From the landlocked heartland to the Jersey shore

We've got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels...

I'm a little stalled, creatively, but not in a place where I've ever been stalled before. It's ... interesting.

Went to an Obama rally yesterday evening. Assembly Hall (you know, the big basketball place) was packed to the rafters. As I was waiting (and waiting... and waiting... and waiting... they told us we couldn't bring bags, so I didn't have a book to read, and it was too noisy to make phone calls, and I'd gone by myself so I didn't have anyone to chat with, and I don't own a cute little internet thingahoochie like a Blackberry though I would just about have killed for one at that moment), I observed how thoroughly managed the message was. Even the throngs of students doing the wave around the arena struck me as an exercise in getting 12,000+ people to say and do just what they're supposed to say and do at just the moment they're supposed to say and do it.

And then Obama finally came out to speak, and what struck me more than anything was how completely comfortable he is, speaking. That comes across a little more powerfully "live and in person" than it does on TV, I think. It's sort of like hearing a fabulous singer live when you're used to hearing them recorded, and realizing how cool it is that the sound isn't just a studio trick of some sort.

(And isn't that such a generational thing ... to be amazed that the live sound isn't a studio trick, instead of disillusioned that the recorded sound is. Hm.)

He was comfortable, and as he bounded up onto the stage I was struck by the fact that he seemed to be happy. Like, genuinely happy and loving his work. I don't think George W. Bush does what he does out of joy; I think he does it out of spite, in some ways; and out of insecurity, in some ways; and out of greed for power, in a lot of ways. I've seen glee on his face, but never joy. But Obama's presence feels joyful. I didn't expect that, for some reason.

I grew up during the long hard Vietnam war, and I see how many of those wounds are only barely just beginning to heal. It makes me sad to think that the scars from the current long hard war(s) will probably still be unhealed when I die. And what that does to people, to the condition of our hearts.

You can hide beneath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain...

Little part of me still wants to be a rockstar when I grow up (which won't surprise anyone who's ever gone to a concert with me). It feels both funny and wistful to say that, now.

Forty-seven, later this month. Holy crap.

Behind on everything.

And after all this time to find we're just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess...

My best elegies and my best love poems are for people I don't even really know, and for places.

I may come back and delete that line.

Nobody's really a stranger, although everybody is.

And it's true that I raise my hands in supplication, that I fall to my knees, that I rise up shouting: all without an ounce of irony in my bones. I suppose that dooms me.

Have I ever really written about where I come from?
Have you?

Faith will be rewarded...

I haven't quite been here before, but then again, I think I've been stuck here for my whole life.

Funny, these things. Funny.

Nights like this, I wish I played the piano. And had a piano to play.