At Home in Ohio

So I have been totally slammed lately. Here is my list of excuses for not posting the last few days:

• This is the hardest I have ever worked at a non-paying job in my life. I do put in those twelve-hour days I was warned about (and then still feel a little guilty about it, since everyone else works fifteen-hour ones).

• There are no days off and no weekends on the campaign. In fact, Saturday and Sunday are the most insane days of all.


• I am helping with the out-of-state volunteer cordination here at the Parma office. That just means that hoards of energetic young Democrats will be descending en masse upon Ohio in the next two weeks (yay!) and I am responsible for at least some of them.


• I spend about 70% of my day making an intense sales pitch to every single person I meet. I want people I talk to on the phone to vote for Barack Obama. I want people who come in for a yard sign to go out canvassing for us. I want undecided voters I meet while I am out canvassing to become Obama supporters. I want Obama supporters I meet while I am out canvassing to become canvassers themselves. There is no limit to what I want from people these days. Sales (even of something you believe in) is pretty exhausting, it turns out. It also turns out I am actually not too bad at it. Lesley would say this is no surprise to her.


• It is hard to follow up posts about Bill Clinton and Al Bundy when I don't have any new celebrity to report on. Although Madeleine Albright IS coming to town on Friday.

Okay. Enough excuses. How are things in Ohio, you ask?

All around, pretty good. I am feeling pretty settled into my home-away-from-home here, thanks especially to the extremely comfy digs and kindness provided by the woman who has opened up her house to a stranger based solely on the fact that I was coming to her state to volunteer for the Obama campaign. Did I mention that she buys me groceries and washes my sheets once a week? Seriously she is one of the best reasons to come to Ohio.

Another (less crucial but still delicious) reason is the apples that are in perfect season right now. They have this delicious hybrid here called Honey Crisp that I have never seen in Massachusetts. Ohio-grown, they are super sweet and absolutely devoid of mush. The perfect apple, basically. I eat at least one every day and they are single-handedly responsible for keeping up my blood sugar in the total absence of regular, healthy meals. Speaking of regular meals, here is my food consumption for the day before yesterday:

Breakfast: cheeseburger
Lunch: meatball sandwich
Dinner: cheeseburger

That's right. An utter breakdown in all of my beliefs about food. It has also been hard to cling to my environmentalist ideals in the midst of this craziness--trying to reuse the reams of paper we need to process canvasses and volunteers, wondering what to do when people drink a whole bunch of bottled water at an event and there's no recycling bin there (the answer is pick 40 plastic bottles out of the trash while confused Ohioans look on with concern).

There are only two more weeks left until this election is decided, at which point I can put away my sales pitch and start eating salad again. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the apples, and the experience.