Diabetes Sucks!

Of course I realized while it was happening that this was just the sort of experience that blogs were meant for. I thought about it that entire day and the week that followed, waiting for that moment I was inspired to sit down and write. It never really came. This event is worthy of noting and, therefore, I feel compelled to record it. The people I run into in my daily life–my gardening clients, my pharmacist, my parent’s, people’ who’s presence I physically witness– get told a lot more than people I communicate with phone or writing. I was a journal keep since high school, like 20 years, and that stream of inner dialog ran dry when I raised my pen. Like sitting in front of a literary assignment, I lose all passion and excitement.

So I really didn’t hear until the Thursday that Obama was holding one of his Town Meetings here in Portsmouth on Tuesday. I follow him from a distance, I think it’s fair to say. So how did I get into see him, so spur-of-the-moment and on such impulse. There are a number of possibilities. That Thursday evening I filled out an online application for a lottery to win one or two of the limited tickets that were available. I registered once, plain-Jane, and then I filled out another form and squeezed as much information as I possibly could into those spaces intended for first name, last name, address, etc. For First Name I wrote HAIDEE (all caps) and then added LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER.. For Last Name I wrote MERRITT, TYPE 1 DIABETIC 36 YRS. Stuff like that. It may not have done any good, but that’s where I started.

The following morning I had a dental appointment in which gruesome transplants  were to be made between my gums and the roof of my mouth. Or, to be accurate, the other way around. I chattered away nervously waiting for the big needle to arrive and happened to mention I was looking for a way into the Town Meeting. Dr. Swallow (stranger than fiction, right?) said his neighbor, a oral surgeon, hosted the Obama campaign as they came through the Seacoast area over a year ago. He (Dr. Swallow) made a spontaneous phone call right then and there to this gentleman and explained the situation. Now, I don’t even know if this guy called back, mind you, but it was another step along the way.

Then there’s the possibility that my gardening clients plugged me to some of their political connections. They’d also hosted Obama when he came through with his entourage before the election. I sent an email with a short blurb about why I wanted to go. An finally, there’s the chance that my brother’s girlfriend Rita, in Sarasota Florida, got me through the door. She’s a big-wig with the Democrats although I don’t know many details.

However it happened, it happened. There was a phone call on Monday night about 8 that a ticket would be waiting for me at Will-Call the next morning. For three and a half hours in the heat and humidity I talked myself out of walking away from the event. I was SO close a couple of times: About an hour in I left my place in line and wandered over to my friend Julie’s new house to–of all things–get a towel from her to wipe the sweat from my back. Nasty. My skirt had a synthetic liner that was like having Saran Wrap twisted around my thighs. She gave me water like she’d come upon me in the desert, insisted really that I have it. I offered her the ticket and said she should go. She turned me right around, pointed me in the direction of the high school, and made me march back like a spoilt child.

Eventually things moved and everyone in the parking lot filed inside. Not the protesters though. Some of them would surely have been welcomed but others were loud and nasty. Lots of signs and t-shirts that had the word Diabetes on them: we were well represented. As I predicted, when we got into the gym I knew I had a problem: stadium seats. With no depth perception, little balance and numb feet, stadium seats are something I dread. I can almost feel the metal on my teeth as my face smashes into it (shiver). In my mind this is the scenario I imagined: (a) I would see the seating, (b) I would tell someone I was visually impaired, (c) they would seat me very close to the president. It didn’t turn out that way, but I was directed to an area where they’d roped off a portion for the handicapped. I sat very close to floor level. If, however, they had said I could meet President Obama if I could make it to the top of the bleachers, I think I could’ve made it there safely.

Then came the speech. I heard most of it but I have conversations in my head that often seem to override what I should be paying attention to. I wondered about all the characters in the performance that was now taking place. I saw camera men and women, wondered who was planted in the audience, checked out other women’s weight, and tried to will my perspiration to stop. I saw Chuck Todd, the political director of NBC. Dude, I tell you he looked like a college student!! I was staring at him, not fully willing to concede that this was, in fact, the guy I watch on TV every night. Chuck Todd in the Portsmouth High School gym, in the flesh. I fear what he saw staring at him was kind of a blank New Hampshire face. I showed no recognition, no excitement that he was there, nothing. One of the many regrets of the day was that I didn’t even smile in his direction. I think he should get rid of that goatee, it’s so ’90s.

Town Hall Meeting Ticket

Being a huge fan of The West Wing (an NBC show, nonetheless) I was trying to figure out the characters instead of actually listening to the president. This lack of attention is one of my many flaws. The prep school I went to had a 3 hour-long Assembly every Thursday morning to prepare us for events like this; every since those early years I’ve been very good at voyeurism. That same institution trained me to hover in your seat at the very end of the speech or act or song or whatever, on the ready to spring like a fox to the door. Now here’s where I acted uncharacteristically: I LINGERED. I actually let people file out before me, and as things cleared up a bit I noticed that the president was shaking hands with some of the townsfolk.

