Earlier this week, I was in the back of a craft store, purchasing yarn to teach the ChickieNob crocheting when I got an email (well, an email that led to a phone call) asking if I wanted to come down to the White House the next day to be the officially pooler for the press.  For some meetings, such as ones in a small space like the Oval Office, they send in one or two people from the press to take notes that are sent out to everyone else in the press pool.  So that’s what I was going to be: the person who went in, took notes, and wrote the report that went out to everyone else.

Kids, this is where I tell you that my copious note taking once again paid off.  This is actually the second time in my life that I have been an official note taker.

Back in college, I was also an official note taker.  We had a program where if you thought you were an exceptional note taker, you could turn in your notes for consideration, and be chosen to be the note taker for your classes.  Our notes were then collected at the end of class and copied to be used by anyone with special needs or learning differences who were also taking the class.  I thought that I just might be that person, that person with neat notes and an impeccable attendance record.  So I applied to be an official note taker and was chosen by the university.  So if you went to Wisconsin in the 90s and we happened to be in the same class and you happened to be a special needs student, you had MY notes.

Sometimes, I would make a little doodle at the top; a little cartoon just to say “hey, wasn’t this class fun?  Don’t you also love to talk about Shakespeare?”

I was told by one person that I was her favourite of all her note takers because my notes were easy to read and use.  I secretly hoped that she kept my notes after the class was over.

So I was a note taker there for four years.

Fast forward 17 years.  Pretty much no one has asked for my notes in almost two decades.  I’m not going to lie; it was a little bit of a letdown after my sweet time in college being an official note taker.  Which is why when the White House asked me to be the pooler for the press, I rescheduled my dental appointment and asked my parents to help get the kids from school.  I’ve been waiting for this moment for 17 years; to once again be asked to step up to the plate and provide notes for others.  Thank you, White House, for noticing my copious note taking.

So I got to go to the Oval Office for a rare appearance of the President and First Lady holding a joint meeting with eight mothers about the Affordable Care Act.

It is pretty amazing to be inside the Oval Office.  To be standing next to the President’s desk, listening to him talk about our health.  Pretty please read my post about the meeting over on BlogHer because my article came from my notes.  And because I am a very vocal supporter of the Affordable Care Act.  How could I not be?  Its point is to not only ensure that people who need health care right now have adequate coverage, but it gives ALL of us a safety net.  None of us know what we’ll encounter healthwise in our future.  Please sign up for insurance under the new plan if you don’t already have insurance.

After the meeting, I went back to the press briefing room to type up my notes, wishing I had that special paper official note takers used to college to mark our notes as the official set of notes.  Apparently it is unhelpful though to write your notes on carbon paper since they need to go out to all these media outlets simultaneously.  So I typed them on the iPad, and then Tony took a picture of me at the podium before I headed home because I had actually left my hair down for the entire duration of my work day.  This is as rare an occurrence as the President and First Lady holding a meeting in the Oval Office together.

I would like it stated, for the record, that I was so serious about doing a good job as note taker that I did not play one round of Candy Crush from the press briefing room.  I could have because I had a short wait when I got there.  But I didn’t.  Because I’m an adult, and every once in a while, I show some restraint.

So that was my Wednesday.

Last night, I went to the Vice President’s residence for an event.  It was my first time going to the Observatory, despite having lived here most of my entire life.  I knew the general vicinity of the residence; that you could see it from the end of Reno Road.  But I decided to take River Road for no other reason except that it was the way I used to get into the city when I cut school.

Not that I EVER cut school, kids.

It had been a very long time since I had driven down Wisconsin, and I felt this need to say hello to the buildings as I passed them.  The Dancing Crab, with the sign outside that used to say, “we have crabs!” to which Matt would always reply, “I do too, but I don’t advertise it.”  And the old site for the Outer Circle where I saw My Own Private Idaho six times.  Closed down Maggie’s Pizza, which never carded.  Closed down Jandara where we ate dinner the last night the twins were in the NICU.  Cafe Ole and the Sidwell campus where we’d go to dances during high school.  Cactus Cantina, my break-up restaurant where I asked everyone to take me if they ever had bad news so only one place would be ruined for me in the city.  The Cathedral, where we’d go to catch fireflies in the garden at night; where my cousin once whispered to me as I sat down on a bench, there’s a corpse inside of there; this building is filled with corpses.

