Sunday, October 3, 2000

 

1:41 a.m. Last night was brutal -- a really long one, working very hard, trying to get a whole lotta stuff done. Did it. Still got up early and dragged a little, grabbed a tiny nap, still dragging. But! The debates were on tonight and I was there, I tell you -- I was there.

In honor of this particular TV moment, drifting as it is into reality TV, I made a nice big pot of chicken soup. A chicken in every pot. What a great campaign slogan that must have been, in its time. There is a certain calm that comes over one when one has a chicken in the pot.

Of course, I'm a Democrat, but I've been known to vote Republican. I can be swayed; just go ahead and try: Sway me. I beg you. There were no eggs for the matzo balls, so Igor had to run to the market because he cannot have chicken soup without matzo.

Can you feel the drag here? ... I can. I'm actually aware that I'm holding my head up, as if on a long stalk. Top-heavy head. There must be tryptophane in the soup. However, during the debate I was riveted. I'm always interested in watching people under pressure and these two men are human, after all.

Why was George W. sniffing the whole time? And it wasn't just any kind of sniff, either. If he were a sleazy record promoter and he made those practiced, habitual snurf, snilf sounds ... you know what you'd think. I know what I'd think. I can't help myself. I want to be swayed but instead I'm picturing those party guys from Saturday Night Live -- the ones with the bobbing heads and that nervous finger dance over the nose ...

Ok. I listened to all the billions and the trillions and I was bemused. I was also busy rolling up matzo balls with both my hands. Will I ever see "sol s'curity" in my waning years, years in which I might be too infirm to roll up matzo balls ... or will the money be in a nice, handy lockbox? I think I've just listened to my lifetime quota of that word.

Yes, momma, the candidates are amusing. I read that they turned Ralph Nader away at the door and that Buchanan's people caused some civil disturbances in the street. I didn't stay around too long after the action to listen to the spin because I know what I saw and I don't want to be told that I didn't see it. It's in the lockbox of my mind now.

I might have been half in the kitchen cooking, but I saw a different side of Bush than the side he showed Oprah. I saw an angry man. A very angry man. He's a name-caller, unless he's calling you "this man" right in front of you. As in, "This man can't be trusted." That was a rude, dismissive gesture from a rude, dismissive angry little man. Watch out.

I may be nothing more than a housewife stirring the soup in the pot, but in the end, I wasn't swayed. I wish Gore didn't look so darn much like Reagan, however. If you sort of look away, maybe at your spoon or at the can of Diet Coke on the coffee table, out of the corner of your eye you would swear it's a young Ronnie standing there. That stiff head. That funny pompadour hair.

Ah yes -- it always comes down to what they look like and how they sound, rather than what they actually say. I always listen and pretend that they're talking to me after they've been elected and there's a crisis of some sort. They're no longer on their best behavior and they're no longer trying to sway me. Which one would I rather hear deliver the bad news?

And more to the point: what am I going to make for dinner during the Lieberman-Cheney debate?

<-- Lookit! I won an award! Thanks kindly to Bonnie. Why not pay her a visit and say hello? And yes, I've finally learned how to create the illusion of two columns. Not a minute too soon.