The alarm goes off. A sleepy Elizabeth Warren turns her head off of the pillow and smacks the clock, then settles back into the pillow momentarily. “Shit,” she says. She lets out a big sigh before yelling, “Bruce! BRUUUUCCE! WHERE’S MY COFFEE!?!” “Be there in just a minute, honey.” “Did you let Bailey out?” “Yes, dear.” “So help me God, if he eats poop again, that’s it…” She sits up rubbing her head like she was at the club until two. She slips her feet into pink, bunny slippers, and steps out onto the porch to smoke a morning cigarette. She thinks to herself, well at least I don’t have to pretend to care any more.

I didn’t volunteer for Elizabeth, because I knew things would end here. I couldn’t do it, for the annoying political types I’d have to hang around, for the conversations with people that I didn’t want to have, but mostly in order to protect myself. I, like many others I knew, mostly women, were afraid that she couldn’t win, and therefore didn’t want to make the emotional investment in her candidacy. I started with her, in a freezing, mill courtyard in Lawrence, where I couldn’t feel my feet afterwards. I was there to be there, to witness history, to witness the campaign process from the very beginning. We had been hurt before, traumatized, by the New York Times electoral needle, and the MSNBC election night music. We had been hurt before.

At her announcement for the presidency I was struck by her music choices, which were excellent by the way, and the people she chose to have around her. I enjoyed her reach back into our own country’s history, telling the story of the Bread and Roses Strike…