The American Spectator

GQ

An arcane communiqué written in the autobiographical mode, pursuant to some esoteric aspiration, by an obvious idiot:

Today, I am one week sober.

Visiting family in Kentucky recently, I consumed my last meal at Chick-Fil-A: one chicken sandwich, no pickle; eight nuggets of tender white meat; and an order of salt-crusted waffle fries that were so perfectly crisp, no dipping sauce was needed.

It was a private moment. I ate the sandwich first, knowing that if I was truly full, the logical thing to sacrifice would be the fries. As the salty-sweet crunch melted on my taste buds, I thought about all the calories I had consumed over the years. There was last Christmas in Austin, where my parents reside, when I drove through the pick-up window for five consecutive meals. I felt sick after the third. The next morning I waited 15 minutes for the doors to open and then ordered two flaky, buttery chicken biscuits. There were the frequent visits during middle school, a 30-minute drive to the edge of town, where dinners were topped off with brownies à la mode. It’s only clear now, 14 years wiser and 30 pounds lighter, the pact I had made with myself: to eat the gay away.

Somewhere between the last nugget and my inaugural fry, I started to fill up but pushed through—some weird, masochistic homage to my former self. When I was finished, a polite woman with bluntly chopped blond hair approached my table. She pulled her red and white visor straight and reached for my tray. “Can I get you anything else, darlin’?” she asked with a thick, Southern drawl and smiled.

And my answer was simply, regretlessly, finally: No.

(August 3, 2012)

The Nation

A mob descends on Obama head-quarters:

On July 18, 111 days before the November election, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx arrived at Obama head-quarters for a special announcement. Flanked by a dozen campaign volunteers, Foxx explained how the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, the first in the state’s history, would boost the president’s organizing efforts in this crucial battleground state. 

“From the day North Carolina was selected,” Foxx said, “it was clear that the Obama campaign was committed to delivering the Tarheel State for President Obama once again.”

(August 27/September 3, 2012)