It gets better right? Just tell me that it gets better.

This would be a good story if I were to write the book that I really want to write. Danny will ask how my writing is going and it is not going as well as it should be going. I should be a little more focused and yet I find myself in that awful place where I know exactly what I would like to write and yet I am unable to find all the words. I can see how the story and chapters will flow together and yet getting it on paper is the difficult part. It’s either that I’m busy and there is no time or a shiny piece of paper that catches my eye. I’m happy that I know where the story is and can see how it might come to pass but nothing comes.

Last Monday I went to Manhattan – the city of dreams – for an event. I was uncomfortable because I couldn’t breathe out of my nose* and because of the venue of the event and the way the crotch of my tights ended up in some precarious spot almost to the hem of my dress. So there were a lot of things going oh so wrong including my gait which looked something like someone shoved a stick up my ass.

So while I would have rather been at home – naked of course – I found myself somewhere I did not want to be. But I was all for making it the best it could be and the event space had limited cell coverage so I couldn’t even complain. There was a lot of sitting and loneliness and a sudden epiphany about a large part of my life. I am sitting here having this existential crisis (who am I? why am I on this Earth?) when a nice gentleman and his wife come and sit at my table.

It’s fine. I suppose. I am not one for talking to strangers but I took every ounce of energy that I had to converse with this man. He wanted to discuss the stimulus package and health care. So we chatted and he discovered that I am not a labor or economic analyst so I do not know why the stimulus didn’t work but I am sure that there are several conservative blogs who might have an excellent answer for you. Meanwhile the people across from us – a young, black high school male and an older gentleman who is a lawyer – are discussing how Yale might be better for ‘young black kids’ than Columbia. But I (attempt to) ignore.

A mutual friend came over to chat. We did some ribbing and bullshitting back and forth about whether or not I write adult porn on the Internet** and then our mutual friend left. Fine. Venture Capitalist (the man sitting next to me) and I continue chatting away about social media and why women aren’t all that involved in the health care debate. I tell him that a site I write for has had a great initiative during this health care debate to allow female bloggers – primarily moms – to ask questions of House and Senate members.

All of this sounds like very nice conversation right? Like why am I boring you with this story because it is all very normal and dare I say boring. But I haven’t gotten to the best part. The part where we are still having boring conversation but the conversation turns to Congress.

Venture Capitalist ask what got me interested in congress and I tell him the short story that when I was 11 I happened upon C-SPAN and got hooked. Since then I have wanted to be a member of congress and do not get me started at the way I was drooling while watching health care debate yesterday because it would have been so fucking awesome to have been there. He sits back and smiles at my congress love. You probably do not find such love and towards the House as you will find from me.

So he is still smiling at me broadly. He takes a sip of ice tea and turns to me still smiling. “You know…” he says “You should so it”

I smile back and shrug.

“No really, you should run for congress”

“…Perhaps” with another smile.

“You are very articulate for a young black woman you really need to run for congress”

“…..” I sip my water and in my mind the water has turned into a pint glass of Ketel One and there is this burning feeling on the back of my neck.

“You can obviously put together a thought and articulate an argument very well and we need more black women in congress”

“….” More water. Water that has yet to turn into vodka. I’m smiling so hard but my chest is pounding. Because what the fuck do you say to that? What is the proper response when someone tells you that you seem really fantastic for your race? Thank you? Do I shove my foot up his nose? What?

So all of this happens on top of everything else and now I’m holding a water glass like my life depends on it. I’m fucking squeezing the glass and my brain is moving readily trying to find a response. Nothing. My brain can come up with nothing. So I thank him. I then ask him to excuse me. He politely stands up and I leave the room. I don’t just leave for the bathroom but I leave the building.

