It's not turkey

A shot from last Thanksgiving, taken from the backyard of my fiancee's cousin's place. Yes, it's the moon, behind the leaves of a vine on the fence.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends.

Hitting 'em up

A couple of weeks ago as I entered the downtown train station a young man was hovering by the stairs panhandling. He stated that he was trying to get money for a ticket. It wasn't that he sought food; he sought to get somewhere, but apparently he couldn't put together $1.25 for a fare.

He was not disheveled. He was dressed in clothes that appeared laundered. He was clean-haven. But apparently he lacked even a dollar and a quarter.

Okay.

As I walked by, a guy and two young women also passed near him and he changed his line from "Can anyone spare any change?" to addressing one of the women with "I'd also take your phone number." He started following her, telling her how beautiful she was. As far as I could tell she had no interest (and may not have even spoken English). But really, I can't imagine why she wouldn't want a guy begging for train fare.

He's going places. Well, as soon as he can convince someone for a few quarters.

If it's Sunday then this must be a plug for photos

As has become routine, this is an alert that new pictures are available over on the useless photo site (which lives somewhat in the shadow of this verbose one), so if you have a few minutes to kill, please feel free to click on over and browse.

Wise men

I realized something: The next president and I were both born in the same decade--the 1960s.

Has there been a previous president who was born in the 1960s? No. The next most recently born was… yes, Bill Clinton, in 1946. (However, he's only a month and a half younger than George W. Bush.) They go back more than a decade from the one that saw both Barack Obama and me emerge.

This suggests that for the first time I will be of the same generation as the person occupying the Oval Office.

It was inevitable that eventually the presidency would catch up with me—or, perhaps, me with it. Still, it's a more profound moment of realization than I would have expected. I mean, of course there would come a day when someone born around my birth year would get elected. It's inevitable that someday a person who is younger than me will reside in the White House. Every year the pool of people who are younger than me and qualify to run for the office only increases; it will happen.

I'm not saying it's bad to have someone who comes from the same generation in that position. I'm sure a lot of people from my generation are absolutely giddy at that prospect, and they should be. I'm saying that I've long held a sub-conscious association: The president is old. Sometimes it's really old and sometimes it's kind of old, but still… old.

Don't get me wrong; it's fine that the president is old. There's a reason why there's a minimum age limit, and presumably it's to try to ensure that the person taking the office has a certain amount of life experience and presumed wisdom (of course, there's no guarantees—as evidenced by some presidents who shall remain nameless; hey, the people still voted for them).

And now I have constant reminders every time I turn on the news (okay, The Daily Show) that require me to consider whether I have the wisdom to run the country. (It's a short consideration. I don't.) In the past, with what I perceived as a generational disconnection between me and the person with access to the nuclear codes, it was always fine that they presumably had some wisdom I lacked. Now, the distinction cannot be applied based on a simple criterion like age.

I'm old, but I'm not prepared to be old. It's not that I mind getting older, or was clinging to my youth. No, I just cannot shake the sense that somewhere I went wrong and didn't learn… something I should have.

And it's all the fault of the president-elect.

Broken

Last weekend on the new CNN show D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, he held this segment with Dr. Drew Pinsky:


D.L. alluded to being thrown for a loop by the election results. He was pleased, certainly, but his world view was based on a paradigm that no longer applies. In a strange way he missed the sadness of the cynical take on the way things were that had been the foundation for his attitudes. It seemed even a fucked-up status quo was simpler to deal with than a new not-as-fucked-up world.

For me, it's also a weird and unprecedented scenario. Nothing as profound as what D.L. experienced, but something that threw me for a bit of a loop.

My streak has ended.

The streak was that I'd never voted for a presidential candidate who actually won previously. (Four years ago I offered this post where I first mentioned the streak.) Sure, some of those years were what some would call throwing away my vote, but I'd argue that in the last four presidential elections I would have thrown away my vote regardless. There had never really been a nominee who elicited in me a sense of being someone I wanted to vote for; there was merely one candidate who was worse and needed to be voted against.

However, that's not representation. That's the proverbial lesser-of-two-evils. And while many would argue that's what the system tends to be, it doesn't make it less of a waste to vote merely to keep out the one more feared.

I will note that, being a Californian, it was always a virtual given that the state's 55 electoral college votes would be given to the Democratic ticket, whether I voted for them or not. If I voted in the evening, shortly before the polls closed, it was not uncommon for the news to have already called the state. In that case I could vote for a third party, which was closer to doing something I believed in; I did fancy the notion of developing a viable third party, and it seemed only by them getting a noticeable percentage of the ballots would that ever be likely to happen.

And really, how could I pass up the chance to cast my vote for Ross Perot? I mean, that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to vote for someone who was quite possibly insane.

Anyway, starting in 2000, I'd attempted to keep W. out in two consecutive elections (not because I was sold on the Democratic candidates but because... well, do I need to elaborate?) and had that backfire. It seemed like if I voted for a candidate he was doomed not to be inaugurated. I'm not saying I was a jinx, but there seemed a distinct pattern developing.

I was therefore reluctant to sincerely vote for Obama. I didn't want to screw up the first time I felt like I was really voting for someone. However, I could not pass up this chance to vote for a candidate who I felt came as close to representing me as I could ever recall.

I never believed he'd win, even though all the pundits said he was a lock.

I'm not suggesting that my lack of belief is what contradictorily propelled him to victory. I don't like to think I have that level of influence, and I'm certain I don't. Still, I had a particular take on my relationship with the political system that was long established, and even if it wasn't a source of happiness it was something to which I was accustomed. I'd watched Bush the first, then Clinton (twice), then Bush the second (twice), all with a sense of eh-there-it-goes-again.

And this time I had to adjust to I-can't-believe-it. However, on election night itself, I was rather emotionally distant, mostly because I'd been hearing for weeks that McCain could not win (Obama could lose, but McCain couldn't win). So after all that saturation, at the point of watching Jon Stewart confirm that outcome it was somewhat like watching the favored team win the Super Bowl and more than cover the point spread, with the end result never being in doubt. However, over the days since then, I've had more chance to ruminate on how amazing it all is.

No, I don't mean just that a non-white male got elected; I also mean that I could favor a candidate (non-ironically even) and not have it blow up.

It's a new world, and it's going to take some time to get used to.