The route between my childhood home and Georgetown is mentally strewn with corpses; closed businesses, receptacles of past conversations.

*******

After waiting in a long security line to park the car (and after asking the guard not to judge my trunk since I had dissected a child’s car seat earlier in the day), I got in another line to go through physical security with the other 50 or so guests.  I could hear crickets outside, and I was trying very hard not to hear the crickets outside.  There was also piped in music entertaining us as we stood along the fence.

“This is just like Disney World,” I commented to the man standing behind me, who agreed.  “It’s like we’re waiting for a ride, and they’re entertaining us during the wait so it doesn’t feel quite so long.  The Vice President is classy to pipe in music.”

And then I realized that there was a five-piece band playing us in as we entered.

I ended up walking through the rooms, looking at the pictures, and talking with random people while we waited for the Bidens to enter.  When they did, they both spoke for about 20 minutes about breast cancer.  The Vice President’s speech was incredibly moving.  I didn’t think I would get so choked up, but there I was, starting to cry when he spoke about how close we were to a cure — not just to eradicate breast cancer, but all cancers.  When he talked about the importance of caregivers using the collective term “us” to illustrate how one person’s cancer affects all the people who care for and about that person.  He talked about men with breast cancer.  And he kicked the whole speech off by making the point that he got in trouble the first time he brought up breast cancer on the House floor; not because people were horrified by the disease itself but by the fact that he used the term “breast.”  Really, he’s an incredible speaker, and I wasn’t the only one who ended up wiping her eyes.

Dr. Biden spoke after him, pointing out various people at the party and their personal stories.  I missed part of what she was saying because there was a little girl standing near the platform in the center of the room, and the Vice President crossed behind his wife to sit down on the edge of the stage and encouraged the little girl to sit down next to him.  She was trying her best to look serious and be proper, but he was whispering things to her and being silly.  The whole thing was happening at my knees since I was standing next to the stage, and it was really cute.

The Vice President is really one of the warmest, unfussy, smartest people I’ve met in Washington.  He’s like that guy you get into a conversation with at Starbucks while you’re waiting for your drink; totally approachable and accessible.  Unpretentious.  He’d make a wonderful president.  And Dr. Biden came across as a bit more intense; very very smart.

Afterward, we got in a line and everyone had a moment with the Vice President and Dr. Biden, and then they put their arms around each person and took a picture.   If I had known I was going to be in a picture, I probably would have worn something else. I sort of felt like their child between them, and that we were taking our Christmas picture.  Not that I’ve ever taken a Christmas picture since I’ve never sent a Christmas card.  But it felt like a Christmas moment…

I’ll post it when they mail it to me.

And then there was more eating and drinking, but I went home so I could see the kids before they fell asleep and have my Special K.  As I walked outside, back into that cricket-y night, the bells from the Cathedral were ringing across the street.

I drove back past all those landmarks again, muscle memory making me turn onto Brandywine so I could loop back to River Road again.  I drove home without music; the car perfectly quiet except for the hum of the engine, the whisper of the road underneath my tires.

*******

The message of the evening is still playing in my head: we are so close.  He pointed to an older child who was there with her mother and said that she would probably live to see the day where all cancers were eradicated.  That what seems like a fantasy to the older generations would be a reality for these younger ones.  Isn’t that an incredible idea?  A world without cancer?  I want to believe that it’s true and do anything I can do to help that become a reality.

The Wolvog greeted me with the news this morning as if he had been the person still awake at 2 am last night after waiting up for Obama’s speech: “Obama won!  Another four years!”

The Wolvog agreed to go to bed last night but had given me strict instructions on how he wanted to be awoken when the results were in.  He wanted me to be grinning wildly if Obama won (and he demonstrated with a wide, hopeful smile as if I may not know how one conveys happiness) and have a straight face if Romney won (once again demonstrating by holding his fingers against the corners of his mouth to keep his mouth straight while he spoke).  That way, he’d know the answer before I started speaking.  He promised me that he was going to “rock out hard” if Obama won.

