Ruminations of the day.

Have you ever had a bad dream that infected the rest of your day, even though it was only a dream? I had a dream right before I woke up that my husband told me he wanted to “break up” and that he was “fucking” this tacky blonde watching television in the next room who I think might have been Heidi Montag, of all “huh?” kind of people. The message was delivered completely without inflection, and even while I could feel my own heart start to race and my voice rise in the panic of floundering around for him to take it back and throw me some kind of life preserver, he remained impassive; a little disgusted. When I woke up, I was relieved it wasn’t true, but somehow the feeling that actually, it was, has stayed with me. I feel sort of off kilter, like suddenly I need to make sure it’s not out there, waiting to happen. As a consequence, I picked a meaningless fight with my beleaguered husband before leaving for work, so now I sit here, continuing to stew. The fight I picked was particularly lame – involving his using my camera to take to a meeting to take pictures of the client’s house. He called me selfish and asked me if I was ten years old, both of which were fair comments.

I left home sulking and feeling a lot shittier about the day than necessary. Why does that kind of thing happen? I’m sure I’m not the only one who works herself into a state after a rotten dream. Dreams like that, about rejection, or death, reflect our deepest fears, so even when we know it was only a dream, there’s still that unpleasant residue of knowing it’s always a possibility. And with death, of course, a certainty – but hopefully not in all the terrible ways I’ve dreamed of my own and other peoples’ demise.

But anyway.

Back to politics.

I’ve been complaining about the convention, but the truth is one can’t live inside the Beltway for 10 years and not be REALLY excited that the whole political machine is coming to town. Living in D.C. is like living in Hollywood for wonks – it’s just as exciting to see the presidential helicopter fly overhead as it is to spot a B-list celebrity. Seeing the president himself ranks even higher – at least seeing Clinton did. I can’t imagine that seeing Bush would be any more rewarding than seeing Kevin Federline, except that I might be able to ignore K Fed and I couldn’t promise not to rip Shrub a new one.

Working from home with Eeyore next week is the best thing I can do to make sure he’s safe, I think, but I am a little sad not to be able to wander around town for a little rubbernecking. I could sidle over to the cheesy brewpub next to the Pepsi Center that as the “CNN Grill” is the site for the dorkiest political team in show business’ nightly circle jerk, hoping to get a glimpse of American’s favorite personification of Max Headroom, the androgynous Anderson Cooper. I don’t know where NBC will be, but boy, what I wouldn’t do to see my teen idol, Tom Brokaw. I knew R. was the one for me when he spoke and I could hear TB’s dulcet tones coming from his mouth (R. has a great voice).

The Denver Post has published a list of all the parties and events taking place in Denver over the course of the convention, and I can’t believe I am so totally out of the loop that I won’t have anything to do with any of them. There’s an Emily’s List party with Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi, various cocktail parties hosted by area law firms – Brownstein Hyatt seems to have rented out the Capital Grille every night for a pre-convention martini-fest, presumably to make the DC folks feel like they never even left home – and all kinds of Young Democrats happy hours and post-convention drinking binges. God, do I feel old and irrelevant. R. reminds me that we have plenty of years to make up for the weirdness that is our lives right now, but it’s still bizarre to be thinking of child safety over participation in society. Well, hopefully all the focused attention will at least turn out a little guy who will also be interested in politics.

And not like his mama – whose interest in politics often degenerates into topics such as how D.C. Republican males = fat asses and no chins.