I call Chris. I call my mother. And now that I have cell phone service I tell Twitter that saying that someone is great for their race, is NOT a compliment. I know that he wasn’t trying to intentionally be mean. I do. He was  trying to be nice but I am trying to do my job. I have worked my ass off to have the job that I have and it isn’t because I’m great for my race. It’s because I’m getting better at what I do. That is all. I don’t want to feel like I’m only doing something because I am black or young or female. I want to feel like I’m doing something because I have a brain. I want to feel like I am doing something because I went to a great school and I did what I had to do to get through college and to graduate with a resume that I could be happy with.

So yes, it’s funny. Funny in that way that the totally fucking absurd things in life can be hilarious. There was some laughing of course. It’s hard not to laugh when someone says something that makes your eyes bug out. And yet…I don’t know…I’m not hurt I’m just shocked. I’m shocked that people still say this and I am shocked that this isn’t the first time. What is that? You mean I never told you about how I was at a different event and someone told me that they needed me to move up to where the cameras could see me because they needed more ‘color’ up there? No? If nothing else I make an excellent young black woman and if you need a little diversity for your event then I can meet your needs.

*I am feeling much, much better. Thanks for asking.

**That is an entirely different story where someone assumed that I wrote ‘adult’ things on the Internet. He was disappointed to learn that I do not.

So I’m sitting here in the middle of watching this health care debate during which this total Lord of the Flies moment happens and I’m all “OH MY GOD! John Dingell is 80 fucking years old! Do NOT alarm him!” And poor John Dingell is banging the gavel and people are yelling over him and there’s Louise Slaughter who lives in Buffalo but has the most charming southern accent because she is from Kentucky. And so much is going on and there is so much passion on both sides of the aisle and I can understand that passion and all I can think is how much I would love to be in the House gallery today.

Anyway all of this is going on and I’m all emotional over this because I get emotional when it comes to the House of Representatives because I love the House of Representatives. And I’m watching this really difficult debate and I’m cringing. You all, I was cringing and yelling STOP at the laptop because I wanted for them to stop yelling over each other.

And then I got into a really dumb fight with someone over something that was stupid. I knew that it was stupid but all I wanted to do was bitch and yet I was made to feel shitty for bitching about something. So now I’m all upset and emotional over many stupid things and all of this is going on and while I should be caring about so many more important things sometimes the frustration spills over onto the tiny things.

Now I have this lump in my throat and I feel icky. So let’s fast forward to tomorrow when I will tell you an even better story about how I have been recovering from an incident that occurred in Manhattan last Monday. It’s a much better story and does have to do with Congress.

So how was your Saturday?

It’s bringing up a lot of past insecurities and anxieties and did I ever tell you about that time my mother was driving across the Delaware Memorial Bridge on my way to college and I sobbed, grabbed her arm and told her to turn around? No? Remind me to tell you about that someday. It was a pretty awesome

Yesterday I posted this over at BlogHer. I claimed that cream blush could clear you of your winter doldrums because it made you all glowy. Fuck that noise. It’s been ‘winter’ for five minutes and I’m already MEHHHHH about the whole thing. My only cure is the promise of vitamin D within the next few weeks. Santa Fe (do you know the way?) followed by Atlanta. And then it’s Christmas which does not produce vitamin D but does produce a stocking full of gummie bears. I think I can handle this.

This gives me chills. Even better, I wrote it and it gives me chills which is narcissism at it’s finest. I can’t believe it’s been a year. It feels like longer and less all at the same time. You all keep asking me how I feel about what’s been going on politically and that is a far longer piece of writing. One that requires a bit of soul searching and coming to grips with the reality of democracy. One the one hand I am a bit angry and perplexed by some of the behavior and on the other I cannot say that it’s not nice to live in a country where we are able to speak out and speak freely. It’s interesting to say the least. I’ll save the rest for later but for now read about that one day in November.

