I have been rethinking my Election Day plans. For one thing, after burning up with energy yesterday morning, I spent the rest of the day glazed and unmotivated. Then I lay awake for three hours before finally falling asleep, and today I am feeling as if I don’t want to commit to cleaning toilets next Tuesday.

Here is what I am considering: Is Election Night one of those situations where I would rather have a sleeping pill than alcohol? I think it might be. I think that might be a sweet relief, to know that at a certain time I will take a pill and then I will GO TO SLEEP. Maybe I want to save the alcohol for when we find out the results, which could be awhile. Plus, when listing alternatives to alcohol, I kind of talked myself into the idea of reading/watching something riveting while eating lots of snacks. I bought actually and literally over 20 pounds of Halloween candy, so we should still have some of that left I guess, and I have most of a bag of mixed snack-size bags of assorted chips, and one of my favorite snacking practices is to sit next to a large bowl of mixed snacks and pick each next snack based on the whim of the moment. (I put any snack I don’t want to finish in a separate little bowl nearby, and it magically disappears somehow, and then I can move guiltlessly on to the next whim.)

AND. And. I have watched the first five episodes of Schitt’s Creek with some of the children, and I think I can talk them into binge-watching that with me, taking breaks between each episode to check in on election progress. It’s a re-watch for me up through the first few seasons (four? I don’t want to check, because I don’t want to get spoilers, but I’ve seen both versions of Simply the Best) (or I guess I should say “two versions of Simply the Best,” since there could be more), but I haven’t seen it all the way to the end; and this is a first watching for the kids. Originally I didn’t want to watch it with them because of all the embarrassing parts, but I changed my mind. We are on Season One, so I say a lot of “Yes, I am afraid this is going to continue, but let’s just power through it” and “I’m sorry, this is about to get much worse, but then we will have seen it and it will be over.” …Maybe I don’t want to associate Schitt’s Creek with the election, though. It is so hard to know. Perhaps a riveting book instead, and keeping Schitt’s Creek as something to look forward to.

But in case you were thinking of joining me for tipsy housecleaning, it seemed important to let you know I am currently leaning more toward media + snacks + sleeping pill.

After my first pregnancy, there were certain things I did in each subsequent pregnancy. For example, shortly after getting a positive pregnancy test, I would give the toilets and the floor around the toilets a thorough, thorough cleaning. It wasn’t pessimism: I wasn’t saying I WOULD FOR SURE soon be barfing at a whiff of Paul’s towel or a taste of raisin. I was just saying that the LAST time taught me that if I WERE to be throwing up for the next couple of months, it was nice to start with a shining clean toilet lingeringly scented with bleach, rather than the alternative; and it was nice not to have to have the toilet-cleaning chore on my list when I was exhausted and queasy. And if this pregnancy were different, if I never threw up, if I floated through without wishing an anvil would fall on my head to stop the constant, constant nausea? Well, then, no one ever thought, “Boy, I wish the toilet were grubbier.”

It is less than a week until the U.S. presidential election, and I remember last time. So there are certain things I’m doing this time. After a week of flopping despondency (I’d thought I’d get ahead on Christmas shopping, but it turned out no), I’m feeling a surge of restless energy, so I’m using some of it to get caught up on and/or ahead on cleaning. Maybe in a week or two I’ll have plenty of mood available for merrily cleaning the shower, humming an optimistic little tune. But if not. If not, then I won’t mind that the shower has already been cleaned and I don’t have to do it for awhile. And if it’s the humming-merrily version of reality, I’m not going to think, “Darn it, I wish I hadn’t cleaned the shower! I want to do it NOW!”

I am going to go grocery shopping and I’m going to get two cartloads. Not just to stock up in case of the armed and violent protests threatened by our current president’s supporters if he is not re-elected, but also because in the reality where things go a different way and I don’t have to worry about armed and violent protests, I am not going to feel like weeping my way through the grocery store, holding my breath as I change my damp mask every few aisles.

Last time, the day after the election (this year we likely won’t know so soon), Paul and I ate nothing all day. We didn’t talk, except the talking we had to do with the kids, and to make sure we didn’t duplicate the donations we were making to various organizations. At bedtime we each drank two shots of vodka and went to bed, hoping we’d be able to sleep. After the grocery store, I will stop at the liquor store.

