Hello there! Come right in. I know it's a bit cluttered in here. I hope you don't mind. Just push some of those papers out of the way and pull up a chair. Fix yourself something to eat if you feel like it, while I think out loud here for a few minutes.
Let's se. Where was I? Trying to pick a blog topic. The possibilities:
-Obama's Victory. Could call it "Oh! Bama!" Of course, like the other 52 percent of the electorate, I'm elated, and -- like our next First Lady -- for the first time I'm proud of our country. Especially since I was so afraid of a last-minute Republican surge that I personally called 50 strangers in Indiana and Nevada the night before the election to BEG them to vote for change.
Naaaa --- too obvious. Everyone's talking about our new, black president. Booooring! Need to find a different angle.
Wait, what's that? That New Yorker article about psychopaths that I need to finish. OK, later, later. Concentrate...
-The Eighties are Back. About the aerobics class I went to the other day, and how cardio is the new aerobics. It's like the eighties again, but with a twist. The instructor was wearing a sweatband and we boogied to revved-up Janet Jackson tunes. Could end with the point that, just like 20 years ago, the most important man in the world is African-American (then: Michael Jackson. Today: Barack Obama). Could illustrate with a photo of Jennifer Beals from Flashdance.
I hear my daughter's voice downstairs. I wish I could be with her instead of upstairs in front of this computer. Maybe I should look at the want ads for a while, get a different job. Hmm... research chief at a travel magazine. Must have eight years' experience and speak fluent Spanish. Who are they kidding? Anyway, it's yes to the second, no to the first. Wonder if I have a shot...
OK, Joan, OK! Back to work!
What am I going to eat for dinner tonight? Rice and beans again? Dumplings from Panda Express for the third time this week? Maybe just a few handfuls of granola straight from the box. It's so hard to cook anything with Snookums crawling all over the kitchen like a a potato bug. I need a new diet. Better yet, I need a chef who will prepare tasteful yet healthful meal made of organic ingredients, preferably vegetarian.
Maybe I should buy that vegetarian cookbook by Mark Bittman, for inspiration.
I can't believe my editor complained that my description of the leadership seminar was "too laundry-listy." Now she wants me to come up with another way of saying leadership has to be earned. Leadership is a two-way street? Leadership is as much bottom-up as top-down? Will non-native English speakers even understand this? Because it sounds kinda kinky if you ask me.
Obama won! I almost can't believe it. The politics of hope beat the politics of fear. I wonder what my father would say if he were alive.
The best response came from Maya, the eight-year-old daugher of my friend Jeanne in Chicago. When Jeanne told her daughter that for the first time, someone of African ancestry had been elected president, Maya said, "But we all have African ancestry."
Amen, sister.
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