Drinks With Doug

My Plate Overflows

Saturday's weather: Moist heat topping out around 95 with very few clouds to hide the sun. This is the brick oven that is DC summer.
Saturday's drink: home-made limeade with lots of ice.
Saturday's link: This story published in Esquire genuinely disturbed me. I'm no fan of the writing style, I have serious questions about some of the attribution and shifting perspective in this piece, and I'm not sure it does much more than stare dumbfounded into the grave of this messed-up guy. But it hit nearly every empathy button I have.

I got my first fundraising letter from Barack Obama in the mail this week. It's still unopened, sitting in a pile of other unopened mail. Nearly everything else in said pile are bills or some-such. You can see the reason for not opening those. But a donation request? Why not just open it or toss it in the bin and be done with it?

I supposed because I'm not done yet with this winter's politics. Specifically the way the contest played out between Obama and Clinton. And even so, that already ended, I'm not done yet with how Sen. Obama is playing out the general election campaign. Mostly: I'm confused which former Great Man are we to liken him with?

With JFK, for his youth, charisma, appearance of great health and beatific family? With RFK, with whom he shares a great talent to mobilize youth and from whom he constantly borrows inspirational themes and rhetorical flourishes? With Dr. King, for leading a people to the promised land and - just in case we didn't get it - delivering his acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of said speech by said Great Man? With Reagan (whom I don't consider 'great' in goodness by, sadly, in stature and effect on the nation's direction), for his boundless optimism in American Exceptionalism and ability to face down our existential threats (and again, should we not get it) in what will undoubtedly be a Berlin speech where he will exhort against those who build walls of intolerance (get it?) and praise those who tear those walls down?

Which one is it, Senator? Because surely you can't believe that it's them all...and more. Or can you? How many more echoes to other Great Men - FDR for pulling the nation from it's economic knees, Wilson for promoting internationalist policies, surely not Lincoln for binding up the nation's wounds? - will you build into your campaign? Why do think we need all this? And most troublesome: what exactly are you working so hard to prove?

I'm not hinting at all of possible vote directions this November. Perhaps this will be the year I cast a ballot for someone who actually wins the office. (Mondale, Dukakis, Perot, Nader, Gore, Kerry, if you must know.) Certainly with such a track record I can't think any candidate would want to try to win my vote. And remember, too: I live in the District of Columbia, so I might as well vote for Nelson Mandela or Oscar Wilde or Carrot Top for all the impact my voice will have.
But I am concerned. By someone who seems to be working too hard to convince us not to look behind the curtain, and by the frightening swoon some seem to be in. I do not want a leader who makes people swoon. I do not need to find inspiration and salvation in a politician. I just want them to be competent at running government, savvy at working the power levers, and honest in respecting our nation, our laws, our traditions and our voices.

None of which has anything to do with what this post was to be about: namely, my over-full plate. And I'm not just talking at Fogo de Chao this week! My pals J, M, L and I took our pal D out for a birthday feast, and feast we did. It's an old gimmick: set price gets you as much grilled meat and salad bar as you can stomach. But they pull it off. The meat selections range from good to extraordinarily good, and the waiters (don't tell me they're gauchos...I've met gauchos and these pretty things ain't it) practically hover over the tables, ready to carve you off a slice. D almost always has good birthday gatherings, and this was exactly that.

Less literally my time seems to evaporate before me. I have managed, for just a few weeks, to make a somewhat regular habit of going to the gym, which is having a felicitous if barely noticable (yet) effect. I'm making more time to read, often in the evenings before bed, and am trying hard to win 7 or so hours of sleep a night. But the days, well, they blur. I wake and roll out of bed and feed the dog and make the coffee and listen for the weather and I'm out the door to work, where there, too, it's so much the same thing day upon day. (The challenges there are stark: poor resources, fluctuating management, and confused direction.) Another Sunday mostly means another crossword puzzle (where did last week's go?) and another moment of wondering what I actually accomplished.

It's as though I wander endlessly in an all you can eat restaurant: giddy at first at the prospect, appreciative of the bounty, and yet...after a while...it's just one plate of food you can never finish. The boundaries dissolve; it's as though there was no beginning, will be no end. Nothing to start, no way to finish. And what, I wonder, is the meaning of a meal that has no end? It defies meaning; it's purposelessness made flesh. So it paints a picture of me in my life: seated at a table over-full of bounty but lacking purpose.

OK, perhaps I whine a little much. Whiner Nation! There's no debating an overfull plate is so much the better option than an empty one. I'm just not managing it well.

What to do? Yoga? Travel? Shut up and fish? Any ideas?