A Dream Deferred

for a long time i have been wondering why i am not a politician. years ago i listened to the tips and worked on them. when talking don't distract the masses with excessive hand movements - unless you actually don't want them to get what you're saying. look people in the eye and make them feel they're important. i learnt about the various handshakes and what each meant - one hand, two hands, one hand while the other is on your shoulder... the whole deal. and yet, not even a mayor of a town of 1,000. why, i asked myself, why???
where did i go wrong.
my answer came the other day as i paged through my morning paper.
i need to work harder on the skeletons in my closet.
a councilman in queens was indicted on charges of raping a 52-year-old grandmother (if she had no grandkids would that have lessened the horrific nature of the crime, i wonder? but i digress). but he's just one among many. just in new york in the last 10 years a councilman was censured for alleged sexual harrassment. i say alleged because the councilman declared that none of the women making allegations was attractive enough to warrant his advances. you see. alleged. others are accused of sending condoms to the daughters of ex-mistresses. and well, just in the last year, politicians are trying to outdo each with the skeletons. i see your instant messages to underage boys and i raise you an invasion of privacy in a public bathroom (and then i'll distract people by stating i am not gay though i may totally be a peeping tom).

and i won't even tell you about my totally unpolitician behaviour if i were ever in a bathroom stall and looked up to find someone's beady eye ogling me from the stall next door. i would be be screaming and trying to make a hasty getaway before my stall neighbour had the opportunity to flash hand signals under the partition.

and i see that the longer i loiter on the sidelines, the more difficult it is going to become to find some attention grabbing outrage that somehow i'll be able to parlay into meaning that i am just like you. i mean, being caught doing crack with a prostitute has been taken. i can't try to be homophobic only to have my male prostitute out me not only as a regular client but also as a meth-head. hmmm? bad behaviour with an intern? done and played out.

i'm stumped. what to do.... what to do??