Saved for Obama. Or your mother.

So since my last entry I've made my blog invite-only thanks to a long procession of drama.

I have 4 hours of extra instruction I have to do for running by myself Thanksgiving weekend. I was given (and accepted) the option to write a rebuttal, which I emailed to the unit leader. He won't be back in office until the 15th.

I have 12 hours of extra instruction and a $25 fine for an alcohol offense. Anyone who knows me (which is all of you, now that things are private) know that this is not at all the sort of thing that I would ordinarily be involved with. But because we have retardedly strict rules, the one sip I had in the housing is severely punished, while the teammates who stumbled in drunk that night but had nothing in the house itself are fine. Originally I was also told I wasn't a firefighter for spike round two-- effectively giving me a six-week delay on firefighting-- but this was rescinded.

They dismissed us from the over-the-phone disciplinary hearing in tiers-- the unpunished (Chris, Garrett, and Andrea), the "lightly punished" (Wendy and I), and the severely punished (Will, Aaron, Jeremy, and Haley). They were given 12 hours, $100 fines, and were kicked off of firefighting. Carmella, for being gone all weekend and playing dumb about the party, got only one punishment: not being a firefighting team leader for spike round two. This punishment was rescinded. I guess she got the displeasure of being chewed out, but I'll take that over a fine any day. I stormed out, angry I was punished so harshly, despite it being a first offense, despite my being the only sober person all weekend. I knocked over a ladder accidentally and was called back in, chastized by Barbara Lane, Region Director for my anger management problem and my authority issues. Great, now I'm a belligerent crazy person too. When I found out they broke up our team just after this, I ducked in the room where Carmella was on the phone with Barbara and Kevin Rumery and said, "I quit." We stared at each other silently for a few moments, and I walked out.

A half-hour later I changed my mind. She said it was too late; they bought a bus ticket and I was expected in Denver and was leaving tomorrow morning at 8:30am. I called Kevin, told him I changed my mind. He called Barbara and she said I could stay, but only if I paid the $150 ticket. Sigh. I agree, and Kevin hints that one of the reasons it went through so quickly may have been that Carmella was not sad to see me go. Surprise surprise.

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Fortunately Garrett, Will, Aaron and I made $230 in two days-- almost as much as I make in a month, now-- campaigning for Joseph Cao, congressman in an election delayed by Hurricane Rita. The democratic incumbent was caught with $90,000 in bribery money in his freezer and so a hard push was made to get him out of office. Apparently the election was narrowly won, and some of the districts we campaigned in were battleground districts that had huge jumps in voting just after my teammates and I worked them. Cool sensation, that your actions might have decided an election.

We learned of the job from our co-workers at Rebuilding Together. We worked three hours Friday night and made $50, went home and slept 5 hours and woke up at 3am. Chris joined us and we got back to the barbershop the campaign operated out of by 4am to work seventeen more hours and make $180. Like the twist ending of the movie, as we walk in to get our paychecks at the end of the night Saturday, in walks Kristen Palmer.

This lady, she runs the program we work for, Rebuilding Together New Orleans. She's on the board for the Preservation Resource Center, one of the power players in rebuilding the city. She is our boss's boss's boss. It does not get higher up than her. She gave us a really neat presentation on architecture in New Orleans when we first got here. We were a little surprised to see her, and a little afraid. But she walks in and hugs Wilma, this pleasant Southern lady who's been sending us driving 170 miles and walking god knows how many throughout the day. They insist we come to the party tonight. "Thanks For Volunteers Party," Wilma insists. "It's bad luck to say 'victory party.'" Given that she was about the nicest boss I've ever had and she paid for our lunch at an excellent, huge Chinese food/sushi/dessert buffet, and she says the party has free booze, we're considering. But we're getting tired. We decline.

On the drive home we change our mind. We hoped for an even $200 for Saturday and decided to make up for our lost money in alcohol. We get to the place for the party, the Palace Cafe, and it's a three-story, very classy restaurant downtown. Everyone's in suits, everyone's older than us. We're in our Joseph Gao t-shirts we've been wearing for two days. We are clearly underdressed. We move quickly to the small bar, the waiter in a dress shirt and bow tie. He has red and white wine and some bottled import beer. I opt for the red wine as Kristin comes over, dressed in earth tones, a 20's style flapper hat the same brown as her sweater and a cream shawl draped over her shoulders. "We feel out of place. Underdressed," I tell her.

"Don't be ridiculous, we need people like you here. Look at me, I'm underdressed too," she says earnestly. I don't buy it, she looks great. "This stuff doesn't get done without you guys, and you've got that hardworking look going on. It's fine," she insists. She's just a little drunk, she smiles and winks at me. The other guys are pretty quiet, slip off to drink. I finish my first glass of wine and grab another and Kristin continues to make conversation.