I plan to spend Election Night sipping and cleaning. People in my house are going to have the TV on, and I have to live through those hours either way, so I am going to use my naturally-generated adrenaline, and I am going to use the anesthetic available to me for home use, and I am going to clean. Or maybe I will not: maybe I will use the anesthetic available to me and then sit numbly in a chair. It’s hard to predict feelings. But the plan is to tipsy-houseclean. When company is coming and we clean the whole house and then the company cancels, we don’t say, “Well for heaven’s sake, I sure wish I hadn’t done all that CLEANING, then!” It’s nice to have been able to use the motivation, even if the motivation turned out to be false. I’m going to change the sheets: it’s nice to have clean sheets, whether or not you might soon be spending a week in bed.

I know there’s a lot of alcohol in this post, and that’s not an available option for everyone, so let’s talk about a few alternatives. In times when I have considered alcohol not among my options and/or not worth it, I have self-anesthesized by alternating a few bites of savory with a few bites of sweet: See’s chocolates, then Pringles, then Little Debbie cakes, then cheddar-cracker Combos, then Cadbury bar, then kettle corn, and so on. Eat slowly, and just a little of each thing, or else you’ll get too full too fast, and it mostly works WHILE you’re eating, so you want to draw out that effect as long as possible. If you are not as much into snacking, I find a Big Sustaining Meal Including Carbohydrates serves well: spaghetti and garlic bread, or chili and cornbread, or chicken and sauce over rice, that kind of thing; and follow it with chocolate chip cookies, or cake, and a glass of milk. (There is some risk of associating this meal with election night, which is why it’s not one of the things I’m leaning on.) Another thing that works pretty well for me is reading very exciting books—horror or thrillers. I relied on those to get through a very bad break-up long ago; they were the only thing that could distract me. Another thing I’d recommend is re-watching a favorite comforting or riveting TV series, and only allowing a five minutes news check-in for each episode watched. I would think you could mix-and-match either food option with either book/TV option, for a moderately successful combination. (And with any of those no-alcohol food/book/TV combinations, I would end the evening with a sleeping pill, which is one of the advantages of not drinking. If I decide against tipsy housecleaning, I will go for snacks-and-horror-novel-and-sleeping-pill.) I have a prescription for actual tranquilizers, but I have found that while those are good for reducing adrenaline and racing/relentless thoughts, they leave me feeling sad and listless, which is sometimes better than the alternative but in this situation I think not. If it is available to you, I have heard good things about pot, though you should consult with someone who knows the differences among the types: we want a sense of universal perspective and detachment on election night, not potential paranoia. (Also, the children tell me no one calls it “pot” anymore, and that I sound like a mom. I mean, yes?) And I have heard good things about meditation and yoga, but I trust you know you can look elsewhere if you want those kinds of ideas suggested to you.

I have been waiting for something FAIR to happen. I don’t believe in the popular versions of karma, or The Universe, or deities—the versions in which those entities lie in wait to zing someone who has been behaving badly. But that is the KIND of thing I have been waiting for. I have been waiting for MOVIE/TV/BOOK JUSTICE, where things look bleak but then it turns out the very bleakness is what whips around to destroy the forces of badness.

If this were an episode of The West Wing, and the Republicans had tried to push through a Supreme Court Justice less than a month before an election, after THEMSELVES saying ONLY ONE PRESIDENCY AGO that NINE months before an election was too close; and if they had tried to do this while NOT dealing with legislation to approve relief for their constituents during a pandemic; and if they had themselves not worn masks and had gathered in person during all of this, spreading infection among themselves while trying to do their unfair, unjust, corrupt thing; then what would have happened in that episode is that too many of them would have become ill with the virus to be able to approve the Supreme Court Justice in time. That’s what would have happened. Things would have looked SO bleak, so BLATANTLY unfair and unjust—but then: NATURAL CONSEQUENCES would have stepped in! You can’t break ALL the rules and expect to WIN, you bad, bad politicians! SATISFYING SMITE!!

Part of my problem is TV/movies/books, which lead us to expect these plotlines. But certainly another part of my problem is that I was raised Christian. The type of Christianity I grew up in believes that although God won’t intervene if, say, children are being raped and beaten, even if those children pray to God for help, because that would mean breaking God’s own voluntarily-established-and-voluntarily-held rule about free will for the person doing the raping and beating, he WILL allow Natural Consequences to punish people—and the universe is set up so that Natural Consequences DO punish people. In fact, that is why he in his wisdom has made the rules he has made: not because he’s a meanie who won’t let us do what we want, but to PROTECT us. Because the things he has told us not to do are all things that will hurt us, and he lovingly and mercifully wants to spare us the consequences of those things. And so here is what I expect: when people break rules and do terrible and unjust things, the Natural Consequences should show them why those rules are there, and the people should suffer the way God tried to protect them from suffering.

