Ok! November 6th, three days post-election, still counting. Cool.
Obviously, yes, count every vote. Every vote counts. I am just impatient. And every minute that passes without Biden being declared the winner is another minute that Trumpsters can try and fuck it all up. Runoffs and recounts and lawsuits, oh my!
I was awakened this morning by a text from my daughter that just read, “BLUE GEORGIA!!!” 💙 I would dearly love for Georgia to go to Biden, and even better if we can pick up those Senate seats.
It seems fortuitous that today is the official release date for the Pylon box set. I pre-ordered mine and received it early so I have already pored over the book filled with pictures and details I hadn’t seen before. The four albums, two reissues and two records of singles, b-sides, and previously unreleased songs, are beautiful. My stereo is not very high end so I can’t say that I really notice a difference between my originals and the new copies of Gyrate and Chomp but I am delighted to have them and I am really excited about the two other records, Extra, and Razz Tape. Now I have the song Cool on vinyl. I had it on the CD compilation called Hits that came out in 1989 (which is when I saw Pylon play at City Gardens and got my beloved t-shirt), but it’s great to have it included on these records. I was so happy about all this that I even posted an unflattering picture of myself in the t-shirt on Instagram. 31 years ago and today. Some things never go out of style.
If the box set is out of your price range (this was a combo birthday/Christmas present for me) you can buy Chomp and Gyrate separately and you can stream Extra and Razz Tape. Something to do while we wait for Georgia to be called. Come on!
We got the internet back today so I had a busy day at work, which kept me from checking the election results every five minutes.
One thing I did see was the Joy to the Polls group along with Election Defenders bringing the party to the streets of Philadelphia. I love this so much. I’m not sure if they got there first or if they came to keep Trump supporters in check but they are having a disco block party outside of the place where they’re counting the mail in ballots in Philadelphia. It started yesterday with a small group of people and by this evening it was a big crowd of people, literally dancing in the streets. There were people dressed in mailbox costumes, the White House, Independence Hall (it is Philly after all) and I spied a couple of Gritty masks for good measure. It improved my mood a hundred fold.
Waiting for these results is exhausting. But watching the Joy to the Polls videos in the days of early voting just roll that party on to the places where they’re still counting, is, well, a joy! I started following them on Instagram but I think they’re probably on other platforms too. Go check it out, you’ll feel better.
Our internet is still out so this morning, after briefly checking the news, I was trying to help my son get in touch with his teachers to explain why he wouldn’t be able to turn in assignments or even take a scheduled test. I figured I could delve into the minutiae of the House and Senate races later. I had a meeting at 10:30 so I moved the laptop into my office corner to get ready and that’s when I realized … my mobile data wasn’t working.
It’s one thing to be without the wifi for a day and a half but when I was actually cut off from the internet completely, I started getting pretty anxious. I could still send and receive texts but nothing else. Now is not the time to be unable to immediately bring up whatever news story I want from whatever source. And I couldn’t even do any work to take my mind off things because I had no mobile data and therefore, no hotspot!
So I got outside and went for a walk. It was warm compared to yesterday and the sun was out, everyone’s Biden signs were still out. It felt like we still have a few days to get through before the final tally and no one wanted to jeopardize our chances by removing their sign. As I’m writing this we seem to be just 6 votes shy of winning enough electoral college seats to clinch it. I am keeping my fingers crossed and going to bed. This waiting is a killer.
Since I want to believe that the absentee ballots won’t all be counted tonight, and that means we will not have answers for a while, I am not investing my emotional strength in watching the returns. I’ve glanced at social media a bit for our local info but I don’t think it will help me to sleep if I just sit here doomscrolling all night. I did my shift outside the polling place this morning, holding up the signs for the Democratic candidates and I went to the grocery store, liquor store, and pharmacy, made ratatouille in the Crock-Pot, and then pasta sauce later in the afternoon, all an attempt to keep myself occupied and not fixating on the results.
I looked at my son after dinner and I could see the dread washing over him. With our internet down he can’t even get online to play games with his friends to distract himself. Luckily we got some blank CDs in the mail today so I told him we could burn some of his recently purchased albums for the car.