"I'm out of my element, I'm serious. I've never been to one of these high-class things with all these big names. All I know about this, I've picked up in the last two days," I tell her. She's happy to help. She starts pointing people out, leaning in and talking right into my ear over all the crowd-rabble. I have a hard time remembering the names, but one of the first people she points at is a guy with a huge nose and a little chin, balding. She says his name and says, "Fucking icon in this city-- Ugly as sin, though. His wife over there," she points, "She's a classy lady, always dressed to the nines." I remember Will, I think, mentioning that Kristin's apparently kind of a name in this city too, and I move to flatter. "From what I hear, you're kind of a fucking icon here too," I say. It works. She smiles, acts dismissive, but still elaborates. "I ran for office, but I didn't win-- it was a black neighborhood, but I came way closer than any white candidate ever did, because of my work, because they know me, and I help those communities out."

A Vietnamese man in a polo I remember from the barbershop approaches, thanks me for my work. It's Joseph Cao's brother from Texas, and he and Kristin talk about disaster non-profits and their lack of funding thanks to presidential decrees. She talks about her programs, and introduces me again, mentions that I'm volunteering for her. She gives another wink. "I worked seventeen hours campaigning today," I say with a grin. It becomes my standard opening line for the rest of the night. "I'm working for Rebuilding Together, but I'm part of Americorps." I explain Americorps briefly, and throw in that Bush wanted to cut our program completely but instead gave us a quarter our usual budget. Already I find myself playing the game, and Kristin's smiling away.

When the conversation ends Kristin says, "Almost everyone here's a Republican. Fuck the Republicans, but you've gotta play the game, you know? The budget's going to come up and now he's going to mention us when he talks to his brother, and that's that. It's all about these little connections--" Someone walks within earshot and she instantly conjures an easy smile and a greeting like that you'd give a close friend. "If you go to the dark side and go corporate it's even worse, the schmoozing you have to do. At least I still have my integrity," she assures me.

A few people talk to her, one of her standard lines is "Our kids should be carpooling together," and I stand peripheral, quickly learning my role: working boy accessory. She works people over well, and I'm having fun watching, participating. The wine helps, I'm smiling an earnest-looking smile, and I'm learning a lot about the secret charms and deals that go on here. She's a little drunker as the night goes on, and when the bar closes at 11:30 she says "What? Fuck this, that means it's time to go! Where's Wilma?"

We find her and she's drunk too, she hugs me and thanks me and introduces me to still more people. "Don't listen to Kristin," she says seriously. "You've done more for rebuilding the city this night than you could ever do in any of the rest of your time here." Kristin feigns upset and waves it off. "Not if we don't work to keep him here, we won't. He barely won, even in spite of Jefferson's garbage. Do you have a ride home?" She asks me. I'm really curious to see what they plan on getting up to for the rest of the night, but I tell her I do. She walks toward my team, all drinking together at a table in the back, thanks them for their work, says goodbye to me. I grin at them. I'm happy I've had a wildly entertaining night learning about political maneuverings. They're happy they've gotten free drinks. I realize that as far as I'm concerned, they've completely missed the point of the evening.

---

Last night I worked in a community center. Unable to help myself, the first thing I did was peruse the free bookshelf. Almost took a children's book on the myth of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. Some of us wrapped presents. Tuesday nights they serve free meals to the communities and we helped prepare it-- sort of. The cook was utterly self-sufficient and hilariously, charmingly rural. Talked about hating his time in the army and being drunk literally every day of his two years there Insisted he could cook perfect rice. We ended up serving the meals to sad-looking people. Undercooked, wet rice. Gravy with bits of hamburger broken up in it. Corn. I was very hungry until I actually ate it, and then realized I could barely get it down. The chocolate brownie mix with dried cherries and a powdered-sugar-based glazing made it tolerable.

I couldn't decide if it was hopeful or depressing. Some of the people who came for dinner just loved that a place like that existed, where they could get donated clothes, books, toys for their kids. Others never looked up from the floor, never said a word, battered clothing.

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I haven't run in five days and I'd really like to soon. This is my last weekend in New Orleans and I still haven't eaten at Cafe du Monde, haven't eaten alligator, haven't taken pictures of the old mausoleums or the collapsing houses covered in ivy. I still feel like I didn't get enough time to see New Orleans the way I'd like to have seen New Orleans. In five days I leave for Denver again. In eleven I'll be home and I'll get to see my family again (I'm excited to go home; I miss them). In fifteen days I'll see Kat again, whereupon I will be even further delighted. Right now, I have a lot of happy things to look forward to, and even though I was pretty angry and upset last week, I realize that I'm pretty happy right now.