Before long, I'll have a video up on the event.

And of course, I crack a smile when I write "O.F.B." which is a derogatory name floating around for the "cultish" lot who are inspired by or whom otherwise support the Senator.

What I think people forget sometimes (and perhaps all of us) is that the INTERNET IS NOT THE WORLD. Not at all. No more than the team you shoot enemies with while playing X-Box live are really commandos storming barracks with you in the World. When you cast blanket derision on the supporters of a candidate—all the while thinking of a select few you've met on the Internet while sitting around in your shorts with a hangover‚ you are insulting and potentially alienating yourself from millions of people who happen to be greatly invested in what they are doing. And I say this, actually, with my "observer" hat on. Not my "supporter" hat. What I observe and what strikes me as the most offensive part about those types of attack is that they are wholly unfair to so many people out there in the 3D. People who don't get hung up all the time on what is said in comment flame war #02394832, but who simply see and feel something coming to life and want to be involved. Who want to be participatory; who want to engage their government and civic duties—and are doing so in record numbers. (You'd think that those who believe in Democracy would be excited by this.)

This first really hit me after seeing HRC. I talk about it in that post. Don't get me wrong. I've spent plenty of time out there in the world. Computers were not in my household (not in many in the early or even late 70s!), and we weren't even allowed TV for many years. I've moved all over the country and in a variety of living situations, many spare; I've worked labor over a decade beginning at 14, been in and out the system in various places, and grown up attending festivals as part of a vibrant community where thousands of people gathered to share energy and action. So it's not like the world feels abstract to me, lined with a comfort that has insulated me from humanity. And yet...the Internet can still act like a magic spell. Under its light, you can begin to forget the touch of hands and the look of a smile not set in motion by a YouTube button. Even after a life filled with movement and a variety of humans.

It was meeting Clinton's supporters out there that tempered my feelings toward "them" a good amount. When I met the young woman I begin this video with, I knew I couldn't make the video I had originally planned. I still wanted to show what I, as a citizen (well, as a human) perceived from the Senator and the event, and I had to be fair to that. But I realized it was important, too, to be fair to her supporters. They were real people with real dreams and real belief for their own personal reasons. Reasons just as valid as mine.

Related, I find it funny that some now mock the statements about a "creative class" coming into power (not commenting on whether or not this is true or desirable) while at the same time writing in their blogs and thinking they are affecting matters. Because you can't reconcile believing in the one while knocking the other. People who have enough time and comfort and fluidity to spend hours online in this/these community(ies) are part of that purportedly-elitist "creative class." Right? The more you have to work for your money, the less you are in the black and the more you are in the red, the less time you'll have to engage all this chattery chatting stuff on pricey cartoon head machines. So some can blog every day for hours and scoff at those who drink "lattes" but they are fools to do so. A "latte" can after all, come in many forms.

There is some buzz on the blogs going around now about how to reconnect with the parts of the Democratic party that have felt distanced from each other. I think some of this will happen naturally. Already I have to admit that I certainly said my fair share of heated things that no longer feel quite as real to me now that this thing is almost done. part of reconnecting is acceptance. So that part will happen in time. And to the rest I say, well, if you want to reconnect, then go out and meet some people on the "team."

Because I read some who are almost sulking (!!!) and they say "What are you gonna do for me? How will YOU convince ME to go for YOUR candidate? I haven't heard anyone ASK me for my help! I haven't had anyone kissing my butt cheeks! SO I'M SITTING THIS ONE OUT!"

Hey. If you want to sit the election out, cool. I don't mind a bit. Historically, there has been a lack of integrity in that system. Living through 2000, if nothing else, proved that. And reading up on what our nation does in other countries—activities not reported on because CIA black bag ops and government installation and overthrow are not as juicy a piece of news as Britney's smoothly-shaven hoochie—is enough to sour you on any kind of Great Promise of Democracy.

But hey. I'm also romantic and idealistic. There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear. So I'm going with it. If only for those throngs of kids I've met and talked to and seen in massive numbers who seem very much as I was long ago: imagining they saw all the wrong in the world and could fix it if only those in power could be reached, could hear them, were not absolutely full of shit. Now they feel they have someone who fits that bill. Who am I to visit my adult "realism" on them?

So sit it out if you want. But don't come looking to me or anyone else to woo you. It's your nation, too. You aren't pissing in my eye by withholding a vote. You are choosing a method of symbolizing what you want to see happen in the world. So sit with it and enjoy it!

But if there is reconnecting to be done, or if you think reconnecting and healing needs to happen, then go do it. Get up from the box and mingle. You'll feel better about the rest on the "Left," even if they didn't vouch for your candidate. Because no matter who—aside from another warmonger like bush—gets into la casa blanca, there is much to be inspired about as we (I HOPE) make our way out of this very dim period we've been through for almost the last decade.

And honestly, I'm sorry it feels that two historical firsts have to come at the expense of one another. I have a daughter. I have two! I saw the hope and pride in the women's eyes whom I taped. I would never want to knock that or take it away! Hope, pride, and self-empowerment is a beautiful thing in a human. I hope to see a woman president in my lifetime, and definitely in mijita's. And I'm glad my own mother is for Obama, because that would be a hard disagreement if she were not. But we'd make it through. We are family, after all. And the good thing is that we don't need a President to give us these things—hope, pride, or self-empowerment. Nor do we really need an excuse—por ejemplo, by using all things political—to be hostile or angry. We be what we want to be. Sometimes we blame other things for it. Sometimes we own it and affect our own change.

But I've talked long enough. Time to get up and clean up the dishes, vacuum the floor, and take out the recyclables. You know. Men's work.