The Times They Are A-Changed

Things are different right now.

My two-track mind used to be: theatre, sex. Occasionally there’d be a third track--Buffy, for example, or Harry Potter around the times a book or movie came out. But now THE WORLD REVOLVES BACKWARDS ON ITS AXIS…because I have not been thinking about sex AT. ALL. My two tracks are now: real estate and electoral projections. Once I finally get the keys to my flat, I suspect we’ll be down to one.

Politics are consuming me.

But I am MUCH gratified to realize I am not alone. I have recently discovered Dan Savage’s Podcast (the “SavageLovecast”), and partially out of homesickness I’ve been listening non-stop (there are 103 episodes, after all—I’m up to 78, though I always listen to the most recent update as well). I think there’s fodder for multiple posts in having listened to all of these in quick succession*, and several of his principles—so evident when you hear them in dense amounts—have helped with my latest angsty issues. But this! In last week’s episode (102), in the intro, he actually says:

...I’m a little scattered, I’m a little tense, election day approaches, and we will get to your calls, because I assume you’re scattered, and you’re tense, otherwise you wouldn ’t be calling with your sex problems—AT A TIME LIKE THIS, when the future of the whole world is at stake, when our democracy teeters on the verge of complete and total bullshitification, you’re calling with your sex problems—I’m amazed that anybody can think of sex at a time like this, but I’ll do what I can. To focus. On your genitals.

(Bold emphasis mine, caps emphasis an attempted representation of his vocal stress.]

Dan Savage, a man who has built a career on his willingness to discuss any and every sexual issue—and who in fact has been known to merge sex and politics, as when he ran a contest that ended up redefining Santorum--is not thinking about sex right now. I think he and I are two pretty fucking salient examples of the MAGNITUDE of this thing that is about to happen, the knowledge that barring a large unexpected event (knock on wood, ptoi ptoi ptoi, etc), Barack Obama will soon be our President Elect. And having heard Dan say this, I feel absolved--one of the two or three main reasons I haven’t been posting is that I’m thinking less about sex and feminism and more about the nitty gritty of this election**. So, with Dan’s unwitting blessing, I will now share these thoughts with you.

My latest addiction is fivethirtyeight.com—“Electoral Projections Done Right.” You may have heard of this by now, as its readership has skyrocketed recently. What they do is based on statistics—they take all the major polls, each time they come out, and
run 10,000 election simulations (I don’t know exactly how, but the founder was on COLBERT forchrissake so you know he’s reputable). They then post the percentage of these elections each candidate wins (showing all their data). When I started reading the site, Obama was at around 70%. Today he’s at 90.9%. Nate Silver has made clear that if nothing SERIOUSLY MAJOR happens during the next 25 days (knock on wood, salt over the shoulder, etc), Obama wins, end of story. They also have excellent, easy-to-understand analysis of both polls and debates***.

So that’s all I talk about lately. Whenever I run into an American, or a Canadian, or a Brit whom I’ve heard mention Obama, I blurt out “Obama’s at [whatever it is] percent!” And if they care they go, “What?! NO. WAY.” And I have to clarify that I don’t mean in national polls, it’s not that 90.9% of the country says they’re voting blue, but rather the 10,000 simulations blah blah blah.

And then the other half of the time I ask them where they live and what they’re paying.

The good news? The other day I noticed a cute hipster guy in a Tesco Express and thought “I would totally do him.” So the prognosis is good. Hopefully on November 5th I can go back to non-stop thoughts about fucking and Brecht or whatever.

Knock on wood, ptoi ptoi ptoi.



PS: Maybe don’t listen to the rest of that particular podcast, because the first caller has the MOST DEPRESSING STORY I’ve ever heard. She sounds like SHE’S okay with it, but if you’re in a dark mood don’t go there.

*And after posting this I will shortly write a “Dudes I Like” post devoted to the man.
**The other two reasons are still not having a place to live and some significant personal angst for which this blog is not the appropriate forum.
***My mother visited last weekend, and I read her a post on why McCain’s latest Bill Ayres mudslinging isn’t going to have much of an effect, and she said, “I think that’s true,” which is quite the validation.)

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