Things To Do Instead

Of perseverating over a scary time

This is called “A Woman Waits For Leaching” which is just about right.

I assume you’re in the same position as me, wondering how your broken psyche is going to make it through today’s news cycle. I feel like I’ve preparing myself for this day since, I don’t know, since the last election news cycle? I vividly recall the tortured feelings of fear and relief, cycling one into the other, as that day in 2020 progressed. I recall how that carried over into the days following — and how even when there was a clear signal that our guy had won, we all had to endure the exhausting days that followed as we watched the sitting president of the United States make every effort to undo the results. JFC.

I don’t particularly feel like watching the ballot count come in — though I imagine I will, periodically, between the slats of my fingers, like some five-year-old insomniac watching a shadowy creature emerge from dark of their closet. Instead, I’m trying to come up with a plan, a series of pleasant activities that will briefly distract me from the harrowing doom that is hanging, sword-like, just above our heads. Join me, won’t you?

Vote

This goes without saying, but I figured it was important to include. I voted last week because my state (wisely) allows people to vote by mail. Voting early is a great way to lessen the stresses on an already stressed system, but I realize that isn’t always an option. If you need help finding your polling place, click here! And if you’re in Oregon, you’ll need to drop that little envelope into one of the state’s many ballot drop boxes. You can find the one closest to you here.

Play a Game

Card came, board game, take your pick. Might I suggest playing a healthy few rounds of Illimat, the game that Keith Baker (with some help from various Decemberists and Carson Ellis) designed around a prop we used in a band photo shoot in 2008? It’s weird and witchy and it’s got a second edition now!

Listen to 90s Indie Rock

Numero Group has just released a gorgeous boxed set of the band Tsunami’s collected works. Their first record, Deep End, was a part of the soundtrack of the summer before my first college year. Revisiting it now, I was surprised to find that it still packs a punch. There’s such a great interplay between the singers, Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson, and the songs are so ragged and noisy while being deeply, deeply melodic. Of course, its their DIY mentality and genuinely *indie* ethic that I think put them on the map, that charted the course for so many bands after them. What with 90s indie-pop having its moment (think bands like Soccer Mommy, Alvvays, Snail Mail, and Mannequin Pussy), there’s no better time to return to the source, to a time when politics was boring and the insidious dismantling of the democratic process was only in its squalling infancy.

Watch a Good, Quiet Movie

Though watching a film about a hippie single mom navigating adulthood in the early nineties through the eyes of her eleven-year-old daughter may not be the recipe for a trauma-free evening for some of you, Carson and I enjoyed Annie Baker’s Janet Planet quite a bit. It takes a second to acclimate to the pace of the film, which is rather glacial, but once you settle in, I found it an incredibly moving story about both parenting and childhood — and a very insightful portrait of flailing grownups and the imprint they put on their kids.

Finish the First Draft of Your Novel

I don’t know about you, but that’s what I’m doing. I’ve often compared the act of prose-writing to manual labor — certainly as compared to the work-adjacent activity of songwriting (which, as I’ve said, more resembles unemployment) — and any kind of manual labor tends to get one’s mind off the more stressful things at hand. If you’re not finishing the first draft of a novel, might I suggest moving a large pile of very heavy rocks, one stone at at time, from one end of your yard to the other. That’s as close to an analog as I can imagine.

Catch Up On Your TBR Pile

Politics is ephemeral; your bedside to-be-read stack is forever. Why don’t you take this time to chip away at some of the great novels of the 20th century. I’m currently reading Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, something I’ve been meaning to do since it was recommended to me in my early twenties. It’s weird and funny! It’s super boozy! It also is making me want to go to Mexico, which is cool because leaving the country is something that’s been on my mind quite a bit lately!

If you’re at a loss and want to read something other than some rando’s Substack about all the ways that Kamala Harris campaigned wrong and is definitely heading for a blowout loss, might I recommend taking a look at the Booker Prize’s shortlist for 2024? You really can’t go wrong there. I’ve been listening to the audiobook (via Libro.fm, natch) of Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake and I’m really loving it.

Bury Your Head in a Pillow and Scream

Turn off Instagram, disconnect from Threads, block access to the NYT on your browser, shut down your computer, collect every internet-connected device in your household and dig a very large hole in your backyard in which to place them. Find your favorite downy throw pillow, press your face into the fabric of the slipcase so hard that you can feel the seams make little furrows in your cheek, and howl at the top of your lungs. Don’t you feel better now?

Good luck and see you guys on the other side!