Home again, home again.

and still standing, more or less ... omg.

Can I just tell you, what a small price to pay marching around North Las Vegas for weeks, in order to attend the best party of my whole life. Ramon, David and I got to the Rio casino where the Dems in LV evidently hang out every election, and finally found the gigantor ballroom full of thousands and thousands of Dems, with a huge screen at the back to which all were breathlessly riveted. The very air fizzed with happiness, relief, hope, all those things, and the fizz got straight into your blood and stayed there and yes, it's still there ...

When Nevada was called for Obama, my god I don't think my hearing will ever be the same, the thundering earthquake roar like your bones are going to rattle apart, shrieking, crying, laughing, people up on one another's shoulders, the spontaneous deafening chant of YES WE CAN, a forest of fists pounding the air, rhythmically, a slow-motion cliche like at the end of a Ron Howard movie, the roar breaking slowly into shouting, whistling, whooping, every sound people can make. You could walk into any corridor in the place and just stick your hand up and a stampede of people would just run up screaming and high five really hard so that your palm was stinging; I played this game all night long. Strangers hugging you and shrieking. You hugging strangers and shrieking. You'd just grab people's hands and Oh My GOD!! My GOD we DID IT!!! And jump up and down for joy. Yes, that actually happens when you are that freakin' joyful!! Who knew!

I was trying to explain this to Albert and finally figured out a way to do it, which is you know how, right when the clock strikes twelve and it's the New Year and for about a minute everyone is shouting and hugging and kissing, and there's confetti and streamers? Extrapolate the first three seconds of that minute into four and a half hours, and you begin to get an idea.

I had meant to leave kind of early but by the time the boys had stood me a couple of Coronas and I'd done my Pied Piper routine and collected an elevatorful of twenty-somethings and taken them to the wrong floor of the wrong tower, and come back again, and found Peggy, and came back up again to the 19th floor that had 'our' party for our (huge) canvass and all our friends, and introduced people, and did the required three minutes of jumping up and down shrieking and hugging each person, which I also learned that you can scream, hug and jump up and down simultaneously almost nonstop for four and a half hours, it was after one o'clock. So then Peggy and I went along to Ping Pang Pong and had some (very good, but not a patch on Dong Ting Spring) Chinese. I hit the road around two, I think, and drove for a couple of hours before taking a short nap @ truck stop and then blurrily home, bursting into tears as I approached LA, because the sun was rising in pink-tinged glory over the mountains and for the first time I heard the NPR guy saying "President-elect Obama."

Tomorrow.

WHAT a splendid morning, I was bowling along to Starbucks and learned on NPR that McShame has to travel to Nevada to campaign TODAY, lalalalalalalaaaaaaa I feel personally responsible, lala.

Time is tight, today's schedule is kind of 9:00 to 9:00 and tomorrow 6:00 to 7:00!!! I have really got to sit down with this machine and record, though, the awesome climax and denouement of this glorious month of weirdness and, apparently, SUCCESS.

Okay just one awesome little thing. There is a French kid at my new office named Laurent who is cute as a bug (it didn't hurt a bit that he praised my French accent either) and anyway, he has been phonebanking to troll for volunteers. There are not a whole lot of French people in Nevada and I can only guess what your random Nevadan must think when confronted on the phone with this thick French accent saying Allo zees is Ahl from ze Obama camp, well really half the time he says Camp and half the time Campaign ... I was sitting right in front of him entering canvassing data, is the thing, so he was providing this endlessly entertaining soundtrack to my tedious task. It turns out he'd changed his name to Ahl for the phonebanking because everyone seemed to think that the name Laurent would be too much for a Nevadan to handle. His Spanish is terrific, I must say, rather proper Castilian Spanish though he's clearly doing his best to remember the Latin American-style 'z' pronounciation ('s' rather than 'th.')

So he was having zero luck getting hold of any volunteers and we decided he should change his name to Larry, because it was closer to his real name. And suddenly he's like completely on fire and he signed up three volunteers in the space of ten minutes!!! He and I decided that he should change his name to Larry lahk ohn hees resume, and everysing. And I said man, I am going to change my name to Larry, everybody should.

There's a heap of really nice kids at the new office. I particularly like this kid Jihad, he has got the driest, quietest sense of humor, and is just alive as anything. And Elsa and Gia, two Latin girls from San Diego, who are very giddy, giggly and fun.

There is also a super nice couple from Silverlake who drove up just yesterday and were entering loads of canvassing data all day; I sent them along to the South Point casino hotel thing where Oliver and I stayed, I hope they like it.

I took this photo MYSELF, THIS MORNING.

I have so much to tell you tomorrow ... what a rally this morning. I had to get up at 4:30 though in hopes of a handshake, which I very nearly managed. It was SO great. But a bit droopy just now and looking forward to an early night. Only three left--eeeeek!

After that total E-ticket experience we went canvassing, and I was held hostage by two deranged McCain voters, and then I finally escaped, and then I was held hostage again but by this very hep cat ... a 60s guy, musician, very very funny, Vietnam vet and (quite long-winded) philosopher. Reminded me of my old friend Warbasse.

And right when I was feeling a bit rattled and just kind of through, the most gorgeous little girl answered a door and looked up at me all shyly and said, "You're pretty."

I told Oliver, "You win some, you lose some."

