(no subject)
I cried last night when we watched Obama's speech.
We wandered around yesterday, around five PM, as polls were closing on the other side of the country and after people stopped looking at us when we asked the UNM students if they'd voted. We were shouting "NUMBERS" because all that was left to do was wait for the numbers to start coming out. It was ... surreal, to imagine after all this time, all this hope and fear and worry and expectation and after all the nightmares, that it would be over. And now it is.
What is left? Relief. More hope. The idea that my niece will never think for a second that a black man can't be President, because she will never know a time when there had never been one. The feeling that I can now say "my country," and feel that it's true.
I feel some gratefulness to McCain for making such a gracious concession speech (which ironically, was the most human he's seemed in a very long time). We had cardboard caricatures of Obama and McCain, and we were planning to burn the one of McCain, but after that speech no one felt like it.
I'm sad about Proposition 8. Very sad. (has it actually passed yet? Everything I can find says it's leading, but not that it passed...)
Some things that I would like to remember from last night:
I will have to post a photo of the map we made. It was awesome! It was an annotated map of the country that we excitedly colored red or blue when each state was announced (except for NM & CA, which we called early out of excitement.) TX had a 3.5 gallon hat, Alaska had an angry moose and Putin watching it, and Florida... was just funny. I might frame it.
I called my aunt in Columbus Ohio who had been on the Obama ground team for the last year. She had been feeling pessimistic lately because the only people left to canvas weren't very receptive. We were laughing and she kept saying "amazing" and calling Obama's victory a miracle.
I talked to my friend in California who called the election as soon as Ohio and Pennsylvania came in blue. He sounded cocky and I just couldn't admit it was true, just yet. Or maybe I just needed to savor the rest of the electoral votes piling up.
My friend Carrie called me as soon as NM was called blue, at a time when NM was the farthest east blue state. She thanked me.
The hugs and high fives and tears and Cabel calling me from his PIRG party. He really worked for this one. NM is blue in no small part because of him!
Everyone running down the hall into my room where I was on the phone with my uncle and screaming and jumping and dropping the phone and hugging each other when Florida got called.
Realizing that pretty much everyone that I voted for actually won his race, and that NM is completely blue now (all house and senate members). Unreal.
Realizing that Obama made me stop feeling cynical about my government. How powerful is that?
We wandered around yesterday, around five PM, as polls were closing on the other side of the country and after people stopped looking at us when we asked the UNM students if they'd voted. We were shouting "NUMBERS" because all that was left to do was wait for the numbers to start coming out. It was ... surreal, to imagine after all this time, all this hope and fear and worry and expectation and after all the nightmares, that it would be over. And now it is.
What is left? Relief. More hope. The idea that my niece will never think for a second that a black man can't be President, because she will never know a time when there had never been one. The feeling that I can now say "my country," and feel that it's true.
I feel some gratefulness to McCain for making such a gracious concession speech (which ironically, was the most human he's seemed in a very long time). We had cardboard caricatures of Obama and McCain, and we were planning to burn the one of McCain, but after that speech no one felt like it.
I'm sad about Proposition 8. Very sad. (has it actually passed yet? Everything I can find says it's leading, but not that it passed...)
Some things that I would like to remember from last night:
I will have to post a photo of the map we made. It was awesome! It was an annotated map of the country that we excitedly colored red or blue when each state was announced (except for NM & CA, which we called early out of excitement.) TX had a 3.5 gallon hat, Alaska had an angry moose and Putin watching it, and Florida... was just funny. I might frame it.
I called my aunt in Columbus Ohio who had been on the Obama ground team for the last year. She had been feeling pessimistic lately because the only people left to canvas weren't very receptive. We were laughing and she kept saying "amazing" and calling Obama's victory a miracle.
I talked to my friend in California who called the election as soon as Ohio and Pennsylvania came in blue. He sounded cocky and I just couldn't admit it was true, just yet. Or maybe I just needed to savor the rest of the electoral votes piling up.
My friend Carrie called me as soon as NM was called blue, at a time when NM was the farthest east blue state. She thanked me.
The hugs and high fives and tears and Cabel calling me from his PIRG party. He really worked for this one. NM is blue in no small part because of him!
Everyone running down the hall into my room where I was on the phone with my uncle and screaming and jumping and dropping the phone and hugging each other when Florida got called.
Realizing that pretty much everyone that I voted for actually won his race, and that NM is completely blue now (all house and senate members). Unreal.
Realizing that Obama made me stop feeling cynical about my government. How powerful is that?