Eff this noise

Seriously.

Don't get me wrong, I am so impressed and inspired by what my candidate has accomplished and how well she carries herself, but working on a candidate campaign during primary season is complete balls. At least conservatives and Republicans have the chutzpah to back a candidate early. Democrats either don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or are too wishy-washy to actually make a decision on who they want to be their candidate. Take my race, for instance.

There are now four "official" candidates running in this race. There are six names floating around, but one couldn't officially get on the ballot (but is running as a write-in candidate... good luck) and one couldn't qualify for the public funding option available in my state without one of their staffers being charged with fraud. Sucks for him, but great for my team as that's one less person we need to worry about.

So there are four democrats running for this position, and there doesn't seem to be a single democrat in my turf that will just come out and say who they are voting for. Even more frustrating than that is people don't understand the need for volunteers during a primary because most people see it as a warm up lap to the real race.

I have the utmost confidence that my candidate will win the primary. I really do. But my confidence doesn't translate to hard results, so my supervisors get pissed because my deliverables are low and my metrics are completely skewing the rest of the folks in the state.

The other problem is my turf is the base territory for an competing democrat, so most of the activists in the area are already on board with him and I can't pull them away.

I think the most frustrating thing about this whole effort is that the LGBT community here is siding primarily with one candidate because of a skewed sense of their involvement in our marriage equality fight. My candidate had a much bigger hand in the first stage of the campaign, and the other guy showed up to a phonebank or two, shook a few hands and disappeared.

Which leads into ANOTHER fantastic part of democratic primaries -- endless infighting. It should be obvious to everyone that in this kind of political climate, democrats need to stick together and unite or else batshit conservatives are going to take over. Don't misunderstand me... I know that there are conservative democrats and liberal republicans (socially liberal, at least) and I know the democrats, in reality, are simply the lesser of two evils (or three if you want to include the teabaggers) but the dems are more likely than any to further federal LGBT rights, even though they've been doing a crap job so far. Oye.

I do have to say though, both of my Senators are republicans, and they have BOTH signed on as co-sponsors of ENDA, so props to them. I just wish the one who is on the Armed Services Committee would move from tepid support to co-sponsorship of the repeal of DADT, but I know that's too much to ask. As long as she votes to move it out of committee, I think I can deal.

Wow. That was a lot of politics. I feel dirty.

One thing that kind of bugs me about working in field is that so much of it is on the phone, and that's a hassle. I can't ever do work in busy, high-traffic areas where I can just sit with my computer, instead I have to always be in a quiet, secluded space where I get distracted and, what I really meant to write about when I started this, no chance to meet people. I just want to meet people. Not political junkies, just normal people who are smart and funny and who don't really know a lot about one subject, but enough to get by on a lot of different topics. Jack of all trades, as it were. And what I am about to say sounds lame (not in the sentiment, but more in the actual syllables and sounds), but I just want a goddamn boyfriend, damn it. Didn't help that last night this GORGEOUS guy stayed on my couch. He's a friend of my roommate from Utah, 6'5", red hair, well-built, scruffy beard and the sweetest guy. He bought a motorcycle in Boston, flew in to pick it up and now is riding back to Utah on it. He was just so damn attractive.

Problem is, I don't know where gay guys just hang out. I guess that's a plus and a minus about this city... the LGBT community is so well-integrated that there isn't really a gayborhood where all the queers hang out. The only identifiable location are the gay bars, and at that point everyone is just drunk and horny.

Aaaaaaand it's come to the point where this post got sufficiently whiny, so I think that's where I stop.

Oh, as a side note, I'm changing my name. I don't know to what, but it will change.

The one where I can't make up a witty title!

I am sitting in a little café/restaurant in Dupont Circle right now, and it’s lovely. There are piles of black snow along the road, the weather is terrible and I have to lug around very heavy bags in the sleety/slushy rain but it is lovely. DC is my city. After being here for two days, I know this is where I belong. Everything is here. Every organization, every consulate, every groups of thoughtful individuals who want their voice heard is here. True, I was here at the same time as CPAC (I saw Ann Coulter within hours of arriving in the city! …ew) but I have never felt more in sync with a place than I do with DC. I didn’t get to see any museums or see any of the amazing things this city has to offer but I know I will. I belong here.

