on a Sunday, called to check in. I routinely reply to all just-being-polite personal inquiries the same way: “Good good.” But I was worn down from a morning spent arranging “gold not yellow” roses with baby’s breath while trying to keep the knot in my throat at bay. “Actually, life fucking sucks right now,” I told him.

“Really? What’s wrong? What happened?”

I entertained no thoughts of this man being able to comprehend, much less solve, any of my problems but wanted him to know about them anyway. “Well, you remember my friend Adaoha? You met her at that club that one time.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, she died Thursday and I can’t be alone in that fucking rat-infested basement, so I’m in Cali for less than forty-eight hours for this family thing with Gi. My life is a shambles.”

“Jesus.”

Calling on the Lord was the one thing I hadn’t tried, and unfortunately there was no time. “Wait, hold on. Actually, this is work calling. I’ll talk to you when I get back.” He was probably more relieved than I was; spilling your guts sounds pointless, because it is. On the other line was the office, collectively wondering if I’d like to cover Obama’s “race speech” in Philadelphia on Tuesday. It was Sunday. Well, yeah, sure. Sounds great, but did they know what was going on with me? By the way, sorry about your friend. So can you do it?

Inside, my well-done brisket was waiting.

I spent the next three days perpetually exhausted. My flight was delayed for no less than ten hours because of a computer glitch, and the new citizen manning the SuperShuttle heard my address in a different language, stealing even more hours from me. The one night I spent in the bat cave was especially sleepless. A rat had set up shop under my bed, getting to work by devouring the crotches of two pairs of Calvin Kleins and, if I was ever able to dream, my eyeballs. Leaving every light on helped. Plus, after too many weekends of rain my one closet was full of mold. The shoes I planned for Philadelphia had been ruined in a lovely shade of green—the kind of color that looks sophisticated and old-worldly on once-bronzed generals riding horseback. I took a wet towel to their soles and hoped no one would notice.

I rode in on the Amtrak “quiet car,” figuring the likelihood of business commuter chitchat would be greatly reduced. So when my phone rang, I had to take it in the bathroom. Over the choochooing of the train and swish-swishing of the toilet bowl water, I could hear my boss asking what I thought the day would be like. I managed to say “historic” without choking.

Once inside the scrum of reporters, I found myself longing for the wide-open spaces of an Amtrak restroom. It was too late to pretend like I’d never made it, like I’d accidentally crapped my pants and fallen onto the third rail. Since that hadn’t happened yet, I put on my “I so know what the fuck I’m doing” face and handed over my ID card when pressed. People seemed equal parts impressed and surprised when matching the name to my face, which made little to no sense because there was a caricature of me on our home page. A snarky blog once wrote, “Why is one of Politico’s only black writers Helena Andrews portrayed as a drinker? All of the other caricatures on their pages are pretty vanilla, if you catch our drift.” I thought I looked cute comicized.

I was getting quotes from a Baptist preacher-minister-reverend-doctor when I spotted Maureen looking bored over by a group of reporters who’d converted their mics into light sabers, fighting to get to a man in rabbinical garb. I thanked Rev. Whatever-the-Hell and walked over to say hello, careful to avoid the clusterfuck to my left.

“Maureen? Hey!” It took her a few minutes to register my existence, but once that was out of the way, an immediate flash of purpose lit up her face.

“I’ve got a guy for you. He’s so hot, it’s perfect.” When I balked, she brought in reinforcements.

“Zeleny, Zeleny! Don’t you think Reggie would be great for Helena?” She was surveying other page-one journalists from the campaign trail.

“Yeaaaaah.” This reporter eyed me up and down with a finger at his temple—the international hand sign for “Give me a minute to think about it.” “Yeaaaah, I could see that, I guess. Reggie Love, right?” I wasn’t sure if his lack of enthusiasm