okay, so i’m intentionally writing this at 3:30pm, before any polling data has begun to roll in. i’m at work all day, and into much of the evening, since it’s our first day of tech for SITI Company’s awesome Radio Macbeth. i work in Hyde Park*, Obama’s home neighborhood (and where he is still a current resident and active community member – that is until, godwillingfingerscrossed, january 20, 2009). actually, my driving route from home to work takes me right past his house every day**.

i took a walk across hyde park a little while ago to get some lunch and the excitement is palpable, but it is a nervous, eerily quiet excitement. no one thinks it’s in the bag yet, or we’re all afraid of jinxing something, so the excitement is still the nervous scared kind. the day feels that much more unreal because of this record-breaking heat wave – it’s 72 degrees out on november 4 in chicago, with a bright, hazy sun glaring down on mostly bare trees and piles of crunchy leaves. very incongruous.

i’m supposed to work until 11:30 tonight, though i suspect we’ll end early. at whatever hour we get done i am planning to head straight for Grant Park. the democratic party is handing out golden tickets via an email lottery; those of us who didn’t get one aren’t allowed into the actual fenced-off rally area (from which the stage is visible), but apparently the police had the good sense to turn the rest of Grant Park into an “overflow” rally area (with jumbotron), since they are expecting something like a million people to flood into downtown tonight.

it’s a cool time to be living in chicago, peeps.

i’m having trouble articulating how important this election is, even though i don’t have to tell most of you, you all know. it’s important to you perhaps for different reasons than to me, but the point is matters for everyone. it’s a weird anxious feeling, because usually when i’m nervous about something coming up, it’s something that i have to participate in – public speaking, or a first date, or whatever. but this is out of my hands, and in the hands of millions of people i don’t know. i took advantage of early voting last week, and leaving the polling place i had that strange sensation/realization that this is totally out of my hands now***. i made my vote, my tiny, almost-insignificant vote, and i wrote some emails and did some phone calling, and i don’t know if any of it made any difference.

it’s 4:18 now. election returns start coming in in 38 minutes. fingers crossed. like my pre-marathon post (i’ll finish the post-marathon post, i swear), i’m writing this in a state of not-knowing, to capture some moment of where i am now, where the world is now, even though it feels rambling and unfinished and naive. there’ll be time for knowing later. so i’m going to go post this now, and go back to work, and we’ll check back later.

*several of my co-workers who live in the neighborhood voted with Obama this morning. apparently he didn’t have to wait in line.

** there are a lot of concrete barriers and police hanging around, most days, though i hear you can still walk up to the house and photograph it or whatever it is that people do when they visit famous people’s houses.

** now, a week after i voted, i have a very distinct sense-memory of the whole experience – the particular scarf i was wearing, the fall sunshine and cool air that morning, then dusty smell and roar of the heater and the honey-colored hardwood floors of the Union Park Field House, the quiet sense of urgency with which everyone went about voting. on September 11, 2001, the moment that i fully comprehended that something really really big had happened was when lau turned to me and said, “do you think this is like Pearl Harbor? that we’ll remember where we were on this day forever?” while i don’t mean to equate something as potentially amazing as an Obama victory with the tragedy of September 11th, the whiff of history-in-the-making was reminiscent.