this is the day that the lord has made

Are you working? Or are you looking at blogs, watching the media, keeping an eye on what is happening on this historic day, like I am?

S told me he woke up at 3 a.m., anxious about today, about something going horribly wrong and Obama not getting elected.

I cut the end of my finger off last night, just a little slice with a pair of scissors while I was happily chopping up a credit card, thinking as I did it, "The future will be better with Obama!" and then chunk-- a sliver of finger came off and lay there in the pile of tiny credit card shards. The wound eventually started bleeding, so I picked up the flap of flesh and stuck it back onto where it came off from and bandaged it into place.

I tried to write for awhile -- earlier I had finished the longhand version of chapter three and wanted to type it up, and saw that it was only 10 o'clock when I started. But that was with Daylight Savings Time ending, so it was really 11, and by the time I got to the point of cutting off my fingertip it was more like 11/12, and typing was like trying to drive on a floppy flat tire, so I went to bed.

I was a little weary, a little anxious about what today would bring, about where I would be when the final announcement was made, who I would be with. A friend recently said that she didn't want to sit at home with a glass of wine nervously chewing her nails and watching the TV with her partner because that's what she did in the last several elections. She said this time she wants to be out in the world, with lots of people, watching the returns on a big TV, in a celebratory mode.That's how I feel about it, too.

Tuesday is normally S's long day at school, so I was afraid he would be absent, that I would be riding my bicycle around the streets of Austin, lonely and happy...but lonely, making out with curious lesbians in the middle of the street when the announcement was made. (That's not really a fear, there are several lesbians I might be drawn to make out with, even though I'm observing celibacy, particularly on an occasion such as this promises to be!)

But then S told me his class has been canceled for the night because it's Election Day, so I offered to buy him dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Jovita's down on South First Street where my tattoo artist told me a queer-friendly Obama Watch Party was happening. And then we'll meet up with others, perhaps, at the Driskill Hotel on Congress, if the election drags on.

I'm thinking it's likely our future will be sealed early and I can go to bed by 10 -- if not for the excitement of the world keeping me awake (which will probably also keep me from being able to write), so I might have to drink myself to sleep.

But then I think "Am I being too optimistic?" I've been cruising my regular web stations this morning -- The Dish, Huffington Post and The Daily Show -- looking for signs that the other shoe has fallen, or that the half-glass of water tipped over and spilled while nobody was watching and now it's not half-empty or half-full.

Then I read that John McCain and Sarah Palin have a 1.9% chance of winning the election and my optimism returned.

This is not just about politics. This is about changing the world. Or rather, this seems to be more about changing the world than about politics. I already feel woozy; how am I possibly going to get any work done today?

Tomorrow I expect to have the sweetest hangover that, like Diana Ross, I don't wanna get over...!