An election night sort-of-live running diary

I ruminate on my quadrennial overseas ritual, along with other things (like whisky and women)

Editor’s note: These were compiled over the course of a 6-hour period and have not been edited; what you see is what the author wrote.
Author’s note: I don’t have an editor.

10.47pm/22.47 I’m groggy, having awoken from a wee nap not long ago. Had a couple slices of pizza and have just poured my first scotch of the evening.

10.58 Have yet to check any results.

This marks my 6^th overseas election, and thus my 6^th late night/early morning election party. Sadly – or not, depending on your point of view – this is my 5^th solo party. My first was in 1996 from London, with my friend Todd, in our halls of residence. In 2004, I watched on BBC from Belfast (on a work break from Nigeria), then 2012-2016-2020 from Ukraine, and now in Austria.

11.07 A bad start. Cannot find any live TV freely available over the internet. I’ve always had CNN on over the years. I want to watch and listen, not just read/scroll.

It’s also the first time I don’t have a TV. I’m such a Luddite, don’t know where to find live coverage.

11.14 I voted in New Hampshire. I’m trying to track my absentee ballot but keep getting an ‘access denied’ message. It was received on 27 Oct, at least. We’re off to a great start.

11.27 A long way from any results. My neck already hurts. Been sitting too much lately, but that’s the life of the writer I suppose.

I hope all of my dear readers appreciate the sacrifice I’m making to bring you such riveting content. I recently had an epic long weekend in Dublin celebrating a good friend’s 40^th birthday. I had way too much Guinness and bad food (well, great food, but bad for me) and it took me nearly a week for my body to recover. I vowed to take a break from drinking until the end of the month. And now here I am sipping scotch and staying up all night so I can bring you this content.

While we’re waiting, a quick NaNoWRiMo update. Five days in, and I’ve got just over 9,000 words. That’s an average of 1,800 words, ahead of pace. So far, so good. It’s a novel I’m writing, my first.

11.40 Am already second guessing my decision to stay up late. Nothing’s going to be happening for a good long while. I’m using this time to peruse the news and catch up on loads of Substack posts. I have about 50 tabs open on my browser. Let’s see if I can close a few.

12.04am Good news. I’ve wised up and gone to YouTube and found NBC news live. Okay, this is progress.

12:26 re: my note from 11.27pm – along with the scotch, this is my 4^th election with Domino’s. Why Domino’s? It’s American, and part of the ritual, and election day conveniently falls on a Tuesday – it’s Two for Tuesday at Domino’s. Two large pies to keep me sustained throughout the night. There goes my cholesterol.

12.34 living abroad all these years, I’ve only watched CNN on election nights. I’m not much of a TV or internet news watcher – I’m more of a reader. This is my first real experience with NBC News. I’m just saying, that’s all.

1.01  things are happening, this is exciting! Trump is winning 8-3. This could either be a baseball or a really bad American football score.

1.08 it’s now 19-3. This is definitely an American football score. Not a very exciting game, most likely. That’s two Trump touchdowns, a field goal and a safety. Okay, no more sports analogies, I don’t want to lose any readers.

1.55 nothing to report. Reading Atlantic articles, a few Substack posts, scrolling Xitter. It’s 23-3.

2.14 our score is now 99-27. Okay, one more sporting analogy – this is a seriously lopsided high school basketball game. I suppose it could be rugby as well.

2.32 I’m starting to fade and not sure how much longer I can stay up. Nothing will be resolved for a long time. I think this might be the last time I partake in this ritual. I’m too old for this shit.

Have only had a few sips of my scotch, nowhere near enough to write some disjointed tipsy thoughts that I’ll regret later. This is probably a good thing.

I’m going to read some Flash Fiction on Substack.

2.44 I didn’t enjoy any of that Flash Fiction. Two of them were micro stories, 100 words. I’m now tempted to try my hand at this.

There’s something kind of absurd about the fact that the election comes down to just 6-7 states, and the other states, barring some shocks, are done deals. I mean, they’re projecting winners in some states with 5% of the votes in.

A reminder from history – in 2000, all the networks called Florida way too early for Al Gore. And we know what happened then. (if you don’t – the networks were wrong, Bush won Florida by 512 votes – technically. It’s a long story involving the Supreme Court)

2.56 I’m surprised that I didn’t see anyone else pointing this out (yay for me!) but it’s interesting that this year the UK had a general election on 4 July, and today, election day, is also Guy Fawkes Night in the UK. ‘Remember, remember, the 5^th of November’, I believe the chant goes. For my American audience, who was Guy Fawkes? He wanted to Make Britain Catholic Again (in 1605). It’s a catchy acronym, isn’t it: MBCA

People ask me why the US still uses the electoral college system instead of just going by popular votes, which I believe every other country in the world does. I have only two answers that will make some sort of sense: 1, American exceptionalism (when in doubt, that’s the answer), and 2, I have no fucking idea. Sorry.

