Blending in

On Thursday night, my boss gave a big speech, so I went with her to Chicago to be her "body person" -- basically to make sure that she knows who's who and what's what, to handle the follow-up requests that always come from the big line of people who wait around to talk to her after a big speech, and to intervene politely when a particular person in said line is talking her up for too long.

I've played this role for her probably a dozen times during the last few years, so I know the drill pretty well; mostly, I just try to blend in to the background until I'm needed, and then I disappear just as quickly.

I was figuring that that strategy wouldn't work as well the other night, though, as I appeared to be (because you can't tell just by looking) one of about five white people in the crowd of 1,000.

This struck Minnams particularly funny; as she (correctly, really) pointed out, I'm pretty much the whitest white girl around. Honestly, until last night, I had no idea that there's a Negro National Anthem, which was beautiful, but I was the only one in the room who didn't know the words. There was also a round of Kumbaya, literally, which initially struck me funny because I tend to use "singing Kumbaya" as a disparaging figure of speech, but here it felt right -- not forced or phony, just heartfelt.

So although I felt conspicuous in my whiteness, my experience at this meeting was really no different from others where I don't know anyone; my differentness mattered in my own head, but not objectively, I think. The event itself was more boisterous than most of the long boring sessions I sit through, but boy was it loooooong; my boss didn't start speaking until half an hour after the whole session was supposed to have ended, and I was incredibly grateful when I was finally able to escape to my room for some dinner at 9:45. The glamorous life of a body person...