November 4th, 2008

Inspiring.
Unbelievable.
I. Need. To. Catch. My. Breath

Where is my inhaler?

Everyone already knows what happened by now. I had been looking forward to November 4th for obvious reasons and I had really looked forward to documenting it. This was my first chance to vote and it was possibly the biggest and most historic race ever. I changed to vote here in CT from CA because I didn't just want to put my ballot in the mail. I wanted to physically go to the polls. I wanted to get the "I voted" sticker. I wanted to take pictures. Take a video. The whole 9.

Although I campaigned for The Man back in January, I felt I had to do more. So I put my cell phone to go use and decided to call folks from Virginia. I wanted to look back and say I did something on election day.

And thats exactly what I did. I went down with my friend Jessie and stood in a short line. I was wearing my Barack Obama t shirt (nobody said anything) and I was feeling nervous and excited. Before I went in to vote I took a video of myself and I did the same after. I called my mom to let her know her son had voted and then the waiting game was on.

Constant internet checking. Constant tv watching. As the sun began to set, my nerves began to kick in. Had two friends come over with some newcastle, sierra nevada, and champagne. We sat there as the first results came in and although 1% of Indiana precints were reporting, we were nervous.

As the night went out, things began looking great. But the mood in my house was to stale. Jessie came back over and my roomates were watching too but we didn't have the energy we should've. So me and Jess decided to roll to another spot on campus where we knew people would be getting rowdy. We stopped by her friends house to pick her up and as I was walking out the door of the friends house to go to the big party, I heard a lot of people counting down.

Then everyone erupted. The West coast polls had just closed and cnn projected The Man as the winner. I ran back inside to see it on the screen and sure enough. Presiden Barack Obama.

We still rolled to the big party and as soon as I walked in I started screaming. I pointed to my shirt (has Obama's face on it) and everyone was going nuts. There was a keg. There was cake. There was rowdy folks. There was big screen TV. There was everything. Hugs for all. Pass the bottle around.

Then the loser (literally) came out and gave his speech. I didn't care at all but I listened. Some people were throwing cups at the TV as he spoke. I was just waiting for the real speech. Waiting for The Man.

Then he came out. With the family. And I started crying. I felt the tears coming down and I have never been more proud. The Chicago crowd was going wild. The folks I was around were screaming and crying themselves. I stood there. Still. Not blinking. Complete joy.

The speech itself was great of course. Because he is great. Everything about him that night was amazing. He definetly got a fresh haircut hours before the speech. Got that clean ass shave. And he played basketball earlier in the day. How can you not love this guy?

After the speech everybody headed out to the campus center to party some more and watch fireworks. Tears were wiped from my face and the screaming and hugging continued.