Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Pawning Obama

I walked two miles to see Barrack Obama speak. I stood in line with hundreds of other Toledoans, all of us trying to chug our bottled water or turn on cell phones (so they wouldn’t seem like weapons) or remove metal items from our pockets. I saw a thin man with grey hair holding a sign about not voting for baby killing Muslims. I gave him the finger for a solid two minutes before making my way to the metal detectors.



The Seagate Center held two thousand of us, all hopeful, or at least intrigued by the idea of Change we can Believe In. Ohio politicians took the stage, one after another, to tell us about clean coal, solar panels (locally made!) and the black hole of evil that is the George W. Bush administration. The crowd booed and cheered in all the right places.



A tall, thin man, resplendent in a three-piece suit, made his way to the podium. Because he was black, the audience stood and cheered before realizing the man was not, in fact, Obama, but a campaign staffer intent on adjusting the podium mike. The nervous laughter of a thousand suburban white people filled the cavernous hall, a space not unlike a high school gym, before a local auto worker took the stage to perform the final introduction.



“I’ve been laid off fourteen weeks so far this year,” he told us. “I just want my four children to have coats this winter.” He made some less depressing, more crowd pleasing exhortations, and we all leapt to our feet to chant “O-Bam-Ah, O-Bam-Ah” as the candidate finally made his way across the stage, smiling broadly and waving.



Barrack Obama expressed concern about the state of the economy (“in the crapper,” my mother, the amateur economist, had put it just hours before).



“Your 401-K might be a 101-K,” the great man quipped. “The question isn’t ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago’, but ‘Are you better off than you were four weeks ago’,” he solemnly intoned, shaking his head presidentially.



I feel his pain, or, rather, the pain of other similar middle class people. My college friends have prospered, and they worry about investments. The last guy who dumped me (“I can’t do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing,” he told me as we snuggled together in bed) drove three hours to Columbus so he could rescue his money from Charles Schwab. I have no 401-K. I have no mortgage and am lucky to have rent money about half the time. As a self employed person who struggled with disability my entire adult life, I had -$200 in the bank as Barrack Obama stood before me, promising to help me send my (non-existent) children to college.



Walking home from the speech, I passed a pawn shop, doubled back, and sold the gold necklace I’d put on that morning on the off chance that I might appear in news photos or in television footage of the crowd. The pawnbroker counted a fifty and a hundred into my palm, and I deposited most of the money, bringing my total net worth up to an awe-inspiring -$87.



As I passed homeless shelters and free stores run by churches, I thought about the speech, the man, and the words he’d spoken. One thought had pierced the thick bubble of my self-pitying bemusement. Obama told us that we could aspire, as our grandparents had, as his grandparents had, to greater things. Just as the man denied his rights by a poll tax had dreamed of his son or grandson running for congress, for the senate, for the presidency itself.



Somehow, the hope a politician offered up seemed real to me, useful. My feet ached, and I touched my throat, surprised momentarily by the absence of the necklace. I shrugged, shook my head, and walked slowly toward home.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Tranny Hooker

I'll work for bottom surgery.

Halloween, Toledo, the drag bar.  I served a lovely roast chicken dinner for five.  We had homemade apple dumplings for dessert.  Then, drag bar.

I had planned on going as Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray.  Decided ratting my hair was too much work.  Opted for a red corset, garters and 5 o'clock shadow.  Lots of cleavage.  Lots of dancing.  Vodka.

Sadly, don't think I'll go back for a while.  The bar ignores Ohio's smoking ban, and my throat is killing me today.