So, yeah. Whew! Our guy won. I'm pretty freaking happy about it. Last night I ended up at an election results watching party at a local bar, which was the official spot for the area's Obama campaign headquarters. I had been thinking of just staying home, but my neighbor Kandy talked me in to going out with her, and I dragged CJ along with me. When we showed up at around 8:30, it was so packed that there was a line to get in. Eventually we made our way to the bar, and some pints of Hop Obama beer, and we even scored a barstool to take turns sitting in. The bar erupted in cheers and applause every time they called a state for Obama. During one of those times, this photo was taken for the local paper:



Kandy's the grey-haired bespectacled woman two people to the left of me. Just in case you can't see me well enough, here's a close-up of my lovely mug, very unflatteringly captured in mid-"wow!" (or maybe "awesome!" or "woo!"):



And the best of all is CJ's, which I'm trying to find a funny way to describe, but I'll let the picture do the talking:




It was wicked fun to be with such a jubilant crowd. We were chatting with everyone that happened to be nearby, like the older dude next to me who went to Kansas State, and the baby-faced grad student from France (studying political science, of course). I ran into a bunch of people I knew, like Kshama (sitting next to me in the pic, and I'm sure I'm spelling her name wrong), the WRSI folks (Jaz, Bill, and Scott), and Philip and Flora. We stayed until after Obama's speech, and as we walked through town to our car people were skipping around, yelling and hooting, people in cars were honking their horns, and a church was ringing its bells. Today I've come back down to Earth somewhat -- I'm really saddened by prop 8 passing in California -- but I am still feeling really optimistic and excited to see what the next four years will bring. Yes!