the day after Christmas

*editor's note: this post has been completely re-written at least three times. our senior political correspondent has been pre-occupied with several projects yet still managed to waste a fair amount of time. we apologize for the delay and do not condone such behavior here at sheep go to heaven.

tuesday felt like Christmas; everything about the day just seemed different.  the big election that we had being hearing about, talking about for... how long?  a year?  a year and a half?  was here.  this was the big day.  and i thought it was really cool.  it was fun to have so many people with so many opinions (yet the wise or rational opinions were still a little scarce), and to have so many people interested in voting.

i voted on friday--halloween--and got to stand in line with witches, vampires, raggedy annes, more witches, and girls with pink wigs and cat ears.  it's a wonderful way to see democracy in action.

as such, i stayed home and kept the tv on, until i realized that the day was dreadfully uneventful from a news channel's perspective.  breaking news at 11:00 a.m. was that the lines in north carolina weren't too bad and that, apart from one machine that didn't work for about 30 minutes, everything was going well.  i turned off the tv and worked on some projects around the house.

i remember watching election nights from way back when george bush defeated mike dukakis.  it was fun to watch the states go red or blue as the electoral votes went up like a sports scoreboard.  truth be told, i never knew about the numbers; i was much more of a colors person.

tuesday was not like watching a game, it was like unwrapping a present.  you've waited so long to find out what it is, and, even though you were pretty sure you knew anyway (and, in this case, it was what i asked for), it was still exciting to find out for sure.  

watching cnn, they had some impressive graphs and graphics (including ever possible permutation of statistics that could relate to the night, probably leaving a few stats majors slightly upset that they researched and compiled so many numbers that were never used), and

as the numbers were coming in around 7:00, a commentator updated the blue states and showed that, even if all but the most democratic states went red, there was still no way for mccain to make it.

the wrapping paper came off pretty fast.

but after it's all done, well, now what?

some things are changed, and there's that odd void: we've waited all that time for it to come, and now it's gone.

what's next to look forward to?

i'll tell you what:

the annual muppet Christmas carol and egg nog party!!

i'm already very excited.  = D