It's the little joys.

Beyond the dancing in the streets, beyond the promise for the Supreme Court and the cabinet and the Constitution and the world at large, I'm still realizing the tiny joyful things about Obama. Take the Post Office, for example.

For somebody who's so bent on being as paperless as possible, I still have to head for the Post Office surprisingly often. In NYC, that means waiting in line at the Post Office. And, in most of the branches I end up using, what do I have to stare at every time? The framed portrait of George W. Bush watching over the line with his creepy simian warmongering Constitution-shredding grin.

Well, just two more months of that... then Obama smile instead, and everything it means presiding over a Post Office line full of progressive, tolerant, every-colored people. What will it mean to have a president who makes me feel relaxed rather than queasy when he smiles at me?

flußsehnsucht... riverlonging

Spending this momentous night in a city that feels, for a couple of strong reasons, like a place I belong and a place I love. Even more than I thought I would, though, I wish I were home. I want to share this night with NYC. I doubt I would want to be at a party or even with other people at all; it feels very good to be alone (and especially valuable to be relaxing, in silence, rather than following the results minute by minute).

But I wanted to stand in line today, in my familiar position as one dot in the wild dizzying mix of people and origins and stories. I wanted to wake up tomorrow and walk in that river and feel my country moving further -- symbolically and otherwise -- towards the real mix. the dream of equal opportunities, the dream of common languages and spaces for every language. the dream of fear dissolved into opening, open minds and open eyes.

evolution eve.

Beautiful afternoon and evening at a North Carolina Obama volunteer outpost (the Corner Oak B&B, should anybody reading this in the future be interested in supporting a business that stayed closed for days in order to host an Obama volunteer operation!).

After doing some data cleanup, I switched over to making phone calls. During this campaign, I've gotten to experience both pre-vetting and post-vetting phone lists. A few weeks ago, there were many more hangups, wrong numbers, and angry "Will you people stop calling me?" moments; tonight's calling, on the other hand, involved a much higher percentage of people who were happy to hear from me. Many people tonight seemed genuinely excited and thanked me repeatedly (I've never experienced that critical mass of grateful people in any other phone-banking situation).

And for my part, I was fed amazing vegan soup (and homemade fudge) and I got to work among an ever-rotating cast of interesting people including typically hot activist types. :) And it looks like my work tomorrow will be more social: after some more computer work, I'll probably be among the group headed for the polls to support people with food/water/conversation (the campaign is expecting extremely long lines, lasting well after the polls close).

When I'm done with that work I will probably disconnect from media, take a deep breath, and not look again until the results are very likely to be clear. Letting go is deeply valuable on a night like tomorrow night.

Let all the evil machinations and vote-stealing and disenfranchisement and open brazen lies unfold and float away. Desperate tattered little flags trying to hold back the winds of change.