Obamarama

I am entirely unable to concentrate on anything, unsurprisingly. I like written contracts. I think the conditions wherein contracts ought to be written are very interesting indeed; as an example, for some reason, for a contract concerning maritime insurance to be valid, it must be in writing. Why this is, I do not know. However, I never will know, as I have been on page 162 of Textbook of Contract Law all day, because I cannot concentrate, I cannot actually sit still, I'm curled up in the basement of the library in my scruffiest jeans and my "this is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt and my Obama pin and I am fidgeting like a five-year-old.

It's like, as more than one person has observed, Christmas Eve. Only more neurotic and with more swearing. Tonight, masses descend on the Mousehole bearing wine, gin and the ingredients for apple crumble, also dried fruit, chocolate, The West Wing, and a television stuck on BBC1. The coverage starts at 11.15pm and ends god knows when. I'll probably be awake. And gibbering. More than I am already, I mean. It's just... yeah. This. I mean, I love politics. I love the combination of petty soap opera and human drama, the mixture of sexism and racism, classism, homophobia all scattered on a backdrop of extraordinary flights of grace. shimgray notes that the final rally of Obama's campaign was held last night in Manassas, Virgina - the site of the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the American Civil War. it's an expert move in terms of political strategy, it's subtle, sweet with nuance, but it's indicative, I think, of the overarching importance of narrative. That's something the Obama campaign has got absolutely down. It is the antithesis of the last eight years, of small-C conservatism, it doesn't talk about cutting taxes and fiscal caution, it talks about people and what they are, and what they can become. I have been wary of Obama's substance, in the past; his lack of concrete ideas and his reliance on soaring rhetoric. Maybe I will be proven right in the future, maybe (and I hope so) I will be proven wrong. But for now and for tonight, fuck it, I like it. You can reduce the whole thing down to millions of people pushing small pieces of paper around, and intangible numbers, and a rearrangement of human beings in certain builings, but that would be missing the point. In the same way, I think to ignore the power of Obama's charm, his rhetoric, his apparent faith that people are better than their government has been, and deserve more than what they have been given, and can give more than what has been demanded of them - would be to miss the point again, by miles. The granular approach restarts tomorrow. Tonight, I want to drink and fly high.

Nothing else is very important at the moment. I return to contract in a moment. Otherwise, I have spent the last couple of days reading a case entitled R v Secretary of State For Transport ex parte Factortame [1989], followed by Factortame II: Son of Factortame [1991], then Factortame III: Mutant Factortame Strikes Back [1996], and am currently on Factortame V: Bride of Factortame [2000]. I went in to school early this morning to have my head shrunk, and as before, the process is surprisingly not as painful as I thought it might be. Pretty much, my counsellor thinks I'm fine. That I might be depressed, but it's a perfectly sensible kind of depressed, and I do sensible things to deal with it. It's a weird thing to be good at, being depressed, but I'll take it with no questions asked. But it is a helpful thing to be doing, and it is quite nice to have an hour a week allotted this way, so I can get all my self-analytical tripe out in one go and spend the rest of the week doing things that are actually important, for example, say, law of written contracts. I am amazed it is November already, that I've been a baby lawyer for nearly two months and still like it very very much. Life is difficult, but continues. And, well, I have nights like this one.

A few hours to go. I need pink wine liek woah.