The death of RGB hit me hard as I know it did all progressives. I mourned, and continue to mourn her as a trailblazer, a fighter, and one who wanted everything but what is about to happen - another shitty conservative judge being given a lifetime appointment in her place, just WEEKS before this piece of shit so-called president might be kicked to the curb. Oh, if only she could have held on just a few more months! And yet, here we are. The conservatives rub their hands with glee, and the very thought of that makes me want to tear my skin off with rage. As I said on FB...when, exactly, do the bad people stop winning?
And then, in the midst of my intense rage and sadness and desire to break things and scream into the void...the earth decides to pick up our house and shake it like an etch-a-sketch. Massive earthquake at 11:30 at night as we were getting ready for bed - centered very close to us, and by far the biggest quake I’ve felt since 1994. It was over in a few seconds and shockingly nothing broken...kids didn’t even wake up. But that adrenaline on top of already coursing adrenaline was just too much.
OH MY GOD 2020 JUST FUCK OFF ALREADY!!!
As usual I turned to my echo chamber on FB and laughed as I saw pretty much everyone I knew had posted the exact same sentiment.
I’m so comforted when I see other people as emotionally unhinged as I am by all this political stuff...I’m not crazy, I’m not overreacting; how I’m feeling is a normal, actually healthy reaction to the hell that life in America has become (and has actually been for many people as we white folk fooled ourselves into thinking we had solved racism by electing Obama twice). I’ve helped my mental state a lot this weekend by getting out for long punishing walks every day, drinking a lot of water, and falling back on my favorite coping mechanism I’ve had since my 80s childhood which was rife with the horrors of potential nuclear war and apocalypse; sinking comfortably into dull, numb acceptance of our coming demise as a species on this earth.
The Porno for Pyros song “We’ll Make Great Pets” has been on my playlist since all of this began in March; it hits just the right note of playful, sad, grim acceptance that is the most safe place for me to rest right now. I’m at my best when I can have a sense of humor about all this shit; I become unbearable to be around when I don’t. What’s more fun to live with - a witty, wry Oscar Wilde-type throwing out glib rejoinders and then sauntering into the kitchen for a strong cup of tea, or a snarling honey badger who tears apart upholstery with its teeth and poops in the corner? I’m going to venture it’s Wilde.
We’ll make great pets
It’s funny because when I first got that album I was a brand new LA transplant, all alone here, totally lost and aimless, seeing zero road from where I was to where I wanted to be. It was a terrible time - lonely, sad, hopeless - and yet every day was the impossibly blinding California sun and toxic west Coast positivity mocking my grim reality. It’s funny how nearly thirty years later this same song, frozen in time, can mean similar things yet slightly different; I’m not alone, I’m not aimless...and yet this time we’re facing a real humanitarian crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen...a malignant narcissist and sociopath in the White House, and a whole new brand of superbugs that actually could wipe us out more completely than a Russian warhead ever could have in the 80s. And all of this preventable if people weren’t such racists. It’s maddening and enraging. But I don’t like myself when I feel like I need to do something about it, because short of driving to the houses of the remaining few right wingers in my FB friend list, ringing their doorbells, and personally punching them in the face, there is nothing to be done except vote, which is a given.
So I settle in to sad, bored, grim resignation, because it’s the only way to get by.
Will there be another race to
Come along and take over for us
Maybe Martians can do better than we’ve done?
We’ll make great pets...
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