Unexpected

I didn't think this would happen.

I'm actually having flashbacks to last year's Election Day. I'm having crying fits that are not related to my own personal issues.

One year ago, minus five hours, I was waking up to be a dispatcher at the West Hollywood office of the No on 8 campaign. I had gotten about three hours of sleep, and I was about to work a 17-plus-hour day. I was dressing up nice and warm for the early November 4:00 AM chilliness that passes for Autumn here, and I was preparing to survive on donuts and Tootsie Rolls.

And, as Maxwell Smart would say, loving it.


I wish I were in Maine, in Washington, in Kalamazoo. I wish I were feeling the intense adrenaline surge that is the only thing that makes a campaign possible. I wish I were on the ground, in the fight, doing my part.

Instead, I will be trying to simulate that feeling on the phone, getting out the vote as best as I can from thousands of miles away. I will be crying in between calls. I just hope that when I am crying at the end of the day, as I know I will be, the tears are happy tears. I hope that my friend who got married in California and then moved to Maine will still be married at the end of the day.

I hope that the blood and the sweat and the tears work this time. They're all I've got to give.