You can take the girl out of the campaign...

...but you can't take the campaign out of the girl!

The more I say the sentence "I used to work on political campaigns," the more campaignsick I become. Still there are some organizer behaviors so ingrained that whether they make sense in my new life or not, they will be with me for a long time to come. All of these things have happened to me in the last month.

You know you used to be an organizer when...

1) You see a For Lease sign on your way to the gym and you think "that would be a great space for a campaign office."

2) You don't have enough forks for your apartment and rather than buy some flatware you get your friends to bring over a box of plastic forks and then slowly steal real ones from restaurants.

3) With every piece of breaking news your first thought is "I wonder how this will impact the 2012 elections."

4) You annoy your friends by stopping for every Greenpeace street canvasser and taking every fundraising call from your alma mater.

5) You're looking for your friend's new apartment on a street where the buildings aren't clearly numbered and you think "man this neighborhood would be a bitch to canvass."

6) You scowl when you see that they have a "No Soliciting" sign.

7) Mid-makeout with a new love interest you realize you don't know whom he voted for in the 2008 primary...and you stop to ask him.

8) You make confirmation calls for your dinner party...from the google rsvp spreadsheet you had previously created.

9) When aforementioned love interest says he'll see you soon, you have to fight every instinct in your body not to say "can I lock you in for a specific date and time?"

11) You freeze up and find an excuse to leave when asked a question by a reporter...even though it's a "man on the street" interview about a new bar opening.

12) You offer to steal toilet paper from the gym before your roommate says "or...I could just buy some."

13) You're on a conference call about transportation for your college reunion and you keep thinking "what do we need the VAN for?"

14) You don't understand until 1/2 hour later how "I have to work tomorrow" was an answer to "Do you wanna grab a beer?"

15) Your friend is bitching about his girlfriend, your other friend is bitching about her job and you keep thinking to yourself "I can think of the perfect West Wing clip for that."

I miss you already!

Love,
Nancy