Less and less, I am comfortable being perceived. In photographs, by strangers, in public. I’ve mentioned that I want to build a wall, and I still do. Being on a zoom meeting’s alright, I can control the environment, the lighting, the clothes, the background, the stuff on my desk. 

It’s interesting being here on election day. We all left to go vote, there were loads of jokes about Roby being a bit young, and she and I had our names complimented. We left then we came back, then we watched a political drama. I’ve asked Siri “How’s the election going,” a few times, but it’s still too early. 

The last time Trump was elected I was on a very different kind of farm. It was sort of horrible, maybe not even sort of. It was horrible. The farmers there were stoked about him winning. I was not, I was a lot more worried and weirded out about the whole thing than I think I will be tonight, no matter what happens. 

My deepest regret from that election is that I didn’t get to walk around downtown Seattle to watch people mourn, I didn’t get to see what that was like. If he wins I think I’ll go to Montpelier to see, if he loses I think I will too. The energy after he lost for the first time was electric in Burlington. For all of about fifteen minutes.

I was at a Billy Bragg concert the night Obama won in 2008, I was 17. Billy is a real leftist, a union man, the crowd there was over the moon at the Change™ about to unfold across America. The first thing Billy said was to not lose hope when Obama inevitably disappointed us. He wasn’t rude about it, he wasn’t even especially cynical, but he was pretty goddamn sure it was going to happen, and he was right. 

Things’ll get worse. I think they’ll get worse the whole rest of my life and after that too. I’d like to make more money so I can buy solar panels and get some cows. We’re a long way off from being as self-sustaining as I’d like to be. A long way. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to get there for Roby’s sake. What else have I got going on? 

We’re already living on some acreage in Vermont instead of in a town house in Brooklyn. That’s a pretty sweet step in the right direction.