What an anniversary present.

The last two days have been good to me. I have a brand new handgun that's fundamentally easier to carry than my Browning, and--as everybody in the country already knows--Scott Brown took Massachusetts.

I try very hard to put the race out of my mind on election days. The ones I'm eligible to vote in, I vote in early before work, then try to pretend it isn't happening. Exit polling can be heartbreakingly misleading, and the anxiety's a killer. It's like The Game (which, incidentally, we all just lost), but with the health of our communities on the line.

So it actually came as a surprise this morning to turn on the car and hear NPR's talking heads and pet experts explaining that this was just because Marcia Coakley ran an "insufficiently aggressive campaign", and that it isn't a referendum on Obama, and that it certainly isn't a referendum on his government medical program, because Bay Staters already have their own home-grown government medical program. And they're already trying to condemn "Republican gridlock".

I texted mah wimmins the good news, and drove to work with an ear-to-ear grin.

So. Supermajority broken. Fear of God put into any moderate Democrats with an ounce of sense. Two ambitious, corrupt parties are once again in serious opposition to one another, and able to frustrate any attempts by the opposition to make major changes to the country. In short, for the moment, the country is working more or less the way it's supposed to--or at least closer than it was yesterday. That makes it a good day.

ETA: Ah, and as of yesterday, Jon Corzine is officially out of the NJ governor's chair. So politically, it's been a far better couple days than I would ever have hoped after the Lightbringer came in.