Time for me to stop procrastinating and write. After all these years of therapy and this still happens. It’s pretty deeply embedded in my psyche. Yesterday was Friday so I went to therapy. Sometimes things come together. Anything exciting happen there? Nothing? Really? Not that I can think of. I did do two things I had procrastinated about. I made an appointment to see my psychiatrist. The earliest one I could get is in March. That’s not good. She’s only working two days a week now. Am I going to have to get another psychiatrist? It’s not nearly as tough as changing therapists. My current one is an Irish music fan; that’s a plus.
I ran out of coffee yesterday morning. That’s just as I planned. I took advantage of the 3lbs for $20 deal at Dunkin’ and picked it up while waiting for the bus from the train station to therapy. I had some this morning. I’m a coffee snob and I love Dunkin’. It’s not as good as artisanal roasts but it’s cheaper and convenient. It moved me a lot of the way towards getting a free beverage at DD. I’m resistant to advertising but a sucker for rewards programs.
I didn’t have plans for last night. I was considering one of my default Friday plans, one that I’ve never actually done, but I want to, and I’d get to see some of my best friends. It would also mean paying a higher price for the MetroNorth to get to the City and then paying to eat out. My other plan was to just stay home again and cook dinner. On the train to therapy I got a text from the Elizabeth Warren campaign. They were looking people to collect signatures for the petition to get on the New York State Democratic Primary ballot. I decided to be good, fight my procrastination, and do it. It was by Yankee Stadium so easy to get to from the Fordham Metro North station. A couple of monkey wrenches got into the works. First they moved it from Yankee Stadium to the Bronx Terminal Market. That meant adding ten minutes for the additional walk. More importantly my bus from therapy was a minute late and the MetroNorth train was right on time so I got to the station as it was pulling out. That costs me 26 minutes. The upshot was I was half an hour late. Not a big deal but I like to reliable.
I’ve gathered petitions many times before and when I worked in market research I often had to approach people armed with only a clipboard and ask them to give me personal information. This is in my wheelhouse. The most important thing is to realize that none of the rejection is personal. When people walk right by you, it’s no different from when you walk right be most people soliciting in public. The job is more difficult now than when I had done it for candidates when I was young or working in market research in the 90s. Now half the people are busy on cell phones and it’s pointless to stop them. This was also a difficult place to work. I suspect that English wasn’t the first language for the majority of the people I approached. Only a small fraction was registered to vote in the district. Many, perhaps a plurality weren’t citizens. A Spanish speaker would have been more effective. Cuteness only gets you so far. I encountered one hostile person that said he’d sign then defaced the petition with his graffiti tag. Quite a few of the people I spoke to had never heard of Elizabeth Warren and I had to explain her positions. This was not the demographics I’ve worked before. Still I got quite a few people to sign.
People are odd. When I arrived, there was someone already working along with the delegate candidate. I took the candidate’s place and they went to work another entrance. My experience told me to separate from the other worker and get people walking from the other direction.. Where she was standing people going from to mall entrance from the parking lot wouldn’t pass her. That’s where I stationed myself. I also could intercept people coming from the upper or lower levels there. When the candidate came back they asked me to join the other petitioner, so we worked as a pair. I told them my reasoning, but they still thought it best and as their name was on petition, not mine, that makes them the boss. When I joined my coworker, I suggested we move to where I was standing for the reasons I laid out she declined. “I don’t move once I start.” I wasn’t going to make a stand on this hill. I joined her. So, what happens? Soon she ends up standing where I was before. As long as she felt it was her idea she made the move. This explains so much of what goes on. People are resistant to outside influence. That includes me, I’m a people. It includes you too. Try to keep it in mind so that you keep an open mind.
The temperature dropped and my coworker got cold and wanted to leave. I told her to leave me her petition and I’ll get them back to the delegate candidate. We ended up working about the same amount, I got there late, and she left early. She was perfectly pleasant; we just had that one strange disagreement.
At seven the candidate came back and we called it quits for the evening. I walked back to Yankee Stadium and went home. If there were a Popeye’s nearby I might have eaten there as I often do on Fridays when I am not going out, but there wasn’t. That is for the best. I went home and made my own delicious dinner, kielbasa and air-fried potato.
Tonight, I’m going to see Steph Jenkins at a house concert in Brooklyn. I have had terrible luck seeing Steph of late. Every show something comes up so I can’t go. Google reminded me that I went to this house concert two years ago to see Kristin Andreassen and Lauren Balthrop. Some people find that creepy, I love it. I very much need an external memory.
Wise Madness 