… but it’s true.  In spite of all of my cynicism, my loathing of party politics and mistrust of political discourse generally, I can say this:

I’m proud of my country.  I hold the things I love to very high, at times perhaps unattainable, standards.  With this election, for the first time in my adult life, we exceeded my expectations.  We’re better than I thought we were.  I’m not so deluded as to think things will be easy, or that the world will look dramatically better 4 years from now, but I have hope.  And that’s worth something…

as I leave San Francisco this morning, heading back to my improbable home in, I suppose ironically, Loveland, Ohio.  I’m eager to take a break from travel for a few weeks, but these past few trips have been time well spent, I think. 

As I left my hotel room this morning, I heard on the news that Dow futures were down over 550 points.  My understanding of what that means is nothing more than intuitive, i.e., people are selling off elswehere, so one can reasonably assume people are going to sell off here when the market opens, driving prices still lower and continuing to make investors miserable.   I’m convinced we’d all benefit if the media just stopped paying attention to this for a while.  Oh well - no original thinking there.  I hear the same thing every day from so many people.  We’re all just so collectively exhausted by anxiety.  Everyone is looking for a reason, any reason, to be sincerely optimistic.  I’m sure the reasons are there, but for some reason I guess we’re just too predictably engaged with watching this steaming pile of wreckage that is “the market”.  It sells papers, drives up TV ratings, and gets people putting their chips on any empty promise of change and hope. 

I’m going to start investing less emotional energy in these things beyond my control, and really devote myself to cultivating the things that really matter.  There are plenty of reasons all around me to be excited, grateful, and committed to improvement.  Speaking of which – I’m going to publish this post and get in line to see if I can get my seat changed.  I’m in a middle seat for this 5 hr flight.  No thank you!!!

So much to do, and so little progress in getting any meaningful part of it done.  I hate this feeling.  The sensation, cliche, but descriptive, that time is like a river, carrying me towards the end of me, the end of everything I’ll know.  And it’s accelerating.  There’s time to notice less and less of the detail, and the inevitability of direction feels increasingly apparent.  Still, the journey has its moments, and they really can be amazing.

Feeling lazy.  Struggling to come up with a witty title for this post.   As usual on a Sunday night, I’m camping out on the couch, with Bug snoring beside me, mildly annoyed that my lap is occupied by this computer instead of her snoozing bulk.

I’m off to San Fran for work this week.  I love that city, but short trips to the west coast are exhausting.  Dreading two days consumed by travel, boarding the dogs, and the inevitable backlog of work that will pile on in my absence, I can’t help but be especially sensitive to the passage of time tonight.  It will be like after blinking my eyes, it will be next Friday.  Another week down.  Another week closer to Casey’s wedding in November.  Another week closer to the holidays, and holiday travel.  Before I know it, it’ll be 2009. 

Hopefully, retail will have a better holiday than everyone fears.  I’m looking forward to all of this economic gloom and doom getting dialed down a bit.  It’s been an obsessive behavior for me for weeks now.  Checking my company’s stock, reading what the analysts have to say, hoping for the best, trying to stay optimistic.  After just a few years in retail, you realize how incestuous the industry is.  Moreso at Limited Brands than where I am now, so many people spend a few years here, a few years there, bouncing around the country from retailer to retailer.  Now, I feel compelled to keep track of so many companies, hoping for the best for friends and colleagues who have landed at different places.  Some would argue that we’re all fighting for “share of wallet”, and that, as a zero-sum game, it’s in my best interest that other retailers continue to spiral downward.  I don’t think I buy that.  I want to see same store sales up across the board.  I want my competitors to do well, and my employer to do better.  I want this Christmas to feel like a scene from Miracle on 34th Street, for people to stop worrying, and for lots of companies to see an unexpected positive bounce, so we can start next year with confidence that things are really looking up.

I’m tired, and I’m digressing, I know.  No rhyme or reason to this post at all.  Just feeling time race by.  Bella just farted, and, for those of you who have spent time around bulldogs, you’ll understand why I, for fear my laptop may ignite an inferno that could be seen from space, say good night

I’m writing this on my new Acer Aspire One.  This thing rocks.  2.1 lbs, 120 Gb hard drive… perfect for what I’ll use it for.

Anyway, I’m sitting on the couch, playing with my new toy, seriously loving this little bulldog curled up beside me, with her head on my lap.  She’s snoring softly, which is making me even sleepier than I already was.  Something about her brings me a special kind of peace that I just don’t seem to be able to find otherwise.  Things are challenging, at the moment.  There’s a sadness, and a loneliness, that settles over me sometimes, and there have been days when the dogs have really pulled me out of a deep and enduring gloom.  I know that it’s important that I remain grateful.  So many things in my life are better than I ever imagined they could be.  I love and am loved.  There is little standing between me and my dreams.    Everything’s going to be better than OK, I know.  All I have to do is listen to Bella’s quiet snore, and let that peace return to me. 

