OXFORDAs the debate nears, our sleeping conditions are deteriorating. Last night Bryan and I both crashed at the house of a William Winter Institute employee. The scene this morning reminded me of the line in "The Godfather" about "going to the mattresses" when things get really serious:
Four people sleeping in the living room--two sprawled out on air mattresses, one on the couch and another hugging the carpet underneath an old quilt. Walking around this morning was like a game of hopscotch. Two more spent the night in our host's office, and I'm still not sure how many slept in his bedroom.
We were a motley group, too. In addition to Bryan and I, there were two ACLU employees, a Baltimore-based video documentarian, an Obama volunteer from Indonesia by way of Los Angeles and a UNC grad student known primarily as "The Couz," who somehow scored a ticket into the debate and drove the entire way from North Carolina yesterday.
On an unrelated note, the only foreign journalists I've met so far have been Italian. They're stupendously nice and their phone conversations make enjoyable listening. So far all I can decipher is an initial "Pronto" and "Oxford, Mississippi.
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