Tuesday, Nov. 5
5 a.m. PST
Normally I’d be looking at a blank screen and figuring out how to fill it with words, ideas and entertainment. But this is election day down south and a weak vein of hope and optimism fill me with a desire to put off sending this week’s piffle in until Wednesday after I see how the drama plays out. Hope for the best; plan for the worst. What am I saying, can there be any plan for the worst?
Voting just started in the Eastern U.S. Somewhere in the hurricane and flood-ravaged hinterlands of North Carolina, one of many “important” swing states, determined hill folk are making the journey to vote. They’re voting for Trump because he told them his opponent had diverted their FEMA recovery money and given it to illegal immigrants so they could have sex reassignment surgery.
Meanwhile, in Charlotte, N.C., soccer moms are loading into minivans to get out the vote for Harris. They’re finally happy to have a chance to vote for a woman who isn’t Hillary Clinton. None of them have had abortions but, really, it’s the principle of the thing. Our bodies, ourselves. They’ve bought into the hope, the message of unity, the desire not to go backwards. They think Trump’s a pig.
8 a.m. PST
In the urban jungles and freedom-loving backwoods of the Eastern Seaboard, Proud Boys everywhere are locking and loading cleaned and oiled weapons. They’re checking and posting last-minute messages on Telegram urging their believers to be ready to fight the yoke of tyranny and oppression if their candidate loses. Clearly the only way he can lose is if this election is stolen, too. If that’s the case, they’re ready to roll. Lawlessness to maintain order... natural order.
In the urban centres, busy people are hard at work. Many have voted early, dropping off ballots and mailing them. No time to be distracted from the business of business. A mixed bag with New York, New England, the Eastern Seaboard and Virginia pinning their hopes on the Democratic candidate while another important swing state, Pennsylvania, figures out who it’s going to anoint king or queen.
12 p.m. PST
Early exit polls from CNN do nothing to relieve stress. Things seem to be breaking toward an Orange Wave but at least not crush. But exit polls have become increasingly inaccurate. Probably the distrust of media and ingrained orneriness of people leading them to be less than truthful when accosted by someone asking how they voted.
This isn’t working for me. Worse, pundits and newsfolk are coalescing around the notion we won’t have a clear winner until tomorrow... at the earliest. Time to find some other distraction. This isn’t healthy.
2 p.m. PST
There is a Zen quality to bread-making. Hmm... do I need a smoother transition to jump into bread-making from a political death watch? Probably. Oh well. Time and long-rising, high-hydration dough wait for no projected results.
Loaves aren’t fussy enough to tap off the stressful energy building up inside me so I make baguettes instead. They’ll go with the charcuterie I’ve offered to bring to this evening’s watch party. Attending a watch party is a leap of faith. The last one was 2016. We all know how that ended. Whimper, not bang. No party in 2020. No one had a house large enough for more than four people to be socially distanced. It was a watch party in 1980 when I realized I might be in Canada longer than I imagined. Still, forever? Thank Reagan.
A quick peek at the non-results coming in—okay, the rampant speculation and unreliable exit polls—is all cloud, no silver lining. Nuts to this.
5:30 p.m. PST
A brief detour to council chambers for a drive-by comment in support of keeping an open mind regarding wildfire mitigation techniques, something about which I know next to nothing. Standard operating procedure.
6:20 p.m. PST
Arrive at watch party. Look at television. Want to poke my eyes out with a nearby knife. But it’s just CBC, what do they know? Just as bad on PBS. Quick Watson, the needle.
6:35 p.m. PST
What would we do without wine? Well, whisky is the obvious answer and it looks like this evening is going that direction. I had the presence of mind to bring along a bottle of cask-strength—67.3%ABV—single malt and hide the bottle of bubbly out in the car... just in case things break toward sanity.
8:30 p.m. PST
STOP WATCHING!!! It’s like a slasher movie. I can only watch through narrow finger openings, hands over eyes. This can’t be happening again. Do my former fellow countrymen and women have no depths to their depravity? Growing realization suggests that’s a rhetorical question.
10 p.m. PST
I give up. My circadian rhythm hasn’t yet adjusted to standard time and there’s no end in sight. Harris has told everyone to go home. So I will. As Scarlett said, “Tomorrow’s another day.” Or was that Annie? Whatever.
Wednesday, Nov. 6
4:30 a.m. PST
Op. cit., circadian rhythm. Oh shit! Yer kidding? Again? Seriously? I call the New York Times to cancel my subscription. They’re not open yet. I can’t bring myself to read the results, look at all the red states, places I’ll never visit again, even assuming they’ll let me in the country.
How could you be so reckless? How could you hand the reins of power—not to mention the nuclear football—over to a wannabe tyrant, a man some of his former closest advisors called a fascist, a bootlick to strongman dictators around the world, a pussy grabber, an ally in name only, a felon, a cheat, a man who lies every time his lips move, a racist, misogynist and hater. Oh sweet Jesus, how could you?
7:30 a.m. PST
Time to channel my inner John Prine. Blow up my TV, throw away my paper, move to the country. Fortunately I moved to the country, Canada, 45 years ago. I have a wonderful wife. I live in an amazing bubble, two actually. I have close, warm friends. I have secure housing. I have more than one pair of skis. I have four marvellous grandchildren. I am no longer a U.S. citizen, a blessing now more than ever.
Life will go on until it doesn’t... something I think about more with each passing year.
But I can’t get the final scene from Planet of the Apes—the original—out of my head. The one where Charlton Heston rounds the corner of the beach and sees the upper torso, head and arm of the Statue of Liberty lying in the sand, realizes he’s back on Earth, falls to his knees and screams, “You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
What he said.
