When Allowed Amongst the Boys

It's been a long time since I spent time amongst a group of boys. I say "boys" because this particular group has known each other a good while and have a long history and when touring down memory lane, boys is the best term for them. Today, I was treated to such a day, and it was as fun as I remember it being in high school and college. How did I lose this part of my life?

At one point, one of them said "It doesn't get better than this. We could tell these same stories tomorrow and they'd be just as good." That's at the heart of it. Friends gathered, drinking beer or Jack and ginger and just being together. I'm pretty sure I didn't hold my own, or represent women very well, but I drank a bunch of beers and did my best to listen well and ask questions where I thought they were relevant.

I'm not sure we women know what to do when let into the little club for an hour or an afternoon. Especially when the history isn't shared. If I dropped right this second back into a room with my three boys from high school, I think I'd feel at home because we share that history. Even though they are men who I don't know anymore and I am a woman who is a version of the girl they used to know, we could still fill an afternoon with stories and laughter. We were all there, at any of the settings of any of the stories. This time, not the case for me. But men, and these men are no exception, like to tell stories about themselves, even more so to a willing, listening, questioning audience.

After the fact, in the car, being driven home by the one who I am friends with (the other two are his, not mine), I gave my impressions of the other two. I'd met them both before, but not seen them in a while. I told the truth. That I like both of them and that I think they are good for him. And that I think they are big huge softies at heart who talk a good game. He laughed. A big, deep, open-mouthed belly laugh. He can laugh all he wants, but I'm not buying it. He wouldn't be friends with them if they weren't. It's why they call each other when they need something, are there when the chips are down, and give advice when it's sorely needed. It's same as what we women do for each other, just with a different cadence and at a higher (or lower, depending) decibel level.

I absolutely love the day after a holiday. Black Friday, New Year's Day, Boxing Day. Sleep in, eat breakfast out, and sit around just being with friends who matter. Like he said, "There's nothing better..."

Obama is my President

I've been wondering how to write a post about the post-election time in which we are now residing. I've been a bit overwhelmed and unable to properly organize my thoughts into anything, really, so I've put off writing. But it's time.

President-elect Barack Obama has a new website, located at www.change.gov to follow the transition for the next 70 days. (There's exactly 70 days to go from today. 70 more days of Bush. 70 more days until we can begin the healing process.) The site looks good, and true to Obama style, there's a place to submit stories about folks' election and campaign stories. It feels nice. Like if I met Obama tomorrow, I could sit down, have a cup of coffee with him, and say thank you. And it'd feel normal. Like I know him. He doesn't feel far off and away from me like others do. (For the record, I felt something like this about Bill Clinton in 1992, but that was more celebrity; if he'd been across the table from me, I would've been tongue-tied and a blithering idiot - this difference could be due to my age and maturity level, or it could be because I received email from "Obama" regularly. You decide.)

In further website news, I visited www.whitehouse.gov today for the first time. I'm going to assume this site didn't exist when Clinton was president (or it was at the end and I wasn't paying attention) and I've no call to go looking for anything about Bush that I don't already know. But I wanted to know what to expect after Obama takes office. In the top right hand corner, there is a link to the VP, the First Lady and one called Mrs. Cheney. So of course, not even recalling Mrs. Cheney's first name, I click on it. I am met with this photo of Dick's two dogs dressed up for Halloween - wait for it - last year!



Clearly, nobody cares what Lynne Cheney is doing with her days. Ha! Anyway, this was a giant digression. So allow me to continue.

I've been very very pleased that Barack won. I'd not been emotional about it yet. Until this morning. I was reading the special commemorative issue of Time magazine on the T this morning on the way to work and I kept tearing up. There were quotes from people and stories from the campaign trail. All of a sudden, I was aware of what's happened. Of the decision that we have made together - the people of the United States - to put our faith in someone who has promised to do things differently. People really challenged themselves on lots of levels to think differently, to cross party lines, to change their minds from where they began and vote for change.

For a minute and a half today, I considered trying to get to DC for Inauguration. I still could go. I could crash with someone from the University of Maryland and Metro into the city and just walk around and be in the same place that day. I could say I was in DC when the first President of the United States who wasn't White was sworn in. I might try to find someone to make the trip with me.

And here we go, into the 70 day countdown to Inauguration and then the first 100 days, those first three months where we, the media, the bloggers, the people, everyone, don't allow anyone to settle into anything without the upmost scrutiny. He appears ready for that. Which is good, because it's going to be tough. People, even those who voted for him, are going to be looking for him to fail. Is it human nature that makes us expect the impossible from those with power?

I know there are people who aren't happy he won. Some of those people are right in my family. I don't really get them, since I couldn't imagine McCain as my President. But I respect their opinion. I just hope they give him a second to breathe.

I believe we will slowly be welcomed back to the world stage as welcome participants rather than the school-yard bully that everyone has to put up with because we happen to be bigger than they are. I believe we will make better decisions about war and peace. I believe we will begin to help the Earth more. I believe we will slowly climb out of the economic tumble and fall we've been in for a few years now. I believe things will change.

I don't believe we'll wind up socialist, or even a social democracy, although that's what I long for. I wish we were more like France or Sweden. I wish we cared for each other; that health care was available to all; that education was a given. I wish that people didn't have to worry about paying the bills because everyone had a job and enough. But we're not headed there, not even with Obama, as some people think.

I think money will be put back towards Head Start, and the Peace Corps, and national service programs. I think money will be back for education in the arts and music and gym -- things that make students able to think and create and innovate in more than one way. I think once we stop spending all our money fighting a war that never should've been, we might be able to fix the things at home falling apart.

I have a lot of hope and a lot of faith and a lot of patience. And I believe this man I've put it all into, with a quick blackening-in of a little circle on a piece of paper in a booth in a middle-school gym on election day, will rise to it.