And when we arrived at W. 125th St., after President-Elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, the crowd hadn’t let up in either numbers or exuberance.

I was with a small group of friends up in Harlem, watching the returns, nursing a whiskey or two, and trying hard not to bite my fingernails. We all felt good, but cautiously so. I copped to having cried a bit as I voted, warned the group that I was likely to cry again before the night was through. The refrain of the evening was a Smurf-like “Can we get excited yet?” “Not yet, no. But soon.”

Then MSNBC called Ohio for Obama. Yes, now we can start getting excited.

Even if we hadn’t been watching TV, we would’ve known the minute the networks called the election for Obama. I swear to you the earth moved, time shifted. The neighborhood exploded in cheers and whoops and honking horns.

We walked to 125th St. (on our way, the following: “It’s kinda late, do you think anyone will still be there?”), high-fiving and hugging as we went.  One woman I think thought it was Mardi Gras and showed us her boobs. (I am not making that up.) Mardi Gras, Barack Obama Day — could be the start of something.

The mood on 125th St. at about 1:00 am was still electric and joyous. Chanting, hollering, embracing, dancing. At some point I realized, shit: I have work in the morning. I was loathe to leave, but somehow I dragged myself away. Didn’t feel like hopping in a cab, either. Wanted the long ride home, wanted to be in a crowd still. Wanted to talk to strangers.

Fort Greene greeted me with the same revelry. Incredible. Lafayette was fairly empty by the time I got to it but DeKalb, over by Madiba? packed with people, even at 2:30 am. Cars and buses could not get through. Live music, dancing, sparklers, chants, hooting and hollering. I had no choice but to join in. This is my home.

Four years ago I felt as though our country was broken, and the years leading up to this have made it feel as though it were irreparably so. Last night I was reunited with the country I want to live in.

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For the last two weeks, every now and then, I’d catch my breath. My heart would skip a beat.

Do you remember, a year ago, how downtrodden everyone was? The women I worked with couldn’t imagine either a woman or an African-American man becoming the Democratic nominee, let alone President. I think this was probably a generational thing, but still — there was no light at the end of the sewage tunnel we were in. We felt trapped, collectively, as a country.

I’m not saying things are better now. You know the score, right? You know our financial, environmental, ecological, educational, health care situations are all pretty much  . . . um, fucked. Forget how better off you were 8 years ago — I was better off 8 weeks ago, you know?

But for the last two weeks, maybe three, every now and then I’d stop and think about what was about to potentially happen. And I’m not talking about election results. I am far too superstitious to say anything about who’s going to win no matter what 538.com is saying. I’m talking about the possibility. Just the possibility was enough for me to stop, every so often, and think, “wow.”

And the idea that I would have the opportunity to participate in this possibility, well, that was enough to make me tear up a little bit as I waited in line at the polls this afternoon (three people in line in front of me! only three! the lady who signed me in said the people who got there early in the morning were waiting 2, 3, 4 hours. I chose wisely!) and even more when I got up to the old-school lever-pulling X-marks-the-choice voting booth and pulled the curtain behind me.

This is only the 5th presidential election I’ve voted in. My first was 1992. A good first voting experience, I think. Not only did I vote for the presidential candidate who won, I also got to vote in Carol Moseley Braun. Later campaign funds controversy aside, that was an exciting election to be part of. A good election with which to compare today’s, as well, as many have before me. Then, as now, this country needed someone and something dynamic. Then, as now, the election was between someone who galvanized the public and someone who repeatedly came across as someone who just didn’t get it. In 1992, I was giddy — not only was I voting for someone I believed in, not only was I voting for someone I was fairly sure would win, I was voting. I love voting. I love the old-school level-pulling X-marks-the-spot machines. (I don’t care to ever vote with a computer, frankly.)

But all that, everything I felt 16 years ago . . . all that is nothing. Nothing to what I’m feeling today.

I know there are a lot of reports of voting snafus (like from here) coming in, but honestly? This momentum? This is something else, people. I don’t think it’s stoppable. This is a phenomenon. And no matter what happens tonight, no matter what the outcome of this election, no matter what happens in the next four-year term (because it’s not all going to get better after January, you know that, right?), we have this. This is ours. This matters.

I am fired up, and I am ready to go.

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– The mainstream media’s fascination with the idea that somehow Palin’s nomination as VP is heralding a new age of feminism. Feministing has already compiled a list of headlines to this effect.

One thing needs to be absolutely, fundamentally clear-as-fucking-crystal: “woman” and “feminist” do not mean the same thing. One can be a woman and still insist that women shouldn’t have a say in what happens to their bodies, that it’s right and just that men earn more than women for the same kind of work, and that victims of rape and abuse are somehow responsible for what happens to them. One can be a woman and protect the interests of other women within one’s own circle, familial or otherwise, and fail to see how those same interests might apply to women outside that circle. One can be a woman and not believe in equality or justice.

“Female” does not equal “feminist.” Put Sarah Palin in that proverbial heartbeat away position and we’re going to be living in a Margaret Atwood novel, mark my words. This woman should not have any power in government. She must be stopped.

– The pathological lying. I mean, I suppose it’s to be expected; all politicians lie or bend the truth or omit salient details (and it’s extremely depressing that we’ve gotten so accustomed to this as to expect it — but then again, has it always been this way? even in the good ol’ days?), but Palin’s are Bush-worthy in their egregiousness — and I also suspect that she honestly believes the lies she spews. The bridge to nowhere business, for one — claiming that she refused the money earmarked for this state vanity project when she in fact didn’t refuse it until the entire rest of the United States said, “WTF?” Read more about Palin vs. truth here.

My brother had the perfect movie analogy during the whole “are there WMDs in Iraq” spectacle — Bush was acting exactly like Osgood Fielding III at the end of Some Like it Hot, refusing to accept that he can’t marry “Daphne,” parrying every objection (“I can never have children”) into a compromise (“We can adopt”) until ultimately Jack Lemmon pulls off his Daphne wig and says in his real voice, “I’m a man!” At which point Osgood pauses, and then utters the last line of the movie which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it. My brother’s point was, Bush wasn’t even listening, so intent was he and so goal-driven, that he simply wouldn’t — or couldn’t, if you’re feeling kind — see what was right in front of him. And Palin is exactly the same way.

– Her creationism. I think this nation deserves to have the two people in the top positions of governance be those who believe in the validity of science, who possess the ability to think critically and rationally about anything, let alone the world around us, how it got here, and how we can keep it around for a while longer.

– While we’re on the subject of religion, she is actively involved in a church which not only had a recent guest speak about terrorism in Israel being God’s judgment against those who had not accepted Christ, but the pastor of this church went on record saying, “well, he has a point.” This has not received nearly as much press as the Reverend Wright business did, and it’s no wonder — the McCain campaign knows that a significant number of Hillary supporters are older Jewish women, the same women who swore they would vote for McCain because their candidate didn’t receive the nomination. Should this story come out about Palin’s church supporting, essentially, the destruction of Israel, well, that would be a problem, wouldn’t it.

– Her zest for book banning and the way the mainstream media is sugarcoating it. No, she was not successful in banning any books at the Wasilla local library. But the well-documented fact is that she asked the librarian if she “could live with” certain books being removed from the shelves. And when the librarian refused to consider banning anything, she got a termination slip (which was later withdrawn). This is how Palin handles material she finds objectionable, and people who oppose her. Sound familiar?

So, yeah. I’m afraid. Very afraid.

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