and of course it's all happening today

[tielan]

I woke at 3:45am, cursing. So damn tired. But I went looking for the inauguration videos, and got the tail end of Biden's speech, Amazing Grace, the young poet laureate, and the prayer guy. Started to watch them all go out, then got hit by tiredness, turned it off and went back to sleep. Woke up to a 7:15am work alarm to check on a transfer that's been failing every day because of scheduling.

Checked that - all good. Chook needed medicating, so did that. Had cinnamon scroll dough proofing overnight and it wasn't proofing very well. Took it outside in the sun to warm.

Washed up the dishes. (We really need to get a dishwasher. Even just taking out the dishware, glassware, and cutlery would save a BUNCH of time, and we might even be able to 'autoclave' our plastic takeaway containers in it...)

Caught up on all the things that I missed in those hours, including all the relieved posts, tweets, instagram stories, FB posts.

Logged into work to discover that everyone wants absolutely EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW. TODAY. Of course. Just when I wanted to celebrate, too! So I have completed one thing, discovered that another has been done and is now out of my hands, and I am in the process of fixing yet another one now, with a fourth that needs to be done in the next week.

And amidst that, I made sourdough cinnamon scrolls. They rose perfectly in the end, and they are delicious. B1 thinks they're not quite as cooked as they should be in the middle (mental note: 45 minutes rather than 35 minutes) but still very very moreish!

I haven't really had time to watch all the clips. And I find myself wanting to watch them all and just REVEL in this moment.

Sadly, just as Joe Biden signs the executive orders to rejoin the Paris Agreement, I feel Australia slipping towards 'Trumpism': lies stated outright, the insistence on "equal platforming" even for what should not be platformed, and Evangelical Christofascism. I don't know how to fight this war - Murdoch has the lion's share of media, all our people already vote (well, maybe not the kids who don't register when they're 18), and our politics are particularly susceptible to money and rhetoric.

I had a peach-mint mocktail. I was going to drink the last of the Rodham Rye Whiskey, but I might save that for the Sunday morning zoom with my US gang.

This evening, I went around to a friend's house to have a swim, chat, take some of the cinnamon scrolls over, and I ended up staying to have dinner. I always feel a bit guilty going over, because it feels like everything is exhausing and chaotic, but that might just be the house. Also, I feel bad looking at how much she has to do with three kids and a husband, and then I turn up as a guest in her house and add to all that...

Now, I've watched various Late Show clips with Colbert, ordered some sharpening paste for a push-reel mower that I have, and Mal is yowling outside the study door. So I'm going to go and lie down and hopefully sleep through the night tonight.

Welcome back, America. No, it's not perfect, but at least you're not going backwards.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Thank you for welcoming us back!

And as for visiting your friend who had children and a hectic life, you're probably the only thing in her day which is "just for her" and are something she looks forward to. My friends with children all say that it's not going to get less hectic when someone comes to visit, but if it's someone who is there just to talk to them, it's like a treat. So don't feel guilty.

[thothmes]

My shoulders, which had settled north of where they should be semi-permanently with tension since Election Day in 2016, finally drifted down to where they ought to be as the Inauguration went through without a hitch. It will be a long hard slog to get us back to where we ought to have been, and we have still farther to go before we are where we need to be, but at least the Ship of State is aimed in the right general direction, and I feel like I no longer need to watch the news obsessively and brace constantly for the next blow. It feels like a luxury!

I’m very distressed to see Australia drifting towards Trumpism, and especially in view of the fact that as you say, Australians all vote with very few exceptions. Alas, Australia is not alone in this, Brazil being a particularly ghastly example, but there are plenty of others. Is it a case of when America sneezes the other democracies catch cold or is it simply the Zeitgeist? I don’t and can’t know, and can only hope it’s the former, because that would tend to mean the tide will turn, rather than us being exceptional and the rest of the world being still adrift in the Zeitgeist. I shall be watching and praying for the rest of the world to shake it off, and seeing what my friends out there across the world are saying — a benefit of joining fandom I didn’t predict.

I think that the common thread I see in this is fear, fear of the future and what it will bring. There is a certain proportion of the population that sees the only proper reaction to this fear as being working for change, working to make things different and change our path. These are the Progressives and the Left, and the other side, the ones who want to hunker down in the bunker and preserve now, or still better a semi-fictional form of nostalgic then, are the Right. In many of the affected countries that then is a time of White, male, Christian domination. Climate change, overpopulation, pandemic, and the refugee crisis and unrest they have spawned are feeding the fear. Income inequality in Western Democracies, growing in countries beyond my own, also factors in. All I know to do is to contribute what I can towards tackling these problems, and encouraging others to face fear (or concern, since so many refuse to acknowledge fear) with action too.