So, I’ve been thinking lately about elite theory – the idea that society is basically structured like a pyramid, with military leaders, political party leaders and business leaders at the pinnacle. Just beneath them, you’ll find the “professional class” (federal politicians, academicians, top-level bureaucrats and business people). Filling out the bottom of the pyramid is the rest of us.

Okay, so elite theory is sometimes criticized as being little more than a conspiracy theory or justification for Communism, but I don’t know if you could persuade me that there isn’t some truth to it.

I thought about this while sitting in class the other night. Most of my classes seem to be split between Master’s students and Ph.D. students, with varying concentrations of one or the other. It could be nothing more than my own insecurity, but sometimes I feel like the Master’s students are kind of second-class citizens. Much discussion seems to focus on the Ph.D. people – what they’re doing, what they’ve done, or what research they plan to do in the future. They have a certain connection with the professor that the rest of lack. Together, they inhabit their shared world of academia, whereas the rest of us toil away at various bureaucratic-type jobs. I also wonder how many of them think that academia is the superior world in which to live.

I was still thinking about all of this when I watched Bill Clinton speak yesterday. I thought about the difference in the way this one event was likely viewed by him and viewed by me. For him, this was one stop of several he had planned for that day. He says the same things over and over, in different states, to different people. Who knows how many speeches like this he’s given throughout his career, with this single event in Norman blending seamlessly into all the thousands of other events.

Then you have me, as well as the thousands of other people lined up in front of the OU Fieldhouse that morning, to whom this event was kind of a big deal. I’d planned my day around it, and I was embarrassingly excited about seeing a Real-Life Former President. This was something most of us will remember for the rest of our lives. Oh, some of us might be all cool and blasé about it, but it’s still a much bigger deal for us than it is for Clinton.

I guess what I’m getting at is this – it’s a really weird feeling to be very much into yourself, your life, your problems, and then realize that you are but one featureless face bobbing up and down in a sea of nondescript humanity. Sometimes you might feel like you’re special. You’re smarter than other people, or more creative. You’re better than everyone else. But you’re not. There are people out there looking down upon you with the same condescension you might feel towards those you view to be less enlightened than you. No matter how clever you might think you are, there are people out there who think you’re a total philistine.

I am the proletariat. I am one more worker bee to be controlled and exploited by whoever is in charge. I suppose it’s possible to find some significance or dignity in my utterly unremarkable existence, but ultimately, I am nothing. I am replaceable. I am indistinguishable.

I’m getting a cold shower of humility right about now.

Tulsa’s Bill Hader (SNL, Superbad) has been using the writer’s strike hiatus to catch up on some reading, mostly sci-fi and horror. Over on the NY Times Papercuts blog, he offers up some of his recommendations.

He describes the R.A. Lafferty story “Ginny Wrapped in the Sun” in terms that some of us fellow Okies might find familiar:

You get such a sense of joy and boundless imagination in every sentence – even if the story doesn’t totally cohere, you feel like it’s about something. It’s so incredibly Tulsa. You get that feeling when you see a Flaming Lips show. It’s not like we’re dark and hurt and twisted. It’s like, “I’ve got blood on my face – come on, y’all, this is awesome.”

His other recommendations include stories by Joe Hill and Clive Barker among others…some of which might wind up on my own reading list.

I got in line at 10:15 this morning, a good two hours before the Hillary Clinton campaign event was scheduled to begin. Since I was alone and very bored, I passed my wait in line by listening to podcasts. Around 11:00, they opened the doors to the OU Fieldhouse. As I inched closer and closer to the entrance, I looked back at the line of people stretching behind me.

I couldn’t see the end. We’re talking a crapload of people.

Once inside, I was handed a Hillary sticker. I slapped it on my coat and tried to figure out the best place to sit. I managed to score a seat down on the floor, right in the middle. Even though I was in the next-to-last row, I was still maybe only 100 feet or so from the stage. There were Hillary signs on every other seat, and I quickly grabbed one. I listened to more podcasts, and watched people continue to file in. The Fieldhouse was literally filling up to the rafters. Why they didn’t hold this event at Lloyd Noble is beyond me.

Every so often, some guy would come out and throw Hillary t-shirts at people. The crowd went nuts. Everyone loves a free t-shirt.

Beginning at noon, one speaker after another took the stage. First, we heard from the president of the College Democrats. Then, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks from New York, followed by former Tulsa mayor and Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage…followed by a very rowdy Mike Turpin…followed by David Boren.

Finally, around 12:45 (2 1/2 hours after I arrived on campus), Bill and Chelsea took the stage. First of all, Chelsea is adorable. Secondly, Bill is hot. I don’t care that he’s old enough to be my dad, he’s still freaking hot. In fact, I’ve had a total crush on him ever since high school.

Government is so sexy.

He ran through what is probably the standard stump speech. Hillary wants to end the war. Hillary wants health care for every American. Hillary wants to create green-collar jobs to help us become energy-independent. What he didn’t talk about was John Edwards having just dropped out of the race. And he barely made a reference to Barack Obama.

I’d heard just this morning on CNN that Bill supposedly talks about himself nine times for each time he talks about Hillary. While I didn’t count quite that many self-references, he did talk a bit about his stint in the White House. Which was fine with me. I was in full-on political groupie mode, silently hoping that he’d look at me.

I don’t think he ever did.

Bill spoke for about an hour, and I finally got back out to my car around 2:00. I was starving, and had to pee like Seabiscuit.

I’m glad I went. I never could’ve forgiven myself if I’d passed on the chance to see a President, and I even walked away with a bunch of Hillary swag (I grabbed a yard sign on the way out). I’m using these as decorations for my upcoming birthday party – the theme of which is, “Primarypalooza.”

Looks like John Edwards is getting out of the race today, and will be making his official announcement around noon (Central Time). Where will his support go – Barack or Hillary?

Speaking of Hillary, I’m taking off work today to try and see her husband when he speaks at OU early this afternoon. News Channel 4 did a quick broadcast from OU this morning, and it looks like there were already a few people lined up outside the Fieldhouse at 8:30. I’m going to try and get there by 10:15 so I can hopefully stake out a place in line. Doors open at 11:15, the event supposedly begins at 12:15.

I want to touch Bill Clinton.

Yay! A Disclaimer Post! You know you love ‘em.

Disclaimer: The following is primarily for my own benefit, an effort to arrange my thoughts in some kind of coherent fashion. Read on if you want. Read part of it. Or don’t read it at all. Whatever.

I’ve decided to turn my latest attempt to get healthy into something of an amateur experiment. (Science is the answer.) With a clinical, detached eye, I’ve been picking apart my past failures so I can do things right this time around. I figure there must be certain common factors that result in my falling off the wagon. There has to be more than the fact that I’m simply a weak person (although certainly no one would dispute that statement).

So, I began identifying and defining those independent variables which might wreak havoc upon my dependent variable (my Smoker / Binge-Drinker status):

Variable #1: Certain bars like Sidecar, Cock O’ The Walk and McFinn’s must be avoided. For one, these are all bars where smoking is allowed. Secondly, I have many, many fond memories of long, drunken evenings in these places, memories that will only cause me much anguish if dwelled upon for too long. I also learned this weekend that even some non-smoking establishments are no good. There are just some bars that send me to a certain Dark Place, where I question if I will ever be able to have fun again.

Variable #2: Beer must also be avoided. Maybe it’s because I started smoking and drinking at the same time in my life (that wonderful freshman year at the U of A), but beer and cigarettes are inextricably linked in my mind. I’ve had wine a few times since I quit smoking, and have been fine, but when I tried to have a beer over the weekend, all hell broke loose. It was just about the hardest thing ever to not go buy a pack of cigarettes. So for the foreseeable future, it’s wine and mixed drinks only.

Variable #3: Must have an alternate plan for all of those times in which Dwight and I would normally go to a bar. Example: On Saturday, Dwight and I pulled a Juno / Atonement double feature at Harkins Bricktown. In between movies, we found ourselves with some time to kill. We couldn’t think of anything to do, so we did what we might have done last month, or last year. We went to Coach’s for a beer and an appetizer. Bad idea. I was utterly and completely miserable the entire time we were there. The lesson learned from this experience was that we simply need to plan things out better, and avoid those situations in which the only thing I can think of to do is go to a bar and have a beer. What we should have done instead was go to Starbucks. Or walk the canal. Whether I relapse or not, I see no reason to put myself in situations that cause such distress.

Variable #4: The “all or nothing” diet mentality. I seem to fall into this unfortunate trap every time I make an effort to get my shit together (although it seems to apply more to diet and exercise than anything else). I become obsessive. I feel like I have to be “perfect” every moment of every day, or I’ve failed. Even if I’m not consciously dieting, and am simply trying to eat healthy and exercise, I occasionally catch myself monitoring how much I’ve eaten or how long I’ve been walking. Just as the bars and the beer torture me into having that cigarette, I’ve come to realize that this obsessiveness always ends badly.

My plan is to focus more on “intuitive eating” – eating when I’m hungry, not eating when I’m not. I also like Michael Pollan’s simple yet sage advice, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s not about carbs or fat or calories. There are no “good” or “bad” foods, just degrees of healthfulness and quality. There’s god knows how much evidence that diets simply don’t work, so I refuse to succumb to the diet mentality. I’m trying to eat much more real foods like fruit, vegetables, legumes and whole grains, and as little of the frozen, processed crap as possible. My outlook is borne as much from my finicky, sometimes snobbish attitude towards food (I would rather starve than eat iceberg lettuce or a boneless, skinless chicken breast) as it is the desire to eat healthier. Fortunately, there seems to be a good deal of overlap between the two.

It’s really kind of old-fashioned. No elaborate diet scheme, just an attempt to eat as naturally as possible.

I’m trying to adopt a similarly retro attitude towards exercise. I’ve learned that I can’t make it all about the hours I’ve logged on the treadmill, or the number of calories I’ve burned. No way is that going to work for me. I need something different. Something more lo-fi and old-school. Something more me, the chick who will never in her life be mistaken for a gym rat.

I spent some time spent thinking about what I enjoy, about past exercise experiences that have been particularly memorable, and gradually began moving towards a plan that is very, very me. And once I discovered Will Self, a British author who enjoys traversing seemingly strange routes (like from J.F.K. into Manhattan, for example), I knew I’d hit the exercise motherlode.

I like walking. It makes me feel good. I also like to explore. I like the rather utilitarian idea of walking as a mode of transportation from Point A to Point B, as opposed to countless boring laps around the track, merely to expend calories. I like the idea of having an adventure in your own backyard – of seeing the things that you pass every day but never really notice, or seeing from a different perspective the things that you do notice every day.

So, borrowing from Mr. Self, I have begun to compile a list of future walking routes ranging from the modest (the tunnels beneath downtown OKC) to the ambitious (one end of OKC to the other). I’m going to start small and hopefully, eventually, be fit enough to tackle an all day, 20-mile hike across some random section of the city.

I also think I’m going to blog about all of it – a sort-of Travelogue of the Mundane. It may be a new category on the Two-Headed Blog, or maybe I’ll create a whole new offshoot blog. We’ll just have to see where this leads…