Reporting from a much more optimistic episode of The Twilight Zone

Go ahead and switch blogs if you're tire of talking politics. I'm sorry. I've refrained from blogging for this long because politics has devoured my thinking brain in the same way that BOYS did back in the summer before ninth grade. I know that someday I will look back at the Fall of 2008 as "The Lost Fall." Not because my candidate is going to lose, but because I can't multi-task. And right now, my task seems to be Making Sure The Polls Don't Change. Just today, I briefly looked up from fivethirtyeight.com and noticed that all the leaves on the trees had fallen outside. And new people were moving in across the street. (There was a house for sale??) And... Toni was suddenly reading twelfth-grade level books. And Jonah had learned how to prepare and cook carne asada.

My book... remember that book I said I was taking time off to finish writing?? *she laughs maniacally* When there isn't a debate... or a Katie Couric interview... or... clips of David Brooks on The Huffington Post that make me CRY with YES! YOU SAID IT PERFECTLY. I LOVE YOU!!... then, yeah, I am writing. In a helplessly preoccupied kind of way. Am I a natural procrastinator? I'll admit, procrastination is sort of a problem for me sometimes. But this is DIFFERENT. I'm taking great comfort in knowing that people everywhere are distracted and OBSESSED and freaking the HELL OUT right along with me. The last election... ugh.... I felt like I'd landed on a particularly nasty episode of The Twilight Zone. It was MONTHS before I crawled out of my funk. So I take great comfort in knowing that the majority of America right now is on MY side. I take great comfort that so many of my Republican and Unaffiliated friends have confided in me that they can't, in good conscience, vote for The Mavericks. I take great comfort in the fact my email box is FILLED with stories of hope and excitement and people giving their time and money to a politician for the first time in their lives because, by god, we REFUSE to go back to The Twilight Zone again!! Here's a story I have to share with you... My sister Irene... you remember Irene... the director for one of Obama's offices in New Mexico... she recently told me of an elderly woman who came into her office to ask how she could volunteer. Since she was a little bit too frail to canvass, Irene suggested that she might help with making phone calls. After the woman went home Irene realized that she forgot to give her the record-keeping ledger thingy that she needed for data collection on the phone calls. So Irene, having her address, went by her home to drop it off so the lady wouldn't have to drive all the way back. That's when Irene saw that on this sweet, eighty-something woman's living room wall, amidst all the framed pictures of her children and grandchildren, was a framed photo of the Obama family. I can't tell you how this story GETS ME. When was the last time someone hung a picture of a politician on their living room wall?? Since the thirty-fifth president, that's when.

But speaking of books, the other book... I finally got to see a printed copy, artwork and all. When the UPS guy pulled up to my door, I was already crying. He was holding my FINISHED PRODUCT in his hands!! It was that same feeling I got every time a baby was being pulled from deep within my innards... that moment of anticipation right before I got to see this... this... FINISHED PRODUCT that had caused me so much grief over nine months. That exact same feeling. You mamas know the one. And then I turned the book over and saw that San Luis Valley was spelled San Louis Valley. And... some other small inaccuracies were needing fixed, too. So it's getting reprinted as we speak and then, who knows, maybe I'll have a book date for you within the next week or so. A girl can dream, right?