It is getting harder and harder to maintain the older formats, new cars don’t come with CD players anymore and even new laptops tend not to have a disc drive. Our oldest laptop was the only computer in the house that I could wrangle into performing this task. Were it not for the goal of keeping his mind off election results, I might have gotten frustrated with all the failed attempts and waiting for it to finish, but we killed a good two hours, maybe more. We also managed to rig up my phone to the printer with an old cable and a little USB-C to USB converter so we could print out album covers. I’m so glad I never fell prey to the internet of things because what happens when all of your appliances and your door locks or whatever, are dependent on the internet working? It sucks to be without internet, don’t get me wrong. Maybe having it out isn’t all bad, though. I successfully steered my son back from the edge with this little project. We’re holding on, hope you are too.
Our internet died today. Today! And the tech can’t come until Thursday. Thursday! I told the woman on the phone that I’m working from home and my son is doing school from home and can’t someone come sooner? I didn’t bother to say, the fucking election is tomorrow and I need my internet!! I mean, I have my phone. I am making this post on my phone and it can be a hotspot so I am not in the dark, but this timing is unbelievable.
I thought it was the weather at first because it was super windy out but the woman on the phone was pretty certain it’s the router/modem because she tested the line remotely and said it was working. Then she said, how old is that modem? I don’t really know but we’ve had it a long time. She clicked around some more and then she gasped, “Oh my goodness! That modem is 20 years old!!” Ok, it’s old, but it can’t be that old. We got it when we were living in our current house so at most it can be 13 years old, but I’m guessing it’s more like 7 years. Admittedly the modem wasn’t new when we got it and seven years is pretty old for a piece of technology like that. It has been crapping out frequently over the last couple of months so I’m not surprised if it is the culprit, but I have also suspected that we are using the internet far more than it is engineered to handle. Either way, the tech will come, hopefully sooner than Thursday, and something will be done to restore it.
Perhaps there’s a metaphor lurking somewhere in there for the situation the nation is staring down. Things are not going to be magically restored on election day. It will take a while longer, and definitely longer than we’d like, before we will know the outcome. There is massive uncertainty and probable unrest in the days ahead. Even in the best case scenario there is still November, December, and three weeks of January to get through. I need something to get me over the top!
I am telling myself:
Back in the ring now, with eye held just high enough to see the prize. Head bent forward and hip into wind as always. Slugging it out ’til the end, the boxer.
There are a couple of versions of this song but I took this live version because man, do I miss being there. I love how the person recording it goes for the wide shot at the point in the song where experience tells me the crowd is bouncing, and they are. It’s a joy filled moment wrought from a difficult and punishing time. And the fists are pumping because so many of us know what that feels like and you’re there, surrounded by people who get it.
Leave it all on the floor. Take nothing for granted so you have no regrets. Let’s hit the nail on the head and drive that fucker home.
If I can pull it off, this will be my seventh straight year of NaBloPoMo but geez, this is a rough one. It’s not just the election of our lifetime in a handful of hours, it’s also a freaking pandemic with the case counts spiking all over the place, and you know, we’ve all been cooped up with the same people for MONTHS. I love my family but we have been together 24/7 for I can’t even tell how long now. I do not leave the house to go to work, my son does not leave the house to go to school, my husband was laid off at the end of March and so has nowhere to go either. My daughter went back to her college but she is due to come home around Thanksgiving and not go back for three months.
We are lucky, I don’t want to complain, but this is absolutely not normal and it takes some adjusting. I’m not sure how the rest of you have been getting along but it’s a safe bet that everyone is more stressed out than this time last year. When the weather permits I try to go for a walk for about an hour but even then you’re keeping an eye out for people and weaving back and forth across the street to give everyone a wide berth. Plus, there’s no end in sight. When will there be a vaccine? Will it be safe? Will it be effective enough to allow us to go back to doing things we used to do, like go to a show? God, how I miss going to shows. I am not going to be able to go to my friend’s house for election night and my husband hates it when I yell at the tv. Thanksgiving and Christmas plans are a big question mark.
I feel like we all are frazzled, holding our breath, just trying to oust a fascist and his enablers and not die trying. I can’t wait to come up for air.
