Things I hope to remember about Biden and Harris's inauguration:

- The look of absolute delighted and focused readiness as Harris stood to take her oath.

- Kit exclaiming "She's SO HAPPY!" at Lady Gaga, who channeled everything we were feeling, all the victory and grief and relief, into the words "that our flag was still there".

- The way I immediately felt hungry, in a purely physical sense, as though a space had opened up inside my body that four years of tension had constricted and walled off. Twelve hours later, I still feel that emptiness, that openness. I have more space in my mind too—staying focused on conversations is easier, getting things done is easier, I feel like maybe someday soon I could read a book or participate in a deeply intellectual conversation or make art—but feeling it in my body is extraordinary.

Kit is excited that the president went to speech therapy, "just like me!" They weren't interested in knowing that he has trouble speaking, but they loved knowing that he worked on learning to speak better, a distinction that I hadn't previously made and that I'll be thinking about for a while. In the meantime, I'm just so happy to have a president that I don't mind my child identifying with.

Biden's not perfect, but he's got moon rocks in the Oval Office, and a huge portrait of FDR on the wall across from his desk that he'll see every time he looks up from his work. The State Department is processing passport applications again. The Muslim ban was revoked. There's a national face mask mandate for federal workers. Lives are being saved from the get-go. After four years of the party of death, that's so refreshing.

And so many firsts! A trans woman will be assistant secretary of HHS. A Native American woman will run the Department of the Interior. Vice President Harris's first official act, after breaking three different glass ceilings, was to preside over the Senate confirmations of California's first Latino senator and Georgia's first Black and first Jewish senators. That's a whole lot of kids who can now say "just like me". And if you're asking how we could just be achieving some of these things in the year 2021, then you know how much work has gone into bringing us here, and how much work is still ahead.

Someone asked on Twitter how we could still believe in democracy after the past four years. I believe in it because it survived the past four years—battered and bruised but not broken—and because it let us save ourselves from another four years of hellish misery. We bought ourselves four years in which we push leftward against a gentle breeze rather than walking into a hurricane. It's been made abundantly clear that democracy only exists as long as enough people clap for it like Tinkerbell. But we did, and she lived, and that matters.

I'll try to sit down with Kit every weekend to write postcards to Biden and Harris. Some cards will say "thank you" and some will say "please". It's nice to know that either way, someone in the White House might actually listen and care.

We did it.

X and J and Kit and I went down to Grand Army Plaza and joined the party there. We cheered and danced and waved our queer pride flags and Kit's glittery rainbow pinwheel and had a very good time. We came home and were very tired. I was the only one who stayed up for the speeches, and I'm glad I did but now I'm absolutely wiped—and an hour late for bedtime again. I think everyone's feeling that tiredness. Even our neighbors up the block, who will take any excuse for a party and were ebullient at the news, called it quits by 11. But worth it, all worth it, what a good way to be worn out instead of the usual exhaustion of pushing back despair.

X and I separately and spontaneously put all our political pins back on. I know New York is the same place it was a week ago, with the same people in it, but it still feels safer now. And it certainly felt good to pile into the town square and be surrounded by people who felt the same.


J with glittery pinwheel, X with trans flag, me with bi flag, Kit with rainbow flag and rainbow mask.
(Subject line is from Dream Theater's "Take the Time", which helpfully popped up on shuffle today. Thanks, psychic randomizer.)

I genuinely love being back on Twitter for the collective wait for the election results to be incontrovertible and complete and done, but also I woke up at 9 a.m. and didn't get out of bed until after noon. I'm glad I got out of the house at 3, while there was still sunlight. I was jittery and bouncy enough to walk four miles without really thinking about it. (Working at a standing desk is clearly improving my leg strength and stamina. That walk would have been more taxing even a couple of months ago, and J and I are taking fewer evening walks than we used to because he's going to bed earlier, so standing gets all the credit.)

I liked Biden's little chat tonight, though waiting three hours for it was hard, but I want to hear the real speech, the one that ends with balloons and confetti. I want Kit to see Kamala Harris give her first speech as VP-elect. I have mixed feelings about both Biden and Harris, but they act like reasonable human beings and that counts for a lot these days. I hope we get four years of the lovely gender role reversal of Biden being warm and caring and inclusive while Harris cleans house. The criminal justice system in this country sucks, but it's what we have at the moment, and we didn't just vote out a crook, we voted in a prosecutor.

I really wanted Stacey Abrams to be the VP pick, but I sure am glad she was doing what she was doing in Georgia. Not being able to phonebank more was frustrating, but I did one round of 30 calls to Georgia on Election Day, and the one voter I managed to speak with was so fervent and hopeful. I hope she's having a good week.

Tonight was supposed to be my first night of going to bed at 11:30 and getting up at 8 ("going to bed" means "being in my room ready for bed", which is easier to time and track than when I actually lie down and turn out the light), and now it's 12:30 and I'm still out on the couch. The challenge I always face when trying to go to bed is wanting there to be some sort of neat and tidy ending to the evening. Now here it is Friday night and we haven't even had an end to Tuesday yet. It's a wonder I've gotten any sleep this week at all.

I just want it done.

Well, I sure picked a good week to get back on Twitter and start waking up at 9 a.m.

How are you all holding up?