After classes yesterday, I trekked back to my former neighborhood to vote, and by the time I made my way home it was nearly six o’clock. I started watching news sites and had just figured out how to get the Daily Show election special to stream live on the computer when it was time to go to my kung fu training. After a bit I decided I would probably get more, long term, out of going to training than watching talking heads, however amusing, so I took off for that. (It was an extremely small class.)

When I got out at 9 pm, we had no idea what had been happening with the election, but were hopeful. I found that I had a text message from a friend, cryptically, hopefully, reading ‘yay obama!!’ I biked home as quickly as I could. I saw a few scattered fireworks being shot off, and heard people yelling at televisions. As I burst in the door, one of the news websites was playing a video of McCain’s concedance.

My boyfriend got home pretty soon after that, and we decided we should go out and lift a glass for the occasion. We walked up to 15th, the closest street with a strip of bars, restaurants and coffee shops. There started to be cars honking and people yelling in the street. We picked a bar which had a sign outside reading “$1 pints after 10 pm if Obama is president.” It was a few minutes after 10, so we went in and spent $2. It was pretty packed, and there was a television on the wall which showed a mob of people in the streets downtown near Pike Place Market, where a big club was having an election night party which appeared to have spilled into the street. After about a minute, we decided we probably wanted to be on the street as well, and closer to downtown, so we chugged the beer and headed to Broadway, epicenter of a densely populated neighborhood just uphill from downtown.

There were a lot more honking cars, and when we came to Broadway, there was a throng of people in one intersection, cheering and chanting and dancing. Two buses were pulled over, obviously stopped by the crowd, which was waving Obama posters and generally grinning like maniacs. A car approached from down the street with a guy standing partway out of the sunroof, swirling a large American flag on a pole. They progressed slowly through the crowd, with the driver tagging people’s hands as they passed, and people jumping up on the bumper to gain height and shout more. A few more cars made it through, with people climbing up to gyrate on the roof of one SUV. Then there was a flurry of action as one of the buses started up and proceeded forward. A few people acted as traffic directors, parting the crowd before the bus. Although it was allowed forward progress, the people immediately pressed up to the sides of the bus, pressing Obama posters against the windows.

Chants of ‘YES WE CAN,’ ‘O-BA-MA’ and ‘YES WE DID’ repeatedly broke out. There was a guy in a lion costume, no doubt left over from Halloween, who was, as my boyfriend said, ‘high as a kite’ (on drugs or jubilation, or both?) who was a particularly frenetic dancer.

After a bit we thought we should head towards downtown and see about the street party there. We headed down Broadway and found a larger mob at the intersection of Broadway and Pine. This one was blocked off by police cars with flashing lights. The cops were standing in groups halfway up the block, chatting benignly and watching the crowd, which was similarly waving flags, chanting, and dancing.

We joined the crowd, and never got downtown. We were there for two or three hours, just being joyful. People climbed up on the lightpoles to wave flags and posters. We saw a group of topless women who were yelling ‘Titties for Obama!’ I saw a big cardboard cutout of Palin being passed around for a while, and then just her head. Also a cutout of Obama. Someone passed out Obama 2008 pins. Eventually we ran into one friend, then another. A friend of a friend was going around with a paddle and smacking people on the ass, saying “We saw a spanking tonight! O-B-A-M-A!” The mob from the first intersection arrived and merged with ours, then I think a bunch of people from the university district turned up there as well.

The first intersection we were at, there was a camera crew from the local news station, and at the larger mob there were a number of press folks circulating around. A woman from the Seattle Times came up and asked if she could photograph the guy who was spanking people. She asked me what my reaction was. I said something along the lines of, ‘This is amazing! I feel like when you see things on the news in other countries, when they’ve overthrown their dictator and everyone is celebrating in the street.” Since she didn’t take my name or anything, I doubt I’ll show up in the news. I think the Seattle Times endorsed McCain. What were they thinking?

There’s a club on the corner as well, and for a while they put a speaker on the roof, and someone dancing in a sparkly top (due to it being a gay bar, hard to say if it was a lady or a drag queen dancing), and some invitations to come and live it up in the club. I think everyone was pretty intent on the street party, though, and after a bit the speaker disappeared, and the intersection just got fuller.

The best part about a jubilant mob in Seattle? They clean up after themselves! Around 1 am someone appeared handing out trashbags, and there was a lot of gathering up beer cans and broken bottles, and getting them in the bags and on the curb. That was pretty awesome as well.

A bit after that, we, and the people we had found in the “Obama Mob,” as one person was gleefully calling it, extricated ourselves and went to a diner downtown for some greasy food. We didn’t get to bed til nearly 3 am, as a result of which I have blatantly skipped my morning classes.

Last night was the first time I’ve seen spontaneous singing of the national anthem. Or participated in such. I’ve been scared to be American before (once or twice in Russia or China), I’ve been saddened and ashamed of things we have done. But right now…. I’ve been tearing up a little reading news stories this morning. My boyfriend, ex-Soviet cynic that he is, expects disillusionment within six months. But, I think right now we can dare to hope!

And, here’s someone’s video from the first intersection we were at: