Jan 24, 2009 11:13 AM
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New York, 12:42 AM
Wed Feb 10
55 posts in the last 24 hours
Sometimes we all look back on the choices we've made, and wonder wistfully how things would have turned out had we chosen different paths. And sometimes this makes us delusional, like Julia Allison.
Julia, a fameball, went to the inauguration, you know. She went to balls and everything. But one gets the sense that the young lady's time in DC may have been tainted by a desultory veil of regret. Why can't she be a White House speechwriter?
You know, it’s rare that I look back on my life and wish I had gone in another direction, but reading this year-old Times article about Jon Faverau, Barack Obama’s 27-year-old chief speechwriter, my mind pulled a Sliding Doors. For a minute I imagined what it might have been like had I stayed on the Hill, had I continued in politics. I was only nineteen when I started working as a legislative correspondent in the 107th congress - a baby, honestly - but only three years younger than my mom when she worked for Nixon (as a speechwriter) and not that much younger than Jon when he met Barack.
I often wonder: if I hadn't stopped playing baseball after Little League, and if I hadn't had this pedestrian body, mediocre arm, and stifling inability to hit curve balls, would I be playing for the Yankees now? Perhaps I will "lifecast" this question.
Actually, I went to one of Barack’s first fundraisers, in my neighbor’s backyard back home in Chicago. There must have been thirty other people there, and I shook his hand, and talked with him for a bit. I’m embarrassed to admit what we spoke about … (cringe) … it concerned a former fling of mine, whom we both knew. Of all things. Sigh.
I once saw Derek Jeter walking down the street in Manhattan, and I sunk to my knees and fellated him right there on the corner, while asking, "Do you think I could have played for the Yankees?" Later we laughed about the fact that we had both, coincidentally, had sex with Adriana Lima. I'm quite embarrassed to admit that, but it's too late now.
And it’s occurred to me, from time to time, as I watched his meteoric political rise, that I could have tagged along. That I was there at the right time and the right place with the right background and the right degree … and I walked right on by.
Oh Julia. You made the right choice.
Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.
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