Day 364- The things you miss from the motorcade

Dear Mr. President,

Tonight when I got on the bus to go home the driver saw the book in my hand and said "The two highest compliments I get from any one who rides my bus is falling asleep and reading." He said he'd try to drive smoothly so I'd have an easier time with it. I've never seen this bus driver before (or, maybe I have and, like so many bus riders let my eyes slide past him without committing anything to memory) so I don't know if he enjoys his job or hates it, if he's gay or straight, republican, democrat or anarchist. The only thing I know about him is that he is kind and approves of my two favorite activities (sleeping and reading) and seemed to approve of me, as well. This remark buoyed my work-weary and cold little spirit, a small kindness that made my whole night a little brighter.

Lately my friend's trip home for the holidays has made me the temporary owner of a car. The freedom that comes with this is incredible; I can drive where I want to go without concern for route or schedules or fare or transfers, I can play music and sing (badly) as loud as I like, I can transport really amazing amounts of groceries. But I usually wind up angry at the rest of the drivers on the road, drivers who go too slowly or break rules or don't use turn signals. While riding King County Metro doesn't always give me hope for humanity- smelly drunks, screaming children, twitchy addicts and the general impoliteness of high school kids in large numbers are just a few of mankind's shortcomings I've been known to complain about- I do at least have to keep my anger to myself, as we're not all insulated by our little glass and metal vehicular bubbles. Reluctantly, often grudgingly, I connect with people on the bus; from the young aspiring DJ asking for my number (and mistaking my right-hand ring for a wedding band when I said no) to the tiny girl playing peek-a-boo with pink plastic beads in her fuzzy braids, to the old man who wanted to discuss international humanitarian law after seeing my textbooks, I find myself having conversations, interactions or observations of strangers every time I ride the bus. I think that, even at its most tedious, riding the bus leaves me feeling a little more connected to my community.

While I will continue to take advantage of Eric's car as long as he lets me, I think I will forever be a bus rider rather than a car owner. This isn't just because I can't imagine attaining the financial security necessary for car ownership in a city, or even because of my environmental objections to frequent driving, but because I think relying upon the bus keeps me from isolating myself behind my ideas of other people and forces me to observe and interact with individuals of ages and backgrounds I might never otherwise encounter. I'm surely romanticizing the entire experience (and will laugh at this, the next time I'm crammed into a standing-room only commuter route through the tunnel with eight teenagers blaring music through their headphones or a crazy crackhead lighting up in the aisle) but for now I'm smiling to myself at the kind words of an old man who approves of me, even if he doesn't know a thing about me, not even my name, except that I read on busses.

Mr. President, I know this seems like a strange thing to tell you on the second to the last night of my year of letters to you, but I started this project for a number of reasons and among them was this; I wanted to share with you the only thing I can offer that no one else can, and that is the small experiences of my average existence. You will probably never ride a public bus again, especially not as a stranger, and so I like to imagine that you might find some value in the story of a girl, feet aching from work and caught in a surprise cold front without a coat, boarding a city bus and being thanked just for doing the thing she loves most. That you might understand why such an experience matters. Maybe it's just the optimistic holiday spirit sweeping me up, but tonight I think the world is not so bad. I hope you think so, too.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 263-Prime Rib

Dear Mr. President,

The first time I heard Lady GaGa's music, I was with my best friend. While our upbringing has made us proud indie-rock lovers prone to asserting that our fandom predates a band's national popularity, we've always had a weak spot for catchy dance music. Lady GaGa's attempts to market herself as a redefinition of what is beautiful annoyed me, to be sure, (skinny blonde girls have, to my understanding, been thought beautiful for most of human history,) but I remained an unrepentant fan of her music. Today she gave a speech protesting Don't Ask Don't Tell, entitled "The Prime Rib of America". I think that a celebrity using her fame to humiliate three members of the US Senate into possibly changing their support of a bigoted policy is better than having a tabloid-splashing public breakdown à la Lindsey Lohan, Brittany Spears or Amy Winehouse. (Which, of course, isn' to say that Lady GaGa has to choose; her mugshot may yet grace Perez Hilton's homepage.) Our culture's fascination with celebrity is not unique to the modern era, nor is it unique to America. It seems, unfortunately, that the human condition requires our bizarre worship of the beautiful and famous. I would imagine that many celebrities would gladly return to the freedom of anonymity, the ability to walk down the street without make-up and not worry about being photographed. The ones who at least make enough peace with their fame to try and do some good with it are admirable.

