To those who are huddled around radios…
GOOD MORNING…
I woke up this morning, ready to get things going. Let me at em’ I was saying to myself. Let’s see how this ends up. Look at him go, ready for anything.
I was only home for a few days between tours, not a lot of time to get a lot done. Tons of mail to go thru.
But the only one that mattered to me was this one. The thing I had to do when I was home was this. I had to vote, since I was not going to be home today. See the picture above, that is me in Glasgow, Scotland.
My abuelita doing what she can to help Obama and Gregoire. I was Optimistic, and not really cautiously so anymore, that Obama was going to win the general election, but not so much about Gregoire’s chances.
It was exciting, all day, getting little snipets of what was happening. Friends sending me copies of their ballots Everyone was so jazzed. People in Glasgow were dying to see what would happen.
It was hard to pay attention to work today. As the show was happening people were just starting to get off work on the east coast, and casting their ballots. There was so much anticipation. I did not want to think about the deafening sound of so many people’s heart breaking. My favorite site for election predictions, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/, was putting my mind at ease. This is what they thought would happen. And below that is what ended up happening.
We were on waiting to get on the ferry from Scotland to Ireland, when people’s phones started coming alive. It was 3 am I believe. States were coming in. It was pretty much as predicted. Pennsylvania did what it was supposed to do. Then Ohio and Florida was looking close, and who knows what happened in North Carolina. And then It started coming thru. People just sending texts and emails saying they are calling it for Obama. People I haven’t talked to in a while sending us updates. By the time we got on the ferry, at 5am it was over.
So we celebrated.
The speech was on the tvs on the ferry but they wouldn’t give us any sound. So Amanda called me, and held her phone up to her tv in Seattle.
And when Obama said to ” those who are huddled around radios” i felt like he was talking to us. Somewhere in International Waters on a ferry, listening to a staticy speaker phone, while watching a speech happening 1/3 way around the world. It might not be a forgotten corner of the world, the world felt amazingly small at that moment.
It was hard to think of what to do when the speech was over. It was hard to think about what is next. It was hard to stop smiling and it was hard to stop saying “fuck!” I “talked” to Kerri, I couldn’t her really a word she said, but I got a hell of a shout out from the War Room party.
This is our president. OUR PRESIDENT.
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