There is nothing that I want more than a restored faith in "middle America." Truly. And even in light of your admirable optimism, considering what we're dealing with here--that margin offered by the polls just isn't big enough to haul this weight.

If you had asked me two months ago how I thought Bush had managed to worm his way into a second term and ostensibly make fools out of the American people, I would have very sincerely answered that they were master manipulators of the truth. I would have said that numerous economic, geographic, cultural etc factors contribute to constrained access to information, and that were ALL Americans presented with the unfettered truth of the matter, at the very least, enthusiasm would have waned enough to preclude a 2nd term.

But I think I might have been wrong. McCain's team is no master of Rovian discourse. They're explicitly repeating myths, twisting syntax, shamelessly appropriating narratives without even the courtesy to at least draw the shades. It's plainer than plain can be.

It was indeed grossly cynical of McCain to choose Palin, but she is so profoundly unqualified, packed full of such nonsensical and condescending down-homisms, and truly no "supporter" of other women--what can possibly explain a difference between her and Biden that hardly dives below a handfull of points?

I can't help but wonder if maybe the GOP is right--if this is a nation full of rubes. If a terrifying anti-intellectualism is really at the heart of "Regular People." That scares me most of all because no matter who it is we end up electing, I don't see that sort of base dissolving with very much ease.

This is the thing. Okay.

Our friends, clueless schmucks they may sometimes be, are not really the ones to blame. It's us. This is the space we've created for ourselves.

By my early 20's, it dawned on me that I'd accumulated some real bloodsuckers along the way. All the same sorts of reasons established elsewhere around here. I tried to restructure those boundaries, but those relationships didn't really fit anymore and I would eventually end up letting most of them go.

I found new and really wonderful friends, people who inspired me and loved me sincerely and WANTED to listen, whom I knew would listen if I should ever take them up on it. I didn't, really. Or I was selective with what I'd share; anything that hurt, anything which really touched me, that was the stuff that would never meet the light of day.

My friends for the most part really do respect the irregular and capricious boundaries I have with my internal life, but I've found as I've gotten more settled into this "improved" behavioral pattern I'd retrained for myself, the people I had chosen as my friends certainly changed (compassionate, attentive, not nearly as grossly self-absorbed), but actually my own willingness to volunteer information/grief had remained the same.

And actually, I've withdrawn even further into myself over time because those friends did in FACT notice I was in pain and wanted to relieve it, but they could not. While they'd hang around in my periphery all frustrated and helpless, I'd be steeping myself in shame and self-loathing. I afford myself less and less as the "listener" for them because it would only lead to an expectation of reciprocity, which I usually cannot manage.

I am thinking more often lately that I had a lot more in common with the emotional vampires of yore. In those days I would at some point reach a saturation point with my "selfless patience," suddenly burning fiercely with this flame of anger fueled by their grotesque narcissism and non-recognition of me. But this I think is its own form of narcissism. It is the inverse image in the mirror, and you secretly do not like what you are seeing; sitting across from them, what if you keep yourself so silent and still because you're afraid that if you were to abandon all self-discipline and allow yourself the space to unfold, you'd be exposed as something perhaps more monstrous than even your self-obsessed friend?

I'm offering this because there is more to consider than just making space in the world around you--it also demands than you shift things inside, too. It's not that I'm secretly dying for my friends to notice, or that I'm bitter and cloying, or that I'm nailing myself to some cross while silently furious there's been no intervention. I too can listen very genuinely without inserting too much of myself in the frame and I think this is a virtue.

At some point, however, without balance, it can becomes violent. You may start to whither and starve. Then, you'll no longer the one who nurtures. You will be the infant.