Here I am in class, and we’re discussing a hypothetical: Clinton had a lesbian love affair at Wellesley, you’re on an opposing team, what do you do? Leak it? Sit on it? Post it anonymously on a blog?

Quote: “Why not sit on it and wait until it can really strike a fatal blow?”

Why on earth is the election of a powerful world leader occasion to “strike a fatal blow”?

We talk in circles about how to get it out to the press anonymously, because no one wants to be seen as homophobic. Well then, don’t use it! Or perhaps I’m too strong a proponent of honesty, but I’d like to see someone slip it in the papers and have Clinton say, “oh, yeah, that’s right, I did have girlfriend once. It didn’t work out.” I’ve completely lost track of why on earth this is a relevant topic for discussion. When did the foibles of people’s private lives—and we all have them—become the basis of our decision to elect them?

I feel a bit like I’m drinking liquor from the bottle: it burns. It makes my head spin. It tastes awful.

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“I should,” I thought.
“I shouldn’t,” I thought.
“Yes, I should.”
“No, I damn well shouldn’t. It’s silly and self-indulgent.”

And so on.
Finally I thought: well, I really should, shouldn’t I? I’ve played and played and played with the idea for so long. I’ve even had several blogs, though they were never kept up with any great conviction. You might even say they were neglected (horrible me). The last time I started one I was about to go off on some big European adventure. Then, two posts later, I fell in love. And you know how that changes everything.

The man I fell in love with sent me a link to a friend’s blog, recently. I discovered that they aren’t actually self-indulgent (or don’t have to be). They’re quite cool, in fact. And, for someone who loves words, they’re the (mostly) youngster-friendly version of porn (they’re right…the internet really is rife with the stuff!). Even my mother keeps a delightfully not-self-indulgent blog. If someone 36 years my senior, who maintains a wonderfully generational ignorance about the world of technology, can do this, well, so can I.

And isn’t there a refrain about how writers should write a little, every day? What was that epiphany I had a few months ago—“I want to be a writer!” Sometimes we’re so stupid about ourselves. Why, I’ve known that since I could think. Yet I let myself talk myself out of it, over the years—and it did take years, to convince myself of that. All it took to remember myself was a few Sundays spent lounging in the garden drinking gin and tonics and doing the crossword. How lovely. So, if that’s really what I want (and it is, oh, it is!), I should write a little, every day. Whatever it takes. I’m behind the game—I spent much too much time, as so many of us do, thinking I wanted to do something else (play the political game, in my case…though how I would have survived, with all my scruples and GUILT, I can’t say).

So here we are. Off we go. Into the fray, I suppose…

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