While GaGa's speech wasn't exactly the Gettysburg address, it had moments of poignancy that I hope the people mocking her heard. The Senate Amendment to repeal DADT is currently too close to call- it seems that not a single republican can be found willing to put morality and justice above party loyalty. Should the 41 Republicans continue to hold to the threat to filibuster, I think the Democrats ought to make them. Make them filibuster a hateful, archaic policy based on a dying prejudice. Make every single Republican member of the Senate talk until they fall over with exhaustion for the sake of denying American soldiers their rights. And broadcast every second of it. Because I think the contrast between a gorgeous American popstar standing up and asking her country to live up to its promise and the Republican members of the Senate trying to perpetuate bigotry and intolerance would make for some great pre-election television.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 250- Internet connections

Dear Mr. President,

In recent months I have cautiously forayed into the realm of internet dating sites in an attempt to get past an increasingly long string of failed romantic endeavors. For better or worse, meeting people online has introduced me to several interesting and intelligent men I would never have otherwise encountered. That I connect with them initially through the internet doesn't bother me, though it makes several of my friends uncomfortable. I do understand the inherent risk, and also the capacity for deception, that goes along with any virtual communication. I've been chatting online since the early days of AOL, I've had livejournal accounts, myspace and facebook pages, and now I have this blog, which often consumes a considerable amount of my time and energy. I have friends I met online who I have never spoken to in person, and friends I met online who became friends outside of the internet, and more than a few friends who I relate to differently online than I do in person. (I do not tweet. I'm sure, in time, I will succumb to it, but for now it is the one craze I have yet to find any interest in.) Because so much of my time is spent on the internet, I'm inclined to disagree with those who discount any communication, interaction or relationship that occurs online as inauthentic. I have been lied to online, but I have also been lied to by people I love who look me in the eye when they lie to me. I think any interaction with another human requires a certain amount of faith and results in a certain amount of disappointment, regardless of where or how that interaction takes place. The person I am online, the person who writes these letters and rants about the issues that matter to me and who even sometimes speaks in humiliatingly bad blank verse that should be kept to myself, is just as much of who I am as the person you'd encounter if you met me. Words I say are not any more authentic than words I type.

Every now and then, however, I encounter online behavior that really makes me question the dichotomy of our actual selves and our online selves. The NRCC aide who posted home addresses for a Democratic candidates staff on Twitter, for example. Would this man have gone on Television and announced the home addresses of these other staffers? Would he have shouted them out at a rally? Furthermore, is such irresponsible behavior the product of the internet's illusion of anonymity or is this a reflection of the aide's true nature? Some politicians don't seem to have this problem. Vice President Biden, for example, surely is more likely to exercise restraint when he writes something online, (perhaps giving him the chance to consider if "big fucking deal" is really the descriptive phrase most appropriate.) I have no doubt that Sarah Palin's speaking style lends itself well to the 140-character limit and fluid spelling laws of Twitter, which is why her tweets sound (marginally) more coherent than anything she's ever said in an unscripted TV interview. If I could not hide behind the screen of my laptop, or easily revise my words, would my letters to you be different?

At the end of the day I don't think it matters if one version of me is more real than the other. So much of our interaction now takes place or relates to the internet that whatever distortion of personality or character it may create is irrelevant. I am accountable for my actions, just like the men I meet online or the friends I chat with online or the politicians who campaign online. While your campaign may have successfully used the internet as a means to connect with a younger generation of voters, that no longer seems to be the case. You once posted on DailyKos, your campaign's organizing efforts were legitimately grassroots and unique. Now it seems like the same generic intern-composed junk mail in my inbox day in and day out. It seems like you've cut out the blogging community and limited e-mail communication to re-worked versions of the same request for money. The authenticity is lacking, not because it's the internet, but because the efforts are stilted and hollow. Once, you seemed to understand the power of connecting with the voters through any media. You can reach so many voters online if you're willing to expend the same kind of personal energy that you do in campaign speeches or town hall meetings that reach only those lucky enough to live in a targeted area. Other members of your administration seem to be using the internet as an effective means of communicating with Americans; I hope that you reconsider your own efforts to ease the enthusiasm gap on the left in time for the election. A little sincerity could go a long way.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 220-Inception

Dear Mr. President,

By now I feel like the last person in the country to see the movie Inception. This is probably not the case, and I don't often feel comfortable writing to you about pop culture, but this is slightly less inane than knowing who snookie is, I think. Movies, like any art, make me feel things. Love, Actually or Pride & Prejudice still make my skeptic's heart believe in the possibility of a true and lasting love. Star Wars still inspires my childish dreams of heroics and adventure. Being moved by these experiences may be temporary or even contrived, but I still enjoy it. Which brings me to Inception, a film that asks the viewer to question the nature of reality.

When I was a little girl I often wandered into empty rooms, looking for a place to be alone. I would lie down, close my eyes, and imagine the whole massive, complex world, and then the whole span of history (which, at that age, I could barely conceive of as anything more specific than immense.) I would feel so small that I would cease to exist. An impulse at the back of my mind suggested that this meant I did not exist. How could I, a girl of exactly no consequence, be real? A girl of only a few years, with no apparent purpose or significance? It was, on the whole, a preposterous notion. I wondered how I had ever thought that it was possible to have my own place in the infinite. Once I had finally reached the point of truly doubting if I could exist at all, I'd open my eyes. I don't recall if I enjoyed more the feeling of oblivion or the reassurance of my own senses. I recall reading once that the great Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had such an extreme egocentric view of the world as a child that he insisted his classmates did not exist unless he was around. Allegedly, one day when he was home sick, the class came to visit him to prove that they still existed without him there. When I read this I wondered if my own obsession with existence and nonexistence was somehow a variation on this.

