Probama

Went to the Obama rally at the Kohl Center last night.

And I left feeling bolstered. It was the same way I feel after talking with my parents, having called them weeping, curled up in bed with the kind of cynical lethargy college's free time allows. I felt like I was being listened to, that I was silly for being jaded, that I was smart and capable and able to turn things around, even just a little bit. It was the way I used to feel in church when I was younger.

I know that's a bit fluffy and crap. That I'm being trite and saccharine. I really know it. And I know I shouldn't be swept up, that I shouldn't buy into hope or political promises. But I wonder, without forgetting the inevitable truth that things fall apart, that we'll throw this country into entropy until it implodes, if it's not okay to drink the optimist Kool-Aid.

Is it okay to use Obama's speeches as Prozac, to prescribe myself with daily doses of a deep voice and a hopeful message to get through the years? Will I build up a tolerance? Will I lose the buzz?

I don't know. But having never experimented with mind-altering substances, maybe I should begin dabbling in personality-altering ones.

So here goes nothing. I'll start out with a small dose of "yes we can" and see where it takes me.