happy birthday to me

Yes, we can.

because your thoughts and words are powerful

For everything: Vienna Teng - Hope on Fire.

For Proposition 8: Vienna Teng - City Hall.

This is the part in democracy where we fall over in exhaustion with textbooks open on our heads. I am so tired I am almost horizontal and blurring through contract law, but I don't want to set it aside just yet, because, well, because of a silly, similarly blurry reason. This is what lawyers grow up to be, says my brain, this is what you can do, sit down and use your brain and your hands and your books and you will always be a part of your world. Well done, Senator Obama of Illinois: I have been looking behind sofa cushions and in cupboards and down the back of the fridge, to no avail, but last night, at 5.30am, you found my work ethic. Thank you.

What can I really say about last night? The Mousehole election party was subdued to begin with, then started to fill up with gin. We flicked on the BBC coverage the moment it started, left it on all night, eight of us piled around the living-room drinking gin and pink wine (before we even began drinking, we had established who in the room wouldn't throw Obama out of bed) and magic_doors, who has exactly the same sort of political sense of humour that I do, decided that, ideally, McCain would lose a lot of states, then lose Arizona, and then have to go out drinking, and fall over in an alley somewhere and be kidnapped by organ snatchers and wake up without his kidneys. We both, for some reason, thought this mini snuff-fantasy was hilarious and embroidered it throughout.

It wasn't a costume party, but there were thematic elements. I had a wee Obama pin, sent to me by heidi8, that I wore to school all day and felt oddly smug about (when I was actually at school, the wearing of political accoutrements was Strictly Frowned Upon), and we got the kitten a luxury kitty dinner so she'd remember the night fondly. And in the evening, subservient_son appeared and asked me to guess what his costume was. It consisted of paper flames attached to his jeans at waist height. "Fire," I said.

"What is the fire on?"

"Er..."

"No, not that!"

"Your trousers."

"And what do Americans call trousers?"

"Pants. Oh, liar."

The next intuitive leap was too hard for me, unfortunately. Nevertheless, he gets about million geek points for coming to my election night party dressed as the Bradley effect. jacinthsong came with a sink plunger. I did slightly better at identifying this costume. I had meant to get a blue ribbon for the cat, but I failed at indoctrination. After going for a long walk down the Cowley Road to get Chinese food with me_ves_y_sufres, I poured myself a large gin and settled down for the night.

So, we drank. We ate. We made (mild) merry. We made fun of the plummy BBC voices talking to American voters. We complained about general statements made about people with vaginas. "Women are voting for Obama," said the television. Well, yes, I observed. I imagine, right now, there are women who are voting for Obama. Personally, said someone else, I always vote with my vagina. (Some of those women don't have vaginas, to be fair to the BBC, but, really.) All the vaginas in the room quivered with anticipation of the next states to be called.

By four thirty in the morning, I was almost asleep on the sofa. And then, within two minutes, they called California and Washington, and the little counter on the screen ticked over, unobstrusively, up to 270, and then more, and then all of a sudden we were screaming and hugging each other and dancing and scaring the cat and waking up sebastienne, who wandered blearily in to be met with cheers and screeches and finally, quiet, happy clinging to each other while we listened to the speeches. I was impressed with John McCain. I really, really was. His speech was calm and gracious and classy - classier by far than his audience, who booed mentions of Obama and Palin and were generally embarrassing.

But... then, Obama's speech. It was five thirty in the morning. I had been awake for twenty-two hours, had been drinking for the last six of them, I was high and fragile as a kite, and he came on stage, with his family, and stood there with them in front of millions of people, and then he started to speak. When he spoke about all people, white and black and Asian and disabled and gay and straight, I could feel the people in the room around me starting to cry. He got up, the president-elect of the United States, and he spoke about people as if they were people, as though to be liberal was how to be, as though, for the first time in years, we should be proud to be liberal. He talked about his international spectators, and there was cheering from us, he talked about the new puppy his kids are getting, and there was more cheering. He spoke for maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and there was such quiet in the room. I don't know what happened last night, I don't know. But I went to sleep in the morning and the house had quietened down, and it was good.

I am not happy about Proposition 8. It breaks my heart that civil rights can be taken away, for bigots. I am happy that Al Franken may be a senator for Minnesota. I am happy that Indiana went Democratic for the first time since 1964, and that my young cousin, voting and campaigning and rallying for the first time, was a part of a 0.9% margin.

And I'm tiiiiiired. But something was done.