What are your strategies for staying sane until we know the results of the US election?
General Section question
This year’s election is unlike any other. Record numbers of votes have been cast by mail-in or early through other means. The media is reporting that favors the Democrats. They are also reporting many Republicans will vote in person Tuesday. The first round of numbers reported may favor the Republicans while the mail-in ballots are still being counted. What’s more that counting could take days.
Plus there’s the likelihood of court battles.
It is unlikely we will know the winner Tuesday night.
How will you stay sane until the winner is known? What strategies will you use?
I am going to rely heavily on meditation. I will greatly limit my exposure to Facebook and spend more time on other sites where I have a curated feed of beautiful photography and drag queens. I will take walks. I will watch zero broadcast news. None. They sensationalize in the extreme. Because of a medical condition, I’ve got some antianxiety medication I can take if I decide I need it.
I hope this will be a thread about tools to use to help ourselves feel good during what may be a tumultuous time. I sincerely hope there will be no arguing about politics.
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25 Answers
I will have the television on, but I will be in the other room doing a jigsaw puzzle.
Collecting some Waifus in Genshin Impact.
I’m in NY. I’m off on Election Day (holiday day) and so I’ll vote and probably go to lunch or something to kill time. We won’t start seeing results on TV until around 9 pm. In the days to follow, I’m going to try to do “business as usual” which means working from home until Friday and trying not to get too caught up in the emotion of it. I remember the Bush vs. Gore and how it took over the news for days or weeks (I don’t remember) and the whole hanging chad thing.
I am going to try to roll with the punches and take it as it comes.
I plan on turning my phone and TV off Tuesday evening. I will enjoy the quiet while reading a detective novel. I won’t turn anything on until Wednesday morning. I hope doing this will reduce my anxiety.
Keep busy. There’s plenty to distract us just keeping the wolf from the door.
Escapist stuff. Lately that’s been my mainstay, anyway. Science fiction books and TV, or period books and TV, nothing later than the 60s, or before the year 2200. And cooking everything in sight. My metaphoric bucket of sand into which I place my head.
Oh, @canidmajor, come cook for me, and I will read aloud to you! What are your current books-in-progress?
Recently I’ve seen op-ed pieces by people who are planning to stay away from the news—camping in a remote place, say, or getting into a video game marathon—and one who described having already gone a month without news, much to his own relief. I’m also recalling a weird little movie about a woman who fell into a coma in East Germany and woke up after reunification. There is much to be said for the total denial approach.
Although some of that is what got us here.
I won’t have the TV on, mostly because turning it on is an airplane-cockpit challenge I haven’t mastered (all it should take is two knobs and maybe a tweak of the bunny ears). But I’ll undoubtedly be checking the news here on my laptop, knowing very well that there are still plot twists to come and yet wanting a little warning if I have to pile furniture against the door.
And I do have a significant cache of old movies on DVD and even on VHS. It may be time to redo the entire Ring trilogy (just skipping the scenes with Liv Tyler in them). Always nice to see Cate Blanchett so radiant again.
I use the Waking Up meditation app.
I’ve been watching art history lectures on Zoom, reading in front of the fire, baking and cooking. I don’t watch TV news and I’m trying to limit my news reading consumption. I will be watching at some point on election night though and probably wake up in the night to see if anything is concluded.
Election night happens to be the night I have my monthly Zoom hangout with my old college friends. So that’ll keep me busy until 11-ish when I’ll just go to bed.
The rest of the week, if the ballot counting drags out, I’m busy working as usual, so I’ll be glued to my screen.
If it continues through Friday, I got the Mandalorian to keep me distracted.
This is the way.
Now that you mention it, I might retreat to my bunker (turn off the internet) and ignore the news Tuesday night.
I just got this from the library:
The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard
“In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was – more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol? – and what it can tell us about ordinary life there. From sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy, Beard offers us the big picture even as she takes us close enough to the past to smell the bad breath and see the intestinal tapeworms of the inhabitants of the lost city. She resurrects the Temple of Isis as a testament to ancient multiculturalism. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica.”
I recently finished her book SPQR and I’m super-fascinated with how advanced civilizatoin was in classical Greece and Rome. I think the well-off people had more in common with us than they had with the average person of their own day.
But the days after the election? It’s going to suck. Like Bush v. Gore on steroids. I give my own early vote (last week in-person) a 50/50 chance of being counted.
P.S. I just read a reference to baked macaroni and cheese and I think making a big pan of it will help get me through the next few days!
Substitute yogurt for milk in macaroni and cheese. Mmmmmm.
I quit drinking about six months ago..
Probably going to play some mario-cart.
By fixating on my own significant personal problems instead.
Watch movie, play video game, or play with shio(with dog) until election results are over.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I just cleaned out my freezer and fridge.
I wanted to go up to Tahoe during the election and cut my internet usage down to a minimum, but I won’t be able to leave until the 8th. Though with what everyone is predicting, the election may not even be decided by then. I’ll probably just be posting on Fluther a lot, discussing it. :)
I’ll be pretty much captivated watching our political train wreck.
I imagine that “The Band” will composing another song “The Night They Drove Old Glory Down” and all the people were singing.
Na, na na-na-na na! Na na-na-na na-na-na na na!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREUrbGGrgM
I’m in a Facebook cooking group (even though I don’t cook a whole lot) and there are lots of posts today about special Election Day foods and drinks that people are going to make.
I have a chocolate cake mix and will do something with cream cheese icing. Other than that, no special food plans for the day. My plan is to go out and vote around 7 pm, when hopefully the polls are not too crowded. Then when I get home, it will be chocolate cake time.
^What time do your polls close?
@chyna: Here in NY they close at 9 pm.
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