Today is Election Day and because I cannot breathe, I was unable to enjoy it with my normal exuberance. This means that I didn’t get all excited and flip between CNN and FOX News all day long. I didn’t wake up early and listen to NPR. I just didn’t care. So much of the tiniest joys in life are lost when you are sick. My most favorite day in the world is Election Day and I missed the thrill of democracy because I forgot to get Vick’s Vapo Rub.

***

Speaking of my cold; after I left you pretty people last night, I went to go play around with the Dooce Community (this is me) I poked around and followed some people and then I made a big leap and asked a question. I get nervous asking questions in any forum because growing up I was That Girl in class and so every question I asked was a stupid question. Now I just don’t ask questions.

(God, this is depressing. I cannot breathe and I don’t ask questions.)

Anyway, my question:

My nose is so stuffed up that I kind of want to cry. How do I fix this?

And you guys! People answered! And it was helpful. Most said the neti pot and then one person suggested steaming water and putting my face over it and adding a little apple cider vinegar. I tried that this morning and voila! I could breathe! Ever so briefly but still breathing is a great first step. A for effort!

***

NaBloPoMo is like a full-on commentary of what is going on in my head. So welcome, Internet, to my head. It’s cozy, right?

(Things will get more interesting later. There will be stuff later. Fun stuff. My favorite things type stuff)

If I renamed this site my choices would be:

www.Ican’tbreathe.com

www.oopstheregoesmylung.com

www.it’sbusinessclassnotthequietcar,asshole.com

www.openwide.com

www.articulateyoungandblack.com

www.wouldratherspitthanswallow.com

www.Ican’tswallowsoit’smoot.com

www.WINE.com

www.mehhhhh.com

www.creakydoornoise.com

www.noreallylookatmythroat.com

www.mouthbreathing.com

www.IwonderhowmuchtimeandmoneyIcouldspendatTarget.com

www.mycatpeedonthis.com

www.whereinthefuckingfuckismybed.com

That was an unexpected hiatus and just when I was ready to get back in the saddle again, I come down with a Man Cold. A Man Cold – for those of you unfamiliar – is much like a regular cold but with more whining, writhing, calling out for your mommy and begging Jesus to come take you away. I’m currently being propped up by a pillow (how else would I sit up? I haven’t the strength) with my head lolled to the side. Every so often I’ll reach over for the thermometer but my wooziness gets the better of me and so my head swings back nestled between the bars of my headboard and so on and so forth. There’s also much hacking and sounding horrible and having the powers at be (parents, superiors, Idris Elba if he hears my prayers) take pity on my poor, sickly soul.

And somewhere my mother is rolling her eyes and saying “GODDDDD”. And my father is barely paying attention to me and saying, “Mmm hmmm. That Eli sucks” with a deep southern drawal. So really now…you’ve missed nothing.

We interrupt these great NaBloPoMo posts of late to instead bring you an update on the whereabouts of our intrepid host. You see, originally she had plans to show you photos of the most delicious cupcakes she’s ever made in life or perhaps she was going to tell you about her utterly pleasant day that involved sitting around over a leisurely breakfast just chatting away and laughing her ass off and then an empty IKEA store for her to roam. But all of this was brought to a sudden halt when as she was about to tell you about kittens and rainbows she experienced the worst turbulence she has ever experienced in her life. Not to brag but I don’t know if you know that your host has flown across the Atlantic like 12 times. She’s flown between Europe and Africa and back again. She’s flown across the United States, never north but often south and not once has she ever had the pleasure of experiencing turbulence so bad that she didn’t know whether to curl up in the fetal position and accept her fate or vomit while going bumpity, bump, bump over the Delaware River. She quickly ceased with all writing and overuse of adjectives to grip white knuckled to her armrest with Baltimore so close yet so far away.

Hopefully we’ll hear from her tomorrow. After the nausea has subsided and she’s secured a train ticket back to her home 400 miles north. But for now we wait and hope that come morning she won’t exclaim fuck flying and decide on driving everywhere. Though if that is the case, how do you all feel about chipping in for a Subaru?