Election Night 2026

I am typing this at 8:53 p.m. eastern time on Nov. 3, election night.

You’re reading this in the future. I’m writing this in the past.

Minute by minute returns make me feel like I’m being electrocuted, so haven’t been watching. I watched an albatross on livecam in Pukekura, New Zealand, look at an egg it just laid—the first one it had ever laid. She moved it a tiny bit with her beak, head upside down, then righted herself. The male albatross stood nearby, a little away. I wondered why that distance. The female looked like she wasn’t sure where the egg came from.

She stood behind the egg. A pause. How long would she stand there, I thought. What would happen next. She walked toward the egg, there was clearance, like a bridge over a car. She descended her body and covered the egg. I wondered what that felt like. Then she settled, snugging herself down.

We are going to be OK no matter what happens.

I’m turning on the returns soon and posting this to you in the present. See you there.

— N.R.

Noa Rabinow is a health care worker, an editor at Gender Defiant, and mom to a trans teen.