Do you realize that we are not even a week out from the first presidential debate? What the fuck. What the Fuck?! In those handful of days, Trump tested positive for COVID, went to the hospital, had a kitchen sink of drugs injected into him, had doctor’s lie about the timeline of his illness, went for a joyride to visit his “fans” lining the streets outside the hospital, and then demanded he be released. There is a psycho killer in the White House, no way around it. How else can you describe an evil, narcissistic, fascist, hopped up on steroids, while infected and contagious with a deadly virus, leaving the hospital and returning to cough and breathe all over every surface and everyone in the building?
That would be bad enough but first he tweets to all his cult members, “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it dominate your life.” Fantastic. It wasn’t hard enough to deal with all of the anti-maskers before, it’s going to be impossible now. More assholes with guns will show up on capitol steps demanding to be allowed to infect their neighbors because Dear Leader told them not to be weak and believe in science. Own the libs. Catch a deadly virus and extend the damage that’s already been done.
I’ve lost count how many people in his administration and other high ranking GOP members now have tested positive for the coronavirus. That superspreader event to celebrate their Supreme Court coup is like a cruise ship in February. I just can’t imagine being so arrogant as to think that there’s no chance you might catch it and to just roll the dice and forego any safety precautions that most of the nation has been living with for over half a year now. 210,000 people have died and millions more have been sick, some with debilitating, lingering health problems, but no, it won’t possibly touch me. I’ll just sit here next to these people who have been god knows where and with whom, not wear a mask, watch as people hug and touch each other, touch their noses and then hug some more. Let’s celebrate the impending decision to strip health insurance away from millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions during a pandemic. Couldn’t happen to us. Cheers!
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
Every single one of those adults at the ceremony deserves what they get. Same with the people at the golf club fundraiser. No, they didn’t know he had the virus, but they knew they were spending $250,000 to hang out with a lying con man who knew from the beginning how contagious and deadly this disease is, yet deliberately sought to downplay it’s severity and deprive the nation of information and medical supplies. I saw this great Twitter thread that summed up this moral failing, “Finding a non-white supremacist reason to support a white supremacist still aligns you with white supremacy. Finding a non-authoritarian reason to support an authoritarian still aligns you with authoritarianism.” to which I would add, finding a non-science denying reason to support a science denier gives you COVID.Â
It’s all so bizarre that I can see how people are inclined to believe the whole thing has been staged. His breathing looked really labored on the balcony of the White House though. Time will tell.Â
Welp, these are some pretty fucked up times we find ourselves in, friends. Staring down an election that should be a slam dunk but Cheeto is causing chaos left and right, not to mention there’s a global pandemic and we’re trying to stave off another theocratic fascist from taking the seat of the most beloved supreme court justice of all time. Meanwhile the planet is burning, cops are still killing unarmed black people at an alarming rate and facing zero consequences, and millions of people are unemployed.
Not like I need to summarize for anyone reading here today, but I like to look back and remember just what kind of crazy shit was going on. I have toughed my way through several years of November NaBloPoMos and while I mostly can go back and figure out, or remember, what the details were of the issue of the day, it isn’t always obvious. Muddying the memories are things like this song, eerily as appropriate in 2020 as 1992!
The past six months have been unbelievable and at the same time, not a surprise at all. No, I didn’t see a pandemic coming but if one was going to hit while Twitler was in office, then you knew it was going to be an utter disaster. I really hoped RBG could have held out until 2021 but was anyone besides maybe Susan Collins surprised to see old Turtleface change the rule he created about having hearings for an open SCOTUS seat during an election year? The man has no scruples whatsoever and nothing would make me happier than for him to lose, and lose big. I don’t think it will happen but if ever someone deserved his comeuppance, it’s him.
A week ago I put out a Biden/Harris sign in the yard, along with one for a local candidate. This is not the ticket I dreamed about but if we are to have a constitutional republic rather than an autocratic dictatorship, this is no time to be picky. By the end of the week, two of my neighbors had followed suit, then another couple of signs popped up down the street. There is strength in numbers. I encourage you to declare your support. Maybe you’re in more hostile territory than I am but I guarantee someone will pass your house and feel just a little bit better knowing they’re not alone.
In an effort to not make myself too depressed and anxious about only having two problematic old white guys left in the primary race, I decided to shift my attention to preparing to quarantine my family for two weeks if we are told we have to do that. Because that’s not paranoid or stressful.
