Elvis lives and is a Saskatchewanian

Friday evening. Finally. Just me and the Carassius auratii. Or should that be the Carassii Auratii? Or the Carassii Auratis?

The goldfish. I wasn’t in the kind of school that did Latin. We did woodwork instead. Bloody good school it was too.

Yes, the goldfish. Swimming around contentedly. Boy are they going to get a big surprise when they get a groovy new tank tomorrow. As you may remember, I named them after two candidates I worked with in the federal election. I have a new candidate. Well, not new, I’ve been canvassing with him since last September. But new in that it’s his moment. By-election soon. If not a provincial election. The government called a by-election seven months late, to avoid the student vote as well as for other more arcane political reasons. And now the word is that they’ll drop the writ for a provincial election around the same time. So we have no idea what date we should be aiming for. Doesn’t matter. We’re ready anyways.

So BRING IT ON DUDES!

I’m so mature about these things.

He’s loving it so far. My candidate. He’s great. I hope he wins. He’ll be a wonderful addition to the legislature.

I shall buy another fish if he does and name him after him.

We have a campaign manager. In from Saskatchewan. What do you call someone from Saskatchewan? A Saskatchewanian? Jesus, I can’t believe I was able to spell that. Good schooling, d’ya know. Great Geography teacher, name of Papa Smurf.

Anyways, the new campaign manager, whom I’ll call El Presidente, for two reasons, one because he shares a surname with a very famous US President, the one that got the lads out of Vietnam after Johnson fucked the war up, and two, because he’s very presidential in that kind of way, anyways El Pres (fuck it, now that I look at it again I’ll call him Elvis) Elvis met us today and did the campaign manager thing.

Interesting.

I’m listening to Sleator-Kinney now. Very loud. Very Friday evening let’s get the work buzz out of my ears please loud.

Yeah, interesting.

He had a whole pile of work to do. He had to take charge, motivate us, calm us down, stoke us up, stroke us, stroke the candidate, stroke the people who were looking after him, listen to us, ignore us without letting on he was, get to know us, let us know how great he was, and get some work done. All in three hours.

I would have had a splitting headache and three mortal enemies if I had had to do it.

So I was impressed that he pulled it off. He remembered people’s roles in lieu of knowing them and it was uncanny how well it worked – politely rip up the literature, while apologising to the literature people, defer to the money guy while pushing the spending his way, joke with the sign people until they let go of their particular needs, stroke the co-chairs incessantly because it’s only week one and they’re exhausted with the prep already, ignore those of us who don’t have a specific role, ignore the woman who makes interesting but irrelevant and negative comments from slightly behind him all night, make jokes about stroking the candidate instead of actually doing it because he’d already sussed that he’s a little ball of self-confidence.

Although a small word of advice Elvis, the candidate is a total wind up merchant and there is no way you are going to get one up on him in a slagging contest. No way. Christ knows I’ve tried. He beats me hands down every time.

Yeah, I learned a lot by just watching him.

Not so impressed that the meeting broke up with nobody sure who was going to do all the work tomorrow. Apart from being sure that most of them weren’t going to do it. But we can’t have everything in one night, I suppose. This weekend will galvanise most of them.

He gave us a little talk about an election in Manitoba where he was given the keys of the office and then his Election Planning Committee fucked off and left him alone for the campaign. He ruined it for me when he said he’d won it, though. I would have lied, just to press home the point. But he’s a man, so of course he can’t look bad. Ever.

But anyways, Elvis is, by all accounts, the man to deliver. First and foremost, by his own account. But more importantly, by other people’s accounts.

We shall see.

It was refreshing to have a non-Nova Scotian in the room anyways. Actually, there were quite a few of us, but the rest of us kept quiet. Until Elvis had left the building.

I had to do that.

Political meetings are class. Me and Hotspur the goddess of spin were talking today about the ultimate sitcom – a The Office type eight episode series on a by-election. One of us really should do it.

Anyways, enough about work. Three twelve hour days on the trot. Too much for the week that was in it.

Enjoy the weekend Queenie, you’ve earned it.