This morning I was getting the first haircut I'd had since February, since the pandemic struck, and of course Todd and I were talking about the election. Normally we talk Broadway musicals and superhero movies but these are extraordinary times, and in the midst of it all I began to get a slew of text messages but I didn't check my phone—which was in the pocket of my coat on a nearby chair anyway. But Todd was checking his Twitter feed to show me something and then realized something was up. Had ... it been called? It had. By now it had been somewhat expected—although a chance at a backslide in PA, GA, AZ and NV was still a possibility, at least in my worst-case-scenario mind. But that's how I found out. I took it with a nod and a smile beneath my mask, and on the ride home I turned on the radio, KUOW, which I'd been avoiding for days, and where they were still playing a prerecorded episode of “Hidden Brain” with Shankar Vedantam, about the way alpha-male apes act, and how the ape community, even as it acquiesces, expresses displeasure and disagreement, and yes, it was the wrong episode to be playing at that moment but was it? It still felt very, very relevant.

When I got home and onto Twitter, which I'd also been avoiding for days, that's when it began to feel real, and a relief. Later I walked over to Cal Anderson Park, where Seattlites had gathered to dance and celebrate and woo!, and I celebrated and wooed! with them, and cars honked, and it just felt great, and it was just a shame we couldn't hug everybody because that was the vibe. It was like VE or VJ Day but our version: VDT Day. Our long national nightmare was finally over. We have a real president again.

The downside of the election, and all the work to be done, is obvious, and some folks like Debbie Downers keep bringing that up, like we don't know it, but no, give us 24 hours. Mitch McConnell is already machinating, but give us 24 hours. Seventy million stupid fucking assholes still voted for this monstrosity, and there is a divide in this country that's almost less left vs. right than reality-based community vs. QAnon, and that divide, that chasm, has to be overcome somehow, but no, give us 24 fucking hours first. To dance and celebrate and woo. To bask. Put a nail in the coffin: Nov. 8, 2016 – Nov. 7, 2020. We survived it. We survived him. My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. There's enough of us. if we work together, there's enough of us.

Harpo, take us out. xo