But here is what I realized this morning. Right now, the terrible things that are happening are things that many, many Christians believe are instead showing us all that God has a hand in everything. They think that the appointing of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court shows that God did indeed want our current corrupt president elected: that God can use EVEN AN ACTIVELY EVIL PERSON to do his ultimate will, which is to bring about their version of conservative evangelical Christianity everywhere. For everyone’s good.

The fact that I can see from their point of view how things appear to be working out for the absolute most righteous BEST right now means that I have to deal with the idea that what I grew up thinking of as the natural order of things is in fact a system that supports what I now consider Active, Deliberate Evil.

Originally I continued that paragraph, but now I want to leave it on its own for a minute to make sure you pause to see what I’m saying. When you grow up fervently believing in a set of religious beliefs, you grow up with that religion braided into the entire structure of the world: there isn’t a single aspect of anything that isn’t infused with the beliefs and world view of that religion. Extricating that religion from my brain and thoughts and world view has been hard and traumatic, and this is yet another aftershock of it decades later: realizing that what I used to be able to lean into as a system of justice and righteousness is instead a system that in fact works IN FAVOR OF a corrupt United States president, a corrupt segment of Congress, and the establishment of an unjust justice system. When they are unjust, when they are unfair, when they work against the equality of human beings—then THEY get the “fair thing,” the TV/movie/book triumph thing, happening in THEIR favor. They work so hard, they give up so much, they compromise so much of themselves and so many of their principles to bring about something corrupt—and THEY get what THEY want. THIS is the system that, if there were a God, he is supporting with his system of natural consequences.

I had already, back in childhood, worked on understanding that God was not going to intervene to prevent evil things from happening; then in early adulthood I worked on extricating the braided-into-my-psyche idea that God’s Natural Consequences were going to punish people for doing evil, and that there was an afterlife that was going to take care of any justice we didn’t see happening on Earth; now I have to work on the idea that what I USED to see as God’s Natural Consequences For Good are actually things that support and bring about evil—and so what I USED to pray for and celebrate were things that were evil and wrong. This is the fresh, nauseating realization I am dealing with this morning, one week before the U.S. presidential election.

The winner of the afghan is Bitts! I will email you!

I went to the grocery store today. They had something they have not had since the beginning of the pandemic: OUR REGULAR STORE-BRAND BREAD. We have been buying a different bread this entire time. It was almost eerie to see our old bread again. …Writing that out makes me realize once again that this pandemic has definitely affected our brains in a weird way.

Another thing they haven’t had since the beginning, but had again today: Hillshire Farm Lit’l Beef Franks! It caught my attention because it seemed like an odd thing to be out of.

They had yeast again, in jars, just sitting there! I already bought some, but had a hard time not buying another one anyway.

They had paper towels again! I was relieved to see them. It had been so many weeks.

They had a pretty good supply of vegetarian meat-substitutes.

The chicken looked odd. Normally they put three chicken breasts in a package; this time there were a lot of packages with just two, and in most cases one of them looked a little odd/small/dicey, and there were not many packages.

Still no spritz-bottles of any basic cleaning supply. They had some bleach and they had some bottles of Pine-Sol. The rest of that aisle is just filled with laundry detergent. No sanitizing wipes. The hand sanitizer is still some brand I’ve never seen before, and expensive.

I did not buy toilet paper; I will buy some on my next trip. I had to talk myself through it: “You actually have plenty of toilet paper. You do not need to buy toilet paper.” I regret not buying toilet paper. What if they don’t have it next time?

They were completely out of Diet Mountain Dew: no cans, no bottles. We looked online and found some at a Target about an hour away, and Paul is making the journey to fetch it. (His commute puts it only about half an hour out of his way.) Also he is going to start rationing it, AREN’T YOU, PAUL

I wonder if Ginger Lime Diet Coke is GONE-gone, or just gone because of the pandemic. I miss it. I had one single can left, and I finally drank it.

I have started buying the non-perishable things I will need for Thanksgiving, Just In Case. I bought cans of pumpkin and cans of cranberry sauce, and a package of stuffing mix. I looked for the frozen raspberries we use in a cranberry-raspberry thing I always make, but they did not have any; I put them on the list for next time. This is not the year for going on that last grocery shopping trip before Thanksgiving and finding the store is out of something.

What is your Grocery Store Report?

