2/23 Gothenburg. A day of fog and rain, big glassy drops on twigs. We stay inside, each of us adults with a crash of an hour or two, and apart from that: MTG and Heavenly Bodies.

2/22 Melodifestivalen, my daughter and a friend make signs to hold up in front of the TV when their star sings. J at a loss parsing European camp, she keeps wanting to know if it’s sincere or not. Heavenly bodies: We navigate through a space station in weightlessness. I have to play around like a baby and make sure I don’t break anything, float off into space or disturb the adults. My son masters it like a monkey. 

2/21 Gothenburg. Upgraded to business class. Smiling as a service.

2/20 Only two hours of sleep, two nights in a row.

2/19 So no mail ballot from Germany.

2/18 Lost.

2/17 At a rally first time ever. I did make my sign HISTORY 101 although quite unsure whether it was appropriate or would be understood, especially with the swastika in the zero. Got thumbs up or comments in the subway especially by elderly ladies, that type of witty and well-to-do elderly lady you commonly find in Manhattan, the first of which offered me a pack of toe warmers which I thanked her for, but no, thanks. You wouldn’t hold up your sign in the subway, right, it’s still apolitical space where people shouldn’t be bothered, although many turned and extended their necks to catch what was written on my poster, which I rested on the floor on its side next to me.

It takes me a while until I decide to actually lift my sign up on Union Square. I realize quickly that it would have been smart to write something both on the front and on the back, for the protesters are communicating just as much, or perhaps much more, with themselves than anybody outside. Quite a few people take pictures of my sign, some of them professionals, most just ordinary folks.

Everybody does their thing, there’s dancers and there’s Marxists. A Trump voter – who does not look like a Trump voter – watches from the side of the street, pulls me into a conversation and wants to know whether we really think it’s so bad that this protest is needed. He says I’m the first one he talks to who actually knows something. I don’t engage with most of his points, I just say that in a democracy, we fight this out, and sometimes his team wins elections, and sometimes my team does. But right now the system in which that is possible is getting dismantled. He says it’s not that bad. I say if, two or three months down the road, you realize it’s that bad, I hope you will join our fight. I’m glad you and I live in the same country.

2/16 My mail ballot from Germany has not arrived yet. This means I cannot send it back using the consulate’s courier service tomorrow morning. But if it arrives by Wednesday I will still be able to fedex it to Germany and it will arrive on Friday. Costs a hundred dollars. Given that I paid a hundred dollars in postcard stamps to maybe win a single additional Democrat vote in Georgia, that seems an appropriate investment. Take that, Germany! In America, we pay for our politicians.

2/15 Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra: Tchaikovsky, Copeland, Rachmaninov.

2/14 What is the moment when what’s in your mind first reaches the outside world and can be used against you. Then again, nobody needs a reason.