I thought this quote from Jim Cramer was interesting (http://seekingalpha.com/article/98704-cramer-dow-could-drop-another-14-oil-s-going-to-50?source=side_bar_long_ideas): “And while any president will be an improvement over the current one, there is a growing belief on Wall Street that Barack Obama has the capacity to lead us out of this wilderness while John McCain does not. I’ll go a step further: Obama is a recession. McCain is a depression”

NEVER would’ve thought we’d hear that from a finance guy.

This CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria (of Newsweek) reassured me that my views are not so unique, and that people smarter than me are saying many of the same things.  I think his words reflect my concerns very well.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/29/zakaria.sarah.palin/index.html 

Those who know me know I’m a man of strong opinions.  Some would say I think too much, at times teetering on the edge of clinical obsessiveness.  Notwithstanding my previous post about hating politics (which I do), I feel compelled to write this.  Please, please, for whatever reason, vote for Barack Obama.  Do it because you love me, as a selfless act.  Do it because you hate me, and it is most likely against my economic interests.  Do it because you respect me, and take my word for the fact that I’ve processed an overwhelming amount of information about both candidates and that this is very much a reasoned conclusion by a guy with a high IQ.  Just do it.  Please.  For the love of God, or Jesus, or Allah, or country, or peace, or reason, or intelligence, or even self.  Please.  I’m literally begging you.   This is that important.

I respect people of faith, provided they respect reasonable people who don’t share their faith.  If you sincerely care about god or faith or other people at all, please vote for Obama.  If you care about your children, or the children of others; vote for Obama.  If you like puppies, or kittens, or fish, or birds, or even unicorns, please, please vote for Obama.  Know that, if unicorns were real, Palin would shoot them with high-powered rifles from the air.  Seriously.

Please don’t convince yourself that you “identify with her”.  You don’t.  You’re smarter.  You’re likely more qualified to be Vice President.  Whether man, woman, child, or carniverous houseplant, you likely pose less of a threat to the greatest things about this country.  But you weren’t picked, because you never had the opportunity to have a 5 minute conversation with McCain.  I’m sorry.  I wish you had that conersation.  If you were on the ticket instead of her, I’d likely not be writing this post. 

 I’m not infatuated with Barack.  I’m not confident he has all the answers.  I disagree with large parts of his agenda.  It doesn’t matter.  Palin must not be put in a position where she could be the President of the United States.  She is George Bush in drag.  This is not elitism.  This is not an inappropriate attack.  She is not smart enough.  She is not reflective or thoughtful enough.  She does not have the experience to lead this country.  She would be an embarassment.  The fact that John McCain chose her, and is willing to risk the future of the United States of America by putting her that close to the Oval Office raises terrifying questions about his judgment. 

 I don’t know what I’ll do if they win this election.  I really don’t.  I don’t want to give up on democracy, but if “we” as a nation screw up this badly again, I’ll be devastated.  I’ll be convinced that we live in an anti-meritocracy, and I may become that which I currently despise – blindly self-interested.

OK. I’ll stop for now.  I mean it, though.  Barack.  Please. It’s important.

Yep.   It’s true.  I think it’s all lies and misinformation, and it’s actually starting to piss me off.  I tend to lean pretty far to one side of the political equation.  (I’d like to think it’s obvious which side.)  Still even my “team” disappoints me pretty consistently.  I don’t believe in any of them.  I want to, but I just can’t.  Living in Ohio, I get hammered with the worst of the worst political commercials.  From ridiculous claims that Barack Obama is somehow tied to domestic terrorism that took place when he was a child, to equally useless accusations that a successful man like John McCain should be faulted for not wanting to make an inaccurate statement about how much real estate he has in his portfolio.  None of this matters.

Things are bad.  I’ve enjoyed more privilege and opportunity than anyone deserves, and even I feel the bite of the economy.  Filling up my Porsche with Ultra Premium really hurts.  I joke – but there’s sincerity here – I do pretty well, and even I’m nervous.  I’m nervous for my parents, for my sisters, for my friends.  I’m skittish that, even with the lucky breaks I’ve had, a prolonged sour economy will reduce my opportunities for advancement, and limit my abilities to achieve the lofty goals I’ve set for myself.  And I haven’t heard a single thing from either candidate that gives me the faintest sense that they’ll make things better.  I sense less and less honestly behind their rhetoric (and I never sensed all that much of it from the get-go), and I feel increasingly disaffected.  I’m angry, and I’m frustrated.  And I just don’t see when or how things are going to improve.  If one of these candidates could make me believe, I’d be all-in.  To be fair, I think the system necessitates their moral compromises.  I just don’t believe that someone can reach the presidency on a reasoned platform, communicated clearly and honestly, from a position of unfaltering integrity.  People (read: voters) are just too short-sighted, selfish, or simple for that to work.  So I get to watch these awful commercials, with increasing frequency, for months to come, and then vote for the person I deem the lesser of two evils.  God Bless America.