I am such a mix of WEEPY OVERJOYED to have a WOMAN vice president, and SO ANGRY that this is THE VERY FIRST TIME, ONLY NOW IS IT HAPPENING FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY, OH MY GOD HOW HAS THIS BEEN TOLERABLE. I feel like the men in my life, as enthusiastic as they are about this, as glad as they are, don’t and can’t understand what this is like. The FIRST woman. This is the FIRST TIME. They have no idea what that’s like, and they can’t. I appreciate the ones who make the attempt to understand, and I don’t blame them for their failure.

My brain is so fritzy this morning. I keep attempting to use it to do other things (Christmas shopping, maybe write a baby-name post), but all I can do is scroll Twitter. I remember the Bush/Gore situation in 2000, when we waited more than a MONTH for election results—and part of it is that I wasn’t paying much attention back then, and part of it was that I had a baby and couldn’t focus on anything else anyway, but all I remember is thinking “Wow, it’s so weird we still don’t know who’s president!” There wasn’t any stress about it, just a sort of amused surprise. I double-checked with Paul, and he remembers the same: it was kind of NEAT and INTERESTING that we didn’t know who was president yet, but not STRESSFUL—and, he said, he hadn’t remembered it took over a month. (I wouldn’t have been able to say how long it took, either; I would have said “Weeks? I think?”) This time, every day feels SO LONG.

There was a shift on Twitter last night. If you’re not on Twitter: scrolling Twitter is kind of like being at a giant party, and there is definitely a MOOD to that party, and it changes. Sometimes it’s wayyyyyy too worked up and panicky and I leave almost right away; other times everyone’s sitting around quietly, drinking too much wine and being morose and commiserative; other times there’s a lot of jokes and silliness and memes of cute guys and re-watching that Tom Holland “Singing in the Rain” video; and so on.

Last night there was a sort of hepped-up joyful energy I haven’t seen in awhile, like we got a taste of REAL HOPE for the first time in years. I think it was a combination of an increased certainty of a Biden win, plus various media outlets finally, finally, finally calling out our current president’s lies AS lies, without that “Well, what TRULY IS ‘a lie’?” stuff. I wish they’d done more of that the last five years (at this point there’s more of a rats-deserting-sinking-ship feeling to it), but I’ll take what I can get, and Twitter-in-general seemed to feel the same. There was a sort of suppressed, anticipatory GLEE happening. We’re all traumatized by 2016, so no one wants to have too much faith—but on the other hand, it seems to be Really Happening. Anyway, it was a delight, and very much like going to a Really Good Party.

Perhaps we will know the results of the election TODAY! And perhaps the violent coup won’t happen after all!

I am hiding up in my room because our FURNACE decided to quit DURING AN ELECTION DURING THE WINTER DURING A PANDEMIC, and I admit I am exaggerating when I call the first week of November “winter” but I am STICKING WITH IT FOR THE INDIGNATION FACTOR, and also even if we say “autumn” it’s all pretty outrageous timing and I think we can agree on that, FURNACE.

Anyway. Strangers breathing in my house right now. It’s fine. It’s fine. I keep thinking of solutions and then realizing those don’t solve the problem. “We could all leave while they’re here and go to the….oh.”

On Election Day I was cheerful and energetic and LFG. The day after the election I was saggy and discouraged and I ate a lot of candy. Today, the day after the day after the election, I am feeling better than yesterday, and ready to count the good things (while still being kind of flattened by all the bad things). I know it’s counting chickens, and we still have a coup to avoid, and we still have a large part of the country believing in an alternative reality, and we will in the best case scenario be blocked at every step by the Republican-controlled Senate (I am not currently accepting applications for hope re: the Senate)—but I am also imagining how we can perhaps soon AT LEAST remove some of the corrupt/incompetent appointees. We can perhaps AT LEAST have someone in charge who believes in the existence of the pandemic and the need to react to it. And there’s the possible-VP-elect to think about. We can think about HER.

And there are lots more good thoughts we could be having, but even as a person who does NOT believe in The Universe as an entity that waits eagerly for me personally to say Unwisely Hopeful Words so it can rub my face in the dirt of irony, there is only so much cultural superstition a person can shake off. It is plenty bad enough that I ordered some flags IN CASE there is a reason to use my brother’s idea of Democrats displaying the U.S. flag again once it no longer symbolizes approval and support for a white nationalist administration. I wouldn’t have ordered them ahead of time, but…I wanted to have them on hand If It Became Time To Use Them, and already they won’t be here until Saturday. If I don’t need them, I will wrap them carefully and put them aside for a future election.

Oh, here is a happy thing that won’t make anyone uncomfy about taunting The Universe. I mentioned I’d read the first book of N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, and I think I mentioned that when I went to order the next two, I found that the cost of ordering the whole trilogy was LESS than the cost of ordering Books 2 and 3, so I ordered the whole trilogy. (A LITTLE disheartening since I’d already BOUGHT Book 1 and could have saved even MORE money if I’d bought the trilogy to begin with—but this is a perfect example of SUNK COSTS, and the trilogy STILL cost less than buying the other two books. Plus, if I hadn’t liked Book 1, I would have wasted money if I’d bought the trilogy. LIFE IS A SERIES OF GAMBLES, WE WIN SOME WE LOSE SOME.) (And now I can add Book 1 to the pile of books I’m planning to pass on to others who might like to try them.) I ordered the trilogy on November 2nd, and I ordered it from Target because I am trying to reduce orders from Amazon—and that meant the predicted arrival was November 9th instead of November 4th. I’d HOPED the books would arrive sooner, but I couldn’t count on it. I started re-reading the first book because I didn’t feel like reading any other story—and I just got an email notification that the trilogy is arriving TODAY, days and days before it was expected! I can start reading the next book TODAY instead of NEXT WEEK!