Now, I didn’t mention this yet, but I knew the priest that did a benediction at the start of this Town Meeting; heck, I house sat for Esther and Vivan Martindales for years. I went to their daughter’s wedding, for crying out loud. I’ve SLEPT IN THEIR BED! So, that was pretty cool. Then the woman who appeared next was Lori Hitchcock. I’ve been hanging around with her at parties for years!!! Her husband Xavier and I worked at a nursery together about a decade ago AND he was the guy who refinished the old pine floors here in the upstairs of my house. Like, the people I was listening to were FRIENDS of mine. We have histories. What a friggin’ hoot. A hoot, I tell you, a hoot. Lori confessed she’d been keeping a secret from all of us for the past 15 years: she has hepatitis C and hasn’t been given health insurance for years. Pre-existing condition and all that.

Ok, so here’s where the story gets good; I hope you’re still with me. I push my way through some of the crowd in order to reach Obama. The resistance is like walking through hip-deep water. I’m not one for crowds, folks, so you know by this point that there’s a plan developing in my head. I may not be thinking all that straight at this point but I notice that the president is moving left to right down a line of people standing behind the barrier. I’m standing in a group of people who have already been graced by his hand or teeth. Fuck. So what? what? WHAT? do I do???? I’m within 5 feet of the president and I have this mission of giving him a copy of my book One Lump or Two.

It is now very clear to me that this had been developing in my head since Thursday night; I had a copy of the book (with a heartfelt dedication) and a size Large t-shirt (with the book’s cover on it!!! in color!!!) wrapped in plastic in my hand. He was moving away and I sprang for it. I tossed the package towards Obama. The Secret Service agent was not smiling when he caught it and tossed it back to me. I said, ‘it’s a book,’ which really isn’t any kind of excuse when you’re throwing something at the President of the United States of America. I caught it and immediately tossed it again, but this time no one sprung for it and it hit the floor with a WHOP. That very same agent took his shiny black shoe and kicked the package back my way. This, I knew, was the last time I should press the issue. No more tossing.

I look around and am in a panic that the one opportunity I’m given in my life to really get this book to someone important was slowly moving away, handshake by hand shake. That’s when it happens: I see David Axelrod (Obama’s Chief Advisor)and cherub-faced Robert Gibbs (Press Secretary) standing together to the side of the stage. Wait, is Axelrod moving towardes me?? Yes, he in fact was. Now, I know I’ve sort of morphed my story here a little bit. I said that I motioned to Mr.Axelrod to come hither but it reality the woman next to me apparently had. I’ll come clean for historical accuracy. She and Axelrod were less than twelve inches from me, quickly engaged in a conversation about her health care woes, to which Mr. Axelrod just kept nodding and saying that they were trying t bring about change. He was a complete gentleman. In fact, why don’t I expand on that a little bit further. The word I would choose to describe David Axelrod would be dapper. Another one might be sharp. I noted that he smelled delicious and his shirt was crisp with starch. I was close enough to see the man’s pores. NBC did a prime-time special of life behind the scenes at the White House. Obama’s staff and advisers are incredibly dedicated family men, who have made many sacrifices for the greater good. I Tevo-ed it. (This is not, by the way, promotional material for the NBC network, love them as I do.)

Now, I did in fact, want to get out of there. What I did not want to do was listen in on this conversation. From an onlookers perspective, however, I’m sure that’s what it looked like. We were intimate. I got bold and interupted as politley as I could, saying that it would take me just a quick second to say what I needed to say and then they could return to their chat. I told Mr. Axelrod a very small bit about myself, that I was the author and illustrator of this comic book, it was timely because of the health care reform and Sotomayor moving on up into the Supreme Court (Type 1). I asked if he could give it to the President, that I thought it might be something for him to enjoy on the flight home. He was such a gentleman, accepting it and telling me he certainly would pass it along. (He must be from Virgina or something, had this slight Southern twang.) I thanked him and left.

Now, it’s taken me 2 weeks to write that and it’s as though it happened yesterday. I’m going to post exactly what I have here and then got back and edit it as needed. I’m worried if I don’t do it immediately that somehow I’ll erase it or forget to publish it or whatever. One thing I have to say about that day, is that I usually return to my normal life after experiences as though they’ve never happened. Like, I fly away on my honeymoon, return to work and within hours it’s as though I was never away. On this day, however, it was not like that at all. I was well aware for the last two weeks that Obama had come to Portsmouth, that I had seen him and tried to get my book in his hands, and that he was so positive and hopeful in his message of health care reform. Seeing him was like dropping a pebble in water, the ripples effect everything before and afterward. The texture of the landscape is just never the same.

Apparently I’m very lucky not to be in jail.