Two weeks from today is the U.S. presidential election, and also of course the election for many non-presidential offices. If you are in the U.S., I recommend treating today and the coming days as you would have treated March 1, 2020 and THOSE coming days, had you known what was coming soon. Time to get ready to batten down the hatches. I recommend stocking up on the groceries and other supplies you will use ANYWAY, but just get ahead on them. I recommend getting the things you wished back in mid-March that you’d stocked up on: candy! books! pet food/supplies! cake mix! yeast/flour/sugar/rice/soup! vitamins! diet Coke! landscaping materials! ice cream! storage bins! coffee/tea/gin! and sure, let’s make the exhausted toilet paper joke again! I recommend running any errands you MUST run. Refill prescriptions when you can. I HUGELY recommend getting your flu shot. I recommend being ready to do a nice hunkering down. Won’t it be nice if this is all for naught, just a bunch of silly people being overly anxious! (Except it won’t be nice. We got ready for this in 2016 to a lesser degree, and the reason it turned out to be unnecessary is that the current president was elected, and so there was no violence from his supporters, no fighting of the outcome from his opponent.)

I broke my current favorite mug this morning, and it was the stupid cat’s fault, and it was one of those events that could make a person believe in a bratty universe that needles and thwarts us on purpose for the sociopathic fun of it. I had to give up coffee because of GERD/reflux, and I have missed it so much (I am hoping it is a temporary stress thing), and I have switched to herbal tea which is like a 1 on the scale where coffee is a 10, but at least it’s better than a 0, and it’s something hot to drink. Anyway, for coffee I like a smallish mug, but for tea I like a large mug. I had one (1) large mug I use for tea; it held 16 ounces, which is how much tea I like to drink. And I broke it. Because of the stupid cat. Here is a picture of the largest piece, which I used to do an image search (there is no brand on the mug), but to no avail:

And I am a person who has Far Too Many Mugs! So this should be a cause for rejoicing: Yay, I have a rare excuse to shop for a mug! But first of all, I will never find a mug I liked as much as this mug. And secondly, I am not currently shopping at the stores where I would normally look for mugs. So this morning I am looking dismally online for mugs I can have shipped.

Also, when I went to the kitchen to get my tea in its too-small mug, I noticed a college mug that was Too Big and so had been turned into a pencil holder; I measured it and it holds 16 ounces. So I have something to use in the meantime. I notice it is hand-wash only, which is stupid and I will not remember every single time, so eventually it will go through the dishwasher and then what? Will the logo come off? Well, we walk in a vale of tears.

I am trying to buy less on Amazon, but when you want a particular thing and you want a lot of choices and you want it shipped for free, well, sometimes that’s Amazon. Here’s one in a Swistley blue:

(image from Amazon.com)

This one is a little grandmotherly, and I prefer a non-flared lip, but I still like it:

(image from Amazon.com)

This one is funny, but I don’t usually like a straight up and down side, or the shorter proportions, or the color red, and it’s more than I would ever pay for a mug, and it may be starting to occur to you that I am kind of particular about mugs:

(image from Amazon.com)

Too expensive, kind of short, but pretty, and holds 21 ounces which is maybe even better than 16?? Also, I am coming around to the idea of spending more for a mug:

(image from Amazon.com)

I like the overall vibe of this one but, just as I don’t like mugs to have shortish proportions, I don’t like mugs to be too TALL, either:

(image from Amazon.com)

Bees:

(image from Amazon.com)

Oh, okay, I think this is the one:

(image from Amazon.com)

Preferred shape, preferred lip, BEE, $10ish, and also I’m jusssst running out of interest in looking. DONE.

…Well. Or actually. Perhaps I do not want to be reminded of rage and resistance when I am drinking my soothing herbal tea. Perhaps I could get back to coffee sooner if I were not thinking so often of bees. Perhaps the first mug would be better, the soothing blue—or pink, or dark green. Or I like this soothing option from Target:

(image from Target.com)

And it’s only $4 and it can be shipped. But it says it’s a 9.2-ounce mug, and then in the description says it holds 16 ounces. Soooooooo. Is 9.2 ounces the…weight? No, they wouldn’t put it in the title like that. The description also says the mug is 4 inches high by 3.62 inches wide; do any of us remember how to find volume? Okay, I found a volume-calculator thingie, and it says the volume is 41.17, and that just does not help me at all in terms of ounces. But the cat mug above is 4 inches high by 4 inches wide, so I am guessing that Target mug is NOT 16 ounces.

Or this is nice, though 27 ounces may be erring on the side of too many ounces, and also I don’t know if I want to be told to be nice right now, but I do like the colors:

(image from Target.com)

I like this one, but it’s too short and can’t be shipped:

(image from Target.com)

I appreciate this mug‘s attitude:

(image from Target.com)

It’s only 15 ounces, but I feel I could give up ONE ounce of disappointing beverage. I have put it in my online Target cart, and will probably buy it when my order gets to the $35 shipping threshold.