Okay so I was within three feet of Senator Obama at one point, and almost managed to shake hands, even. So you can imagine what kind of photos I've got ... and one of my fav senators Harry Reid spoke first and I saw him all up close and personal, too! (No really, years before I ever came here I was registered at giveemhellharry.com. I know, kinda strange but I love how he kissed the TV when Claire McCaskill won, and also how he was a boxer and he socked that guy, and his name is often coupled with the adjective 'scrappy.' His photo is up near the cash register at Lotus of Siam, and also, he has never left his home town, a la Joe Biden. People here tell me that there is nothing in Searchlight but Harry Reid's house, basically. Plus I have it on reasonably good local authority that Senator Reid, being a Mormon, actually wears one of those garments, and how random is that.)

So. Feast your eyes on THIS that I took myself
and I have about 100 more of them!

Okay just two more.

The 7-11 vote.

There's no Obama cups left at the 7-11, but there are PLENTY of McCain ones.

What?! No more canvassing?!

The canvassmobile.

It turns out that we're starting GOTV today and we're going to be sent to some new staging area, but nobody knows exactly what we're going to be doing. Training California volunteers, someone said. I wonder if I will be driving people on Election Day?

But the thing is, this means no more canvassing probably, starting today. However will the residents of North Las Vegas manage without me, Mario, Ramon, Laura and David knocking on their doors every day and harassing them?! I have gone from being a person who was not that crazy about approaching strangers with my politics to a person who is absolutely banging on the door and blabbing about politics whilst waving arms around for emphasis with the greatest of pleasure. I told those guys at the office last night (over Modelos and YouTube videos, after work) that I am ready to be like a Fuller Brush salesman or something. It's so exhilarating shaking hands with dozens of new people every day, they're so strange and cool and smart and funny and crazy and variable. Once in a while you get a nutcase, but it is so worth it.

Yesterday I was invited into this mobile home by two very frail elderly ladies and the cat-pee reek was like to make your eyes water. I'm trying to hold my breath while I tell them where their Albertsons is for early voting. The one was so fat and so soft with sort of rolls of her spilling like rising bread dough over the edges of the chair.

"I've never prayed for a President before," she said. "But I'm praying for him."

"Well keep at it, please, Ms. Davis, because it's working."

Later today I will write a valedictory note of our canvassing experience. It deserves a long and intricate post. But here are some photos that I will treasure. This one is of Mario, splitting our turf.



Isn't it lovely how the paper is glowing? And here is David. He has pretty much shaved his head since this photo was taken, though!



And this is Ramon 'Wikipedia' Gomez:

There's this one kid G. in our office whom I would like to have for a son-in-law, he is so smart, kind and aware. Hugely tall, lovely eyes, super polymath. Actually I love all these kids in the office very much. But anyway, G, whom I only just got to know a little in the last few days. We were talking about Coachella at one point, which I have never been able to bring myself to attend:

"Oooh isn't it horribly hot and disgusting, though?"

"You can undergo a little pain to see a ton of awesome bands."

"I need my personal space, man."

"Oh yeah, not a lot of personal space at Coachella. It's like sometimes you're literally lifted off your feet by these bodies ... "

"Oh ick, no, I remember being in front for the Clash in like the early 80s and thinking yikes, I'd like to keep my spleen, if you don't mind."

"You actually SAW the Clash?! You are a god. You are a god, walking this earth."

"Bow down."

So anyways last night all of us were watching the Obama campaign 'infomercial' at the office (which WATCH it) and the end is so beautiful, and just as it ended G. grabs the cigs and goes outside. Which was a pity since the very end is the beautifullest of all where Senator Obama says this thing that I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR FROM GOVERNMENT ALL MY LIFE:

I'm reminded every single day, that I am not a perfect man. I will not be a perfect president. But I can promise you this, I will always tell you what I think and where I stand; I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you when we disagree, and most importantly I will open the doors of government and ask you to be involved in your democracy again.

(So whoever doubts this, listen to me: the message of this candidate is not really Change, so much as it is Participate. There are hundreds, or probably thousands of Californians here in Nevada with me right now who have responded to this message; and it is their efforts and those of similarly-inclined people all over this land, not only Senator Obama's, that have made this literally incredible moment possible. I say 'literally' in all consciousness, because I keep having to rewind over stuff that is actually happening, and I can scarcely process it.)

So obviously I am all moved and whatnot, and wandered out to have a cigarette myself, after. And there is that great big G., having missed the very end, sitting on the bench just sobbing. And he was all embarrassed but I said no, my god, I feel just the same way. And then S. came out and he had teared up too. And we were all shouting and hugging and talking about how we were at the EPICENTER OF HISTORY, how we, too, are literally making this happen, and these wonderful boys are all thrusting their fists into the air and tears on their lovely faces. I'm crying now, just thinking about it.

God knows what will become of us all on election night, they'll have to bring an oxygen tent big enough for the whole of the Martin Luther King office.

Six days left.

Peggy and I were positively giddy watching the news last night. We had red wine from Trader Joe's and just revelled in the glory of it all. We drank to Sarah Palin.

"Long may she wave," I said, glass held high.

"I've been waiting for this since 1980," Peggy sighed contentedly.

"To Ted Stevens!"

"To Neiman-Marcus!"

"To Henry Paulson!"

You could really tie one on that way, couldn't you.