I had a number of good intentions for the last five days: make headway on my NaNoWriMo project (I did not), finish beta reading for a friend (I did not), and draw some funny stuff for y’all (spoiler alert: I did not.)
Instead, I cried (a lot), panicked over my mother’s cancer treatment coverage (a lot), and called people misogynist racists lacking even a shred of human compassion (spoiler alert: I especially did this a lot.)
I was not very funny. Even now, the jokes I’ve made are the kind of “laugh in disbelief because hey, your friends all died in a plane crash, but look the life raft deployed just fine on the tarmac” sort of funny. I’ve already alienated one friend whose mother may have voted for Trump, and one family member who certainly voted for Trump, and perhaps if I make it to five people within the month that’ll fill up my punchcard and I’ll get a free latte.
Caption: a letter that will guarantee a lot of awkwardness in my future.
I’ve had people try to tell me it won’t be as bad, that he’s already changed his mind about preexisting conditions and gay marriage and aren’t we overreacting, give him a chance, let’s see how he actually governs.
To which I say: if a man has spent the last year waving a knife in your face and telling the rest of the country he’ll stab you if they vote for him, and your country[’s very flawed electoral college system] says “go ahead, stab them, we actually vote for stabbing”, why on earth would you believe that man when he leans back and says “actually I’m good, no stabbing, even though I promised people with my nuts in a vice that I would stab you. Don’t sweat it.” (Admittedly this metaphor is a little on-the-nose.)
Many creative folks are pretty shaken right now. Good luck affording individual health care without the exchanges, right? Good luck convincing your employer to insure you without the mandate. Good luck hoping your state gives a shit about gay marriage, reproductive rights, but hey come move to the big city on the coast where this stuff is safe, and your vote will now count for 1/6th of a voter in Wyoming.
I chipped away at that shellacking of existential horror today a little. I cut off family, I went to my first protest, I did something to feel like I fought back in a way that wasn’t just passive-aggressive posts on Facebook. (Really more aggressive than passive. Think “YOU CHOSE THIS, YOU WROUGHT THIS ATROCITY ON ME AND MY COUNTRY, AND BY GOD I WILL BE SHRIEKING THIS IN YOUR EAR LIKE THE FURIES ON ORESTES FOR EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF THE NEXT FOUR YEARS.”
Caption: Furies screaming at Orestes and pointing to his mother, whom he stabbed. They are probably saying, “UNFRIEND ME, MOTHERFUCKER, I DARE YOU.”)
Anyway.
I did stuff today. Not fun stuff like drawing or writing, but stuff that felt like I am beginning to draw my line in the sand. A line that says the Electoral College is bullshit. A line that says Trump’s abhorrent stances were never state secrets, and for some they were incentives, for others an acceptable loss. A line that says my people are my people, and they are of many nations, faiths, races, genders, orientations, bodies, and they are my fucking people and if you want them you go through me.
A line that says I’m sorry I didn’t draw this sooner.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that when I came back home from a day of drawing my line, I felt like writing again.
Caption: the sign I made. It says “Tomorrow There’ll Be More of Us”, which is of course a Hamilton quote, and consequently my sign was absconded with by a Hamilton fan while I was on a bathroom break. Moral of the story: never leave your sign unattended.
But I do hope it’s right. It feels like all around the country these lines are being drawn. People are saying, collectively, this is bullshit in so many ways, on so many levels, it is a tiramisu of bullshit and we are going to be on the right side of history.
We Are What We Feel 