Disturbing thought on the state of the city:

More and more, the city's population is an "hourglass" demographic, where there's a well-educated, well-travelled, well-compensated population, served by the other inhabitants of the city.

I saw that in some post mayoral elections coverage and was very disturbed.

Post-mayoral election debriefing dinner, with a surprise guest.

The Friday after the mayoral election, the local field office that I campaigned out of had a "debriefing" dinner to thank and hear from people who spent time getting-out-the-vote for the defeated candidate...

And then the defeated candidate showed up.

"CHOO-EY, CHOO-EY, CHOO-EY!" everyone chanted as he and his wife came in, and then again after he gave a speech and hung out a while and was going to leave.

Overall, he was very honestly positive, and pointed out now only how progressive aldermen won more seats this election and the size of the caucus grew, but also that these aldermen were from all sides of the city, and represented a truly multi-racial and multi-ethnic coalition.

He briefly mentioned the struggle against attack ads, and how they ran out in front of him to paint him as incompetent - and when he said this, you could see he was used to such things and honestly did not give a shit.

Then, came the only moment when he seemed to get a bit personal, and he even gloated.

"So the mayor is such a financial wizard," he was like.  "I'm looking forward to see what he does with that budget."

You could honestly tell he's been in government so long and knows that something is f*cked, and he was not only glad that it was off his plate, but that fallout for it would fall on someone so horrendously deserving.

I'm really looking forward to what comes of these connections.  From just that one local field office - and there were 10-12 in the race, I think? - around 50 people showed up to debrief and think about what's next.

Art school student worked for a pro-dom.

One of my art school students was telling me the other day that she worked for a pro-dom (= a professional dominatrix).

Her job was installing video systems so that the pro-dom could record her sessions with clients and then sell them the video afterwards, something that they tended to buy, esp. if the session was really intense and they couldn't cum at the time.

"The best part of the job was writing the blackmail letters," she was like, and then explained that a lot of clients would hire her to "bribe" them with letters carefully crafted to contain phrases that got them off, though only after she signed non-disclosure agreements.

"Like, 'How would your boss feel if he knew...'?", I was like.

"No, more their wives," she was like.  "There was a lot of forced bi stuff.  These were some very powerful people, and I think a lot of them were actually gay."

Another BDSM Museum archives item:

A disintegrating used condom from the 90s, complete with a letter from the dom telling his sub how he had fucked his wife with it, and to smell it.

. . .

(The archivist explained how the sub had a thing for muscle guys, and kept the condom and letter.)

One BDSM Museum archives item:

Used cumrags.

. . .

(I told a friend this, and he was like, "With what, like cum from famous people?".  Actually, they're not, they're just cumrags from ordinary people you would have never heard of.)

Disturbing campaign experience, even more disturbing in retrospect:

The first afternoon I was out canvassing for Chuy over Rahm, I had a real conversation about money and class and poverty and control of the political system by the wealthy with a (very old) (very dark) (black) man in his bungalow in a once middle-class neighborhood, and though the guy didn't come off religious at all and I still don't think he was - which makes everything worse! - right at the end of the conversation, right after I had just thought it finished, he was like, "We live in dark times."

That got me.

He had a pale yellow porkpie hat on, and a cardigan and shirt and slacks in a variety of earthtones, and the bushes in front of his bungalow were very neatly trimmed.

He was also clean shaven, and spoke at a measured pace.

My two moments crying after the election:

1) At the Chuy election results party, I was talking with a (middle-aged) (hispanic) woman whose family had been in the city for a couple generations and were old union, and a (slightly younger) (middle-aged) (black) guy who had worked in the public schools and was part of gun control campaigns.

I had had a couple glasses of red wine from the open bar, and we were all talking intensely, though sometimes music from the live band would make us groove (like their cover of Earth, Wind and Fire's "September" made me and the woman dance around a bit as we talked; she even got me a drink, as I guess she had offered to the guy before I got there; "Finally!", she was like, after I accepted and right before she turned to head to the convention center's cash bar to go get her drink and mine).

Anyhow, we were all talking about whether Rahm would crack down now, and the guy was talking about how a lot of people who had publicly come out in support of Chuy would likely lose jobs, if Rahm had control of them, then began talking about how Rahm would break the unions.

He was so earnest and it pained him so much, I just teared up.

I apologized, and said it was really just getting to me, the reality of having to think like that.

"That's okay," the woman was like.

2) After shutting down the convention center and staying out really late at the bar where people went after the convention center, and then stopping by another bar for a night cap that turned into 2 when the pro-Chuy bartender bought me another drink at last call, I headed home and then slept in till noon the next day.

All that day I was mopey and tired, both from the election and from the lack of sleep (I very rarely get hung over, though I do get tired the next day a lot from going to bed so late and poor sleep from having some drinks, which seems to me to be more about sleep quality than being hung over per se).

Anyhow, after lazing around all day and doing lesson prep work from home, I went to start cooking, and to cheer me up, I went to put Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album on the CD player.

The day was very grey and gloomy, and for whatever reason, as "Teenage Dream" began, the upbeat lyrics and the grey day and the fact that I was trying to cheer myself up really got to me, and I just cried, since the contrast between the peppy music and how I had felt but was not paying attention to was just too much, and called attention to my mood.

Overall, that's pretty ridiculous, when you consider the lyrics:

you think I'm pretty /
without any makeup on /
you think I'm funny /
when I tell the punchline wrong...

As the CD went on, the really peppy songs that I loved the most tended to make me cry, esp. "California Girls" and "Firework", though oddly not "Last Friday Night".

What really made me bawl, too, was the "Firework" lyrics about cheering up, particularly her observation -

after a hurricane /
comes a rainbow 

- though most of the time during that song I kept thinking how the lyrics were really self-focused, and not so much about societal change, and I was kind of appalled about that.