There was no partying at 11 pm when we went into the ChickieNob’s room where they both were sleeping.  They woke up enough to give a weak smile as their eyes rolled back into their skull and then they told us they were too tired to watch on the television and went back to bed.  We woke them again when marriage equality passed in Maryland.  They saved their celebrating for the more civil hour of 7 am.

My G-d, I am dying this morning trying to function on so little sleep.

*******

I don’t begrudge Romney for wanting to wait, pushing back the speech times until after 1 am.  I cannot imagine how difficult that would be to get up on stage and deliver a concession speech.  He had to be beyond exhausted from the pace of the election and couple that with the disappointment of having your hard work end without success, and it is like a failed cycle times a million.  I thought about how I felt the times I had to call everyone to tell them that a cycle didn’t work, how I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth.  I multiplied the length of a fertility treatment cycle against a campaign cycle, and the fact that I delivered my news privately by telephone instead of having to speak it on national television, and that I could do it mostly on my timetable vs. having to speak before I was ready because the rest of the world was waiting for my words.  Holding your shit together and evenly delivering a concession speech takes a lot of emotional strength.

The ChickieNob and I spoke about it over breakfast, the fact that he couldn’t just curl up in his bed and have a good cry.  That he needed to control his emotions, walk out on stage, and speak.  That idea blew her little mind.  I don’t think the kids had given a lot of thought to what happened to the person who didn’t win, what they were going through.  I want them to have just as much respect for the person who put their heart out there and didn’t win as the person who put their heart out there and did.

The one thing we won’t do in this house is trash the other side.  You can express happiness for your good news, but you can’t celebrate another person’s loss.

Though we did dissect some of the Facebook status updates and Tweets I saved for them for an edition of “Adults Behaving Badly.”  Their assessment: “adults say the meanest things!”

Oh yes, kids, it’s not just your playground.

*******

I cried when they announced that marriage equality passed in Maryland.  It was so enormous, so emotional.  I had been hitting refresh every few minutes on the Maryland State Board of Elections site from 9 pm until after midnight.

When we walked up to vote yesterday, a man handed us a flyer for Question 6 and asked hopefully, “can you help me get to dance at my son’s wedding?”  And the ChickieNob, swept up in the excitement of the election called out, “Yes!  I will help you dance!  Will you help me get to be a flower girl?”

She needed to be reminded many times (many times) that passing marriage equality here will not help the couple in whose possible future nuptials she wants to scatter flower petals because they live in a different state (and I’m not sure where they stand on flowers).  What we really need are federal laws concerning marriage equality.  But the reality is that logistics matter very little to the ChickieNob.  The kid loves love.  She loves weddings and kisses and public engagements. (She witnessed one while we were in London at the Prime Meridian as well as a very drunk, purple-wigged hen party at a kiosk.)

And that’s how I saw the vote: that people were voting for love.  They were voting for their friends or family (or themselves) as a way of showing support for people’s rights.  I was talking last night with a friend, and we were discussing how you can’t reject your neighbours or hold down your neighbours and think that your neighbours are going to be there for you.  If we want communities to work together, we need to treat all people well.  And that starts by giving people equal rights.  With this vote, we were saying that all love is valid.  That the world needs more of it, and we’re not going to reject any love that manages to spring up.

A side effect of the vote is that it made me love some of my neighbours and friends and family more.  See, it made more love.

Because of that, when I was coming back in the house today from the food store, I took in the Ballot Question 6 sign from the front yard.  I usually don’t save these sorts of things, but this vote was historical.  I want to keep it in the basement to remember this election.

*******

The aftermath is such a strange time.  I am both relieved that the election is behind us and also miss the frenetic energy leading up to it.

I mostly just want a nap.

This is what changed.

A long time ago, before social media, when people spoke to me, they tailored the conversation to what they sensed was a common ground between us and avoided minefields, and I tailored the conversation to what I sensed was that very same common ground between us and avoided minefields, and that was — for the most part — how I communicated with people.  For instance, if my friend had a Romney lawn sign in front of her house and I had an Obama lawn sign in front of my house, we’d know that we may not be the best people with whom to discuss the election, and if we talked about the candidates at all, it would be in a lighthearted manner or the importance of voting in general.

