barack the vote

Had a great time at the "Barack the Vote" party in Central Park. I had signed up to help set up, and they actually had a lot of people and not enough to do, so I ended up helping a T-shirt vendor unfold his shirts. He told me he travels all over, and he had been in Denver at the convention. I asked him about the protesters with bullhorns and he said yes, they were a pain in the ass. They stood right behind the vendors screaming at the crowds, which cut way down on business because no one wanted to stop. I told him I had heard about that on the radio, which surprised him. I told him they interviewed one vendor who started telling people, "Buy a shirt, go to hell!" He thought that was hilarious.

I was feeling a little guilty about "volunteering" to go to a party, and thought maybe I'd duck out after setup and go to the north Durham phone bank instead. But I ended up working the volunteer signup table for a couple of hours, and that was great. So many people signed up, everyone was so enthusiastic. And you know what, I deserve to go to one event that's easy and fun.

There was a bake sale to raise money for Durham for Obama, and Georg bought me an "O-muffin" which was really a cupcake. I really like the Durham for Obama t-shirt design, and I need another Obama shirt (I only have one, which means doing laundry pretty often) but they don't sell ladies/girl sizes, just men's. They also had really cute knit skirts made out of the t-shirts, and I thought about buying one, but $40! Kind of steep. Durham for Obama didn't get my money today.

One thing that was kind of funny to me was the people who came up and said they really want to volunteer, but won't canvass, won't do voter reg, won't make phone calls. I signed them up to do data entry, and would say something encouraging like, "While you're at the office doing data entry, you'll see people there making phone calls, and you'll see that it's not that hard." Nobody seemed the least bit persuaded by that, but I had to try. And maybe it will be true for some of them.

There was a field organizer sitting next to me at the table, and I heard him tell a group of people that the thing they need most right now is voter registration in neighboring rural counties. Which made me glad that I went to Roxboro last week. I'm going to try to get up to Henderson one day this coming week.

After the event Georg and I walked over to Piedmont for dinner. I had spinach ravioli with lemon and currants, wonderful. Now we're hanging out and watching America's Next Top Model. Maybe I'll do a crossword puzzle.