Surprising Consensus on Crime.

It's been interesting to go out and talk to people about crime prevention and response, for my campaign.

What's interesting is that public conversation is focusing a ton on recidivism, especially among young people.

With that, there's *hugely* discrepant initial reactions when the subject comes up, with a lot of old-time residents being "throw the book at them," especially with gang members, and with younger activist people tending to talk about the "school to prison pipeline" and over-policing.

If you focus on other situations, though, there's actually incredibly broad consensus.

Pretty much everyone agrees that we should have more youth activities, to get people into healthier channels while you still can, and then with people with multiple run-ins with the law, there's also a lot of agreement there too for jailing them harshly to keep people to safe, especially when firearms have been involved.

With both of those perspectives on crime, though, there seems to be a tendency to talk past one another, and not linger in the gray areas...

All in all, very interesting!

Compliment of a constituent, when I was out canvassing:

"I'd vote for you, you're so normal!"

(This was after a conversation about rising cost-of-living, handouts to developers, and whatnot.  She really meant it.)

The saying of a young child.

When I was hanging out with my one lawyer friend from Missouri and her dad the other week, somehow we got talking about the weird things that kids say sometimes just out of nowhere.

So, her dad told me the story about how once he and his wife and their two sons were out somewhere at a relatively nice party though the two boys were really pretty young, and all of a sudden the younger one goes and tells this older woman that he doesn't know, "My brother calls his penis a dick," and at that his brother just gets all embarrassed and cringes inward because his parents found out, and his wife just gasps and says her younger son's name all drawn out-like.

Their family still laughs about that to this day.

A subway ride the next day:

A slightly fat white girl with blonde hair and big dark sunglasses is on her phone, talking relatively loudly about something and suing and they should have known and she called her lawyer.

Later, a (younger) (fat) (Mexican) guy sits next to me, and although he looks all clean, he smells faintly of cigarettes, and more of dank ass, this surprisingly robust smell that comes to my nostrils every minute or two, just rising up out of his fat ass and jeans that he's probably worn too much, though they're clean, and it just hits me and makes me sick and just lingers in my nostrils, this ass smell.

And, the subway driver is riding the breaks, so we speed up and then slow down, and then speed up and slow down, again and again and again, all the while while I'm getting whiffs of ass now and then, rounded off with a kind of mild cigarette smell a bit.

Eventually, he stands up to get off, but before he does, I see him standing there holding the overhead handloop thing from the overhead rail by the door and moving his head up and down to do a head-to-toe-to-head leer at some younger (thin) (white) girl standing there obliviously with this fat leering Mexican behind her, and I wonder if he ever gets any ass, and my hunch is not, but if he does, it's a longtime girlfriend, and she's ugly.

Later, I start hearing someone chew gum loudly with their mouth open, and I glance over and it was the girl who had been on the phone, now with her head a bit askew and positioned like she's just staring out into space, though I can't see her eyes because of her big sunglasses, and she's making noise again without noticing it because that's the type of person she is.

A nighttime subway ride.

The other week, I was visiting with my one lawyer friend from Missouri and her dad, and we talked till after 1am in the morning, and then because of subway delays, I didn't get on it till 2am to go home.

There were a handful of (young) (black) guys on the car, including one tall guy with dreads under a neat black cap and with jeans and a neat black jacket of some sort.

The next stop, two (young) (white) women get on, one very drunk.

Then, next stop, a (younger) (black) mom gets on, with like 3 or 4 kids from like age 4 to 12, and they sit opposite me.

A few stops later, at some point after the two (young) (white) women get off, the train stops again, for a while.

Then, it gets going, and not long after, that one tall (young) (black) guy who had been on the train, and is now kind of slouched down in his seat, starts singing to himself very loudly, "I LOVE THE LORD/ AND THE LORD SURE LOVES ME/ I LOVE THE LORD/ AND THE LORD SURE LOVES ME...", just on and on and on.

Previously, he didn't seem to be on something, but now no-one pretends to look at him, or notice.

He sings like that for around 5-6 stops, and then his singing just fades away and stops for no discernible reason, and he just slouches there.

A few stops later, I get off the train and go home, and go reheat some leftover Chinese food I had in the fridge from eating out the night before.

Soon, I go to sleep.

A downside of campaigning:

I shave now on any day I'll be out doing campaign work, so that means pretty much every day, at most 2 days in between shaving.

And, I can't look like shit when I go to the grocery store.

It really is like you're trading a part of yourself away, and are always guarded with what other people might think about you, even if they talk with you or see you just briefly.

It's like you get all boxed in, and must nurture a private self apart from your public presentation, which really isn't you anymore.

This really is an act of self-discipline above all else, much more than I'd ever expected, though I always knew it would involve some.

When it really boils down to it, it's not the strategy so much or the social media presence or whatnot, it's the day-to-day guardedness that's the challenge, at least for me, and it's more a challenge than anything I've faced in a while.

It's like constant self-awareness in all ways.

I almost wonder if it's shit like they used to teach aristocratic women, on how to properly eat at table so you appear all dainty and attractive and shit like that.

Maybe it's more like that, actually.  "Mannered."

Man, have I been sore.

I think campaigning will keep the weight off.

For one of my 2 jobs right now, I walk around a ton, and then when I go canvassing on my days off, I'm just walking through the neighborhood all the time.

That's really a good thing, too.  They say you should try to maintain your weight and not get fat from all the food from events and shit like that.

But, a lot of mornings, I just wake up, and all my legs are just so sore, from feet up, but especially my calves.

Maybe I should stretch more.