Namely, there was no way I was watching a movie that night.
In 2016, over the next couple nights, I watched the movies Mascots and I Saw the Light. Neither of those were movies I probably would have liked very much even without post-election malaise, but in the dark shadow of that awful time, I hated them. I was then forced out to see Arrival sooner than I might have liked because I was on deadline to review it. I didn't hate Arrival, of course, but it's possible I would have liked it more if my mind hadn't felt diseased by grief.
This time, I was just going to take a couple nights off from watching movies.
Now, I had to watch something. Yes I could finish the night reading, or listening to music, or whatever the alternatives are to the boob tube. But those seemed like situations where my mind was much more inclined to go down rabbit holes it did not want to go down. Pass.
But anything I would watch, whether it was a movie or TV, would be something that would taste sour to me, even if it was good.
So I watched three episodes of Friends.
This didn't come out of the blue. I started a periodic project of rewatching the series at some point earlier this year, can't remember when exactly. A friend of mine did this a couple years ago, which planted the seed, and that seed germinated into starting that project myself.
But I haven't been doing it intensely. For example, it hasn't ever taken the place of an evening where I might otherwise watch a movie. The project's role has been to finish off an evening when I got home late, or had some other project that occupied me until 10:30 or 11. Cap off the night with Ross, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Phoebe and Monica, and steadily make it through the series that way.
On Wednesday night, I chose to watch three episodes, which are shorter than a movie. I probably could have watched one more and made it feature length. In fact it was the classic three episodes in Season 2 where Rachel leaves the drunken message telling Ross she's over him, leading to their first impassioned kiss at Central Perk, which he immediately screws up by making a list of pros and cons about Rachel and Julie that Rachel finds, and then the episode after that.
And this helped immensely, swaddling me in a blanket of some sort of comfort. I even laughed a few times. I watched another one the next night, along with the second episode of the Netflix series about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, The Comeback.
The irony is not lost on me. Friends is a show featuring, essentially exclusively, white characters. Symbolically, it is not the thing I should have watched on a night when white people elected the worst white person of all time. (The worst American white person, anyway.) (And yes, I am considering him worse than serial killers and other awful people because his potential to inflict damage is so much more widespread.) It's not something I should have watched if I wanted to symbolically protest what had happened.
But comfort is comfort, and this comfort got me through two nights. And besides, there was no one to judge the symbolism or lack thereof other than me. (And now you, because I'm telling you about it.)
Honestly, though, I am doing better than I was last time. That's for several reasons:
1) A few weeks ago I reminded myself of a few important things about the candidacy of Kamala Harris, in preparation for this possible outcome. I reminded myself that the replacement of a presidential candidate from a major political party only 100 days before the election is essentially unprecedented in American history, if not actually unprecedented. The conditions of desperation that exist to make that sort of move must be so profound that it's effectively a Hail Mary. Probably 95% of Hail Mary passes in football are not caught. That this one almost was was a miracle.
2) People, in general, seem to be racist and sexist, so I should not be surprised by this. I was surprised in 2016. I didn't want to be surprised again. (The optimist in me takes a lot of hits, unfortunately.)
3) I vowed to do what I called "robot mode." I would intentionally divorce myself from feelings of sorrow and despair in order to model composure for my kids and to trick my own brain into feeling better than it actually did. It worked. In fact, I am surprised at how well it worked. By forcing myself to try to feel better, I actually did feel better. And this was even without intentionally avoiding coverage of the election on social media or the news. I still haven't read many news stories, but I've read some, and I've engaged on social media about it. All while feeling less sick to my stomach and more able to be productive. I am now a firm believer in mind over matter, if I wasn't before.
4) I told myself if Trump won the election, my reaction would not be shock and rage but acerbic laughter. If a country knowingly votes in someone like this, you just have to laugh because it just means human beings are weak and docile and mean.
With all these things combining to give me actually a pretty okay mental state, I thought I could have returned to watching movies on Thursday night. But I allowed myself one more night to be sure.
Then I dipped my toe in the water with a movie that I doubted would be either a big hit or a big miss, and I ended up being right about that.
On Friday night I watched the new Netflix time travel serial killer movie, Time Cut. And yes I did think about how there was a time travel serial killer movie on Amazon last year called Totally Killer. And yes I did think fondly about the real-world desirability of having a time machine right about now.
The movie was almost the perfect three-star viewing experience: A clever enough story of a watchable cast of people who were unfamiliar to me, with a little bit of heart and some interesting causation conundrums, but not excelling enough in any of these areas to truly be memorable. In other words, just what I needed to get back on the horse.
What will I be watching tonight? Is it safe to watch something I actually might love?
I don't know, but my mind is there I think.
Look this is an awful time. Anyone who mopes for the next two weeks is well within their rights. Anyone who mopes for the next four years is well within their rights. It's that bad.
But for me? Mind over matter. Movies over despair.
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