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.