I have been watching the polls. Richard has been obsessively checking fivethirtyeight.com for weeks now. And as of about 2pm today I have been obsessively refreshing Google News, waiting for news – any news at all – on the election. As soon as I got home I immediately sat down in front of the computer and then watched the little numbers refresh, while alongside my browser my Twitter feed pinged regularly with updates from various news sources. Obama takes Ohio. Obama takes New Mexico. Obama takes yet another battleground state and turns it from red to blue.

Richard and I decided to take advantage of some of the election freebie offers going on in the area, so we headed off to the Ben & Jerry’s in Davis for a free scoop, and then swung through Starbucks on the way home for some free coffee. Back home, we settled in on couches in the living room to watch the Colbert / Stewart live election coverage, which we’d been taping while we were out. Before we started, I checked Google News one more time. 207 to 135. We forwarded through the commercials. Obama takes Iowa. Obama might take Virginia? And then Stewart dropped the bombshell. CNN called it. Obama is the new President. He won!

There was a little bit of screaming in our house at that news, and there was a little bit of crying (but the happy kind). Email and Twitter started going crazy. We both dove for our respective phones. I couldn’t stop bawling. Holy crap, he won! He actually won!

I feel as if, with this awesome news, the entire world can now breathe a collective sigh of well-deserved relief. I am positively giddy over the knowledge that I can finally be *proud* of my own President. Every country loses its way now and then. America lost her way eight years ago. Thank all the gods and goddesses that she has finally found it again.

It’s NaBloPoMo time again!