Now what?

Oh, right:

• talk to some students and
• talk to some more students, and
• grade some midterms,
• have a meeting, 
• take a long walk,
• cook dinner, 
• consider a book, a television show, my family, my house.

Maybe

• sneak in a rest?

I wonder what the candidates will be doing. I hope they sneak in a rest, too, both of them.

Frankly, I hope you all get a rest tomorrow. Bless.

Omnibus Prediction Market Prognosticator Election Edition.

Pachinko: like a heartbeat baby trying to wake up.

Like any thinking American person, my attention has been ricocheting like the steel balls in a pachinko machine on speed on crack, over the last few weeks. Also, like a roller coaster that's like the steel balls in a pachinko machine on speed on crack. Also: like a rocketship to Mars on a roller coaster that's like the steel balls in a pachinko machine on speed on crack. Ricocheting, is what I'm saying. Highs, lows. Exacerbated by speedy substances. Noise and signal.

Like you, dear reader, I'll be glad to have it all over. Unless it doesn't turn out the way I want it to, of course.

The roller coaster of my electoral attentions.

After all my reading/ricocheting, it seems to me that I'm in as good a position as anyone to declare my predictions and prognostications.

Speed, bien sur.

1. Utah will go...Republican. That seems likely.

2. Gerrymandering is the sport of choice among Utah legislators, and they don't even need a license.

3. Given #2, I predict that Utah will have four Republican congresspeople, and certain people that I have, in the past, called "demagogue" in the newspaper will no longer be the demagogue-iest of them all, and that's the truth. It can always get worse (is my basic political philosophy).

4. Orrin Hatch will retain his stentorian grasp on the Senate seat. Until his very last breath.

Not that I'm bitter.

The Presidential race? Please. I am not going to jinx that with some wild-eyed, crack-fueled, poll-reading, Nate-Silver-Sam-Wang-loving bender. I am just crossing my fingers, like all the other thinking, praying, chicken-bone-polishing, icon-kissing patriots.

to the moon! or Mars!

See you tomorrow. Vote, will ya? Like a rocketship to Mars?

The morning after.

When I woke up, my eyes felt like a desert, from the tears of the night before, I think. I had an election hangover, if you will. I checked the interweb, mostly from habit. What were people saying? I think I might miss all those voices I sought out, trawling the commentary sites, the papers, the blab-o-sphere. Although, and on the other hand, I might not miss them all that much. I watched the snow falling. I observed my spirits both rise and . . . not fall, exactly, but I did feel a tiny bit blue. What is that about? I think it's the huge tide of emotion, spilling over when the newsdroids called the election, and the speeches. I was moved by McCain's concession--as gracious as one could ever hope, and then Obama's, which was thrilling and overwhelming and fitting and stirring. I had never heard before how the refrain Yes, we can worked in the context of a whole speech--how the power of it rose and intensified.

I know there's a lot of reasons to be judicious, given everything that's ahead, but I feel full of hope, and today it was good to come back to that, as I took a walk, got ready for the day, wrote, rode the train, started a new book. I kept coming back to that hope, over and over and over again.