I’m not actually that concerned about getting the coronavirus, but the way things are playing out, it seems entirely possible that someone in my house will have found themselves at the same place as an infected person and then we’ll all have to stay in our house for two weeks, even if you never get sick yourself. And then if you do get sick, you’ll be stuck there even longer.
Usually I do a big grocery store trip on Sunday to get the basics for the coming week, my husband will fill in during the week if we need something in between, but there isn’t really room to stash a lot of stuff. There are no real closets in the house and while we do have cupboards in the kitchen, space is limited and storage is at a premium. I just haven’t been in the habit of buying in bulk because I don’t have a place to put 20 rolls of paper towels, and I don’t usually buy a lot of things in cans so the appeal of the big discount stores, Costco, BJs, has been lost on me.
I figured if I just make a point to buy two or three extras of things I normally buy, then put those in a separate spot from the food we eat on a regular basis, that could be our reserve for the end times. However, while I was out shopping, I saw an update that made me think, hmm, I’m not sure there’s going to be enough time for the slow acquisition of enough food to last us for two whole weeks. What if my husband or I come home from work tomorrow and one of us has been told to “self-isolate” there won’t be time to go shopping.
So after getting four pounds of pasta and several cans of beans and tomatoes of different kinds, 12 rolls of toilet paper, 6 rolls of paper towels, cheese for several pizzas, and a few other oddities at Aldi, I then went to our regular grocery store for the usual stuff. I’m cruising the aisles and the in-store ad comes on the loudspeaker, “It’s cold and flu season! And with the coronavirus spreading, make sure you’re prepared with all the cleaning supplies you need to keep your home safe. On sale in aisle 3!” Then I turned the corner and saw someone coughing half-heartedly into their hand, so I made a bee-line for aisle 3. Also in aisle 3? More toilet paper. I didn’t understand the run on toilet paper at first but then someone at work said, “Well, there’s really no substitute for it so you don’t want to run out.” Especially if you’re living off canned beans for two weeks.
I bought more pasta, some milk that’s been ultra heated or something and has a date of April 5, and as many bags of frozen vegetables as I thought I could fit in my freezer. I really hope we don’t lose power for any reason or that will be a huge waste. 5 pounds of potatoes, I’m not sure why. I just thought we’d get tired of rice and pasta, and if we did get sick, I’d probably want to make vegetable soup and then I’d want some potatoes. I also bought four cans of vegetable soup. It won’t go bad. Two boxes of Bisquick, because if we’re all home together, my son is going to want pancakes and I could make biscuits if we run out of bread.
Two weeks seems simultaneously not that long and a really fucking long time. It’s only 14 dinners, that’s not too bad. But not leaving the house for 14 days straight? I think my muscles will start to atrophy. And what if part way through the two weeks, my daughter’s college sends everyone home? How would we get her? And then would we reset the two week clock? I didn’t buy food for four people, I bought for three.
I do, however, now have 44 rolls of toilet paper.
I discovered Say Sue Me from some Instagram videos of their shows back in December. Luckily they finished their tour of the US before heading back to South Korea because they’re really stuck there now.
I should be en route to the Sunflower Bean show/beer tasting that I excitedly bought a ticket for a couple of months ago. But instead I am home, doing nothing.
Not that I need an excuse but I have a few. 1) It’s actually over an hour away. That’s a lot of driving there and back. 2) I had some small cysts removed on Friday and while it was a very simple in office procedure, it actually was surgery and it hurts more than I thought it would (sorry for the TMI). 3) The friend I was going to meet up with texted me that she was thinking of bailing. She lives five minutes from the venue so if she wasn’t up for it, I feel less obliged. 4) It was only $15.
It bums me out because I just feel old and like a loser but I also felt like I’d feel even older at the show, standing there with a sore back and not enjoying it as much as I could and what if people bumped into me where the incision was, blah, blah, blah. Getting older sucks.
If I lived five minutes away I would have rolled on over there at 9 and seen what was what. I could easily have done an hour, maybe a little more. But basically four hours? Sadly not tonight. Hopefully Sunflower Bean comes back through in the warmer weather and I will be more up for it. I haven’t been to a show since September and I miss it.
Noisy Cats 