I won't deny that it's been very hard to be existential the last couple of weeks. The worst possible outcome of the elections came about, and now all we have to look forward to in the lead-up to January 20th is learning exactly how screwed we are. Matt Gaetz as attorney general? Sure! Some dum-dum from Fox News who doesn't believe in germs as Defense secretary? Hey, why not? The anti-vax, brain-worm guy in charge of Health and Human Services? The more the merrier.
All the good news at the moment feels transitory at best (e.g. the Onion buying Infowars), or a bit infuriating (e.g. Marine Le Pen potentially going to jail for misuse of EU funds). That last is infuriating because we could have short-circuited Trump's return, but we decided to dismantle all our guardrails for democracy and rule of law instead. So now I get to worry if the food I eat is going to kill me, and I won't be able to get vaccinated against diseases anymore. I'd inject bleach, like Trump suggested during the pandemic, but I won't even be able to tell if it's pure bleach or adulterated with some crap or something.
I did engage in one meaningless act of defiance (two, if you want to be nitpicky) and deleted both my Twitter accounts this week. There was a little hemming and hawing over conversations I've had over the years, but fuck it, I'd been inactive so long (except for posting links to this blog) that I don't even miss it.
Instead I'm now on Bluesky, which, yeah, feels a tiny bit like old Twitter, and also doesn't come with the soul-crushing negativity of the last few years. I'm following a lot of writers and interesting people there, so hopefully my timeline evolves past people comparing it to Twitter. That said, I have already had to block a fascist, just to give you a sense of how much the sewers are overflowing.
The best part is that I fired my therapist last month, because I wasn't getting much out of it and she kept minimizing my concerns, saying it was just anxiety. That may be true, but I caught myself wishing I could talk to her last week - until I realized that she'd probably just have told me I was spiraling again. If they do deport everyone in January, I might drop her a line again, assuming neither of us has been sent to Venezuela or been buried in a ditch somewhere in the Central Valley.
On the plus side, now that another pandemic and lockdown is pretty much inevitable, I don't feel like I have to defend my continued Covid-hoarding. Indeed, I may have to increase my reserves of toilet paper, paper towels and Kleenex boxes, ahead of any further catastrophes.
There's also the possibility of moving to Europe, but a good many places are already run by fascists (Italy), or are under threat of it in the near future (Germany). This might be the opportunity my dad's been waiting for, that I finally move back to Italy. Or I might try Ireland, which is apparently an expensive real estate market, so I'll feel right at home not being able to buy a house there. I also have to keep on my little sister's good side, so that if needed, she can sponsor me to move to Australia.
On the plus side, if I have to move to a place with fresh air, public transportation and single-payer healthcare, I'll probably get a million times healthier within a month. Which means more McDonald's! Also, I know where the Taco Bells in London and Sydney are, so I'll be covered from that perspective.
Hmm. Better pack the statins anyway, just in case.
This post started as an aimless brain-dump of my thoughts on the past few weeks and then turned into a standup act, so maybe it's best to end here. I'll be back in the next few weeks with various musings on TV shows, movies, comics and roundups of 2024, but I'll end with this final thought:
We haven't really had a good year since 2015 (which itself was pretty sucky for a number of people). My hope with the election was that we could move toward turning a corner, but now I see that at least the next four years are gonna suck hard too. I'm hoping to find ways to make them suck less, at least within my circle of control, but 13-plus years of suckage is a long time, there's no getting around it.
In the meantime, come find me on Bluesky!
