Blue Bubble

I live in a royal blue bubble. With the exception of my years in Texas (and Austin almost doesn't count) that Blue Bubble has pretty much followed me all my life. Even HBS, which is about as red as that institution will ever get, had enough blue in it to keep my Bubble intact.

Sometimes that Blue Bubble is a bad thing---I start losing touch with most people's reality. I'm actually surprised by things like Prop 8 passing. Or I don't realize that my three favorite tv shows--in fact almost my only tv shows at this point--Mad Men, 30 Rock, and the Daily Show--are watched by almost no one. Or I start becoming 'intolerant of intolerance.'

But since November 4th I have loved my little Blue Bubble. Everywhere you go it seems people are a little happier, a little more optimistic, a little prouder. Right now the Blue Bubble is the place to be, and so I will enjoy it, and at the same time I'll hope that it isn't just those of us in my Blue Bubble who feel this way.

I'm so glad that I took C and D to vote because it left a big impression on them. They keep saying "Obama won because I waited in line to vote." They see him on the cover of magazines and newspapers and always point him out, as if they have a connection to him. And I don't think it really sunk in for me until after he won how amazing it is that Barack Obama is the first person my kids will know as 'President.' Hundreds of years of white guys with really white guy names and my girls have the honor of getting to know the Obamas as their "first" First Family. It makes me so hopeful for all the possibilities in their futures.