Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Doing Capitally in the Capitol

(I have a sneaking suspicion that one of three people is going to email me and tell me that the spelling "capitol" can only be used to refer to the building, not the whole city. However, the bigger issue here is that this title is really too corny for use. Bear with me all the same.)

I arrived in DC last Friday, and am really excited to be back. I'm living with my aunt and uncle and cousin out in Chevy Chase. They have a basement apartment under their house with a separate door and kitchen, so it's pretty ideal.

In the last week, I have characterized DC as a social mecca, cornucopia, buffet, grail, basically any word that encapsulates an abundance of interactive goodness. I like that I can do a different interesting thing with a different interesting person every night of the week if I like. Over the summer, this became a bit exhausting, but I think I could wind up a DC-for-lifer if I had a place like VT to escape to.

I saw a friend from the summer this weekend, and she said she felt like seeing each other was one of Madeline L'Engle's wrinkles in time. Seeing one another made it feel like all the time we'd been apart was folded up between us and the time we'd lived together felt like it was the closest thing to the now. I like tesseracts.

I've noticed that people always get a lot cooler> after they stop running for president. Predictable, I guess. I think Kerry makes this point very well; Democrats (and, um, everyone else) should never be the party trying to suppress turnout.

In all the campaigns I've worked on, I've always believed turnout was a good sign. For the most part, if you don't at least feel that way, you're working for the wrong person. (Although maybe I'd feel differently if in a swing state when the ballot initiative was tailor made to turn out evangelicals.)

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