We both knew that we weren’t going to convince each other of our point-of-view, but we had the potential to do great damage to the relationship by arguing, so we both politely went our way in order to preserve our friendship.  The same is true for many emotionally-charged topics from current events to religion as well as the appropriateness of topics.  I didn’t talk about punk rock with my grandparents, choosing instead to save those conversations for my friends just because I didn’t want to be annoying.  And I didn’t have deep conversations about Judaism with my Christian friends unless it was to answer one of their questions since I didn’t think they’d want to hear (nor understand) my thoughts on kitniyot.

And we all lived in relative peace, save for the occasional asshole.

And then came Facebook and Twitter and suddenly, everyone needed to tell everyone else everything.

During the last election, great-aunts and PTA presidents didn’t have their act together to utilize the sites in all their glory.  But this election?  My G-d, we moved from benign status updates recounting everything a person ate in a day to horrifically offensive name calling in the name of supporting a candidate.

In my Facebook and Twitter feeds, people whom I considered to be my friends — both in the face-to-face sense and in the sure-I’ll-add-you-as-a-friend-on-Facebook sense — inadvertently called me an idiot, a bitch, a whiner, and a steaming pile of crap.

I fully expect people who don’t like me to call me these things.  But when you write something along the lines of “anyone who votes for Obama is a fucking idiot,” what you’ve done is call me a fucking idiot.  And then that same person asked if I wanted to go in on a Groupon together in the next status update.  I really didn’t know what to do because she just called me a fucking idiot but also wanted to know if I wanted to go in on a Groupon.  Normal social behaviour would dictate that I walk away from you if I had a shred of self-esteem.  But we’re also being told not to take social media too seriously, and that it’s ridiculous to unfriend people due to things said on Facebook.  So I’m really between a rock and a hard place.

Because I don’t actually want to be someone’s friend anymore once they’ve inadvertently called me a fucking idiot.

The reality is that if I spoke directly with the people who have written these things, they would tell me that they weren’t talking about me.  Except that if someone makes a statement such as “anyone who votes for Obama is a fucking idiot,” they are talking about me because I am voting for Obama.  I am in that faceless crowd they were denigrating.  We’re actually made up of humans.  And when we’re called fucking idiots, our feelings get hurt.

We’re responsible for what we say, but we’re also responsible for what we type.  We’re even responsible for the things we retweet or like or share.

Before social media, we tailored our conversations to each person rather than trying to interact with everyone all at once.  And if we had to share something en masse, we did so politely and with restraint.  Hurtful words, back then, were spoken and though the memory of them remained, I didn’t have to look at them over and over again every time I opened up a social media platform.  All those times we were called idiots, bitches, whiners, and steaming piles of crap (since all sides engaged in this name calling) are still floating for eternity through the Internet.  And they can be called up again at a moment’s notice.

I wish we’d go back to those days when we’d remember that after the election, we’d all still need to be neighbours, so it would be best if we tried to shape the world through kind actions and kind words, asking people to consider another point-of-view rather than berating them.

Back then, we also realized that there were people who weren’t going to change and we left them to be assholes while holding them at arms length.

I’m not just thinking about who is going to lead the country for the next four years today.  I’m also wondering how to repair relationships after all the vitriol I’ve read from this election.  Not the stating of beliefs because I’m always game to listen to the stating of beliefs that are different from my own.

It’s the name calling that did me in.

We have an idea in Judaism: Kol yisrael arevim zeh la’zeh.  It essentially says that all Jews are responsible (liable) for one another.

כל ישראל ערבין זה לזה

It’s a saying tied to your obligations — that your obligations are your obligations plus every single other Jew in world’s obligations.  So your to-do list is never done.  But most people use the saying in a more community-driven way to mean that it is my responsibility to stand beside every other Jew in the world and help them to fulfill what they need to fulfill.  It’s my responsibility not to turn my head from another person’s need whether that is food or shelter or legal rights.  That if I do that, I am harming myself as well because we are all interconnected.

It’s a driving thought behind the way I vote and why I’ve gotten involved in this election. I apply it to all my fellow Americans: kol americani arevim zeh la’zeh: all Americans are responsible for one another.

