Post-Election Day Blues

My wife's father called her this morning. He's a chronically depressed man. Interacting with him is exhausting because he mostly wants you to feel guilty for trying to cheer him up, sorry for him that you can't, and ashamed of yourself for not being a better person. Once you get the joke, it's easy not to let him get you down. It is still exhausting to interact with him, though. You spend most of your time in a kind of maintenance mode, hoping not to provoke him into going on much longer.

Of course, a lot of us are glum today. Trump won, after all. He won pretty clearly, too. That's enough to get any clear-minded person feeling blue. So he called, and my wife talked to him for a few minutes. But, much to my surprise and even more so to her credit, she told him she'd call back later because she was in the middle of a card game with me. I straight up told her I was glad she did that. We were just trying to amuse ourselves so we could get on with another workday, despite the election. He's retired, so he can afford to fritter whatever part of his remaining time wants to on pointless phone calls. She told him she knew he'd probably just go on at some length about how bad it all was, and she just wasn't ready for it. Well, good for her. I need her support as much as he does, and he has his own wife.

My son change his last (and middle) name recently, mostly not to be named after me, I think (his new last name is his mother's name from before we got married). I could call him, but I don't want to. I do wish someone would call me, or that I had someone else to call, but that's not the way it's going to go. My folks both moved on to the next world some years ago.

Well, if I did have a call with anyone, we'd probably just go on at some length about how bad it all is. I'm better of without that.

Another Trump term. This time, he got there with the help of an insane billionaire who thinks the world is a toy. He's backed again by ignorant gun nuts and grifters with bible in their hands. The best defense we have is built into the fact that he's an idiot. He promised a wall he never built. He promised health care he never delivered. He promised a GDP we never got. He can't really do much that gets to me personally, or even much ideologically. Oh, he can hurt a lot of people. Some live in Gaza. Some in Ukraine. Some here in America. But probably not me or anyone I love dearly. We'll survive him.

But I plan to resist. More than and in ways I never have before. Nothing violent. Nothing criminal. But I'm done being nice. I'm done respecting cultures that preach or teach bigotry or bullshit.

I'm done with a lot of things today.

Do wish one of my parents would call me, though.

Election Day Blues

We're all on edge. Me too. But I'm kind of blue today because of something that happened yesterday. It had nothing to do with the election. Not quite sure I want to be specific about it. No one died, nor have I been told I'm terminally ill. I just got hit with something that made me sad. On top of that, my instincts are telling me that the person I might usually rely on for some emotional support won't see it as the same kind of punch in the gut I do, so I'm not really in a position to share it. Indeed, I'm only writing here because I am pretty sure no one reads this thing, ever. Just nice to be able to say I'm kind of down about something where, in theory, someone else might end up knowing I said so.

I hope Kamala wins today. Good news doesn't cancel bad news, but double doses of bad news are bad for the digestion, you know?

If she doesn't, well, we got through four years of a petulant man-child before. We'll do it again. Take note: he promised health care for everyone at low prices, a big beautiful wall that Mexico would pay for, and overturning Roe. He only did one of those things, and that's being reversed by the people in a lot of states today. His biggest achievement was delivering a vaccine in record time. Now, most of his supporters refuse to take that vaccine. Yes, he did awful things, like cutting taxes for the rich, banning transgender service in the military, and taking us out of the Paris accords. But, mostly, he was just a useless buffoon, drawing fake hurricane paths on NOAA maps with his Sharpie and suggesting we cure Covid with a shot of Lemon Pledge. He definitely hurt people, and he will again if he wins. We have to be ready to help those people, give them safe havens, and stand between them and those who would do them harm (because that's harm done to us as well). But he can't find enough capable people, much less any who play well together, to accomplish anything big or lasting. If he wins again, he'll make a lot of noise, call people a lot of names, and appoint rich idiots to positions they can't handle. We'll suffer from a lack of competent government, but I doubt we'll be in much danger from one.

So feeling a little blue today for a couple of reasons. Even if Kamala wins, we all know now that America isn't great today. That's one reason. She may lose, and that's another. Something came at me yesterday that didn't make me happy. That's another too.

Here's a little bit I wrote on a somewhat better day. It still works today. That's a help:

    To leave this place a little better than I found it.
    To finish with a little bit of style.
    To be remembered by a few folks, fondly,
    If only for a little while.