Saturdaze

A deep one hour massage is a good way to start the weekend. I come home all soft, oily and smelling of cinnamon, like a rugelach before going into the oven. I sit at my desk, a little dizzy but also oddly focused, staring into the backyard: it is damp with drizzle and early autumn mist, though the temperature is getting more summery as the morning progresses. Our trees aren't changing colors yet but there were already swaths of red on the maples across from the massage studio. Casey hops down the stairs into the family room, gives me a small look of reproach, sighs, and curls up on the carpet behind my chair.

Naturally my mind drifts to last night's debate, if you can really call it that, between the two presidential candidates -- a strong, steady but emotionally restrained Barack Obama and an at first somewhat disconnected but finally more engaged and even eloquent John McCain. I came home all but giddy with excitement the event would really happen, given McCain's flip-flops on joining Obama at Old Miss. We watched the debate in the darkened family room, sprawled on the floor or on couches, munching gummi bears and chocolate chip cookies -- me, Julie, a single friend and colleague of hers in need of company, Julie's 17-year-old son, and a friend of his whom Eric insisted stay and watch. And Casey, of course, sacked out on the carpet beneath the TV, getting up at intervals to troll for cookie crumbs.

In the end, I felt, the evening was a wash -- not just the performance of the two candidates but the political impact of the event as a whole. There were few surprises and little deviation from already well-known scripts. Each speaker evaded the other's challenges on critical issues (esp. going to war in Iraq and the success of the surge); they rarely confronted each other directly despite the good-humored efforts of Jim Lehrer; and overall they seemed more concerned with controlling media perceptions than risking embarrassing impromptus. Looking back just a few months, the level of energy, combativeness and policy detail was significantly lower than in most of Obama's debates with Hillary Clinton. Even the previous week's economic meltdown and partisan grudge matches over a bailout plan, on which Lehrer pushed them for a good half hour, got no more than high-sounding generalities.

The candidates' irresolution on the greatest financial crisis in most people's memory isn't, after all, that surprising: neither man wanted to risk appearing as a spoiler with so much at stake in the ongoing negotiations, fiddling with party politics while the economy burned. Perhaps the overall feeling of gloom and uncertainty in the week's news explains the very scripted, managed feel of the evening. Or perhaps this is just one more of the infinite variations of politics as usual. A newly posted article on the New York Times website promises "Consensus on Wall Street Rescue Plan Is Said to Be Near". Due to be announced Sunday before the opening of the Asian markets. Hopefully this also means the candidates will be willing to take the gloves off in their next debate, which is explicitly planned to be about the economy.

It's now mid-afternoon, and the morning's drizzles have turned to intermittent heavy downpours. A lovely excuse to stay indoors and snooze and read and eat leftover chili and pick away at household chores - not excluding trying to whip my mushy political prose into shape.