Well! Yesterday’s energy and relief were short-lived! Today I am back to having to force myself out of bed and into the shower. I had been hoping, perhaps stupidly, for a thorough trouncing: a good symbolic rejection of this president and his corruption and his incompetence, and also a punishment for some of the most blatantly terrible congresspeople. But no. I don’t know how to pass the time as I wait for what can in THE ABSOLUTELY BEST-CASE SCENARIO, in the absolute HIGHEST ACHIEVABLE DREAM, be a tepid victory that is not followed by a violent coup.

We always went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving, until they started coming to ours. This year our households can’t quarantine enough to mix safely (Edward still has to go to his Remicade appointments, which are not just at a hospital but in a BIG CITY with a much higher infection rate than our small town; Henry still goes to orthodontist appointments; Paul has to go in to his office about once a week), so we’re on our own.

I have considered the idea of…skipping it. It’s three days of cooking for 20 minutes of eating, and I am not entirely sure I know what it celebrates or whether we should be celebrating it. At this point I think of it as a celebration of Thanksgiving Foods: the cranberry-raspberry Jell-o salad, the chocolate-crusted pumpkin cheesecake. I do enjoy being in the kitchen, making the familiar recipes, imagining so many other people in THEIR kitchens making THEIR familiar recipes. And I enjoy the leftovers. But it is a lot of work for one meal. Well, several meals, considering the leftovers.

Or, our local grocery store has a Thanksgiving package: a meal for 4-6 people, with a couple choices (turkey or ham, pumpkin or apple pie), but basically a box of pre-cooked food you pick up and heat up. I have been curious about that (can it possibly be any good?), and this might be a fun year to try it. I floated this idea to family members, who raised issues: we’d still want to make the Jell-o salad and the pumpkin cheesecake, and also we’d need to make our own vegetarian stuffing, and some of us prefer turkey and some prefer ham so we’d want to make the one that wasn’t included in the box—and at that point we’re basically cooking the meal anyway, so what is the point of the box? Except it still might be fun to try.

Another issue is that with more of us home, more of us can HELP COOK. I made this point rather pointedly when people were expressing doubts about doing the grocery pick-up box, and seemed to be thinking it didn’t save THEM any cooking so why would they prefer that?

Well. What are your Thanksgiving plans? Do you feel like talking about recipes, either ones you always make or new ones you’re going to try this year? Have you ever tried buying Thanksgiving dinner from a place where you can just pick it up in a box, and how did that turn out?

I woke up cheerful for the first time in days. I am the same about stressful travel and medical things: I can be weighed down with stress until The Morning Of, when I wake up like HERE IT IS LFG. One way or another, we are out of Weighty Anticipation Mode and into Keyed Up Go Time Mode. A local friend who is voting in person this morning posted on Facebook that there were hundreds of people in line, wrapping around the building; this in a town where I have NEVER experienced a line OUTSIDE the building. Sometimes there are a half dozen people ahead of me at the check-in table when it’s a presidential year, but that’s all.

ANYWAY. Commenter Samantha suggested today would be a good day for chatty distracting topics of the sort where people might like to keep coming back to check in, and I think that is a GREAT idea. I am MOST interested in discussing gift ideas, so I’m going to do some of those posts separated loosely into type of recipient, and then I’m also interested in Thanksgiving thoughts, so anyway let’s get going. (LFG!)

Also, even if you’re not normally interested in baby names, we’ve been doing an alphabet series on the name blog that could be distracting: we’re going backwards through the alphabet, one letter per post, and you play the game that you MUST choose a girl name and a boy name starting with that letter. We’ve done P-Z so far, and I’m planning to post on the letter O later today.

Today seems like a day to eat for Emotional Wellness, and so that is what I am doing. I had scrambled eggs and half a bagel and some Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast, with a big mug of this lemon-ginger probiotic tea that may or may not work but makes me FEEL like I’m doing something nice for my digestive system, and also it tastes nice (the lavender chamomile is nice too: I don’t think it’s as yummy, but it’s more emotionally soothing because of knowing that lavender and chamomile are supposed to be soothing).

Since starting keto a few years ago and getting used to “a day off”/”a treat day” and what that looks like, I am gradually realizing that what I THINK I want to eat on my days off (CANDY, COOKIES, ICE CREAM, CAKE) is not what I ACTUALLY want to eat on my days off. I don’t know if I can ever get my brain to understand that Raisin Bran Crunch is more satisfying and delicious than a chocolate bar, and why should it? That’s patently ridiculous. It CAN’T BE that a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of potato soup are more transcendent than a box of See’s. Well, yet here we seem to be. (I do ALSO want to eat some chocolate/cookies/cake/etc. But I always want less of it than I thought I was going to want to eat.)

So here is our first topic: What foods do you find most Emotionally Satisfying? And/or which of them are you going to eat TODAY? And/or do you have a thing like I have, where you THINK you want certain foods but ACTUALLY you prefer other foods? And/or what is your favorite cereal? (Mine is Raisin Bran Crunch. SO UNEXPECTEDLY TASTY for bran and raisins.)