You Can’t Be Serious(77)

I’ve thought about this experience often in the years since, especially as our politics has grown more cynical and fatalist. The Americans we were able to help in the Gulf lived mostly in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi: places where Obama is despised. These red states didn’t vote to elect him, and they wouldn’t be voting to reelect him. That didn’t matter to the president. Our job was to be there for them, no matter what their political affiliation.

The Sunday afternoon when my intern and I stood alone with the president in the middle of the colonnade, there were no journalists around who might print sound bites of his words. No donors nearby who might hear what he said and feel motivated to write a big check. The president simply meant what he said as he thought about the Americans his executive order would help: “I’m glad we’re finally doing that. It’s the right thing to do.”


1?Okay to use here too!

2?The AAPI community is a very large umbrella encompassing groups as culturally, financially, and economically disparate as wealthy Japanese American doctors, Hmong farmers, and Native Hawaiians; when I was President Obama’s representative to the Council on Native Hawaiian Advancement Conference in 2009, I became the first Executive Branch representative to ever visit the Papakōlea Homestead, in what was a very emotional afternoon for all (a homestead is like a reservation, except unlike Native Americans and Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians still don’t have federal recognition, largely because of the US Senate).

3?New York Knicks, 1947, in case you’re wondering.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN NASCAR AND CHILL




Why is NASCAR considered a sport? I mean, just look at it: A bunch of cars drive around a circle for a few hours, crashing every now and again while drunk fans hoot and holler at the carnage. Dodgeball is more of a sport than NASCAR. Or bowling.

As a northeastern elite, my interaction with NASCAR was minimal until 2010. That’s when, in the midst of my multifaceted DC social life—the kind I had hoped for in moving from the uniformity of Los Angeles—I met a very handsome, quiet guy at a bar. Our first date was a few days later at Townhouse Tavern on R Street, a dive by Dupont Circle. Josh is from a small, rural town in Mississippi. He has a distinctively southern accent and the kind of relaxed, laid-back personality that any high-strung northeasterner like me envies. I was looking forward to getting to know him, and had a good feeling going into the evening.

A couple of minutes after sitting down, as soon as his first drink came, Josh nonchalantly pulled a well-worn koozie out of his back pocket and slid his beer into it. Did this dude seriously bring his own koozie with him? I thought to myself. I was incredulous—I had never seen a human unironically bring a koozie anywhere before, let alone to a bar, let alone to a date at a bar.

The only other time I had even seen a koozie outside of a souvenir shop was at my buddy Michael O’Neil’s house. O’Neil has a collection of more than a hundred koozies. When you go to his place for a party, you are offered your choice of beer with your choice of koozie. When I was writing this book, he sent me a koozie emblazoned with the words “If you are reading this, I’m not writing my book.”

To me, a koozie is either 1) a souvenir or 2) an awesome party favor from a quirky friend. A koozie is not something you bring in your back pocket to a date. This was definitely not going to work out. It was time to make small talk while I finished my beer and bounced as quickly as possible.

“Do you always bring your own koozie to a bar?”

“Yyyyyep.”

“Cool, cool. Does it actually keep your beer cold?”

Josh took a sip and slowly shook his head. “Keeps mah hand warm.”

What a line. This dude was smooth. He didn’t pull that understated one-liner to make a move; this was just who he was. Once the koozie deliberations were over, we talked about other things: family, hobbies, food. Maybe I could look past his obsession with beer insulation for another beverage or three?

As appealing as Mississippi Josh seemed given his koozie-using nonchalance and my moderate beer-buzz, I had to be sure. A midweek second date would be the perfect gauge. I like weeknight dates because you can get to know a person and still make it home at a respectable hour for work the next day. (Also, if the dude turns out to be a weirdo, you have a totally reasonable way out. Oh, is it already eight p.m.? I have to get going, I have CrossFit at five a.m. tomorrow and then I gotta brief the president about this thing I can’t talk about. It was nice to meet you!)

For date number two, I arrived back at Townhouse Tavern before Josh and grabbed a seat upstairs. I was more nervous than I expected to be, which made me realize I probably liked him more than I thought I did. Looking to take the edge off, I ordered a vodka soda. That’s what Hollywood agents and celebrity personal trainers tell their clients to drink if you are going to drink anything AT ALL, Kal. Do you really want to be fat? An agent once took an Amstel Light out of my hand at a work event and replaced it with a vodka soda, reprimanding, “You’re shooting a movie in two weeks!” Amstel Light has like ninety-five calories. That’s how much they don’t want you to be fat.

Josh showed up, ordered his beer, and pulled his koozie out of his back pocket, sliding his bottle into it. He eyed my tasteless, colorless vanity drink. “Not feeling a beer tonight?”

Overthinking every move, I nervously blurted out, “Oh, I was just getting warmed up. I’ll have a beer next!”