כל אמריקני ערבין זה לזה

I personally believe there is a candidate — Barack Obama — who embodies to the best of his ability kol americani arevim zeh la’zeh.  He is standing up for marriage equality and offering the same benefits of marriage to all Americans.  He is ensuring that health care is accessible to all Americans and not just those with certain income levels or those who were born without certain health issues.  He is doing a lot to make sure that it is financially feasible for all Americans to go to college if they wish and to be prepared to apply to college in the first place with equality in education.

And yes, in order to have those things, we will need money to make them happen.  We’ll all need to chip in because kol americani arevim zeh la’zeh — we’re all responsible for each other.  Our interconnectedness means I hurt myself when I hurt you.  That I muzzle myself when I don’t speak up for you.  And that I am setting the tone for my future as well as your future based on what I do today.

*******

Until recently, we were the only people in our town outwardly supporting with a lawn sign Ballot Question 6 for marriage equality.  I’d seen a few against marriage equality, but until Sunday afternoon, no other lawn sign asking people to give other people the rights that they enjoy themselves.  At the same time, I’ve yet to speak to a person who is voting against marriage equality in the election.  I know that not everyone who supports marriage equality will place a sign on their lawn, but it is hard to be one of the only people visually standing in support even though I feel hopeful when people tell me they’re voting for Ballot Question 6.

We were driving on Halloween to a party, passing a patch of common ground in our town, and the Wolvog called out from the backseat, “there’s a Ballot Question 6 sign!”

“For or against?” I asked because I hadn’t seen it.

“For!” he called out, so excited to see someone else standing with our family on this issue.

Josh asked me that night if I saw the Ballot Question 6 sign that day and thinking he had noticed it too as he drove to work, I told him that I hadn’t but the Wolvog had and it made him so happy.  Josh pointed at himself.  “I put the sign there.”  It was kol americani arevim zeh la’zeh to the greatest degree: a dad wanting to send a signal to his child that we’re not the only people on the block who support other people (since kids do need to see the tangible sometimes in order to believe), a sign placed to remind people that the rights they enjoy would like to be enjoyed by others as well, and standing in solidarity with a group who needs our voices.  It’s true; I drive by that sign a few times a day and I always smile when I see it.

On Sunday, we were going out to see Argo and we passed our sign on the common ground.  Someone had taken an against Ballot Question 6 sign and put it in front of our sign to cover it up.  Josh pulled over the car, got out, and moved our sign over a few feet so it was visible once again, standing next to the obnoxiously-placed sign.  And then he sent a note to the town listserv that was much more evenly-tempered than what I would have constructed if he had given me access to the keyboard:

To the anti-marriage equality activist who placed a “Don’t Redefine Marriage” sign directly in-front of my “Vote Yes on 6” sign, blocking the view at the corner of a decently busy intersection in my neighborhood;

I’ve moved my sign over and left your sign where it is because unlike you, I don’t wish to deny people basic rights like free expression and the pursuit of happiness through marriage equality. Have a nice day.

Because the truth of kol americani arevim zeh la’zeh is that we’re not only listening to those who think like us.  We’re also listening and thinking about others who are on the other end of the spectrum.  Though we can’t help them to fulfill any obligation they may personally feel which removes rights from other Americans, I do believe that we all need to engage in polite conversation.  I’m always willing to listen to a reasonably-stated argument.  It’s through conversation rather than obnoxious acts such as childishly placing your sign in front of someone else’s sign that we actually see community in action instead of a bunch of voices screaming louder and louder at each other without ever listening to anything being screamed back.  That’s just noise.

When we went back at night to check on the sign (because yes, I wanted to check on our little sign before bed), the two paper signs were still standing upright, side-by-side.  For and against.  I hope other people in our town see our sign and feel supported by a fellow community member.  Josh certainly received enough emails back from people expressing their thanks for his words on the listserv.

When you go to the polls, all I ask is that you think of whether or not the person you are voting for is best representing your interests or America’s interests.  Think of all the people who don’t have a voice and be obligated to them.  Because if the positions were switched, if you were the person who was denied marriage rights, education opportunities or health care, you’d want someone speaking up for you.

And hopefully they will if we all agree to engage in kol americani arevim zeh la’zeh even when it is not election season.