Don't worry, I'm not going to try to convince you that we're all dreaming. Actually, while watching Inception, I couldn't help but think about foreign policy and the different ways we perceive our own nation in relationship to every other nation. Are we in a constant state of war, guns drawn and fingers on the trigger, enemies pausing only because of the size or number of weapons pointed back? I think some people must see the world that way, and I don't know that I can necessarily disprove their version of reality. As for my view of the world I see the way that those in power use violence and, more often, fear of violence to keep those without power believing that the enemy speaking a foreign tongue is much more threatening than the system telling people to be afraid. I don't know that any one could prove or disprove this reality, either. I can believe, all I want, but I can't convince others to share in my reality. I wonder if this is why we tend to reject evidence or information supporting politicians or policies we ideologically oppose. If my younger self was dwarfed, not by the number of people that had ever lived, but by the number of contradicting realities that must simultaneously exist to make them all right. Does my conviction about the state of reality do more harm, than good? Should we all give up these differences in perception and agree to live in the same world? Which one? Who decides?

Ok, this is perhaps venturing too far into theory for me to be really comfortable with its relevance. I experience this sensation too rarely these days, and I don't often get to the movies, so forgive me, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts. I wonder, does being President make it hard to distinguish between the office and your self, at times? Do you find yourself perceiving or reacting to things differently, as President, than you might have as just Barack Obama? Is there a single paradigm shift that you think is in order for the American people or for the American government, by which I mean, If you could change the way this country collectively perceives something, what would it be? For me, I would change the way we perceive our own isolation. I would have us see ourselves more clearly in strangers and better understand how the harm and injustice and exploitation we perpetuate, even through apathy, comes back to directly affect our own existences. But that's enough philosophy, for now. I want to lie in bed, close my eyes, and, just for a moment, doubt that any of us exist at all.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 189- Anonymous

Dear Mr. President,

After an inexplicable night of insomnia, I found myself awake at 5am. Bird song, and the early first light were too tempting to pass up, so I donned my running shoes and went for a jog. The city was empty. Skyscrapers on the horizon were just beginning to reflect the pastel light of the rising sun, which was still competing with street lamps for dominance. Crows dotted the wires of telephone poles, the lines of the intersection on the empty road, and scuttled away from me in the park. It was the perfect morning, warm, but only beginning to hint at the oppressive heat that would rule the rest of the day. After I got tired, I walked for a ways, read the newspaper on a bus bench, and watched the city begin to wake up. I've never been a morning person, so this voluntary predawn excursion seemed to signal something deeply wrong. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was an indication that I've finally overdosed on 90's sci-fi television. Maybe I was just restless for the expansive luxury of an empty city street.

Then I saw the interview you gave with an Israeli journalist. Your answer to the question about what parts of your old, pre-white house life that you missed, struck a chord with my strange morning excursion. You miss going for walks, being anonymous, experiencing the world in private. This freedom, which I take for granted, most days, is the steep price of your office. I am often overwhelmed and frustrated by my invisibility, my smallness, my inability to affect change. I have not often stopped to consider the benefits of this anonymity; the peace of insignificance. When one is as alone in the world as I often feel myself to be, it is hard not to envy some one like you.

You also spoke of Jerusalem, of walking through the streets of the old city. Even reading your words in the simple light of my laptop screen, I could almost see the affection that compels them. Every one I speak to, young, old, Israeli, Palestinian, American, every one I know speaks of Jerusalem this way. It is why I dislike hearing it referred to as "The Holy Land." It is not about the shrines or the churches or the mosques or the synagogues. It is not about the dead men who died so that others could die for it, or who died trying to take it away from the people who died to take it away from the people before them. It is about the living. The sounds of the old city markets, the smooth stones in the street, the punishing sun brought low at sunset, spilling a softer, more forgiving light across the palm trees and the balconies and the minarets and the satellite dishes. The clothes that dry on lines, the foods that cook on street corners, the hum of so many people in one place. It is the same beauty, perhaps, of every city, but made all the more precious by the great powers that have battled for it in the background of its entire life. The life in this city, not the history or the blood spilled, but the mundane, anonymous, boring life is what makes it so beautiful. These things that cannot often be found in briefing books, or, as you've sadly reminded me, practically anywhere in the lives of those in power. I am glad to know you still remember it, and while I am grateful that you've given up that part of your own life for this service to our country, I hope that one day you are again able to walk in the old city, or in any city, and feel anonymous, even if it is only for a moment.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey