Yay Obama--NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Yes, yesterday was an incredible day—one which I had been so doubtful would ever happen.

But as Obama said, this is only the beginning of the road to change. Right now, we have a rare, rare moment in which both the executive and legislative branches are in Democratic control. The last time we had that was over a decade ago, in 1993, and the Democrats fucked it up and nothing changed before the Republicans regained control of Congress. That could easily happen again this time around. With this massive loss, the Republicans are no doubt regrouping, figuring out where they went wrong, and will strike back at us harder than ever. That means that we have to make sure we make the most of what may end up being an all-too-short window to effect change.

It means we all have to write or call our representatives. To tell them which issues are most important to us and that we expect them to tackle those issues in this precious window of time. We have to find out which bills in Congress we want our representatives to support or oppose and tell them so. To join a group whose beliefs are most closely aligned with ours—the ACLU, NOW, the Los Angeles County Young Democrats, whatever—so that we can join an even more powerful choir of voices to make sure we are heard. And remind our fellow citizens—friends, family—to do all of the above as well.

As easy as it would be to lay back and hope our elected leaders do the work, we have to make sure to push them to make them live up to the promises they made us. This democracy is founded upon the ideals born in ancient Athens, where the citizens were involved in the political process on a constant basis, and as we saw last night, our democracy functions best when we do the same. In the words of that great fictional president in The American President, “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship.”

So pop that champagne, but after you finish the bottle, we gotta get back to work.

An ode to a ruined Halloween and to parental genius

When I was a really young kid—maybe five or even four—it was pouring rain on Halloween and my mom refused to go out trick-or-treating. I remember screaming and crying with crushing disappointment, until my mom, in her infinite maternal wisdom, decided to “play” trick-or-treating with me. My mom would go behind the various doors in our apartment and I, all dressed up in my costume, would knock on the door, and she would, of course, pretend to be a friendly neighbor and give me candy.

Even though I was fully aware it was only playing at trick-or-treating, for some reason this was actually enough for me—the tears disappeared immediately. It was as if the actual act of going to strangers around the neighborhood and getting candy from them specifically was not the point—it was merely the physical process of trick-or-treating and actually getting to eat candy that I wanted.

I guess the thing that amazes me the most about this is my mom’s solution to my misery. I am not nearly as good with kids as she is, and I can just imagine that if I—and most parents, probably—were in the same situation, I’d just be like, too bad, kid, buck up or go to your room. I wouldn’t have even THOUGHT of pretending to trick-or-treat, and even if I did, I’d probably just assume it wouldn’t work. I think I once asked my mom how she came up with such a brilliant stroke of genius, and she could only answer that, as with every stroke of genius, it just came to her.