Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?

As I sat down across from my mother at the restaurant, I watched her expression wilt with concern as she got a better look at me. I was expecting this.

"Have you lost weight since the last time?" she asked.

I shrugged. I could have had a better response prepared but I was too exhausted. I'd been up all night with a girl I wasn't about to tell her much about. And I didn't feel like recounting how stressful the previous month had been.

"Have you been eating?" she pressed.

"Yes, I've been eating," I insisted.

"Have you been eating healthy?" she prodded.

"Yes, I've been eating healthy. I've been going to the gym more."

We quietly ordered brunch. I was too out of it to offer up my standard everything's-all-right routine. My perennial goal for these sporadic visits has always been to allay her motherly concerns, but I just didn't have the energy for the deception today.

"Did you watch the debate?" she asked.

My mother wasn't the most well-informed voter. Registered as an independent, she tended to vote on gut-instinct. She was enamored with Hillary Clinton because she was an older woman; didn't trust Obama despite the fact that both her kids were supporting him. I was afraid to hear her appraisal of McCain and Palin.

"Mom," I said, not really wanting to get into a politics discussion, "just vote for Obama. It'll be better that way."

"Okay," she replied.

I shoveled eggs into my mouth. Content that if I failed to do anything else productive this weekend, at least I'd managed to get a swing vote for Obama.