tonight, along with the rest of the country, i was watching the election coverage. the electoral votes were slowly climbing... emphasis on slowly. i chose to watch dan rather, and i gather his coverage of the election was probably a little quiter and sleepiness-inducing than some of the other channels would have been, but my dad liked dan rather so i stuck it out out of loyalty.

well, eventually i decided to watch something else and check back. it was something like 204 to 130. a while later, i checked in on BBC America and it said that obama was the president, and his votes were in the 300s! i decided to confirm this news with an american source, and dan agreed! obama is president! (elect.)

they started talking about the whole thing and someone brought up the fact that this was going to be one of those historic moments that we all remember for our whole lives. you know how they do that.. where were you when you heard jfk had been killed? where were you when you learned about princess di? (i was at my dad's house.) where were you when the nyc was attacked? (at the law office where i worked. byron called to tell me some crazy shit was going down; check the news.) so while this wasn't a traumatic event, it was something significant enough that we would remember it our whole lives.

"damn," i thought. "and here i was watching SEX CHANGE HOSPITAL."

anyway, despite the fact that this poor girl with the physique of a linebacker was gettin' ready to get real boobies, i abandoned 'sex change hospital' to watch the concession speech.

a couple of thoughts: it was real nice. really. he seemed sincere in trying to get his party to unite behind the new president. that was nice. but then, oh! he mentioned sarah! then they showed her. my thoughts were something like awe of how pretty she really is and an overwhelming desire for her to slink back to alaska and never be heard from again.

then the... uh... winning? speech. seeming to understand that this was a moment of great importance to blacks in our nation, the black members of our household gathered with me around the television to watch barack. (no, really - it was me and maggie and elliot. they came to me! we were only missing georgie, but she just got a refill of hay in the guest bathroom that she and moo are inhabiting so i wasn't expecting to hear from her tonight.)

and now a few thoughts about obama...

first, am i ever damn happy that i will be listening to obama speak for the next four years rather than mccain.

second, wow! we have a really beautiful first family now, don't we?

third, he made me cry. even just the energy and hope in the air lately... it all culminated tonight. and another wow to that.

in an interview i watched with him just the other day, he was posed with the question of what he will be feeling if he wins. he said that he basically will feel a incredible deal of responsibility to the american people. and his speech reinforced that he really means that... and it also made me hope really hard that he can come through and be the good president he wants to be.

i'm going to try to be happy right now and not just grumble on the fact that florida voters supported the amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and woman. that to me is an unnecessary act of, well, meanness. grr. but you can't win 'em all i guess.

going to bed now. but, well, yay. :)

¶ 12:46 AM