Mish-mash Wednesday

Yesterday was just odd, not in a particularly good or bad way. I woke up, certain that I was coming down with something (and I was right). Of course, after watching 45 minutes of Good Morning America, I was convinced that it was swine flu. I felt congested, tired, and a nice phlegmy cough was coming along nicely. I met a woman for lunch at a Lebanese restaurant three blocks from my house. This woman and I have known each other for more than a decade, yet yesterday was only the second time we’ve ever sat down together intentionally. We know a lot of people in common, and we don’t live terribly far from one another. Our stints at a dysfunctional gay newspaper and an equally dysfunctional – but wildly more successful – PR agency overlapped. I left that place two years ago, and I’m thrilled thus far with the results, so I asked her why she left, why she stepped down. “I couldn’t lie to people I like,” she said. I asked the waitress about the lemonade, which is fantastic, and she confessed that it’s made of powder. At home later in the afternoon, Bill Clinton’s voice boomed through the radio, saying that “Walter Cronkite was averse to conformity.” Then Barack Obama said that what he admired about Walter Cronkite was that he was more interested in the story than the story line. All of which made me wonder what Walter Cronkite would have made of Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress last night. It wasn’t Obama’s speech that bugged me. I like the way he speaks, and it still fills me with joy to hear a president of the country where I live get up and talk without butchering the language. It’s the show that’s getting tedious. It’s the merciless and endless slanting and spinning. It’s the fact that I read and watch the news all the time and have no idea what is being proposed, or not, or why, or by whom. That, I think, may have something to do with the fact that for every one member of Congress, there are six full-time lobbyists whose sole focus is healthcare. I love Barack Obama, but I’d be crazy not to believe that he’s as bought and paid for as the rest of them. When there are billions of dollars at stake, regardless of your position, or what you believe your position to be, clarity is a fantasy at best. I watched Glee, which I think is pretty funny, swallowed a clove of frozen garlic – the most effective home remedy I know of – took a Tylenol PM and went to bed. I feel much better today.