We are entering into what may be a very hard winter in the United States: election, pandemic, etc. And my dear friend Rachel, who many of you know as Doing My Best, made me an afghan that is like medicine: it is so cozy and warm, and so cheerful and bright. The first two pictures are Rachel’s:

Then this is me opening the box and immediately pulling out an armload of satisfyingly heavy warm softness, and being a little pink/weepy about it (it had been a long day, and this was Exactly The Thing):

And here it is on my favorite chair in my personal sunporch room:

And here is the ridiculous fearful cat who NEVER sits on laps, sitting on my lap because I have the afghan on me, a situation that has happened multiple times since then:

And here is what happened: Rachel ended up with double the yarn she needed. And she said this pattern was a very cheery therapeutic one to make, and that she would enjoy making it again. And so between us we devised a plan: the ad fund from the blog would cover the yarn and shipping, and she would make a matching afghan to give away to one of YOU.

We wondered if we should make the giveaway a fundraiser. But we are both aware that this is not a financially good time for many people—and the people who might MOST need an afghan in their lives might be the very ones who absolutely cannot make a donation right now. So here is what we came up with. IF YOU ARE FINANCIALLY ABLE, make a donation to a charity of your choice, as if it were a requirement for entering the giveaway, and comment with the name of the charity. IF YOU ARE NOT FINANCIALLY ABLE, comment the name of the charity you WOULD be giving to if you were able. DON’T SAY WHETHER YOU DID OR DIDN’T DONATE! Just say the name of the charity. We want the entrants who donated money to be indistinguishable from the entrants who were not able to donate. We also want to get lots of good ideas for charities as we enter into this long dark winter / the season of giving.

The giveaway is limited to U.S. addresses—but if you don’t live in the U.S., you can still enter if you have someone in the U.S. to ship it to. Let’s give a full week to enter, just to make sure; I will try not to forget to choose/announce the winner on Friday, October 23rd. The blanket will then arrive When It Is Ready. It is hard to know how long a big project will take, especially because it is hard to know how much despair there will be, and whether that potential despair will take the form of EXTRA crocheting or LANGUISHING crocheting. The hope, though, is that one day, perhaps when the winner has forgotten about it and/or is having a very long dark day, a box will arrive, and inside will be a satisfyingly heavy warm soft blanket, and it will be Exactly The Thing.

Update: The winner is Bitts!

My sister-in-law and I are in agreement that this Christmas in particular is likely to have a lot of issues with shipping delays, and so even though I am usually someone who likes to wait until after Thanksgiving to do most of my festive shopping, this year I am working on it right now. I have a few things I wanted to see if any of you know anything about.

FIRST. Elizabeth has put on her wish list “Luxury skin-care products, like one of those boxes where you unpack it and there are a bunch of things to try.” I don’t really know where to look for those, and hoped YOU might. And even if you don’t know exactly the format she’s talking about (which sounds like a sampler box?), I hoped you might have recommendations for skin-care products a 15-year-old girl might like to try. Her skin is combination/oily; she is not plagued with acne, but neither has she been spared.

SECOND. Also on Elizabeth’s list is a hair dryer with a diffuser, and I wondered if anyone had any recommendations. Her hair is wavy rather than curly, if that is useful to know.

THIRD. William, I’ve noticed, has tendencies toward being interested in brands/fashion: he bought himself a pair of Vans, and seemed to do it with Intention: that is, my impression is that he saw something online that made him think of himself as a person who would wear Vans, and then ordered some. He also wanted a denim jacket, and got one for his birthday—and again, it seemed to me that he thought to himself “I am someone who would wear a denim jacket.” And he is my only son who wears skinny jeans, and he does that on purpose. And he is careful about his hair: he researches styles and, in The Beforetimes, took photos to the barber to get a specific kind of cut, and uses a hair dryer and styling products; when we went into quarantine, he researched clippers and ordered a particular set, and now cuts his own hair in specific styled ways (usually short on the sides/back and swoopy-stand-up on top, almost like comic-strip hair). And what I was wondering is if this description brings any gift ideas to your mind. I realize this is a tall order. But perhaps one of you has a college-aged boy who wears skinny jeans and Vans and a denim jacket and is careful about his hair and ALSO has/wants something else I might want to buy William for Christmas.

And I think you should feel free to ask your own gift questions in the comments, if you want, and see if other commenters have an answer.