the room, either. (This after being bodily removed from the room by the fire marshal, but that's another story.) That usually shut them up. This guy who turned out to be the General's brother-in-law overheard me and motioned me into the green room, and I got to meet General Clark and Mrs. Clark. We talked about the miserable cold. The General signed my birthday card. (That almost caused an international incident, the details of which are not fit for print.) Then back to Dover, then to Rochester for our big town hall meeting. I had forgotten my gloves today, so working otuside was miserable. I busied myself talking to press people during most of the meeting itself, but I got some pretty good pictures as well. (God, this is dry. Sorry. It's been a slow few days.)
The meeting was over, and most of the people left were staffers and press. I was sort of leaning against a door in an exhausted daze when I heard clicking. I looked up and this woman was snapping pictures of me. She's an "embedded" correspondant (see, it's funny because "embedded" implies a war zone, and she's from Texas covering the Democratic....oh, forget it) with the Dallas Morning News. She interviewed me for a sidebar or a paragraph or something in her "Trail Mix" column. (Get it? Get it????) I'll let y'all know if it actually makes it into the paper. I've also been interviewed for the Hartford paper, the UNH paper, the NYU paper, and the local NPR station. It's really a strange experience. The NPR lady did say I gave her some good sound bites, though.
I got so lost coming home that night, from sheer exhaustion. It felt like I'd been to a rave. Except for no hippies. Except for the Kucinich people. I got lost and went to Maine again that night. Now I've been three times, only once driving in that direction on purpose (but didn't know I'd been in Maine till I left the enxt morning). They can keep it. I was talking to Jesse for much of this time, so he can fill you in on the hysterical details. I finally made it back to Strafford and went straight for the chocolate milk instead of the wine. Go figure.
Let's see....Thursday was debate prep, all day. Around four, all the staff and interns and volunteers and supporters from all the offices of all the campaigns got together at St. Anselm's college and very nearly Made War Upon Each Other. It was like Homecoming crossed with a protest rally. Two people got maced. I got out of there before that happened, just as Kerry's people were coming over the hill with a bagpipe band. Yeah.
A word on the campaigns: It's painfully apparent to most people at this point that Clark and Edwards are the only major campaigns running without the aid of some form of God Damned Lunatics. Kerry's people roughed up a couple of our staffers yesterday. Lieberman's staffers steal signs, which is actually illegal. Kucinich has the aforementioned hippies. Dean has....well, his Standing Heterodox Army. I talk to Edwards' people whenever I can, and my experiences with them have been overwhelmingly positive.
I apparently like his policies, too. I went over to SelectSmart last night and plugged in all my preferences, and got The Good General at the top of my list at 93%. Good to know. Edwards was second. Not that I'd switch camps or anything had the scores been reversed, but these internet quizzes have been right before. (Nick and I were at something like 90% on dear, departed SparkMatch, calculated almost two years before we hooked up.)
I started this post at 10:19 this morning. It's now 11:23 at night. Quickly then, the rest of Days 7 and 8 (because it's just too, too scintillating for words, but I might have to write a book someday): I made it out of the debates and down to Boston alive and barely scathed. Had a birthday date with 'Bus in the North End, spent the next night in Bedford, and finally, finally, finally saw Big Fish before wrenching myself back up to New Hampshire, all my magnolia genes shrieking in protest. Playing ketchup with the rest of the week will have to wait till later. It's too cold to have any body parts exposed, even typing fingertips.
Reading: Scripts again...Lab submissions are due early this year. I found out day before yesterday. What could possibly go wrong?
Seen: Big Fish