Call an Uber. Go see Nancy Pelosi speak. At 85, she’s still a powerhouse; it doesn’t matter how much she rambles. And anyway, the legion of well-groomed Democrats attending this Summit makes up for her lack of energy.
Mingle. Exchange handshakes and phone numbers. Explain why you were invited, why you deserve to be here, why everyone should care about you. Nibble on empanadas with TikTokers and watch Aaron Parnas hide away in the corner to film a ‘Breaking News!’
Something happened in India, and someone started an organization in high school.
The next day, weave between the historic downtown buildings that tower above you with indifference: gleaming white neoclassical cathedrals of impossible size. Wonder if any of the Secret Service snipers have their eyes on you.
The sun is brutal.
Find refuge at Butterworth’s, the new MAGA go-to, where Steve Bannon is supposedly a regular. Slither into a corner table. Make eyes at the editor of Breitbart. Introduce yourself. He’s a Nazi — but who isn’t these days? He’s got a firm grip. He knows the same people you know at the Daily Mail, and he’s friendly enough. After a couple of drinks, call your grandma and gush about the encounter as you walk to the Red Line. Rattle off a shallow cultural critique with what you hope is a feeling of disinterested antipathy.
It probably isn’t.
Google yourself. Check to see if Fox News has aired your interview about Zohran Mamdani. They haven’t. They won’t. They wanted a young liberal to say, “I love Zohran because he’s a socialist! I hate Cuomo because he’s a Jew!” It would’ve made a great clip. Unfortunately, you used your thirty seconds of screen time to say, “Sooner or later, Zohran will get cancelled, as all Leftist leaders do. But if he lowers the price of housing in NYC in the meantime, that would be wonderful.”
It was the wrong thing to say for TV.
At home, write a long email to Leon Wieseltier, your favorite liberal, offering your unsolicited advice on his newest article. Do the same thing for an undergrad at Harvard who writes for The Crimson and a TikToker who published a book on linguistics. Cite Neil Postman, Christopher Lasch, Harold Bloom, John Adams, anyone who can offer you a moment of intellectual glory.
None of them respond.
Put your phone away. Actually, turn it off completely. Go to the National Portrait Gallery and saunter from room to room as the eyes of history look past you. Realize how full, how accomplished each of these individuals must have been to be immortalized in this way. Spend thirty seconds reading each plaque.
Leave feeling full — like you just consumed fifty lifetimes.
Find your way to Sixth&I for whatever event is on tonight: apparently, Stacey Abrams writes fiction. Who knew! When she speaks, imagine her face in the contemporary wing of the Portrait Gallery, with a plaque that tells of her political ambitions, her law degree, all twenty-three of her romance and detective novels. Give yourself over to the rush of the crowd, the exhilarating thrill of sloganeering.
Start up a conversation with the girl sitting next to you — she’s your age and works for the District Attorney’s office. Take her contact information and make plans to make plans.
Get home exhausted. Pour a glass of scotch and crack open your signed copy of Stacey Abrams’ book ‘Coded Justice,’ a thriller about AI in the medical industry. She’s certainly no Ken Follett. “You can’t be good at everything,” your mom says of the former candidate for Governor of Georgia. That’s a relief. Still, she’s a NYT bestseller, and maybe that matters more.
I’m not sure.
Stacey Abrams put herself out there. And I admire that. Criticizing offers protection; I can scoff and turn my nose down at weak prose or impersonal hob-nobbing, but I haven’t offered anything. At the book release, Abrams claimed that her goal is to write novels that help people understand pressing social issues in an interesting and digestible way. Maybe she’s done that. She’s tried, at least.
I’d like to try.
I want to offer something. A poem I wrote at lunch.
Two slices of sourdough provoke me to imagine the intimate process of creation: deep-knuckle kneading the careless, silent toss of flour, the decorative lacerations which lay bare the sinews of gluten. The repetition. The repetition. Is this process of creation really so indifferent?
Hey there! I really enjoyed reading this! I like your style of writing. Does Stacy Abraham’s really write fiction? I’m an avid reader. I’m always looking for new books.
Thanks. 😊
I was on H street between 11th and 10th
In the early am without the blistering sun I would gaze upon the national archive building
I would try to go and see it
It was closed to the public
I tried to not let it concern me
Another person at our international conference told me they’d made reservations and it was indeed beautiful inside and everything is in its right place.
Mind you , the hotel has the same employees the whole time my federation was in conference - they told me they’d asked for double shifts years in advance
, as we were such a relief, in comparison to all other guests.
I am home now
In a state that
To real locals in DC
They’re worried for us
Yikes