2004-01-27 - 5:18 p.m.

saturday afternoon - freezing for dean

after we have been briefed on our canvassing scripts and have received the approval of the winterns, the volunteers break off into groups with people who have cars. though us new yorkers came up on a chartered bus, several other volunteers have now joined our ranks from such exotic locales as washington DC, pennsylvania, massachussets, and even florida. most of these folks drove to salem and are now offering their vehicles and services as drivers to the dean campaign. about the time that these divisions are being made, the wintern from new zealand announces that he needs people to do 'visibility'.

talking to the gander on the phone just now, i realised that 'wintern' probably has nothing at all to do with the season, and is more about the fact that they want to 'win' the new hampshire primary. der.

i don't relish the notion of knocking on stranger's doors on the weekend and trying to talk them into something i only half-believe myself. it feels way too jehovah's witness to me. so i jump at the chance to do visibility (or 'viz' in the parlance of the campaign), whatever the hell that is.

i'm sure, dear reader, that you can already see where this is going. six of us brave volunteers are loaded into an econoline van with various campaign signage and driven to a traffic roundabout in the middle of derry, NH. the kiwi tells us to hold our signs up to the folks in their cars, rally support for the candidate. he drops us off at a mobil gas station and tells us he'll return in two hours. armed with a few 4 foot by 8 foot signs promoting the governor and a small number of chemical handwarmers, we are unceremoniously set upon the roundabout. it is seven degrees F at high noon, wind chill bringing it down to a chilly -10F. i bogart an extra pair of handwarmers and shove them into my boots. my youthful and enthusiastic group of six splits into three groups of two and stakes out various intersections of the traffic circle.

luckily, i end up paired with michael, who is a good time. we chat about musical theater, politics, and penis size. he notices my woefully inadequate fingerless (!) gloves and shares a glove with me every now and then. the handwarmers in my pockets are surprisingly effective, though the ones in my boots are less than ineffective. i'm a natural cheerleader and despite the desperate cold, i actually don't mind waving signs at total strangers and laying a rose queen wave on passersby. the mobil station won't let us use the bathroom, but thankfully they have hot coffee (only a dollar, and me so undercaffeinated i would have paid $3) and all the junk food a girl could want. i score snickers bars for michael and myself at every possible juncture. its so cold that every half hour or so my feet become completely numb and i excuse myself to loiter in the convenience store for a few minutes until i thaw at least partially.

michael and i are having a pretty good time, but i sense that our enthusiasm is mostly lost on the good people of new hampshire. i grew up in california and have had little experience with roundabouts, but based on my experience standing alongside one for two and a half hours, they seem rather difficult to negotiate. at first we assume that anyone who honks is expressing enthusiasm for our candidate. but it becomes apparent that there is some kind of honking code that drivers are giving to one another in order to avoid collision. to be fair, some of the honks are for dean/us. but probably two-thirds of them are traffic-related. we even get flipped off a couple of times. one guy shouts his enthusiasm for bush, another yells that 'dean is a psycho!'. several people shout senator kerry's name or display kerry campaign signs. since i only partially cared to begin with, these reactions do not dampen my enthusiasm at all. i begin to wonder if michael's smile is frozen in place.

i don't think i can properly convey here how incredibly cold we were. i have never ever been so cold in my life. my bones were cold. my hair was shivering. coffee and sugar sustained me just fine for about an hour and a half. but by 1:30p, i couldn't get warm. my feet hurt from standing on ice. my face is getting frostbitten. i need to use a restroom. michael and i start bitching to each other. he checks his watch and lets me know that we only have thirty more minutes. i wave to folks quite a bit less. but two o'clock comes and goes without any sign of the van. i start fantasizing aloud about kicking some kiwi ass. a desperate survival instinct is awakened deep within me.

a couple of dodgy-looking old guys appear just to the south of us and hold up a kerry sign to the traffic circle. their sign is tiny and they just barely stand in place. they manage to get quite a bit of attention. i'm a bit jealous. around 2:30p, the kiwi pulls up in his van. we all run directly to him, practically crawling over one another to get inside the van and out of the chill wind. as we pull away from the gas station, i see that the kerry guys are giving up and walking back inside. they only lasted about twenty minutes.

i'm sitting in the back of the van, trying desperately to revive my feet. the kiwi is muttering something about the lateness of the hour, and how we've missed lunch at headquarters. the volunteers sitting in front start freaking out, demand that he take us somewhere so we can eat. i add that i really really need to use the bathroom. he chastises me (!) for not using the bathroom at one of the gas stations. when i point out that the gas stations wouldn't allow it, he just grunts in response. somehow, the other volunteers convince him to stop at a d'angelo's sandwich shop. he growls at us to order food to go, and hurry. i make a beeline to the ladies' room. i take my sweet time.

we make it back to HQ around 3:00p. everyone is kinda sitting around, chatting. winterns allow that they don't know what to do with us, we should just take some down time. i've had about 3 hours of sleep and no shower and still can't feel my feet, so that seems like an excellent suggestion. promises of special guest speakers and union-sponsored pizza are made. michael and i play chess, read our horoscopes.

photos of my weekend are on my fotolog

stay tuned for further installments!