Special Election Edition

To show my national pride I am writing this update from a Starbucks inside a shopping mall, where I am listening to piped-in Christmas music, sipping a vanilla latte and eating a McDonalds cheeseburger. Seriously… not kidding, I really am. It is the most American thing I can think to do to celebrate the election of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

President-elect Obama, I hope you are happy. Because of you… I have never been so content to throw my better judgment and dietary regimen out the window.

I also paid the US Embassy a visit today, yes to get more pages for my passport, but also just to be among Americans on this historic day. Maybe I am projecting but everyone there seemed to be holding their heads awfully high, me included.

Rrrrrrrriiiiiiippppppppp...Wait... did you hear that? That was the sound of hundreds of American travelers tearing the sewn-on Canadian flags off their backpacks. We can be Americans abroad again. Oh happy day!

On election day I spent 16 solid hours watching television. I could not sleep the night before so my telethon began at around 5:30 in the morning as you all (12-15 hours behind me) were finishing casting your ballots.

I watched live as CNN called the results. My home state of Ohio did me proud, as did my adopted state of Colorado. On my computer I had so many screens open I couldn’t keep them all straight, www.NYTimes.com, www.CNN.com, www.NPR.org, www.femenisting.com, www.huffingtonpost.com, www.foxnews.com, www.theonion.com. I learned more from the steady stream of Facebook status updates then I did from certain conventional news outlets. I was instant messaging with my mother, with my girlfriends, people I went to high school with, anyone who was online it seemed wanted to share in this moment and I was so thankful for the connection back home.

Half a world away I felt the excitement, I felt the change and I felt the groundswell of hopefulness. Today I feel I am more an American than I have been woe these last eight years. Today I am proud of my country, of my countrymen, of my family, my friends and of myself. Whether you voted Barack or not, you must realize how far we as a nation have come, honor yourself for your part in this.

Yes our economy is faltering, yes we have pissed of damn near every other country on this planet and yes we have allowed ourselves to be guided by fear in the past but as of today we are guided by hope, by change and by, (as the newspaper headline here cried out today…) a black man in a white house.

Viva America!