Does my complete enjoyment of the newest P!nk CD make me uncool? Because if it does, I'm okay with that. Look, I know that the lyrics "I'm still a rock star, I got my rock moves" aren't exactly high poetry but the song is so singable. Yesterday while Will was at work I may or may not have blasted the CD and sang along while I was supposed to be working. I haven't done anything like that in a while and can I just say? Now I remember why I used to do it.
So. Election Night. What a trip huh?
I accidentally volunteered to throw an election night party and ended up having four of my best friends come over so that we could watch the results come in together. Can I just say? My friends and I? Love a theme. In addition to the traditional pizzas and salad that are served at every gathering (thanks for bringing that salad BTW W!) we had:
Politically Incorrect Cupcakes (yellow cake with chocolate and vanilla frosting to represent the two candidates)
Politically Sort of Incorrect Doritos (Spicy Doritos to represent McCain and his fiery temper and Cool Ranch Doritos to represent Obama's calm collectedness)
Chocolate Elephants and Donkeys from Moonstruck Cafe
Popcorn (the official state snack food of Illinois).
I may or may not have pulled my bangs back with red and blue hair clips and then pulled the rest of my hair into a ponytail which was held in place by a purple scrunchy.
At 6:30ish Obama was already trouncing McCain in electoral votes and I was shouting at the television "Don't call it yet! Don't call it yet! Nobody's here!" because nobody could get here before 6:45 because of work and stuff.
Once everybody got here we started switching back and forth between MSNBC and regular ol' NBC because my friend Katie has a thing for Brian Williams and I? Well, Tom Brokaw could be reading the phone book and I wouldn't care--I'd still listen to him for hours. Katie drew a map of the US so that we could color in the states as the electoral votes were called. Together we counted down the seconds until the polls closed in our time zone and then...
All I remember is a room full of women screaming and clapping and "yeeeeaaaaaaahhhh!"'s. And then we all got a little bit teary and weepy. We watched McCain's concession speech (which was 100% class) and then watched Obama's victory speech.
A lot of it is a blur. A blur of happy astonishment. I got a little misty during the victory speech and from the sounds of my friends sniffling around me I wasn't the only one.
I spent most of Wednesday and yesterday trying to think of an eloquent way to express my reaction to this election. I think that this win felt even better for me than Clinton's re-election did in 1996 (which was the first Presidential election I ever got to vote in). I want to shout out how happy I am, how proud I am of my country this week (in spite of the devastating spread of gay-marriage bans that happens in every election--Oregon's was in 2004). At the same time I want to respect the voters who didn't vote for Obama. I don't want to rub it in the McCain voters' faces.
See, I remember 2004. Vividly. I remember lying on my living room floor and bawling because I felt like my entire country had abandoned me. I just couldn't wrap my head around hate winning. And I know that there are people who are feeling that way this week. Maybe not so much the hate part but the "I don't recognize my country anymore" part. It's a terrible feeling.
For me this election wasn't about black-v-white. It wasn't about right-v-left, Democrat-v-Republican, us-v-them. For me it was about electing someone who wouldn't bully me into keeping my opinions to myself. It was about electing someone who would fight for us all equally. The very reason I voted for him was in his victory speech: when he called on those who didn't vote for him for help because he will be their president too. For me this election was about saying "look, we don't see this issue the same way at all, but surely we can work together to find a solution we can both live with."
I hope that Barack Obama lives up to what I--and everyone else who voted for him--hopes to see. I know that he will approve laws and implement policies I don't agree with. I'm sure there will be some things that I am completely disgusted with. It's politics. It will never be disgust-free. I don't expect or even hope to love everything he does. What I do hope is that his decisions will be decisions I can respect, even when I don't agree with them.
Still though--the raw emotion that has governed this week... I am really glad that I get to live during this time. I don't ever want to take it for granted.
