Likably Neurotic

Tonight I must read something for four minutes in front of strangers in an art gallery. I'm trying to find something of mine that I like, and that makes me appear likable and not as neurotic as I usually feel, and since I've left this until the last minute on a day when I have a ton of other crap to be doing-- and I'm blogging instead of applying myself to the task of finding something to read-- the odds of achieving this non-neurotic sheen are plummeting.

Not helping things: I didn't get much sleep last night because Pants came in from two late flights and stayed up late watching movies to ramp down his adrenaline output before crawling in bed with me, at which point he felt like talking, and playing with the cat, and poking me, and muttering about P. the Roomie's tempestuous girlfriend who had just called P. moments before to start a fight. This was hours ago, but my time line has smeared together with a late, rushed shower and bad coffee and a morning commute through a muffling curtain of the valley's famous fog.

Also: I'm disturbed that Hillary Clinton's getting a bad rap, and that I waited too long to apply for absentee voting in Texas. I'm also a little befuddled at being so obviously out of step with my demographic, who talk about Barak Obama in messianic tones. I like the guy, and I'll vote for whomever the Democrats nominate, but I can't help feeling like this is one of those cultural moments for my generation that's just going to pass me by. Like that show "Saved By the Bell"? Everyone my age watched that show and loved it, and I never saw an episode until I was in my 20's and to say that I couldn't understand its appeal is way undershooting it. As I get older I get more boring. I know this. I just read a whole book about the American way of compartmentalizing nature and how it contributed to the history of nuclear testing in Nevada, and there were looooong passages of historical and scientific digression. But I'm starting to like reading the fine print and teasing apart an issue's convergent factors and seeing what's pulling on what. I feel like Clinton's speeches reward that kind of digging and Obama's not so much, though I've got to love his from the writer's love of language perspective.

Speaking of digging and making plans and not getting distracted by pretty words, I need to fins something to read tonight...