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Today's Keyboard Smash
Nov. 4th, 2020 04:29 pmToday, I had to listen to someone from another department explain that the Democrats are going to take the election to court, because Trump could be ahead by a million votes and they still wouldn't concede, and the Democrats are basically the Illuminati. Those actual words! All of them! In that order!
On the one hand, cool, now I feel like I'm living in bizzaro world. You could not have calculated a sentence more at odds with all demonstrable reality. But on the other hand, this is the same coworker who loudly shared Star Wars spoilers, whistles tunelessly in the hallways, and thinks every thought and inarticulate noise of pleasure or annoyance that enters their head should--must!--be voiced at top volume. So. Already despised them--not really shocked by anything I heard. Just so, so grossed out.
I'm writing this while still at work (lunch break at nine in the morning, weird lifestyle), and the question I'm asking myself is: do I check the internet? I think I've mentioned before that I don't normally connect to the public wifi available here, mostly out of privacy concerns. (And I definitely don't have a smartphone capable of internet browsing.) But I've done it once before, and I could do it now. If I wanted. If I felt the need to check the current election reporting.
Is that smart? Is that a good thing to do to myself? Will that make any of this better? *insert John Mulaney voice* When there's a horse loose in the hospital, you gotta stay updated.
Is there any value in knowing, though? There's nothing to do right now. I don't even mean in a national, existential sense, though that might be true as well. I mean: I'm not personally going to leave work if the news says...what? I suppose if bloody civil war breaks out before 3:30 and life as we know it descends into chaos, then yes, I would leave work early. I can probably depend on my coworkers and their smartphones to alert me to that development.
Now, perhaps, the time has finally come to say "this doesn't affect my life." That was, of course, a terrible attitude to take going into an election. It's incorrect, or heartless, or both, depending on who you are exactly and how much the current administration wants to wreck your life. Now that we've voted, though, can we just...stop? For a day. For an hour. And say, nothing happening right now needs my immediate attention. There's nothing for me to do here.
And now I'm on my last break. I haven't checked anything. In a couple hours, I'll be home, and I won't be able to avoid knowing anymore. I'm reminded of the line in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original one. The news has just announced, incorrectly, that the last Golden Ticket has been found and the contest is over. Grandpa Joe says of Charlie, supposed to be asleep upstairs, "Let him sleep. Let him have one last dream."
People have been talking about what the last Election Night was like and what they did, comparing it to this one as it approached. I've heard more than one say they went to bed early (for various values of early) that night, rather than stay up and watch the coverage. They wanted to have one more night when it wasn't true, when Trump wasn't president. That's what this feels like, all over again. I'll have to face it eventually. Just give me another couple hours where I don't have to know how bad it is.
I don't think I've said one coherent or useful thing in this whole rambling post, as I swing between optimism and despair on a fulcrum of emotional exhaustion. But that really just makes it a perfect reflection of my mental state today, so I'll let it stand.
On the one hand, cool, now I feel like I'm living in bizzaro world. You could not have calculated a sentence more at odds with all demonstrable reality. But on the other hand, this is the same coworker who loudly shared Star Wars spoilers, whistles tunelessly in the hallways, and thinks every thought and inarticulate noise of pleasure or annoyance that enters their head should--must!--be voiced at top volume. So. Already despised them--not really shocked by anything I heard. Just so, so grossed out.
I'm writing this while still at work (lunch break at nine in the morning, weird lifestyle), and the question I'm asking myself is: do I check the internet? I think I've mentioned before that I don't normally connect to the public wifi available here, mostly out of privacy concerns. (And I definitely don't have a smartphone capable of internet browsing.) But I've done it once before, and I could do it now. If I wanted. If I felt the need to check the current election reporting.
Is that smart? Is that a good thing to do to myself? Will that make any of this better? *insert John Mulaney voice* When there's a horse loose in the hospital, you gotta stay updated.
Is there any value in knowing, though? There's nothing to do right now. I don't even mean in a national, existential sense, though that might be true as well. I mean: I'm not personally going to leave work if the news says...what? I suppose if bloody civil war breaks out before 3:30 and life as we know it descends into chaos, then yes, I would leave work early. I can probably depend on my coworkers and their smartphones to alert me to that development.
Now, perhaps, the time has finally come to say "this doesn't affect my life." That was, of course, a terrible attitude to take going into an election. It's incorrect, or heartless, or both, depending on who you are exactly and how much the current administration wants to wreck your life. Now that we've voted, though, can we just...stop? For a day. For an hour. And say, nothing happening right now needs my immediate attention. There's nothing for me to do here.
And now I'm on my last break. I haven't checked anything. In a couple hours, I'll be home, and I won't be able to avoid knowing anymore. I'm reminded of the line in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original one. The news has just announced, incorrectly, that the last Golden Ticket has been found and the contest is over. Grandpa Joe says of Charlie, supposed to be asleep upstairs, "Let him sleep. Let him have one last dream."
People have been talking about what the last Election Night was like and what they did, comparing it to this one as it approached. I've heard more than one say they went to bed early (for various values of early) that night, rather than stay up and watch the coverage. They wanted to have one more night when it wasn't true, when Trump wasn't president. That's what this feels like, all over again. I'll have to face it eventually. Just give me another couple hours where I don't have to know how bad it is.
I don't think I've said one coherent or useful thing in this whole rambling post, as I swing between optimism and despair on a fulcrum of emotional exhaustion. But that really just makes it a perfect reflection of my mental state today, so I'll let it stand.
