I planned to go in-person to avoid the mail, but was hoping to still vote early with an absentee vote. It never came so I am going to the polls tomorrow morning.
I hope we get a landslide, but I think even that will be challenged in every way. I don't see how we won't have an ugly, drawn-out battle over the results for the next few months. I hope I'm wrong!
Here's what my tiny burg looked like in 2016. The blue bit is about 4 miles across... tiny little barely-blue island.
Last night my mom was the only vocal non-Trump person at the factory (i.e. she told several people to fuck off). I worry about her and the other people who don't feel safe speaking up. She wears a Black Lives Matter shirt to work sometimes and I always tell her to very very carefully take note of how people look at her and keep a roll call in her head.
Experiencing a high level of anxiety for sure. Getting off social media seems to help (I logged out of Twitter over the weekend and might not log back in for a WHILE), and getting as much exercise as possible also seems to help.
My team at work gave us Wednesday off to process or whatever we need, although I'm quite sure the "result" will not be known by then. I'm gonna try and not look at the news tomorrow.
I was feeling ok, like there's nothing I can do now but wait and I'm not going to freak out until there's any actual news... but about an hour ago I was hit with a huge wave of anxiety and now I'm just surfin that.
I ate lunch and drank a bunch of water, which helped a lot.
Yeah, I don't think we're going to get any resolution for weeks. I read a somewhat comforting article this AM about Biden's vast and highly prepared legal team, but having two judges who worked on Bush v. Gore on the Supreme Court does not bode well. I'm unplugging and going to the beach tomorrow.
recognizing the likelihood the presidential race will be too up in the air to call tomorrow night, I am trying to channel my election day anticipation into non-presidential races. rooting for Nithya Raman, Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Marquita Bradshaw, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, flipping Georgia's senate seats, flipping the U.S. Senate… can we oust Mitch or Lindsay?! can we restore affirmative action and get rent control in California?!
we absolutely must get Trump out ASAP, the amount of harm he is doing in office is immense. but also wherever we go from here will be shaped by the results of these smaller races, too. decenter the presidency!
Yes, with you [mention]infopetal[/mention]! I have remained sane by putting all of my little heart into loving the woman running for Pima County Recorder. She is from the Tohono O’odham Nation and is a general badass. Here she is riding a scooter through DC. Cross your fingers for your local ladies! https://twitter.com/CasaOnTheRez/status ... 0680857600
I voted in person for the first time since 2000. In MI they let anyone request a mail-in ballot but mine just never arrived. My wait was a couple of hours, including a car line to get to the site. The ballot was paper and Sharpie (I made a poll person confirm the pen bleed-through wasn’t an issue!), and I fed it into the counter and saw it accepted with my own eyes.
Oh wow, that is depressing as hell because I just recognized grounding techniques for trauma therapy, like the 5 senses countdown. Scientology: they'll torture you then sell you the cure.
I have had a charley horse in my abdomen, which, along with constant nausea, is my body's favorite way to express close-up anxiety. Before this year (working extra extra hard to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms) that was my usual state so even though it is unpleasant I'm grateful it's temporary.
When I came home from a grocery run I had SUCH a longing for my Deedee (who loved to help me put away the groceries), I went on a good crying jag and passed out. My dream sucked, I dreamed I was in my childhood apartment with my roommate from 2004, who was mad at me, and apparently the apartment building was rotting and it was somehow "my fault."
I didn't sleep at all on Tuesday night, but the next day I started doing some wellness and it has been better since then:
Mediation on Headspace (they have some free ones about elections stress).
Looking at my bets on PredictIt tends to distance myself from it, which is good.
Yoga.
Soup. I bought a lot of comfort recipe ingredients to cook for us.
Cat. I am so jealous of evil Baxter Kitty. He has no idea what is happening or a care in the world.
today was a beautiful day in NYC, crispy fall foliage, sunny, and mid 70s—warm enough to wear my Eniac Six shirt! I having a lil' neighborhood moment at our local composting site/guerilla garden when suddenly there was a swell of pot banging and honking and WOO-ing, and I fumbled open my phone and burst into tears. there is so much work left to do, but for now I am feeling that wash of relief of having one less obstacle in our way.
What a day! We wandered our neighborhood in our pajamas when the news broke, hoping to share some “woo!!” energy with our neighbors, but it was pretty quiet. A few hours later after watching many internet celebration videos I was feeling really incomplete so we drove down to Sunset to get amongst it. Much work to do moving forward etc but it was shockingly nice to experience collective joy! Everybody was blasting their favorite songs and leaning on their horns for miles. LA is such a car city that there was a little bit of a Soul Train car parade vibe at the core celebration gauntlet. People had set up PA systems wherever they fit. The streets were as good as shut down but there wasn't a cop in sight. We “woo!!”-ed at 10,000 strangers until we were tired.
Related: sabered my first champagne bottle tonight!
I was so full of joy yesterday. I think we have to remember and cherish what it feels like to WIN a battle, so that we can have a memory to hold on to when we feel hopeless.
Would have loved to shout in the streets with my fellow man, but the collective joy online was a Moment. I got to be the first to give the good news to my neighbor Steve and my friend in Illinois.
We've all been carrying so much in our bodies. I actually feel physically lighter, and the dread-in-the-guts-feeling has lifted too. I want to sleep for 100 years. Good thing it's hibernation season!
I know, I feel so much lighter already!!! A marked lessening of dread... which is not to say the dread is gone and doesn't need tending to, with vigor. But just feeling a bit of it drop away feels so wonderful.
I'm jealous of big street party. My neighborhood was quiet, except the one scream that rang out when the news broke. My favorite street party video from twitter is of a wild dance party, including people jumping up and down on top of a car, to Mariah's All I Want For Xmas is You. So satisfying and absurd.
a bit better!
i fully ignored all of the stuff yesterday because it's just too much to keep absorbing & the pomp and circumstance doesn't really do much for me, but the overall sensation of a burden lifting is really nice.
You mean you didn't watch the mandatory primetime cringe that was CELEBRATING AMERICA? I only caught the back half but boy was it weird. The stuff of future media studies dissertations for sure. It had it all: Tom Hanks standing in the freezing cold reading from a prompter, depressingly both-sidesy country-rap, Demi Lovato singing Stevie Wonder in front of a green screen, feel-good montages about cute kids raising money for their local food banks, Lin-Manuel Miranda doing spoken word, and shock-and-awe fireworks! It was kind of like the Oscars: an absolute nightmare but somehow also essential viewing. I'm so happy to go back to making fun of things for being corny after four years of worrying if I need to delete my Tweets before I renew my Green Card.
I feel we have our work cut out for us so clearly, I have some hope just to see some agendas develop in the near-term. I'm emotionally attached to staying vigilant and survival-oriented.
It also gives me hope that Biden might see himself as this generation's FDR. If that is the case, he might actually ramp up some version of the WPO to make green energy infrastructure and pay photographers to go out into the world and document national suffering? I dunno, some kind of maybe "green" New Deal? Just riffing here.
