Falling Back, Stumbling Forward

For some people, the end of daylight savings time means an extra hour of sleep. For me it means staring at the ceiling, wide awake, waiting an extra hour for Starbucks to open.

As if to herald the coming darkness, my backyard was strewn with leaves this morning, leaves that only yesterday were on the trees. I turned on the television, though, and nothing had changed. The polls say blue, the polls say red, depending on whom you ask. Even if you don't ask. I opted for tennis. Nothing new there, either, except Federer and Djokovich are far easier on the eye than your average politician or pundit.

Speaking of darkness... I admit I've been worried about the upcoming election.  Not just about the real possibility of the House staying red, but about the equally real possibility that it will go blue. What if it goes blue, but the dysfunction remains the same? Reading my mind, I think, a Starbucks buddy informed me that you don't have to be a member of the House to be Speaker of the House. I was skeptical, especially when he told me he remembered learning it in college. He's even older than I am, and I remember nothing.

It's true, though. We verified it on his phone. My buddy planted a happy thought in my head on this gray November morning, the idea that there is an infinite pool of candidates for the job. Hmmm. Obama? Biden? Oprah? One of my really smart friends? A girl can dream, can't she?

Come to think of it, I do remember something from school, back in the day. Pyrrhic victory. A victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. It was my fear for Hillary, and it's reared its dark head, again. Especially these days, when politics has become less about doing good than about pointing fingers. Especially these days, when things seem so broken it would take a miracle to fix them. Mere mortals would fail. Average politicians will fare far worse.

Back to the leaves. They had fallen, but they were still bright and colorful, not yet crunchy enough to disintegrate beneath my feet. And I can still occasionally remember something I learned in school, even if it's useless. There's hope.