I spent two days with 600 progressive activists at an “unconference” sponsored by the New Organizing Institute. It was amazing. I swear, if you were to map my brain waves, there is no difference in the activity when I’m talking about politics than when I’m having sex. It is just such a rush. I focused my weekend on LGBT sessions and learned quite a bit. It was great! The last session I attended really got my blood going. It was discussing this idea that instead of fighting whole-hog for marriage, we need to take incremental steps. It was run by the IT director for the Approve 71 campaign out in Washington state. They won domestic partnerships statewide this past election. Thing is, they didn’t settle for it. They didn’t aim for marriage and get knocked down to DPs, this was their original intent. Is that wise? Opinions differed greatly, and I saw a stark divide among the generations. The men and women who have been fighting this battle since the 60s and 70s saw incremental steps as a victory, and we should take what we can get. My generation was much more apt to defend the idea of going for marriage and not settling for anything else. My argument for marriage, not civil unions or domestic partnerships (or “garriage”… fucking stupid) comes from New Jersey, where they have a civil unions law. So the argument for marriage was no longer “we deserve these rights and protections” but now “why civil unions aren’t enough”. That’s a very difficult conversation to have. We heard senator form NJ talking about “fixing” the civil union law and making harsher penalties for people who break that law. I’m sorry, but instilling harsher penalties for people who discriminate against LGBT couples are special rights, which is just fueling the right’s argument that we’re trying to gain those “special”, not basic, rights.

In Maine, we lost and we don’t have marriage. In Washington, they won and they don’t have marriage. In Maine, we know how to structure the marriage conversation so that it fits Mainers, but now in  Washington they have to come up with an entirely new strategy of why domestic partnerships are not enough (and maybe having to combat the question “if DPS are not enough, why didn’t you go for marriage?”) and make sure that is tailored to something that Washingtonians can understand and buy into.

It was a fun discussion, let me tell you.

While in the city I met up with a bunch of people that I worked on the Maine marriage campaign with, which was delightful. I got into the city and had dinner with three of the folks who were organizers. One lived right in the city so instead of staying with the other two (way out in Bethesda) I stayed with the one in DC we went to a few bars, came home, and promptly fucked. It was... weird. I mean it was good, but it was weird. Because there had never really been any of that tension or anything back in Maine. I'm about to meet up with him to say bye since I fly back to Maine late tonight.

The last two nights I stayed at my other friend's place also right in DC. I have had a very big crush on him since I first met him back in... September, maybe? He works for the firm that did all the polling for the campaign, super hot, super smart and really funny. I was all excited to see him because since we last saw each other, I have lost some weight, toned up a bit and, quite frankly, looked good.  Saturday morning he tells me that he wasn't going to get back into town until Sunday around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, but that his friend Chris who he works will can hide a key by the door for me that night. I get to his place, find the key (after a little confusion) and settle in. He has one roommate, but she was staying in Virginia for the night, so I had the run of the place. His bed was so. Goddamn. Comfortable. It was amazing. Like sleeping in a cloud. I sat down at 10:30 at night to watch a movie (I needed an easy night) and promptly fell asleep.

The next day he texts me with when he's going to be in and that he wants to make dinner for "everyone". I ask him who that includes and he replies him, his roommate, his friend Chris and me. And then texts me to let me know that he and Chris have kind of been seeing each other for the past month and that his roommate was a little weirded out since they had all worked together. Eugh. I felt my stomach just drop. I got over it rather quickly and was able to just go along throughout the day anyways and when I did finally meet up, the pangs of jealously weren't as bad as I had anticipated. Chris is (of course) great, and cute, and funny. 

Damnit.

But then that got me thinking (baaaaaad thinking) about something. Like the Julie/Julia project, where a woman cooked her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I started toying with the idea of dating my way through the dating sites. Chemistry, e-Harmony, Match.com, Plenty of Fish and Lava Life. More to come with this as I flesh out the idea to determine it's viability.

I’m going to try to find a job in DC sometime over the next year. I think it would be a great move for me, but I’m conflicted about it. I love working in politics (let’s see if I still say that after November… I may swear it off again, but who knows?) but I really want to pursue acting, and part of me feels like moving to DC will cement that politico in me as the dominant career desire. Maybe it’s for the best, since I haven’t been on stage in a long, long time. I guess this is all up in the air and I don’t think I’ll really have to start thinking about it until the summer. At which point, I now realize, I need to test out what DC feels like then. I hear summers in DC are a new kind of hell, and that’s not really something I want to have to deal with, unless I have A/C with me everywhere I go. Which won’t happen.

In other news, I've moved and I really enjoy the new place. Still in Maine (DC is calling very, very loudly), but at least in Portland now. I've quit my job and next Monday I start working on a gubernatorial campaign.

**Note: by the time I actually post this, I'm sitting in the BWI airport (where I had to pay $9.95 to get on the goddamn network) listening to a HILARIOUS Dan Savage podcast. He is so funny, so smart, and so ridiculously sexy.