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My (Brief) Time as a Washington Rumor Monger
For my lunch break from Small Neoliberal Institution, I went down to the coffee shop to reorder my to-do list and just get outside the office for a bit. I'd been calling to confirm contact info all morning, and did not want to talk to anyone for at least a half hour.
The coffeeshop immediately downstairs from Small Neoliberal Institution is "independent", has only "organic coffee", etc. but honestly, I chose it because it was so damn close. It's lunchtime and I work downtown, so there's a good number of people at tables. I order my coffee and sit down, start flipping through my notebook.
The guy next to me is speaking so loudly, I'm eavesdropping just by existing. So I eavesdrop.
"He keeps on thinking about 2012." he says, "I notice [Congressman X's first name], in the last couple of months, he's not *dull* anymore. He's stepping up. He's all but told me personally he's running for president in 2012."
Guy next to me and friend of guy next to me continue on their political conversation. Based on proximity of coffeeshop to certain think tanks and tenor of their conversation, they are probably conservatives.
I finish my coffee and go back upstairs to work. Amused, I reset my gmail chat status to "Dear Washington political operatives. Probably not such a good idea to announce to a whole coffeeshop that Congressman X is planning to run in 2012."
Within 10 minutes, I've got three people asking me "WHICH CONGRESSMAN?", two of which are journalists. I type back "majorly unreliable source, probably talking out of his ass!" and immediately change the gmail status.
Yeesh, I probably should have known better. And no, I'm not telling you.
*
Off to West Virginia in the afternoon. Bringing the laptop, but family + lots of other work to do means I will.... probably be aimlessly surfing the internet for large portions of the weekend.
For my lunch break from Small Neoliberal Institution, I went down to the coffee shop to reorder my to-do list and just get outside the office for a bit. I'd been calling to confirm contact info all morning, and did not want to talk to anyone for at least a half hour.
The coffeeshop immediately downstairs from Small Neoliberal Institution is "independent", has only "organic coffee", etc. but honestly, I chose it because it was so damn close. It's lunchtime and I work downtown, so there's a good number of people at tables. I order my coffee and sit down, start flipping through my notebook.
The guy next to me is speaking so loudly, I'm eavesdropping just by existing. So I eavesdrop.
"He keeps on thinking about 2012." he says, "I notice [Congressman X's first name], in the last couple of months, he's not *dull* anymore. He's stepping up. He's all but told me personally he's running for president in 2012."
Guy next to me and friend of guy next to me continue on their political conversation. Based on proximity of coffeeshop to certain think tanks and tenor of their conversation, they are probably conservatives.
I finish my coffee and go back upstairs to work. Amused, I reset my gmail chat status to "Dear Washington political operatives. Probably not such a good idea to announce to a whole coffeeshop that Congressman X is planning to run in 2012."
Within 10 minutes, I've got three people asking me "WHICH CONGRESSMAN?", two of which are journalists. I type back "majorly unreliable source, probably talking out of his ass!" and immediately change the gmail status.
Yeesh, I probably should have known better. And no, I'm not telling you.
*
Off to West Virginia in the afternoon. Bringing the laptop, but family + lots of other work to do means I will.... probably be aimlessly surfing the internet for large portions of the weekend.
