I�ve got a secret: I�ve always sort of enjoyed being in big crowds. Generally I hate human contact that isn�t familiar or mutual or planned in advance, and I cherish my personal space. But the automatic feeling of belonging that comes from being one of a throng is ineffible and hard to duplicate. Even though I was one of the Alternative Outsiders in high school, I got a clandestine frisson from pep rallies. All the energy, all the positiveness, all the comraderie.

Maybe that�s why I got chills when I saw Clinton speak tonight. Or maybe it was just from seeing the man who, when I was sixteen, shook my hand, got elected, and made me think, perhaps na�vely, but regularly over the next eight years, that good things were possible from our leaders. It's not a feeling I've had for a while now.

I wasn�t even really planning on going to see him speak. Again, I wanted to avoid the teeming crowds of young people shouting platitudes, the chattering queues waiting for tickets, the impossible traffic before and afterwards. But then Jenn said she wanted to go, and we debated over whether it was worth it, and then at the last minute, we thought, what the hell. We didn�t have tickets, but we walked way the fuck over to Carver to check out the scene. As it turned out, surplus tickets were readily available, and we walked right in without waiting.

And I won�t go into detail about his speech. There are probably transcripts of it or similar talks available. Let me just say that it was so refreshing, so comforting, to listen to an oration by an American leader who can 1) speak in complete sentences, 2) pronounce the word �nuclear� correctly, and 3) actually take questions afterwards.

I would have settled for that, but I got more: he quoted literature, made jokes, illustrated the complexities of world politics in stark relief without oversimplifying, responded to two separate hecklers with humor and aplomb, and even provided the first explanation of the war in Iraq that I can actually get my head around. I wasn�t expecting those things. I had forgotten that such leaders existed. I thought we had to settle for cowboy rhetoric and secretive arrogance.

God, I miss him.

The world will come around. It has to; we have no other choice.