Diary of a Metal Mommy

Wow, what a week.  Needless to say I am THRILLED with the choice our country has made in Barack Obama.  It was quite the emotional roller coaster, I tell you.  

I started out my election day saying goodbye to the kids as they got onto their school buses but instead of heading right over to my voting place like I wanted to, I made my way over to the Kare 11 studio to shoot a TV commercial!  I’ve been involved in this cool web site for moms called MomsLikeMe.com, as a paid moderator.  

My job is to bring up four topics a week and answer four…the way I love to get my two cents in, this is no problem for me.  (it’s still hard for me to believe I actually get paid to give people my opinion.  nice.)  One day Cindy, the woman in charge of the site, called me up and asked me if I’d like to be in the commercial they are making to promote the site and a contest they are running.  We didn’t know at first if I was going to be what they had in mind…I mean, they could have set their sights on a blonde.  (and in the words of William Shatner I say, but why?!)  Luckily a brunette would do so I made the cut.  

It was a fun and frightening experience, I have to say.  There was a very long sentence that was going to be shot in one take so I had to memorize it.  The main thing I worried about tho, was the muffin top.  How to hide the muffin top?!  I had no idea what I was going to wear.  Luckily in the last moment they told me to wear my ‘MomsLikeMe’ fleece jacket that Cindy had sent me, so that totally saved me there. Nobody looks good in one of those, so I was off the hook. After doing something like that I totally have a new appreciation for the normal Joe (or, Jolene?) that does those commercials. It is quite an art to talk as fast as you can whilst annunciating and at the same time sounding–and looking!– natural. Don’t know if I quite pulled it off, but hopefully it was good enough! It was quite fun to be at the studio, I could definitely get used to that. I still have my talk show dream, you know…maybe Moms Like Me can become one some day???

From there I finally got to go cast my vote. I waited in line for 45 minutes but didn’t care one whit. That was the mood I got from everyone, actually…there was a general feeling of excitement in the air and it was so cool! Of course the waiting was made nicer by the 60+ degree weather we were having, so being outside was a pleasure. And like everyone that night we were all planted in front of the TV, watching history be made. Like so many others, I was completely moved by the whole experience. I cried big-time when Obama made his speech. I think what touched me most of all was seeing that crowd of people around him–every  color, every religion, even celebrities–they were all One. For two hours, we really were all  created equal. Nobody cared that Oprah was in the audience, and she herself leaned on a  completely unknown guy–to us or to her!–as she listened and cried. For the first time in my life, I care about the president of the United States. He is someone I would actually want to meet, and I feel like we can start being proud of our country again. I am ecstatic and relieved. whew.