I think last night was the happiest day of my life. Being home with friends in Gainesville meant the world to me! My face hurt from smiling so much. I'm dehydrated from crying so much and I'm utterly exhausted from going on about 5 hours of sleep. But I got to watch history being made with my friends at my side at the Hippodrome theater downtown. The place was packed and everyone was shouting and laughing and whooping it up and after it was clear Obama was going to be our next president strangers hugged strangers and people literally danced in the street. My friend Sand and I sat on the floor in front of one of the TV screens and watched Obama's acceptance speech with our arms around each other and tears in our eyes. Afterwards a crowd gathered on the corner of Main Street and University Ave waving Obama signs and cheering. It reminded me of something a police officier once said about Gainesville celebrations: "our main objective is to keep people out of the trees and off the lamp posts". The crowd was still there more two hours later. We finally left a bit after 2 in the morning.
It's the dawn of a new era. We have much work to do.
I gotta go catch a plane. More later! Congratulations everyone! We all did a great job!
We did it!
Posted by: Brandon | Wednesday, November 05, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Glad to know Gainesville came out in full force. It was the same here in DC!
Posted by: Avi Kaplan | Wednesday, November 05, 2008 at 02:33 PM
what a beautiful photo! thanks for the link!
Posted by: barb | Wednesday, November 05, 2008 at 07:08 PM
I know you are somewhat averse to the "jargon" that you attribute to such postmodern feminists as Judith Butler (despite the fact that Marx and Marxists are quite equally pretentious) however she provides a thoughtful and important analysis of the hyperbolic characterization of Obama as a prophetic symbol of "redemption."
"...if we subscribe to the heightened modes of identification that he proposes ("we are all united") or that we propose ("he is one of us"), we risk believing that this political moment can overcome the antagonisms that are constitutive of political life, especially political life in these times. "
http://angrywhitekid.blogs.com/weblog/2008/11/uncritical-exuberance-judith-butlers-take-on-obama.html
Posted by: OneThousand | Thursday, November 06, 2008 at 01:27 PM