Triggers Pointed at Each Other

Posted on October 13, 2008 in Anxiety Campaign 2008 Weather

Two of my great triggers are ramming their bullets together to make me a very shaky man: high winds and the elections. A fellow on Identica said he couldn’t understand how it could be so quiet that not even a leaf shuddered while his friend in [[Tujunga]]* was reporting trees being felled.

Here in [[Portola Hills]], living in a canyon mouth is like living at the top of a windpipe except there is no inhale just exhale. Everyone is miserable. Eyes sting from the dryness of the atmosphere. The dog coughs and sneezes. I give thanks for Benadryl at night and in the morning.

I blink my eyes and rest. If I gave in to the impulse to move about, I would be vibrating like a tin buzz toy. I’ve already seen my mood get the better of me, though fortunately my meds are strong enough to keep me from letting a misunderstanding in chat turning into a flame war. Behind that one is the stress of the election, my other major trigger.

So now, with Obama ten points ahead of him, McCain announces that he has the Democrat where he wants him and declares himself the underdog in the race, ignoring the fact that more often than not underdogs lose anyways. He is not only an underdog, but also the abysmal status quo with no new ideas for fixing things. That and the memory of his months of negative campaigning will stay with him until the end of the race.

Still there is a certain drama. Some Obama supporters think that this is too good to be true. Most keep up the march of steady phone calls to battleground states. I find this hard, especially when the Obama campaign assigns me to root out supporters in Lovington, New Mexico, in the heart of unthinking-conservative cattle country.

After several calls where I was abruptly cut off as soon as I said the word “Obama”, I had had it. When one woman answered for her husband “War nawt far Obama har”, I told her “I’ll pray for you” and hung up. My wife declared that that was enough so I let her finish the last four calls on my list.

All this has left me with a steel cable of tension running up the back side of my neck. These are Xanax moments, though it is much too late in the day to take one because I have to drive to a support group tonight. So I elect to take a break from the news of the day and just trust that there are enough others to keep working the phones for Obama. A letter to the Orange County for Obama mailing list that I sent asking for things to do that didn’t involve phones or knocking on doors went unanswered. Those seem to be the only things that they want right now, so I am on extended coffee break, watching as the winds wear new grooves in the plain dirt and in my frazzled moods.

* That’s pronounced tuh-HUHN-ga. Just like it’s spelled. 🙂