queasy
Quasi-regular posting here could well resume after the election; right now, whenever I look at a computer, I’m either preoccupied with things I actually have to do, or else twitchy and frightened. Yes, we’re ahead, we’re ahead, but stuff could happen! Some one-day samples are tighter than the previous day’s samples! Pennsylvania won’t actually go for Obama by double digits! Stuff could happen! Yikes!
More seriously I am worried about last-minute surprises, and about the robocalls which have been flooding key states; will robocall slime outweigh the vast advantage Obama has in enthusiasm and volunteers? I and many other Dems are having flashbacks to Kerry, who was “supposed to win” due to his slim lead in key states despite trailing by a couple of points in national polls: we remember that he almost did win (while losing the popular vote, as McCain surely will), but more than that we’re just having bad flashbacks.
I felt a lot better yesterday after, unable to do much else in any free moment but twitch and worry, I decided to make some phone calls for Obama. You can do it from home! (And you can do it pretty late at night, even if you live on the East Coast– you’ll be calling Montana or Nevada!)
Fortunately the only thing I must do professionally between now and the time that polls close on Tuesday is… write half a lecture about Robert Lowell. Which should be fun.
I’m in the current LRB on Frank Bidart, though you may need a subscriber log-in to read the piece on line.
Nathan is typing on the cardboard “computer” Jessie made for him. Cutest bedtime comment this week: “You know, kangaroos can be friends!”
Two poetry books I’m enjoying, by people I’d never heard of, books I might or might not write about in a couple of weeks, but books worth your time: Mark Irwin’s concisely lyrical Tall If,and Gary Copeland Lilley’s bluesy Alpha Zulu, which includes poems set on nuclear submarines.
Next Thursday (two days post-election) I’m reading in Ann Arbor. See you there?