Before Our Eyes

How is everybody feeling? Tired? I know. Me too.

I sent my last text message at 2:34am. (Beware - turn your phone off if you don't ever want to get early morning texts from me - I do not regard texts as I do phone calls and I probably cross all sorts of boundaries as a result.)

Slept through the alarm this morning. Had the excuse in my head: "But I stayed up watching the returns! I have a right to sleep in! I was participating in the workings of our great nation!"

Notice I didn't use scare quotes (alternatively, sneer quotes - I learned that terminology from GRAMMAR GIRL - my new favorite podcast after THIS AMERICAN LIFE and DEMOCRACY NOW) around Great Nation. Because I am trying for optimism this time around.

I stayed late at my day job because MB, my returns date, had rehearsal until 10:30. And not much was going to be solid earlier than that anyhow. I followed CNN and the blogs for those first few hours between 6pm and 9pm, careful not to get too optimistic about anything. I am still smarting from 2004 when I fostered a premature sense of elation based on early poll results only to be battered down over several hours of electoral returns.

On the train I texted the former speech writer:
CM: What does VA look like?
FSW: Unclear. But Dems doing well otherwise. Lieberman won.
FSW: (Re: VA) Would you have voted for the bigot or the misogynist?
CM: I'd have to go with the misogynist. I'm all about the lesser of two evils.

Which pretty much sums up this election. We support a misogynist in Virginia because that is better than a racist asshole clutching his party line with a death grip. We support a pro-lifer in Pennsylvania because that is better than a homophobic fundamentalist (I will miss the running Dan Savage commentary on Santorum, though I am sure he will be resourceful and find a new target).

And on some level I am okay with that. I am an idealist at heart but a realist by necessity.

On my way to meet MB I stopped at the CVS near Dupont to kill a little time by reading bad magazines. I opened up PEOPLE expecting to read about Nicole Richi’s “mysterious illness” (there are the sneer quotes) and instead happened on an article about an American soldier in Iraq who had his entire face burned off and lost an arm and several fingers from his remaining hand as a result of a car bomb. His twenty year old fiancé and family nursed him back to health and proceeded with the wedding as planned. I’m looking at these wedding pictures, this man who is not at all recognizable as the man who left for service, tears streaming in the CVS and thinking “What the fuck did we allow to happen?” and he is quoted saying he wants to go back into the service. That’s all he ever wanted to do.

And so we send our young men and women into the fire. Literally.

Continued walking. Listened to my THIS AMERICAN LIFE. They are following a man who is trying to get an “official” Iraqi death toll calculated (sneer quotes again). An Iraqi tells him that they are worse off now than when Hussein was in power. That was bad too but “Then there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Now, we do not even have a tunnel”.

Made it to Playbill to watch and drink and drink and watch.

A random drunk man with facial hair kept trying to chat us up. He was from Cleveland. He told us so. He reminded me of “Buddy” from Ohio at the bar two weeks ago. Silly Ohio boys.

The talented Mr. Gallu was with us and he commented on how trying it must me to be a woman at a bar. Yeah, sometimes.

Eventually CNN declared that Dems had taken the house. Cheers all around. Then Santorum conceded. More cheers (especially resonant at a place like Playbill).

MB gave the quote of the night. “Now we can really ROCK THE HOUSE.”

It’s cuter when she says it.

Gallu learned I have a blog when I told her I’d quote that. That maybe made him a little bit nervous.

Then we imagined Nancy Pelosi doing outrageous things as speaker of the house. Oh so much political fun!

12:36 am:
FSW: Webb is ahead but it’s unresolved. Allen speaking now.
CM: I just watched it. I would be happy if Virginia went blue.

You set these little goals. Just let Virginia go blue! I would be happy if that at least happened!

And then you wait and drink and drink and wait for days and weeks before you actually know.

I’m practicing cautious optimism (ha! that was a term from TWO ROOMS.) I think this all is a sign that America is looking for change. And that cheers me. I am not going to go immediately negative like so many liberals are wont to do “Just wait until we screw it all up…” Sucks that the marriage proposal passed resoundingly in VA. Still lots of work to do. But let’s look upward and onward, shall we?

DCeiver says it all better than I ever could (can I quote you DCeiver? Is that okay?):

"That said, can the Democrats build on this? Man, I have no idea. No idea. Their post-election talking points though, are much more sensible: don't swagger, preach ethics, plan on connecting with the opposition to find workable bills that can pass with big majorities, play ball from the middle. But they better have a plan, otherwise history WILL look back on this as a win by default."

Cautious Optimism.

Anyway - important things are happening. Rumsfeld just quit. I can't keep up. Go watch CNN.