3.00 good lord, it’s a blowout! Trump is up 154-30. This means little – so much still to come.

Some of these political dudes are ugly as hell. I know that’s not nice to say, but…man oh man, there are some brutes out there. (I just saw a picture of new West Virginia senator Jim Justice – I’m not sure he’s actually a living person, he looks embalmed. Anyone ever seen Weekend at Bernie’s?)

3.10 I expected to drink half a bottle of scotch and write some unhinged thoughts, but thankfully (?) I’m taking it slow and am about to throw in the towel and head to bed.

But while we’re on the topic, sort of, how about a few quick whisky stories?

1 I once drank an entire bottle of very nice scotch, I think a special reserve 18-year-old Glenlivet that my sister had got me, while breaking up with my girlfriend over Skype. This was in 2010. I think it was a 4-5 hour conversation. I enjoyed the scotch.

2 I have a very funny story about bad whisky from my time in Nigeria and trying to get a bottle onto the aeroplane, it’s a story I’ve told my students a lot over the years, but I will save that for another time (it’s a chapter in an upcoming book).

3 A day or two after watching the elections on TV in Belfast in 2004, I headed back to Nigeria. On the Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Lagos, which left Gatwick close to midnight, I drank way too much whisky while talking to a Nigerian guy for most of the flight. We spoke quietly and were the only ones awake. At one point, I confided way too much in one of the flight attendants about the troubles with my girlfriend (a different one). We split up a few months later, after my stint in Nigeria had come to an end.

4 My friend Andrew used to work at American Airlines and a few times I flew first or business class on one of his ‘friends and family’ passes. What a perk. Great food and plenty to drink. They cut me off on one flight, saying I’d had too much. This was in August 2005, and I was feeling mopey on my flight from Chicago to Dublin. I’ve written extensively about this elsewhere, and in my book the epilogue is titled “Ukraine will be there forever, I won’t” about a woman who almost made me reconsider my decision to move to Ukraine for the first time later that month.

Women and whisky – are we detecting a theme here?

5 One final tale to dispel that women/whisky theme. In San Sebastian, when I was dealing with a broken toe and couldn’t get out much, my Scottish friend Kevin would often come over and the two of us would split a bottle of scotch over the course of a late, late night (often until the sun came up), chatting and chatting, and slowly eating chorizo and Manchego. Great memories.

3.26 What’s going on with the election? I don’t know, I’m reminiscing about whisky.

3.55 I’m finishing up my glass of scotch. I’ve not had much. I had a productive day of writing earlier today in anticipation of this late night. I feel less guilty, in other words.

Have you ever seen ‘Drunk History’? It’s probably self-explanatory, but if you missed it (not sure if it’s still a thing) search for it on YouTube. I wonder if a ‘Drunk English lessons’ would be a winning idea. Do a YouTube channel, share some language learning tips and stories. Surely things like this have been done. Drunk podcasts? It’s late, I’m tired, I’m thinking out loud.

4.03 Bedtime. It’s 201-81. We’re nowhere near finished.

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It’s now 12.05pm, the next day. I woke up at 10am.

I checked the news. My good friend sent me a WhatsApp message that said ‘it’s looking like a landslide’ and I thought Harris was way ahead.

Before I wrap up and publish this bad boy, I will say just two things, and as I’ve long promised, I am trying to steer away from politics.

1 I say this respectfully and courteously: non-Americans trying to make sense of the election and being confused as to what transpired – it’s really hard to explain. Sorry, that seems like a cop-out. I see so many ‘analyses’ from abroad expressing disbelief along with a few theories, but it’s damn hard to truly understand what people are thinking. Nothing is a surprise to me at all anymore.

2 For my dear Ukrainian friends and readers – well, Trump promised to end the war in 24 hours and let’s hope he keeps his promise and calls his friend putin and puts an end to the bloodshed. Believe it or not, there is a very simple solution to the war and this is what a phone call to putin can say to end it, right now: ‘Listen you little prick, get the fuck out of Ukraine immediately, otherwise we’re nuking your asses back to the stone age, and you know what an impulsive and reckless man you’re dealing with, so don’t fuck with me Vlad, if you know what’s good for you. Look, pal, I don’t give a shit anymore, I want to be the hero to end this thing. I don’t care if you have dirt on me, do the right thing and end it now and don’t you dare ever think about doing anything so stupid again, you got that?’

I shall now go and start with chapter 6 for NaNoWriMo. That’ll keep my mind occupied for an hour or two.

It’s 12.31.